Canon law may be taken to include theology, or may be limited to the law of the organization and functions of the Church taken in a large sense as inclusive of the laity in their relations to the religion of Christ.[402] Obviously part comes from Christ directly, through the Old Testament as well as New. The other part, and in bulk far greater, emanates from His foundation, the Church, under the guidance of His Spirit, and may be added to and modified by the Church from age to age. It is expressed in custom, universal and established, and it is found in written form in the works of the Fathers, in the decrees of Councils, in the decretals of the popes, and in the concordats and conventions with secular sovereignties. From the beginning, canon law tacitly or expressly adopted the constitutions of the Christian emperors relating to the Church, as well as the Roman law generally, under which the Church lived in its civil relations. The Church arose within the Roman Empire, and who shall say that its wonderfully efficient and complete organization at the close of the patristic period was not the final creation of the legal and constructive genius of Rome, newly inspired by the spirit of Christianity? But the centre of interest had been transferred from earth to heaven, and human aims had been recast by the Gospel and the understanding of it reached by Christian doctors. Evidently since the ideals of the Church were to be other than those of the Roman Empire, the law which it accepted or evolved would have ideals different from those of the Roman law. If the great Roman jurists created a legal formulation and rendering of justice adequate for the highly developed social and commercial needs of Roman citizens, the law of the Church, while it might borrow phrases, rules, and even general principles, from that system, could not fail to put new meaning in them. For example, the constant will to render each his due, which was _justitia_ in the Roman law, might involve different considerations where the soul’s salvation, and not the just allotment of the goods of this world, was the law’s chief aim. Again, what new meaning might attach to the _honeste vivere_ and the _alterum non laedere_ of pagan legal ethics. _Honeste vivere_ might mean to do no sin imperilling the soul; _alterum non laedere_ would acquire the meaning of doing nothing to another which might impede his progress toward salvation. Injuries to a man in his temporalities were less important.