Chapter II — On the matter, form, and minister of the sacrament of matrimony

I. QUESTION I. What is the matter of the sacrament of matrimony? ANSWER. I could recount more than seven opinions of theologians in designating the matter and form of this sacrament. But these being dismissed, with St. Thomas, to whom theologians commonly subscribe, I say it is the acts of the contracting parties. These are his words, Supplement, question 42, article 1, reply 2: The sacrament of matrimony is perfected by the act of him who uses that sacrament, as is penance. And therefore, just as penance has no other matter save the acts themselves subject to sense, which are in place of the material element, so is it of matrimony.

II. QUESTION II. Whether the priest assisting the contracting parties be the minister of the sacrament, and whether his words have the character of the form? ANSWER. There are two opinions, each of which has its most grave patrons, even in the Thomist school. Gonet, Gotti, and very many others teach that the contracting parties themselves are the ministers of this sacrament, and that their words are the form of the sacrament.

III. On the contrary, that the priest himself assisting is the minister of the sacrament, these most grave men maintain: William of Paris, Melchior Cano, Cardinal Toletus, Peter Ledesma, Peter de Marca, Maldonatus, Francis Sylvius, Assius, Natalis Alexander, Tournely, Le Drou, Gibert, Herminier, Du Hamel, Juvenin, Florentinus de Coq, Vanroy, Piette, Bannez. And by these arguments they evince their opinion.

IV. Trent, session 24, chapter 1 On Reformation, established: Let it be proceeded to the celebration of matrimony in the face of the Church, where the parish priest, the man and the woman being questioned and their mutual consent understood, shall either say: I join you together in matrimony, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; or shall use other words according to the received rite of each province. It seems to be gathered hence clearly enough that the priest is the minister of this sacrament, and that the words which he brings forth are the form. For the Council prescribes the words to be employed, or others according to the rite of each Church. In the same place it subjoins that this blessing is to be made by the proper parish priest. Several Councils — of Cologne, Cambrai, Rheims, Tours — which Sylvius reports, I pass over.

V. To these are added very many Rituals. The old Roman one of 1494 collected by Fr. Castellanus O.P. Another Roman one published by the command of Paul V prescribes these words I join you together, and so forth, to be brought forth by the parish priest as the minister of this sacrament. Fr. Martène On the Ancient Rites of the Church, Vol. II, Book 1, chapter 9, adduces several others upon this matter. Let it suffice to praise one, the Milanese, in which St. Charles Borromeo, part 4, took care to insert this: namely that there are only five sacraments which a parish priest can by office administer — Baptism, the Eucharist, Penance, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction.

VI. More clearly is this opinion confirmed by an argument which admits no solid answer. The Lutherans and Calvinists deny matrimony to be a sacrament, and study to elude with acute cavillings the testimonies of the Scriptures by which we evince that it is a sacrament. I yield. By what reasonings do we explode their comments? By none other than by the apostolic and universal tradition of the Church, of all the Fathers and Councils. Now all the Fathers with one voice call the nuptials sacred, because they are consecrated by the sacred blessing of the priest. The testimonies of the Fathers I have given in Vol. X, Book 2, dissertation 1, chapter 4, where they can be read.

VII. Adversaries reply that the priest's blessing, which all the Fathers require, is indeed necessary by the Church's mandate as an accidental ceremony for the greater solemnity of the nuptials, but not for the necessity of the sacrament imposed by divine precept. This answer to me is false. Let adversaries answer: Whence shall we draw arguments from tradition, that we may evince against the Protestants that matrimony is a sacrament, if the recounted answer stand? Assuredly, if the blessing of the priest, by which all the Fathers affirm that the nuptials are consecrated, so that they may show matrimony raised to the dignity of a sacrament, be a merely accidental ceremony, then all the safeguards fetched from tradition are taken from us, by which we may fight against the innovators denying matrimony to be a sacrament. For the tradition of the universal Church being taken away, which is the lawful interpreter of the sacred Scriptures, we are altogether unarmed in the contest, and fall from our cause against those same innovators.

VIII. Besides, the sacraments are ceremonies and sacred things of Religion: therefore a sacrament is a work of Religion. Further, not every sign of a sacred thing is a sacrament, but only that which is sacred. Since therefore matrimony is contracted civilly and profanely by the words alone of the man and the woman, although it be a seal of a sacred thing, it is nevertheless not a work of sacred Religion, and so not properly a sacrament. Otherwise the brazen serpent and the manna in the desert would have to be called sacraments. Therefore marriages without a sacred minister and without a sacred ceremony of Religion are not sacraments.

