Syriac-Roman law book

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Page 2 of the SRRB in the edition of Land, 1868

The Syriac-Roman Law Book (SRRB) is a legal text from late antiquity .

It was originally written in Greek around the year 475 . Whether there were any earlier Aramaic or Syrian versions of the presumed Greek language has not yet been thoroughly researched. At the beginning of the 21st century, science is only aware of versions in the Syrian language , as well as in Arabic , Armenian and Georgian , the latter being based on Syrian versions. In the 7th or 8th century, the Syrian version was revised. The sequence of the paragraphs and also (but not fundamentally) the text have been changed, presumably also a preface, but a new translation from Greek was not carried out. The work is mentioned in a number of quotations up to modern times. The text of the SRRB was called “ Statuta imperatorum ”, “ Libri basilion ”, “ Leges Constantini, Theodosii et Leonis ”. It is not known how the work was originally named and whether its first version even had a name. Its current name is based on scientific consensus.

content

The SRRB mainly deals with various areas of civil law such as inheritance law, law of obligations, slave law and marriage law, but it also deals with criminal law. To which (state or church) area the norms concerned belonged was and is the subject of the scientific debate: Walter Selb (1928–1994), following Carlo Alfonso Nallino (1872–1938), took the view that it was a matter of (pure ) Roman law , as it actually claimed validity in the entire area of ​​the Roman Empire since the Constitutio Antoniniana . The view that the SRRB contains Eastern Roman land law or Eastern canon law is rejected by him. The fact that the work has been preserved for centuries mainly in monastery libraries in the context of canon law does not in itself provide any indication of the content of the text. With regard to the influence of oriental rights, the literature supports the view that influences of the orient in connection with the SRRB (for the consideration of the original text) should be “forgotten”. For later versions of the text, however, these influences should not be completely lost sight of.

Variants of the writing of the SRRB in the edition of Land, 1868

The original purpose of the text of the SRRB has not yet been determined: according to the state of research, it is not seen as a code of law, but is assigned to legal education. It remains to be seen whether it is a textbook or other study material or a kind of “lecture transcript” (possibly added later), which in turn could have been a working document. According to the authors of the 2002 edition of the SRRB, the work was created during legal lessons and was intended to explain Roman law, in particular imperial constitutions, to the students. The students would have had the standard text in front of them. These authors suspect that Antioch is more likely than Beirut to be the place of legal instruction . In a later publication the author is assumed to be a teacher at a law school in the Syrian region, perhaps in Berytos , as the city of Beirut was called by the Greeks. Another author sees the text of the SRRB as the basis for the fifth year of study, when one read, studied and interpreted the imperial constitutions using the available codes. In a further publication it is discussed that the Syriac-Roman Law Book could also be a text for law lessons that was based on documents for beginners' courses and in which unproblematic texts were excluded from the start.

Publication history in modern times

For a long time, the existence of the SRRB could be proven through citations in legal literature, but it was largely unknown. A first text edition appeared in 1868 by Jan Pieter Nicolaas Land, another in 1880 by Karl-Georg Bruns and Eduard Sachau. These first editions reproduce the SRRB in the text version of the manuscript “L” (London: British Library Add. 14,528). Further texts of the SRRB were later published, by Arthur Võõbus also including English translations, and the first specialist legal evaluations were published. These editions, however, deal in part with the Sententiae Syriacae , which are contained several times in manuscripts immediately before the SRRB, but form a separate work, unrecognized as part of the SRRB.

The SRRB was reissued in 2002 by Walter Selb and Hubert Kaufhold in a three-volume edition in the publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and commented on in detail. On the one hand, Selb and Kaufhold were specialists in Roman law and ancient legal history, but they also mastered the Syrian language and script and were therefore not dependent on translations and transcriptions when editing the text . This prevented misunderstandings when evaluating legally relevant expressions. Smaller additional notes and text corrections are included in the review of this work in the Savigny-Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte.

The first volume of the new edition contains the history of the academic study of the SRRB and deals with the versions of the paragraph order. It also contains information on manuscripts, editions, translations, quotations in other works, a Syrian-German glossary and information on the text witnesses in Arabic, Armenian and Georgian. The Syrian dictionary alone comprises almost forty pages in this volume. The second volume contains the critically edited Syrian text with a German translation (ten Syrian manuscripts are known and 60 manuscripts of the Armenian version alone). The third volume, which was basically created by Walter Selb, contains the legal history commentary.

The new edition of the SRRB was a topic that Walter Selb had been dealing with since he was a student. He had in 1962 with a thesis on this topic habilitation and 1965 published an essay about it. Work on the new edition of the SRRB ran for decades from 1965 onwards, accompanied by further work by the editors on Syrian legal texts, such as the Sententiae Syriacae or the legal collection of Gabriel von Baṣrā. When Walter Selb died on June 2, 1994, the work was well advanced, the years after that brought the translation of the Syrian text into a print-ready form and the final editing of the manuscript.

