_Pandects_ were transported to the capital. These events are authentic
and famous.
[28] They were new bound in purple, deposited in a rich casket, and
shown to curious travellers by the monks and magistrates bareheaded and
with lighted tapers.
[29] Gibbon, dividing the _Institutes_ into four parts, considers the
appendix of the criminal law in the last title as a fourth part.
[30] This parental power was strictly confined to the Roman citizen. The
foreigner, or he who had only _jus Latii_, did not possess it. If a
Roman citizen unknowingly married a Latin or a foreign wife, he did not
possess this power over his son, because the son, following the legal
condition of the mother, was not a Roman citizen. A man, however,
alleging sufficient cause for his ignorance, might raise both mother and
child to the rights of citizenship.
[31] The edict of Constantine first conferred this right; for Augustus
had prohibited the taking as a concubine a woman who might be taken as a
wife; and if marriage took place afterward, this marriage made no change
in the rights of the children born before it; recourse was then had to
adoption, properly called arrogation.
[32] The Roman laws protected all property acquired in a lawful manner.
They imposed on those who had invaded it, the obligation of making
restitution and reparation of all damage caused by that invasion; they
punished it moreover, in many cases, by a pecuniary fine. But they did
not always grant a recovery against the third person, who had become
_bona fide_ possessed of the property. He who had obtained possession of
a thing belonging to another, knowing nothing of the prior rights of
that person, maintained the possession. The law had expressly determined
those cases, in which it permitted property to be reclaimed from an
innocent possessor. In these cases possession had the characters of
absolute proprietorship. To possess this right, it was not sufficient to
have entered into possession of the thing _in any manner_; the
acquisition was bound to have that character of publicity, which was
given by the observation of solemn forms, prescribed by the laws, or the
uninterrupted exercise of proprietorship during a certain time: the
Roman citizen alone could acquire this proprietorship. Every other kind
of possession, which might be named imperfect proprietorship, was called
_in bonis habere_. It was not till after the time of Cicero that the
general name of _dominium_ was given to all proprietorship.
[33] Justinian has not condescended to give usury a place in his
_Institutes_; but the necessary rules and restrictions are inserted in
the _Pandects_ and the _Code_.
[34] Cato, Seneca, Plutarch, have loudly condemned the practice or abuse
of usury. According to etymology, the principal is supposed to
_generate_ the interest: "A breed for barren metal," exclaims
Shakspeare--and the stage is an echo of the public voice.
[35] Livy mentions two remarkable and flagitious eras, of three thousand
persons accused, and of one hundred and ninety noble matrons convicted,
of the crime of poisoning. Hume discriminates the ages of private and
public virtue. Rather say that such ebullitions of mischief (as in
France in the year 1680) are accidents and prodigies which leave no
marks on the manners of a nation.
[36] The first parricide at Rome was L. Ostius, after the Second Punic
War. During the Cimbric, P. Malleolus was guilty of the first matricide.
[37] Verres lived near thirty years after his trial, till the Second
Triumvirate, when he was proscribed by the taste of Mark Antony for the
sake of his Corinthian plate.
[38] Montesquieu, that eloquent philosopher, conciliates the rights of
liberty and of nature, which should never be placed in opposition to
each other.
[39] We are indebted for this interesting fact to a fragment of Asconius
Pedianus, who flourished under the reign of Tiberius. The loss of his
_Commentaries on the Orations of Cicero_ has deprived us of a valuable
fund of historical and legal knowledge.
[40] The extension of the Empire and _city_ of Rome obliged the exile to
seek a more distant place of retirement.
[41] When he fatigued his subjects in building the Capitol, many of the
laborers were provoked to despatch themselves: he nailed their dead
bodies to crosses.
[42] The sole resemblance of a violent and premature death has engaged
Vergil to confound suicides with infants, lovers, and persons unjustly
condemned. Some of his editors are at a loss to deduce the idea or
ascertain the jurisprudence of the Roman poet.
