Peter Lombard and the sacramental system

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Contents

CHAP. PAGE

Preface vii

I. The Conception of Sacrament in the Early Fathers i

Preface

Erasmus once complained that there were as many commentaries on Peter Lombard's "Sentences" as there were theologians. But here is a commentary by one who is not even a theologian but only a student of history. It is fortunate that Erasmus — and the Lombard himself — did not live to see this evil day.

This is not work which would have won the coveted degree of "Bachalarius Sententiarius" in a medieval university — I can only lay claim to have won to an interest in the subject equal to that of most of those medieval bachelors. My first interest in Medieval Church History I owe to my college professor, Annie Heloise Abel, and my interest in this particular phase of it to Seminars on the Medieval Church with Professor Shotwell at Columbia. The subject was assigned to me — I should never have had the courage to venture on it otherwise — and as I finish my study of it, I can only say in the Lombard's own words, "If anyone can explain it better, I am not envious."

I have had courtesies in many libraries, but I wish especially to speak gratefully of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, of the Library of Columbia University, and of that of Union Theological Seminary. I am particularly indebted to Professor Rockwell of Union Seminary for his invaluable help and training in bibliography.

I wish here to express my gratitude to Professor Shotwell for the most interesting work in the Social History of the Middle Ages; to Professor Woker of the University of Bern, "ein geborener Lehrer, der glaubt dass jeder Student ein Genie ist," as a colleague said of him, for fascinating lectures on the Political History of medieval times, and for kindness to a foreigner; and to Professor Annie Heloise Abel, now of Smith College, not only for inspiring teaching in my undergraduate days, but for constant interest, friendship and encouragement in my graduate study. Elizabeth F. Rogers.

Madison, New Jersey,

January 2, 19 17.

CHAPTER I The Conception of Sacrament in the Early Fathers

One should not expect to find a definition of the sacraments, much less a developed sacramental system in the writings of the early Church.^ In the history of religion, cult frequently develops before dogma. It is in many instances a determining element in the formulation of doctrine, even where the doctrine, on the face of it, seems to furnish the very basis for the cult. In the Christian Church we find a long development of the form of worship, and the beginnings of formal liturgy, before we come to any discussion of the meaning of these ceremonies.

It is controversy which brings precision in people's ideas. In the early Church, there were the long struggles with the pagans, which we see reflected in the apologetic literature of the time, and then the innumerable controversies over the heresies which arose in the Church itself, and called forth the formulation of the orthodox belief. In the "Apologies" against the pagans, and in the "Defences" against Christian heretics, we may look for the beginnings of that long and slow development of the doctrine of the sacraments, which only attained its final form more than a thousand years later in the writings of the Scholastic theologians.

To trace this development is extremely difficult because the idea of sacrament matures in silence while other subjects are monopolizing discussion. The earlier Fathers are far more concerned with the great doctrines of faith than with the sacraments. They are discussing the resurrection of the Lord and its bearing upon the resurrection of believers. They are laboring to convince

^ For obvious reasons this study in the history of the medieval church does not go into the problems of the interpretation of New Testament texts or that of the conception of sacrament held in the apostolic age; for such considerations carry one into quite a different field, that of New Testament exegesis and comparative religion.

unbelievers, to establish the wavering, to stimulate love and good works. It is among the multifarious interests of the church that here and there a spark is struck with some light upon the sacraments. It is, however, fascinatingly interesting to see how the spark kindles larger masses of material, and to observe the growing flame.

It has seemed well worth while to single out from the writings which are so multiform, and so rich, the passages which relate to the sacraments, and to set them down, closely following a chronological order. It will be observed that the passages quoted are much longer in the earlier than in the later writers. The reason is that the earlier Christians give only hints, suggestions, allusions to the sacraments, and to make these clear we must have before us the whole of the context. Later, as the minds of men were more clearly focussed upon the sacraments, and definitions of them had become matter of controversy the citations are brief, specific and on that account at times arid.

