A canon is not a law

A few days ago (h/t Jihadwatch), Todd Aglialoro 'splained how canon law is not shari'a. He's right.

Jews own a religious law, some say (or joke) several; Christianity claimed to have overthrown this. Some modern scholars (Patheos*koff*) argue that Luke's project went toward an anarcho-syndicalist set of Christian communes. That might run at odds with Luke's overall structure of the Spirit exiting Jerusalem and settling upon Rome, not (then) Christian in any way. Much as this particular blog might look askance at Luke's work - and at his interpreters; we are addressing Aglialoro who inherits Luke's Christendom. This post follows them to address the Roman church; not that in the Greek or Slavic worlds and certainly not in Syriac.

Here Christendom and Romanitas had fused sufficiently in the fourth century AD that Theodosius, and over a century later (and more-so) Justinian, were able to create Roman laws which were also Christian laws. Full circle - right?

Well, no. Justinian may be a saint for some (I understand he remains popular in Russia) but out here West, he's considered a tyrant. Because he was. This before we get to Rabbûla or to Shenûte. (Leaving Donatus aside.) Rome has always refused Byzantium's claim to be a "new Rome". We never lost our own Rome.

Also, in the west, and more so among the eastern Syrian "Nestorians": we have Dyotheletism. Religious law does not exist. We have religious canon. That is an old word - Akkadian, I hear - which means "standard". A canon defines what is a Christian and how the Church is to conduct itself. A nation may embrace Christianity and govern according to its ethic. That nation would form its own laws - in accordance. Not in extrapolation.

Future Failed Senatorial Candidate El-Sayed gets one cheer (as an Egyptian, he might even know Shenoute, although I'd be surprised if he knew Rabboula) for reminding us that Christians - at times - have imposed [monastic] canons as laws upon dubiously-willing citizens. Thing is, Catholics don't do this. "Muh Inquisition". No, dude; that was a state, and the Church tried to temper those excesses.

Where is the Dyotheletism in the Egyptian Sunni tradition? - more to the point, where is the notion that law exists outside the clerisy?