AUGUSTINE'S MISSIONARY WORK IN ENGLAND
A.D. 597
THE VENERABLE BEDE[43] JOHN RICHARD GREEN
St. Augustine was the first archbishop of Canterbury. He was
educated in Rome under Pope Gregory I, by whom he was sent to
Britain with forty monks of the Benedictine order, for the purpose
of converting the English to Christianity. Bertha, wife of
Ethelbert, king of Kent, was a Christian. She was a daughter of
Charibert, king of Paris, and had brought her chaplain with her,
who held services in the ruined church of St. Martin, near
Canterbury.
There seemed little prospect, however, of the faith spreading among
the wild islanders until Augustine arrived on the Isle of Thanet
A.D. 596. The occasion of his being sent on this missionary errand
is said to have been connected with an incident which has often
been related, wherein it appears that Gregory, while yet a monk,
struck with the beauty of some heathen Anglo-Saxon youths exposed
for sale in the slave market at Rome, inquired concerning their
nationality. Being told that they were Angles, he said: "_Non Angli
sed angeli_ ['Not Angles, but angels'], and well may, for their
angel-like faces it becometh such to be coheirs with the angels in
heaven. In what province of England do they live?" "Deira" was the
reply. "From _Dei ira_ ['God's wrath'] are they to be freed?"
answered Gregory. "How call ye the king of that country?" "Ælla."
"Then Alleluia surely ought to be sung in his kingdom to the praise
of that God who created all things," said the gracious and clever
monk.
"The conversion of the English to Christianity," says Freeman, "at
once altered their whole position in the world. Hitherto our
history had been almost wholly insular; our heathen forefathers had
had but little to do, either in war or peace, with any nations
beyond their own four seas. We hear little of any connection being
kept up between the Angles and Saxons who settled in Britain, and
their kinsfolk who abode in their original country. By its
conversion England was first brought, not only within the pale of
the Christian Church, but within the pale of the general political
society of Europe. But our insular position, combined with the
events of our earlier history, was not without its effect on the
peculiar character of Christianity as established in England.
England was the first great territorial conquest of the spiritual
power, beyond the limits of the Roman Empire, beyond the influence
of Greek and Roman civilization."
The following account from the _Ecclesiastical History_ of the
Venerable Bede, the "father of English history," and foremost
scholar of England in his age, is in the modern English rendering
by Thomson, of King Alfred's famous translation, made for the
instruction of the English people as the best work of that period
on their own history.
As a contrast John Richard Green's treatment of the same episode is
appended.
THE VENERABLE BEDE
When according to forthrunning time [it] was about five hundred and
ninety-two years from Christ's hithercoming, Mauricius, the Emperor,
took to the government, and had it two-and-twenty years. He was the
fifty-fourth from Augustus. In the tenth year of that Emperor's reign,
Gregory, the holy man, who was in lore and deed the highest, took to the
bishophood of the Roman Church, and of the apostolic seat, and held and
governed it thirteen years and six months and ten days. In the
fourteenth year of the same Emperor, about a hundred and fifty years
from the English nation's hithercoming into Britain, he was admonished
by a divine impulse that he should send God's servant Augustine, and
many other monks with him, fearing the Lord, to preach God's word to the
English nation.
When they obeyed the bishop's commands, and began to go to the mentioned
work, and had gone some deal of the way, then began they to fear and
dread the journey, and thought that it was wiser and safer for them that
they should rather return home than seek the barbarous people, and the
fierce and the unbelieving, even whose speech they knew not; and in
common chose this advice to themselves; and then straightway sent
Augustine (whom they had chosen for their bishop if their doctrines
should be received) to the Pope, that he might humbly intercede for
them, that they might not need to go upon a journey so perilous and so
toilsome, and a pilgrimage so unknown.
