be formed (fabricata)." (3) It is laid down that the authority in the Sacraments belongs to Christ as God, but that He as man "had the power of the chief ministry or pre-eminence and works meritoriously and effectually (potestatem ministerii principalis habuit seu excellentiæ et operatur meritorie et efficienter)." (4) It is shown that Christ could convey this "power of ministering " (not the "authority") to other servants, viz., "by giving them such fulness of grace that their merit would operate for rendering the Sacraments effectual (operaretur ad sacramentorum effectus), that the Sacraments would be consecrated on the invocation of their names (ut ad invocationem nominorum ipsorum sanctificarentur sacramenta), and that they would themselves be able to institute Sacraments and, without the ritual of the Sacraments, be able to convey by their power alone the effect of the Sacraments (ut ipsi possent sacramenta instituere et sine ritu sacramentorum effectum sacramentorum conferre solo imperio)." But this "potestas excellentiæ " He has not conveyed to the servants, in order to avoid the "inconveniens," that is, that there might not be many heads in the Church; "if He had nevertheless communicated it, He would Himself have been the head in the principal sense, and they only in a secondary (ipse esset caput principaliter, alii vero secundario)." (5) It is shown that the Sacraments can be validly celebrated even by bad servants, as these act only instrumentally, and "the instrument does not work by its own form or virtue, but by the virtue of him by whom it is moved (non agit secundum propriam formam aut virtutem sed secundum virtutem ejus a quo movetur);" but of course (6) bad servants commit a mortal sin when they celebrate the Sacraments, though the sin does not extend to the receiver, "who does not communicate with the sin of the bad minister, but with the Church." (7) The "intention" and "faith" of the minister are treated (in Art. 8 and 9). The former he must necessarily have, but not the latter: "as it is not required for

1 More precisely: "Quando aliquid se habet ad multa, oportet quod per aliquid determinetur ad unum, si illud effici debeat. Ea vero quæ in sacramentis aguntur possunt diversimode agi, sicut ablutio aquæ quæ fit in baptismo potest ordinari ad munditiam corporalem et ad ludum et ad multa alia hujusmodi. Et ideo oportet ut determinetur ad unum, i.e., ad sacramentalem effectum per intentionem abluentis. Et hæc intentio exprimitur per verba quæ in sacramentis dicuntur, puta cum dicit: Ego

the perfection of the Sacrament that the minister have love (sit in caritate), but sinners also can dispense Sacraments, so his faith is not required for the perfection of the Sacrament, but an unbeliever can dispense the true Sacrament, provided other things are present which are necessary to a Sacrament." Thus even heretics can dispense the Sacraments, that is, "sacramentum," not "res sacramenti"; for the "power of administering sacraments pertains to spiritual character, which is indelible (he confers, but sins in conferring)."

These doctrines of Thomas, from which a regard to faith (fides) is obviously lacking, and which altogether pass very rapidly over the question as to the conditions of saving reception of the Sacraments, underwent afterwards great modification from the time of Scotus onwards.2 In many points, moreover, the Thomist theses were novelties, and hence were not forthwith received. Thus Thomas was the first to assert the origination of all Sacraments by Christ. Hugo and the Lombard were frank enough to trace several Sacraments, not to Him, but to the Apostles, or to the pre-Christian Era (marriage), and were satisfied with saying that all Sacraments are now administered in the power of Christ (in potestate Christi). Only with Alexander of Hales begins a more exact investigation of the origin of the Sacraments. But till the time of Thomas we still find much uncertainty. It had been usual to fall back on the general assertion of their divine origin, or a "certain" institution by Christ was taught, while in the case of the different Sacraments

te baptizo in nomine," etc. An instrumentum inanimatum receives "loco intentionis motum a quo movetur," but an instrumentum animatum must have the intentio, scil. "faciendi quod facit Christus et ecclesia." But Thomas now places himself more decidedly on the side of the lax, i.e., he disputes the position that a mentalis intentio is necessary. What is enough, rather, as the minister acts in loco totius ecclesiæ, is the intention of the Church as actually expressed in the sacramental words which he speaks, "nisi contrarium exterius exprimatur ex parte ministri vel recipientis sacramentum.'

1 Hence the 13th Art. of the Augustana; "Damnant illos, qui docent, quod sacramenta ex opere operato justificent, nec docent fidem requiri in usu sacramentorum, quæ credit remitti peccata."

2 Yet Scotus himself stands very near Thomas in the doctrine of the Sacraments. 3 On his want of logical thoroughness, see Hahn, p. 155.

See Hahn, p. 158 ff.

very different hypotheses, attributable to embarrassment, were adopted. But there always continued to be some (on to the sixteenth century) who traced back individual Sacraments simply to apostolic institution.1

In addition to the problem as to how far the effect is bound to the Sacrament (see above), the chief questions in the period that followed were those as to the "minister sacramenti" and as to the conditions of saving reception. There was certainly agreement on the points, that there are Sacraments whose minister is not designated in the institution by Christ, and that we must distinguish between Sacraments which only a baptised Christian, a priest, or a bishop can duly celebrate; yet in making the application to each separate Sacrament, and in defining the relations of the minister and the receiver to the Sacrament, great controversies prevailed (is the priest who blesses the marriage, or are the parties to be married, the minister of the Sacrament of Marriage? In regard to the Eucharist, also, and other Sacraments, old ideas still continued to exercise their influence, and that not always in the case of declared heretics merely; further, as to confirmation there was doubt whether the exclusive power of the bishops rested on divine or on ecclesiastical appointment, while in connection with this there arose again the whole of the old dispute as to whether presbyters and bishops were originally identical, etc., etc.).

