The Existence of the Sacrament of Matrimony

Matrimony is a true sacrament. This proposition is of faith, for example from the Council of Trent: "If anyone says that matrimony is not truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of the evangelical law, instituted by Christ the Lord, but invented by men in the Church, and that it does not confer grace, let him be anathema."¹

Note 1. The time of the institution of this sacrament by Christ is uncertain. Some judge that it was instituted at the wedding at Cana;² others, when Christ established the indissolubility of Matrimony;³ finally others, after the Resurrection, at the time when the Lord conversed with his disciples, speaking of the kingdom of God.⁴

Note 2. Matrimony in the Old Law not only was not an efficacious sign of grace, but does not seem to be counted among the sacraments of the Old Law, that is, among the signs of grace then existing. "But matrimony," says St. Thomas, "was indeed in the Old Law insofar as it was for the office of nature, but not insofar as it is the sacrament of the conjunction of Christ and the Church, which had not yet been made; hence also in the Old Law a bill of repudiation was given, which is contrary to the nature of a sacrament" (I-II, q. 102, a. 5, ad 3).

¹ Session 24, canon 1.

² John 2.

³ Matthew 19:4.

⁴ Acts 1:3.

Yes, this was defined by the Council of Trent in the XXIV Session in which the Council laid down the doctrine of marriage. In Canon 1, the Council pronounced an anathema against anyone who should say that matrimony is not truly and properly one of the seven Sacraments of the New Law instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ.

No, only the marriage of Christians, that is of persons who are validly baptized, is a Sacrament.

We mean a marriage contracted between two persons who are baptized. According to an opinion which has become morally certain, the marriage of a baptized person with an unbaptized person, even with the dispensation of the Church, is not a Sacrament. The reason is that in such a case the Sacrament, existing in only one of the parties, would be, as it were, lame; and because to represent the union between Christ and the Church, the matrimonial union itself must be representative, which it cannot be if it exists in only one of the parties.

It would, provided both were validly baptized.

643. Thesis. Matrimony legitimately celebrated between Christians is a true sacrament, properly so called, of the New Law, instituted by Christ the Lord.

The proof of this dogma, which has been defined several times,⁹⁹ and especially by the Council of Trent,¹⁰⁰ thundering an anathema against anyone who should say that "matrimony is not truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of the evangelical law, instituted by Christ the Lord," pertains rather to Dogmatic or Apologetic Theology than to Moral Theology; hence only the following brief arguments are proposed. Although certain men (Cajetan, Estius, Vazquez) think that the dogma concerning the sacrament of matrimony cannot be proved from Sacred Scripture, but only from tradition confirmed through the definitions of Councils, the text of St. Paul soon to be cited appears to us to be strictly probative. The Catholic dogma is therefore proved:

1. From Sacred Scripture. St. Paul,¹⁰¹ treating of matrimony, says: "Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church.... Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church.... For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh; this is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and in the Church."¹⁰²

Certainly, from the word "sacrament" alone, which is found in this text, it is not yet lawful to deduce a direct argument for the dogma, both because "mystery" is had in the Greek text and because down to the twelfth century the word sacrament was employed in diverse senses by ecclesiastical writers.¹⁰³ Nevertheless, in the cited text there is a solid argument for the Catholic dogma. For a sacrament of the New Law is a sensible sign causing grace from the institution of Christ. But Christian matrimony is a sign of this kind. Therefore Christian matrimony is a true sacrament, properly so called, of the New Law. The major of this syllogism is the very definition of a sacrament. The minor, however, is easily proved: a) Christian matrimony is a sign; for it signifies the moral union of Christ with the Church, as manifestly appears from the words of the Apostle saying: "The husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church." "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church." "He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ also does the Church." Christian matrimony, therefore, is a sign of the union of Christ with the Church.

That matrimony is a sensible sign is evident of itself, since the matrimonial contract must necessarily be manifested externally. b) Christian matrimony is a sensible sign causing grace; for it is called by the Apostle "a great mystery, but I speak in Christ and in the Church." Certainly matrimony considered in itself, that is, the carnal union of the spouses and their mutual love and subjection, would undeservedly be called a great mystery, because nothing is more obvious and consonant with nature than such a union between a man and a woman. A union of this kind existed even before Christ; indeed, it is had in some manner among brute animals. Why, therefore, is such a union called by the Apostle a great mystery? But the Apostle himself immediately and expressly excludes this profane sense of matrimony; for he adds: "but I speak in Christ and in the Church" (in Greek it is said: "unto Christ and unto the Church"). Therefore St. Paul does not will every matrimony to be held as a great mystery, but only that which is entered into with respect to Christ and the Church. In other words: only Christian matrimony is a great mystery. But what distinguishes Christian matrimony from every other matrimony and renders it a great mystery? Nothing other than supernatural grace joined with it. Therefore from the words of the Apostle it is proved not obscurely that Christian matrimony causes supernatural grace. This indeed becomes all the more evident because the marital union is compared with the union between Christ and the Church. Now Christ, uniting Himself with the Church, causes supernatural grace in her. c) That matrimony as a sign causing grace was instituted by Christ is evident of itself, because no one except God alone is able to annex supernatural grace to natural causes. But in the present order of things all grace is conferred by Christ the Redeemer. From all these things it appears that the words of the Apostle furnish a solid argument that Christian matrimony is a true sacrament, properly so called. Therefore the Roman Catechism deservedly says:¹⁰⁴ "Now that matrimony is a sacrament, the Church, confirmed by the authority of the Apostle, always held as certain and established; for thus he writes to the Ephesians: Husbands ought to love.... For what he says, This is a great sacrament, no one ought to doubt must be referred to matrimony: namely, that the union of a man and a woman, of which God is the author, is a sacrament, that is, a sacred sign, of that most holy bond by which Christ the Lord is joined with the Church. And that this is the proper and true meaning of those words is shown by the ancient Holy Fathers who interpreted that passage, and the holy Synod of Trent explained the same."