Then St. Gregory sent a letter to them, and exhorted and advised them in
that letter: that they should humbly go into the work of God's word, and
trust in God's help; and that they should not fear the toil of the
journey, nor dread the tongues of evil-speaking men; but that, with all
earnestness, and with the love of God, they should perform the good
things which they by God's help had begun to do; and that they should
know that the great toil would be followed by the greater glory of
everlasting life; and he prayed Almighty God that he would shield them
by his grace; and that he would grant to himself that he might see the
fruit of their labor in the heavenly kingdom's glory, because he was
ready to be in the same labor with them, if leave had been given him.
Then Augustine was strengthened by the exhortation of the blessed father
Gregory, and with Christ's servants who were with him returned to the
work of God's word, and came into Britain. Then was at that time
Ethelbert king in Kent, and a mighty one, who had rule as far as the
boundary of the river Humber, which sheds asunder the south folk of the
English nation and the north folk. Then [there] is on the eastward of
Kent a great island [Thanet by name], which is six hundred hides large,
after the English nation's reckoning. The isle is shed away from the
continuous land by the stream Wantsum, which is three furlongs broad,
and in two places is fordable, and either end lies in the sea. On this
isle came up Christ's servant Augustine and his fellows--he was one of
forty. They likewise took with them interpreters from Frankland
[France], as St. Gregory bade them; and he sent messengers to Ethelbert,
and let him know that he came from Rome, and brought the best errand,
and whosoever would be obedient to him, he promised him everlasting
gladness in heaven, and a kingdom hereafter without end, with the true
and living God.
When [he then] the King heard these words, then ordered he them to abide
in the isle on which they had come up; and their necessaries to be there
given them until he should see what he would do to them. Likewise before
that a report of the Christian religion had come to him, for he had a
Christian wife, who was given to him from the royal kin of the
Franks--Bertha was her name; which woman he received from her parents on
condition that she should have his leave that she might hold the manner
of the Christian belief, and of her religion, unspotted, with the bishop
whom they gave her for the help of that faith; whose name was Luidhard.
Then [it] was after many days that the King came to the isle, and
ordered to make a seat for him out [of doors], and ordered Augustine
with his fellows to come to his speech (a _conference_). He guarded
himself lest they should go into any house to him; he used the old
greeting, in case they had any magic whereby they should overcome and
deceive him. But they came endowed--not with devil-craft, but with
divine might. They bore Christ's rood-token--a silvern cross of Christ
and a likeness of the Lord Jesus colored and delineated on a board; and
were crying the names of holy men; and singing prayers together, made
supplication to the Lord for the everlasting health of themselves and of
those to whom they come.
Then the King bade them sit, and they did so; and they soon preached and
taught the word of life to him, together with all his peers who were
there present. Then answered the King, and thus said: Fair words and
promises are these which ye have brought and say to us; but because they
are new and unknown, we cannot yet agree that we should forsake the
things which we for a long time, with all the English nation, have held.
But because ye have come hither as pilgrims from afar, and since it
seems and is evident to me that ye wished to communicate to us also the
things which ye believed true and best, we will not therefore be heavy
to you, but will kindly receive you in hospitality, and give you a
livelihood, and supply your needs. Nor will we hinder you from joining
and adding to the religion of your belief all whom you can through your
lore.
Then the King gave them a dwelling and a place in Canterbury, which was
the chief city of all his kingdom, and as he had promised to give them a
livelihood and their worldly needs, he likewise gave them leave that
they might preach and teach the Christian faith. It is said that when
they went and drew nigh to the city, as their custom was, with Christ's
holy cross, and with the likeness of the great King our Lord Jesus
Christ, they sung with a harmonious voice this Litany and Antiphony:
_Deprecamur te_, etc. "We beseech thee, Lord, in all thy mercy, that thy
fury and thy wrath be taken off from this city and [from] thy holy
house, because we have sinned. Alleluia."