The controversy as to the conditions of saving reception penetrated more deeply; for here it was necessary to show in what relation the two poles of the Romish view of Christianity were to be placed, whether the factor of merit was to have predominance over the factor of sacrament or vice-versa. The development in Nominalist theology was such that merit always asserted its superiority more decidedly, and the conditions accordingly were always more laxly conceived of, while at the same time the view taken of the depreciated effects of the Sacraments became always more magical. From this as a starting-point (namely, the conditions), which Thomas had merely touched on, the whole doctrine of the Sacraments really 1 See Hahn, p. 163 f. By conveying the potestas excellentiæ to the apostles, Christ empowered them to institute Sacraments.

became a subject of controversy again, or received a fresh revision. The chief points are the following:

I. Alexander of Hales and Thomas had not indeed derived from all Sacraments a character, but they had asserted of all that they exercise an influence that is independent of the subjective condition of the receiver. But Scotus and those coming later denied this in the case of penance and extreme unction, teaching that these Sacraments remain without any effect if they are received without the requisite disposition.

2. In the earlier period it was held that for the unworthy recipient the virtue of the Sacraments becomes deleterious in its effect. This the Nominalists denied. In the worthy disposition and in the character, they saw on the contrary, as already existing, a positive dispositio ad gratiam, and declared accordingly that in the case of the unworthy the saving effect ex opere operato is not realised, while the "wrath-effect" is not produced by the Sacrament, but arises from the sin of the receiver, and hence is not ex opere operato, but ex opere operante.

2

3. That a "disposition" belongs to the saving reception was therefore the general opinion; but as to why it was necessary there was difference of view. Some saw in the disposition, not the positive condition of sacramental grace, but only the conditio sine qua non, i.e., the disposition is not considered as worthiness; the Sacraments, rather, of the new covenant, as distinguished from those of the old, in which the fides was requisite (hence opus operans), work ex opere operato. This 1 See Hahn, p. 392 ff.

"What takes place, therefore, is only that the Sacrament is observed as an external adorning of the soul (the unbeliever receives a character, enjoys the body of the Lord, stands in an indissoluble marriage bond, etc.), while the gracious effect is not wrought. But this last at once follows subsequently, if the "indisposition" gives

way.

> In its application to the Sacrament the expression "ex opere operato" itself passed through a history which is too extensive to follow out here; see Schätzler, Die L. v. d. Wirks. d. Sacr. ex opere operato, 1860. The assertion is certainly false that the expression only denotes that the Sacraments are effectual on account of the work accomplished by Christ, or that Christ works in them, that is, it is an apologetic novelty of Möhler, or, say, of some theologians already in the sixteenth century. The leading thought of Scholasticism was rather this, that the Sacrament itself is the opus operatum, and starting from this point it proceeded to call the outer act opus operatum, the inner disposition opus operans.

implied the exclusion, not of the necessity of the dispositio, but certainly of its causal significance. In entire contrast with this view stands the other, which, however, was represented only by a few, that the Sacraments can only mediate grace when inner contrition and faith are present, so that all saving grace is solely the result of penitent disposition and of faith; but these as inner motives (interiores motus) are wrought by God, so that on that ground we must not assume a justification ex opere operante; the Sacraments now declare this inner act of God, make man sure as to the reception of grace, and strengthen the belief that the reception transmits the effectual grace to the whole man and makes him the possessor of it. This view comes very near the evangelical one of the sixteenth century; but it differs from it in this, that the idea of grace is still always the Catholic, as participation in the divine nature, and that accordingly faith is really held as only something preliminary, that is, it is not yet seen that the "motus fiduciæ in deum" (trustful impulse God-wards) is the form and the essence of grace itself. Further, it is to be observed that this view has been expressed clearly and plainly by no Schoolman.1

1 Hahn (p. 401 f.) names as representatives of this view Robert Pulleyn, William of Auxerre, and John Wessel, and, as holding this view as regards at least the Sacrament of Penance, a large number of theologians, among whom the Lombard, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventura, and Henry of Ghent are mentioned. These men really taught that where there is true contritio, absolution comes directly from God, not through the Sacrament of Penance only, which in this case only declares. Karl Müller (Der Umschwung in der Lehre von der Busse während des 12. Jahrh. in the Abhandl. f. Weizsäcker, 1892, p. 287 ff.) has shown that this view runs back to Abelard. He regards it as something new, and if applied to the common reigning practice, it would certainly have been something new. But there was no kind of change in this practice contemplated by it, and it was only a sign that theology again grappled with the question, and felt itself unable simply to justify theoretically the conception that prevailed in practice of sacrament and priest. It went back, therefore, at this point to ideas of the early Church, or to ideas that were Augustinian and more spiritual (Müller seems to me to overlook this, see further details below). Alexander of Hales (Summa IV., Q. 14, M. 2, Art. 1, § 3) writes: "Duplex est pænitentia; quædam quæ solummodo consistit in contritione, quædam quæ consistit in contritione, confessione, satisfactione; utraque est sacramentum. Sed primo modo sumpta non est sacramentum ecclesiæ, sed secundo modo. Sacramentum pænitentiæ est signum et causa et quantum ad deletionem culpæ et quantum ad deletionem pœnæ. Contritio enim est signum et causa remissionis peccati et quantum ad culpam et quantum ad pœnam" (the adding of the remission of temporal penalties for sin