Late Antique Christian Law in the Eastern Roman Empire

Author:

Monnickendam Yifat1

Affiliation:

1. Tel Aviv University

Abstract

To date, early Christian sources have drawn the scholarly attention of theologians, scholars of biblical commentary, and historians, but not of legal historians, presumably because such sources do not offer sufficiently substantial material for legal historical research. Nevertheless, a few studies have blended legal history and late antique Christianity, and an analysis of these studies shows they are based on a “centralist,” or “formalist–positivist,” conceptualization of law. In this paper I review the scholarship of legal traditions in the eastern Roman Empire— namely, Roman law and Greek legal traditions, the halakha in rabbinic literature, and the halakhic traditions in Qumranic literature and in the New Testament—and contextualize it within developments in legal theory and legal sociology and anthropology (that is, the rise of legal pluralism). This review shows that developments in legal theory, in legal sociology and anthropology, and in legal history of the late antique world are producing new paradigms and models in the study of late antique legal history. These new models, together with new methods in reading early Christian non-legal texts of the eastern Roman Empire, can be utilized in the study of early Christianity, thereby opening gateways to the study of its legal traditions and revealing independent legal traditions that have remained hidden to date.

Publisher

University of California Press

Subject

History,Classics

Reference211 articles.

1. Some papers are set off following a casual, almost coincidental, chat. Such was this paper, which was written following a conversation over dinner with Prof. Maria Mavroudi. Her questions and comments clarified why and how it should be written, and encouraged me to do so. I wish to thank her for that valuable conversation. I also wish to thank my friends and colleagues for their comments: Prof. Caroline Humfress, Prof. Vered Noam, Prof. Thomas Graumann, Prof. Suzanne Last Stone, Dr. Benny Porat, Prof. Assaf Likhovski, Prof. Daphna Hacker and Ms. Amanda Dale. Above all, I wish to thank my mother, Mrs. Gila Monnickendam, who, as always, was my first reader and editor. Her thoughtful and thorough comments and corrections are embedded in every word of this paper, תנצב”ה. The paper was written with the support of the European Commission, Marie Curie, CIG. All errors remain, of course, my own.

2. For a recent example, see Arye Edrei and Doron Mendels, “Preliminary Thoughts on Structures of ‘Sovereignty’ and the Deepening Gap between Judaism and Christianity in the First Centuries CE,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 23 (2014): 215–38, who compared the Jewish choice of law as a marker of identity and sovereignty with the Christian choice of theology as such a marker. See also the discussion of David Novak, “The End of the Law: A Significant Difference between Judaism and Christianity,” in Transforming Relations: Essays on Jews and Christians Throughout History in Honor of Michael A. Signer, ed. Franklin T. Harkins (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), 34–49, who pointed to the problems involved in tagging Christianity antinomic vs. Judaism as legalistic.

3. See, for example, Luke Timothy Johnson, “Law in Early Christianity,” in Christianity and Law, ed. John Witte and Frank S. Alexander (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 53–69, which, as part of a companion on Christian law, is officially devoted to pre-Constantine Church law, yet focuses mostly on the New Testament. The article by Richard H. Helmholz, “Western Canon Law,” in ibid., 71–87, discusses the roots of Canon law, yet devotes just one page to late antique legal literature. Rémi Brague, The Law of God: The Philosophical History of an Idea, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 85–93, 127–45 portrays a similar picture in his introduction. Likewise, Clarence Gallagher, Church Law and Church Order in Rome and Byzantium (Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs 8; Hants: Ashgate, 2002), sets out to describe Canon law in the first millennium, yet starts his study with sources from the sixth century. Similarly, see the earlier study of Constant van de Wiel, History of Canon Law (Louvain Theological & Pastoral Monographs 5; Louvain: Peeters Press, 1991), 22–55. Nevertheless, a few scholars have described early Canon law with emphasis not only on the New Testament but also on sources between the New Testament and the fourth century. See Ludwig Buisson, “Die Entstehung des Kirchenrechts,” Zeitschrift der Savigny Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung 52 (1966): 1–175; Othmar Heggelbacher, Geschichte des frühchristlichen Kirchenrechts bis zum Konzil von Nizäa 325 (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1974).

4. For their listing see, for example, Jean Gaudemet, L’Église dans l'Empire romain: IVe–Ve siècles (Histoire du droit et des institutions de l’Église en occident 3; Paris: Sirey, 1958), 33–50; idem, Les sources du droit de l'Eglise en occident du IIe au VIIe siècle (Initiations au christianisme ancien; Paris: Editions du Cerf/Editions du C.N.R.S, 1985).

5. For the latest studies on the Didache, especially with regard to Jewish literature and halakhic traditions, see the collections of Huub van de Sandt, Matthew and the Didache: Two Documents from the Same Jewish-Christian Milieu? (Assen and Minneapolis: Royal Van Gorcum and Fortress Press, 2005); Jonathan Alfred Draper, The Didache in Modern Research (Leiden: Brill, 1996), and Clayton N. Jefford, The Didache in Context: Essays on Its Text, History and Transmission (Supplements to Novum Testamentum 77; Leiden, New York and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1995), which include a review of scholarship, as well as specific studies on the halakhic aspects of the Didache.

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