JUSTIN MARTYR (c. II4-C. 1 65)

In the literature of Apology, the earliest detailed and from many points of view the most interesting reference to the Christian cult is that of Justin Martyr, who died A. D. 165. He gives a picture of the worship, including a description of its central ceremony, the celebration of the Eucharist, which later apologists did not dare to do owing to the persecutions and the resultant Discipline of the Secret.^ But it is significant of the general character of the early Christian doctrine, that one finds in the long exposition of Justin almost no light upon the doctrines involved. He does not define sacraments. Baptism and the Eucharist, it is true, do stand out very clearly as essential to Christianity; but there is an equal emphasis upon prayer. This does not mean that Justin lacked the conception of sacrament. He had been too

^ The obligation to keep secret from the pagans and the unbaptized, the formula of the three-fold name, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer. This was a following of the pagan mysteries, and is akin to the scruple among primitive peoples, against revealing the knowledge of a powerful name. Cf . Bonwetsch.

familiar with the Mysteries for that. For, although he does not

use any special term for the sacraments, he refers to their effects

in language which implies an acquaintance with the mystery rites. ^

We can see an instance of this in his description of Baptism.

*'I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made new through Christ. ... As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated.^ For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water.^ . . . And this washing is called illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings. . . . " *

His appreciation of the analogy to the mystery rites is interesting, but he draws no doctrinal conclusions .which would make clearer the kind of ceremony employed.

"And the devils, indeed, having heard this washing published by the prophet, instigated those who enter their temples, and are about to approach them with libations and burnt-offerings, also to sprinkle themselves ; and they cause them also to wash themselves entirely, as they depart [from the sacrifice], before they enter into the shrines in which images are set."^

^ It is not hereby implied that the early Christians confused sacraments with mysteries. They regarded these rites as instituted by Christ and loathed those of the heathen. The modern view that mysteries influenced the development of sacraments is right, but the Christians of A. D, 150 were ignorant of this.

3 First Apology, c. LXL

This word "illumination" or "enlightenment" is borrowed straight from the Greek mysteries, and comes to be the constant technical term. See Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, p. 295. Also Hamack, "History of Dogma," vol. I, pp. 207-8. German Edition, vol. I, pp. 229-230.

5 Ibid. c. LXII.

To Justin we are indebted for the first description of the celebration of the Eucharist following Baptism in the early Church. The service begins with prayers for the illuminated person and for the others, already members of the Christian community.

"Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water ; and he tajcing them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at his hands. And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people express their assent by saying Amen. . . . And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion.^

"And this food is called among us Bvxaptarla [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of his word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh." ^ . . .

Here again he sees the resemblance to the sacred meals of the mysteries.

"Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of

1 Ibid. c. LXV.

Called the Eulogia — ^it was also sent by the bishops, notably those of Rome, to their daughter churches, and to foreign bishops and churches, as a symbol of Christian love and brotherhood. The practice seems to have been universal, but tended to degenerate into irreverence and superstition, and was forbidden by the Council of Laodicaea, A. D. 365.

Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn." ^

Upon the whole, then, the earliest detailed description of the Christian worship which comes to us from the sub-apostolic age, shows the existence and appreciation of sacramental religion.

According to Justin the Christian form of worship is a mystery in the sense of the mysteries of Mithras or Eleusis. That is, its rites themselves convey the grace of God. In baptism, one is "illuminated," and in the Eucharist one does not receive ''common bread and common drink" but a miraculous and divine nourishment. Justin does not elaborate the exact operation of the divine grace in either case, but the general sense is clear. The full force of his description can be seen only when one has in mind the other mysteries, which he was combatting, but which none the less furnished the mould of his thought.

From the description which Justin offers it is clear that this sense of the sacramental in the Christian religion was not simply that of an author who had himself been saturated in the pagan atmosphere, but was also the outlook of the Christians in the communities he describes. For instance, the attitude of the congregation toward the ''blessed bread," v^hich is sent to the absent as well as partaken of by those present, indicates a feeling for the sacramental grace imparted through the elements.

Although therefore there is no definite conception of sacrament as a whole and no definition of its working, the implications from this description are clear enough. The cult is sacramental, even when viewed from the angle of one trained as a pagan.

IREN.EUS ( C. 190)

The next important text to which we turn is naturally that of Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in France, in the last quarter of the second century. He is the first of the Fathers to review in a comprehensive way the heretical doctrines into which Christianity

1 Ibid. c. LXVI.

seemed to be dissolving, and to state the case of orthodoxy with incisive vigor. His famous work "Against Heresies," or "A Refutation and Subversion of Knowledge falsely so called," not only summarizes the chief heresies which were then threatening the speculative Christian world, but also, by way of refutation, a somewhat elaborate statement of the bases of the Catholic teaching. So that Irenaeus stands as a prime source for the early history of Catholicism.

