This thesis examines the influence of the Church father Origen, ca. 185-254, on the formation and... more This thesis examines the influence of the Church father Origen, ca. 185-254, on the formation and development of the New Testament canon. Origen wrote about and understood the writings of both the Old and New Testaments as sharing a genuine unity, encouraging this idea by being the first person on record to use the term “New Testament” to refer to a number of Christian writings which complimented what was then known to some as the “Old Testament,” better known generally as the Jewish Scriptures. Origen also recognized that both collections were divinely inspired, and inspired by one and the same God. Yet it is also true that when Origen referred to the Jewish Scriptures in his writings, he typically prefixed the word “Scriptures” with the words “sacred,” “holy,” or “divine,” whereas he refers to the Gospels and Apostolic letters as merely “Scripture.” This bifurcation in Origen’s thinking actually makes the evidence in his work on the unity of the two sets of writings more profound ...
Words are important. We order our lives around words. States and international bodies, themselves... more Words are important. We order our lives around words. States and international bodies, themselves, are set forth as being based on what amount to collections of words in constitutions, charters, and codes. But these written legal instruments all refer to more basic philosophical principles and notions of justice, and those are the basis and justification for the laws themselves. But that they are written is important, and it gives us a starting point for trying to determine just what those principles are on which our society is based. We can also look back at the laws of earlier times to see just what principles guided their justifications, and very likely see reflections of our own choices on principles in theirs. The various states of the world constitute themselves based on documents which refer to these principles, as noted. What makes them a state, and one that can be thought of and recognized as a state vis-à-vis other states, is based on another principle laden idea, that of state sovereignty. But state sovereignty is not a thing, it does not really have an existence, instead it describes things, groups of people who order their lives around words. State sovereignty, in a real sense, is just words; what is far more important is what it signifies, and that is fairness and functional order in a defined societal unit.
Words have been essential to the creation of sovereign states since at least, referring to the history of the Western world, the seventh century B.C.E; and for most of the intervening twenty-seven centuries, the belief in a single deity has set the parameters for what the Constitutions of the various Western states in our common history were based on. It is only in the last five centuries, perhaps, that Religion began to lose its sin qua non status in the organization and delivery of social services and justice in the Western experience. If historical context means everything, then historical context is everything when it comes to interpreting historical events. Like historian John Lukacs noted: “…the history of everything amounts to the thing itself.” Constantine and other emperors of Rome made laws they believed would encourage the stabilizing of their societies; we make laws for the same reason. We use the same means, legislation, but we justify it not on the pleasure of the gods, but on principles we believe in just as strongly. But these principles are in flux, and just as religion was jettisoned as a justification, so some of our ideas about justice have had to change.
In legal philosophy, there is a question that has troubled scholars for at least two centuries: t... more In legal philosophy, there is a question that has troubled scholars for at least two centuries: that of how we ought to understand what the law is, in so far as it may be either something which exists on its own apart from any system of morals, legal positivism, or whether law is intrinsically connected to morality, natural law. Whether the view one takes on this question will produce either better or worse results stemming from the professional actions of lawyers, judges, and legal scholars in both domestic and international legal contexts was both passionately contended by Gustav Radbruch (1878-1949), as a once positivist converted to natural law, and hotly debated by Lon Fuller (1902-1978) and Herbert Hart (1907-1992) on behalf of natural law and positivism, respectively. After living through World War 2 and witnessing the horrible crimes against individuals and humanity carried out by the Nazis, Radbruch came to the conclusion that even if a legal system rested on legal certaint...
Socrates and Cicero thought of justice simpliciter as connected to functionality. This paper cons... more Socrates and Cicero thought of justice simpliciter as connected to functionality. This paper considers some of the characteristics of what they thought of as justice as well as the confluence of ideas in various selections from both philosophers.
