Little is known of the life and family of Paulus; he was a man of Greek descent[citation needed], who originated from an unknown Phoenician town or from Patavium (modern Padua, Italy). The possibility that Paulus could come from Patavium is based on a statue with an inscription found in Patavium dedicated to a Paulus.[citation needed]
During the reign of emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla, Paulus served as a jurist. He was exiled by the emperor Elagabalus and recalled from exile by his successor, emperor Alexander Severus. Severus and his mother Julia Avita Mamaea in 222, appointed him among the emperor's chief advisers and between 228 and 235, he was the Praetorian prefect of the Praetorian Guard. Paulus was a contemporary of the jurist Ulpian. He partly followed the career path of former Praetorian prefect Aemilius Papinianus. In a constitution of the emperor Gordian III dating from 239 and referring to the marriage, where is cited a response of Paul, he is called vir prudentissimus Paulus (C.J. 5.4.6).[1]
Title page of the 1566 edition of the Codex Theodosianus, edited by Jacques Cujas and published by Guillaume Rouillé, also containing the so-called Pauli sententiae
The Roman jurist Herennius Modestinus describes Paulus, along with Ulpian and Quintus Cervidius Scaevola, as among "the last of the great jurists". Paulus’ work was held in high respect.
He had written 319 various legal publications. His surviving works are extremely prolific, displaying a keen analysis of other opinions of jurists and Paulus expressed his legal views. He appears to have written on a great variety on legal subjects and had a thorough knowledge of legal subjects and law.
Paulus was one of the five jurists whose opinions were made constitutionally authoritative in 426 by Roman EmperorsTheodosius II and Valentinian III. Another legacy from Paulus is the inclusion of his writings in the Digest which was written and put together by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.
One sixth of the Corpus Juris Civilis in the Digest consists of Paulus’ work. He is the most excerpted Roman jurist in the Digest, ahead of Ulpian. The Digest attributes to Paulus the first articulation of the presumption of innocence in Roman law: Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat[2]—"Proof lies on him who asserts, not on him who denies".[3] Paulus in the Digest is also referred in two passages, which he gave a contrary opinion to Alexander Severus, but Severus chose Papinianus‘ opinion.
Due to his fame, several other works have been attributed to him, in particular the 3rd century compilation Pauli sententiae ("Paul's Views" or "Sentences").[4]
From Paulus’ surviving works and works attributed to him, the Sententiae ad Filium have the longest fragments.[5]
In the Digest, Paulus wrote a passage on money. Paulus presented a theory of money, similar to Aristotle, similar to the still sometimes abiding theory that it had arisen from the inconvenience of barter (i.e. with a presumption of an initial in-kind or "barter" exchange economy preceding money) due to the "lack of coincidence of wants" in neoclassical terminology.[6]
^Watson, Alan, ed. (1998) [1985]. "22.3.2". The Digest of Justinian. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN0-8122-1636-9.
^Honoré, Tony (2003), "Iulius Paulus", in Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Anthony (eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed.), Oxford: OxfordUP, pp. 785–6, ISBN978-0-19-860641-3
^Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1954). History of Economic Analysis. Oxford University Press. — Part II (From the Beginnings to The First Classical Situation (to About 1790)), chapter 1 (Graeco-Roman Economics), section 7 (The Contribution of the Romans), page 70, footnote 6.