Then it was soon after they had entered into the dwelling place which
had been granted to them in the royal city, when they began to imitate
the apostolic life of the primitive church--that is, served the Lord in
constant prayers, and waking and fasting, and preached and taught God's
word to whom they might, and slighted all things of this world as
foreign; but those things only which were seen [to be] needful for their
livelihood they received from those whom they taught; according to that
which they taught, they [themselves] through everything lived; and they
had a ready mind to suffer adversity, yea likewise death [it] self, for
the truth which they preached and taught. Then was no delay that many
believed and were baptized. They also wondered at the simplicity of
[their] harmless life and the sweetness of their heavenly lore.
There was by east well-nigh the city a church built in honor of St.
Martin long ago, while the Romans yet dwelt in Britain [in which church
the Queen (was) wont to pray, of whom we said before that she was a
Christian]. In this church at first the holy teachers began to meet and
sing and pray, and do mass-song, and teach men and baptize, until the
King was converted to the faith, and they obtained more leave to teach
everywhere, and to build and repair churches.
Then came it about through the grace of God that the King likewise among
others began to delight in the cleanest life of holy [men] and their
sweetest promises, and they also gave confirmation that those were true
by the showing of many wonders; and he then, being glad, was baptized.
Then began many daily to hasten and flock together to hear God's word,
and to forsake the manner of heathenism, and joined themselves, through
belief, to the oneness of Christ's holy Church. Of their belief and
conversion [it] is said that the King was so evenly glad that he,
however, forced none to the Christian manner [of worship], but that
those who turned to belief and to baptism he more inwardly loved, as
they were fellow-citizens of the heavenly kingdom. For he had learnt
from his teachers and from the authors of his health that Christ's
service should be of good will, not of compulsion. And he then, the
King, gave and granted to his teachers a place and settlement suitable
to their condition, in his chief city, and thereto gave their needful
supplies in various possessions.
During these things the holy man Augustine fared over sea, and came to
the city Arles, and by Ætherius, archbishop of the said city, according
to the behest and commandment of the blessed father St. Gregory, was
hallowed archbishop of the English people, and returned and fared into
Britain, and soon sent messengers to Rome, that was Laurence a
mass-priest and Peter a monk, that they should say and make known to the
blessed St. Gregory that the English nation had received Christ's
belief, and that he had been consecrated as bishop. He likewise
requested his advice about many causes and questions which were seen by
him [to be] needful; and he soon sent suitable answers of them.
Asked by St. Augustine, bishop of the church of Canterbury: First, of
bishops, how they shall behave and live with their fellows. Next, on the
gifts of the faithful which they bring to holy tables and to God's
churches--how many doles of them shall be?
Answered by Pope St. Gregory: Holy writ makes it known, quoth he, which
I have no doubt thou knowest, and sunderly the blessed Paul's epistle,
which he wrote to Timothy, in which he earnestly trained and taught him
how he should behave and do in God's house. For it is the manner of the
apostolic seat, when they hallow bishops, that they give them
commandments, and that of all the livelihood which comes in to them
there shall be four doles. One, in the first place, to the bishop and
his family for food, and entertainment of guests and comers; a second
dole to God's servants; a third to the needy; the fourth to renewing and
repair of God's church. But because thy brotherliness has been trained
and taught in monastic rules, thou shalt not, however, be asunder from
thy fellows in the English church, which now yet is newly come and led
to the faith of God. This behavior and this life thou shalt set up,
which our fathers had in the beginning of the new-born church, when none
of them said aught of that which they owned was his in sunder; but they
all had all things common. If, then, any priests or God's servants are
settled without holy orders, let those who cannot withhold themselves
from women take them wives, and receive their livelihood outside. For of
the same fathers, of whom we spoke before, [it] is written that they
dealt their worldly goods to sundry men as every [one] had need.
Likewise concerning their livelihood it is to be thought and foreseen
(_i.e., provided_) that they live in good manners under ecclesiastical
rules, and sing psalms and keep wakes and hold their hearts and tongues
and bodies clean from all forbidden [things] to Almighty God. But, as to
those living in common life, what have we to say how they deal their
alms, or exercise hospitality, and fulfil mercy? since all that is left
over in their worldly substance is to be reached and given to the pious
and good, as the master of all, our Lord Christ, taught and said: _Quod
superest_, etc. "What is over and left, give alms, and to you are all
[things] clean."
