Chapter I §3: The Seven Sacraments of the New Testament

§3. The Seven Sacraments of the New Testament

1. Heretical Errors vs. the Teaching of the Church

After considerable wavering, Protestants finally adopted two Sacraments and two only, viz., Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Against this heretical error the Tridentine Council defined: “If anyone saith that the Sacraments of the New Law … are more or less than seven, to wit: Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Order, and Matrimony, or even that any one of these seven is not truly and properly a Sacrament, let him be anathema.”¹ Hence it is of faith that there are seven Sacraments.

Luther at first retained this dogma. But in 1520 he declared that there are but three Sacraments, Baptism, Penance, and the Eucharist;² in 1523 he reduced the number to two — Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Melanchthon was equally inconsistent. After asserting in the first edition of his Loci Theologici (1522) that there are two Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, he later, in his Apologia (A.D. 1530), added “Absolution” and “Ordination.”

Zwingli and Calvin invented the two-sacrament theory, which has come to be generally accepted among modern Protestants.³

That there are exactly seven Sacraments, neither more nor less, can be demonstrated by a twofold method: first, by going through the several rites which the Council enumerates, proving that each of these answers the description of a Sacrament, and then showing that the same cannot be said of any other ceremonies. Second, by positively demonstrating that the Church has always believed in just seven Sacraments, neither more nor less. For pedagogical reasons we shall employ the latter method. The belief of the Church may be demonstrated both theologically and historically.

2. The Theological Argument

For several centuries before the Protestant Reformation, the belief in seven Sacraments was universal throughout the Church. Now, universal belief in a doctrine of so great a theoretical and practical importance is certain proof of its Apostolic origin. Consequently, the belief in seven Sacraments is not a human invention but part and parcel of the deposit of faith handed down by the Apostles.

a) The minor premise of this syllogism is based on the infallibility of the Church, which in turn is guaranteed by the abiding presence of the Holy Ghost and our Saviour’s promise to remain with her unto the consummation of the world. Had the Catholic Church ever, even for a moment, deviated from the truth, she would no longer be the Church of Christ.

St. Augustine enunciates this truth in the following words: “Whatever is held by the whole Church, and was not introduced by any council, but has always been maintained, is rightly held to rest on the authority of the Apostles.”⁴

b) The major premise asserts an historical fact which is easily demonstrable from contemporary documents.

α) There is some doubt as to who first drew up our present list of Sacraments. For a while this list was believed to be the work of Radulphus Ardens, who flourished towards the end of the eleventh century, but this assumption has been rendered improbable by the researches of Grabmann.⁵ Most probably the first traces of “the Tridentine Seven” will yet be discovered in the hitherto unedited Libri Sententiarum of the schools of William of Champeaux (d. 1120) and Anselm of Laon (d. 1118). St. Otto, Bishop of Bamberg (ca. 1127), is reported by his biographer Herbord (d. 1168) to have left to his faithful flock a set of catechetical instructions, in which he speaks of “the seven Sacraments of the Church” and enumerates them just as we have them to-day, though in a somewhat different order.⁶ At about the same time the learned Bishop Gregory of Bergamo (1133–1146), in a treatise composed against Berengarius, gives the number of Sacraments instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ as seven.⁷ About the year 1150, Master Roland, later Pope Alexander III, enumerates seven Sacraments in his Book of Sentences.⁸ The same number occurs in the statutes of Bishop Richard Poore, A.D. 1217, in the Statuta Edita 1222 of Archbishop Stephen Langton of Canterbury,⁹ and in the decrees of the provincial councils of Oxford (1222), Clairvaux (1268), London (1272), and Cologne (1280). The synodal constitutions of Odo of Paris, A.D. 1197, give a detailed explanation of only six Sacraments, but the existence of a seventh (Holy Orders) is plainly demanded by the context.¹⁰ Of still greater importance are the doctrinal decisions of various popes and councils, such as the profession of faith prescribed by Innocent III for the Waldenses (A.D. 1210).¹¹

