Chapter I §2: Christian and Other Sacraments

§2. Christian and Other Sacraments

Catholic theologians distinguish four different states through which the human race has successively passed: (1) the state of original justice in Paradise; (2) the state of the law of nature; (3) the state of the Mosaic Law; and (4) the state of the New Covenant. Each of these states has its own peculiar means of grace.

1. The Quasi-Sacraments of Paradise

Whether there were true Sacraments in the state of original innocence enjoyed by our first parents in Paradise is a disputed question. The majority of theologians, following St. Thomas, take the negative, while a respectable minority maintain the positive side.

The Angelic Doctor argues that mankind required no means of sanctification in a state which was of itself holy. “In the state of innocence,” he says, “man needed no sacraments, whether as remedies against sin or as means of perfecting the soul.”¹

Bellelli and others contend that the Tree of Life² and Marriage³ might properly be called Sacraments. These writers appeal in support of their view to St. Augustine, who ascribes to the Tree of Life the miraculous immortality of the body as well as the communication of supernatural wisdom,⁴ and describes the union of Adam and Eve as a pattern of the mystic union between Christ and His Church.⁵ But there is no conclusive proof that St. Augustine regarded these two institutions as Sacraments in the technical sense of the term. The element of personal sanctification, so essential to the notion of a Sacrament, is not sufficiently evident in either, and, besides, the great Bishop of Hippo probably used the word “Sacrament” in its wider meaning of signum rei sacrae.⁶

As for St. Thomas, he did not deny that the marriage of our first parents in Paradise was a true type of Christ’s union with His Church. “Matrimony,” he says, “was instituted in the state of innocence, not as a Sacrament, but for a function of nature. In regard to what followed, however, it foreshadowed something in relation to Christ and the Church, just as everything else foreshadowed Christ.”⁷

2. The State of the Law of Nature

The status legis naturae (not to be confounded with the status naturae purae)⁸ comprises that long interval between the fall of our first parents and the enactment of the Mosaic dispensation, during which men were subject to no other law than that of nature, “written in their hearts.”⁹ The state of the law of nature, under the influence of the redemptive grace of Christ promised in the Protogospel, was a supernatural state, and may be divided into two epochs. The first of these, from Adam to Abraham, had a “Sacrament of Nature”;¹⁰ the second, from Abraham to Moses, possessed a true Sacrament of regeneration in the rite of circumcision.¹¹

a) It is theologically certain, and admitted by all Catholic divines, that from Adam to Moses mankind possessed a Sacrament of Nature.

α) To deny this would be to except the infants born during that epoch from the divine will to save, which, as we have demonstrated in our treatise on Grace, is universal.¹² As God wills to save all men without exception, there must have been some means by which the infants of the pre-Mosaic period could be cleansed of original sin. The Fathers were firmly convinced of the existence of such a sacramentum naturae. St. Augustine repeatedly insists on its necessity.¹³ Suarez states the position of the Schoolmen thus: “It is impious and repugnant to the universal tradition and sentiment of the Church, to hold that, under the natural law and under the law of Moses, infants were without a remedy against original sin, and that consequently all who died before attaining to the use of reason, were damned.”¹⁴

β) The exact character of this sacramentum naturae is a matter of conjecture. All that can be said with any degree of certainty is: (1) As a medium of regeneration, the Sacrament of Nature must have been based in some way on belief in the future Redeemer, because “there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved.”¹⁵ (2) This faith in the Messias most probably found expression in a prayer and was symbolized by a visible sign.¹⁶ (3) As no one but God can cleanse the soul of original sin, the “Natural Sacrament” of the pre-Abrahamic period must have been instituted by Him, at least in substance, though He may have left the determination of its form and the selection of the grace-conferring symbols to the free choice of men. St. Thomas’ view of the matter may be gathered from the following passage in the Summa: “It is probable that believing parents offered up some prayer to God for their children, especially if these were in any danger, or bestowed on them some blessing, as a seal of faith; just as the adults offered prayers and sacrifices for themselves.”¹⁷ These three requisites are sufficient to constitute a Sacrament in the generic sense of the term.

It is much more difficult, nay practically impossible, to decide whether, in the state of the natural law, there were also Sacraments for adult persons. The Thomists¹⁸ think there were several, while other theologians¹⁹ reject this assumption on the ground that for the state of the natural law God provided only what was absolutely necessary, and Sacraments were not necessary because adults could obtain forgiveness of their sins by an act of perfect contrition.