Judges in common law countries make decisions within a context of accountability created by const... more Judges in common law countries make decisions within a context of accountability created by constitutions, statute law, case law, the parties in the case, and the decision itself. Here the process is likened to the rungs on a ladder that allow one to reach an apple.
The following paper claims that the theoretical construct of sovereignty was not only expropriate... more The following paper claims that the theoretical construct of sovereignty was not only expropriated by the Christian religion out of ancient religious beliefs – shared with them by both Jewish and Muslim traditions – but, perhaps more importantly for modern policy considerations, that it always insisted on a positive moral imperative being placed on the person or body executing it in practice.
In this article I suggest that 'the law,' (hereinafter the LAW) can be most functionally understo... more In this article I suggest that 'the law,' (hereinafter the LAW) can be most functionally understood as a conglomeration of referent ideals which emanate from the minds of law creators, and are the source of what we regularly understand as laws. I separate from the concept of the LAW the usual suspects of constitutions, codes, acts, and charters, etc. I separate these from their inceptional ideals and suggest we ascribe a label to these familiar kinds of categories such as 'lower order laws,' being careful to confine our discussions of them with the exclusive use of a small 'l' (law), whenever grammatically possible. To make this separation clearer, I have chosen to use the word 'referent' to represent the higher order LAW which the lower order laws all refer to in one way or another. By naming ideals 'referents' there is a constant reminder to the reader that laws are ontologically inseparable from the ideals which they refer to. The laws, then, are referrers of a sort, in other words they refer to something, and that something is the referent ideals which first existed in the minds of those responsible for the creation of laws. These referents, the LAW, also have an ongoing existence by the very fact of the various laws’ continued use. The fact that law creators may be long dead or have changed their views does not change the fact that those initial referents still exist as the basis for any particular law in question.
In the following research I discuss a number of issues which are fundamental to my understanding ... more In the following research I discuss a number of issues which are fundamental to my understanding of how best to reconstruct past human events from the methodological outlook of a legal historian. Herein one will find an explanation of and justification for the various aspects of the historical method and philosophy I employ in my larger research area involving the Roman Emperor Constantine, the Christian Church, and state sovereignty. I also discuss some lines of intersection between modern day legal actors and historians to show how their common goal of getting to the truth of a question may encourage the former to consider using some of the same hermeneutical tools as the latter. History as a discipline has always been primarily concerned with humans and their actions, and this has been noted by many historians: Marc Bloch and R.G. Collingwood come to mind as being two of the strongest proponents of this dictum. 1 Since the field of human events in the past is so large, I suggest it behooves us, then, not to confine ourselves too narrowly within our investigations concerning the hermeneutical tools we employ in the study of the multivariate ways that humans have acted and existed since their appearance some two-hundred thousand years ago: and to this end I employ Sub specie aeternitatis as my research's inclusive-contextual raison d'être. This perspective requires an acknowledgment that scholarly observations about the reality of the human condition from other disciplines must be employed in the effort to be as wide-ranging in our research method gathering as the historical method will allow: and thus a number of key contributions from authors in various academic fields will be discussed to highlight the relative importance of their ideas to my own. I will be using examples within my own
This thesis examines the influence of the Church father Origen, ca. 185-254, on the formation and... more This thesis examines the influence of the Church father Origen, ca. 185-254, on the formation and development of the New Testament canon. Origen wrote about and understood the writings of both the Old and New Testaments as sharing a genuine unity, encouraging this idea by being the first person on record to use the term “New Testament” to refer to a number of Christian writings which complimented what was then known to some as the “Old Testament,” better known generally as the Jewish Scriptures. Origen also recognized that both collections were divinely inspired, and inspired by one and the same God. Yet it is also true that when Origen referred to the Jewish Scriptures in his writings, he typically prefixed the word “Scriptures” with the words “sacred,” “holy,” or “divine,” whereas he refers to the Gospels and Apostolic letters as merely “Scripture.” This bifurcation in Origen’s thinking actually makes the evidence in his work on the unity of the two sets of writings more profound ...
