Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
SACRAMENT
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: SAC-SAR
del.icio.us it!
|
SACRAMENT , in See also:religion, a See also:property or rite defined in the See also:Anglican See also:catechism as " an outward and visible sign of an in-See also: In the work against the See also:Jews, ch. xi., he speaks of the See also:letter Tau set in See also:ink on the fore-heads of the men of See also:Jerusalem (Ezek. ix. 4), as " the sacrament of the sign," i.e. of the See also:cross; and in See also:chap.. xiii. of the same work he dwells on the sacrament of the See also:wood prefigured in 2 See also:Kings vi. 6. The stick with which See also:Elisha made the See also:iron to swim in that passage, and the wood which See also:Isaac carried up the See also:mountain for his own pyre " were sacraments reserved for fulfilment in the See also:time of See also:Christ." In other words they were types, things which had a prophetic significance. In the same work, chap. x., he speaks of " the Sacrament of the See also:Passion foreshadowed in prophecies." In his work On the Soul, chap. xviii., the aeons and genealogies of the Gnostics are " the sacraments of heretical ideas." In the work About the See also:Crown, chap. iii., he describes how the faithful " take the sacrament of the Eucharist also in their meetings held before See also:dawn." Elsewhere he speaks of " the sacraments of See also:water, oil, See also:bread." In the work Against Valentinians, chap. xxxix., he speaks of the " See also:great sacrament of the name," here rendering the Greek word vaaiPaov, mystery. In the See also:tract On Monogamy, chap. xi., he speaks of " the sacrament of monogamy." Elsewhere he talks of the "sacrament of faith," and " of the Resurrection," and " of human salvation," and " of the Pascha," and " of See also:unction," and " of the See also:body of Christ." Later Latin fathers use the word with similar vagueness, e.g. See also:Augustine speaks of the See also:salt administered to catechumens before baptism . and of their See also:exorcism as sacraments; and as See also:late as 1129 Godefrid so calls the salt and water, oil and See also:chrism, the See also:ring and See also:pastoral See also:staff used in ordinations. But by this time the tendency was in the See also:West to restrict the sense of the word. Thus Isidore Hispalensis, c. 63o, in his See also:book of Origins, vi. 19, recognized as sacraments baptism and the chrism, and the Body and See also:Blood, and he writes thus: "Under the See also:screen of corporeal See also:objects a divine virtue of the sacraments in question secretly brings about salvation; wherefore they are called sacraments from their See also:secret or sacred virtues." See also:Bernard (In See also:coen. Dom. § 4, op. ii. 88) calls the rite of washing feet a sacrament, because without it we have no portion with Christ (See also: In this See also:article it is impossible to See also:attempt a See also:history of the sacraments and of the controversies which in every See also:age have arisen about them. It is enough to formulate a few general considerations of a See also:kind to orientate and See also:guide inquirers. To begin with, it is obvious that the number of sacraments must vary according to the criterions 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 See also:Paul (r See also:Cor. iv. 1) See also: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 See also: It is, e.g. water with See also:immersion in the See also:case of baptism; bread and See also:wine in the Eucharist; See also: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. iu penance, of the See also:formula " I absolve thee "; in the Eucharist, of the words " This is my body " and " This is the See also:cup of my blood " or " This is my blood"; in confirmation, of the words ," I sign thee with sign of the cross and confirm thee with chrism of salvation in name of See also:Father and Son and See also:Holy Spirit "; 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 verbalchange in these formulae made without prejudicing the sense does not invalidate the sacrament. On the See also:part of the See also:minister or priest officiating must be See also:present also an inward intention or will to do what the Church does. Thus a drunkard's or :a madman's sacraments would only be mockery, even though the recipients received them in good faith and devoutly. On the other See also:hand, sanctity of See also:life on the part of the minister is not necessary in See also:order to the validity of the sacraments which he confers, although this was held to be the case by the See also:Donatists in the 4th See also: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 See also:rule: "If a' See also:bishop or priest beliving in mortal See also:sin, then he neither ordains, nor consecrates; nor