Prologue to the Fourth Book of Sentences
Theology, Life, and God's Word -----------------Prologue to the Fourth Book of Sentences
The druggist will make sweet confections and will make up ointments of health. [Sir 38:7] Those words are written in Sirach and, if thought of carefully, explain and setoff the subject matter of the fourth Book of Sentences in furtherance of our education and training. The explanation comes through a twofold metaphor or figure of speech: namely, sweet corifections and ointments of health . By these we are given to understand that the medicine, which the sacraments are, is pleasant as well as wholesome. Here we have a first-rate estimation of both the physician and his remedy. All a patient looks for in a medicine is that it be pleasant to take and effective as a cure. The ideal physician's medicine has both of these traits; as the poet said: "That man took every score there was who mixed the useful with the sweet." The sacraments as medicine, therefore, are sweet confections and ointments of health. As ointments of health, they relate to the cure of the patient; as sweet confections, they are concerned with pleasing God. As such they are opposed to the two aspects of wrongdoing: namely, offending God and damaging nature. It is by offending God that the human person is stripped of grace, and by damaging nature that wounds are inflicted on his humanity. The sacraments are, therefore, ideal remedies. They have the sweet quality that finds acceptance with God, thereby making reparation and petitioning for grace. They also clothe persons in their nakedness, possess the power to look after them in their sickness, and thus restore their humanity.
The Fragrance of the Sacraments It is like the man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and being stripped and left wounded but dressed again and healed
Theology, Life, and God's Word
by the Samaritan. That Samaritan is Christ the Lord. In his person is this statement made: The druggist shall make sweet confections, that is to say, he will institute fragrant sacraments which would be agreeable to the divine majesty. He shall make, it says, in the future tense since this was spoken at the time of the Mosiac Law in reference to the age of the law of grace. Even if you say confections and sacrifices fragrant to God were offered in times past, still it was not due to their inherent worth that they were acceptable to God. The Lord commanded Moses, in the Book of Exodus, to make incense compounded by the work of the perfumer: You shall make incense, etc. [30:35].
He commanded Aaron to offer incense: You shall set the altar over against the veil [30:6]; and after that, he said: And Aaron shall burn incense upon it in the morning . .. in the evening he shall burn an everlasting incense [30: 7, 8]. In Leviticus, the phrase for a most sweet savor to the Lord recurs in regard to almost all oblations [cf.
Lv 1:13; 2:2; 6:21; 23:18]. This was a perfume, however, which did not find acceptance with the Lord because of the insufficiencies in the sacrifices of the Law, that had, as the apostle points out, merely a shadow of the good things to come [Heb
10: 1]. They were not pleasing, because of the uncleanness of the offerers as Isaiah says: Offer sacrifice no more in vain: incense is an abomination to me [1: 13]. The reason he gives is: Your hands are full of blood [1: 15].
If anybody is going to make sweet-smelling confections, he had better be free from all uncleanness and be filled with a scent that has true fragrance in it. Such was not to be had by, nor could it be produced by, men and women, because they would be unclean producers. So the Lord by his own power had to fit them with bodies, as we read in psalm 39, which the apostle applies to Christ: As he comes into the world, he says, No sacrifice, no offering was your demand; you have fitted me, instead, with a body. You have not found any pleasure in burnt sacrifices, in sacrifice for sin. See then, I said, I am coming [Heb 10:5-7]. Fitted is well said, for that all-clean Lord, as he made the Virgin clean
"with a purity greater than which, under God, is unthinkable," fitted him with a body. He was to be a vessel of cleanliness con-
'DIeology, Life, and God's W ord ------------------taining every fragrance. The patriarch Jacob, in Genesis, with a presentiment of this, pronounced: The smell of my son is as the smell of a plentiful field which the Lord has blessed [27:27]. No,
Christ was the perfect dealer in unguents; he did not go begging his scent elsewhere, but was himself redolent of the Father. Filled as he was with that scent, to pass it on to others he offered himself for us all to God the Father, according to Ephesians: He loved us and gave himself on our behalf, a sacrifice breathing out fragrance as he qffered it to God [5 :2]. It was then that the alabaster box was broken and the whole house was scented with the ointment. It was then that we all received something out of this abundance since God propitiated, not only by the passion itself, but even by what constitutes "memorials" of the passion. It is not alone the passion that is a "sweet confection," but so are also those things that call it to mind: namely, the sacraments. This is in line with what we read in Sirach: The memory of J osias is like the composition of a sweet smell made by the a1t of a peifumer [49: 1]. J osias here standing for the suffering
Christ, for the name Josias means "where the Lord's incense is" or "to whom belongs the Lord's sacrifice". The sacraments are memorial signs of the passion that was accomplished in the past. The house of the Church militant is filled to overflowing with these memorials. So it is filled with the odor of the ointment in accordance with what the Holy Spirit says in the Song of Songs: The sweet smell of your ointments is above all aromatic spices [4:40]. The druggist, therefore, shall make sweet confections, ones, that is, that are pleasing to God.