It is to be noted that for the heathen and the female children of the Israelites the economy of grace which existed in the status legis naturae remained in force even after the proclamation of the law of circumcision.²⁰

b) At the time of Abraham, long before the promulgation of the Mosaic law, circumcision became the ordinary means of spiritual regeneration. This rite has all the characteristics of a true Sacrament.

α) God promulgated the law in these words: “This is my covenant which you shall observe, between me and you, and thy seed after thee: all the male kind of you shall be circumcised; and you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, that it may be for a sign of the covenant between me and you. An infant of eight days old shall be circumcised among you. … The male whose flesh of his foreskin shall not be circumcised, that soul shall be destroyed out of his people, because he hath broken my covenant.”²¹ Here circumcision is plainly made a conditio sine qua non of salvation. As no one can be saved unless he is cleansed of original sin, circumcision was obviously an instrument of regeneration. This is the opinion of St. Thomas,²² and though it is disputed by Vasquez, Tournely, and Bellarmine,²³ Suarez rightly maintains that the teaching of the Angelic Doctor on this head cannot be denied “without a certain degree of temerity,” especially in view of Pope Innocent III’s declaration against the Cathari, that “Original sin was forgiven and the danger of damnation avoided by the mystery of the circumcision.”²⁴

The rite of circumcision was truly sacramental: an external sign, accompanied by internal grace, instituted by God for the remission of sin. The Fathers and Scholastics could not have regarded circumcision as the type of Baptism, had they not believed it to be a real Sacrament.²⁵

β) In what manner did circumcision remit original sin? In adults, no doubt, through the instrumentality of justifying faith (fides formata), and consequently “by the work of the worker” (ex opere operantis). But how about infants? This question is intimately connected with another, on which theologians disagree, viz.: How do circumcision and Baptism differ in regard to their mode of operation? It will prove helpful to review the varying opinions on these two points.

(1) The Scotists contend that circumcision wiped out original sin “by the work wrought” (ex opere operato),²⁶ but that it was not on the same level with Baptism because it did not confer an equal measure of holiness nor an immediate claim to Heaven.²⁷ In support of this contention, Scotus and his followers appeal to the authority of St. Augustine, who says that circumcision supplied the place of Baptism among the Jews,²⁸ and they also quote Pope Innocent III’s declaration that original sin was remitted by the mystery of the circumcision.²⁹ But the Scotist view is incompatible with St. Paul’s repeated assertion of the futility and inefficacy of all “works of the law,”³⁰ and moreover contradicts the positive teaching of the Fathers that the Sacraments of the Ancient Covenant had no power to forgive sins.³¹

(2) Bellarmine, Vasquez, Tournely, and a few others go to the opposite extreme, saying that circumcision was merely an external sign of Israel’s covenant with Jehovah and a mark distinguishing the Chosen People from the gentiles. We have already criticized this theory because it suggests — or at least does not absolutely exclude — the implication that the circumcised infants remained in the state of mortal sin. This assumption is refuted by the same arguments which speak in favor of a sacramentum naturae for the pre-Mosaic period.³²

(3) A third group endeavors to reconcile the two extremes just mentioned by saying that the remission of original sin depended somehow on the rite of circumcision, though that rite was by no means the cause but merely an occasion or a conditio sine qua non of justification. From this point of view it is clearly a sophism to argue, as the Scotists do: “The remission of original sin is effected either ex opere operato or ex opere operantis; it is not effected ex opere operantis because infants are incapable of justifying faith; consequently, it must be effected ex opere operato.” For, unless we take the phrase ex opere operato merely as the counterpart of opus operans, as De Lugo does,³³ it is possible to insert between the two a middle term, explaining the rite of circumcision merely as a “sign of faith,” to which regeneration is outwardly attached but which lacks the intrinsic power of effecting it. Or, to express the idea differently: circumcision did not, like Baptism, wipe out original sin causally, as a signum demonstrativum, but merely incidentally, as a signum prognosticum. This theory, which is held by St. Thomas and the majority of Catholic theologians, bears all the earmarks of truth. It takes into account St. Paul’s teaching of the inefficacy of all the Old Testament ceremonies, and at the same time agrees with the universal teaching of the Fathers and the conciliary definitions of Florence and Trent.³⁴

3. The Sacraments of the Mosaic Law

The fact that circumcision was an essential constituent of the law given to the Israelites on Mount Sinai shows that the Mosaic code had at least one Sacrament. The teaching of the Fathers and councils leads us to infer that it had more than one.

