Evolution of the Sacraments, Part II

Transcription

1 Evolution of the Sacraments, Part II The recently completed synod on the family offered a lively debate regarding Church teaching; a troubling refrain heard both inside and outside the synod was the simple assertion that doctrine can t change. It is not a surprising claim for those ideological camps that hold to largely static, ahistorical understandings of divine revelation. One of the bluntest statements of this claim came from New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat, who stated that even the pope can t change doctrine. Strangely, however, there were also a number of progressive voices that embraced this assumption, emphasizing ways in which compassion and prudence might guide us to a fresh pastoral application of supposedly unchanging Church teaching. Many conservative Church leaders hold that the sacraments were originated by Christ, and were confirmed by the Council of Lyon in 1215 and the Council of Trent, Yet, other theologians hold that the sacraments we have come to know evolved over time; and as needs and culture changed, so did the sacraments. Joseph Martos, retired professor of philosophy and theology at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, has published a new book on the sacraments, entitled Deconstructing Sacramental Theology and Reconstructing Catholic Ritual, wherein he describes how the sacraments evolved and how they might continue to evolve to meet the needs of today s Catholics around the world. The following is adapted from his book: Here is what can be learned from the New Testament: The noun baptisma does not appear in New Testament writings, except in reference to the ministry of John the Baptist, until late in the first century. In contrast, the verb baptizein is used quite often. This suggests that the early followers of Jesus thought of what they were doing as symbolic immersing, not as performing a ritual that had a proper name. Paul s understanding of the meaning of this symbolic immersion came out of his own experience and that of others. The pledge or down-payment of the spirit is plausibly a reference to the experience of charismatic gifts, with the expectation that there is more to come. The images of a body, od immersion or plunging, and of dying and rising, can all be interpreted as referring to changes in group membership, in attitudes and in behaviors that were experienced by Paul and other members of the Jesus movement. Likewise, the charisms or gifts of the spirit listed in 1 Corinthians and Romans all have experiential counterparts in charismatic or pentecostal communities. The Lord s supper described in 1 Corinthians is best understood as a communal meal to which many people brought food. There is no indication that the so-called words of institution were spoken during the meal; rather, those words of Jesus are given as the rationale for the meal. The body of the Lord to which the text refers is more likely the local community than what was later called consecrated bread. Jesus words over the bread and wine, as recounted in the synoptic gospels, cannot be used as proof text for later Christian eucharistic beliefs because the copula is would not have been used in Aramaic. Likewise, the bread of life in the fourth gospel can be interpreted symbolically, as Protestants have done since the Reformation. In other words, there is no reason to take these passages literally, except in the interest of supporting later Catholic doctrines. In the majority of cases where the words pneuma hagion appear in the New Testament, the definite article is lacking, suggesting that what the writers had in mind was a holy spirit and not the Holy Spirit. Just as an evil spirit was thought to cause bad behavior, a holy spirit was thought to cause good behavior. Whenever the definite article is used, to pneuma hagion can usually be understood as referring to the holy spirit mentioned earlier in the text. That holy spirit would have been identified experientially. In the teaching of Jesus, forgiving the sins of others is something that is to be done by all of his followers, not just designated ministers. 1

2 The reference to anointing by elders in the Epistle of James cannot be used to justify an ecclesiastical ritual that only priests are allowed to perform. There is no reference in the New Testament to a laying on of hands that can arguably be interpreted as an ordination ritual. The supervisors, elders and servers mentioned in the New Testament were not the same as bishops, presbyters and deacons that later emerged in the Church s organizational structure. The relationship of mutual caring and self-giving between husband and wife is symbolic of the Christchurch relationship. However, the mystery referred to in Ephesians 5 is found in the relationship between Christ and the Church. In summary, there are no New Testament texts that can be used to support scholastic sacramental theology. Here is what can be learned from the ante-nicene writings: As in the New Testament, there are no references to Christian mysteria or sacramenta in general. The Didache describes basic baptismal practices, but it offers no theology of baptism except that the immersion is to be done in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Didache describes communal