3. Illustrations in the NT drawn from Roman or Roman-Greek law. — The following illustiations have been gathered from Galatians by Ramsay, though his conclusions have not in all cases been universally accepted. In particul.ar, his deductions from a Roman-Syrian law-book of the 5th cent, of our era have been objected to, because of its date. But the deductions agree well with the NT, and it is highly probable that the law-book, which is of the nature of a compilation, re-echoes in a large degree the old Seleucid law.
(a) Roman and Greek wills. — The Greek will once properly executed and recorded— the record- ing took place in the testator's lifetime — was irre- vocable, and so it is in Gal 3", where St. Paul applies the custom to the Jewish covenant or testament, while at that time a Roman will was revocable by the testator, for it was a secret docu- ment and was not recorded (Lightfoot denies that a will is intended in Gal 3'°, and translates ' cove- nant '). In He 9'"- the will is of the Roman kind ; it can take effect only after the death of the tes- tator. The inference is that among those to whom Galatians is addressed the Romans left the older local (Greek) law on the subject untouched, and that the persons addressed therefore lived in a district that was highly Hellenized ; while the persons addressed in Hebrews (Jewish Christians in Palestine, or possibly in Rome?) had received Roman law in this respect (Ramsay, Gal., pp.
ROMAN LAW IN THE NT
KOMAN LAW IN THE NT 407
350 ff., 364 flf.). See also ADOPTION, § 2; Heir,
§2. . , ,
(A) Lawns to coming of age. — Here, again, Greek and Koniiin law dittered. In Gal 4= the father names the date at which the heir conies of age. In Roman law a chihl was undiT a ' tutor ' till he was 14 years old, when he could make a will and dispose of his own proiiei ty ; then under a ' curator,' who managed the proiJerty, till he was 2'). Tlie distinction was not known at Athens, but it is found in provincial Greek cities. In 4- the ' tutor' (iwlrpoiToi) and the ' curator ' (o/Koi-i^os) are both mentioned. But though in this respect Galatia followed Rome, it did not do so in tlie other respect, for the father is said to appoint (i.e. by will) the term during which these officers should have authoritj' over his son (Ramsay, Gal., p. 31)1 tl'.). See Heir, § 2.
(c) Law as to the position of children. — In this matter the (5reek and the Roman law agreed, but they dittered from the Hebrew law. A son of tlie master of the house by a slave mother was, by Greek and Roman law alike, a slave ; but, accord- ing to Hebrew law, the status of tlie father en- nobled the child, who was free. Thus Dan and Asher were not slaves, though their mothers were. Hence the illustration of Gal 4-''^' about the two sons of Abraham, the son of Hagar being born 'unto bondage,' would appeal to the Galatians, who lived under Roman-Greek law, while it would not appeal in the same way to one who was brought up witliout reference to tliat law (Ramsay, Gal., p. 434).
4. Attitude of the law to the Christian Church. — The Roman law recognized Judaism, though it was not the State religion, as a rcligio licita ; it was tolerated, and no one could be punished for being a Jew. But no religion which was not recognized by the State was lawful, and as Christi- anity had never been so recognized it was from that fact a religio illicita. It has, however, been disputed when the Roman law in this respect was tirst actively put into force. Many writers, espe- cially in Germany, treat Trajan as the first real persecutor, maintaining that before his time Chris- tianity was confused with Judaism, and that Nero and Domitian were merely capricious persecutors of individuals. A damaging indictment of this view is made by Lightfoot (op. cit. i. 1-17). There is no doubt that at the very first Chi'istians were looked upon merely as Jews (e.g. Ac 16-"). At Corinth Gallio treats the question before him as one of Jewish law (18'°). St. Paul could hardly have held his favourable view of the State organ- ization and of its power for furthering the gospel had it been otherwise. But it seems highly prob- able, if not certain, that at least from tlie time of Nero Christianity was looked upon as a distinct sect, and therefore as illegal. Tacitus (Ann. xv. 44) cle.arly treats it as having been a distinct religion in the time of Nero ; he mentions its followers as ' those wliora the common people used to call Christians ' — the use of the imperfect ' appel- labat ' shows that he is not, as has been alleged, projecting the ideas of his own time into that of the middle of the 1st cent, (he himself was born c. A.D. 55). Suetonius, who was a few years younger than Tacitus, calls Christianity 'a novel and malignant superstition' (Nero, 16). Even had there been confusion between the two religions in Nero's time, by the time of Domitian, when Emperor-worship was entjiusiastically pressed, and the Imperial policy thus became directly antagon- istic to Christianity, there could be no possibility of confusing the two. The Jews themselves were active in making the distinction manifest to the authorities. In Ac 19^^ the Jews put forward Alexander for this very purpose. And it is incon-