phers, notably Plato, held there
could be no justice.

This theory that justice and even the laws were but the will of deity,
revealed in various ways, was long generally accepted. In Rome, in the
time of the kings, the king was the Pontifex Maximus, and as such,
with the help of the College of Priests, declared the laws and decided
lawsuits. For some time also under the Republic, when a vote was to be
taken in the Comitia upon a proposed law, the question was thus put:
"Is this your pleasure, O Quirites, and do you hold it to be the will
of the gods?" Under the Empire, despite the reasoning of many
philosophers and lawyers that the Emperor derived from the people his
power to make laws and declare the law in any given case, he assumed
and was assumed to have derived the power and inspiration solely from
the gods.

The early Christian Church also preached the doctrine that the ruling
power in the state, however established, was ordained of God and as
such was entitled to the obedience of the pious. This belief that
justice and judgment were simply the will of God, to be ascertained,
not by reason but by other means, was so general and deep that such
crude devices as trials by ordeal and battle were often resorted to
for determining guilt or innocence and other questions of fact.
Indeed, resort to such expedients for determining questions of law, as
well as questions of fact, was not unknown. In the tenth century under
the Saxon King Otto a question arose whether upon the death of their
grandfather his grandchildren by a prior deceased son should share in
the inheritance along with their surviving uncles. The king ordered a
trial by battle, which being had, the champions for the grandchildren
were the victors. It was therefore held to be the divine will that
grandchildren by a prior deceased child should inherit direct from
their grandfather. I may here remind you that trial by battle was not
formally abolished in England until well into the 19th century. And
there is even now professed a belief that the will of God can be
ascertained by counting ballots. "Vox Populi Vox Dei" is still a
shibboleth.

But the doctrine that justice is heaven born, superior to and
controlling the opinions and wills of men, did not escape challenge
even in ancient times. Those sects of philosophers known as Epicureans
and Sophists, consistently with their theory of the nature of virtue
in general, maintained that justice was merely a name