Killing and murder in the early church

Murder and killing, suicide, and capital punishment. Part of Ethics.

Apocalypse of Peter (Akhmim fragment) 25Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Murderers are tormented by reptiles and worms while their victims watch and praise God's justice.
Acts of John 48Anonymous · ca. 150–200 · On the road John sees a young man kill his father, who had rebuked him for pursuing another man's wife.
Acts of John 49Anonymous · ca. 150–200 · John stops the fleeing parricide, who confesses that he meant to kill the woman, her husband and himself.
Second Apology 3Justin Martyr · ca. 150–160 · Christians do not kill themselves, since that would defy God's purpose for the human race; but when questioned they will not lie.
Sentences of Sextus 324Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · It would have been best for the iron by which men are killed not to have been made; but, since it has been made, let it be as not made with you.
Sentence 324 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · A sword that kills men: best it had never come into being; but since it has, consider that it is not yours.
Oration to the Greeks 23Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Tatian condemns athletic contests and, far more, the gladiatorial games, in which the rich buy men to be killed for entertainment.
Exhortation to the Greeks 3.42Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The gods are man-hating daemons who delight in bloodshed; Clement lists the human sacrifices offered to them across the Greek and Roman world.
Against Heresies 3.23.4Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · Cain, unlike Adam, ignored God’s warning, killed his brother, and answered God insolently, and so was himself cursed.
Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 22Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–200
On the Shows 19Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The amphitheatre delights in human blood; even when the guilty die, the innocent should grieve, and innocent men too are killed there.
Arabic Pentateuch fragment XXIV (on Deut 19–23)Hippolytus of Rome · unknown (transmitted in a medieval Arabic catena) · The catena summarizes laws of Deuteronomy given because of Israel's corruption: retaliation, war, the unsolved murder, the captive wife, the rebellious son, the hanged man, the bird's nest, the parapet, the violated virgin, the runaway slave, interest, and vows.
Commentary on John 19.122Origen · ca. 230–248 · Some will say the Jews meant it literally: Jesus would go to the place of punished suicides, where they would not go.
Commentary on John 20.220Origen · ca. 230–248 · Killing is not always blameworthy (Phinehas, David); we must find which “life” the devil destroys.
On Free Will 15.3Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Killing too is judged by its manner: punishment differs from murder for gain.
Homilies 12.14Anonymous · 4th century (reworking earlier material) · Peter warns that suicides are punished in Hades and promises the woman a remedy if she tells him her grief.
Recognitions 7.14Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Peter warns that suicide brings greater punishment, and the woman says she would accept it to see her children again, so Peter asks the cause of her grief.
Divine Institutes 1.21.9Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The Vestals throw rush figures from the bridge; the sacrifice of infants to Saturn is beyond words.
Divine Institutes 1.21.10Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Sacrificing infants was worse than the savagery of beasts, which love their young.
Divine Institutes 3.18.6Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Suicide is murder, since it kills a man.
Divine Institutes 3.18.7Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Only God may release the soul from the body; wrongs done to us are for him to avenge.
Divine Institutes 5.17.20Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · The just man will die rather than kill.
Divine Institutes 6.6.22Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Those who harm and kill for country cannot be just.
Divine Institutes 6.17.25Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Despising death means martyrdom, not suicide.
Divine Institutes 6.20.15Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · God's prohibition of killing extends to lawful killing.
Divine Institutes 6.20.17Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Killing a human being is always wrong.
Divine Institutes 6.20.26Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · One may not even watch a killing.
Preparation for the Gospel 4.16.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Clement catalogs human sacrifices among the Greeks and calls them murder.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.41.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Moses and Plato both acquit one who kills a night thief.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.42.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Moses and Plato both punish an animal that kills a person.
Preparation for the Gospel 13.21.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Plato: manslaughter in anger is punished with two years’ exile.
Preparation for the Gospel 13.21.9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Killing in self-defense leaves one pure, except a slave who kills a free man.
Preparation for the Gospel 13.21.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Moses’ laws on homicide and injury, including protection of slaves.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 34.9Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · Philosophers who committed suicide were guilty of murder under God's law.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 34.12Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · They even taught others to commit suicide.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 59.5Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · “Do not kill” also forbids endangering life by word, killing or exposing infants, and suicide.
