This essay presents evidence that the institution of the corporation has its origins and
its main developmental 'epochs' in Judaeo-Christian theology. The notion of the
nahala as the institutional symbol of the Covenant between YHWH and Israel is a
primal example of the corporate relationship in its creation of an identity independent
of its members, its demand for radical accountability on the part of its members, and
in its provision of immunity for those who act in its name. On the basis of the same
Covenant, St. Paul transforms an ancillary aspect of Roman Law, the peculium, into
the central relationship of the Christian world through its implicit use as the
institutional background to the concept of the Body of Christ. The exceptional nature
of this relationship allows the medieval Franciscans and the papal curia to create what
had been lacking in Roman Law, an institution which can own property but which
cannot be owned. This relationship is subsequently theorized as the Eternal Covenant
by Reformed theologians and successfully tested in one of the greatest
theological/social experiments ever recorded, the 17th century settlement of North
America. The alternative 'secular' explanation of the corporation provided by 19th
century legal philosophy relies implicitly on the theological foundations of the
corporation and remains incoherent without these foundations. The theological history
of the corporation was recovered in the findings of 20th century social scientists, who
also identified corporate finance as the central corporate activity in line with its
Levitical origins. Although the law of the corporation is secular, the way in which this
law was made a central component of modern life is theological. Without a recovery
of this theological context, the corporation is likely to continue as a serious social
problem in need of severe constraint