At the Council of Lyons, A.D. 1274, the Greek Emperor Michael Palaeologus submitted to Pope Gregory X a profession of faith, in which he acknowledged that “the Holy Roman Church holds and teaches that there are seven Sacraments, namely Baptism,” etc.¹² The Council of Constance (1418), by order of Martin V,¹³ drew up a list of questions to be addressed to the followers of Wiclif and Hus, of which numbers 15 to 22 refer to the seven Sacraments as we have them.¹⁴ The Council of Florence (A.D. 1439), in its Decretum pro Armenis, declares that “there are seven Sacraments of the New Law, viz.: Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.”¹⁵

β) The official teaching of the Church was explained and scientifically defended by the Scholastic theologians of the twelfth century, not merely as a theoretical opinion, but as a dogma of the faith practically applied in every-day life. Hugh of St. Victor (1097–1141), in his treatise De Caerimoniis, Sacramentis, Officiis et Observationibus Ecclesiasticis,¹⁶ enumerates the seven Sacraments and describes them one by one. Peter Lombard, who flourished at about the same time,¹⁷ begins his treatise on the subject with these words: “Now let us enter upon the Sacraments of the New Law, which are: Baptism, Confirmation, the Blessing of Bread or Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Order, and Matrimony.”¹⁸ The fact that up to the middle of the thirteenth century various writers, mostly commentators on the Canon Law of the Church, differed in giving the number of the Sacraments, was due partly to the prevailing vagueness in the use of the term “Sacrament,” and partly to the compilatory character of their writings.¹⁹ The great Scholastics, headed by St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas of Aquin, unhesitatingly accepted the teaching of Peter Lombard and were at pains to show the congruity of the septenary number as afterwards defined by the Council of Trent. Thus Dominicus Soto writes: “There is no question as to the certainty of the number [seven], since that is settled by ecclesiastical tradition and usage; but we shall inquire into its congruity.”²⁰

This brief survey shows that the Tridentine definition was simply the solemn confirmation of a doctrine which had been in undisputed possession for at least four centuries before the Protestant Reformation.

3. The Historical Argument

Any dogmatic truth that has been constantly held by the universal Church rests on the authority of the Apostles, and consequently, of Christ.²¹ Now, it can be shown that the Church has at all times believed in and administered the seven Sacraments as we have them to-day, and that even the heretical sects which broke loose from Catholic unity in the early centuries held the same doctrine regarding the number of the Sacraments as that later defined by the Council of Trent.

a) It is an historical fact that “the Tridentine Seven” was in undisputed possession at the time of St. Otto of Bamberg, A.D. 1127.²² While the followers of Wiclif and Hus attacked the Catholic teaching with regard to the requisites of validity, claiming that a Sacrament cannot be validly administered by one who is in the state of mortal sin, they never denied that there are seven Sacraments, neither more nor less.

b) Going three centuries further back we come to the Greek schism of Photius, A.D. 860. Though this learned heretic was constantly seeking for pretexts to justify the secession of the Greek Church from Rome, he never once accused the Latins of having abolished any of the traditional Sacraments or introduced new ones. Both Churches were so perfectly at one in their belief on this point, even after the schism, that no essential difference of opinion came to light in the repeated efforts for reunion made at Lyons (A.D. 1274) and Florence (A.D. 1439).

Though the reunion patched up at Florence came to a bad end, the schismatic Greeks continued to believe in seven Sacraments, as the Lutherans found to their sorrow when they tried to “convert” them. Jeremias, Patriarch of Constantinople, in 1573, politely but firmly rejected the overtures of Martin Crusius and Jacob Andreä, of the theological faculty of Tübingen, and in a long letter refuted the Lutheran innovations point for point. He said, inter alia: “We solemnly affirm that the holy Fathers have handed down to us … seven divine Sacraments, viz.: Baptism, Anointment with Sacred Chrism, Holy Communion, Order, Matrimony, Penance, and the Oil of the last Unction, … neither more nor less. … And all these means of our salvation have been handed down to us by Christ Himself, our Lord God, and His Apostles.”²³ When, in 1581, the Tübingen divines again appealed to Jeremias, he bluntly told them to cease their fruitless efforts.