2. From the Holy Fathers. St. Augustine¹⁰⁵ writes: "The good of nuptials, therefore, among all nations and men consists in the cause of generation and in the fidelity of chastity; but insofar as it pertains to the people of God, it consists also in the sanctity of the sacrament.... In the same manner, if there is an ordination of clergy for gathering a congregation, even if the gathering of a congregation does not follow, nevertheless the sacrament of ordination remains in those ordained." In these words St. Augustine attributes the sanctity of a sacrament to matrimony which pertains to the people of God, or to the matrimony of Christians, which he denies to other marriages; moreover, he compares the sacrament of matrimony with the sacrament of order, which certainly is a sacrament properly so called. In the same book, c. 18, the Holy Doctor calls matrimony "a seal and a sacrament," and concludes thus: "For in the nuptials of our [women], the sanctity of the sacrament has more force than the fecundity of the womb." But that the sacrament of matrimony is not merely a sign but also effects grace, St. Augustine asserts in this manner:¹⁰⁶ "The reality of this sacrament is without doubt that a male and a female joined by marriage persevere inseparably as long as they live, and that, except for the cause of fornication, it is not lawful for one spouse to be separated from the other." Now the res sacramenti signifies grace, and the Scholastics also understood this etymology in this manner. Therefore the sense of the cited text is: the sacramental grace of matrimony so assists the spouses that, notwithstanding human inconstancy, they can and ought always to remain united. St. Leo the Great¹⁰⁷ says: "Since the society of nuptials was so constituted from the beginning that, besides the union of the sexes, it had in itself the sacrament of Christ and the Church,¹⁰⁸ there is no doubt that that woman does not pertain to matrimony in whom it is shown that there was no nuptial mystery."¹⁰⁹

3. By the argument of prescription. From various documents and formulas of faith it is established that the Eastern Churches, separated from the Roman See for many centuries, hold matrimony as a true sacrament. But this fact cannot be explained unless it is admitted that already at the time of the separation (the fifth century), throughout the whole Church, matrimony was held to be a true sacrament. For the Eastern Churches after the schism certainly admitted nothing that had been newly introduced into the Roman Church. Therefore it must be conceded that already before the fifth century matrimony was recognized as a true sacrament,¹¹⁰ and that its institution is suitably referred to Christ Himself.

4. By the argument of congruity. Since the matter here concerns a supernatural reality, reason cannot demonstrate apodictically that matrimony is a sacrament; but it manifestly shows how exceedingly fitting is the elevation of matrimony to the dignity of a sacrament. For the welfare of the whole of human society depends upon marriages rightly entered into and holily preserved, because, if marriages are not holily preserved, quarrels and dissensions arise between the spouses, the education of offspring is ruined, and morals are corrupted more and more. Thus it is clearer than light from the history of all peoples. Moreover, the sanctity of matrimony can scarcely, indeed scarcely at all, be preserved unless the spouses are assisted by special supernatural grace. For suitably to generate and educate offspring, to dwell together peacefully and charitably throughout their whole life, patiently to bear each other's burdens, all these things, I say, demand such excellent virtues that they cannot be had without special supernatural grace. Therefore God most fittingly joined sacramental grace with matrimony. Briefly comprising these things, the Roman Catechism¹¹¹ says: "Therefore it must be taught that by the grace of this sacrament it is effected that the husband and wife, joined by the bond of mutual charity, rest each in the benevolence of the other, and do not seek strange and illicit loves and intercourse, but that in all things marriage be honorable and the bed undefiled."

⁹⁹ Already the Second Council of Lyons (the year 1274) defined: "The same Holy Roman Church also holds and teaches that there are seven ecclesiastical sacraments, one, namely, baptism, ... another is matrimony" (Profession of Faith of Michael Palaeologus; in Denz., n. 465). The Council of Florence defined: "The seventh is the sacrament of matrimony" (Instruction for the Armenians; in Denz., n. 702).

¹⁰⁰ Sess. 24, can. 1, De matrimonio (Denz., n. 971).

¹⁰¹ Eph. 5:22-32.

¹⁰² In the Greek text there is: Τὸ μυστήριον τοῦτο μέγα ἐστίν, ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω εἰς Χριστὸν καὶ εἰς τὴν Ἐκκλησίαν.

¹⁰³ Cf. Freisen, Geschichte des kanonischen Eherechtes, § 4, and above, III, n. 2.

¹⁰⁴ Part II, c. 8, q. 15.

¹⁰⁵ De bono coniugali, c. 24 (Migne, Patr. lat. 40, 394).

¹⁰⁶ De nuptiis et concupiscentia, l. 1, c. 7 (Migne, loc. cit. 44, 424).

¹⁰⁷ Ep. 92, Ad Rusticum, n. 4 (Migne, loc. cit. 54, 1204).

¹⁰⁸ Eph. 5:32.

¹⁰⁹ Several other Fathers teach the same, as can be seen in Billuart (De matrimonio, diss. 1, a. 3), or better in Drouven (De re sacr., l. 10, q. 1); whence Freisen (Geschichte des kanonischen Eherechtes, § 54) says altogether undeservedly that the Holy Fathers did not touch upon the question of the sacrament, and that if they sometimes employed the word sacrament concerning matrimony, they did not understand it in our sense. Certainly the Holy Fathers do not speak so explicitly about the sacrament of matrimony as modern authors treating this matter expressly; nevertheless, from this it is by no means lawful to infer that they in no way recognized matrimony to be a true sacrament. Do the Holy Fathers speak more clearly about the sacraments of confirmation and extreme unction, and about many other things pertaining to Catholic dogma? (Cf. Schanz, Die Lehre von den Sakramenten, § 55, and Drouven, loc. cit.)

¹¹⁰ Cf. Pourrat, La théologie sacramentaire, 2nd ed., pp. 252-267.

¹¹¹ Part II, c. 8, q. 15. See another argument of congruity in St. Thomas, S. theol. 3, q. 65, a. 1.

S. Th., Suppl. q. 42; III, q. 65, a. 1; C. Gent. IV, 78.

779. State of the question. - Besides the Gnostics and Manichaeans, who condemned nuptials as evil (n. 762-763) and thus indirectly denied their sacramental character, the Protestants directly denied this, although on the other hand they said that nuptials are good and often extolled them.

