The oldest and most noted legislators and wise men took their laws from the law of Moses. The Egyptians and the Phœnicians borrowed from the Jewish laws. Ancient and modern writers affirm that the individuals commissioned by the Senate and tribune under Justinian to form the “Twelve Tables” were directed to examine the laws of Athens and the Grecian cities. This took them at once to the consideration of many of the laws of Moses. Zell, in his Encyclopedia, says: The glory of Justinian's reign is the famous digest of the Roman law, known generally as the Justinian code, which was compiled out of the Gregorian, Theodorian and Hermogenian codes, by ten of the ablest lawyers of the empire, under the [pg 114] guiding genius of the Jurisconsult Tribonian. Their labors consisted, first, of the “Statute Law.” Second, The “Pandects,” a digest of the decisions and opinions of former magistrates and lawyers. These two compilations consisted of matter that lay scattered through more than two thousand volumes, now reduced to fifty. Third, The “Institutes,” an abridgement in four books, containing the substance of all the laws in the elementary form. Fourth, The laws of modern date, including Justinian's own edicts, collected into one volume and called the “New Code.”
The word “Pandects” is a term of great importance in the investigation of the origin of the Roman laws; it points directly and certainly to the fact that the Roman laws, known as the Pandects, were gathered from all laws, for such is the import of the term itself when it is associated with the term laws. Moreover, it is a Greek term, showing at once that the Grecian laws contributed largely to the Pandects of the Roman laws. The term is defined by Liddel and Scott in the words, all-receiving, all-containing, so the Pandects were gathered from all laws, consequently from the laws of Moses as well as from the Grecian laws, which were largely from the laws of Moses. This relationship, existing in the science of law, between the laws of the Bible and the Roman laws gotten up under Justinian, can be set aside by the infidels when stubborn facts, as well as similitude, are set aside.
Sir Matthew Hale says: Among the many preferences which the laws of England have above others, the two principal ones are, the hereditary transmission of property and the trial by jury, which originated with the Jews, for, by the law of Moses, the succession in the descending line was to the sons, the oldest having a double portion. If the son died in his father's lifetime, the grandson heired the portion of his father. Trial by jury was first suggested in the administration of penal justice among the Jews. Such trials came off publicly in the gates of the city, and their judges were elders and Levites, taken from the general mass of the citizens. “A part of the common law, as it now stands, was first collected by Alfred [pg 115] the Great, youngest son of Athelwolf, or Ethelwolf, King of the West Saxons, who took the crown in 871. It is asserted by Sismondi, in his history of the fall of the Roman Empire, that when the above named prince caused a republication of the Saxon laws he inserted several laws taken from the Judaical ritual into his statutes to give new strength and cogency to the principles of morality. So it is a common thing in the early English reports to find frequent references to the Mosaic law. Sismondi also states that one of the first acts of the clergy under Pepin and Charlemagne, of France, was to introduce into the legislation of the Franks several of the Mosaic laws found in the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus. It is truthfully said that the entire code of civil and judicial statutes throughout New England, and throughout the States first settled by the descendants of New England, were the judicial laws of God as they were delivered by Moses. From God himself one nation, and one only, received their laws, and they are worthy of being regarded as models for all succeeding ages. The learned Michaelis, who was professor of law in the University of Gottingen, says that a man who considers laws philosophically, who would survey them with the eye of a Montesquieu, would never overlook the laws of Moses.”
Goguet, in his learned treatise upon the origin of laws, says: The more we meditate on the laws of Moses the more we shall perceive their wisdom and inspiration. They alone have undergone no changes, amendments or retrenchments for more than three thousand years, while all others have been receiving amendments and additions.
Milman, in his history of the Jews, says: The Hebrew law-giver exercised a more extensive and permanent influence over the destinies of mankind than any other individual in the annals of the world. The late Fisher Ames, a distinguished statesman and jurist, said, “No man can be a sound lawyer who is not well read in the laws of Moses.” The seat of this law is the bosom of God, and her voice is the order, peace and happiness of the world.
Did Adam Fall Or Rise?
The old scholastic ideas of “total hereditary depravity, and miraculous conversion,” with their correllates, have driven more minds into doubt and skepticism than most of men are apprised of. The reasons are evident. First. Common sense shrinks from them as ideas which are destructive of every principle of human responsibility. Second. They are opposed to the testimony of consciousness which asserts the soul's freedom. Third. They are opposed to correct ideas of justice as it is administered in all governments, both human and divine.
“And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us to know good and evil.” Our fathers, of Calvinistic type of faith, used to tell us that this language only asserted Adam's experience of conscious guilt; that he knew good before he transgressed, and had experimental knowledge of evil after he transgressed. This was the best they could do and save their Calvinism, and even this would not have saved it in the days of investigation like ours. The Lord did not say, “The man is become as one of us knowing good and evil,” but “the man is become as one of us to know good and evil.” The old view of the subject virtually says, The Lord had experimental knowledge of both good and evil, and that the way in which Adam became Godlike was the way of the transgressor. Then the greatest Godlikeness is the result of the greatest sinning. What nonsense! The Bible says: “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.” The account also asserts that the “tree of knowledge of good and evil” was “a tree to be desired to make one wise.” Total depravity and its correllates could never have been found in this context. This history is not responsible for it, nor for the mischiefs it has produced.
The Heavenly Father knew, when he created man, that he would fail upon trial. To have prevented this would have been nothing short of an interference with man's freedom, [pg 117] and consequently his responsibility, without which he could not have been man. The Lord saw man in his alien state and in his return to holiness. He “made of one blood all nations of men to dwell upon all the face of the earth, and determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord.”—See Acts 17: 26. It was necessary that man should become as God to know good and evil in order that he might be continued upon trial in a world of good and evil. To this end the Divine Ruler placed in the test fruit, the fruit of the tree that was forbidden, a mental lever to endow man with wisdom as God to know good and evil, without which the man's responsibility in relation to good and evil could never have been.