has the natural progression of law applying to all animals, law applying to all peoples, law applying to one state. This progression is absent from the Institutes. If, as many believe, the Theophilus of the Paraphrase is the same Theophilus as one of the draftsmen of the Institutes, then the misunderstanding is almost contemporaneous. An explanation of the mistranslation must include carelessness, but more important is the confusion inJ. . pr. and §1, and the authority for subsequent generations of ius naturale. Natural law simply could not fail to be regarded as law, and for scholars of private law Justinian had to be taken into account. The theme of this talk is the transplanting and transformation of law as the result of the authority of texts. I will conclude with repeating that the process may involve both an understanding and a misunderstanding of what is going on. This certainly applies to both Stair and Mackenzie. My final example will be from the edition of Justinian’s Institutes by Joannus Vande Water (Published in Utrecht in ). with the commentary of Janus A Costa and the additional notes of Theodorus Marcilius and Marcus Antonius Muretus. Side by side we have two notes. The first is by Marcilius on De iure naturali, gentium & civili: “The Roman civil law proceeds partly from natural law, partly from theius gentium, partly from the civil law, as if from a triple principle. This title is thus derived from these principles.” Natural law is law. This is immediately followed by the note of A Costa onJus naturale est which begins: “Very close to law is what men do by reason and law: that likewise when we see beasts so act, certainly we observe in them certain traces of the same law”. These notes in the same edition by Vande Water, side by side, cannot be made to agree. My sole explanation, congruent with the whole emphasis of this talk, is that the consequent contradiction lies in the need for authority. Contradictory texts of Justinian command respect: contradictory
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