Half a century later an attempt was made by a traitor to force the Protestant heresy on the Greek Church. Cyril Lucar, a Greek priest who had espoused Calvinism and somehow managed to intrigue his way into the patriarchal see of Constantinople, in a Calvinistic confession of faith which he drew up in Latin in 1629, and subsequently translated into Greek, asserted that there are but two Sacraments. The Greek Church at once took alarm, and Cyril was sent into exile (1634). In 1637 he purchased his return by bribery and succeeded in having himself reinstated. Thereupon the indignation of both clergy and people against the man who dared to set his private opinion above the common belief of the faithful could no longer be restrained. The unworthy Patriarch was condemned by a council at Constantinople (A.D. 1638), and, being moreover suspected of favoring an invasion of the Turkish Empire by the Cossacks, was strangled by order of the Sultan and his body cast into the sea. His “Confession of Faith” was condemned and anathema passed upon him by a synod assembled at Constantinople in September, 1638.²⁴ Four years later, at a council held under the presidency of Parthenius, who was a cordial hater of Rome, there was adopted a Confessio Fidei Orthodoxae drawn up by Peter Mogilas, metropolitan of Kieff, in which the Latin doctrine as to the number of Sacraments held a prominent place. This important symbol in the following year received the official signatures of all four Oriental patriarchs and of numerous bishops, and was solemnly approved by a council held at Jerusalem in 1672.

These official declarations find their practical confirmation in the liturgical books of the Orthodox Church, both ancient and modern,²⁵ and are not denied even by such radical schismatic theologians as Simon of Thessalonica (d. 1429), Gabriel of Philadelphia, Meletius Syrigus, Coresius, and his pupil Georgios Protosynkellos. Only a few years ago the Orthodox Provost Maltzew, of the Russian embassy in Berlin, wrote: “While the Roman Church and all the heterodox Oriental churches are in perfect agreement with the Orthodox Catholic Church of the East in regard to the doctrine that there are seven Sacraments, the sects based on the Protestant Reformation admit but two, and interpret even these in a different sense from the Orthodox Church.”²⁶

In view of the origin of the Greek schism and the great animosity existing between the two churches, it is impossible to assume that the doctrine of the seven Sacraments was borrowed by the West from the East, or vice versa; both churches must have derived it from a common source before the Orient severed its connection with the Latin Church. In other words, the Church of Christ had her seven Sacraments long before the time of Photius.²⁷

c) Another step takes us back to that agitated period when the Nestorians and the Monophysites broke away from Catholic unity.

α) Did these ancient heretics hold any other doctrine as to the number of Sacraments than that defined at Trent? No. Their liturgical books contain the Catholic dogma in all its purity, and thus furnish clear and indisputable evidence that it antedates the fifth century, when these sects separated from the Church.

β) This argument loses nothing of its force by the curious circumstance that, in the course of ecclesiastical history, a few individual writers belonging to these sects have rejected one or the other Sacrament and substituted in its place some ceremony or rite which the Church has never acknowledged as sacramentary. The very fact that these innovators never deviated from the number seven, proves that there were seven Sacraments, neither more nor less, from the beginning. The Greek monks Job and Damascene of Thessalonica, e.g., after arbitrarily adding the monastic habit²⁸ to the list of Sacraments, restored the traditional number seven by contracting Penance and Extreme Unction into one (Job) or striking Penance entirely from the list (Damascene). Equally characteristic is the procedure of Vartanus, a thirteenth-century Armenian of Monophysitic proclivities, who substituted the “burial service”²⁹ to fill the vacancy he had created in the roster of Sacraments by fusing Penance with Extreme Unction. These authors got their new “Sacraments” from a misunderstood passage in the writings of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, where the four “consecratory” Sacraments — Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, and Holy Orders — are immediately followed by the rite for the blessing of altars, the monastic habit, benediction, and the funeral service.

