126 



laws for the relation of man towards man in his moral 

 as well as social beariiig. 



AVhen the Roman Emperors adopted Christianity and 

 raised it to the state-religion of Rome, the new religious 

 mistress fomid a world, which in morals formed the very 

 counterpart to its own precepts, but if she looked beyond 

 the province of morality into the business of the social 

 world, she met very little that was opposed to her views, 

 or that she could not adopt as proceeded from her own 

 spirit, unless we consider the communism of the first 

 Christian societies as an essential Christian institution. It 

 was a Christian Emperor who, after the spirit of Christi- 

 anity had already developed itself for upwards of five 

 hundred years in its bearing upon the practical world, 

 could do no l)etter, in order to establish the principles of 

 justice in harmony with Cliristianity, than to adopt " In 

 n/ymtne domini nostri Jesu Christi''' as the prooenium to the 

 code of Justinian says, the same laws by which heathen 

 Rome was governed, and Christian bishops and fathers 

 of the church, decrying the philosophy and literature of 

 the heathen Greeks and Romans, acknowledge gladly the 

 wisdom and justice of a Papinian, Ulpian, Paulus, or Gajus. 



But the laws of heathen Rome, as they were adopted 

 and sanctioned by the Christian Empei'or Justinian, were 

 the result of a gradual development, in which a great 

 many internal and external powers and influences were 

 at work ever since the first laws of Romulus and Numa 

 Porapilius. We cannot, tlierefore, agree with Gibbon, 

 who says : — " During four centuries, from Hadrian to 

 Justinian, the public and private jurisprudence was 

 moulded by the will of the sovereign ; and few institu- 

 tions, either human or divine, were permitted to stand 

 on their former basis." To be sure, the maxims of the 

 Roman jimsprudence received in the second and third 

 centuries after Christ, especially under the Emperors 