baptizes." The..See also:Cathars even held it necessary, in case a bishop See also:fell into mortal sin, to repeat his baotisms 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 See also:thou See also:art not baptized, then do I baptize thee," &c. The Latins further insist on a strict observance of the traditional matter mild form. Thus baptism is not valid if wine or See also:ice be used instead of water, nor the Eucharist if. water be consecrated in See also:place of wine, nor confirmation unless the chrism has been blessed by a bishop; also See 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 See also:commendation uttered by Jesus (See also:Mark x. 9), slow and arduous, owing to the encratite enthusiasms of the first generations of believers. In many regions baptism involved renunciation of married life, and for at least the first two See also:hundred years See also:marriage was a See also:civil rite preceding baptism, which was deferred until the age of See also:thirty or even later. Liturgical forms for consecrating marriage are of late development, and the Church took the institution under its See also: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 See also:consecration, not only of men, but of things. Here is an example, of such a See also:petition from the 9th century codex of Heribert, See also:archbishop of See also:Milan:' " 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 See also:bath been touched: therewith may speedily pass to a higher nature, and that the See also:ancient Enemy may not, after anointing with the same, claim aught for himself, but that he may grieve for that he is exposed to the shafts of this blessed See also:engine of See also:defence, and groan because by the oil of See also:peace the swellings of his See also:antique fury, are kept down and repressed; through our See also:Lord Jesus Christ," &c. Or again the following See also:prayer for baptism over the water from the Ethiopic Statutes of the Apostles as translated. by the Rev:. G. See also:Horner .(See also:London, -1904, p. 165): . " God, my Lord almighty, who madest See also:heaven and See also:earth . who mingledst and unitedst the immortal with the mortal, who madest living man a See also:combination of the two, and gayest 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 See also:common in the more ancient of the Christian cults, and are all alike inspired by the See also: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 See also:treatises;. for a See also:drug was not a chemical substance taking effect naturally on the human See also:system, but something into which a supernatural virtue had been magically introduced, in order the more easily and efficaciously to be brought to See also:bear, upon the patient.. The See also:spirits which take See also:possession of man or See also:animal can equally take possession of a material substance, and even replace the substance, leaving the outward accidents of See also:colour, shape and See also:size unchanged. This primitive belief, termed " See also:animism " by E. E. See also:Tylor, asserts itself everywhere in See also:Christianity; and objects thus invested with spiritual or curative See also:powers are called by the Latin doctors See also:sacramentals. Thus in the Theologia dogmatica 1 Monumenta veteris liturgiae Ambrosianae, by M. Magistretti and A; Ceriani (Milan, 1897), p. 99. 978 et moratis of P. M. See also:Belmont, bishop of See also:Claremont (8th ed., See also:Paris, 1899, vol. iii. p. 119) the following definition is given of sacramentalia: " Sacramentals are certain things or actions instituted or consecrated by the Church for the See also:production of certain spiritual effects, and sometimes for the obtaining of a temporal effect." Some of the older authorities; like Caietanus and See also:Soto, taught that sacramentals as above defined have power to produce their effects ex opere operato, i.e. by their own inherent virtue; others that they produce them ex opere operantis, i.e. through the merit and disposition of the user. But in the latter case, argues M. Belmont, what is the use of the prayers offered up over the substances; and how See also:account for the See also:differences of effects which by the testimony of the faithful are respectively caused by water duly blessed and by water falsely blessed? If the See also:mere See also:state of mind of the person using the water deter-mines the effect, then in the case of both kinds of See also:benediction, the true and the false alike, it would be one and the same. He therefore inclines to the See also:opinion that there is no inherent virtue in sacramentals, but that God is moved by the prayers uttered in their consecration to produce salutary effects in those who use them. Thus he avoids on the one See also:side the See also:opus operatum view, and on the other a merely receptionist position.