The existence of several Sacraments is quite in accordance with the spirit and character of the Mosaic economy. Being a special covenant of Yahweh with His Chosen People, and a type foreshadowing the “good things to come,” the Mosaic Law not only needed to be more fully equipped with means of grace than the purely natural law, but also to foreshadow more clearly the future Messianic dispensation. Its ceremonies and precepts were calculated to keep awake the desire for the promised “truth and reality” and to presage and prepare the “liberty of the children of God.”³⁵

But the Mosaic Sacraments were far inferior in character and efficacy to those of the Christian dispensation, of which they were merely an intimation and a “shadow”;³⁶ and hence what we have said about circumcision³⁷ applies to all the Sacraments of the Old Testament.

How many there were, it is impossible to ascertain. St. Thomas, with special reference to their character as types and patterns of the Sacraments of the New Testament, divides them into four categories: (a) circumcision as the first and most necessary, and a pattern of Baptism; (b) Sacraments designed for the preservation and perfection of righteousness and to serve as figures of the Holy Eucharist, e.g., the eating of the Paschal lamb,³⁸ the consumption of the loaves of proposition,³⁹ and the so-called Eucharistic sacrifices, which were at the same time types of the Mass; (c) Sacraments instituted for the expiation of sins and the cure of legal uncleanness, such as the various purifications prescribed for the laity, the washing of hands and feet imposed on the Levites,⁴⁰ etc. — these were types of the Sacrament of Penance; (d) a fourth and last group had for its object the perpetuation of the Levitic priesthood and consisted of certain consecratory rites⁴¹ which typified the Sacrament of Holy Orders.⁴²

The only Christian Sacraments which have no counterparts in the Mosaic Law are Confirmation, Extreme Unction, and Matrimony. The reason is explained by St. Thomas as follows: “It is impossible that there should have been in the Old Law a Sacrament corresponding to Confirmation, which is the Sacrament of the fulness of grace, because the time of that fulness had not yet arrived, and the law had not brought anything to perfection.⁴³ The same must be said of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, which is a sort of immediate preparation for man’s entrance into the state of glory; for this was not open in the Old Testament, as the price had not yet been paid. Matrimony existed in the Old Testament as a function of nature, but not as a Sacrament of Christ’s union with His Church, which at that time had not yet been consummated. It was for this reason, too, that a husband under the Old Law could give his wife a bill of divorce, which is repugnant to the nature of a Sacrament.”⁴⁴

4. The Sacraments of the New Law

The sanctity demanded by the New Law requires more perfect Sacraments than those available under the Mosaic dispensation.

Christ, in whom godhead and manhood are so intimately united, is as it were a living Sacrament — the personal and visible embodiment of uncreated grace. Similarly His Church, as the mystical image of the Hypostatic Union, is the visible medium of supernatural life, and therefore preeminently a sacramental institution.⁴⁵

Another a priori argument for the existence of Sacraments in the Christian economy is based on the nature of man as a compound of spirit and body, needing sensible signs for the communication of the higher spiritual life. “The state of the New Law,” says St. Thomas, “is between the state of the Old Law, whose figures are fulfilled in the New, and the state of glory, in which all truth will be openly and perfectly revealed; wherefore then there will be no Sacraments. But now, so long as we know ‘through a glass in a dark manner’ (1 Cor. XIII, 12), we need sensible signs in order to reach spiritual things, and this is the province of the Sacraments.”⁴⁶

A third argument for the necessity of Sacraments in the New Testament may be deduced from the circumstance that sin, through concupiscence, affects both soul and body, and the remedy must consequently be applicable to both; that is to say, it must be partly spiritual and partly material.⁴⁷

In asserting the existence of so-called parallels to the Christian Sacraments in the ethnic religions of antiquity, e.g. the cult of Mithras, the science of comparative religion merely furnishes another proof that the use of visible signs as pledges of invisible sanctification corresponds to a deep-rooted need of human nature.

The Roman Catechism gives seven distinct reasons for the fitness of Sacraments under the Christian dispensation. They are: (1) the need of visible signs, owing to the peculiar constitution of human nature, which makes the spiritual soul dependent on the senses; (2) the consoling assurance to be derived from the use of concrete pledges guaranteeing God’s fidelity to His promises; (3) the need of healing medicines to recover or preserve the health of the soul; (4) the desire of belonging to a visible society, knit, as it were, into one body by the bond of visible signs; (5) the necessity of an external profession of faith to distinguish Christians from infidels; (6) the advantage of having sacred mysteries to excite and exercise the faith; and (7) the repression of pride and the exercise of humility involved in availing oneself of sensible elements in obedience to God.

While it is perfectly legitimate to infer the fitness of Christian Sacraments from these a priori considerations, this fact does not dispense us from proving their actual existence from Revelation.