Theology and practice of sacraments

in Christianity
Though the widespread conception of the sacramental principle is an ancient
heritage, in all probability going back before the dawn of civilization, it acquired
in Christianity a unique significance. There it became the fundamental system and
institution for the perpetuation of the union of God and man in the person of Jesus
Christ through the visible organization and constitution of the church, which was
viewed as the mystical body of Christ.

In the 12th century the number of sacraments of the Western Christian church was
narrowed by the theologian and bishop Peter Lombard to seven: baptism,
confirmation, the Eucharist (the Lord’s Supper), penance, holy orders, matrimony,
and extreme unction. This enumeration was accepted by St. Thomas Aquinas, the
Council of Florence (1439), and the Council of Trent (1545–63). These rites were thus
affirmed by the Roman Catholic Church as sacraments that were instituted by
Christ. Protestant reformers of the 16th century accepted two or three sacraments as
valid: baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and, in some fashion, penance. Eastern
Orthodoxy also accepts the sevenfold enumeration. In addition to these, any
ceremonial actions and objects related to sacraments that endow a person or thing
with a sacred character have been designated “sacramental”; unlike those of
dominical (i.e., Christ’s) institution, however, they are not thought to convey divine
grace ex opere operato (“it works by itself”) or to confer an indelible character on the
recipient. Sacramentals include the use of holy water, incense, vestments, candles,
exorcisms, anointing and making the sign of the cross, fasting, abstinence, and
almsgiving.
Baptism
Baptism, as the initial rite, took the place of circumcision in Judaism in which this
ancient and primitive custom was the covenant sign and a legal injunction rather
than a sacramental ordinance. Baptismal immersion in water was practiced in
Judaism for some time before the fall of Jerusalem in CE 70, and it was adopted
by John the Baptist (a Jewish prophet and cousin of Jesus Christ) as the principal
sacrament in his messianic movement.

The purificatory lustration of John the Baptist, however, was transformed into

the prototype of the Christian sacrament by the baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan
and by the imagery of this event combined with the imagery of his death and
resurrection. A distinction was made, however, between the water baptism of John
and the Christian Spirit Baptism in the apostolic church. Under the influence of St.
Paul, the Christian rite was given an interpretation in the terms of the mystery
religions, and the catechumen (initiate instructed in the secrets of the faith) was
identified with the death and Resurrection of Christ (Rom. 6:3–5; Gal. 3:12). The
bestowal of the new life constituted a sacramental rebirth in the church in union with
the risen Lord as its divine head.

Those who received baptism in early Christianity were adult converts. There is no
scholarly consensus as to whether children, including infants, were baptized
alongside their parents. By the 4th century the practice of infant baptism was
universal.
Confirmation
With the development of infant Baptism, the regenerative initial sacrament was
coupled with the charismatic apostolic laying on of hands as the seal of the Spirit in
the rite of confirmation (Acts 8:14–17). By the 4th century, confirmation became a
separate “unction” (rite using oil) administered by a bishop or, earlier and in the
Eastern Church, by a priest to complete the sacramental baptismal grace already
bestowed at birth or on some other previous occasion. At first, especially in the East,
a threefold rite was performed consisting of Baptism, confirmation, and first
communion; but in the West, where the consecration of the oil and the laying on of
hands were confined to the episcopate, confirmation tended to become a separate
event with the growth in the size of dioceses. It was not, however, until the 16th
century that Baptism and confirmation were permanently separated. In England
Queen Elizabeth I was confirmed when she was only three days old; and infant
confirmation is still sometimes practiced in Spain. But the normal custom in Western
Christendom has been for confirmation to be administered at or after the age of
reason and to be the occasion for instruction in the faith, as in the case of
the mystae in the Mysteries of Eleusis. But whether or not confirmation conveys a
new gift of the Spirit or is the sealing of the same grace bestowed in Baptism, which is
still debated, it has come to be regarded in some churches as conferring an indelible
quality on the soul. Therefore, it cannot be repeated when it has once been validly
performed as a sacrament.

