Preliminary communication
The Relationship between Roman State and Christianity and Theclassical Roman Jurisprudence
Henrik-Riko Held
orcid.org/0000-0002-6217-2655
; Faculty of Law Univerity of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Martina Ostojić
; Faculty of Law Univerity of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Author analyses the relationship between Roman state and Christianity taking into account treatment of the religion (and Christianity, at least indirectly) in the classical Roman jurisprudence. First part of the article deals with the conceptual conflict between pagan and Christian views on the relationship between sacral and public. This dissent existed from the beginnings of Christianity and can be recognised both in the initially sporadic but cruel persecution of Christians and in the philosophic and apologetic discussions and polemics between pagans and Christians. Persecution culminated after Christianity significantly grew in numbers and strenght, and when the pagan paradigm was definitively formulated in the neoplatonist philosophy and political theory at the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th century A.D. Central part of the article aims to determine whether mentioned conceptual clash was reflected in the classical Roman jurisprudence. Firstly, the matter of the definition ius publicum is dealt with, which in the classical Roman jurisprudence was closely connected with ius sacrum. With this association public interests and interests of the state were explicitly interconnected with the religious sphere. Besides that, in private Roman law also the link between sacral and profane can be detected. Specific category of things exempt from legal transactions on the basis of divine law existed, which was in essence determined by the religious authorities and was closely associated with the upkeep of the public interests. Finally, in the law of delicts there can be found both implied and explicit, albeit indirect references on the punishability of Christian world view which threatened Roman public legal order, which also affirms the mentioned conceptual clash. Final part of the article puts the analysis in the context of the subsequent reception of the classical Roman jurisprudence by the Christian emperor Justinian in the 6th century, which happened even though classical Roman jurisprudence clearly and unequivocally espoused pagan views on the relationship between state and religion and treated Christianity more or less as a crime, and was generally anti-Christian. However, after the affairs of state and religious affairs were strictly and clearly divided in the work of Saint Augustine, the matter of ius publicum was philosophically fundamentally separated from the religious matters. For that reason, it is our opinion, classical jurisprudence was not problematic for Justinian in any relevant manner. Accordingly, the same goes for the subsequent treatment and analysis of the Roman legal sources in the medieval period of Christian Europe.
Keywords
Christianity; Roman Empire; persecution of Christians; ius publicum; iussacrum; Roman law.
Hrčak ID:
232550
URI
Publication date:
18.12.2019.
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