Words are important. We order our lives around words. States and international bodies, themselves... more Words are important. We order our lives around words. States and international bodies, themselves, are set forth as being based on what amount to collections of words in constitutions, charters, and codes. But these written legal instruments all refer to more basic philosophical principles and notions of justice, and those are the basis and justification for the laws themselves. But that they are written is important, and it gives us a starting point for trying to determine just what those principles are on which our society is based. We can also look back at the laws of earlier times to see just what principles guided their justifications, and very likely see reflections of our own choices on principles in theirs. The various states of the world constitute themselves based on documents which refer to these principles, as noted. What makes them a state, and one that can be thought of and recognized as a state vis-à-vis other states, is based on another principle laden idea, that of state sovereignty. But state sovereignty is not a thing, it does not really have an existence, instead it describes things, groups of people who order their lives around words. State sovereignty, in a real sense, is just words; what is far more important is what it signifies, and that is fairness and functional order in a defined societal unit.
Words have been essential to the creation of sovereign states since at least, referring to the history of the Western world, the seventh century B.C.E; and for most of the intervening twenty-seven centuries, the belief in a single deity has set the parameters for what the Constitutions of the various Western states in our common history were based on. It is only in the last five centuries, perhaps, that Religion began to lose its sin qua non status in the organization and delivery of social services and justice in the Western experience. If historical context means everything, then historical context is everything when it comes to interpreting historical events. Like historian John Lukacs noted: “…the history of everything amounts to the thing itself.” Constantine and other emperors of Rome made laws they believed would encourage the stabilizing of their societies; we make laws for the same reason. We use the same means, legislation, but we justify it not on the pleasure of the gods, but on principles we believe in just as strongly. But these principles are in flux, and just as religion was jettisoned as a justification, so some of our ideas about justice have had to change.
In legal philosophy, there is a question that has troubled scholars for at least two centuries: t... more In legal philosophy, there is a question that has troubled scholars for at least two centuries: that of how we ought to understand what the law is, in so far as it may be either something which exists on its own apart from any system of morals, legal positivism, or whether law is intrinsically connected to morality, natural law. Whether the view one takes on this question will produce either better or worse results stemming from the professional actions of lawyers, judges, and legal scholars in both domestic and international legal contexts was both passionately contended by Gustav Radbruch (1878-1949), as a once positivist converted to natural law, and hotly debated by Lon Fuller (1902-1978) and Herbert Hart (1907-1992) on behalf of natural law and positivism, respectively. After living through World War 2 and witnessing the horrible crimes against individuals and humanity carried out by the Nazis, Radbruch came to the conclusion that even if a legal system rested on legal certaint...
Socrates and Cicero thought of justice simpliciter as connected to functionality. This paper cons... more Socrates and Cicero thought of justice simpliciter as connected to functionality. This paper considers some of the characteristics of what they thought of as justice as well as the confluence of ideas in various selections from both philosophers.
Judges in common law countries make decisions within a context of accountability created by const... more Judges in common law countries make decisions within a context of accountability created by constitutions, statute law, case law, the parties in the case, and the decision itself. Here the process is likened to the rungs on a ladder that allow one to reach an apple.
The following paper claims that the theoretical construct of sovereignty was not only expropriate... more The following paper claims that the theoretical construct of sovereignty was not only expropriated by the Christian religion out of ancient religious beliefs – shared with them by both Jewish and Muslim traditions – but, perhaps more importantly for modern policy considerations, that it always insisted on a positive moral imperative being placed on the person or body executing it in practice.
