dexterity of an artist, who subscribed confessions of debt and promises of payment with the names of the richest Syrians. They pleaded the established prescription of thirty or forty years; but their defence was overruled by a retrospective edict, which extended the claims of the church to the term of a century: an edict so pregnant with injustice and disorder that, after serving this occasional purpose, it was prudently abolished in the same reign.[1] If candour will acquit the emperor himself and transfer the corruption to his wife and favourites, the suspicion of so foul a vice must still degrade the majesty of his laws; and the advocates of Justinian may acknowledge that such levity, whatsoever be the motive, is unworthy of a legislator and a man.
The Institutes. A.D. 533, Nov. 21 Monarchs seldom condescend to become the preceptors of their subjects; and some praise is due to Justinian, by whose command an ample system was reduced to a short and elementary treatise. Among the various institutes of the Roman law,[2] those of Caius[3] were the most popular in the East and West; and their use may be considered as an evidence of their merit. They were selected by the Imperial delegates, Tribonian, Theophilus, and Dorotheus: and the freedom and purity of the Antonines was incrusted with the coarser materials of a degenerate age. The same volume which introduced the youth of Rome, Constantinople, and Berytus, to the gradual study of the Code and Pandects is still precious to the historian, the philosopher, and the magistrate. The institutes of Justinian are divided into four books; they proceed, with no contemptible method, from I. Persons to II. Things, and from things to III. Actions; and the article IV. of Private Wrongs is terminated by the principles of Criminal Law.
I. Of persons. Freemen and slaves I. The distinction of ranks and persons, is the firmest basis of a mixed and limited government. In France, the remains- ↑ Procopius, Anecdot. c. 28. A similar privilege was granted to the church of Rome (Novel. ix.). For the general repeal of these mischievous indulgences, see Novel, cxi. and Edict. v.
- ↑ Lactantius, in his Institutes of Christianity, an elegant and specious work, proposes to imitate the; title and method of the civilians. Quidam prudentes et arbitri æquitatis Institutiones Civilis Juris compositas ediderunt (Institut. Divin. l. i. c. 1). Such as Ulpian, Paul, Florentinus, Marcian.
- ↑ The emperor Justinian calls him suum, though he died before the end of the second century. His Institutes are quoted by Servius, Boethius, Priscian, &c. and the epitome by Arrian is still extant. (See the Prolegomena and Notes to the edition of Schulting, in the Jurisprudentia Ante-Justinianea. Lugd. Bat. 1717. Heineccius, Hist. J. R. No. 313. Ludewig, in Vit. Just. p. 199.) [See above, p. 467, n. 86.]