meals during which prayers of thanksgiving (eucharistia) are said, some of which may have been symbolic partakings of bread and wine rather than full meals. There is no reference to the body and blood of Christ but only to spiritual food and drink. The action is called sacrifice (thusia), but the reason for this is not explained. Ignatius of Antioch speaks of supervisors (episkopoi) as decision makers rather than presiding elders. Justin Martyr describes the process of being made new through Christ, which entails a washing that is not called baptism. The process can be understood as moral regeneration, abandoning the sins of the past, and learning the right way to live. The washing symbolizes this but does not cause it to happen. Justin says that the food of the thanksgiving meal is made into the fl;esh and blood of Jesus for spiritual nourishment, but no explanation is given, nor is there any reference to the words of institution. Justin characterizes the Christian meal as a sacrifice (thusia), most likely a meal shared in the presence of a god, which his pagan audience would have been understood. He invokes Malachi 1:10-11 to explain why this meal can be shared in many places and not just a single shrine. Tertullian is the first early writer to speak of baptism as having automatic spiritual effects. He is also the first to speak of giving and receiving baptism, which most likely refers to the water that is poured during the ritual. There is evidence that by the end of the third century, the meal could also be shared in the morning, and that water was substituted for wine in some places. The Apostolic Tradition describes a well-developed rite of Christian initiation, but it offers no theology of the rite itself. 2

3 During the controversy about whether to rebaptize those who renounced their faith during persecution, Ephesians 4:5-15 was interpreted as meaning that people can be baptized only once, which is not the original meaning of the text. Addressing the issue of apostates in North Africa, Cyprian of Antioch speaks about giving and receiving grace, as well as giving and receiving the Holy Spirit, through baptism. His language strongly suggests that these effects of baptism are automatic if the baptizing minister is a member of the one true Church; baptism has no immediate connection with moral conversion or living a Christian life. Cyprian also shows evidence of ritualistic thinking with regard to the symbolic meal when he argues that water cannot become the blood of Christ because Jesus at the Last Supper told his followers to use wine. The Latin word sacrificium could refer either to the ritual meal or to the food that was offered to a deity, and Cyprian speaks of the symbolic food as a sacrifice in the same sense of its being offered to God. During this era, a process of public repentance allowed repentant apostates and other sinners to return to full membership in the Church under the supervision of the local bishop. It was universally understood that the penitent was forgiven by God, not by the bishop. Anointing of the sick was a lay, not a clerical practice. Through the third century, there was no direct evidence of ordination in the sense of being inducted into a clerical order. At most, there is evidence that approval and blessing were symbolized by a laying on of hands. Through the third century. Marriage was a family affair, arranged by parents for their children or contracted by adult couples for themselves. There was no Christian ceremony. In summary, by the end of the third century, we see the beginning of ritualistic thinking with regard to Christian rituals. This is to say that the rituals begin to get thought of as automatically effective as long as they are performed properly. Moreover, in this era, rituals that were later designated as sacraments either did not exist or they were lay practices. Here is what can be learned from the post-nicene writings: In the fourth century and later, the sacramental theologizing of the Latin-speaking Church followed the lead of the North Africans, Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustin, in speaking about sacraments as given and received. The Greek-speaking theologians developed understandings of Church rituals that did not adopt this terminology. The Greek word mysterion could refer to either a religious ritual, or to the mystery that it signified, or both. The Latin word sacramentum initially had this ambiguity, but in the fourth century, the Latin transliteration mysterium began to be used for mysterion when it meant a spiritual reality or mystery. In the writings of both Ambrose and Augustine, however, ambiguities remain, and the intended referent of the word sacramentum has to be determined in each instance from the context in which it is used. The catechetical writings and mystagogical sermons give no indication that he is basing his remarks on experience. Rather, he uses philosophical ideas and proof texts from scripture to explain what happens when people are baptized or when the words of consecration are spoken. 3