Peter de Bruis, Arnold of Brescia, and in general the Waldenses and Albigenses held the same as the Manichaeans. Luther said that matrimony is a worldly thing and denied that it is a sacrament, since it lacks a divine promise. Calvin says that the character of a sacrament belongs to nuptials no more than to agriculture or to the shoemaker's art, and that they were not held as a sacrament before the times of Gregory I. More recent Protestants, although they hold matrimony as a religious institution, nevertheless deny that it is a sacrament, except for the Ritualists, who place it among the lesser sacraments. And many Modernists hold, prop. 51: "Matrimony could not become a sacrament of the New Law except later in the Church; since, in order that matrimony be held as a sacrament, it was necessary that there precede a full theological explanation of the doctrine of grace and of the sacraments."

On the contrary, the doctrine of the Church is that matrimony, from the beginning, indeed foretold the future union of Christ with the Church, but in the New Law is the sign of this union now existing, and a properly so-called sacrament significative and productive of grace derived from Christ.

That this doctrine may be well understood, it must be noted:

a) There is a twofold union of Christ with human nature: one physical, the other spiritual. By force of the former the assumed humanity is drawn to the very personal being of the Word; by force of the latter charity and grace descends from Christ the head into the body of the Church: thus the second union integrates and completes the first.

b) Further, the conjugal union of man and woman has a proportional likeness with the union of the Word to humanity, and indeed in two ways:

1. By reason of the end and of the operation toward the end. For the principal end of matrimony is man to be procreated and educated for the worship of God; but the end of the union of the Word with flesh and of Christ with the Church is likewise man to be repaired by grace for the worship of God. Then, in the operation for obtaining the end of matrimony, the undivided work of man and woman is required; likewise, for obtaining the end of the incarnation there was required the theandric operation of one person in whom there was a twofold nature, divine and human; and after redemption was consummated, the undivided influence of Christ and of the Church is required for the spiritual life of the faithful.

2. By reason of the relations between the things conjoined, namely, between Christ and the Church, man and woman.

In the conjugal union there is had a fellowship of life and a communication of rights, yet in such a way that the man is the head of the woman, and retains the right of ruling, and as it were assumes the wife to himself, not conversely. So proportionally for the Church with respect to Christ, and for the assumed humanity with respect to the assuming divinity.

If these things are considered, matrimony already from its nature had a certain singular suitability, that it should be assumed as a sign and symbol of the conjunction of the Word with flesh and of Christ with the Church. But, as Scripture testifies, in fact it was assumed to signify this (Eph. V, 32). In the old law, indeed, it could be nothing except a shadowy type and a merely prognostic sign of the future incarnation; wherefore it was not a sacrament collative of grace. But in the New Testament the matrimonial union is a sacred sign expressing the likeness of the union now existing between Christ and the Church; indeed it is ordered to an end of the same order as the end of the incarnation, namely, to offspring to be formed, and not in any manner whatever, but according to the law of grace, for the propagation and perennial conservation of the Church. Wherefore in the law of Christ marriage, as to its substance, is perfected and elevated, so that it is a collative sign and a title of itself demanding, and a cause of, present grace, and therefore a sacrament properly so called.

780. Thesis. Matrimony legitimately celebrated between the baptized is a true and properly so-called sacrament of the New Law. - It is of faith from the Council of Trent, sess. 24, can. 1, and sess. 7, can. 1 and 6.

It is said: 1) matrimony, and not something added to it, so that matrimony itself in becoming and in fact, namely, the contract and the moral bond resulting therefrom, has been elevated to the dignity of a sacrament;

2. between the baptized: for the evangelical law, which constitutes matrimony as a sacrament, is not applied except to those who are subjected to it by Baptism, while unbelievers have matrimony such as is sanctioned in the natural law; Baptism, namely, is a condition without which there cannot be the sacrament of matrimony, just as neither can there be the other sacraments;

3. legitimately celebrated, or valid, so that there is no valid matrimony between the baptized which is not a sacrament;

4. is a true and properly so-called sacrament of the New Law, a sign of a sacred thing insofar as it is sanctifying men, which not only signifies but also confers grace.

It is proved: A. From the Scriptures, which intimate this, Eph. V, 22-32: Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church: he is the savior of his body. But as the Church is subject to Christ, so also let wives be to their husbands in all things. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church and delivered himself up for her, that he might sanctify her... that she might be holy and immaculate. So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh: but nourishes and cherishes it, as also Christ does the Church. Because we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and in the Church. By these words it is indicated that matrimony is a) a sacred sign, b) a sign of grace, and c) a practical sign collative of grace.

1° It is a sacred sign. For after recounting the words of Adam, by which the intimate and most close conjunction of man and woman is expressed, so that they are two in one flesh, Paul adds: This is a sacrament (mysterion, i.e., a mystical sign), and indeed a great one: but I speak in Christ and in the Church (thus: εἰς Χριστὸν καὶ εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, i.e., unto Christ and unto the Church, or toward him and her), as if he were saying: the marital union, if considered in itself, seems an obvious and natural thing; nevertheless it must be called a great mystery, because as a sign it must be referred to the most high marriage of Christ with the Church, which in a wondrous and mysterious way it signifies.

2° It is a sign of grace. For it signifies the union of Christ with the Church; but this union is perfected through grace, for Christ loved the Church and delivered himself up for her that he might sanctify her, which cannot be done without grace; therefore matrimony is a sign of grace.

3° It is a practical sign, or a sign collative of grace, not a merely speculative sign as in the Old Testament.