The Eucharist, or Lord’s Supper

Together with Baptism the greatest importance has been given to the Eucharist, both
of which institutions are singled out in the Gospels as dominical (instituted
by Christ) in origin, with a special status and rank. Under a variety of titles
(Eucharist from the Greek eucharistia, “thanksgiving”; the Latin mass; the Holy
Communion; the Lord’s Supper; and the breaking of the bread) it has been the
central act of worship ever since the night of the betrayal of Jesus on the Thursday
preceding his crucifixion. It was then that the elements of bread and wine were
identified with the body and blood of Jesus in his institution of the Eucharist with
his disciples and with the sacrifice he was about to offer in order to establish and seal
the new covenant. This “presence” of Jesus has been variously interpreted in actual,
figurative, or symbolical senses; but the sacramental sense, as the anamnesis, or
memorial before God, of the sacrificial offering on the cross once and for all, has
always been accepted.

Along these lines a eucharistic theology gradually took shape in the apostolic and
early church without much controversy or formulation. In the New Testament, in
addition to the three accounts of the institution of the Eucharist in the first three
“books” of the New Testament known as Synoptic Gospels because they have a
common viewpoint and common sources (Matt. 26:26ff.; Mark 14:22ff.; Luke 22:17–
20), St. Paul’s earliest record of the ordinance in I Cor. 11:17–29, written about CE 55,
suggests that some abuses had arisen in conjunction with the common meal,
or agapē, with which it was combined. It had become an occasion of drunkenness
and gluttony. To rectify this, St. Paul recalled and re-established the original
institution and its purpose and interpretation as a sacrificial-sacramental rite.
Fellowship meals continued in association with the postapostolic Eucharist, as is
shown in the Didachē (a Christian document concerned with worship and
church discipline written c. 100–c. 140) and in the doctrinal and liturgical
development described in the writings of the Early Church Fathers little was
changed. Not until the beginning of the Middle Ages did controversial issues arise
that found expression in the definition of the doctrine of transubstantiation at the
fourth Lateran Council in 1215. This definition opened the way for the scholastic
interpretation of the eucharistic Presence of Christ and of the sacramental principle,
in Aristotelian terms. Thus, St. Thomas Aquinas maintained that a complete change
occurred in the “substance” of each of the species, while the “accidents,” or outward
appearances, remained the same. During the Reformation, though
the medieval doctrine was denied in varying ways by the Reformers, it was
reaffirmed by the Council of Trent in 1551. Holy Communion was retained as a
sacrament by most of the Protestant groups, except that those churches that see the
supper solely as a memorial prefer to speak not of a sacrament but of an ordinance.
The Society of Friends, the Salvation Army, and some of the Adventist groups have
abandoned the practice and concept of a sacrament.

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Roman Catholicism: Sacraments

In Roman Catholic theology a  sacrament is an outward sign instituted by

Jesus Christ that is productive of inner grace....