4 Augustine inherited this conceptual approach to theology, searching for scripture for ideas to address the Donatist and Pelagian controversies. Believing that the Roman practice of not rebaptizing is correct, and not questioning the North African manner of speaking about sacraments being given and received, he borrowed an idea from Ambrose and concludes that baptism bestows an indelible mark on the soul. Scripture quotes which he takes to be about the seal of the Spirit confirm this conclusion. Likewise, Augustine justifies the practice of infant baptism by appealing to psalm texts that speak of human sinfulness and to the Pauline texts comparing the salvation of Christ with the sin of Adam. Similarly, Augustine argues form the indissolubility of marriage by appealing to the gospel s condemnation of divorce and Ephesian s declaration, Hoc enim est magnum sacramentum, in its treatment of marriage. It must be admitted that, due to the ambiguity of the word sacramentum, we cannot be certain whether Augustine was thinking of the baptismal seal, the priestly character and the marital bond as a sign, a mystery, or both, when he called the spiritual reality received in those rituals a sacramentum. Nevertheless, both Ambrose and Augustine engage in ritualistic or mechanistic thinking when they attribute automatic, invisible effects to the performance of Church rituals. The same can be said about their understanding of the Eucharist: they took Christ s words of institution literally, and after these words were used to consecrate bread and wine during the liturgy, the body and blood of Christ were believed to be and were perceived to be present on the altar. As Christian basilicas replaced pagan temples, it was natural for laity and clergy to think of the eucharistic liturgy in sacrificial terms. And as church leaders looked in the Old Testament for examples of sacrifice, Christian worship was increasingly interpreted as an offering to God in atonement for sins. As the number of converts grew, it was impossible for bishops to preside over all of the annual baptisms, so bishops in the Latin Church gave priests authority to preside over baptisms, but they reserved the final blessing to themselves. In discussing the process of public repentance, some writers in this period begin to speak as though bishops and priests have the power to forgive, although others continue to speak of forgiveness as coming from God when a sinner is truly repentant. The oil used for anointing the sick begins to be viewed as a sacramentum, but there is as yet no clerical rite of anointing. Ecclesiastical ministry becomes organized into sacred orders, primarily the episcopate, the presbyterate, and the diaconate. Initiation into these orders is accomplished through a rite of ordination that inducts a person into a local office but does not bestow power that can be exercised in other places. Here is what can be learned from what was written during the centuries following the collapse of the Roman Empire: The age for baptism goes down until it is practiced primarily for children. When Augustine s theory of original sin is widely accepted, the time for baptism moves from once a year to shortly after birth. The rite used for infant baptism is used even for adults when entire tribes are converted to Christianity. The cultural understanding of baptism becomes essentially magical, i.e., the ritual is understood to wash away original sin and all other past sins as long as it is properly performed. 4

5 The bishop s post-baptismal blessing becomes a separate rite of confirmation, but it is largely ignored by parents and bishops alike. Frankish reformers fabricate the so-called decretals, in part to prove that early popes encouraged the use of the sacrament, saying that it provides strengthening by the Holy Spirit. The elaborate patristic liturgy is simplified and becomes the mass, which can be said by one priest without other liturgical ministers, if necessary The purpose of the mass is understood to be to confect the Eucharist, i.e., to turn bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, which are then offered to God for the redemption of the world. It is an unbloody sacrifice that spiritually participates in the mystery of Christ s sacrifice on the cross. Some theologically inclined monks offer explanations of how the bread and wine became the body and blood of Christ. Private confession evolves out of the practice of spiritual direction by monks and becomes a widespread ritual. The understanding is that God forgives the sins of those who repent, but confessors also absolve penitents from having to do works of penance if they get sick and die before completing them. Some Frankish bishops who tried to encourage confirmation also create a clerical anointing of the sick. Over time, it becomes an anointing of the dying and becomes known as extreme unction. Apart from ordained monks, most priests are married as they were in ancient times and earn a living by farming or some other trade. Their main duties are to offer the sacrifice of the mass and to preside over baptisms and funerals. Some priests also hear confessions and administer extreme unction. The clergy slowly become involved in marriages, first serving as public witnesses, and later offering a blessing, but there is no wedding ritual. Bishops become increasingly involved with adjudicating marriage cases. Here is what can be learned from writings of the schoolmen (scholastics) in the High Middle Ages: About the sacraments in general: By the middle of the twelfth century. Many