I CAN'T BE SILENT: THE DAY WHEN CRIMINAL LAW DISCOVERED THAT IT WAS BORN IN THE SACRESTY

He who remains silent cannot affirm with systematic enthusiasm: «modern criminal law - of which, moreover, canon law is a precursor in many aspects […] - distinguishes between the fact and the responsibility".

—Hypatia's cogitatory—

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I'm asking for a friendly cat, this time not from the city but with a fair amount of legal reading behind him, who asks whether the entire manual should really be updated to adapt it to the latest discovery of those who cannot remain silent and who for this reason affirms with systematic enthusiasm: «modern criminal law - of which, moreover, canon law is a precursor in many aspects […] - distinguishes between the fact and the responsibility" (cf.. who).

Now, the cat in question, who did not attend either the Alma Mater Studiorum or the Lateran University, but it still distinguishes, with a certain obstinacy of times gone by, between common law, Roman law and modern codifications, he asks if he missed something: if Cesare Beccaria, Ludwig Feuerbach and the entire modern criminal law construction must be reread as an appendix of the ecclesiastical forum, perhaps waiting for an amended reprint of the manuals, or whether it is not better to distinguish between historical contributions and systematic genealogies, avoiding easy enthusiasms of fatherhood.

Because it is one thing to recognize that medieval canon law, starting from the great Bolognese Glossators, has affected certain institutions such as imputability, intention, procedure; it is another thing to attribute to it a paternity function, even more so if you even try to mock between the lines other jurists.

The use of the category of «forerunner» even when attenuated by vague formulas such as "in many respects", ends up suggesting a systematic continuity that the history of law does not allow us to support regarding what arises within the crisis of the confessional state and the legal development of the modern age, as if the history of law were a straight line and not a complex stratification.

The cat, confused but not completely clueless, it is therefore limited to a simple question, formulated with due feline prudence: if this is really the principle, perhaps it would not be appropriate to warn the law faculties before they continue to teach the history of criminal law in a way that is now hopelessly outdated, also suggesting the wise reading of the pearls of wisdom of those who cannot remain silent? We must therefore take note of a fact: if the criterion is the "forerunner" one, then modern criminal law was born in the sacristy.

This world full of "unsolved", as those who cannot remain silent like to repeat …

From the island of Patmos, 30 April 2026

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