In the first place, the emperors, in admitting the christian religion to reign with them, took an active part in the government of the church; they interfered in the regulation of religious affairs, -convoked councils, and directed their deliberations, and created an entirely new branch of legislation, that of ecclesiastical affairs. These canonical regulations became obligatory under corporeal pains; and the civil authorities were required to aid in their execution by the strong hand, and to satisfy all the requisitions of the bishops for the support of religion, and the restoration of the churches.

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To the laws of this description, must be added those which had for their object to attribute to the ministers of Christ all the cares and all the functions relative to funerals, to destroy the enemies of the orthodox faith, to extirpate paganism, judaism, and heresy. The laws of this last category are very numerous; and not only inflict penalties but civil incapacities upon those who come within their provisions. We may also join to these legal measures, the object of which was to extend christianity, and give it a positive power over the civil state of the citizens, the law relative to the celebration of feasts and fasts: during the solemn days of which, all manual labors, the debates of the tribunals, and the prosecutions of the treasury, were suspended; agriculture alone, and the enfranchisement of slaves, being excepted from the common rule.

Revenues and endowments, of considerable value, were assigned to the church and guaranteed to it in perpetuity. We know from the fragments of the Rules of Ulpian (title 22), that the temples and religious establishments of polytheism, acknowledged by the state, had the capacity to receive donations and legacies, and even to be appointed heirs. This advantage was transferred to the christian church; pious legacies were authorized indefinitely; and we may. learn from the Commentary of James Godfrey on the Theo

dosian Code (law iv. tit. 2, book 16), what an influence this provision had upon the law of testaments. The liberalities in favor of the church became at length so considerable, that it was found necessary to impose limits upon them.

Goods and successions, which were vacant, belonged to the treasury; but power was given to the church to demand some portions of them. It was even provided, that the goods of people of the church, who should die intestate and without relatives, instead of devolving upon the treasury, should belong to the church; and, in order that the patrimony of the church should be better preserved, the law declared, that it could neither be alienated nor hypothecated. All the goods of the church were also defended against usurpation by the longest prescription then known. It was originally thirty years; the emperor Anastasius raised it to forty years; Justinian afterwards extended it to one hundred years; but he subsequently reduced it to forty years, in regard to the inferior churches and pious or religious establishments.

The right of property was the object of a grave attack on the part of Constantine, which could not fail to produce, for the moment, unfavorable effects upon the civil order. After having recalled from exile and reëstablished in their rank and fortune all those whom his predecessors had banished on account of their faith, he not only caused the goods which had been confiscated, but not yet alienated, to be restored to them by the state, but he also constrained the donataries, heirs, or acquirers of goods confiscated and alienated, to restore them to their ancient proprietors. In this manner, disorder was introduced into the existence of many families, for a long time had elapsed since the spoliations. Confiscations were then admitted by the public law; and, on the faith of their being irrevocable, many divisions, establishments, and conveyances of every kind, had taken place. We ought, however, to say, that, if the stability of

the right of property was shaken by this measure, which, though somewhat reactionary, was doubtless commanded by a powerful interest, the theory of civil prescription was, on the part of the christian emperors, the object of an organization which indicates a lively solicitude for the support and guarantee of the right of property.

This would have been of trifling importance, if the civil jurisdiction and the hierarchy had been maintained in their primitive purity; but it was not so. St. Paul had of old said to the christians: "Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers." "

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The first christians consequently believed themselves obliged to select arbitrators from among themselves to terminate their differences; and they were most frequently induced, by the confidence which they had in the intelligence and virtue of their bishops, to address themselves to them. The bishops made it a duty to pacify quarrels, to accommodate suits; and they labored in it with so much wisdom and success, that the pagans themselves had frequent recourse to their mediation. Saint Augustine and saint Ambrose passed entire days in these pious occupations, which, in the middle ages, became developed into a regular jurisdiction.

1 1 Cor. vi. 1—6.

Constantine gave the sanction of law to the usage adopted by the christians, and organized into a kind of privileged arbitration this custom of the times of persecution. He required the parties in civil matters, by a mutual agreement, to decline the authority of the ordinary judges, in order to submit themselves to the arbitration of the bishops; and the execution of the sentences of the latter was confided to the imperial officers. The episcopal arbitration was even compulsory in certain cases. This constitution was confirmed by the successors of Constantine; it forms the subject of a whole title of the code of Justinian (book i. tit. 4); and the proceedings under it increased to such a degree, that the bishops complained of the consumption of their time thereby occasioned.

In the appendix to Ritter's edition of the Theodosian Code, we find two laws which have been regarded with suspicion by James Godfrey and father Sirmond. The first provides, that if either of the parties, even after a suit is commenced, demands the judgment of a bishop, the affair shall be referred accordingly; the second requires, that the deposition of a bishop should be held as conclusive in justice.

Independently of these privileges, the bishops were specially charged to repress the exposure of new-born infants (sanguinolenti), and to cause pupils and insane persons to be provided with tutors and curators. They were also required to see that none but christians were admitted as advocates in the cities; and certain extraordinary powers of police and of inquisition were likewise confided to them, of which it does not belong to our subject to speak.

Lastly, there was one measure which gave a severe shock to the consideration in which jurisprudence and those who cultivated it had been previously held. Constantine, at the same time that he prosecuted the exactions of those publicans so much denounced by the christians (always the enemies of the officers of the revenue), and founded religious

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schools, in which theology was made use of to propagate a contempt for the vanity of the pagan sciences, confounded the jurisconsults with the publicans in a single holocaust, and, under the name of advocates (causidici), pointed them out and sacrificed them as guilty of an odious rapacity, whilst he nevertheless maintained usury at a very high legal rate, and seemed to turn this disorder to his own advantage. The profession of the law was declared to be incompatible with that of the church. It was only under Valentinian, and under Zeno, that the professors of law were admitted to participate in the honors accorded by Constantine to those who had acquired the quality of emeritus in the instruction of good letters. Nevertheless, the doctors in law were always considered upon the same footing with physicians, grammarians, and other professors of letters, in regard to the privilege of certain immunities; and under the successors of Constantine, and especially under Justinian, the jurisconsults and advocates (togati) acquired very great consideration.

It cannot fail to be manifest, therefore, that the edifice of the Roman law suffered extensively from the attacks of a religion, which, being at the same time moral and dogmatic, regulated all the thoughts, all the actions, and even all the civil relations, of men from their birth to their death. It is evident, also, that as much by this influence as by the effect of the transfer of the seat of empire, the great school, in which so many celebrated jurisconsults had been formed, must have lost insensibly its lustre and its credit.

The ancient civil divisions of persons disappeared, and their place was supplied by a division according to religion; though christianity could not at once abolish slavery. Privileges and the admissibility to offices were less attached to the title of citizen than they were to that of christian; and the quality of pagan became a title of exclusion. All the superior and subaltern administrations were confided