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ARTICLE II.-THE ROMAN LAW AND CALVINISM.

IN discussing the influence exerted by the Roman Law upon Calvinism, I include under the term Calvinism not merely those peculiar tenets which distinguish the system of the Genevan reformer, but the whole body of doctrine which Calvin put forth; which includes, of course, much that is held in common by all churches of Christ. I prefer to use the word "Calvinism" rather than the phrase "the current theology," because while the Roman Law has deeply tinctured the current theology it has especially affected the Calvinistic scheme. Hence it is in the special study of Calvinism that we may best observe the influence of the Roman Law upon Christian theology in general. When one takes up Calvin's Institutes, or the Westminster Catechism, or a volume of Jonathan Edwards' or Dr. Hodge's Theology, he can but be impressed, if his attention is called to the fact, by the abundant use of terms of jurisprudence. Such words as "tribunal," "decrees," decrees," "penalties," "satisfaction," "obligation," "merit," "debt," "remission," "advocate," "federal headship," bear witness to the historic fact that our theological vocabulary had its birth, to a considerable extent, in a forensic atmosphere. In what follows I shall seek to illustrate how great an influence the Roman jurisprudence in particular exercised in determining the points of view from which theological questions have been regarded, in marking out the lines of theological thought and in suffusing the current theology with a legal spirit.

Every student of Christian doctrine is familiar with the fact that in the Divine Providence it was given to the Eastern church to work out the problems of theology proper, the doctrine, that is, of the Divine Existence; while to the Western church was committed the development of Anthropology in the broad sense, that is, the doctrine of the relations in which God stands to man and man stands toward God. The acute speculative genius of the Greeks inclined them to the subtile discussion of the doctrines of the Trinity and the Person of Christ.

The practical genius of the Latin church employed itself, by preference with the estate and prospects of man, with the doctrines of Sin and of Grace.

Now, when we consider the moral relations in which God stands to man, we find them set forth in Scripture under a twofold imagery. God is represented first, as a Ruler and a Judge; secondly, as a Father. In the Old Testament the Divine Being is placed before the mind almost exclusively in the former relation. In the New Testament, He is exhibited as maintaining both relations; but especially the Divine Fatherhood is brought out in a new and remarkable way. The human mind recognizes both these conceptions of deity as reasonable. As the establisher and executor of moral law, God may fitly be called a judge; as the author of the human spirit made after His own likeness and capable even from a state of sin of being made partaker of the divine nature, God may fitly be called the father of man. It is evident, however, that the fatherly relationship is the closer and more personal. The conception of God as a judge, on the other hand, rather contemplates men in mass viewed as subjects of a moral order.

family and the state To the ancient mind

It was a characteristic of the ancient world, as distinguished from the modern, that there was a constant inclination to view men as component parts of a larger or smaller society rather than as individuals. The theory of personal rights has been wrought out almost entirely since the Christian eramuch of it, indeed, within the last few hundred years. In the ancient world the individual had no independent existence; he existed for the family and the state. Now, on the contrary, we are rather inclined to say that the exist for the benefit of the individual. thus accustomed to merge to a great extent the individual in the social mass, the conception of God as a Judge, establishing and administering laws for a nation or for all mankind, would be more natural and congenial than the conception of Him as a Father. It is commonly admitted that revelation is progres sive, adjusting itself to the intellectual and spiritual capacities of men to receive it. In this we may see the reason why, in the Old Testament, God is regarded as a Judge so much more than as a Father. The Jewish mind, sharing as it did to a

great extent the current ideas concerning the relations of the individual to society, beheld chiefly in the Divine Being the mighty administrator of universal righteousness. "O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth, O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, show thyself; lift up thyself, thou Judge of all the earth." Let us remember, then, that according to the ethical notions of the Pagans, and hardly less in the apprehension of the Jews, the moral relations subsisting between God and man constituted predominantly a judicial system, a system of legal far more than filial connections and affinities. This fact has a vast, and, as I conceive, a much overlooked bearing upon the formation and present aspect of our theologies. Now bearing in mind that in the ancient world, among Jews and Gentiles alike, the moral relations subsisting between God and man were viewed chiefly as legal relations, it becomes a noteworthy fact that the working out of the formal theory of these relations was effected in an atmosphere saturated with juridical ideas, by men trained in the profound and suggestive philosophy of the Roman Law, while the results were commended, in the first instance at least, to nations* to whom a theology permeated with forensic notions was most intelligible and congenial.

I shall now undertake to trace somewhat in detail the forensic influences at work in shaping the anthropology of the Western church.