It is not so easy to explain how the Nestorian Ebed Jesu (d. 1318) came to deny the Sacraments of Matrimony and Extreme Unction and to replace them by the Sign of the Cross³⁰ and the “Holy Ferment,” whatever that may have meant.³¹ Perhaps these and similar vagaries owed their origin to the ignorance of hermits who were far removed from the centres of ecclesiastical learning and deprived of even ordinary means of instruction.³² The genuine doctrine of these sects and their authentic practice must be studied in the liturgical books which contain the primitive rites of the Sacraments, as stated above.³³

d) If the belief of the Church in regard to such an important dogma as the number of the Sacraments instituted by Christ had undergone any essential change between the Apostolic age and the time of Nestorius, this change, whether slow or sudden, would necessarily have left its traces in history.

The bishops and the faithful of the first four centuries jealously guarded the purity of the Apostolic deposit, especially in those matters which involved daily practice. The learned and zealous Fathers who did not hesitate to shed their blood in defense of the orthodox faith against the anti-Trinitarian and Christological heresies would surely have sounded the alarm had anyone tried to tamper with the doctrine of the Sacraments. Even if, for argument’s sake, we were to grant that the primitive Church knew but two or three Sacraments, it would have been impossible, aside from her infallibility and indefectibility, for any innovator to introduce a complete set of new sacramental rites without incurring the determined opposition of bishops, priests, and people. Hence we may safely conclude with Father Hunter that “the doctrine now held by all who reject the authority of the Tridentine Council, is certainly not Apostolic nor traditional; it is a novelty no older than the sixteenth century; it is therefore a freshly introduced doctrine, resting on the authority of Luther or some of his contemporaries: it is therefore not to be received, unless the teacher produce his credentials as a divine messenger, and this he is unable to do.”³⁴ The Catholic doctrine that there are seven Sacraments is of Apostolic origin, and hence derived from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.³⁵

4. Why There Are Just Seven Sacraments

As there are reasons of congruity for the existence of Sacraments under the Christian dispensation,³⁶ so there are reasons why there should be precisely seven, neither more nor less.

a) The human intellect is not, of course, able to establish this number with mathematical certainty on a priori grounds. Absolutely speaking, God had it in His power to institute as many Sacraments as He pleased. But it is easy to see, a posteriori, that the septenary admirably corresponds to the practical needs of man’s composite nature. This was admitted even by Goethe, pagan though he was.³⁷ We will not enter into useless speculations about the “mystic number seven,” but merely note that there is a remarkable analogy between the natural life of the body and the supernatural life of the soul, to both of which the Sacraments so wonderfully minister.

St. Thomas develops this thought in the third part of the Summa: “The Sacraments of the Church were instituted for a twofold purpose: namely, in order to perfect man in things pertaining to the worship of God according to the Christian life, and to be a remedy against the defects caused by sin. And in either way it is becoming that there should be seven Sacraments. For spiritual life has a certain conformity with the life of the body: just as other corporeal things have a certain likeness to things spiritual. Now man attains perfection in the corporeal life in two ways: first, in regard to his own person; secondly, in regard to the whole community of the society in which he lives, for man is by nature a social animal. With regard to himself man is perfected in the life of the body in two ways: first, directly (per se), i.e. by acquiring some vital perfection; secondly, indirectly (per accidens), i.e. by the removal of hindrances to life, such as ailments or the like.

Now the life of the body is perfected directly, in three ways. First, by generation, whereby a man begins to be and to live: and corresponding to this in the spiritual life there is Baptism, which is a spiritual regeneration. Secondly, by growth, whereby a man is brought to perfect size and strength: and corresponding to this in the spiritual life there is Confirmation, in which the Holy Ghost is given to strengthen us. Thirdly, by nourishment, whereby life and strength are preserved to man: and corresponding to this in the spiritual life there is the Eucharist.

