Lex animata

Lex animata is a 12th century Latin translation of the Greco-Roman concept νόμος ἔμψυχος, nómos émpsychos, which equates to the "living law".

[4] This includes the philosophers of Archytas of Tarentum, pseudo-Diotogenes, and Philo of Alexandria, deduced from the Protagoras (dialogue), the Anonymus Iamblichi, Thucydides, Antiphon, and the Gorgias's Callicles and the Republic's Thrasymachus and Glaucon.

(Novellae 105.2)[18]In the Middle Ages, the glossators of the 12th and 13th centuries, notably Accursius, applied the concept of lex animata to the Holy Roman emperor.

[25] Despite paralleling Byzantine political ideas in other respects, Islamic philosophy also departed from the notion of nomos empsychos by conceiving the caliphs as administering the sharia established by Muhammad rather than as lawgivers in their own right.

[30][31][32] This includes the concepts of the sovereign, the judiciary, the state, the separation of powers, and likely permeated all ideas in the medieval and early modern political and legal thinking.

It attributes action in the service of this power to a fictional person and deliberative agent – the state – in ways that recall Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Pufendorf, and Christian Wolff.

"The idea of lex animata is sometimes used in modern political debate, usually to scorn an opponent for being too self-important or delusional about his insights into the law and constitutional affairs.