Church rituals develop into forms that are culturally and pastorally appropriate for medieval Christendom. Babies are baptized shortly after birth. Children and adolescents are confirmed according to local custom. The sacrifice of the mass is offered daily by priests, sometimes with no one in attendance. Confession is usually to a priest, but sometimes to a monk or nun. Extreme unction is available but not easily accessible because the sick have to be brought to the church. Candidates for the priesthood proceed through a sequence of holy orders, each which is received in a ceremony called ordination. Weddings take place in a church and are presided over by a priest, but clandestine marriages are still considered valid. Perhaps around 1140, Hugh of St. Víctor writes The Sacraments of the Christian Faith, using a broad Augustinian definition of sacrament as a sign of a sacred thing, and so it treats not only church rituals but also the incarnation, the Church, religious feast days, liturgical symbols and vestments. About the same time, the canonists, John Gratian writes The Agreement of Disagreeing Canons in an attempt to reconcile, or at least organize a wide variety of canon laws, many of which dealt with Church ceremonies. He treats confirmation, penance, ordination and marriage, but he gives the name sacrament only to baptism, chrism and the Eucharist. 5

6 For both Hugh and Gratian, there are two aspects or dimensions to a sacrament: an outer or visible aspect such as a ritual, and an inner or invisible aspect that is a grace, which is sometimes called the res or virtus of the sacrament. Following the usage of Augustine and Cyprian, Gratian speaks of sacraments beside the Eucharist being given, administered, conferred and bestowed, and also received, accepted and taken. He says that baptism and marriage are had by those who receive them, and that they cannot be lost. About 1150, Peter Lombard writes Four Books of Opinions, commonly called the Sentences, and in Book IV he treats the seven Church rituals that he believes should be called sacraments. He defines sacrament more narrowly than did Hugh, perhaps because he is primarily interested in those rituals that are said to be causes of grace. Whereas in earlier ages grace had been a predicate something was said to be a grace or gift from God the scholastics treated it as something substantive something, a res, that can be classified into different types such as actual grace, habitual grace, sanctifying grace, and so on. About baptism. According to Hugh, the sacrament of baptism is the water that is poured. Gratian talks about giving and receiving baptism, but he does not explain what is given and received. He states that baptism effects the remission of sins, but he does not explain how this happens. He does not say that baptism should not be repeated because it cannot be lost, but he does not clarify what it is that cannot be lost. According to Lombard, baptism is an inner washing that takes place when the outer washing is properly performed. When he says that the sacrament is received, he does not clarify what he is talking about, but he is not referring to the water. Nor does he mean the res or thing or grace that is received. So the status of the received sacrament is left unclarified in the Sentences. About the scholastic method. Lombard s Sentences is literally a text book or book of texts to be used by students who are studying theology systematically. He wants to pose all the important questions, and to include all the relevant information, but he is not concerned to provide all the answers. Like previous authors who wrote about Christian rituals, the medieval scholastics write about what they see going on in the society around them, but they uncritically apply earlier texts written about different matters to the Church ceremonies of their day. Besides observing visible ceremonies, the scholastics also perceive invisible effects, such as infants being saved from hell, sins being forgiven, people being married, and men becoming priests. Those who are devout also perceive Christ s presence in the Eucharist. Thus, they know from experience, as it were, both the sacraments and their major effects. About confirmation. Both Gratian and Lombard accept the theology of confirmation that they find in the false decretals of the ninth century, and which later become the basis for the theology of confirmation in Tridentine Catholicism. About the Eucharist. There is textural evidence that in developing their theology of the Eucharist, some scholastics are reflecting on spiritual experience as well as on traditional beliefs. If this is the case, the theory of transubstantiation agrees not only with traditional belief that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, but also with what they perceive when they look at the consecrated elements. 6

