ABSTRACT
Two major sources of jurisprudence and norms shaped European legal systems: Roman law as it was organized in sixth century under the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian, and the religious law of the Roman Catholic Church that evolved from the time of the first Christian Roman Emperor Constantine to the seventeenth century. Both were important sources of Christian religious law. To understand how Christian religious law evolved and became institutionalized in European society we must look at the context of its origins. Isidore took some of his notions of natural law from the Romans: It was a higher law and it had divine origins. Other elements of natural law were part of the Roman and the Christian traditions: Marriage, the raising of children, and the right of self-defense. The Roman jurists called fundamental principles of religious law fas, which was defined as a norm of divine origin. That law was of divine origin was a fundamental principle of all Christian law.