The Apostle does not formally teach this, but he intimates it, as the Council of Trent, sess. 24, says, and supposes it. For:

a) The word sacrament, or mystical sign, is to be understood according to the diversity of times, so that in the broader sense it is taken for a bare sign of a sacred thing, which belongs to matrimony under the law of nature and the Mosaic law; now, however, in the stricter sense, for a sacred sign collative of grace, which belongs to matrimony under the new law, whose sacraments have this as proper to them, that they produce what they signify.

b) The Apostle, from the most lofty signification of matrimony, teaches that Christian spouses are obligated to that most excellent charity by which Christ loved the Church, and to that devoted subjection by which the Church is ordered to Christ; but this love and subjection ought to be something constant and permanent, just as the love of Christ and the subjection of the Church are permanent. But for such charity and subjection to be exhibited continually to one another, spouses need a permanent principle, namely, habitual grace with a right to actual helps. Therefore Paul intimates and supposes that this grace is truly conferred, by reason of the conjugal union insofar as it is a sign of the union of Christ and the Church.

c) The conjugal union, insofar as it is a sign of the union of Christ and the Church, orders the man and the woman to an end which is now of the same order as the end of the incarnation, namely, to offspring to be educated for the conservation and propagation of the Church. "For Christ," says St. Robert Bellarmine, De Matr. c. 4, "Christ and the Church always beget spiritual children through Baptism and nourish them through the Eucharist; and thus Christian spouses are obligated from marriage itself to divine offices. But offices which surpass nature are never committed by God unless at the same time grace is also given, through which those offices may be exercised as is fitting." Therefore the conjugal union, insofar as it is such a sacred sign, demands fitting graces and is an efficacious sign of grace, or a sacrament of the New Law.

B. From Tradition, which proposes the dogma, first implicitly, then explicitly, as is clear from the testimonies of the Fathers, the doctrine of Councils and Pontiffs, the voice of the liturgy and the monuments of antiquity, and the consensus of all the Eastern sects.

1° The Fathers teach: a) that Christ blessed matrimony and added sanctity to it: thus Epiphanius, haer. 67; Cyril of Alexandria, in Ioh. II, 2; the bishops in the Synod of Ephesus; Augustine, in Ioh. IX, 2.

b) That matrimony is a sacred thing, to be sealed by the solemn blessing of the Church, and joined with grace: thus Ignatius, ad Pol. V, 2; Tertullian, ad ux. II, 7-9; Origen, in Mt. XIV, 16; Ambrose, ep. ad Sir.; Pope Siricius, ep. 1, c. 4; Epiphanius, haer. 61 and 67.

c) That Christian matrimony surpasses the matrimony of unbelievers in dignity, and for this reason is a sacrament; which therefore must be understood of a sacrament properly so called, whence they compare it with Baptism and Order: thus Ambrose, De Abraham I, 7; Augustine, De bono coni. 18 and 24; De nupt. et conc. I, 10; Leo the Great, ep. 167, n. 4.

2° Pontiffs and Councils, just as theologians, from the twelfth century onward, more often explicitly enumerate matrimony among the seven sacraments of the Church: thus Lucius III in the Council of Verona, a. 1184; Innocent III in the profession of faith for the Waldenses; the profession of faith read in the Second Council of Lyons, a. 1274; the Council of Florence in the decree for the Armenians.

3° The liturgical books, namely, the Sacramentaries of the Latins and the Euchologia of the Greeks from the fifth century onward, speak in the same way: in them matrimony is shown to be a most holy thing, to be carried out amid the solemnities of Masses, and is called a sacrament, and God is prayed that he may bestow his grace on the spouses. And the monuments of antiquity show the celebration of marriage carried out with the blessing of Christ or under his patronage.

4° The dissenting Eastern Churches, whose schism was perfected from the fifth to the ninth century, all admit that matrimony is a true sacrament; therefore this doctrine was not introduced among them after the separation, but is shown to pertain to the common and ancient faith.

And although in the beginning the testimonies are ambiguous and obscure, nevertheless these are to be understood according to the express and clear doctrine of later times; because, since in the Church the explanation of doctrine is made under the assistance of the Spirit of Truth, if in later times matrimony is indubitably posited to be a sacrament properly so called, conferring grace ex opere operato, by that very fact it is demonstrated that this is the sense implicitly contained in the testimonies of primitive faith and revealed to the Apostles.

C. From the reason of fittingness, which confirms the thesis, and indeed in two ways: both from this, that the sacraments ought to provide for all the necessities of the spiritual life, and from this, that they were instituted as a remedy for concupiscence.

1° The sacraments were instituted for the necessities of the spiritual life, social as well as individual. But just as for spiritual society there is required the order of power by which it is ruled, so there is required matrimony by which it is conserved and propagated; moreover those who are destined to rule it or propagate it cannot duly fulfill their offices without grace. Therefore just as it was fitting to institute a sacrament for conferring grace on those who rule spiritual society, so also to institute matrimony as a sacrament which confers grace on those who are to propagate society.

2° The sacraments were instituted as a remedy for original sin and the evil concupiscence derived from it. But carnal concupiscence inclining to the propagation of the species is especially to be restrained; and matrimony affords an opportune remedy for it. Therefore it was fitting to institute matrimony as a sacrament collative of grace, by which carnal concupiscence is more efficaciously subjected to the bridle of reason.

781. When did Christ institute the sacrament of Matrimony? - He seems to have perfected this in a threefold stage:

1° he consecrated and sanctified nuptials by his presence at Cana of Galilee, John II, 1-11;

2° he sanctioned the essential properties of matrimony, namely, unity and indissolubility, and restored it in its primitive perfection, Mt. XIX, 3-9;

3° after his resurrection he definitively instituted it as a sacrament collative of grace, when the other sacraments had been instituted.

782. Corollaries. - 1. Christ elevated matrimony itself to sacramental dignity, namely, in becoming and in fact, and therefore not only the contract, nor only the bond, but both; as is clear from documents of the Church, which at one time assert that the matrimonial contract was elevated to the dignity of a sacrament, and at another time say the same of the bond itself, as will easily appear to the reader. So also St. Thomas, q. 42, a. 1, ad 1 and 2; a. 3, ad 2; q. 45, a. 1, ad 2.

In the word of God handed down there is contained the Catholic doctrine that Christian Marriage is truly and properly a Sacrament.

