BERITO, School of. - Among the most famous 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 Augustan colony, with Italian right (Dig., 50, 15, 1).
Its chief pride was the higher School of law, already praised in 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 of Nazianzus (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 for P. Collinet, B. would have been the center for the publication and deposit of the imperial Constitutions for the East. It must have been flourishing already throughout the 3rd century, if the Const. Cum vos, in recognizing that normally the courses were completed by the students at the age of 25, exempted them from the munera publica, with the faculty of deferring their
"service" after the 25th year. The period of its greatest splendor begins with the middle of the 5th century, when the Studium received, like that of the regiae urbes (Constantinople and Rome), probably from the emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III (cf. Cod. Iust., 11, 19 [18]), the charter of erection or official recognition as a state school (privilegium studii), as Justinian acknowledges in the Const. Omnem (7). Its teachers then bore the title of Ecumenical Masters, οἱ τῆς οἰκουμένης, some of whom, such as Cyril Patricius, Donninus, Demosthenes, Eudoxius, Iamblichus and Leontius, were remembered for centuries in the Byzantine doctrinal tradition; they indeed, according to Heimbach, constitute a "new school," and their testimonies figure in the Sebli to the "Basilica."
This development of the Studium seems due to the bishop Eustathius, who before 449 erected the Cathedral, obtained from Theodosius II for the city the title of metropolis (Cod. Iust., 11, 22), until then (449-50) reserved to Tyre; and gave the School a new seat (auditoria legum) among the buildings of the cathedral (cf. Zacharias Schol.: PG 85, 1023-1025), thus succeeding more easily in obtaining the privilegium studii. Among the professors was Eussenus, the Bishop's brother.
Justinian occupied himself greatly with it, and with the Constitution Omnem he also gave a new organization to legal studies. According to the previous ratio studiorum (that of the "ecumenical masters") the course comprised four obligatory years and a fifth optional one. The students of the 1st year, nicknamed Dupondii ("two pennies"), studied the Institutiones of Gaius and the Libri singulares of Ulpian; the students of the 2nd (Edictales) the Libri ad Edictum of the same Ulpian; those of the 3rd (Papinianistae) the Responsa of Papinian; those of the 4th (Lytae: = solutores [of cases]), exercised themselves on the Responsa of Paul. The 5th year of perfection, whose students were called Prolytae i.e. = Lytis in iuris prudentia provectiores," "praesolutores" (cf. Du Cange), was reserved for the study of the imperial Constitutions. Of these, some concerned ecclesiastical law, the study of which interested not only future magistrates, but also the clergy. Justinian with his reform (in force from 1 Jan. 534), made the 5th year obligatory for all, and replaced the previous school texts with his three new legislative works, thus distributed: to the 1st year, the Institutes and the πρῶτα of the Digest (bks. 1-4); to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years, the Digest; to the 5th year, the Code. He preserved the academic terminology, but changed the ridiculous nickname of Dupondii into that of Iustiniani novi.
Instruction was imparted in Latin until the whole of the 4th century (cf. St. Gregory Thaum., loc. cit.); then Greek prevailed, which in the East was the ecclesiastical language. Times of vacation were, at least during the 5th-6th century, Saturday afternoon and Sunday (cf. Life of Severus, 16).
The students, coming from all parts of the Empire, loved student associations and the ludi or goliardic jokes (especially for the "freshmen"), some of which were prohibited, because in bad taste, by the Const. Omnem (§ 9). There were also pious associations for Christian religious practices, while many pagan students gave themselves over to magic. Following serious incidents, the magic books were requisitioned and burned before the temple of the Theotókos, in the presence of representatives of the civil and ecclesiastical authority (Life of Severus).
Once their studies were finished, judicial and administrative careers opened to the students (cf. Const. Omnem, § 6). Not a few embraced the ecclesiastical or monastic state; among them the famous Severus of Antioch and his biographer Zacharias Scholasticus, bishop of Mytilene, some martyrs, such as St. Pamphilus of Caesarea, Sts. Apphian and Edesius (3rd century), the two brothers St. Arcadius and St. John of Constantinople (5th century).
The earthquake of 6 July 551, which destroyed the city burying 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 5 columns with their capitals belonging to the portico of the ancient school have come to light. It was transferred temporarily to Sidon, and after some years 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 way saved Roman Law for posterity. Without this hearth 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 the ancient doctrine" (C. Ferrini).
How much it then influenced the material development of law cannot be determined: the question involves the whole complex question 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, resolutely exclude (Riccobono).
Bibliography11 works
On 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, Milan 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, Milan 1935, pp. 81-133 (critical essay reprinted in Studi di Diritto romano, V, Milan 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, Rome 1947, pp. 45-58; P. Collinet, La nature des actions, des interdictions et des exceptions dans l'oeuvre de Justinien, Paris 1947 (posthumous); the author's thesis, that through the work of the masters of B. Roman law passed from the formalistic phase to the substantive one as it is understood and constructed in the modern world, is fully upheld by Prof. S. Riccobono, La definizione del Ius al tempo di Adriano, Palermo 1949 (offprint from the Annali del Sem. Giuridico di Palermo, 20 (1940)), pp. 105 and 123.