Handout TH 1 / Nov 27, 2000

Sacraments

I Definition

• Augustine
• A Sacrament is a sign ("A sign applied to a divine thing")
• The sign must bear some relation to the thing signified
• Hugh of St Victor (12^th cent.)

Revised the definition, and identified the following components:

• A physical or material element
• A likeness to the thing signified
• Authorization to signify the thing in question
• An efficacity, by which the sacrament is capable of conferring the benefits which it signifies to those who partake in it
• Peter Lombard:

"A sacrament bears a likeness to the thing of which it is a sign. . . .Something can be properly called a sacrament if it is a sign of the grace of God and a form of invisible grace, so that it bears its image and exists as its cause. Sacraments were therefore instituted for the sake of sanctifying, as well as of signifying. . . Those things which were instituted for the purpose of signifying alone are nothing more than signs, and are not sacraments, as in the case of the physical sacrifices and ceremonial observances of the Old Law, which were never able to make those who offered them righteous."

• Martin Luther

He reduced the number of sacraments from seven, to three and then two. The essential characteristics of a sacrament are:

• The Word of God
• An outward sacramental sign (such as water, bread and wine)

II Efficacy

The Donatists argued that the validity of sacraments depended on personal qualities of the minister. Thus those baptized or ordained by people of questionable personal conduct had to rebaptized or re-ordained.

Augustine argued that in a mixed church, the efficacy of a sacrament rests not on the merits of the administrating person, but on the merits of Jesus Christ, who instituted the sacraments. What is at issue can be expressed in two Latin phrases:

• Sacraments are efficacious ex opere operantis ("by virtue of the one who works")
• Sacraments are efficacious ex opere operato ("by virtue of the work which is done")

The first is Donatist; the second became the Catholic position (also BCP, Article 26)

III Function

• Sacraments convey grace (Not only a signifying function)
• Sacraments strengthen faith - emphasized by reformers, but also by RC sacramental theology of 20^th century
• Sacraments enhance unity and commitment in the Church
• Sacraments reassure us of God's promises toward us