I. If by the perpetual and universal tradition of the Christian Church (which surely the decrees of Councils, solemn professions of faith, liturgies or sacramentals, the works of Theologians and Fathers represent) this doctrine is proved to be contained, namely that Christian Marriage is a true and proper Sacrament of the new law, that ought to be enough and more than enough for the Theologian, so that this truth may be said to be demonstrated; if indeed those things are true which concerning the force of Tradition we both teach in the Schools and defend against heretics. Moreover this is easily demonstrated. A true and proper Sacrament is that to which there univocally belongs the definition of those things which in the Church are held as sacraments, namely which are efficacious signs of sanctifying grace; that is, it is that which is a sacrament as Baptism, the Eucharist, etc., are. But by divine Tradition it is certain that Christian Marriage, which namely is contracted by Christian persons, is to be held in the number of these sacraments.

II. Indeed, that we may bring forward an argument which shows the agreement of both the Greek and Latin Church at once, it is certain that the heretical sects which in the fifth century, when namely each Church, Latin and Greek, was still united, departed from the Catholic Church, always had among themselves seven sacraments in number, and among these marriage; and although they disagree among themselves in other dogmas, nevertheless in this all agree. Therefore we gather that those sects received this sevenfold number from the Church and carried it with them.

Therefore in the fifth century the whole Catholic Church had marriage in the number of those things which are properly called sacraments. But this is sufficient that apostolic tradition be demonstrated. You have the proof of the antecedent from the following testimonies, provided you observe that sects of this sort were always tenacious of those things which from the beginning they received from their parents and abhorred changes. Now the faith of the Nestorian Syrians is testified to by Sulaka the Patriarch, in the profession of faith which, while still a monk, he issued at Rome in 1553: "We also believe in holy baptism, and in the sacrifice which is the body and blood of Christ, and in the holy priesthood, and in marriage." Simon Assemani reports the faith of the Jacobites and Copts (Bibliotheca Orientalis, tome II, dissertation On the Monophysites, n. 5): "As regards the sacraments, it is clear from their ritual and pontifical books, etc., that the sevenfold number of them, such as is acknowledged by the Catholic Church, is held most sacred among the Jacobites." Vartan, Bishop of the Armenians, who published his works about two centuries before the Council of Florence, is also a witness that the Armenians thought the same before the Council of Florence; for he says (cf. Galanus, tome 2, p. 440), in the admonitions to the Armenians, c. 6: "Paul the Apostle instructed his disciple Dionysius concerning the seven sacraments of the Church. Christianity rests upon the seven sacraments of the Church... The first sacrament is baptism, the second the sacrifice of the Mass; the third the blessing of the ointment, which the Latins call chrism; the fourth is order; the fifth is marriage, etc." Likewise in the seventeenth century the Greek Church, against Cyril Lucaris favoring the Protestants, issued the profession of its faith, saying among other things: "Anathema to Cyril, fabricating new dogmas and believing that the seven Sacraments of the Church, namely baptism, chrism, penance, eucharist, priesthood, extreme unction, and marriage, are not from the institution of Jesus Christ, nor from the tradition of the Apostles and perpetual practice." Therefore the consequent which we gathered is certain. Cf. Schelstrate, Acts of the Oriental Church against the Heresy of Luther.

III. But that we may enlarge this argument, let us consider singly the testimonies of the Church. Therefore, if in the Church, especially the Latin Church, we make our way from the latest times to the older, there stands forth first the Tridentine decree, session XXIV, canon 1, and the Florentine decree in the decree of Eugene IV to the Armenians; in these Marriage is numbered among the seven sacraments of the Church, which are called sacraments only properly, and it is said truly and properly to be one of the seven sacraments of the Evangelical law. Then there is at hand the profession of faith issued by Michael Palaeologus in the ecumenical Council of Lyons II (year 1274), in which you have these things: "The same holy Roman Church also holds and teaches that there are seven ecclesiastical sacraments: one, namely, baptism; another is the sacrament of confirmation... another is penance, another eucharist; another the sacrament of order; another is marriage; another extreme unction." Lucius III had preceded these (year 1181) in the Council celebrated at Verona (Ad abolendam, On Heretics), saying: "All who do not fear to think or teach otherwise than the Most Holy Roman Church preaches and observes concerning the sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, or concerning baptism, or concerning the confession of sins, marriage, or the remaining ecclesiastical sacraments... we bind with the bond of perpetual anathema." Already before this, in the same century, the leading Theologians of the School had taught the same opinion: Hugh of St. Victor (about the year 1140), On Sacraments in General and On the Sacraments of Faith; and the Master of the Sentences (about 1150, in the fourth book), to whom all the rest of the theologians gave assent, teaching that a sacrament of the Church is the visible form of invisible grace, so that it bears its image and exists as cause (dist. 1); and that there are seven sacraments of this sort, among which they numbered marriage among the faithful (dist. 2) ¹. At the beginning and thus the one contracting marriage is more acceptable to God than he had been in the preceding instant, because to enter marriage is a good work, and the power of the sacrament, through the merits of Christ, works an increase of grace. But he would have pleased God more if he had wished to persevere celibate or a virgin. Moreover, to obtain grace with God can have a certain special signification, namely to be made, on account of some work, more acceptable to God than if the opposite, although licit, had been done. Therefore, if the grace of God is taken thus, it can be said that the other sacraments confer grace, but marriage only a remedy, which nevertheless is an effect of sanctifying grace. of the same twelfth century Otto, Bishop of Bamberg, in a Sermon (in Migne, P.L., vol. CLXXIII, p. 1555), after enumerating the Sacraments of the Church, baptism namely, etc., says: "the sixth is marriage, that is, matrimonial union." Again, at the beginning of the same twelfth century, the same doctrine was handed down plainly enough by Rudolph Ardens, who has these things in the Homilies on the Sunday Epistles and Gospels, homily 2: "What is marriage? The legitimate conjunction of male and female, retaining an individual custom of life. What are the goods of marriage? Three: fidelity, offspring, sacrament. It is a sacrament because it is the sign of a sacred thing... Therefore the bridegroom and bride who are about to approach the sacrament of nuptials ought to repent of past excesses and confess their sins." Certain ancient orders or rituals command the same thing. Cf. Martene, order 14. The same thing, on account of reverence for the sacrament, William, Bishop of Paris, prescribed in his Constitutions in the year 1208. Moreover, the duty of repenting and confessing for rightly receiving the sacrament of nuptials shows this to be a sacrament properly so called. Therefore this opinion was commonly known and certain in that age. Likewise at the beginning of the twelfth century Hildebert, Bishop of Tours, in Sermon 2 (Galland, tome 14, p. 334 ff.), n. 3, says: "Therefore there are three sacraments in the city of our God which both preceded the others in time and are known to obtain the primacy in the restoration of the sons of God. The first of these is marriage, the second baptism, the third the sacred libation of the Lord's table. Upon these, in the youth of the world, a form was impressed by God, etc."