It is therefore significant that when one turns to this statement of Christian teaching and practice, one finds no developed statement of the working of the sacraments. Such references as there are, are incidental and their meaning is to be appreciated mainly by a study of the context.

It is as sacrifice rather than as sacrament in the technical sense of this word, that Irenseus develops his discussion of the Eucharist.-^ This is, of course, an aspect of the Eucharist which is almost as important as that of sacrament and runs parallel to it throughout all its history. The sacrifice of the Mass is the setting for the sacrament of the Eucharist. The problem of transubstantiation, that supreme problem of medieval and modern controversy, has its roots in the conceptions of sacrifice as well as in those of sacrament. The controversies as to the working of the sacrament, as to whether the priest at the altar repeats the real sacrifice of Christ or not — these and many other related dogmas carry one over rather to the field of sacrifice than to that of sacramental communion. So that the discussions of the early Fathers concerning the Christian sacrifice help, as well, to lay the basis for a definition of sacrament. But they do little more. For they naturally link up with the priesthood and temple of the Old Testament, and attempt either to draw from the "law and the prophets" sugges-

^ The Western Church came, in time, to apply the term sacrifice almost exclusively to the one "sacrifice of the altar," the Mass; by which they meant the total ceremony of which the eucharistic communion or sacrament was only a part. But the conception of sacrifice in Christian worship naturally transcends these technical boundaries. It is, in the nature of the case, a wider term than sacrament.

tions for the conduct of the Christian community/ or to show the essential justification for Christian practices as a modification of the rites of the old dispensation.

Sacrifices and oblations are required of the Christian as they had been of the Jew. "The class of oblations in general has not been set aside; for there were both oblations there [among the Jews], and there are oblations here [among the Christians]. Sacrifices there were among the people; sacrifices there are, too, in the Church: but the kind has been changed, inasmuch as the offering is now made, not by slaves, but by freemen."^

In his discussion of the working of this Christian sacrifice, Irenaeus comes very near a definition of sacrament in the passage in which he defends the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. The Eucharist is a medium of divine grace since the body that is nourished with it does not go to corruption but is to partake of eternal life. The conception of sacrament is implied if not directly expressed.

''How can they say that the flesh, which is nourished with the body of the Lord and with his blood, goes to corruption, and does not partake of life? Let them, therefore, either alter their opinion, or cease from offering the things just mentioned. But our opinion is in accordance with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn establishes our opinion. For we offer to him his own, announcing consistently the fellowship and union of the flesh and Spirit. For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly^ ; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity." *

1 As in Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians.

2 Contra Haereses. iv. XVIII. 2.

Et non genus oblationum reprobatum est; oblationes enim et illic, oblationes autem et hie : sacrificia in populo, sacrificia in Ecclesia : sed species immutata est tantum, quippe cum jam non a servis, sed a Hbris offeratur.

4 Ibid. iv. XVIII. 5.

More specific reference to the sacramental element in the Christian sacrifice occurs in another passage dealing with the same theme. Defending his doctrine of the "salvation of the flesh," ^ Irenseus argues :

"But if this indeed do not attain salvation, then neither did the Lord redeem us with his blood, nor is the cup of the Eucharist the communion of his blood, nor the bread which we break the communion of his body. . . . And as we are his members, we are also nourished by means of the creation (and he himself grants the creation to us, for he causes his sun to rise, and sends rain when he wills). He has acknowledged the cup (which is a part of the creation) as his own blood, from which he bedews our blood; and the bread (also a part of the creation) he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase to our bodies.^

"When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist becomes the body of Christ,^ from which things our flesh is increased and supported, how can they aflirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of him?" ^

In these scattered references to the Eucharist, incidental to his discussion of the Resurrection, we can see the line of thought pursued by Irenaeus concerning that element of the sacrifice which is also sacrament, namely the nature of the communion. It is clear that although there is no definition of sacrament, and that the conception is so embedded in that of sacrifice as to be practically obscured from view, the sacrament is there as genuinely as though it had been defined in detail.