The consecration of material objects and in general their use in religion and cult was consistently avoided by the Manicheans; not because they failed to See also:share the universal belief of earlier ages that spirits can be inducted by means of fitting prayers and incantations into inanimate things, but because the external material See also:world was held to be the creation of an evil See also:demiurge and so incapable of harbouring a pure spirit. The sacramentals of the great Church were denounced by them as vehicles of the evil one; and this class of See also:prejudice was carried to such a length that some of them eschewed even baptism with water and the sacrament of bread and wine. That they retained the laying on of hands in their spiritual baptism was an inconsistency which their orthodox opponents did not fail to See also:note; the human hand, argued the latter, is, like the See also:rest of the body, no less the work of the evil creator than water, oil, bread and wine, or than the wood, See also:metal and See also: 15), the hand-kerchiefs or aprons off Paul's body (ibid. xix. 12). The Manicheans' See also:answer to such arguments was that miracles worked by Christ and the Apostles in the material world were only apparitional and not real, while those of the Old Testament were satanic. It has been argued that the sacramental See also:rites of the Christians were largely imitated from the See also:pagan mysteries; but for the first two hundred years this is hardly true, except perhaps in the case of certain Gnostic sects whose leaders intentionally amalgamated the new faith with old pagan ideas and rites. It is true that See also:Gentile converts carried over into the new religion many ideas and habits of cult contracted under the old; this was inevitable, for no one lightly changes his religious habits and categories. For See also:long generations the doctors of the Church fought bravely against such an infusion of See also:heathen customs; thus in Latin countries we find the rule to keep New Year's See also:day as a fast, just because the pagans feasted on it, giving one another gifts (strenae, Fr. etrennes) and taking omens for the coming year. But in the 4th century this puritanic zeal gave way; and this and other pagan feasts were taken over by the Church; a century earlier in See also:Asia See also:Minor See also:Gregory the Thaumaturge was actively transforming into shrines and cult of martyrs the temples and idolatrous rites of heroes and demigods. In proportion as such See also:conversion was facile and rapid, it was probably imperfect. That baptism is called the See also:Seal (v¢payis), and See also:Illumination (¢wrtuµbs) in the 2nd century has been set down to the influenceof the pagan mysteries; but as a matter of fact the former See also:term is a See also:metaphor from military discipline, and the idea conveyed in the latter that gnosis or imparting of divine love is an illumining of the soul is found both in the Old and New Testaments. Nor because the pagans regarded the See also:close meetings of the Christians usually held in private houses as mysteries in which incest and See also:cannibalism were rife, does it follow that the Christians themselves accepted the comparison. On the contrary, as a thousand passages in the earlier apologists attest, they viewed the pagan mysteries with horror and detestation. Nor were they so solicitous, as it is pretended, to conceal from the authorities what they did and said in their liturgical meetings. The Christians' of Bithynia were evidently quite See also:frank about them to Pliny (c. 112), and See also:Justin in his Apology reveals everything to a pagan See also:emperor (c. 15o). That catechumens could not participate in the See also:agape or love-feast (of which in this See also:epoch the Eucharist was merely an See also:episode) does not give to those feasts the See also:character of a Greek mystery. The uncircumcized See also:proselyte was similarly excluded from the See also:Paschal See also:meal on which the Eucharist was largely modelled, even though it may not have been in any way a continuation of the same. Baptism and the agape took their rise in See also:Palestine, and in their origin certainly owed little or nothing to outside influences. For both there can be found Jewish See also:models, if necessary. The sacred feasts of the See also:Essenes and See also:Therapeutae in particular, as de-scribed by See also:Josephus and See also:Philo, closely resembled the Eucharistic agape. Undeniably See also:Clement of See also:Alexandria and See also:Origen apply the See also:language of the Greek mysteries to Christian gnosis and life. " These are," says Clement, " divine mysteries, hidden from most and revealed to the few who can receive them." And Origen compares them to the sacred vessels, and would have them " guarded secretly behind the See also:veil of the See also:conscience and not lightly produced before the public." He who so produces them " dances out