IX. What more? The Council of Florence, the seven sacraments of the new law being enumerated, thus defines: All these sacraments are perfected by three things: namely by things as the matter, by words as the form, and by the person of the minister conferring the sacrament; and if one of these be lacking, the sacrament is not perfected. Who is the ordinary minister of the sacrament, without whom the sacrament is not perfected? The spouses themselves? Are lay men the ordinary ministers of the sacraments? A woman baptizes when necessity urges, but she is not the ordinary minister; the priest is. Priests alone, consecrated by the sacrament of Order, are the lawful dispensers of the mysteries of Christ, as the Apostle Paul says, 1 Corinthians 4: Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God. By what right therefore can this power of administering the sacrament of matrimony — which is called by the same Paul a great mystery — be taken away from them and ascribed to a woman, to whom it is not even permitted to speak in the Church? Whence do the patrons of the adverse opinion gather that lay contracting parties are the ordinary ministers of the sacrament? From what testimony of the Scriptures, from what Council, from what tradition of the Fathers do they draw that the character of the sacrament of matrimony is diverse from that of all the rest? Assuredly they can adduce no monument of sacred antiquity. The ordinary minister of all the other sacraments is a priest. Christ in the new law raised matrimony to the dignity of a sacrament. And did he not institute a priest as minister of this sacrament alone? Solid and perspicuous reasoning evinces that, just as he raised matrimony to the dignity of the other sacraments, so, just as he instituted priests as ministers of the other sacraments, he instituted priests as ministers of matrimony also. This reason evidently demonstrates; this tradition confirms. That they may except the sacrament of matrimony from this universal rule and just principle, it does not suffice to bring one or another conjecture or an ambiguous testimony; but there are required most clear testimonies and a manifest exception.

X. The spouses receive the sacrament of matrimony. Of the sacraments which consist in the action alone, the minister is distinguished from the receiver. For no one can baptize, confirm, or absolve himself. How therefore can it come about that the spouses receiving the sacrament of matrimony are at the same time the ministers? For either each contracting party administers the sacrament to himself, or one to the other. Not the first: because, as I have said, no one can administer to himself a sacrament set in an action. If the second, two effect the sacrament: for neither is the sacrament so divisible that one minister should perfect one part and another minister the other part. For although two ministers can confer a sacrament upon a third at the same instant, yet it can in no way be perceived by what reason two spouses can effect one minister who should administer the sacrament to themselves. On the other hand neither can perfect the sacrament without the other. And then it is asked whether the man confers the sacrament upon the woman first, or the woman upon the man. The words therefore of the contracting parties are the matter of the sacrament; they are not the form. For the form of every sacrament is sacred, from which it is called a sacrament. These words I take thee as mine are in no way sacred. For these or like words were employed before Christ instituted matrimony a sacrament, and are employed by those destitute of all reason and Christian faith. If I wished to recount all the trifles which some — says Melchior Cano, who first of all brought this opinion into the light — have devised, that they might distinguish the matter from the form of this sacrament, I should fill leaves. This one says that the contracting parties themselves are the matter of the sacrament; that one, not they themselves but the consent; another, the gestures and nods which are employed by the man and the woman apart from the words. Another affirms that the words of the first speaker are the matter, those of the latter the form. Which things — would that they were said gravely and probably, lest we be by right derided by the heretics! To what end, in a matter most grave and necessary to faith and religion, to philosophize thinly, not to say ridiculously?

XI. Lastly this opinion is safer, and at the same time exceedingly probable, as being maintained by most grave theologians. Wherefore Benedict XIV, Book 8 On the Synod, chapter 13, no. 5, says: But although the opinion of Melchior Cano hitherto explained be fortified by so many suffrages of Doctors, and exceedingly probable, and it be free to anyone without the note of error to embrace it, and so forth. Not merely probable, but exceedingly probable is this opinion. But on the other hand it is at the same time safer. For all theologians to a man confess that matrimony blessed by a priest with the ecclesiastical rite is a true sacrament. On the contrary very many and most grave theologians deny that, the aforesaid rite being taken away, it is a sacrament. But that opinion is the safer concerning which no one of the theologians is in doubt. Therefore this of ours is the safer, and the contrary the less safe. All these things are certain and beyond controversy. And yet by the decree of Innocent XI, when there is question of the validity of the sacraments, out of two probable opinions disputed on either side by theologians, the safer is to be chosen. Therefore this ours is to be embraced, and the other rejected.

XII. The things which are objected against it by adversaries are, as I at least judge, of no moment. I have weighed them all in Vol. X, Book 2, chapter 2, and rejected them, and you can read them there, that I may avoid prolixity.