Asked by St. Augustine: Since there is one faith, and are various
customs of churches, there is one custom of mass-song in the holy Roman
Church, and another is had in the kingdom of Gaul.
Answered by Pope St. Gregory: Thou thyself knowest the manner and custom
of the Roman Church, in which thou wert reared; but now it seems good,
and is more agreeable to me, that whatsoever thou hast found either in
the Roman Church or in Gaul, or in any other [church], that was more
pleasing to Almighty God, thou should carefully choose that, and set it
to be held fast in the Church of the English nation, which now yet is
new in the faith. For the things are not to be loved for places; but the
places for good things. Therefore what things thou choosest as pious,
good, and right from each of sundry churches, these gather thou
together, and settle into a custom in the mind of the English nation.
Asked by Augustine: I pray thee, what punishment shall he
suffer--whosoever takes away anything by stealth from a church?
Answered by Gregory: This may thy brotherliness determine from the
thief's condition, how he may be corrected. For there are some who have
worldly wealth, and yet commit theft; there are some who are in this
wise guilty through poverty. Therefore need is that some be corrected by
waning of their worldly goods, some by stripes; some more sternly, some
more mildly. And though the punishment be inflicted a little harder or
sterner, yet it is to be done of love, not of wrath nor of fury; because
through the throes of this is procured to the man that he be not given
to the everlasting fires of hell-torments. For in this manner we ought
to punish men, as the good fathers are wont [to do] their fleshly
children, whom they chide and swinge for their sins; and yet those same
whom they chide and chastise by these pains they also love, and wish to
have for their heirs, and for them hold their worldly goods which they
possess, whom they seem in anger to persecute and torment. For love is
ever to be held in the mind, and it dictates and determines the measure
of the chastisement, so that the mind does nothing at all beside the
right rule. Thou likewise addest in thy inquiry, how those things should
be compensated which have been taken away from a church by theft. But,
oh! far be it that God's Church should receive with increase what she
seems to let alone of earthly things, and seek worldly gain by vain
things.
Asked by Bishop St. Augustine: At what generation shall Christian people
be joined among themselves in marriage with their kinsfolk?... Answered
by St. Gregory: ... But because there are many in the English nation
[who], while they were then yet in unbelief, are said to have been
joined together in this sinful marriage,[44] now they are to be
admonished, since they have come to the faith, that they hold themselves
off from such iniquities, and understand that it is a heavy sin, and
dread the awful doom of God, lest they for fleshly love receive the
torments of everlasting death. They are not, however, for this cause to
be deprived of the communion of Christ's body and blood, lest this thing
may seem to be revenged on them, in which they through unwittingness
sinned before the bath of baptism. For at this time the Holy Church
corrects some things through zeal, bears with some through mildness,
overlooks some through consideration, and so bears and overlooks that
often by bearing and overlooking she checks the opposing evil. All those
who come to the faith of Christ are to be reminded that they may not
dare to commit any such thing. But, if any shall commit them, then are
they to be deprived of Christ's body and blood; for, as some little is
to be borne with in regard to those men who through unwittingness
commit sin, so on the other hand it is to be strongly pursued in those
who dread not to sin wittingly.
Asked by Bishop St. Augustine: If a great distance of journey lies
between, so that bishops may not easily come, whether may a bishop be
hallowed without the presence of other bishops.
Answered by Gregory: In the English Church, indeed, in which thou alone
as yet art found a bishop, thou canst not hallow a bishop otherwise than
without other bishops; but bishops must come to thee out of the kingdom
of Gaul, that they may stand as witness at the bishop's hallowing, for
the hallowing of bishops must not be otherwise than in the assembling
and witnessing of three or four bishops, that they may send [up] and
pour [forth] their petitions and prayers to the Almighty God for his
favor.
Asked by Augustine: How must we do with the bishops of Gaul and Britain?