(2) The "Fifty Decisions."—Justinian, probably partly with a view to facilitating the work of compiling the Digest, issued a number of constitutions settling matters on which the writings of the classical jurists disagreed and abolishing finally some institu tions and distinctions which had ceased to be of practical impor tance. Some 90 constitutions of this character are known to us, but a collection of so seems to have been made and published separately. Its exact date cannot be determined.
(3) The Digest. (Digesta or Pandectae).—Instructions were given on Dec. 15, 53o, to Tribonian to form a commission to collect excerpts from the works of the jurists. The collection was to serve practical purposes and consequently everything obsolete or superfluous was to be cut out and, where necessary to bring the matter up to date, alterations were to be made in the text. The excerpts were to be arranged in fifty books and the books into titles according to the subject matter, and the whole was to include all that it was necessary to know of juristic as opposed to imperial law. The compilers were definitely instructed not to adopt the summary methods of the "law of citations" but where the authori ties disagreed, to choose what they thought best for themselves.
The commission, consisting of 16 members in addition to Tribo nian, rapidly completed their task and the Digest was published on Dec. 16, 533, with the force of law as from Dec. 30. Thence forth no reference might be made to any other text for juristic law. Justinian gives us some idea of the work involved when he says that 2,000 books consisting of 3,000,000 lines were read and that this number was then reduced to 150,000 lines. The Di gest is the most important of Justinian's works, for in it are preserved the writings of the classical jurists who were really responsible for the greatness of Roman jaw, and the "inscription" at the head of each quotation enables us to see from which jurist and from which work it is taken. But of course as evidence for the classical law quotations must be used with care, for the com pilers made considerable use of their powers of alteration ; much ingenuity, especially within the last 5o years, has gone to the discovery of their "interpolations." The Institutes.—The revision of the law by Justinian was ac companied by a detailed scheme for the reform of legal education in the universities of Constantinople and Berytus, and one of the requirements of this scheme was a new book to be used for ele mentary instruction instead of the Institutes of Gaius which had for centuries been the standard work. While the Digest was still
unpublished therefore orders were given to Tribonian and two professors to compile a manual for this purpose, and the Institutes were published on Nov. 21, 533, and given the force of law. The work is based on Gaius' Institutes, from which a great part is copied literally, as well as on other elementary works of the classical period; occasional references to imperial legislation are added. It is in fact almost as much a compilation as the Digest, but the references to the authors quoted are omitted and the whole made to read like a lecture delivered by the emperor to his students.
The New Code (Codex Repetitae Praelectionis).—The 5o deci sions and the many other new constitutions promulgated since 529 necessitated a revision of the old codex and Tribonian, together with f our others, was instructed shortly after the publication of the Digest, to prepare a new edition. This was published on Nov. 16, 534, and given the force of law as from Dec. 29.
The Novels.—Although the new code completed Justinian's scheme for providing a collection of authoritative legal texts, he did not cease to introduce new legislation. In all 175 laws pub lished after 534 are known and these are called Novellae Consti tutiones or Novels. Nearly all are in Greek, which was becoming more and more the official as well as the spoken language of the Byzantine Empire. Justinian never made any official compilation of them, but three private collections have come down to us, and the Novels, together with the Institutes, the Digest and the (new) Code together form what is known as the Corpus luris Chas.