As the bent of the Greek mind was metaphysical, that of the Roman mind was legal and administrative. The greatest names in the Grecian annals are Plato and Aristotle. The crowning achievements of the Latin genius were the Roman Empire and the mighty and enduring system of the Roman Law. "Law," says Bunsen, "was the peculiar domain of the Roman." It was a part of the Latin system of education to oblige the children to repeat by rote the code of the decemvirs that thus a reverence for law might be stamped upon the

"The subtleties of Roman Law as applied to the relations of God and man are almost unknown to the East. Forensic justification,' 'merit,' 'demerit,' 'satisfaction,' 'imputed,' righteousness,' 'decrees,' represent ideas which in the Eastern theology have no predominant influence and hardly any words to represent them. The few exceptions that occur may be traced directly to accidental gusts of Western influence."-Stanley's Lectures on the Eastern Church, Lect. I.

youthful mind. The Roman genius for government was deepened and expanded by the incessant and multifarious necessi ties of their wide-spread empire. To Rome modern nations owe more than can be expressed. The laws of Justinian have permeated all modern legislation and imparted to it many of its best characteristics. The Roman Law has been the great storehouse of principles, doctrines, and rules for the jurispru dence of Europe.

Now, the period from the second to the sixth century of the Christian era, while the great anthropological questions were being discussed in the Roman church, was also the period in which the great Roman jurisconsults lived and in which the best minds of the nation were absorbed in the study of civil law. Sir Henry Maine, in his Ancient Law, gives a graphic statement of the general interest in legal pursuits at this time. "For some centuries," he writes, "before these controversies (the anthropological) rose into overwhelming importance, all the intellectual activity of the Western Romans had been expended on jurisprudence exclusively."-"Through that pur suit lay the approach to wealth, to fame, to office, to the councilchamber of the monarch, it may be to the very throne itself.""The premium on the study of jurisprudence was so enormous that there were schools of law in every part of the empire."— "In the West it was not only the mental food of the ambitious and aspiring but the sole aliment of all intellectual activity.""No foreign pursuit or taste called off their attention from this engrossing occupation."—(Ancient Law, ch. ix., passım.) This is exceedingly strong language, but it is from the pen of one accustomed to weigh his words carefully and who knows whereof he affirms. It appears, then, that the early theolo gians of the Western church lived, moved, and breathed in an atmosphere surcharged with juridical ideas and modes of thought; and it was impossible that their theology should not strongly partake of the remarkable legal coloring of the age in which they lived.

But this early influence of the Roman law over theological speculation was but a small part of its total influence. For to the Roman empire succeeded the even mightier and more enduring Roman Church; and from the Roman civil law

sprang the Roman canon or ecclesiastical law. The characteristic of Latin Christianity became that of the old Latin world, the strong assertion of authority and a great system of subordination. "It was the Roman empire" says Milman, "again extended over Europe by an universal code and a provincial government; by a hierarchy of religious prætors or proconsuls and a host of inferior officers—a restrained and limited freedom with an appeal to the spiritual Cæsar in the last resort." This continued centralization of authority at Rome, and the great amount of civil as well as ecclesiastical power which the Papacy acquired, of course necessitated a vast and well-digested system of law with which all the higher officials of the church were obliged to make themselves more or less familiar.

When one considers that "the jurisdiction of the church extended over all persons in holy orders in every case in which they might be involved, over laymen in relation to all matters. strictly ecclesiastical, that is, questions pertaining to the internal order, discipline, doctrines, and observances of the church, also over laymen in such matters as marriage, divorce, and succession to personal estates of parties dying,"* one can see how every ecclesiastical dignitary must have been almost as much of a lawyer as a theologian, and that the mental discipline of theologians would be largely juristic and would inevitably tinge deeply their discussion of theological questions. Just as there was a Corpus Juris Civilis, the outgrowth of the dominion of the Roman Republic and the Roman empire, so there came to be a Corpus Juris Canonici with which it behooved every ecclesiastic of eminence to be familiar in order that he might discharge intelligently the duties of his office. Thus it will be seen that from the second century of the Christian era down to the time of the Reformation, the forensic influences that fell upon the minds of all theological writers was simply overpowering. Never before in the world's history was there any. thing like it. Never probably will there be anything like it again. This extraordinary application for centuries of the ablest minds of Europe to the study of law concurrent with the study of theology could not fail to stamp a very deep juridical impress upon theology.

* Canon Law-Johnson's Encyclopædia.

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