FAS - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

FASAuthored

The Law Mind • 900 words

Definition

Fas (Latin, indeclinable noun) is a term from Roman law denoting divine right, divine law, or that which is religiously or morally permissible — the law of the gods as distinguished from the law of men. It stands in contrast to jus, which is human or civil law. Where jus governed the relations of persons under positive legal institutions, fas expressed the boundary of what was sanctioned by religion and divine order. An act might be jus (legally permitted) yet not fas (divinely sanctioned), or vice versa.

The phrase jus ac fas captures the fullest conception of law in Roman thought: the union of human legal right and divine moral sanction. Actions condemned as nefas — the negation of fas — were understood as violations of a sacred, pre-civil order, not merely of enacted rules.

In the context of the Roman calendar, dies fasti were days on which it was religiously permissible to conduct legal business; dies nefasti were days on which courts could not lawfully sit. This calendrical usage was a practical, institutional expression of the concept.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): FAS appears as an initialism for several modern organizations and schemes, including the Financial Assistance Scheme, the Federation of American Scientists, and Federation Air Service. None of these carry legal significance in the classical sense.

Historical common usage: No entry in Webster's 1913.

The gap here is categorical, not merely semantic. The modern initialisms sharing this spelling are entirely unrelated to the Roman legal term. Researchers encountering fas in classical legal sources, treatises on natural law, or common law commentary that draws on Roman foundations must recognize it as the Latin term, not a modern acronym. The risk of confusion is real when searching digital corpora.

Common Confusion

Fas is frequently paired with, and sometimes conflated with, jus. They are not synonyms. Jus is positive or human law — the law of the state, enforceable by courts and magistrates. Fas is divine or religious law — the law of the gods, binding on conscience and religious observance rather than on civil institutions. The Roman jurists held the distinction carefully: Cicero's phrase jus ac fas omne delere (to destroy all law, human and divine) treats them as complementary but distinct categories. Later natural law theorists, including those whose work appears in the common law tradition, sometimes blurred this distinction when arguing that positive law must conform to a higher moral order. Researchers should not assume that a historical source using fas means jus, or that a source using natural law language has cleanly inherited the Roman distinction.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers working in natural law, Roman law foundations, or early common law commentary will encounter fas in Latin passages and in translated treatises. The key research intelligence is this:

First, Blackstone uses the Roman framework. His citation to 3 Bl. Comm. 2 places fas at the opening of his discussion of the nature of laws in general, where he situates divine law as foundational to the common law tradition. Researchers tracing Blackstone's theoretical scaffolding must understand fas to follow his argument.

Second, the calendar usage matters for procedural history. The distinction between dies fasti and dies nefasti shaped ancient Roman court scheduling and survives as background context in histories of legal procedure. Researchers examining court terms, legal calendars, or the origins of court-day restrictions may encounter this usage without explanation.

Third, digital corpus searches will generate noise. Searching for "fas" in any modern legal database will surface acronyms, trade terms (FAS as "free alongside ship" in commercial law), and unrelated initialisms. Researchers must filter carefully by context, date, and language.

Fourth, nefas — the antonym — appears more frequently in surviving classical sources than fas alone, and carries the sense of sacrilege or impiety. Researchers should treat nefas as a companion search term when investigating the concept.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary (both the first and second editions) defines fas identically: "Right; justice; the divine law," citing 3 Bl. Comm. 2 and Calvin's Lexicon Juridicum. This is a correct but compressed entry. It accurately conveys the core meaning without explaining the contrast with jus or the calendrical application.

Burrill's Law Dictionary does not appear to have a usable entry for fas as a standalone term; the source material supplied reflects an unrelated passage on farm and farmer terminology, which is almost certainly a digitization or pagination artifact. Researchers should not rely on Burrill for this term.

What the historical dictionaries collectively miss is the practical dimension of fas in Roman procedural law — the calendar system — and any guidance on distinguishing fas from jus in natural law argument. For that, researchers must go to primary Roman sources and to natural law treatises directly.

Jurisdictional Note

Fas as a legal concept is Roman in origin and has no operative force in any modern common law or civil law jurisdiction. Its relevance in American and English legal research is confined to foundational theory and historical commentary, particularly in sources drawing on natural law or Roman law foundations.

FASmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

(606) one, (already noticed,) do not, however, lessee may be said to be a farmer of whatseem to have followed in the order of time. ever thing he has in lease. Dyer, C. J. Ferm (firma) was used in the sense of land Plowd. 195. Stat. Marlbr. c. 23, [24,] leased, by a chronicler of the time of William cited ibid. A farmer of the king, that is, Rufus, A. D. 1089. Spelman, voc Firma. of the revenue. Perkins, ch. 1, sect. 5, B. The same word (firma) occurs in the sense See 1 Leon. 12. 3 Id. 237. A lessee of of a lease of land, in the early historian revenue. "The farmers of the petty farms Ingulphus. Id. ibid. And even the Saxon of wines and currants having sustained feorme was used in Saxon times to denote great loss in their farm." 2 State Trials, a manor. LL. Aluredi, c. 2, cited ibid. 1197. See Ferm, Fermor. Farm, or ferm, has been derived by some from the Lat. firmus, firm, or fixed; as denoting a fixed rent, or term. Lib. Nig. Scacc. cited in Spelman. Cowell, voc. Ferme. Bacon's Works, iv. 217. Mr. Reeves inclines to derive it from the Ital. fermo, a bargain or contract. 1 Reeves' Hist. Eng. Law, 301, note. It is clearly, however, the Saxon word fearme or feorme, (provisions,) with a slight change in the letters. Spelman, voc. Firma. See Feorme. Lat. Right, justice; the divine law. 3 Bl. Com. 2. Calv. Lex. FASTERMANS, Fastermannes. In Saxon law. Sureties or securities; bondsmen.