In this article I suggest that 'the law,' (hereinafter the LAW) can be most functionally understo... more In this article I suggest that 'the law,' (hereinafter the LAW) can be most functionally understood as a conglomeration of referent ideals which emanate from the minds of law creators, and are the source of what we regularly understand as laws. I separate from the concept of the LAW the usual suspects of constitutions, codes, acts, and charters, etc. I separate these from their inceptional ideals and suggest we ascribe a label to these familiar kinds of categories such as 'lower order laws,' being careful to confine our discussions of them with the exclusive use of a small 'l' (law), whenever grammatically possible. To make this separation clearer, I have chosen to use the word 'referent' to represent the higher order LAW which the lower order laws all refer to in one way or another. By naming ideals 'referents' there is a constant reminder to the reader that laws are ontologically inseparable from the ideals which they refer to. The laws, then, are referrers of a sort, in other words they refer to something, and that something is the referent ideals which first existed in the minds of those responsible for the creation of laws. These referents, the LAW, also have an ongoing existence by the very fact of the various laws’ continued use. The fact that law creators may be long dead or have changed their views does not change the fact that those initial referents still exist as the basis for any particular law in question.
In the following research I discuss a number of issues which are fundamental to my understanding ... more In the following research I discuss a number of issues which are fundamental to my understanding of how best to reconstruct past human events from the methodological outlook of a legal historian. Herein one will find an explanation of and justification for the various aspects of the historical method and philosophy I employ in my larger research area involving the Roman Emperor Constantine, the Christian Church, and state sovereignty. I also discuss some lines of intersection between modern day legal actors and historians to show how their common goal of getting to the truth of a question may encourage the former to consider using some of the same hermeneutical tools as the latter. History as a discipline has always been primarily concerned with humans and their actions, and this has been noted by many historians: Marc Bloch and R.G. Collingwood come to mind as being two of the strongest proponents of this dictum. 1 Since the field of human events in the past is so large, I suggest it behooves us, then, not to confine ourselves too narrowly within our investigations concerning the hermeneutical tools we employ in the study of the multivariate ways that humans have acted and existed since their appearance some two-hundred thousand years ago: and to this end I employ Sub specie aeternitatis as my research's inclusive-contextual raison d'être. This perspective requires an acknowledgment that scholarly observations about the reality of the human condition from other disciplines must be employed in the effort to be as wide-ranging in our research method gathering as the historical method will allow: and thus a number of key contributions from authors in various academic fields will be discussed to highlight the relative importance of their ideas to my own. I will be using examples within my own
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Papers by C.G. Bateman, PhD
Words have been essential to the creation of sovereign states since at least, referring to the history of the Western world, the seventh century B.C.E; and for most of the intervening twenty-seven centuries, the belief in a single deity has set the parameters for what the Constitutions of the various Western states in our common history were based on. It is only in the last five centuries, perhaps, that Religion began to lose its sin qua non status in the organization and delivery of social services and justice in the Western experience. If historical context means everything, then historical context is everything when it comes to interpreting historical events. Like historian John Lukacs noted: “…the history of everything amounts to the thing itself.” Constantine and other emperors of Rome made laws they believed would encourage the stabilizing of their societies; we make laws for the same reason. We use the same means, legislation, but we justify it not on the pleasure of the gods, but on principles we believe in just as strongly. But these principles are in flux, and just as religion was jettisoned as a justification, so some of our ideas about justice have had to change.
Words have been essential to the creation of sovereign states since at least, referring to the history of the Western world, the seventh century B.C.E; and for most of the intervening twenty-seven centuries, the belief in a single deity has set the parameters for what the Constitutions of the various Western states in our common history were based on. It is only in the last five centuries, perhaps, that Religion began to lose its sin qua non status in the organization and delivery of social services and justice in the Western experience. If historical context means everything, then historical context is everything when it comes to interpreting historical events. Like historian John Lukacs noted: “…the history of everything amounts to the thing itself.” Constantine and other emperors of Rome made laws they believed would encourage the stabilizing of their societies; we make laws for the same reason. We use the same means, legislation, but we justify it not on the pleasure of the gods, but on principles we believe in just as strongly. But these principles are in flux, and just as religion was jettisoned as a justification, so some of our ideas about justice have had to change.