The name is absent

154 The Rice Institute Pamphlet

cause they admit that it is necessary on account of the malice
of wicked men, yet they maintain that Bartolus and all the
other interpreters even including Accursius should be thrown
out and reliance placed on the texts alone so long as they are
in agreement with the Evangel, We have one particular ex-
ample of this attitude now among us, a man who is the suc-
cessor of our Claudius in the lectureship, who, although he is
completely ignorant of the knowledge of the law which he
has never studied, with the glosses set aside and Bartolus and
all the other interpreters driven into exile, has undertaken to
expound the Pandects as if he were interpreting Plautus or
Terence.” Thus the circle was completed. The lawyers who
had been the first to develop and apply a new method for
understanding a text were also the first to see its limitations
when it was earned too far. Texts like the Bible and the Code
of Civil Law which were intricately entwined with the his-
tory of human institutions could not be understood by
neglecting the commentaries and resorting to philology alone.
The “new criticism” of one generation was rejected by the
historical sense of the next.

Myron P. Gilmore
Harvard University

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