Morals of the Church
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Section — Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology

Scholion III. On Civil Law

95.

I. Civil law is the complex of laws made by civil authority.

II. Civil law is distinguished:

  1. By reason of time, into old and modern law.

a) Old law, by which Roman Law is understood, consists of four parts, which are: 1. the Institutes; 2. the Digest or Pandects (pan and dechomai, as if things which contain all); 3. the Code; 4. the Novellae, as if newly issued.4

b) Modern law is the law which each kingdom has established for itself, especially from the time of the upheaval of the republic in France, that is, at the end of the eighteenth century.

  1. By reason of scope, civil law is distinguished into international and national law.

a) International law is that which is established by express pacts entered into among the rulers of nations. It is called public or private according as it moderates the relation of state to state, or of the citizen of one state to the citizen of another state.

b) National law is that which has been established for a determinate state, such as Dutch law.

1 Cf. Marcellus a Puero Jesu, Ethica moralis et socialis, pp. 336-340.

2 Cf. Lijdsman, Introductio in Ius Canonicum, n. 64 sq.

3 Cf. Lijdsman, Introductio in Ius Canonicum, n. 52 sq.

4 They are usually cited in this way: Institutes: § 1 Instit. de adoptionibus lib. I, tit. 11 = § 1, I. I, 11. Digest: the beginning of law, or fragment, 4, Digest, or Pandects, ff., de pactis, book II, title 14 = l. 4 pr. D. II, 14 (fr. 4 pr. ff. II, 14) = l. 4, § 1, D. II, 14. Code: law 7, § 1, Cod. de diversis rescriptis, book I, title 23 = l. 7, § 1, C. I, 23. Novellae: Nov. VII praef. = Nov. VII, cap. 1.

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