After presenting the final results of the archaeological explorations of the Sacred Wood of the Arvals at La Magliana, which have made considerable progress thanks to new excavations carried out by the Superintendency of Antiquities in Rome on the basis of our previous work, and examining the sources on the religious initiations of Emperor Claudius, we returned to the question of rites.
We started with a few sentences from Lactantius(Institutions divines, 5, 18, 12; 5, 19, 28-29), which explain why, from antiquity onwards, criticism of ritualism has always been implicit in Christianity, even though Catholicism and Orthodoxy themselves developed a great abundance of rites. But these human-created rites could always be revoked, with the exception of the Eucharistic rite and certain prayers taught by Christ himself. Hence the persistent tendency of historians to regard the ritualism of the ancients as a dead tradition and a hollow practice, since it was not taught by a god.
We have shed some light on this problem by returning to the vows that are often misunderstood by modern scholars, particularly those whose fulfillment is refused for lack of a divine counterpart. After recalling the data already found in the work of Titus Live and in private documents, which we have commented on in previous years, we continued with an examination of a key passage by Ulpian(Disputationes, Book I = Digest, 50, 12, 2) which confirms and clarifies these conclusions. The first book of Ulpian's Disputationes apparently dealt with public affairs(ad municipalem), since all the cases examined in the preserved extracts concern public offices. Moreover, the passage in question appears under the general title De pollicitationibus, i.e. promises made to the city by candidates for election. In the current state of knowledge, the extract therefore concerns public vows taken by magistrates, and the various obligations arising therefrom, notably for their heirs. Let's read the text:
If someone has promised something by vow, he is under the obligation of that vow. It is this thing that obliges the person who vows, and not the thing that is vowed. In fact, the thing that is promised by vow, even when it is discharged, delivers vows, but it does not in itself become sacred. Pubescent, autonomous fathers are obliged by vow. A son of a family or a slave is not bound by a vow without the authorization of the father or master.