This would be enough for man if he had an impassible life, both corporally and spiritually; but since man is liable at times to both corporal and spiritual infirmity, i.e. sin, he needs a cure for his infirmity. This cure is twofold. One is the healing that restores health: and corresponding to this in the spiritual life there is Penance. The other is the restoration of former vigor by means of suitable diet and exercise: and corresponding to this in the spiritual life there is Extreme Unction, which removes the remainders of sin and prepares man for final glory. In regard to the whole community, man is perfected in two ways. First, by receiving power to rule the community and to exercise public acts: and corresponding to this in the spiritual life there is the Sacrament of Order. Secondly, in regard to natural propagation. This is accomplished by Matrimony both in the corporal and in the spiritual life: since it is not only a Sacrament but also a function of nature.”³⁸

“We may likewise gather the number of the Sacraments from their being instituted as a remedy against the defect caused by sin. For Baptism is intended as a remedy against the absence of spiritual life; Confirmation, against the infirmity of soul found in those of recent birth; the Eucharist, against the soul’s proneness to sin; Penance, against actual sin committed after Baptism; Extreme Unction, against the remainders of sins — of those sins, namely, which are not sufficiently removed by Penance, whether through negligence or through ignorance; Order, against divisions in the community; Matrimony, as a remedy against concupiscence in the individual, and against the decrease in numbers that results from death.”³⁹

This beautiful argument has been as it were officially approved and consecrated by the Church through its embodiment in the Decretum pro Armenis (1439)⁴⁰ and the Roman Catechism.⁴¹

b) The Scholastics, from Peter Lombard to Suarez, devoted much ingenuity to demonstrating the intrinsic fitness of the septenary number of the Sacraments. Perhaps the most original conception is that of St. Bonaventure, who argues from the vicissitudes to which every Christian is subject in his capacity as a soldier of Christ. “Baptism,” he says, “is [the Sacrament] of those that enter the army; Confirmation, that of the combatants engaged in actual battle; the Eucharist, that of the soldiers regaining strength; Penance, that of the fighters arising from defeat; Extreme Unction, that of the departing; Order, that of the officers charged with training new soldiers; Matrimony, that of the men whose business it is to furnish recruits.”⁴²

He proves the same thesis from the functions of the different Sacraments as remedies for various diseases of the soul: “There are seven different kinds of diseases, three of guilt, viz.: original sin, mortal sin, and venial sin; and four of punishment, viz.: ignorance, malice, infirmity, and concupiscence. … Against each of these special remedies must be applied … Baptism, against original sin; Penance, against mortal sin; Extreme Unction, against venial sin; Order, against ignorance; the Eucharist, against malice; Confirmation, against infirmity; and Matrimony, against concupiscence.”⁴³ Combining the three theological with the four cardinal virtues into a series of seven, the Saint draws a parallel between them and the Sacraments, as follows: “Baptism disposes for faith, Confirmation for hope, the Eucharist for charity, Penance for justice, Extreme Unction for perseverance, which is the complement and sum of fortitude, Holy Orders for prudence, and Matrimony for temperance.”⁴⁴

c) To compare the seven Sacraments with the seven capital sins⁴⁵ or with the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost is rather far-fetched. The mythological interpretation of the number seven as the outward embodiment of the “seven eyes of God,” i.e. the planets, may be explained by the fact that the leaders of Scholasticism were ignorant of the apocalyptic and cabalistic speculation attributed to them by modern writers on the history of comparative religion.⁴⁶

5. Certain Patristic Difficulties Solved

Though the Sacraments were in use from the beginning, and references to all of them occur in the writings of the Fathers, there is nowhere to be found in Patristic literature an express statement that there are exactly seven, neither more nor less. It may be asked: why was the work of synthesis left to the Scholastics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries? Several reasons account for the silence of the Fathers on this head: (1) the conditions of the time, (2) the discipline of the secret, and (3) the fact that sacramental theology developed rather slowly.

a) The silence of the Fathers with regard to the number of the Sacraments proves nothing against the “Tridentine Seven.” One may own a lot of precious gems without making an inventory of them. We shall briefly explain the reasons why it never occurred to the writers of the Patristic period to draw up a formal list of the Sacraments.

