[The Origins of Contemporary France Volume 6 (of 6) by Hippolyte A. Taine]@TWC D-Link bookThe Origins of Contemporary France Volume 6 (of 6) CHAPTER III THE CLERGY 49/63
The Latin language and the meager Latin philosophy were quite unequal to the undertaking, and accordingly the western or Latin-speaking provinces of the Empire adopted the conclusions of the East without disputing or reviewing them."] [Footnote 5326: Maine, "Ancient Law," p.357 "The difference between the two theological systems is accounted for by the fact that, in passing from the East to the West, theological speculation had passed from a climate of Greek metaphysics to a climate of Roman law." Out of this arose the Western controversies on the subject of Free-will and Divine Providence.
"The problem of Free-will arises when we contemplate a metaphysical conception under a legal aspect."] [Footnote 5327: Ibid.
"The nature of Sin and its transmission by inheritance; the debt owed by man and its vicarious satisfaction; the necessity and sufficiency of the Atonement; above all the apparent antagonism between Free-will and the Divine Providence-these were the points which the West began to debate as ardently as ever the East had discussed the articles of its more special creed." This juridical fashion of conceiving theology appears in the works of the oldest Latin theologians, Tertullian and Saint Cyprian.] [Footnote 5328: Ibid.
Among the technical notions borrowed from law and here used in Latin theology we may cite "the Roman penal system, the Roman theory of the obligations established by Contract or Delict," the intercession or act by which one assumes the obligation contracted by another, "the Roman view of Debts and of the modes of incurring, extinguishing and transmitting them, the Roman notion of the continuance of individual existence by Universal Succession,"] [Footnote 5329: Cf.
Fustel de Coulanges, "La Gaule Romaine," p.96 and following pages, on the rapidity, facility and depth of the transformation by which Gaul became Latinized.] [Footnote 5330: The Church of England, in its confession of faith, makes this express declaration.] [Footnote 5331: As called by Joseph de Maistre, referring to the Greek church.] [Footnote 5332: Duke Sermoneta-Gaetani has shown in his geographic map of the "Divine Comedy" the exact correspondence of this poem with the "Somme" by Saint Thomas .-- It was already said of Dante in the middle ages, Theologus Dantes nullius dogmatis expers.] [Footnote 5333: Cf.
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