7 It is natural for the scholastics to speak about the Eucharist being given and received, but rthey also talk about it as being confected and consecrated, dispensed and administered, eaqten and drunk, and offered as a gift to God. The term sacramentum et res is at first introduced only with regard to the Eucharist. The scholastics call it the body and blood, or the flesh of Christ, but from what they write about it, they sometimes seem to be talking about an experience of spiritual presence that they identify as the real presence of Christ. About the mass. To the scholastics, the consecrated Eucharist is a sacrament. The mass is not a sacrament but a sacrifice. The scholastics draw their understanding of sacrifice primarily from the Old Testament, developing a picture of the bloody death of an animal on the altar so that it can be burned and offered to God. Thus the mass is called an unbloody sacrifice that makes Christ s bloody sacrifice on Calvary present at the altar when the elements are consecrated and the Eucharist is offered to God the Father. Clearly, this is a much different concept of sacrifice than that found in early Christian writings. The word sacrifice is the same, but the meaning now is entirely different. Nonetheless, it corresponds with what the scholastics perceive themselves doing when they say mass daily. About penance. As priests, the scholastics also believe they have the power to forgive sins. This power is understood to have been given by Christ to the apostles, passed down through generations of bishops, and bestowed on priests when they are ordained. Since penitentia can refer to interior repentance or to exterior works of penance, what the scholastics write about it and the sacramentum penitentiae is somewhat ambiguous. Gratian has a very legalistic appreciation of penance, saying that it is for the remission of sins, done by a priest who has the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. He seems to be talking about an automatic removal of guilt rather than a conversion from sinful to virtuous behavior. Lombard, in contrast, has a rather spiritual appreciation of penance, saying that it is sorrow for one s soul for the sins one has committed, and a firm decision to change one s behavior. Thus he considers the possibility that the remission of sins can be achieved through confession to a lay person as well as to a priest. Both Gratian and Lombard develop their theology of penance by reflecting on experience: Gratian on the priestly rite, Lombard on the experience of repentance. In time, however, the scholastic theology of penance moves strongly in the direction of legalism, attributing the forgiveness of sins in the sacrament to priestly power. About extreme unction. As with penance, there seems to be no standard rite for anointing of the sick in the twelfth century since Gratian mentions no canons about it, and Hugh treats it only briefly and without describing it. Lombard lists it as extrema unctio because he knows it is administered at the end of life. Also, as with penance, the scholastic theology of extreme unction is a reflection of the ritual practice of the day. 7

8 About ordination. Until the twelfth century, the word ordination is applied to any religious ritual through which a person enters into a position of service to a community of monks, nuns, or laypeople. Thus, the ordained could be men or women, laity or clergy. Beginning in that century, however, ordination begins to be interpreted as a bestowal of power rather than a conferral of responsibility, and the word is used only in reference to clerical offices. Henceforward, the installation of abbots, abbesses, and others in positions of authority or service is no longer called an ordination. Hugh is one of the last to ask whether someone can be ordained without appointment to a specific community. The interpretation of ordination as giving power in an Aristotelian sense implies that once power is given, it is received as a spiritual reality in the soul of the recipient. The idea of a priestly power to confect the Eucharist and forgive sins fits this paradigm perfectly. The fact that ordinations are never repeated supports the idea that the ordained receive something that cannot be lost. Not only does Lombard list seven sacraments, bet he also lists seven clerical orders whose distinct powers are received through seven separate ordinations. Although he calls the making of bishops and archbishops ordinations, he regards these rituals as bestowing offices rather than priestly powers, thus reflecting the practice of his day. About marriage. Hugh calls marriage a sacrament that was instituted by God in the Garden of Eden when he gave Adam and Eve the duty to increase and multiply. Ephesians calls the husband-wife relationship a sign of the relationship between Christ and the Church, so marriage fits Augustine s broad definition of a sacrament as a sign of something sacred. Gratian agrees that God instituted marriage but not that it was a sacrament from the very beginning. His analysis reflects the canonical opinion of his day that consent is needed to contract a marriage, but he believes that a marriage is not ratified until it is consummated by sexual intercourse. Gratian speaks not so much of the sacrament of marriage as of a sacrament in marriage, which for all intents and purposes is the marriage bond. Following the lead of Augustine and others who took the gospel prohibition of divorce literally, he argues that the bond cannot be dissolved by anything except the death of one of the spouses. Lombard agreed that marriage is a divinely ordained institution, but he sees the husband-wife relationship as the sacrament rather than the marriage contract or bond. He understands the sacramentum in Ephesians