BERITO, SCUOLA di. — Among the most celebrated of antiquity (3rd–6th centuries). The city (Βηροτός, Berytus), called by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus “the most Romanized” of the East (PG 10, 1065), was an colonia augusta, with Italic right (Dig., 50, 15, 1).
Its chief distinction was the higher School of Law, praised as early as 239 by Thaumaturgus himself (PG 10, 1065); hence Libanius (Ep., 652) and Zacharias Scholasticus (PG 85, 1017) call B. “mother of the laws”; so too Justinian, calling it legum civitas (Const. Tanta, § 9 gr.) and legum nutrix (Const. Omnem, 7); St. Gregory Nazianzen (Carm., II, 2, 5, no. 227) defines it as legum sedes Romanorum (PG 37, 1538).
It was founded toward the end of the 2nd century A.D., if not earlier, because according to P. Collinet, B. was the center for the publication and deposit of the imperial Constitutions for the East. It must already have been flourishing throughout the 3rd century, since the Const. Cum vos, while recognizing that the courses were normally completed by the students at the age of 25, exempted them from the munera publica, with the possibility of postponing their “service” until after their twenty-fifth year. The period of its greatest splendor began in the middle of the 5th century, when the Studium received, like those of the regiae urbes (Constantinople and Rome), probably from the emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III (cf. Cod. Iust., 11, 19 [18]), the charter establishing or officially recognizing state schools (privilegium studii), as Justinian acknowledges in the Const. Omnem (7). Its teachers then received the title of Ecumenical Masters, οἱ τῆς οἰκουμένης; some of them, such as Cyril Patricius, Donninus, Demosthenes, Eudoxius, Amblichus, and Leontius, were remembered for centuries in Byzantine doctrinal tradition. According to Heimbach, they in fact constituted a “new school,” and their testimonies appear in the Scholia to the “Basilica.”
This development of the Studium seems to have been due to Bishop Eustathius, who, before 449, built the Cathedral, obtained from Theodosius II for the city the title of metropolis (Cod. Iust., 11, 22), until then (449–50) reserved for Tyre, and gave the School a new site (auditoria legum) among the buildings of the cathedral (cf. Zacharias Schol.: PG 85, 1023–1025), thus more easily succeeding in obtaining the privilegium studii. Among the professors was Eussenus, the Bishop’s brother.
Justinian took a great interest in it, and through the Constitution Omnem also gave legal studies a new organization. According to the previous ratio studiorum (that of the “Ecumenical Masters”), the course comprised four compulsory years and a fifth optional year. The students of the first year, nicknamed Dupondii (“two pennies”), studied the Institutiones of Gaius and the Libri singulares of Ulpian; those of the second year (Edictales) studied the Libri ad Edictum of Ulpian himself; those of the third year (Papinianistae) studied the Responsa of Papinian; and those of the fourth year (Lytae: = solutores [of cases]) practiced on the Responsa of Paul. The fifth year was for advanced study; its students, called Prolytae, that is, “Lytis in iuris prudentia provectiores,” “praesolutores” (cf. Du Cange), were devoted to the study of the Imperial Constitutions. Some of these concerned ecclesiastical law, whose study interested not only future magistrates but also the clergy. With his reform (in force from 1 January 534), Justinian made the fifth year compulsory for all and replaced the earlier school texts with his three new legislative works, distributed as follows: in the first year, the Institutions and the πρῶτα of the Digest (books 1–4); in the second, third, and fourth years, the Digest; and in the fifth year, the Code. He retained the academic terminology but changed the ridiculous nickname Dupondii to Iustiniani novi.
Instruction was given in Latin through the entire 4th century (cf. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, loc. cit.); afterward Greek prevailed, as it was the ecclesiastical language in the East. There were holidays, at least during the 5th–6th centuries, on Saturday afternoon and Sunday (cf. Life of Severus, 16).
The students, who came from every part of the Empire, enjoyed student associations and ludi, or academic pranks (especially for “freshmen”), some of which were prohibited as being in poor taste by the Const. Omnem (§ 9). There were also pious associations for Christian religious practices, while many pagan students devoted themselves to magic. Following serious incidents, the magical books were confiscated and burned before the temple of the Theotócos, in the presence of representatives of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities (Life of Severus).
Once their studies were completed, the students had access to judicial and administrative careers (cf. Const. Omnem, § 6). Quite a few embraced the ecclesiastical or monastic state, among them the celebrated Severus of Antioch and his biographer Zacharias Scholasticus, bishop of Mytilene; several martyrs, such as St. Pamphilus of Caesarea, Saints Aphianus and Aedesius (3rd century), and the two brothers St. Arcadius and St. John of Constantinople (5th century).
The earthquake of 6 July 551, which destroyed the city and buried 30,000 people (cf. Agathias, Hist., 2, 15; PG 88, 1360–62; and Frag. hist. Tusculana, 4; PG 85, 1821–24), also marked the end of the glorious School. Recently, five columns with their capitals, belonging to the portico of the ancient school, have come to light. It was temporarily transferred to Sidon; after a few years it was brought back to B., but in 560 a fire destroyed its new temporary buildings. In 600 the city was still in ruins; in 635 it fell into the hands of the Arabs.
“It was the School of B. that in a certain sense preserved Roman Law for posterity. Without this center in the East, Justinian would have found neither the men nor the means nor the culture sufficient to gather in the Code and the Digests so many relics of ancient doctrine” (C. Ferrini).
The extent to which it influenced the material development of the law cannot be precisely determined: the question involves the entire complex matter of principle, debated among scholars, concerning the ideal contribution of the schools of the East to the internal evolution of Roman Law; a contribution which some admit and exalt (Collinet), while others, on the contrary, categorically deny (Riccobono).
Regarding the question of the influence on the doctrinal development of Roman Law: G. Rotondo, Procedimenti scolastici delle riforme di Giustiniano (unpublished), in Scritti Giuridici, I, Milano 1922, pp. 437–52; P. De Francisci, L'azione degli elementi stranieri sullo sviluppo e sulla crisi del Diritto romano, in Archivio Giuridico, 93 (1925), pp. 195–97; E. Albertario, Introduzione storica allo studio del Diritto romano giustiniano, Milano 1935, pp. 81–133 (critical essay reproduced in Studi di Diritto romano, V, Milano 1937, pp. 145–94); E. Volterra, Diritto romano e Diritti orientali, Bologna 1937; S. Riccobono, La perdita della scienza romanistica con la scomparsa del Ferrini, in Miscellanea Contardo Ferrini, Roma 1947, pp. 45–58; P. Collinet, La nature des actions, des interdictions et des exceptions dans l'oeuvre de Justinien, Parigi 1947 (posthumous); the author’s thesis that, through the work of the teachers of B., Roman Law passed from the formalistic phase to the substantive phase as understood and constructed in the modern world is fully upheld by Prof. S. Riccobono, La definizione del Ius al tempo di Adriano, Palermo 1949 (excerpt from the Annali del Sem. Giuridico di Palermo, 20 (1940)), pp. 105 and 123.