The ''Sententiae Syriacae'' (Syriac Sentences), also known as the ''Laws of the Christian and Just Kings'', is a

late antique Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English has ...

collection of 102 propositions of

Roman law Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Jus ...

. The propositions, on diverse subjects and organized indiscriminately, are drawn mainly from the statutes (''constitutiones'') of the Emperor Diocletian (especially those of the years 293–4 in the

Codex Hermogenianus The ''Codex Hermogenianus'' (Eng. Hermogenian Code) is the title of a collection of constitutions (legal pronouncements) of the Roman emperors of the first tetrarchy ( Diocletian, Maximian Augusti, and Constantius and Galerius Caesars), mostly f ...

), but also from the '' Pauli Sententiae'' and the statutes of

Constantine the Great Constantine I ( , ; la, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, ; ; 27 February 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, the first one to convert to Christianity. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterran ...

and

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. Originally composed in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

in the

eastern Roman Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantin ...

, the compilation today survives only in

Syriac Syriac may refer to: * Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages ...

translations.Detlef Libes (2000), "Roman Law", in

Averil Cameron Dame Averil Millicent Cameron ( Sutton; born 8 February 1940), often cited as A. M. Cameron, is a British historian. She was Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine History at the University of Oxford, and the Warden of Keble College, Oxfor ...

Bryan Ward-Perkins Bryan Ward-Perkins is an archaeologist and historian of the later Roman Empire and early Middle Ages, with a particular focus on the transitional period between those two eras, an historical sub-field also known as Late Antiquity. Ward-Perkins ...

and Michael Whitby (eds.), ''The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume XIV — Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425–600'' (Cambridge University Press), pp. 238–59, at 255–56. In 1968 Walter Selb brought the legal text to general attention with the publication of a fragmentary manuscript of the eighth or ninth century (

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...

, Syr. 560). He gave it the title ''Sententiae Syriacae''. Several complete manuscripts subsequently came to light. In 1976

Arthur Võõbus Arthur Võõbus ( – 25 September 1988) was an Estonian theologian, orientalist, and church historian. Biography Arthur Võõbus was born in Matjama village, Tartu County, Livonia, Russian Empire as the son of a teacher. In 1928, he comple ...

published the first full edition with an English translation based on the manuscript Damascus Patriarchate 8/11, but mistook it for a new recension of the

Syro-Roman law book The Syro-Roman law book (or Syro-Roman code) is a compilation of secular legal texts from the eastern Roman Empire originally composed in Greek in the late 5th century, but surviving only in Syriac translation. As a work of Roman law, the origina ...

. He published a new edition with facsimile based on the Damascus manuscript and two new manuscripts in 1977. Selb, recognising the true significance of the work and having discovered further manuscripts, completed a new critical edition with a German translation in 1990. He dates the final version of the text to between 472 and 529. S. P. Brock (1994), "Review of ''Sententiae Syriacae'' by Walter Selb", ''Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society'', 4(2), 255.

Editions

*Selb, Walter. "Sententiae syriacae". ''Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte'' 98 (1968): 400–04. *Selb, Walter. ''Sententiae syriacae''. Vienna: 1990. * Võõbus, Arthur. ''The Synodicon in the West Syrian Tradition'', Vol. 2. Leuven: 1976, text no. 68, pp 91–100. *Võõbus, Arthur. ''Discovery of an Unknown Recension of the Syro-Roman Lawbook''. Stockholm: 1977.

Notes

{{reflist Roman law Byzantine law Texts in Syriac