to be a sacrament rather than a mystery, and he applies it to the marital relationship rather to the Christ-church relationship, thus doubly misinterpreting that passage. To establish that marriage is a sacrament, the scholastics also appeal to the fact that Augustine had written that the three benefits of Christian marriage are fidelity, offspring and sacrament. It can be argued that in the scholastic theology of marriage, experience trumps logic. Logically, if the husband-wife relationship is indissoluble because it is a sacrament of the indissoluble Christ-Church relationship, then such a relationship should remain in existence even after the death of one of the spouses, since both partners still exist, one in the earthly life and one in the afterlife. But in medieval society widows and widowers were free to remarry, so the logic implications of indissolubility were never brought up. 8

9 What conclusions can be drawn up from this analysis of the evolution of the sacraments? This primary conclusion is that scholastic sacramental theology was a reflection on and a reflection of Christian ritual practices in medieval Europe. The rites the scholastics knew from their own experience. Likewise, the effects they also knew from their own experience. They knew that sacraments were given and received, and that some sacraments could be received only once. They knew that baptism was required in order to receive the other sacraments, that receiving absolution from a confessor gave forgiveness for sins, that Christ was present in the Eucharist, that people could have only one spouse at a time, and that priests had supernatural powers. What they did not know, and what they wanted to understand, was how the rituals they saw and performed caused the effects that they perceived. By using the analytical concepts provided by Aristotelian science, they were able to explain quite plausibly how the sacraments produced their effects. They drew upon the wisdom of the past: god s revelation in the scriptures, and the writings of the church fathers. The result was a coherent and plausible explanation of Christian rituals in the Middle Ages. However, from the perspective of the human sciences of today, scholastic sacramental theology suffered from two shortcomings that were inherent in the scholastics methodology. They assumed that the biblical and patristic texts they used meant what they thought them to mean, i.e., they operated under the assumption that what they understood the ancient texts to mean was what those texts meant when they were written. They took their proof texts literally, and it is clear to critical scholarship today that they misunderstood and misinterpreted many of those texts. They also assumed that the explanations they developed were universally true. They assumed that their sacramental theories were true for the whole Christian world, and that they would remain true forever. They did not realize that their explanations were historically conditioned. The bishops at Vatican II thought that what was true about the sacraments would remain true, even if the sacrament were changed in some ways in some ways. They invited liturgical scholars to redesign the rites so that they more closely corresponded to earlier Christian traditions and to conduct them in the vernacular. Within a short while, Catholics experience of their sacraments changed much more that anyone had anticipated. Catholics experience of themselves in the world was also changing. Theologians themselves contributed to the cultural shift that was taking place. The ecumenical movement brought Catholics into contact with other Christians and even with people of other faiths, dispelling the uniqueness they had been taught to feel during the Tridentine era. Around the time of Vatican II, well-intentioned theologians tried to translate scholastic doctrines into nonscholastic frames of reference existentialism, phenomenology, process thought and post-modernism, to name a few but none of those theologians was able to make the Church s sacramental doctrines more plausible. The problem is that sacramental theology is, properly speaking, a reflection on sacramental practices, but the sacramental theologies produced after the council were based on sacramental doctrines. The explanations of Christian rituals developed by Paul, the fathers of the church, and the medieval scholastics grew out of thinking about the rituals themselves in the context of their times. The explanations of the Catholic sacraments developed by Schillebeeckx, Rahner, Chauvert, and others, however, were each an apologetic for traditional doctrines rather than an explanation of contemporary practices. But once the changes to the sacraments were made following Vatican II, and once the sacraments no longer had the perceived effects they had had for centuries, even the most sophisticated theologies were no longer tenable. Therefore, the Church must rethink its ritual policies and allow for rethinking of what happens in and through its religious rituals. Otherwise, we are destined to become a Church of beautiful ceremonies that have little relation to the lives that people actually live. In his book, Deconstructing Sacramental Theology and Reconstructing Catholic Ritual, Joseph Martos discusses how this might be accomplished. 9 Tom Kyle