SACRAMENTALS.
Development of the Doctrine (§ 1). The Anointing of Kings (§ 2). Doctrine of Royal Consecration (§3). Sacramentals in General (§ 4). Legal Aspects (§5). Occasions for Consecration (§ 6). Protestant Teachings (§ 7).
" Sacramentals " is a term applied to certain benedictions and consecrations in the Greek and Roman Catholic Churches, or to the objects blessed, from a partial resemblance between their purpose and use and those of the sacraments proper (see Benediction). Exorcisms, which in the name of God undertake to remove the influence of evil spirits from persons and things, are included under this head (see Exorcism). The Roman Catholic Church, however, apart from the connection of exorcism with baptism and with certain blessings and consecrations (such as that of the sacred oil and chrism by the bishop on Maundy Thursday), employs it as an independent rite only in the supposedly possible case of the demoniacal possession of a member of the Church, and its exercise even then is frequently limited to cases where the permission of ecclesiastical superiors is given after careful investigation. The order of exorcists has long been a mere stepping-stone to the higher orders, and the function is in practise performed by priests.
Before the development of the doctrine that the
sacraments are seven in number, and especially
from the beginning of the eleventh cen-
i. Develop- tury to the time of Peter Lombard.
ment of the benedictions of the kind here consid-
Doctrine. ered, or at least the more important of them, were loosely included among the sacraments; but with the more exact definition of the term sacrament, these spiritual operations, which, while no longer considered as sacraments proper, were yet supposed to impart some special grace to persons or things, became known as sacramentals. The development of doctrine in the West was subordinated to the desire of the Roman spiritual power for domination. As in the doctrine of the sacraments (after Peter Lombard) the Church found expression for its claim of jurisdiction over all classes of persons, so the doctrine of sacramentals expressed the relation of the Church to material objects; and from both sacrament and sacramental grew up the doctrine of Sacrilege (q.v.).
As the power of holy orders takes a dominant position in the system of the sacraments, so the full significance of the sacramentals is most clearly visible in the anointing of kings by the clergy. This practise, connected with the Old-Testament custom, occurs in the West as early as the coronation of Wamba, king of the Visigoths, in 672; Egbert, king
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Sacramentals Sacrament
of the Anglo-Saxons, is said to have been anointed in 789, but this is uncertain. The practise was not found among the Merovingian 2. The kings; in the Frankish kingdom it Anointing was first used in the case of Pepin, of Kings, and among the East Franks in that of Louis the Child and Conrad I., while Henry I. refused to submit to it, its connection with the Old-Testament theocracy seeming suspicious to an ambitious temporal monarch. From Otho I., however, unction accompanied coronation in each case. The German king was anointed on the head, breast, shoulders, arms, and hands; at the imperial coronation in Rome the bishop of Ostia anointed the emperor on the right arm and between the shoulders. While Gregory the Great, like Isidore of Seville and even Peter Damian (d. 1072) and Peter of Blois (d. 1200), designated the anointing of kings and princes as a sacrament, as did the Greeks also, the degradation of this rite to a sacramental, compared with the sacrament of orders, could but serve to emphasize the subordinate position of the worldly rulers in relation to the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
According to the view laid down in the Pontificate Romanum, royal dignity is first conferred in its fulness upon the king by the unction con- 3. Doctrine nected with the benediction; but this of Royal view was not accepted, either at its Consecra- promulgation or for any long period tion. later; nor was the coronation which in the ninth century was added to the unction believed to have greater validity for conferring regal rights in the Empire. Until the eleventh century the choice of the princes, led by the archbishop of Mainz, was understood to confer these rights, and the enthronization by the Church merely exhibited the king as in possession of them. In opposition to the principle held by Charlemagne and Louis I., it was a consequence of the dissensions within the Carolingian house that under the later Carolingians the imperial title and dignity were held to depend on coronation and unction at Rome. From Otho I. the German kings claimed the right to be thus crowned as inherent in their office — a claim which was more than once (as by Calixtus II.) admitted on the side of the Church. But from the pontificate of Gregory VII. the prevalent curialist view tended to transfer the importance of the ceremony from unction to coronation. The principle of free election won its victory with the extinction of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. Conrad III. (1138) received unction and coronation as German king, not as emperor, from the papal legate at Aachen, the first instance of the kind. The contested election of 1198 and the desuetude of the earlier constitution gave the great popes from Innocent III. on a chance to dominate the elections, while the claim of the popes to depose temporal rulers brought the latter, even as to their political functions, under the jurisdiction of the Church. By this time the election was admitted to give only a right to coronation, which was required for the full possession of the office. In the ritual act, which included unction and coronation, to which the tradition of the imperial insignia and the enthroniza- X.— 10
tion in the chair of Charlemagne at Aachen were added, the coronation at Aachen became of decisive importance. In the Sachsenspiegel the Roman view as a whole is assumed — the elevation to the imperial throne connected with the coronation at Aachen is considered effectively to confer the office. The settlement of the German kingship as purely elective in 1252 marked the complete domination of the view that the right conferred by the pope definitely established the possession of the royal dignity; though in 1338 the electors rejected the claim of the pope to investigate and confirm the election. Nevertheless, although the constitution Licet juris of Louis the Bavarian (1338) declared that the election as German king conferred " the plenitude of imperial power," and the Bulla aurea spoke of the king as elected "to be promoted to emperor," throughout the Middle Ages nothing was more firmly established than the claim of the king to the imperial crown. In 1508 Maximilian I., without papal coronation and with the assent of Julius II., assumed the title of " Roman emperorelect." This was borne also by his successors, of whom only Charles V. (1530) was crowned by the pope, thereafter dropping the " elect." After Ferdinand I. (1558) the coronation took place no longer at Aachen but in the same place as the election, Frankfort-on-the-Main, and lost its special character as a solemn induction into the kingly office. Napoleon allowed himself to be anointed by Pius VII. in 1804, but refused to be crowned by him. In modern kingdoms, in so far as the ceremony of coronation is still preserved, the acquisition of royal dignity is no longer dependent upon the ritual ecclesiastical act of unction or coronation, but the law of the State is alone effective.
The sacramentals in general, like the sacraments,
have their individual recognized matter, form, and
minister; but unlike the sacraments,
4. Sacra- which are based upon the direct inmentals in stitution of Christ, they are derived
General, from the authority of the Church, under a general commission given by God to bless in his name. In accordance with ancient oriental custom, anointing forms a part regularly of consecrations and sometimes of benedictions. For this olive-oil is used, either pure as in the case of that employed for catechumens and the sick, or mixed with balsam (in the Eastern Church with other spices as well), when it is known as Chrism V<l-V-)- The effect of consecration is the definite setting apart by the rite of unction of a person or thing for the service of God and the Church. A constant feature of these ceremonies is a solemn appeal to God to grant his grace to the person or a salutary effect to the use of the thing. Outside of the use of the simple oil in baptism and the ordination of priests, and of chrism in confirmation and the consecration of bishops, chrism is employed also in the consecration of churches, altars, patens, and chalices. A simple benediction, coupled with anointing, is given by bishops to kings. Church bells are sprinkled with holy water and anointed. The water used in baptism is blessed. Holy Water (q.v.) is used in the blessing of abbots and abbesses, pilgrims, man and wife at their marriage, and
Sac ramentals Sacred Heart