α) The circumstances of the time were not favorable to the double task of working out a scientific definition and applying it to the various rites in use. “From the beginning the Church has always lived by her Sacraments and has always had faith in their marvelous efficacy, … but she did not from the beginning consider them systematically, ranging them under the concept of efficacious symbols of grace. This was a work of synthesis accomplished only later by theological speculation.”⁴⁷ Hence we need not wonder that Tertullian mentions one class of Sacraments and passes over the others in silence,⁴⁸ or that St. Cyril of Jerusalem treats of three or four without adverting to the existence of the rest.⁴⁹ The Fathers in each case wrote from a strictly practical point of view, with the intention of satisfying actual needs, such as the instruction of the faithful or catechumens and the refutation of heretics.⁵⁰ Usually it is the teaching of the Church on Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist that is briefly summarized for the benefit of neophytes.⁵¹ The general division that naturally suggested itself to the minds of those early writers was that into sacramenta consecratoria and sacramenta medicinalia. The sacramenta consecratoria (Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, and Holy Orders)⁵² claimed their main interest. In limiting their attention to this group, the Fathers by no means wished to deny the existence of the sacramenta medicinalia (Penance, Extreme Unction, and Matrimony).⁵³

β) Another reason why no effort was made in the early days to determine the exact number of the Sacraments was the disciplina arcani, which enjoined secrecy with regard to sacramental rites. The sacred mysteries shrank from the broad daylight which at a later age enabled the Scholastics to analyze them minutely in public. The “discipline of the secret” was strictly enforced throughout the Patristic period. Every copy of St. Cyril’s Catecheses⁵⁴ bore a notice requesting the owner not to show it to catechumens and non-Christians generally, nor to allow copies to be made without prefixing a similar warning.⁵⁵ In St. Cyril’s day the faithful were instructed never to speak of the mysteries of their religion in the presence of outsiders.⁵⁶ The phrase “norunt initiati” occurs at least fifty times in the writings of St. Chrysostom. Where he speaks of Baptism he remarks: “I should like to express myself freely on this subject, but cannot do so on account of the presence of some who are not initiated.”⁵⁷ In the West the disciplina arcani survived far into the fifth century. St. Augustine says: “Let not the sacraments of the faithful be revealed to the catechumens.”⁵⁸ Pope Innocent the First refused to divulge the formula of Confirmation.⁵⁹

γ) No doubt the development of the septenary number was impeded by the discipline of the secret. But even after that discipline had been abolished, a long time elapsed before the number became definitively fixed. No progress could be made in this direction until a precise definition had been worked out. “For that definition being the unit of the septenary number of the Sacraments, so long as it did not exist, the number could not be given.”⁶⁰ The work of synthesis remained for the speculative theologians of a later age. Nor was it an easy matter, because each Sacrament is a complete and independent unit. Thus the Eucharist has no intrinsic connection with Matrimony. Both were in use as efficacious symbols of grace from the very beginning. The double task of working out the generic definition of a Sacrament, and applying it to each of the seven symbols officially in use, proceeded rather slowly. “Sacramental practice antedates the systematic elaboration of a sacramentary theology. This is to be expected, for the latter is but a scientific statement of the former: lex orandi, lex credendi.”⁶¹ Sacramental theology was elaborated in the course of a long process of theological speculation, and the Church did not define the septenary number as an article of faith until the Protestant Reformers had expressly denied it.⁶²

b) A difficulty arises from the fact that St. Ambrose and St. Bernard apparently regarded the washing of feet on Holy Thursday⁶³ as a Sacrament. That this ceremony is not a Sacrament cannot be convincingly demonstrated except in the light of ecclesiastical Tradition. The Mennonites recognize the lotio pedum as a true Sacrament. In rejecting this teaching modern Protestantism unwittingly employs the Catholic criterion of Tradition.

