Law and Legality in the Greek East: The Byzantine Canonical Tradition, 381–883 by David Wagschal (review)

• Autores: Paul Magdalino
• Localización: Journal of early Christian studies: Journal of the North American Patristic Society, ISSN 1067-6341, Nº. 4, 2017, págs. 655-656
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Interpreters of Byzantine canon law within the Orthodox tradition have either tried to fit it into a formalist, jurisprudential straitjacket, or they have made a theological virtue out of its lack of legal formalism, seeing the canons as only the superficial aspect of a divine, spiritual jurisdiction that transcends mere rules and regulations. In Wagschal’s words, “it remains difficult not to read Byzantine canon law as a very real counterpoint to the formalist instincts of mainstream civil-legal culture as it has developed in Europe since the high middle ages . . Wagschal’s book-length development of this thesis has profound implications not only for Byzantine legal history, but for Byzantine studies in general, because it demonstrates that Byzantine law has to be studied as a function of Byzantine logos, a polysemic word that can be roughly rendered, in this context, as “learning” or “intellectual/literary discourse” or “reasoning eloquence.”