Die Jugend der Justitia

The church fathers, Ambrose and Augustine in particular, were concerned with court procedure. Thus by the fourth century the early church had developed its own ethically inspired basic assumptions and goals of procedural law. Medieval Roman-canonical procedural law was shaped by the generally scattered statements of the church fathers. Truth and justice, both of which were understood as concretizations of God, created new goals of the court decisions, through which faith as the basis of the Christian society was to be be put into practice. The law increasingly was seen a means of preparing souls for eternal life, litigation as a lower court for the Last Judgement, punishment as medicine for the soul. The changing attitude of the early church towards the law was reflected in the iconography of Jesus, who was increasingly portrayed as a heavenly emperor and judge.