α) St. Ambrose says in his De Mysteriis, VI, 32: “Peter was clean, but he had to have his foot washed; for he had the sin of the first parent by succession, when the serpent overthrew him and persuaded him to error. Therefore his foot is washed, that hereditary sins may be taken away; for our own sins are remitted through Baptism.”⁶⁴ Does this mean that the washing of feet is a Sacrament ordained for the forgiveness of sins, like Baptism, or do the phrases “sin of the first parent” and “hereditary sins” merely signify concupiscence (fomes peccati)? Evidently the latter, for St. Ambrose says in another passage: “Let us also wash our feet, that we may put away the slipperiness of the heel [i.e., concupiscence], so that there may be a sure footing for the virtues.”⁶⁵ More light is thrown on the Saint’s meaning by the anonymous author of the six books De Sacramentis, which is probably “not a later imitation or recension of the De Mysteriis, but the same work published indiscreetly and in an imperfect form by some disciple of Ambrose.”⁶⁶ We read there, III, 1, 7: “He who has been washed needs only to wash his feet. Why is this? Because in Baptism every fault is washed away. Guilt therefore departs; but since Adam was overthrown by the devil and the poison [concupiscence] was poured out on his feet, therefore you wash your feet, that in that part where the serpent lay in wait a greater aid of sanctification may come, so that afterward he cannot overthrow you. You wash your feet, then, that you may wash away the serpent’s poison.”⁶⁷ St. Ambrose’s special interest in the ceremony probably grew out of the custom, in vogue at Milan, of washing the feet of neophytes after Baptism — a practice unknown at Rome, as Ambrose himself tells us.⁶⁸ Augustine distinctly asserts that this custom was peculiar to the Church of Milan and that it was rejected and discontinued in many places where it had been adopted.⁶⁹ The fact thus reliably attested, that the lotio pedum was merely a local and transient practice, is sufficient proof that it was not a Sacrament, for a true Sacrament is universal both as regards time and place.

β) In the light of this explanation it is easy to understand how St. Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) could refer to the lotio pedum as a Sacrament at a time when belief in the septenary number of the Sacraments was already wide-spread. He writes: “That we may not doubt at all of the remission of our daily sins, we have its sacrament, the washing of feet. … And whence do we know that this washing pertains to the cleansing of those sins which are not unto death [i.e., venial] and from which plainly we cannot keep ourselves before death? From this plainly, that to him who offered both hands and head likewise to be washed, the answer was given: He who is washed, etc.”⁷⁰ In writing thus he cannot have meant to designate the annual ceremony of washing the feet on Holy Thursday as a true Sacrament. What benefit could the faithful derive from a Sacrament that, having been instituted for the remission of “daily sins,” was administered only once a year? Clearly St. Bernard employed the term Sacrament in the wider sense in which it was still used in his day. He regarded the lotio pedum as a “sacramental.”⁷¹

Further Readings: Val. Gröne, Sacramentum oder Begriff und Bedeutung von Sakrament in der alten Kirche bis zur Scholastik, Berlin 1853; P. Schanz, “Der Begriff des Sakramentes bei den Vätern,” in the Theologische Quartalschrift of Tübingen, 1891; P. Schmalzl, Die Sakramente des Alten Testamentes im allgemeinen nach der Lehre des hl. Thomas, Eichstätt 1883. On the number of the Sacraments cfr. Hahn, Doctrinae Romae de Numero Sacramentorum Septenario Rationes Historicae, Breslau 1859 (Protestant), and against him, Bittner, De Numero Sacramentorum Septenario, Breslau 1859; Jos. Bach, Die Siebenzahl der Sakramente, Ratisbon 1864; B. J. Otten, A Manual of the History of Dogmas, Vol. II, St. Louis 1918, pp. 292 sqq.