Cyrillus,
Greek jurist
A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...
of the 5th century, was a professor in the ancient
Law School of Berytus (present-day
Beirut), and one of the founders of the oecumenical school of jurists (τῆς οἰκουμένης διδάσκαλοι). This school preceded the succession of
Anastasius to the
Eastern empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
(AD 491), and paved the way for
Justinian's
legislation.
His reputation as a teacher of
law was great; and from the fragments of his works which have been preserved it may be inferred that his merit as a teacher consisted in his direct use of ancient sources of law, and in interpreting the best writers, such as the commentary of
Ulpian on the edict and the ''Responsa Papiniani''.
He wrote a treatise on definitions (υπομνημα των δεφινιτων), in which, according to a statement of his contemporary
Patricius, the subject of contracts was treated with great precision, and which supplied the materials for many important ''scholia'' appended to the first and second titles of the eleventh book of the ''
Basilica''. He is generally styled "the great" to distinguish him from a more modern jurist of the same name, who lived after the reign of
Justinian, and who compiled an epitome of the ''Digest''.
References
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Ancient Roman jurists
Roman-era Greeks
5th-century Byzantine people
5th-century Byzantine writers
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