Sacraments, distinguishes six, but of different grades of importance.
The two principal ones necessary to salvation are
baptism and the Eucharist; then come the water of aspersion
and the wearing of cinders, and so forth; these advance a man
in sanctity. Lastly come those needful to the hallowing and
instituting of other sacraments, those which. concern the conferring
of orders or of monkish habit. In his Summa he declares
that as there are seven chief sins, either original or of act, so
there must be seven sacraments to remedy them; but he only
enumerates six, namely baptism and the sacraments of confirmation,
of the altar, of penance, last unction and matrimony.
Peter Lombard (c. 1150) added as a seventh that of ordination,
and to this number the Latin Church adhered at the councils
of Florence and Trent. This enumeration was also adopted in
1575 as against the Augustan confession of the year 1540 by
Jeremiah Patriarch of Constantinople, and again in a council
held in the same city in 1639 to anathematize Cyril Lucar, who
with the Anglicans recognized two only, baptism and the
Eucharist. It is hardly fair on the strength of these two pronouncements
to attribute the doctrine of seven sacraments to
the Eastern churches in general; except under a sporadic
Latin influence, they have not troubled themselves so to define
their number.
In this article it is impossible to attempt a history of the sacraments and of the controversies which in every age have arisen about them. It is enough to formulate a few general considerations of a kind to orientate and guide inquirers. To begin with, it is obvious that the number of sacraments must vary according to the criterion's we use of what constitutes a sacrament. The Anglicans recognize baptism and the Eucharist alone, under the impression that Christ ordained these and none other. The Latin doctors by arguments as good as those usually put forth in such controversies have no difficulty in proving that Christ instituted all seven. How, they argue, could Paul (1 Cor. iv. 1) call himself and others “ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” unless the mysteries in question had been directly instituted by Christ. They contend even that extreme unction was so instituted, and that St James in his Epistle did but promulgate it. So Christ instituted confirmation non exhibendo sed promittendo, not by undergoing it and so setting it forth in His own person, but by promising to send the Paraclete. The sacrament of confession and penance He equally instituted when He assigned thevpower of the keys to the Apostles.,
The Latin Church, following Gulielmus Antissiodorensis (c. 1215), distinguishes in each sacrament the matter from the form. The matter is the sensible thing which in accordance with Christ's institution can be raised to a sacramental plane. It is, e.g. water with immersion in the case of baptism; bread and wine in the Eucharist; anointing and laying on of hands in confirmation; contrition in the sacrament of penance. The form consists of the words used in the rite, e.g. in penance, of the formula “I absolve thee”; in the Eucharist, of the words “This is my body” and “This is the cup of my blood ” or “This is my blood ”; in confirmation, of the words, “ Isign thee with sign of the cross and confirm thee with chrism of salvation in name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit V; in baptism, of the words “I baptize thee in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit (or among the Greeks “N. or M. is baptized in the name,” &c.). Merely verbal- change in these formulae made without prejudicing the sense does not invalidate the sacrament. On the part of the minister or priest officiating must be present also an inward intention or will to do what the Church does. Thus a drunkards or a madman's sacraments would only be mockery, even though' the recipients received them in good faith and devoutly. On the other hand, sanctity of life on the part of the minister is not necessary in order to the validity of the sacraments which he confers, although this was held to be the case by the Donatists in the 4th century, and -following them by the Waldensians and Albigenses in the 12th, and by the followers of Hus and Wycliffe in the 14th. The latter-enunciated the following rule: “If a' bishop or' priest be living in mortal sin, then he neither ordains, nor consecrates, nor baptizes.” The Cathars even held it necessary, in case a bishop fell into mortal sin, to repeat his baptisms and ordinations, for they had been vitiated by his sins. On such points the Catholics, followed the more sensible course.
Certain of the sacraments can obviously only be once conferred, e.g. baptism, confirmation and orders; but can be conditionally repeated, if there is a doubt of their having been validly conferred. In conditional baptism the Latins, since about the year 1227, use the formula, “If thou art not baptized, then do I baptize thee,” &c. The Latins further insist on a strict observance of the traditional matter and form. Thus baptism is not valid if wine or, ice be used instead of water, nor the Eucharist if water be consecrated in place of wine, nor confirmation unless the chrism has been blessed by a bishop; also olive oil must be used. The distinction, be it noted, , of form and matter seems more appropriate to the sacraments of baptism, Eucharist, confirmation and last unction, than to those of orders, penance and matrimony. The recognition by the Church of the last named as a sacrament was, in spite of the commendation uttered by Jesus (Mark x. 9), slow and arduous, owing to the encrati te enthusiasms of the first generations of believers., In many regions baptism involved renunciation of married life, and for at least the first two hundred years marriage was a civil rite preceding baptism, which was deferred until the age of thirty or even later. Liturgical forms for consecrating marriage are of late development, and the Church took the institution under its protection through outside social pressure rather than of its own will and wish.
In any Latin pontifical or Greek euchologion we find numerous prayers for the consecration, not only of men, but of things. Here is an example, of such a. petition from the 9th century codex of Heribert, archbishop of Milan:[1] “Be thou graciously pleased by the infusion of the Holy Spirit to strengthen and enhance the substance, of old approved by thee, of this oil“here before thee; to the end that whatsoever in the human kind hath. been .touched therewith' may speedily pass, to a higher nature, and that the ancient Enemy may not, after anointing with the same, claim aught for himself, but that hernay grieve for that he is exposed to the shafts of this blessed engine of defence, and, groan because by the oil of peace the swellings of his antique furypare kept down and repressed; through our Lord Jesus Christ,” &c.
Or again the following prayer for baptism over the water from the Ethiopic Statutes of the Apostles as translated, by the Rev;, G. Horner (London, 1904, p. 165): “ God, my Lord almighty, who madest heaven and earth . . who mingledst and unitedst the immortal with the mortal, who madest' living man a combination of the two, and gavest to that which was made body a soul also, which thou causest to dwell within: stir this water and fill it up with thy Holy Spirit, that it may become water and Spirit for regeneration to those who are to be baptized: work a holy-work and make them to become sons and daughters of thy holy name.”
Such petitions as the above are common in the more ancient of the Christian cults, and are all alike inspired by the idea that a spirit- or divine virtue can be confined in material objects which are to be brought into contact with or swallowed by, men and animals. The same idea pervades old medical treatises; for a drug was not a chemical substance taking effect naturally on the human system, but something into which a supernatural virtue had been magically introduced, in order the more easily and efficaciously to be brought to bear; upon the patient. The spirits which take possession of man or animal can equally take possession of a material substance, and even replace the substance, leaving the outward accidents of colour, shape and size unchanged. This primitive belief, termed “animism” by E. B. Tylor, asserts itself, everywhere in Christianity; and objects thus invested with spiritual or curative powers are called by the Latin doctors sacramental. Thus in the Theologia dogmatica
- ↑ Monumenta veteris liturgiae Ambrosianae, by M. Magistretti and A, Qeriani (Milan, 1897), p. 99.
