§ 113. The Seven Sacraments.
As the doctrines of the Trinity and the person of Christ were wrought out in the Nicene and post-Nicene periods, so the Schoolmen of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries wrought out the Catholic doctrine of the sacraments. At no point were the mediaeval theologians more industrious or did they put forth keener speculative force. For the Roman Catholic communion, the results of this speculation continue to be of binding authority. The theologians most prominent in developing the sacramental system were Hugo of St. Vic tor, Peter the Lombard, Alexander of Hales, and Thomas Aquinas. Hugo wrote the first treatise on the sacraments, De sacramentis. Thomas Aquinas did little more than to reformulate in clear statement the views propounded by Hugo, Peter the Lombard, and especially by Alexander of Hales, and with him the development comes to an end.1 The substance
1 Some idea of the importance attached to the subject of the sacraments may be derived from the space given by the Schoolmen to their treatment. Hugo of St. Victor gives 440 columns, Migne's ed., 176. 183-617, the Lombard 90 columns out of the 452 of his Sentences, Bonaventura 1003 pages out of 3876 of his System of Theology, Peltier's ed. and Thomas Aquinas 670 columns out of 4854 of his Summa, Migne, IV. 543-1217. Dr. Charles Hodge's System. Theol. devotes 207 pages out of its 2260 to the sacraments, Dr. Shedd's
702 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
of his statement was adopted by the councils of Ferrara, 1439, and Trent, 1560.
Through the influence of Peter the Lombard and Thomas Aquinas, the number of the sacraments was fixed at seven, — baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, extreme unction, ordination, marriage.1 Bernard had spoken of many sacraments and enumerated ten, including footwashing and the investiture of bishops and abbots. Abielard had named five, — baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, marriage, and extreme unction. Hugo de St. Victor in his Summa also seems to recognize only five, — baptism, confirmation, eucha rist, penance, and extreme unction,2 but in his work on the Sacraments, in which he brought together all he had said on the subjects in other writings, he enumerated thirty. Here, evidently, the word is taken in a wide meaning and is almost synonymous with a religious rite. Hugo divided the sacra ments into three classes, — sacraments which are necessary to salvation, baptism and the eucharist, those which have a sanctifying effect such as holy water and the use of ashes on Ash Wednesday, and a third class which prepares for the other sacraments. He called the sprinkling with water a sacrament.3 Thomas Aquinas also ascribed a quasi-sacra mental character to such rites, qucedam sacrament alia.*
The uncertainty concerning the number of the sacraments was a heritage from the Fathers. Augustine defined any sacred rite a sacrament. The Third Lateran, 1179, used the term in a wide sense and included the investiture of bishops
Dogm. Theol. 25 pages out of 1348, Dr. E. V. Gerhart's Institutes 84 pages out of 1666, and Dr. A. H. Strong's Sys. Theol. 30 out of 600 pages.
1 Others about the time of Peter the Lombard had given the number as seven, as Rolandus (afterwards Alexander III.) in his Sentences and Otto of Bamberg in a sermon, 1158, reported by his biographer Herbord.
2 Migne, 176. 127 sqq. Hugo follows up the treatment of the five sacraments with a treatment of marriage, but I do not see that he calls it a sacrament.
3 De sacr., II. 9, Migne, 176. 473. The aqua aspersionis, or water of sprin kling mixed with salt, Hugo derived from Alexander, fifth pope from Peter. The sprinkling of ashes on the head, susceptio cineris, he placed under "the minor sacraments, " but in his definition calls it an " ecclesiastical rite, " as he does also the use of palm branches on Palm Sunday, Migne, 176. 423,
* Migne, IV. 697, 1025.