Question — Merkelbach, Summa Theologiae Moralis
Question One: On the Septenary Number of the Sacraments
St. Thomas, III, q. 65, a. 1.
It is proved: 1. From the documents of revelation: a) Scripture and the Fathers make mention of each sacrament, as is proved in the special treatises on the individual sacraments; and besides these they acknowledge no others properly so called. Whence b) the Church has always condemned those who rejected any one of these seven: thus in the third century the Novatians, denying Confirmation; in the fourth century the Manichaeans, thinking wrongly about Matrimony; in the fourteenth century the Wycliffites, opposing Extreme Unction; in the sixteenth century the Protestants, of whom some admitted only three sacraments, others only two, in which error they still persevere today, the Ritualists excepted. Hence c) in this doctrine there is perpetual agreement among the Latin Church, the Greek Church, and all the Oriental sects, as is established from the Liturgies and Rituals, and from the Second Council of Lyons and the Council of Florence; which shows that the doctrine itself already existed before their separation and rests upon common tradition.
- From the reason of fittingness: The sacraments are ordered to perfecting man in the spiritual life, which must be conceived by likeness to bodily life. But bodily life is to be considered 1. with regard to individual persons, who exist before society, and thus for it there is required a) per se, that man first be generated and born, then that he grow to perfect age and be strengthened for full life, finally that he be nourished and preserved in life; b) per accidens, if he becomes sick, that he first be healed from sickness, and then that he fully recover from the remnants of sickness; - 2. with regard to society there is required power both of ruling it and of preserving it by producing new members. Therefore, by parity, in spiritual life 1. considered with regard to individual persons, there is required a) per se, that man acquire it through Baptism; then that in it he grow to the fullness of life and be strengthened to perfect age through Confirmation; finally that he preserve and nourish it through the Eucharist; b) per accidens, however, if man has sinned, that he be healed from the sickness of sin through Penance, and be fully freed from the remnants of sins through Extreme Unction; - 2. considered with regard to the Church, there is required both the power of ruling the multitude spiritually through Order, and the power of propagating and preserving it through Matrimony. Order, however, is numbered before Matrimony, because it participates more in the notion of spiritual life, to which the sacraments are ordered.
"The number of the sacraments is also clear according as they are ordered against the defect of sin. For Baptism is ordered against the lack of spiritual life; Confirmation against weakness of soul, which is found in those newly born; Eucharist against the instability of soul toward sinning; Penance against actual sin committed after Baptism; Extreme Unction against the remnants of sins, which, namely, have not been sufficiently removed, either from negligence or from ignorance; Order against the dissolution of the multitude; Matrimony as a remedy against personal concupiscence and against the defect of the multitude which happens through death"1 (a. 1).
1 Other fittingnesses are handed down by others. Thus St. Albert the Great, in IV Sent., d. 2, a. 1, opposes the seven sacraments to the seven capital sins; St. Bonaventure, in the Breviloquium VI, 3, orders them to the seven principal virtues.
Let the words of St. Thomas, ad 8, be noted: "For the deletion of venial sin an infusion of grace is not required. Whence, since in any sacrament of the New Law grace is infused, no sacrament of the New Law is instituted directly against venial sin."
99. Observation. - Before the twelfth century all seven sacraments are never found numbered together. For the Fathers a) do not treat systematically concerning the sacraments, and they indicate only those things which are necessary for the particular end which they set before themselves, more often a practical one, as, for example, the instruction of neophytes; and, on account of the discipline of the secret, sometimes they speak sparingly and do not deal at length with the sacraments. - b) Moreover, the sacraments, although under one respect, because they cause grace, they are similar, under other respects are most diverse things; whence the Fathers do not enumerate together except those which have a special likeness or connection, as, for example, the sacraments of Christian initiation, which were conferred together, namely, Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist; - or the consecratory sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, and Order, with which the Eucharist is sometimes numbered; - or those which are especially medicinal: Penance, Extreme Unction, and Matrimony. - c) Hence among the Fathers and other writers there is found a special doctrine concerning the individual sacraments, but not a general doctrine of the sacraments; nor was it possible: for since the signification of the word "sacrament" was not yet perfectly determined, sometimes under this same name, together with the sacraments properly so called, they enumerated other sacred signs,2 or even, in enumerating sacred signs, they could omit certain sacraments. - d) But in the twelfth century, when the sense of the word sacrament had already been perfectly determined, when a theological synthesis of the whole of Christian doctrine had been made, they also began to treat concerning the sacraments in general, and at once there is found a complete and exclusive enumeration of them,3 to which all thereafter unanimously consent.
2 Thus Peter Damian enumerates twelve sacraments, Hildebert nine. Bernard says there are many, among which he counts the washing of feet.
3 A complete enumeration of the seven sacraments is already handed down by the author of the Sentences of Divinity, probably around 1147-1148; perhaps earlier by St. Otto of Bamberg in a sermon held at the beginning of the twelfth century, but others say the sermon was composed by a biographer, who nevertheless wrote around 1150-1152. Peter Lombard adopted it, and then all. This common usage is established from the profession of faith imposed on the Waldensians by Innocent III.