¹ The Master indeed immediately adds: "of which some furnish a remedy against sin and confer helping grace, as baptism; others are only for a remedy, as marriage; others sustain us by grace and virtue, as the eucharist and order." By these words the Master seems to deny that marriage confers grace. But since, as St. Thomas observes in the same place, the definition of a genus ought to agree with all the species, and in the definition of sacrament by the Master himself it is placed that it exists as cause of grace, his opinion cannot be one which simply denies that grace is conferred through the sacrament of marriage. But that which is called a remedy will be a certain grace, which nevertheless, on account of a certain special reason, can be honored by this singular name and distinguished from grace taken generally. Thus St. Thomas interprets the saying of the Master in the same place, q. I, a. 1, ql. 2, ad 3: "It must be said that each thing is denominated from that to which it is ordered. But the grace which is conferred in marriage, insofar as it is a sacrament of the Church celebrated in the faith of Christ, is ordered directly (although not exclusively) to repressing concupiscence, which pertains to the act of marriage; and therefore the Master says that marriage is only for a remedy; but this is through the grace which is conferred in it." Perhaps the Master considered that which is special in marriage with respect to the grace of God before the other sacraments. Namely, he who receives any other sacrament becomes either simply acceptable to God or more acceptable to him, and always pleases him more than if he had not received the sacrament; nor does the opposite please God more than the reception itself of the sacrament, at least of itself. But he who contracts marriage does not please God more than if he had chosen the opposite, that is, life in continence. An increase of sanctifying grace is indeed conferred through marriage, with helps suitable to that state,

St. Thomas indeed, in IV, dist. II, q. I, a. 1, ql. 2, reports the opinion of certain persons saying that "in marriage some grace is not conferred, but that it is only for a remedy against concupiscence." Either this opinion must be accepted in the way in which we accepted the doctrine of the Master in the Note, whom they seem to have followed as to the manner of speaking, or it must be held to be a certain imprudent aberration from the common doctrine. Certainly, as St. Thomas argues in the same place, the very doctrine admitted by those same Theologians, namely that marriage is a sacrament of the New Law, and that the sacraments of the New Law are causes of grace, is evidently repugnant to this other doctrine, that no grace is conferred through marriage. Wherefore aberrations of this sort, which touch the manner of speaking rather than the thing itself, are not witnesses of dissent from the doctrine of others, but are witnesses of a doctrine not yet clarified and illustrated by the scholastic method through proper and distinct concepts; and this also happens in other questions. Durandus also later joined those Theologians of whom Thomas makes mention, but, the School protesting, he afterwards corrected his opinion.

Therefore from the twelfth century it is certain that ecclesiastical preaching in the Latin Church had been sufficiently explicit: the marriage of Christians is truly and properly a sacrament.

IV. Moreover, in the preceding age there also exists a continuous series of tradition all the way to Apostolic times, handing down at least this, most openly and without doubt: namely that the marriage of Christians is of divine institution and is entered into with God as author; that it is a sacred thing; that it is joined with sanctification and grace; that it was sanctified by Christ; and now and then also teaching that marriage is truly and properly a sacrament.

Indeed, a) there exist either Orders or Rituals (cf. Martene, On the Ancient Rites of the Church, book I, part 2, chapter IX, article 6 ff., and Goar in the Euchologion of the Greeks), or Sacramentaries, which extend in a long series all the way to the Gelasian Sacramentary, which is said to have been derived from the Sacramentary of St. Leo. Now in the Sacramentary of Gelasius (cf. Thomasius, Codices of the Sacraments, book III, Sacramentary of the Roman Church) there is represented the nuptial action which takes place within the solemnities of Masses, consisting of the prayers and blessings of the Priest; and in it you have these things: "God is he who connects spouses in legitimate society; the wife is joined by the gift of God to marital fellowship." And God is entreated that "he pour upon the spouses the help of his blessing; that in conjugal fellowship, with equal affection, with similar mind, they be joined by mutual holiness; that he deign to confirm their nuptials as those of the first man; that he sanctify the beginnings of the woman; that she, associated in good and prosperous fellowship, may keep the commands of the eternal law and may marry faithful and chaste in Christ." Once the blessing has been completed, the spouses receive communion from the altar. But from these Ritual books, whose authority in the Church is very great, since they represent the public testimony of the Churches, it is manifest that marriage is exhibited as a thing flowing from divine institution, a thing which is made with God as author, a thing joined with sanctification and grace; namely, that man and woman are joined to each other by mutual holiness and marry in Christ.