There is only one passage which at all gives Irenaeus' view of baptism:

"It was not for nothing that Naaman of old, when suffering from leprosy, was purified upon his being baptized, but [it served]

ilbid. V. II. 2.

as an indication to us. For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean, by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the Lord, from our old transgressions; being spiritually regenerated as new-born babes, even as the Lord has declared: 'Except a man be bom again through water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' " ^

We are now come to the end of our review of the contributions of Irenaeus to the sacramental system, and there needs only to point to the difference between him and his forerunner Justin Martyr. The contrast between the two men is a contrast of background. The analogies which Justin finds are to the "sacred meals of the mysteries," to ''the mysteries of Mithras," to "mystic rites," and his language is full of allusions to "sacred meals," to the "initiated" or to "incantations." The background is unmistakably Greek. This is significant and it could not be without influence upon the man's whole thinking and upon its outcome in dogma. To all this Irenaeus presents a vivid contrast. His discussion is freighted with the imagery, the phraseology, and the theological conceptions of the Old Testament. It is the "law and the prophets," "the sacrifices" of the Jewish dispensation, "the lepers," — all of them and many more from this single source, and the analogies and illustrations are of the same mould. With Irenaeus it is not Mithras but Naaman, who points his moral. Herein lies the explanation of many of the differences in the conclusions of the two men. As we go forward now to Latin instead of Greek we shall do well to bear in mind the differences between Justin and Irenaeus, the while that we carry forward the results of their thinking and disputing upon the sacramental system.

TERTULLIAN (c. I50 Or l6o-220 Or 240)

The Latin tongue is singularly lacking in the terminology either of philosophy or of religion, a characteristic which corresponds, so it has often been claimed, with the temper of the Roman people as exhibited in their history. When the first Latin Father, Tertullian, at the opening of the third century attempted to frame

1 Fragments. XXXIV.

lo PETER LOMBARD

the conceptions of Christian theology in Latin he was unable to translate the Greek literally since the languages had no exact parallels, and so he boldly adapted terms, which were formerly used in a different connection, to the uses of Christian theology. In the legal Latin familiar to a man trained, as Tertullian was, in the Roman law, the word sacramentum had several different meanings. In the first place it meant the sum which the two parties to a suit deposited — so-called perhaps because it was deposited in a sacred place. ^ Then, by metonymy, it meant a civil suit or process. Finally, it was the military oath of allegiance, and so any solemn obligation.

Tertullian uses this term in various ways.^ In the first place we have the literal application of it as he draws a parallel between the neoph3rte's promises on entering the Church by baptism and the soldier's oath of allegiance. The Christian, like the soldier, must be faithful and obedient even to death, for "Who wished this fatal issue to his soldier, but he who sealed him by such an oath?" ^ The military life, then, is incompatible with that of the Christian, for ''there is no agreement between the divine and the human sacrament." *

In the second place, Tertullian chooses sacramentum as a parallel to the Greek theological term fivaTi]pLOi^ a mystery or secret doctrine. In the New Testament it means a divine secret, something above human intelligence.^ Tertullian uses it in this

^ Or perhaps so-called because the money deposited by the losing party was used for religious purposes, especially for the sacra publica (divine worship).

2 See also Reville, Albert, Du sens du mot "sacramentum" dans Tertullien. Paris — Ecole pratique des hautes etudes — Section des Sciences religieuses. Etudes de critique et d'histoire. v. I. pp. 195-204.

* De Idol. 19. Non convenit sacramento divino et humano.

This tract of Tertullian's, as also the De Spectaculis, affords an interesting glance into the author's mind. No less than his hatred of heathen religion is his hatred of heathen art and culture. The teaching of literature he thinks incompatible with the Christian profession, and to him the well-spring and stimulus of Art is lust.

6 Matt. 13, II.

THE EARLY FATHERS ii

sense when he speaks of a sister who "converses with angels and sometimes even with the Lord; she both sees and hears mysterious communications.'' -^ In another place he speaks of fasting as an aid to this ''recognition of mysterious communications.'' ^

In addition to these two uses of the word, however, Tertullian seems as well to use ''sacrament" in the sense to which we are accustomed, for he speaks of the "sacrament of baptism"^ and of the "sacrament of the Eucharist."

