From the library of Tribonian they chose forty, the most eminent
civilians of former times: two thousand treatises were comprised in an
abridgment of fifty books; and it has been carefully re-reduced in this
abstract to the moderate number of one hundred and fifty thousand. The
edition of this great work was delayed a month after that of the
_Institutes_, and it seemed reasonable that the elements should precede
the digest of the Roman law. As soon as the Emperor had approved their
labors, he ratified by his legislative power the speculations of these
private citizens: their commentaries on the _Twelve Tables_, the
perpetual edict, the laws of the people, and the decrees of the senate
succeeded to the authority of the text; and the text was abandoned as a
useless, though venerable, relic of antiquity. The _Code_, the
_Pandects_, and the _Institutes_ were declared to be the legitimate
system of civil jurisprudence; they alone were admitted in the
tribunals, and they alone were taught in the academies of Rome,
Constantinople, and Berytus. Justinian addressed to the senate and
provinces his _eternal oracles_; and his pride, under the mask of piety,
ascribed the consummation of this great design to the support and
inspiration of the Deity.
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