On the Deaths of the Persecutors 49.2Lactantius · ca. 314–315 · Trapped at Tarsus, he resolved on suicide.
Canon 23Anonymous · 314 · Involuntary killing carries a penance of seven years under the earlier rule, five under the later.
Demonstration 3.4Aphrahat · 337-345 · Jezebel's fast, proclaimed to murder Naboth under cover of the law, was impious; she and Ahab paid with their blood where Naboth's was shed.
Life of Constantine 1.34.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · A Christian senator's wife killed herself rather than be taken to Maxentius.
On Saint Athanasius 2.6Lucifer of Cagliari · ca. 356–361 · Lucifer mocks the emperor's claim to wisdom, applying to him Paul's lists of the works of the flesh and of those given over to a reprobate mind, and Romans 12 on repaying no one evil for evil.
On Saint Athanasius 2.23Lucifer of Cagliari · ca. 356–361 · Lucifer argues that even ignorance of the true faith could not excuse the emperor's use of the sword against the innocent, and applies John 3 on those who love darkness and fear the light, and 2 Corinthians 5 on the judgment seat of Christ.
On Not Sparing Those Who Sin against God 25Lucifer of Cagliari · ca. 356–361 · Lucifer argues that the Arian denial of the true Son shows that the Spirit who spoke in the prophets and apostles is not in Constantius, calls him a wolf and a brood of vipers, and warns him from Jesus' words to Peter that those who take the sword perish by it.
Paraenesis, or Exhortation to Penitence 5Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian shows from Scripture that idolatry, murder, and sexual immorality are deadly sins, and warns against flattering those who have committed them.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 2.45Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Iron and fire are gifts of the Creator, found by human reason; their misuse is the fault of the user, and death itself, which they may cause, is not evil.
Against Parmenian the Donatist 2.18Optatus of Milevis · ca. 366–385 · Optatus recounts Donatist violence after their return: Catholic deacons killed at the altar in Lemellef and Carpi, and a massacre at Tipasa under bishops Urbanus and Felix, and turns Parmenian's charges back on him.
Against Parmenian the Donatist 2.25Optatus of Milevis · ca. 366–385 · Using David's sparing of Saul in the cave, Optatus argues that a priest's anointing, being God's, must not be touched even if he sins, and he condemns the Donatists for destroying Catholic clergy by penance and curses.
Against Parmenian the Donatist 3.4Optatus of Milevis · ca. 366–385 · Optatus explains that troops were called in only because Donatus of Bagai gathered the Circumcellions, a violent band whom the Donatist bishops themselves had earlier asked the count Taurinus to suppress; the clash at Bagai was provoked by them.
Against Parmenian the Donatist 3.7Optatus of Milevis · ca. 366–385 · Optatus defends Macarius by the examples of Moses, Phinehas and Elijah, who killed at God's will those who despised his commands, and answers the objection from Christ's order to Peter to sheathe his sword.
Against Parmenian the Donatist 7.6Optatus of Milevis · ca. 366–385 · Macarius, a layman acting as an imperial agent, never exercised any episcopal function, so communion with him did not pollute the bishops; like a judge he was a minister of God's will, and Moses, Phinehas and Elijah were not excluded for their killings.
On the Destruction of Jerusalem 2.18Anonymous · ca. 370 · Simon son of Saul of Scythopolis, who had fought for the city against his fellow Jews, kills his family and himself when the Scythopolitans turn on the Jews.
On the Destruction of Jerusalem 3.16Anonymous · ca. 370 · The men in the pit urge Josephus to die rather than surrender, citing Moses, Aaron, Saul and Jonathan, and David, and threaten to kill him if he refuses.
On the Destruction of Jerusalem 3.17Anonymous · ca. 370 · Josephus's long reply against suicide: life is God's deposit, Scripture's saints awaited God's call, Saul is no model, and to kill oneself is against nature and law.
Question 5, section 4Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Like the unforgiving servant, Cain was spared for a time to give him room for repentance, and God’s sevenfold threat against his killer made him the more aware of his crime.
Question 5, section 5Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The sevenfold vengeance was a law that any later murderer, having Cain’s example, would be seven times more guilty; this law was the sign set on Cain.
