SACRAMENT, the title given by Christians to an external rite or ceremony regarded as the instrument, or at least a symbol, of the reception by those who participate in it of a spiritual benefit whereof Christ is the author. As the conception of a spiritual benefit received through participation in an external rite is by no means peculiar to Christianity, the expression is often applied also to rites in other religions more or less analogous to those designated sacraments by Christians, and sometimes to any instance of the use of material objects as instruments whereby spiritual benefits may be conveyed or appropriated, even although no religious doctrine or ritual be associated with such conveyance or appropriation. The present article, however, will be mainly concerned with the Christian conception of a sacrament, and rather with the content and significance of that conception than with its history.
In the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Bishop of Paris ii59-116o, which served for centuries as the theological text-book of western Christendom, sacramentum in the most general use of the word is defined (5 Sent. dist. 1 B. following Augustine Ep. 138 § 8, signa quae, cum ad res divinas pertinent, sacramenta appellantur) as sacrae rei signum; and, more precisely, as invisibilis gratiae visibilis forma; but in its strictest acceptation, wherein it is ap plicable only to certain Christian rites, as quod ita signum est gratiae Dei et invisibilis gratiae forma ut ipsius imaginem gerat et causa existat—an outward and visible sign of an inward divine grace, which it both aptly represents (as immersion in baptismal water represents cleansing from sin, or eating and drinking eucharistic bread and wine the maintenance and strengthening of spiritual life) and also actually imparts to the recipient.
The word sacramentum is used in classical Latin literature of the pledge deposited in a temple by the parties to a lawsuit, and also of the soldier's oath of allegiance to his commander; and neither of the senses has been without influence on its em ployment by Christian theologians. But the far less restricted sense given to it by the Latin-speaking Fathers and their choice of it to render the Greek point to its having had a more general signification, corresponding to its etymology, such as is suggested by St. Thomas Aquinas when he says that that may
be called sacramentum whereby anything is made sacred (sacra- tur) as that whereby anything is adorned (ornatur) is called ornamentum (in 4 Sent. i. 1; cf. Summ. Theol. q.u. lx. art. i : Sacramentum dicitur a sacrando, sicut medicamenturu a medi cando). Thus, behind the conception of a sacrament lies the notion, common to all peoples, of a "sacred" sphere or world, distinct from, but in close contact with, that of everyday life, so that particular persons, things, places and times can, by recognized methods of "consecration" or "desecration," be re moved from one to the other.
The word employed by the Greek-speaking Church, was associated with the same notion, being the regular designation of religious ceremonies of initiation. These ceremonies distin guished the initiated from those not counted worthy of such trans lation from the sphere of ordinary life to communion with denizens of a higher world, and suggested the secrecy with which "sacred" rites were invested, in order to secure their performance from the intrusion of profane or unconsecrated persons or things. In the New Testament Avariiptov is almost exclusively used of the divine secrets (e.g., of God's purpose to include all nations in the covenant made by him at first with Israel alone) which are described as now at length divulged to the world by the preaching of Christ's apostles. It is not applied to the solemn rites of initiation and communion which were nevertheless already re garded as "means of grace," and came, with the spread of Chris tianity in the Graeco-Roman world, to be treated as corresponding in the new faith to the ceremonies there denoted by the name, in which Christians from Justin onwards, were accustomed to see a diabolical travesty of the Christian "sacraments." Nor for a long time was the word sacramentum, by which the earliest Latin translators of the Scriptures rendered limited to those outward "means of grace" to which it came eventually to be appropriated; and, even after it had been thus appropriated, it was only gradually that among a host of ceremonies and things used in ceremonies, all supposed to convey divine grace in some manner or degree, a certain number were definitely acknowledged as properly entitled to the name of sacraments.