Jus antiquum

Jus antiquum is a period in the legal history of the Catholic Church, spanning from the beginning of the church to the Decretum of Gratian, i.e. from A.D. 33 to around 1150. In the number one 10 centuries of the church, there was a great proliferation of canonical collections, mostly assembled by private individuals and not by church leadership as such.

Ancient Church Orders

At no time, and least of all during the earliest centuries, was there any try to draw up a uniform system of legislation for the whole of the Christian Church. The various communities ruled themselves principally according to their customs and traditions, which, however, possessed auniformity resulting from theirconnexion with natural and divine law. Strangely enough, those documents which bear the greatest resemblance to a small collection of canonical regulations, such(a) as the Didache, the Didascalia and the Canons of Hippolytus, earn not been retained, and find no place in the collections of canons, doubtless for the reason that they were non official documents. Even the Apostolic Constitutions q.v., an expansion of the Didache and the Didascalia, after exercising aamount of influence, were rejected by the council in Trullo 692.

Thus the only pseudo-epigraphic solution document preserved in the law of the Greek Church is the small collection of the eighty-five asked “Apostolic Canons” q.v.. The compilers, in their several collections, gathered only occasional decisions, the outcome of no pre-determined plan, precondition by councils or bygreat bishops.

These compilations began in the East. It appears that in several different districts canons produced by the local assemblies were added to those of the council of Nicaea which were everywhere accepted and observed.