The Definition of a Sacrament
The Definition of a Sacrament
In Chapter 15 we noted that the first centuries of the Christian church were characterized by a relative lack of interest in the doctrine of the church. Much the same can be said in relation to the sacraments. During the second century, some discussions of a general sacramental nature can be found in such writings as the Didache (a short early Christian manual on morals and church practices) and the works of Irenaeus of Lyons (c.130–c.202). It was only in the writings of Augustine that issues such as the definition of a sacrament began to be fully addressed.
Augustine is generally regarded as having laid down the broad principles relating to the definition of sacraments. These principles are as follows:
These definitions are still imprecise and inadequate. For example, does it follow that every “sign of a sacred thing” is to be regarded as a sacrament? In practice, Augustine understood by “sacraments” a number of things that are no longer regarded as sacramental in character – for example, the creeds and the Lord's prayer. As time passed, it became increasingly clear that the definition of a sacrament simply as “a sign of a sacred thing” was inadequate. It was during the early Middle Ages – the period of sacramental development par excellence – that further clarification took place.
In the first half of the twelfth century, the Paris theologian Hugh of St. Victor (1096–1141) revised Augustine's somewhat imprecise definition of a sacrament as a “sign of a sacred thing” as follows:
Not every sign of a sacred thing can properly be called a sacrament (for the letters in sacred writings, or statues and pictures, are all “signs of sacred things,” but cannot be called sacraments for that reason). [...] Anyone wanting a fuller and better definition of a sacrament can define it as follows: “a sacrament is a physical or material element set before the external senses, representing by likeness, signifying by its institution, and containing by sanctification, some invisible and spiritual grace.”
According to Hugh, there are four essential components to the definition of a sacrament:
This fourth point is of especial importance. In medieval theology, a careful distinction was drawn between the “sacraments of the Old Covenant” (such as circumcision) and the “sacraments of the New Covenant” (such as baptism). The essential distinction which early medieval theologians identified as lying between them is that the sacraments of the Old Covenant merely signified spiritual realities whereas the sacraments of the New Covenant actualized what they signified. The thirteenth-century Franciscan writer Bonaventure (1221–74) made this point as follows, using a medical analogy:
In the Old Law, there were ointments of a kind, but they were figurative and did not heal. The disease was lethal, but the anointings were superficial. [...] Genuinely healing ointments must bring both spiritual anointing and a life-giving power; it was only Christ our Lord who did this, since [...] through his death, the sacraments have the power to bring to life.
However, Hugh of St. Victor's definition of a sacrament still remained unsatisfactory. According to Hugh, the following items were “sacraments”: the incarnation, the church, and death. Something was still missing. By this time, there was general agreement within the church that there were seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, marriage, ordination, and extreme unction. But, by Hugh's definition, penance could not be a sacrament. It contained no material element. Theory and practice were thus seriously out of sync. A resolution of this difficulty became a matter of urgency.
The final touches were put to the definition shortly afterward by Peter Lombard (c.1100–60), who – by omitting one vital aspect of Hugh's definition – was able to bring theory into line with practice. Lombard's achievement was to omit reference to any “physical or material element” in his definition, which takes the following form:
A sacrament bears a likeness to the thing of which it is a sign. “For if sacraments did not have a likeness of the things whose sacraments they are, they would not properly be called sacraments” (Augustine). [...] Something can properly be called a sacrament if it is a sign of the grace of God and a form of invisible grace, so that it bears its image and exists as its cause. Sacraments were therefore instituted for the sake of sanctifying, as well as of signifying. [...] Those things which were instituted for the purpose of signifying alone are nothing more than signs, and are not sacraments, as in the case of the physical sacrifices and ceremonial observances of the Old Law, which were never able to make those who offered them righteous.
This definition is able to accommodate each of the seven sacraments noted above and excludes such things as the creed and the incarnation. As the definition was included in Lombard's widely used and authoritative theological textbook The Four Books of the Sentences (1147–51), it passed into general use in later medieval theology and remained virtually unchallenged until the time of the Reformation.
The Protestant Reformation challenged a number of aspects of contemporary Christian thought, particularly in relation to understandings of the church and the sacraments. In one of his three major reforming treatises of 1520, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Martin Luther (1483–1546) launched a major attack on the Catholic understanding of the sacraments. Where the Catholic church recognized seven sacraments, Luther initially recognized three (baptism, Eucharist, penance) and shortly afterward only two (baptism and Eucharist). The transition between these two views can be seen in the Babylonian Captivity itself, and we may pause to examine this change and understand its basis.
Luther's treatise opens with a powerful statement of principle which sets to one side the medieval consensus regarding the sacraments:
To begin with, I must deny that there are seven sacraments, and for the present maintain that there are but three: baptism, penance, and the bread. All three have been subjected to a miserable captivity by the Roman curia, and the church has been robbed of all her liberty.
By the end of the work, however, Luther comes to place considerable emphasis upon the importance of a visible physical sign. Luther signaled this significant change in his views with the following statement:
Yet it has seemed right to restrict the name of sacrament to those promises of God which have signs attached to them. The remainder, not being connected to signs, are merely promises. Hence, strictly speaking, there are only two sacraments in the church of God – baptism and the bread. For only in these two do we find the divinely instituted sign and the promise of the forgiveness of sins.
Penance thus could no longer be considered to have sacramental status, according to Luther, because the two essential characteristics of a sacrament were:
The only true sacraments of the New Testament church were thus baptism and Eucharist; penance, having no external sign, could no longer be regarded as a sacrament.
Like Luther, the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli had grave misgivings about the word “sacrament” itself. He argued that the term has the basic sense of “oath,” and initially treated the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist (the remaining five sacraments of the Catholic system being rejected) as signs of God's faithfulness to the church and the divine gracious promise of forgiveness. Thus, in 1523 he wrote that the word “sacrament” could be used to refer to those things which “God has instituted, commanded, and ordained with the Word, which is as firm and sure as if God had sworn an oath to this effect.” However, Zwingli later came to see the sacraments as signifying the allegiance of believers to the church, rather than of God to believers, a point we shall consider at pp. 390–1.
The Council of Trent, reacting to the Protestant approaches to the sacraments, responded by reaffirming the Catholic position outlined by Peter Lombard:
If anyone says that the sacraments of the new law were not all instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ, or that there are more or less than seven, namely, baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, ordination, and marriage, or that any one of these seven is not truly and intrinsically a sacrament, let them be condemned.
This basic position has remained characteristic of Catholic theology since the sixteenth century.