positive law made such an inclusion possible. Or as A. Arthur Schiller writes:“It [ius naturale] was not too significant a concept, for institutions ascribed to it could also be ascribed to the ius gentium. But while the ius gentiumsteadily superseded the ius civile, it was its [ius gentium’s] supposed universality that brought this about, and hence it tied in with the ius naturale.”35 It was not until the very end of the empire, during the compilation of the Corpus Juris Civilis, that Roman judges and jurists alike embraced and recognized ius naturale as being a source of law objectively binding for them without their taking a roundabout way over aequitas and ius gentium.36 Roman law and the Roman doctrine of sources expressly endowed two classes of jurist with the authority to ascertain the law and to develop it; on the one hand, the officials, such as the judges and praetors, in their normal execution of their duties, and on the other, the legal scholars by way of their responsa and other writings.37 Of interest here are the underlying reasons for the authority of lawyer-made law. In general, it has been held that the judges and officials based their authority upon their indirect political authority, which authorized them to ascertain the proper meaning of the law and to produce authoritative interpretations of it. However, when we speak of the legal scholars, then the question of authority becomes problematic. They, on the one hand, were state officials (iurisconsuls) and on the other, juridical authorities in their own right - for example, those jurists whose writings and opinions survived into the Corpus Juris. In either case, the binding power of positive law necessitated that jurists applied positive law as their primary vantage point when deciding a case, ascertaining law, developing the law, or offering a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 571 1. 1. 1 lawye r-made law in rome 35 Ibid., pp. 557-558. Contents of square brackets added here. 36 Ibid., pp. 548-549;Wieacker, Römische Rechtsgeschichte, p. 644; History, p. 32; 37 Schiller, Roman Law:Mechanisms of Development, pp. 366-397;Wieacker, Römische Rechtsgeschichte, pp. 495-502.
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