Included within the sources of Roman law known to us today are one hundred and seven texts directly concerned with the Jews.
The majority of the texts are found in the two great codifications of Roman law, the Theodosian Code and the Justinian Corpus. A minority of the texts are to be found in other sources.
The Theodosian Code includes fifty- two texts, while the Justinian Corpus has thirty-six, of which thirty- three are included in the Code and three in the Digest. The codification of Alarie II in the Breviarium added one additional jurisprudential text to the legislative texts of the Theodosian Code (in addition to the twelve texts of the Visigothic commentary). Those texts found within other sources include eight in the collections of Justinian’s Novels, four in Sirmond’s collection of laws, four in the collections which originated in the Church Council of Chalcedon, one from Majorian’s collection of Novels, and one in the collected correspondence of Julian.The texts preserved in the codes of Theodosius II and Justinian survived in versions which were abridged and edited in accordance with the guiding principles laid down for the editors of these codes. The eighteen texts found in other sources were preserved whole, and are thus far closer to the original texts issued by the Imperial Chancellery. Proper acquaintance with the Roman legal sources concerned with the Jews depends upon a clear distinction between the two components in the history of each of these texts—namely, the original legislation and the duration of its validity, and the later codification and its span as a binding force.1