§ 91. THE SACRAMENTS IN GENERAL. 477
in them, especially in baptism and the eucharist, the divinely appointed means of appropriating the forgiveness of sins and the grace of God. Yet with this view they firmly held that Kot the want of the sacraments, but oniy the contempt of them, was damning.' In favor of this tliey appealed to Moses, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, the thief on the cross, — who all, however, belonged to the Old Testament economy — and to many Christian martyrs, who sealed their faith in Christ with their blood, before they had opportunity to be baptized and to cominuue. The Virgin Mary also, and the apostles, belong in some sense to this class, who, since Christ himself did not baptize, received not the Christian baj)tism of w^ater, but instead were on the day of Pentecost baptized with Spirit and with tire. Thus Cornelius also received through Peter the gift of the Holy Ghost before baptism; but nevertheless submitted himself afterwards to the outward sacrament. In agreement with this view, sincere repentance and true ftiith, and above all the blood-baptism of martyrdom,^ were regarded as a kind of compensation for the sacraments.
The number of the sacraments remained yet for a long time indetinite ; though among the church fathers of our period baptism and the Lord's Supper were regarded either as the only sacraments, or as the prominent ones.
Augustine considered it in general an excellence of the New Testament over the Old, that the number of the sacraments
salutem et vitam setemam posse quemquam hominem pervenire." This would, strictly considered, exclude all Quakers and unbaptized infants from salvation ; but Augustine admits aa an exception the possibility of a conversion of the heart without baptism. See below. The scholastics distinguished more accurately a threefold necessity: (1) absolute: simpliciter necessarium ; (2) teleological : in ordine ad finem ; (3) hypothetical or relative: necessarium ex suppositione, guce est necessUas consequentice To the sacraments belongs only the last sort of necessity, because now, under existing circumstances, God will not ordinarily save any one without these means which he has appointed. Comp. Hahn, 1. c. p. 26 ff. According to Thomaa Aquinas only three sacraments are perfectly necessary, viz., baptism and penance for the individual, and ordination for the whole church.
' " Non defectus, sed contemptus sacramenti damnat." Comp. Augustine, De bapt. contra Donat. 1. iv. c. 25, § 32 : " Conversio cordis potest quidem inesse non percepto baptismo, sed contemto non potest. Neque enim ullo modo dicenda eat eonversio cordis ad Deum, cum Dei sacramentum contemnitur."
* Baptismus sanaiuinls.
4:78 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
was diminished, but their import enhanced,' and calls baptism and the Supper, with reference to the water and the l)lood which flowed from the side of the Lord, the genuine or chief sacraments, on which the church subsists." But he includes under the wider conception of the sacrament other mysterious and holy usages, which were commended in tlie Scriptures,* naming expressly confirmation,* marriage,' and ordination.* Thus he already recognizes to some extent five Christian sacraments, to which the Roman church has since added penance and extreme unction.
Cyril of Jerusalem, in his Mystagogic Catechism, and Ambrose of Milan, in the six books De Sacramentis ascribed to him, mention only three sacraments : baptisu), confirmation, and the Lord's supper ; and Gregory of Nyssa likewise mentions three, but puts ordination in the place of confirmation For in the Eastern church confirmation, or the laying on of hands, was less prominent, and formed a part of the sacrament of baptism; while in the "Western church it gradually established itself in the rank of an indejDcndcnt sacrament.
The unknown Greek author of the pseudp-Dionysian writings of the sixth century enumerates six sacraments (jMvar7]pia) : ' (1.) baptism, or illumination ; (2.) the eucharist, or the consecration of consecrations ; (3.) the consecration with
' Contra Faust, xix. 13: "Prima sacramcnta praenunciativa erant Christi vodturi ; qua3 cum suo adventu Christua impleviaset, ablata sunt, et alia sunt instituta, viriate raajora, numero pauciora.''''
^ De symb. ad Catech. c. 6 : " Quomodo Eva facta est ex latere Adam, ita ecclesia formatur ex latere Christi. Percussum est ejus latus et statim manavit sammis et aqua, quas sunt ecclesiae genuina sacramental De ordine baptismi, c. 5 (Bibl. max. tom. xir. p. 11): "Profluxcrunt ex ejus latere sa7iguis et aqua, duo sa7icUt ecclcsicE prcecipua sacramenta." Serin. 218: "Sacramenta, quibus formatur ecck-sia." Comp. Chrysostora, Ilomil. 85 in Job. : tf ancpoTtpicv rj «/(«A77(n'a avi/earriKf. Tertullian called baptism and the eucharist " sacramenta propria," Adv. Marc. L 14.
' " Et si quid aliud in diviuis literis commendatur," or : " omne mysticura sa. crumque signum."
* " Sacramentum chrismatis," Contr. lit. Petiliani ii. 104. So ev«n Cyprian, Ep. 72.
' " Sacramentum nuptiarum," De nuptiis et concupisc. i. 2.
• " Sacramentum dandi baptismima," De bapt. ad Donat _ 2 ; Epist. Parm. il 18.
' De hierarch. eccles. c. 2 sq.