b) The Fathers, even the most ancient, teach α) that "the Church conciliates marriage, the oblation confirms it, the blessing seals it, the Angels announce it when sealed, and the Father holds it ratified" (Tertullian, To His Wife, book II, chapter 9); β) that "it is fitting that bridegrooms and brides make marriage according to the judgment of the Bishop, that the nuptials may be according to the Lord and not according to cupidity" (Ignatius Martyr, Epistle to St. Polycarp, chapter 5); γ) that "marriage itself ought to be sanctified by the priestly veil and blessing" (Ambrose, epistle 19 to Vigilius); that "it is after the manner of sacrilege if by any transgression that blessing is violated which the priest imposes upon the woman about to marry" (Siricius, Roman Pontiff, to Himerius of Tarragona, n. 4). Therefore, in the address of Peter to the ecclesiastical assembly, which he is said to have had after he handed over his Roman chair to Clement, as is narrated in the Clementines (cf. either the epistle of Clement to James prefixed to these in the edition of Cotelerius, or, in Dressel, the other epitome of Clement of the preachings of Peter, n. 151), these words occur, spoken to the presbyters: "Those things which belong to presbyters are these: Before all things, let them quickly join the young in nuptials, by forestalling the snares of the cupidity burning in youth. But neither let them cast away care concerning the marriage of those now old; for in some, even when they have grown old, strong cupidity is present." Namely, the marriage of Christians is subject to the care and government of priests. Wherefore Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, book 3, indicates that presbyters in the Church were accustomed to be present at Christian nuptials; for, reproving women adorned with false hairpieces and approaching the nuptial blessing, he says: "Upon whom will the presbyter impose hands? Whom, moreover, will he bless? Not the woman who is adorned, but another head by means of another's hair." But from these things it is certain that the rite which is exhibited in the orders is most ancient and reaches Apostolic times, or has been derived from the Apostles; then it is certain also from the opinion of the Fathers that marriage is a thing belonging to the Church, a sacred thing, joined with sanctification.

c) The Fathers again teach that divine grace coheres with marriage, as Tertullian, loc. cit., chapter 7: "If therefore a marriage of this sort is ratified before God, why should it not also turn out prosperously, so that it is not so harassed by pressures and straits and impediments and defilements, having already from a part the patronage of divine grace?" Therefore this is for marriage to be ratified before God: namely, to have the patronage of divine grace. Maximus of Turin, homily 23:

"Christ goes to nuptials, in order that those which long ago he constituted by power he may sanctify by the blessing of his presence." Innocent I, epistle 9, concerning a simultaneous bigamist, hands down these things: "We establish, with the Catholic faith giving support, that that was marriage which had first been founded by divine grace, and that the coming together of a second woman, while the former survives and has not been cast out by divorce, can by no compact be legitimate." Moreover marriage founded by divine grace is that which was contracted first. Therefore divine grace coheres with Christian marriage.

d) Monuments confirm the doctrine of the Fathers handed down thus far. In the work of the distinguished man Garrucci (Glasses, etc., table 26) there exists a twofold representation of nuptials; in each, the man and woman join right hands; in one, between them there stands the Monogram of Christ; in the other, between the same persons, a column adorned with gems, which is the symbol of the Church, whose gems are the Apostles, with the inscription: May you live in God. "Happy are the nuptials at which Christ is present," says Chrysologus, sermon 157. There exists a Greek coin to be referred to the fifth or sixth century, in which bridegroom and bride join right hands, Christ existing in the middle, who, embracing both, joins them, with the inscription Θεοῦ χάρις, "the grace of God." Nazianzen had already expressed this (epistle 193) a little otherwise: "I join youthful right hands to each other, and both to the hand of God."

V. But does the notion of sacrament properly so called, explicitly asserted of Christian marriage, occur in the monuments of the ancients which remain to us? That they may persuade this, some appeal to the words of Tertullian, On Prescription, chapter 40, by which they judge that he numbers marriage among the sacraments properly so called. "The devil," he says, "whose parts it is to overturn truth, emulates also the very things of the divine sacraments in the mysteries of idols. He himself also washes certain persons, namely his believers and faithful ones; he promises expiation from the laver (after the laver), and thus even initiates Mithras; there he signs his soldiers on the foreheads; he also celebrates the oblation of bread... What of the fact that he also establishes the supreme Pontiff in one marriage?... He therefore so emulously affected to express in the affairs of idolatry the very things from which the sacraments of Christ are administered, etc." Behold, they say, the Christian sacraments: baptism, penance, confirmation, eucharist, nuptials, which the devil emulates as an ape. But to establish the supreme Pontiff in one marriage is nothing other than to establish that the Pontiff be the husband of one wife, which Paul had prescribed, and which, with the devil persuading, unbelievers were imitating. Cf. the same author, To His Wife, book I, chapter 7.

But Augustine speaks more clearly. For in On Nuptials and Concupiscence, chapter 10, he teaches that not only fecundity and fidelity, but a certain sacrament of nuptials is commended to the married faithful. But he says that the effect of this sacrament is indissolubility, just as character is the effect of baptism. "Of this Sacrament, without any doubt, the thing is that male and female, joined in marriage, persevere inseparably as long as they live. Thus there remains among the living a certain conjugal thing which neither separation nor union with another can take away; but it remains for the guilt of crime, not for the bond of covenant; just as an apostate soul, departing as it were from the marriage of Christ, even when faith has been lost, does not lose the sacrament of faith which it received by the laver of regeneration." And in On the Good of Marriage, chapter 24, he compares the sacrament of marriage to the sacrament of ordination: "The good of nuptials, which belongs to the people of God, is also in the holiness of the sacrament, through which it is unlawful even for one departing by repudiation to marry another... nor is the conjugal bond dissolved except by the death of the spouse. Just as, if an ordination of clergy is made for gathering a people, even if the gathering of the people does not follow, nevertheless the sacrament of ordination remains in those ordained; and if by some fault anyone is removed from office, he will not lack the sacrament of the Lord." Wherefore in the same place, chapter 18, he says: "In the nuptials of Christians the holiness of the sacrament has more force than the fecundity of the womb." But a sacrament which belongs only to the faithful, which is the cause of a permanent effect after the manner of a character, which is compared to baptism and order, you will not interpret more suitably than if you understand a sacrament properly so called. Especially since this manner of speaking, the thing of the sacrament, is customarily employed by Augustine when he has speech concerning sacraments properly so called. Nor is St. Hildebert of Tours opposed to this interpretation; indeed he supports it, when in the Sermon cited above, n. 4, concerning this manner of speaking of Augustine he observes "that, all the other things which are required in legitimate marriage being omitted, Augustine ascribes sacrament to its stability; someone not imprudent, as I think, might say that this was said by prerogative rather than singularly (that is, not only in this, but chiefly in it): for an authority not to be contemned hands down that a sacrament is the sign of a sacred thing." Then he goes on to enumerate those things in which marriage is a sign of a sacred thing.