Question 6, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Lamech, five generations after Cain, confesses his own murder; his “seventy-sevenfold” means that each later murderer who does not repent incurs a heavier penalty, while Christ commands forgiving the repentant seventy times seven.
Question 104, section 4Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Peter was allowed to wound but not to kill, for only a judge may put to death with the sword and Christians may not kill; the earlier command to take nothing suited a time of peace.
Letter 36.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome reports the tradition that Lamech, seventh from Adam, accidentally killed Cain, as Gen 4:23-24 was understood.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.5.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Commanding the death of murderers compelled a second killing.
On Cain and Abel 2.26Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · Cain chose a barren field for the murder, as if nature withheld fruit from a place of fratricide; murderers flee the witnesses of light and fruitfulness.
On Cain and Abel 2.29Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · The voice of Abel's blood convicts Cain: no one else could have killed him, and the blood accuses where his brother would not, so that Cain's own deed is his accuser.
On Cain and Abel 2.38Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · God spared Cain to teach judges patience and moderation and to leave room for repentance, while exiling him; Lamech, who sinned after Cain's example, was punished more heavily.
Apostolic Canon 66Anonymous · ca. 380 · A cleric who kills someone in a fight is deposed.
Apostolic Constitutions 7.2.8Anonymous · ca. 380 · Murder of the innocent is forbidden; just killing belongs to rulers alone.
On Virgins 3.7Ambrose · ca. 377 · Asked about virgins who took their own lives to escape persecutors, Ambrose answers with the example of Pelagia of Antioch, who threw herself from a height, and of her mother and sisters, who drowned themselves together; he ends with Marcellina’s ancestor, the martyr Soteris.
On Noah 94Ambrose · ca. 378-384 · God requires blood from beasts and, more severely, from a man's 'brother,' since all men are brothers through one nature.
On Noah 96Ambrose · ca. 378-384 · Calling the murderer a brother aggravates his crime and warns him that he cannot escape God's eternal judgment.
On Noah 98Ambrose · ca. 378-384 · The murderer's own life is 'shed' like spilled blood, losing hope of posterity and the soul's health.
Canonical Letter, Migne PG 45:231Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 390 · Gregory sets twenty-seven years of graded penance for voluntary murder and nine for involuntary, both shortenable, allows communion to the dying, and turns to covetousness, which the Fathers left without penalty.
Petition to the Emperors (Libellus precum) 3Faustinus · ca. 383–384 · Damasus's partisans stormed the basilica of Liberius on 26 October 366, killing 160 of Ursinus's supporters; the survivors appealed to the emperor and the bishops to depose him.
Petition to the Emperors (Libellus precum) 24Faustinus · ca. 383–384 · In Baetica the bishops Luciosus and Hyginus, with hired crowds and imperial officials, attacked the congregation of the presbyter Vincentius, a follower of Gregory of Elvira, killing clergy and a decurion and finally placing their altar beneath an idol.
On the Duties of the Clergy 3.4Ambrose · ca. 386–390 · Harming another wounds one’s own conscience; one’s good is the common good, so a Christian may not save his life at another’s cost, even against a robber.
Letter 47.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine rejects killing in self-defence except for soldiers and officials acting for others, and holds that one is not guilty of harm arising from lawful things such as a wall.
Letter 50.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine rebukes the magistrates of Sufes for the killing of sixty Christians over a destroyed statue of Hercules, offering to replace the idol but demanding the lives back.
Letter 100.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine asks Donatus to renounce the death penalty for Donatists, to publish that the laws remain in force, and to have them instructed by documents rather than merely compelled.
Letter 108.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine answers the Donatist boast of persecution by pointing to their own persecution of the Maximianists and to the violence of the Circumcellions.
Letter 133.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine begs the tribune Marcellinus not to put to death the Donatist clerics and Circumcellions who confessed to murdering and maiming Catholic presbyters.
Letter 139.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine again asks that the Donatist murderers not be executed, reports the Donatist bishop Macrobius's activity, and cites an imperial precedent of clemency.
Letter 153.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · There is a merciful punishment and a cruel leniency; killing differs in guilt by intention, and one is not guilty of every death one occasions.
Letter 155.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The philosophers lacked true piety because they sought to make themselves happy by their own virtue, and so absurdly allowed the wise man to kill himself to escape suffering.
