The Civil Code of Andrés Bello and the exegetical movement in Colombia

Abstract

This paper is interested in the reception of the civil code of Andrés Bello in Colombia during the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. Likewise, it relates the above to the emergence of the Colombian exegetical movement, close to –as well as different– from the movement of French commentators on the Civil Code of 1804, a movement that will be called, pejoratively in the 20th century, as “exegesis”. Now, this work is justified by the importance of articulating, due to the potentialities that this allows, the legal history with the comparative law, remembering that both disciplines had common origins. This is so, to understand law historically, it is necessary to understand it as a product of cultures in constant communication, in such a way that comparative analysis, in our view, appears as necessary for history, and vice versa. We hope then that the reader can observe that exegesis, if we may use this word, was not homogeneous throughout the Western Hemisphere, but there are still points in common regarding some of its most important postulates. Understanding this movement happens, we believe, by recognizing the similarities and differences with other previous, concomitant, and subsequent movements.