Interlude: Due Process in Early Greek Thought
In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, written possibly near the end of the 6th century BC, there is contained one of the earliest pieces of evidence for a principle of due process in Greek thought. Early in...
View ArticleWhat is Justice?
Though I said before that I intended to start in the Corpus Iuris Civilis series with the Digest before moving on to the Institutes, the composition of which was directed by the jurist, master of...
View ArticleWhat is Jurisprudence?
The next element of definition in titulus I of Justinian’s Institutes is iuris prudentia.Iuris prudentia est divinarum atque humanarum rerum notitia, justi atque iniusti scientia.“Discretion in the...
View ArticleCicero on the Foundation of Law and on Human “Law”
In Book 2 of De legibus (“On the Laws”), Cicero gives an account of law’s foundation in divine reason, and discourses on the relation between civil law and divine law, which is the standard for...
View ArticleThe Necessary Assumptions for Cicero’s Natural Law
In the introduction to Niall Rudd’s Oxford World’s Classics translation of what survives of Cicero’s Republic and Laws, 1 Jonathan Powell and Niall Rudd include a section on natural law, which for...
View ArticleJustinian’s Dyarchy
Justinian’s political theology is sometimes referred to as “dyarchy,” in which there are, or seem to be, two powers (on this ambiguity see below) ordained by God in human life, the the priestly and the...
View ArticleThe Roman-legal Background of the Concept of Equity
Equity makes its appearance in theological and confessional treatments, as a way of understanding the place of Old Testament law in the New Testament era. It is invoked e.g. in the Westminster...
View ArticlePraetorius: A Voice Against Torture
On our About page, one will see a painting of the Heidelberg Tun, a giant wine casket which was the wonder of that capitol of irenic Calvinism. There is a charming panegyric of the Tun by a presently...
View ArticleThe Right of Appeal and Constitutional Order
It is well known that the Apostle Paul appeals to his Roman citizenship to notify the Roman military tribune in Acts 22 that he should not be flogged. He later, in Acts 25, appeals to Caesar in order...
View Article“Prayer, Work, Laughter, We Need Them All”: Notes in Service of Sanctified...
“Natura abhorret a vacuo”Nature abhors a vacuum, and so every people constituted as a political body is going to have a schedule of sacred observances, of holy days–days marked out as special in some...
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