Of the Eucharist he gives only a short description :

"We take also, in congregations before day-break, and from the hand of none but the presidents,^ the sacraments of the Eucharist, which the Lord hath commanded to be eaten at meal-times, and enjoined to be taken by all alike." ^

From Tertullian there seems much less to be learned concerning the Eucharist than of Baptism. There is discernible a growing reverence concerning the elements, witnessed, for example, by the scrupulous care to prevent even a drop or a crumb from falling to the ground.^ Beside this it should, perhaps, be

^ De Anima. 9. Conversatur cum angelis, aliquando etiam cum Domino, et videt et audit sacramenta.

It might be queried why Tertullian chose sacramentum to translate iwar-fjputv. It would seem that the parallel word in Latin, taken directly from the Greek, mysterium, could have been better used — its meanings and uses were the same. In the next century Ambrose used it of the Lord's Supper. {Comment, in I Cor. II, 27 — Mysterium celebrat.) In the plural, the Latin, as the Greek, meant the pagan "mysteries," but the singular had the more general meaning.

There was also the Latinized Greek word symbolum, which might have been used. In the middle of the third century, symbolum was used of the formula of baptism: the "symbol of the Trinity" [Ep. Firmil. ad Cypr. 11]; the "symbol in which we baptize" [Ep. S. Cypriani ad Magnum 7 — Eodem Symbolo quo et nos baptizare]. This formula grew into the Roman Creed, and Rufinus, c. 400, called it the "symbol of the apostles." [Comment, in Symbolum Apostolorum.]

^ De Bapt. 9. In baptismi sacramento.

° De Corona. 3.

noted that in Tertullian's day another evidence of growing reverence for the elements is to be discerned. In the passage just quoted it is provided that these are to be received "from the hand of none but the presidents," whereas in the time of Justin the elements were blessed by the president and then by him delivered to the deacons who, in their turn, passed them on to the faithful. They are now, in other words, to pass direct from the president, and are thus less likely to fall or suffer any other accident. The ritual develops to such a point the prohibitions attached to the sacramental act as to indicate a distinct growth in consciousness of its importance. Yet when TertuUian develops his doctrine in words carefully weighed there is no sign of excessive reverence, much less of superstition. Thus he speaks of the bread as the figure of his body,^ and as representing his body.^

To baptism, however, TertuUian devotes an entire treatise, which also gives us much of his general conception of sacraments.

''All waters, therefore, . . . do, after invocation of God, attain the sacramental power of sanctification ; for the Spirit immediately supervenes from the heavens, and rests over the waters, sanctifying them from himself, and being thus sanctified, they imbibe at the same time the power of sanctifying." ^

"It is not to be doubted that God has made the material substance which he has disposed throughout all his products and works, obeying him also in his own peculiar sacraments; that the material substance which governs terrestrial life acts as agent likewise in the celestial. . . . " ^

In the water "we are cleansed and prepared for the Holy Spirit."

"Thus, too, does the angel, the witness of baptism, 'make the

^ ^ Figura corporis. Adv. Marcion. III. 19.

2 Panem quo ipsum corpus suum representat. Ibid. I. 14.

paths straight' for the Holy Spirit, who is about to come upon us, by the washing away of sins, which faith, sealed in (the name of) the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, obtains. . . . Moreover, after the pledging both of the attestation of faith and the promise of salvation under 'three witnesses,' there is added, of necessity, mention of the Church; inasmuch as, wherever there are three, (that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,) there is the Church, which is a body of three.^ . . . After this, when we have issued from the font, we are thoroughly anointed with a blessed unction. . . . The unction runs carnally, (i.e., on the body,) but profits spiritually; in the same way as the act of baptism itself too is carnal, in that we are plunged into water, but the effect spiritual, in that we are freed from sins.^ . . .

'Tn the next place the hand is laid on us, invoking and inviting the Holy Spirit through benediction." ^

Clause after clause of these passages show Tertullian's appreciation of the sacramental principle. ''All waters, . . . after invocation of God attain the sacramental power of sanctification." The waters are sanctified by the Spirit and at the same time imbibe the power of sanctifying those who shall be baptized in them.* He emphasizes the distinction between the simple ceremony of baptism, and its spiritual significance. "The act of baptism itself ... is carnal, in that we are plunged into water, but the effect spiritual, in that we are freed from sins. . . . " ^ So TertuUian not only gives the word sacrament but even, when one analyzes closely the thought in this extract, we see in it a foreshadowing of the real definition. A part of his great work in this line we shall see influenced Cyprian to a marked degree, and especially Cyprian's uses of the word sacramentum.