ivinity but to human nature, immediately began to be agitated." "I
affirm," says Mr. Maine, "without hesitation, that the difference between
the two theological systems is accounted for by the fact that, in passing
from the East to the West, theological speculation had passed from a
climate of Greek metaphysics to a climate of Roman law. For some centuries
before these controversies rose into overwhelming importance, all the
intellectual activity of the Western Romans had been expended on
jurisprudence exclusively. They had been occupied in applying a peculiar
set of principles to all combinations in which the circumstances of life
are capable of being arranged. No foreign pursuit or taste called off
their attention from this engrossing occupation, and for carrying it on
they possessed a vocabulary as accurate as it was copious, a strict method
of reasoning, a stock of general propositions on conduct more or less
verified by experience, and a rigid moral philosophy. It was impossible
that they should not select from the questions indicated by the Christian
records those which had some affinity with the order of speculations to
which they were accustomed, and that their manner of dealing with them
should not borrow something from their forensic habits. Almost every one
who has knowledge enough of Roman law to appreciate the Roman penal
system, the Roman theory of the obligations established by contract or
delict, the Roman view of debts, etc., the Roman notion of the continuance
of individual existence by universal succession, may be trusted to say
whence arose the frame of mind to which the problems of Western theology
proved so congenial, whence came the phraseology in which these problems
were stated, and whence the description of reasoning employed in their
solution." "As soon as they (the Western Church) ceased to sit at the feet
of the Greeks and began to ponder out a theology of their own, the
theology proved to be permeated with forensic ideas and couched in a
forensic phraseology. It is certain that this substratum of law in Western
theology lies exceedingly deep."[318]

The theory of the atonement, developed by the scholastic writers,
illustrates this view. In the East, for a thousand years, the atoning work
of Christ had been viewed mainly as redemption, as a ransom paid to
obtain the freedom of mankind, enslaved by the Devil in consequence of
their sins. It was not a legal theory, or one based on notions of
ju