What d()es nor appear in this more detailed discussion ot ins go/- tium is preciseK' the sense attributed to it at the outset; legal rules coininon to all human societies. The ending ot § i confirms my interpretation of aiitcm\ "And so the Roman people uses in part its own law, in part the common law of all men. Which is which we shall set forth in their proper places." Roman law is thus composed partly ot i/zs civile, partly ot insgoitiuw. Again ins does not appear. And the final sentence indicates that ins civile And ins gentinrn make up the whole of Roman law. VI d o put it simply, the famous opening ofy.1.2, "On the natural law and of peoples, and of the state" is on its own terms simply nonsense, utterly confused and confusing. How can one e.xplain this.^ My answer is that it is an introduction that the compilers had no interest in, but felt forced to include. As an argument for this proposition, I could cite the opening pages of many contemporary American legal casebi^oks that giye some history that is ine\ itahly vx rong. But my wife, also a law professor, forbids me: "It would be in bad taste." Nowadays, relatixely little attention is paid to this part ofJustinian's Institntes. Natural law in modern discussions deriv^es largely from Thomas Aquinas and Francisco Suarez. Insgentiumis treated as meaning "International Law." But this was not always the case. The Institutes' confusion set the scene for much that was to come. 30
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=