Letter 155.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Cicero's Tusculans show the contradiction of philosophers who call the wise man always happy yet advise him to kill himself under extreme suffering; the remedy is to pray to God.
Letter 173.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Donatus's attempt to drown himself was free but destructive; rescuing him against his will was an act of love, and suicide is never permitted.
Letter 173.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · 1 Cor 13:3 does not commend suicide but the choice to suffer rather than do evil, as the three young men in Daniel did.
Letter 185.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The Donatists' self-killing is an old custom, from provoking pagans and travelers to kill them to throwing themselves from cliffs or into fire and water.
Letter 185.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Before the laws, Donatist bands (Circumcellions) terrorized masters, creditors, and officials and killed themselves at will.
Letter 204.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine replies to the tribune Dulcitius, explaining that the suicides of some Donatists should not halt the work of bringing the many back to unity.
Letter 204.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues that the many returning to unity outweigh the few Donatists who kill themselves, comparing the Church's grief to David's mourning for Absalom.
Letter 204.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues from Scripture that suicide is murder, since even killing a dying man at his request is forbidden.
Letter 204.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine answers the Donatists' appeal to Razis in 2 Maccabees by arguing that not every deed recorded in Scripture is to be imitated, and that Razis acted from pride.
Letter 204.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine says Scripture narrates rather than praises Razis's suicide, and that by Sirach's standard he showed impatience rather than wisdom.
Letter 204.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine argues that Razis's death, though great, was not good, since either he was not righteous or his killing himself was the killing of a righteous man.
Letter 244.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine writes to Chrisimus, who in grief over losses was rumored to have contemplated suicide, to remind him that earthly goods cannot compare with heavenly ones.
Homilies on Matthew 9.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Homily 9 opens with Matt 2:16: Herod's rage against the innocents; Chrysostom answers those who charge God with injustice by comparing the guards killed after Peter's escape: the cause was the tyrant's cruelty, not Christ.
Homilies on Matthew 17.6John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The concessions of the old law were not from the devil but a form of nurture now outgrown, as the same act can be good or bad according to time and purpose; Christians must exceed the old righteousness, though many fall short of it.
Homilies on Matthew 46.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The parable of the tares concerns heretics, whom the devil sows beside the truth while the guardians sleep; the master forbids the servants to pull them up, for heretics must not be killed.
Homilies on Matthew 46.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The tares are not to be uprooted, so that saints may not be killed with them and so that some may still become wheat, though heretics may be restrained; the mustard seed and the leaven show that the small band of disciples will transform the world.
Hexameron (Exameron) 6.48Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Murderers destroy God's work; humans dig pits for one another, so that Christ has nowhere to rest his head in them.
On Free Choice of the Will 1.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Through the case of a slave who kills his master from fear, Augustine and Evodius define blameworthy lust as the love of things that one can lose against one's will.
On Free Choice of the Will 1.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · Evodius argues that human law rightly permits killing in self-defense and war to prevent greater evils, yet doubts that those who kill for perishable goods are free of sin before divine providence; Augustine approves the distinction between human law and divine punishment.
On Free Choice of the Will 3.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–395 · No one can rightly choose not to exist, since non-existence is nothing; even those who take their own lives desire rest, which is more being, not annihilation.
Sermon 8.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The sixth commandment against murder is opposed by the plague of boils: murderous souls burn with anger like festering sores.
Sermon 49.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Anger nursed becomes hatred, as a speck becomes a beam; whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and justice means hating vices while loving people.
Sermon 297.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · If we love life, let us choose a good one now and a happy one later; we want everything good except ourselves, and those who sin, even kill or remarry adulterously, to preserve this wretched life lose eternal life.
Sermon 302.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Even if the dead man was evil and an oppressor, he had judges; to kill him without authority is murder, as even an official who struck a condemned man out of order would be a murderer.
Lines 143–155Augustine of Hippo · 393 · Macarius may have exceeded Christian bounds but acted under the emperor’s law; the circumcellions’ private violence with clubs, excused by a literal reading of ‘put back your sword’, is worse.
