laws or replaced them by new ones.' Henceforward * Vit. Const. 1. iv. c. 26, where the most important laws of Constantine are re- capitulated. Even the heathen Libanius (Basil, ii. p. 146) records that under Con stantiiie and his sons legislation was much more favorable to the lower classes; though he accounts for this only by the personal clemency of the emperors. § 18. INFLUENCE OF CHKISTIANITY ON LEGISLATION. 109 we feel beneath the toga of the Roman lawgiver the warmth of a Christian heart. We perceive the influence of the evan- gelical preaching and exhortations of the father oi' monasticism out of tlie Egyptian desert to the rulers of the world, Constan- tiue and his sons: that they should show justice and mercy to the poor, and remember the judgment to come. Even Julian, with all his hatred of the Christians, could not entirely renoimce the influence of his education and of the reigning spirit of the age, but had to borrow from the church many of his measures for the reformation of heathenism. He recognized especially the duty of benevolence toward all men, charity to the poor, and clemency to prisoners ; though this was contrary to the heathen sentiment, and though he proved himself anything but benevolent toward the Christians. But then the total failure of his philanthropic plans and measures shows that the true love for man can thrive only in Christian soil. And it is remarkable, that, with all this involuntary con- cession to Christianity, Julian himself passed not a single law in line with the progress of natural rights and equity.' His successors trod in the footsteps of Constantino, and to the end of the West Roman empire kept the civil legislation imder the influence of the Christian spirit, though thus often occasioning conflicts with the still lingering heathen element, and sometimes temporary apostasy and reaction. We observe also, in remarkable contradiction, that while the laws were milder in some respects, they were in others even more severe and bloody than ever before : a paradox to be explained no doubt in part by the despotic character of the Byzantine gov- ernment, and in part by the disorders of the time.^ It now became necessary to collect the imperial ordinances ' ' Troplong, p. 127. C. Schmidt, 378. ' Comp. de Rhoer, p. 59 sqq. The origin of this increased severity of penal laws is, at all events, not to be sought in the church ; for in the fourth and fifth cen- turies she was still rather averse to the death penalty. Comp. Ambros. Ep. 25 and 26 (al. 51 and 52), and Augustine, Ep. 153 ad Macedonium. ' Constitutiones or Leges. If answers to questions, they were called Rescripta ; if spontaneous decrees, Edicta. 110 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. in a codex or corjpus juris. Of the first two attempts of this kind, made in the middle of the fourth century, only some fragments remain.' But we have the Codex Theodosianus,