its entire scientific work, and
with the Romans in the third, fourth and fifth centuries, during the
decadence of other studies, the science of law was still in full
force and vigor.[5326] Hence, when the Occidentals undertook the
interpretation of texts and the elaboration of the Creed it was with
the habits and faculties of jurisconsults, with the preoccupations and
mental reservations of statesmen, with the mental and verbal instruments
which they found suitable. In those days, the Greek doctors, in conflict
with the monophysites and monothelites, brought out the theory of
the divine essence; at the same date, the Latin doctors, opposing the
Pelagians, Semi-Pelagians and Donatists, founded the theory of human
obligation.[5327] Obligation, said the Roman jurists, is a lien of law"
by which we are held to doing or suffering something to free us from
indebtedness. Out of this juridical conception, which is a masterpiece
of Roman jurisprudence, issued, as with a bud full of sap, the new
development of the Creed.--On the one hand, we are obligated towards
God, for, in relation to him, we are, in legal terms, insolvent debtors,
heirs of an infinite debt, incapable of paying it and of satisfying
our creditor except through the interpostion of a superhuman third
person[5328] who assumes our indebtedness as his own; still more
precisely, we are delinquents, guilty from birth and by inheritance,
condemned en masse and then pardoned en masse, but in such a way that
this pardon, a pure favor, not warranted by any merit of our own, always
remains continual and revocable at will; that, for a few only, it is
or becomes plenary and lasting, that no one amongst us can be sure of
obtaining it, and that its award, determined beforehand on high, forever
remains for us a State secret. Hence the prolonged controversies
on Predestination, Free-will and Original Sin, and the profound
investigations on man before, during and after the Fall. Hence, also,
the accepted solutions, not very conclusive and, if one pleases,
contradictory, but practical, average and well calculated for
maintaining mankind in faith and obedience, under the ecclesiastical and
dogmatic government which, alone, is authorized to lead man on in the
way of salvation.

On the other hand, we are obligated to the Church, for she is a cite,
the city of God, and, following the Roman definition, the cite is not an
abstract term, a collective term, but a real, positive existence