Against Adimantus, a Disciple of Mani 17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 394 · Augustine answers the charge that the conquest commands contradict “love your enemies”: punishment can be given without hatred, as Paul, Peter, and even the Manichaeans' apocryphal Acts show, and David's sparing of Saul fulfilled Christ's command.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.70Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine judges that Moses sinned in killing the Egyptian without lawful authority, but sees in the deed, like Paul's persecution and Peter's sword, a misdirected zeal that God cultivated into virtue.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 1.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · The Donatists suffer less than they inflict; people mourn bodily wounds but not souls killed by schism, and the Donatists call Catholics persecutors while refusing to debate them.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 1.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · Donatist violence through the circumcellions, now armed with iron as well as clubs, exceeds what the Donatists suffer, yet their bishops disown it while condemning distant churches for African deeds they could not know.
Against the Letter of Parmenian 2.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 400 · Isaiah’s description of the wicked harms no good person who tolerates them, as Ezekiel’s sealed men show; it fits rather the drunken, violent circumcellions and their suicidal false martyrdom.
Apology against Rufinus 3.2Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome protests at what he takes as Rufinus's threat of death, citing apostles who disagreed without enmity, and says he had wished to keep silent at Chromatius's request.
Dialogues 3.11Sulpicius Severus · ca. 404–406 · After the execution of Priscillian, Martin goes to Trier to plead for the condemned and against sending armed tribunes to Spain; Maximus delays him.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 51.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Hating one's soul in this world means choosing death rather than sin under persecution, never taking one's own life.
City of God 1.17Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine holds that suicide is homicide, forbidden even to avoid rape, and illustrates this with the despairing suicide of Judas.
City of God 1.19Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine uses the story of Lucretia to show that a woman raped against her will is not guilty, and that Lucretia's suicide came from shame rather than love of chastity, unlike Christian women who chose to live.
City of God 1.20Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine argues that the commandment “You shall not kill” forbids suicide, since it applies to human beings and makes no exception for oneself.
City of God 1.21Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine names the exceptions to the prohibition of killing, namely killing commanded by God or by just public authority, and concludes that any other killing, including of oneself, is homicide.
City of God 1.22Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine argues that suicide shows weakness rather than greatness of soul, citing the man who killed himself after reading Plato, and notes that Christ told his disciples to flee persecution, not to kill themselves.
City of God 1.23Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine argues that Cato's suicide at Utica came from weakness or envy of Caesar's glory, since Cato told his own son to hope for Caesar's mercy.
City of God 1.24Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine prefers Regulus, who endured captivity rather than kill himself, to Cato, and argues that Christians should all the more refrain from suicide when subjected to enemies.
City of God 1.25Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine rejects suicide as a way to avoid possible consent to sin, since a certain homicide is worse than an uncertain adultery that could be repented of.
City of God 1.26Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine declines to judge holy women honored as martyrs who drowned themselves to escape violation, allowing that God may have commanded them, but concludes that no one may kill himself for any ordinary reason.
City of God 1.27Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine reduces to absurdity the argument that suicide is right to avoid sin, since it would require urging the newly baptized to kill themselves.
City of God 3.6Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine argues that Romulus's murder of his brother should have provoked the gods against Rome more than Paris's adultery against Troy.
City of God 3.16Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine describes the disastrous first year of the Republic, in which Brutus expelled his innocent colleague Collatinus, executed his own sons, and died in battle, and five consuls held office.
City of God 3.27Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine describes the massacres after Marius's return from exile and cites Cicero and Lucan on the civil war of Marius and Sulla.
City of God 3.28Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine describes the atrocities of Sulla's victory, including the massacre of surrendered prisoners and the proscriptions, arguing that his peace was crueler than war.
City of God 15.5Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Cain the fratricide founded the earthly city, as Romulus, killing Remus, founded Rome; the good, if perfect, cannot fight each other.
On Patience 10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 415 · Against those who kill themselves and claim the glory of martyrs, Augustine argues from Job that suicide destroys patience and is worse than parricide, even under persecution.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 6.18.16Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Brutus and Cassius kill themselves.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 6.19.17Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Antony's suicide.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 6.19.18Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Cleopatra's suicide.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 6.21.8Orosius · ca. 417–418 · The besieged kill themselves.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.5.8Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Pilate's suicide.
On Adulterous Marriages 2.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Christians should spare adulterous wives out of forgiveness, not because remarriage is allowed; a Christian may neither kill an adulterous wife nor remarry while she lives.