Reception, continued operation

The origin and the original purpose of the text must be separated from its transmission within the framework of the oriental churches and its subsequent use as a legal code. It is uncertain whether the SRRB was used in the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the oriental churches.

After it became known in western Europe in the 19th century, the SRRB played an important role in the debates about imperial law and popular law , the title of a book by Ludwig Mitteis , on the question of an ancient legal history and the vulgarization of Roman law. In essence, the debate revolved around how to classify statements by the SRRB that were not considered to be readily compatible with Roman law. So one saw in such statements old, original oriental law, Greek law as an expression of the Hellenization of Syria or Roman vulgar law as a result of declining legal knowledge.

Newer research approaches, especially Selbs, first try to be clear about the text as such. It turns out that the text does not want to reproduce norms at all, i.e. it cannot be measured against other normative texts of Roman law, but comes from legal lessons. The teacher takes up individual questions that result from the standard text available to the student, but are not intended to capture it completely. The fact that the text falls short of the requirements of a standard text is a result of the author's educational intention, but does not preclude understanding the SRRB as a source of Roman law.

expenditure

  • Walter Selb, Hubert Kaufhold: The Syrian-Roman legal book. Volume I: Introduction, Volume II: Text and translation, Volume III: Commentary. Austrian Academy of Sciences. Memoranda of the philosophical-historical class No. 295. Publications of the Commission for Ancient Legal History 9. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Vienna 2002. ISBN 3-7001-3007-4 .
  • Arthur Võõbus: The Syro-Roman lawbook. The Syriac text of the recently discovered manuscripts accompanied by a facsimile edition and furnished with an introduction and translation. Volume I: The Syriac text with an introduction. Eesti Usuteadlaste Selts Paguluses toimetused = Papers of the Estonian Theological Society in Exile - PapETSE. Scholarly series. Volume 36. Stockholm 1982. Volume II: A translation with annotations. PapETSE, Scholarly series. Volume 39. Stockholm 1983.
  • Arthur Võõbus: The Synodicon in the West Syrian tradition. Volume I / 1: Syriac text. In: Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium - CSCO 367, Scriptores Syri 161. Verlag Peeters, Löwen 1975. ISBN 978-90-429-0408-8 (ISBN subsequently assigned, not generally applicable). Volume I / 2: English translation. CSCO 368, Scriptores Syri 162. Peeters Publishing, Leuven / Louvain 1975. ISBN 978-90-429-0409-5 . Volume II / 1: Syriac text. CSCO 375, Scriptores Syri 163. Peeters Publishing, Leuven / Louvain 1976. ISBN 978-90-429-0416-3 . Volume II / 2: English translation. CSCO 376. Scriptores Syri 164, Peeters Verlag, Leuven / Louvain 1976. ISBN 978-90-429-0417-0 .
  • Karl Georg Bruns, Eduard Sachau: Syriac-Roman legal book from the fifth century. Edited, translated and explained from the oriental sources. 2. Reprint of the Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1880 edition. Scientia-Verlag Aalen 1985. ISBN 3-511-00016-5 .
  • Jan Pieter Nicolaas Land: Anecdota syriaca. Collegit, edidit, explicuit. In: Joannis Episcopi Ephesi Monophysitae Scripta historica quodquod adhuc inedita supereant Syriacae edidit. Anecdoton syriacorum tomus secundus. Lugduni Batavorum , apud EJ Brill . Academiae typographum, MDXXXLVIII (Original copy from Harvard University available on the Internet in the Google book search).