Penance
In its formulation, the Christian doctrine of conciliation, which, as St. Paul
contended, required a change of status in the penitent, had to be made sacramentally
effective in the individual and in redeemed humanity as a whole. In the Gospel
According to Matthew (16:13–20, 18:18) the power to “bind and loose” was conferred
on St. Peter and the other Apostles. Lapses into paganism and infidelity in the
Roman world by the 3rd century had demanded penitential exercises. These included
fasting, wearing sackcloth, lying in ashes and other forms of mortification,
almsgiving, and the threat of temporary excommunication. Details of the sins
committed were confessed in secret to a priest, who then pronounced absolution and
imposed an appropriate penance. In 1215 the sacrament of penance received the
authorization of the fourth Lateran Council and was made obligatory at least once a
year at Easter on all mature Christians in Western Christendom. When pilgrimages
to the Holy Land, to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, or going on a Crusade could
be imposed as penitential exercises, commutation by means of payment of money led
to abuses and traffic in indulgences and the treasury of merits, a superabundance of
merits attributed to Christ and his saints that could be transferred to sinful believers.
The abuses opened the way for the Reformation reaction against the penitential
system, before they were abolished by the Council of Trent. The power
of absolution was retained in the Anglican ordinal and conferred upon priests at their
ordination and in the Order of the Visitation of the Sick. The sacrament of penance,
however, ceased to be of obligation in the Anglican Communion, though it was
commended and practiced by John Whitgift, Richard Hooker, and, after the
Restoration in 1660 by the Nonjurors (Anglican clergy who refused to take oaths
of allegiance to William III and Mary II in 1689) and revived by the Tractarians
(Anglo-Catholic advocates of High Church ideals) after 1833, who encountered some
Protestant opposition notwithstanding its entrenchment in canon law and in The
Book of Common Prayer.
Ordination
Most Christian theologians have claimed that the ministry of bishops, priests,
and deacons derives its authority and sacramental efficacy from Christ through his
Apostles. In the Roman Catholic Church it has been maintained that a
special charismatic sacramental endowment conveying an indelible “character” has
been conferred on those who receive valid ordination by the laying on of hands on
their heads by bishops (who thus transfer to them the “power of orders”), prayer, and
a right intention. In Protestant churches the ministry is interpreted as a function
rather than as a status. Just as the sacramental power to ordain, confirm, absolve,
bless, and consecrate the Eucharist can be given, so also it can be taken away or
suspended for sufficient reason.

Marriage
In the Roman Catholic Church the institution of matrimony was raised to the level of
a sacrament because it was assigned a divine origin and made an indissoluble union
typifying the union of Christ with his church as his mystical body (Matt. 5:27–32;
Mark 10:2–12; Luke 16:18; I Cor. 7:2, 10; Eph. 5:23ff.). The adherence of Jesus to a
rigorist position in regard to divorce and remarriage (Matt. 19:9; i.e., adultery being
the only cause for divorce), similar to that adopted by the rabbinical school headed
by the conservative teacher Shammai in Judaism, was made the basis of the nuptial
union as taught by St. Paul, except in regard to the dissolution of a marriage
contracted between a Christian and a pagan who refused to live with his or her
partner (I Cor. 7:2ff., 15ff.).

Apart from this deviation, known as the “Pauline Privilege,” which was recognized
in canon law in the 13th century, a marriage validly contracted in the presence of a
priest, blessed by him, and duly consummated has been regarded as a sacramental
ordinance by virtue of the grace given to render the union indissoluble. However,
canon law allows for the “annulment” of marriages. In Protestant churches, marriage
is regarded as a rite, not a sacrament; views on divorce, however, vary, and many
traditional notions of marriage and divorce are now being debated.
Last unction
In Christianity anointing of the sick was widely practiced from apostolic times as a
sacramental rite in association with the ceremony of the imposition of hands to
convey a blessing, recovery from illness, or with the last communion to fortify the
believer safely on his new career in the fuller life of the eternal world. Not until the
8th and 9th centuries, however, did extreme unction, another term for the final
anointing of the sick, become one of the seven sacraments. In Eastern Christendom,
it has never been confined to those in extremis (near death) nor has the blessing of
the oil by a bishop been required; the administration of the sacrament by seven, five,
or three priests was for the recovery of health rather than administered exclusively as
a mortuary rite. Extreme unction is also coupled with exorcism for the restraint of
the powers of evil—a practice taken over from Judaism by the early church and still
retained by the Orthodox Eastern Church for mental diseases.
Conclusion
The ecumenical movement in the 20th century initiated reforms in
liturgical worship and in private devotions within Christianity. Such reforms,
involving the celebration of sacraments (primarily the Eucharist), did much to
promote the recovery of a unity among Christians that transcends differences in
beliefs and ritual practices. The second Vatican Council (1962–65) played a
significant part in the process of recovery of unity and of renewal.
In Protestantism the liturgical reforms and ecumenical dialogues of the 20th century
likewise entailed a preoccupation with the sacraments.
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