FRATER A FRATRE.

or anything else is acquired for us through those who are in our power, it is said to be acquired for us immediately, and not to subsist for any moment in the person of the one through whom it is acquired. Nor should the interpretation of those who restrict this law—which speaks generally—to the ius civile civil law be approved. Because when a natural obligation is sought through another, as we taught above, there is no reason why we should say a civil obligation is acquired through another immediately, but not a natural one.

Thus, I respond that this law, as I also touched upon above, does not teach what is acquired for a father or master, but rather that if anything is acquired, it is acquired immediately. Therefore, in the proposed question, two obligations must be considered: one of the son, and another of the father. The latter is immediately acquired for the father; the former never passes to the father. I call them two obligations in the contemplation of the persons. For there is only one obligation if you look at the thing owed. By this reasoning, the obligation of two defendants is also said to be one referencing Digest 45.2.3, and so are many referencing Digest 45.2.9, 13. Justinian explains that a testament, in which a father substitutes his son pupillary-style i.e., naming an heir for his child should the child die before reaching adulthood, can be called both one and in some way many, in the paragraph regarding pupillary substitution. Again, it is objected...