the word of the true See also:philosophy,"—a technical description of the profanation of the mysteries. It is not even safe, according to these two fathers, to commit too much to See also:writing; and Clement undertakes not to reveal in writing many secrets known to the initiated among his readers; otherwise the indiscreet See also:eye of the heathen may rest on them, and he will have See also:cast his pearls before See also:swine. But we may See also:discount most such talk in these writers as bellettristic pedantry, copied as a rule from Philo of Alexandria, their See also:literary See also:model. In the latter's description of the Therapeutae (ed. Mangey, ii. 475) we read how each ascetic had " in his See also:house a See also:room in which in solitude they celebrated the mysteries of the holy life, introducing nothing therein, either to drink or to eat, nor anything else necessary for the uses of the flesh." And in scores of other passages Philo dwells on " the ineffable mysteries " of Jewish faith and See also:allegory. He even writes thus: " O ye initiated ones, with purified sense of See also:hearing, shall ye accept in your souls these truly sacred mysteries, nor divulge them to any of the uninitiated. . . . I have been initiated by See also:Moses the friend of God in the great mysteries." But because he uses the language of the Greek mysteries, Philo never imitated the thing itself; and he is ever ready to denounce it in the bitterest terms. Clement and Origen really meant no more than he. At a later See also:period, however, the difficulty of screening the rites of baptism and Eucharist from the eyes of catechumens and from their ears the See also:creeds and liturgies—a difficulty which had ever been formidable and which after the overthrow of paganism must have become insurmountable—seems to have provoked not only a great outpouring on the part of the Christian rhetors, like See also:Basil, See also:Chrysostom, the Gregories and the Cyrils, of phrases borrowed from the Greek mysteries, but perhaps an actual use of precautions. Thus the bishop of See also:Rome, See also:Julius (c. 340), complained (See also:Athanasius, Apol. cont. Arian. 31, See also:Migne 25, 300) that a See also:court of See also:law had not been cleared of catechumens, Jews and pagans, in a case where the legal discussion introduced the topic of the table of Christ; and the preachers of the 4th and Perhaps, however, Pliny refers only to the renegades among them. 5th centuries in their discourses often make a point of not citing the creed or describing the Eucharist; they stop See also:short and ejaculate such remarks as traysv of aca'TOL, norunt fideles (" the faithful know it "). Such was the Disciplina arcani. All will admit who study the See also:post-Nicene Church, that the Christian sacraments have stolen the clothes of the pagan mysteries, dethroned and forbidden by the Christian emperors. The catechumenate, an old institution, older in most regions than the mysteries themselves, suggested and rendered feasible such wholesale See also:theft, especially in an age in which the sacerdotal class wished to be pre-eminent, and See also:left nothing undone to enhance in the eyes of the multitude the importance and solemnity of rites which it was their See also:prerogative to administer. The disappearance, too, of the pagan mysteries must have left a void in many See also:hearts, and the clerics tried to fill it up by themselves masquerading as hierophants. In the age of the Council of See also:Nice the See also:custom arose of baptizing See also:children of three, because at that age they can already talk and utter the baptismal vows and responses. Not a few homilies of that age survive, denouncing the deferring of baptism, and urging on parents the See also:duty of initiating their See also:young children. Thus there is much See also:evidence to show that long before A.D. 500 child baptism was in See also:vogue. But in that case how can the creed and See also:ritual of baptism, the Lord's Prayer and the Eucharistic formulae, have been kept secret? How can they have been the " awful mysteries," the " dread and terrible canons," the " mystic teachings," the ineffable sentences," the " oracles too sacred to be committed to writing " which the homilists of that age pretend them to have been? Could our See also:modern freemasons continue to hide their watchwords and ritual, or even make a pretence of doing so, if they were constrained by public opinion to initiate every child three years of age? The thing is absurd. When, therefore, we find such phrases in Greek and Latin homilies of the period of 350 to 550 we must regard them as elaborate make-believe. Because catechumens as well as the faithful were present at the sermons, the preachers thought it becoming to throw them in; but the See also:audience must have been aware that their secrets were open ones. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] SACO |
[next] SACRAMENTALS (Sacramentalia) |