literature

  • Fausto Goria: Un'ipotesi sulla destinazione didattica del libro siro-romano di diritto. Atti dell 'Accademia romanistica Constantiniana. XVI. Convegno internazionale in onore di Manuel J. García Garrido. Naples 2007. Pages 153-166.
  • Hubert Kaufhold: Article “Syriac-Roman Legal Book”. In: Small Lexicon of the Christian Orient . 2nd edition by Julius Aßfalg : Small dictionary of the Christian Orient . Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2007. ISBN 978-3-447-05382-2 . Pages 482-483.
  • Hubert Kaufhold: Armenian translations of Byzantine legal books. In: Armenuhi Drost-Abgarjan , Hermann Goltz : Armenology in Germany. Contributions to the First German Armenologist Day, Münster 2005. Studies on Oriental Church History, Volume 35. Lit-Verlag Berlin 2005. ISBN 3-8258-8610-7 . Pages 47-55.
  • Gerhard Thür (ed.): Ancient legal history. Unity and diversity. Austrian Academy of Sciences , philosophical-historical class, session reports 726th volume. Contributions to the conference of the Commission for Ancient Legal History in Vienna on the occasion of the presentation of the edition of the Syriac-Roman Legal Book on October 29, 2002. Publications of the Commission for Ancient Legal History Volume 11. Verlag der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2005. ISBN 3-7001- 3481-9 .
  • Detlef Liebs, Peter Nagel : Review of the work by Selb / Kaufmann. In: Savigny-Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte , Romance Department - SZRom. Volume 121, year 2004. ISSN  0323-4096 . Pages 559-573.
  • Hubert Kaufhold: The Armenian translations of Byzantine legal books. Research on Byzantine legal history, Volume 21. Verlag der Löwenklau-Gesellschaft Frankfurt am Main 1997. ISBN 3-923615-17-5 .
  • Arthur Võõbus: An unknown recension of the Syro-Roman lawbook: a facsimile edition of three Syriac manuscripts with a translation. Eesti Usuteadlaste Selts Paguluses toimetused = Papers of the Estonian Theological Society in Exile - PapETSE. Scholarly series 28. Stockholm 1977.
  • Arthur Võõbus: Discovery of an Unknown Recension of the Syro-Roman Lawbook. In: Labeo. Rassegna di diritto romano. Napoli. ISSN  0023-6462 Volume 23, year 1977.
  • Arthur Võõbus: New Light on the Textual History of the Syro-Roman Lawbook. In: Labeo. Rassegna di diritto romano. Napoli. Volume 19, born in 1973.
  • Arthur Võõbus: Discoveries of very important manuscript sources for the Syro-Roman Lawbook. The opening of a new epoch of research in this unique monument of jurisprudence. Eesti Usuteadlaste Selts Paguluses toimetused = Papers of the Estonian Theological Society in Exile - PapETSE. Scholarly series. Volume 21. Stockholm 1971.
  • Walter Selb: On the importance of the Syrian-Roman legal code. Habilitation thesis at the University of Heidelberg on July 20, 1962. Published as: Munich contributions to papyrus research and ancient legal history. Issue 49, Verlag CH Beck Munich 1964. ISBN 978-3-406-00649-4 ( ISBN 978-3-406-00649-4 (subsequently assigned ISBN, can be used in bookshops, but not in library catalogs)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Detlef Liebs: Post-Classical Roman Legal Literature. In: Thür, legal history . Page 28.
  2. ^ Hubert Kaufhold: The new edition of the Syrian-Roman legal book . In: Thür, legal history . Pages 75-76.
  3. ↑ Selb / Kaufhold, SRRB . Volume III. Page 148.
  4. ↑ Selb / Kaufhold, SRRB . Volume I. page 42.
  5. ↑ Gerhard Ries: Calumnia and Talion - Influence of ancient oriental law on the Syriac-Roman legal book? In: Thür, legal history . Page 10.
  6. ↑ a b Liebs, legal literature. In: Thür, legal history. Pages 36-38.
  7. ^ Kaufhold, new edition . In: Thür, legal history . Page 78.
  8. ^ Liebs / Nagel: Review . SZRome. Pages 561-563.
  9. ↑ Quoted from: Kaufhold, new edition . In: Thür, legal history . Page 75, footnote 24.
  10. ^ Peter E. Pieler: Legal literature. Practical literature: legal books and forms. α) The Syrian-Roman law book. Page 393–394. In: Herbert Hunger : The high-level profane literature of the Byzantines . Philology, profane poetry, music, mathematics and astronomy, natural sciences, medicine, war science, legal literature. With contributions by Christian Hannick and Peter E. Pieler. Second Volume, Chapter 13: Pages 343–479. In: Byzantine Handbook . Volume 12,5,2 of the Handbook of Ancient Studies . Verlag CH Beck Munich 1978. ISBN 3-406-01428-3 .
  11. ↑ Walter Selb: Sententiae syriacae . Austrian Academy of Sciences, philosophical-historical class, session reports Volume 567. Publications of the Commission for Ancient Legal History Volume 7. Verlag der Akademie Wien 1990.
  12. ^ Liebs / Nagel: Review. SZRome. Pages 559-573.
  13. ^ Kaufmann, new edition . In: Thür, legal history . Pages 74-75.
  14. ↑ Selb / Kaufhold, SRRB . Volume I. page 14.
  15. ↑ On the meaning of the Syrian-Roman legal code. Munich 1964.
  16. ↑ a b Kaufhold, new edition . In: Thür, legal history . Pages 67-80.
  17. ^ Hubert Kaufhold: The legal collection of Gabriel von Baṣrā and its relationship to the other legal compilations of the Nestorians. Verlag Schweitzer, Berlin 1976. Treatises on basic legal research. Volume 21. Munich University Writings: Law Faculty. Dissertation 1972/73. ISBN 3-8059-0386-3 .