The Curative Power of the Sacraments In no less a fashion shall he make up ointments of health: namely, sacraments which cure disease. In the Law, you did certainly have anointings which were symbolic, though they were not curative; the anointing was superficial, while the disease was lethal. On this point, the apostle tells the Hebrews that the legal remedies have no power where conscience is con-
Theology, Life, and God's Word
-----------------------cern ed, to bring the worshiper to his full growth; they are but outward observances, connected with food and drink and ceremonial washings on this occasion or that [Heb 9:9]. It was because their anointings were on the flesh, whereas the lethal wound was in the soul, that they were powerless as remedies. That sins should be taken away by the blood of bulls and goats is impossible [Heb 10:4]. You have Isaiah, too, crying out in his first chapter: Wounds and bruises and swelling sores are not bound up, nor dressed norfomented with oil [1: 6]. He is referring to the three kinds of sin constituting man's illness: wounds are original sin, bruises are venial sin, and swelling sores are mortal sin. This is why just before that, he said: The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is sad [1:5].
With regard to this, then, if anybody is going to make health-giving ointments, he had better produce an anointing that is spiritual and one that has vital efficacy in it. Christ the Lord was the one to do it; he was the true "Christus," the anointed one, as in Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,jor he has anointed me. He has sent me to preach to the meek, etc. [61: 1].
That this is to be interpreted as referring to Christ he himself is the witness in the fourth chapter of Luke, where, after reading out that text, he said: This scripture which I have read in your hearing is today fulfzlled [4:21]. He is the one who had power to make up a healing ointment, according to what Saint Peter says of him in Acts: God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, so that he went about doing good, and curing all those who were under the devi/'s ryranny, for God was in him [10:38]. He anointed him with the Holy Spirit, so he produced that spiritual ointment; he anointed him with power, hence its vital efficacy.
Through his anointing, God was in him; he himself being God and thus having life in himself: As the Father has within him the gift of life, so he has granted to the Son that he too should have within him the gift of life [In 5:26].
Because he had life within himself, he had power to revive those who were dead. So he made ointments which were cures for lethal disease. It was when he united our mortal nature with life, that he, who was life, died. Then was that confection made, in which and by means of which he who was dead finds
Theology, Life, and Cor/'s Word life again. It is from his death that the sacraments derive their life-giving efficacy. In connection with the text in Ephesians,
This is a great sacrament, and I am applying it here to Christ and his Church [5:32], Augustine's words are these: "Adam sleeps that Eve may appear; Christ dies, that the Church may appear. Eve was made out of the side of the sleeping Adam; the Church was formed by the mysteries that flowed from the lance-pierced side of the dead Christ." It is more fitting to speak of the sacraments as emanating from the "side" than from the feet or hands-blood flowed from these-because a more suitable sign is implied, in that blood and water came forth together.
Moreover, they flowed out of one who was already dead. This offers a rather fitting description of the constitution and institution of the sacraments. The vital blood flowed forth with water: This means the sacraments acquire their efficacy when death is joined to life. The sacraments are instituted with "word" and" element" together; so we speak of them as being not only "made" but "made up" for healing.
These sacraments, therefore, are perfect cures. Our druggist made these sweet confections to be agreeable to God. He made them, these ointments of health, to cure the sickness of humankind. They are healing anointings, because they both confer health and make us ready for health. They confer the basic health we need, the health that comes with grace, of which the psalm speaks: He heals the broken-hearted, and binds up all their wounds [146:3]. They make us ready to receive perfect health, the health that comes with glory, of which another psalm speaks: It is he who forgives allyour guilt, who heals every one of your ills [102:3]. He does this in the life of glory.