But especially Cyril of Alexandria must be appealed to, who thus discourses in On John, book II, chapter 2: "Christ himself, having been invited with his disciples, came to the nuptials, not so much in order to feast as in order to work a miracle, and besides to sanctify the principle of human generation, so far, namely, as pertains to the flesh. For it was fitting that he who was about to renew the very nature of man should not only impart a blessing to those who had already been called into birth, but should also pre-establish grace for those who were afterward to be born, and make their entrance into being (τὴν εἰς εἶναι πάροδον) holy." Therefore Christ not only imparted a blessing to those already born, namely through baptism, but besides sanctified the very principle of human generation, that is, marriage, and by this sanctification pre-established grace for those to be born, so that their birth would be holy. These things of themselves signify the supernatural sanctity of marriage, by which its act, or the generation of children, also is holy: which sanctity of a permanent thing is itself permanent of itself; and when this is posited, marriage becomes a true sacrament. Moreover Epiphanius teaches the same thing, although less clearly, heresy LXVII: "Who would not recognize that nuptials are venerable and, with the grace of God breathing upon them, obtain the heavenly kingdom, even from this, that the Savior himself was invited to nuptials, that he might bless them?" The Fathers of Ephesus likewise teach, Act 1, saying: "Christ then, by dispensation, blessed the nuptials themselves, when in Cana of Galilee he deigned to be present, being called with the holy Apostles." From these things you see that, just as Christ is said to have sanctified the waters by his baptism, so he is said by his presence to have sanctified nuptials. If you weigh this comparison rightly, you will easily understand that, just as the sanctification of the waters, according to the Fathers themselves, was a sanctification conferring sacramental power, in the same way the sanctification of nuptials must be accepted.

Now, if the opinion expressed in all these monuments of the earlier age that have been brought forward (IV, V) is compared with the opinion expressed in the monuments of the later age (III), which we enumerated above, it is clear, first, that speech in each series is about the same thing; secondly, that the opinion expressed in the more ancient monuments is related to the opinion of the later ones as a generic and more or less determined notion is related to a specific and more determined notion. But this specific and more determined account, which appears in the later monuments, was apprehended and implicitly asserted by all those formulas which exist in the older monuments. Therefore the same doctrine which is explicitly asserted in the later monuments was also held in the earlier age. The minor is proved. For it is necessary that the ancients, speaking of marriage as it is in the concrete, apprehended its notion not only generically, but also specifically, or the determinate mode by which it is a sacred thing and joined with sanctification; for any thing is determinate in itself and exists in a determinate mode. Therefore a sacred thing is sacred in a determinate mode. But it could not happen that for so long an age, when there was question of a matter frequent in daily use, the account of sacredness which is in marriage would be apprehended only in a confused mode still determinable, without the wise perceiving that the confused concept was to be determined more, lest marriage be confused with other sacred things of another species; without therefore a question arising concerning its proper and determinate notion, and doubts and diverse opinions existing. Nor could it happen that thereafter, from the eleventh century, a certain determinate mode by which marriage is sacred, if it had recently been devised, would be proposed to the faithful without any controversy as a known thing. But there exists no trace in the preceding centuries of questions or diverse opinions on this matter, and from the eleventh century a certain determinate mode by which marriage is a sacrament is proposed without any controversy. Therefore in the earlier ages the determinate account of sacredness which belongs to marriage was apprehended, and the faithful, or at least the teachers of the faithful, were conscious of this thing. But this determinate account of sacredness which was attributed to marriage in the earlier centuries could not be other than that which afterwards is explicitly expressed in the later monuments; otherwise there would have arisen in the Church a doctrine not only new, but also contrary to the ancient doctrine. Therefore the earlier formulas represent that same thing, although a little more obscurely, at least as regards us, which the later formulas represent; therefore the doctrine exhibited by the definitions of Councils is represented by an uninterrupted series of testimonies which is connected with the Apostolic age.

But if you add that in the series also of the ancient monuments the notion of Sacrament properly so called repeatedly shines forth (cf. n. V, Augustine and Cyril), you will have a confirmation, although not a necessary one, of the identity of the thing known both by the later and by the more ancient. Therefore from apostolic tradition proceeds the doctrine that Christian marriage is a sacrament properly so called. And so by a twofold kind of arguments Catholic tradition is demonstrated in this matter: that is, both by the consensus of all Christians in the fifth century (II), and by the analysis of the doctrine of every age all the way to Apostolic times or times near to them.

VI. Yet a difficulty not to be despised occurs. For it is asked, first, why the Fathers before Augustine, disputing with the Gnostics and Manichaeans, who rejected marriage as introduced by Satan, and bringing forward also testimonies of the Scriptures, why the Fathers, I say, when they attack this error with arguments drawn from divine authority, nevertheless never bring that into the middle, namely that marriage is a sacrament? Moreover, there disputed on this matter Irenaeus, book I, Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, book III, Tertullian, book I, To His Wife, Titus of Bostra, book II, against the Manichaeans, Epiphanius, heresy 23 of Saturnilus, 32 of Epiphanes, 45 of the Severians, 67 of the Hieracites, and Didymus of Alexandria, Against the Manichaeans, etc. It is asked, secondly, why the Fathers disapproving the nuptials of the faithful with unbelievers, such as Tertullian, book II, To His Wife, Cyprian in Augustine, On Faith and Works, chapter 19, and the Fathers of the Council of Laodicea, canon 10, and of the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, canon 14, did not appeal to the dignity of the sacrament, which seems to be the most powerful reason. It is also asked, thirdly, why Jovinian, who gathered together all arguments (cf. Jerome, book I, Against the Same) in order to extol marriage and make it equal to virginity, did not bring forward the account of sacrament. Namely, from all these things it seems that the doctrine was unknown to the earlier centuries: that marriage is a sacrament.

To the first it must be confessed that the ancient Fathers, when they attack that error of certain Gnostics and Manichaeans, do not use explicitly, and under this formula of words which we now would use, an argument taken from the dignity of a true and proper sacrament, but appeal both to the divine institution of marriage (Gen. II; Matt. XIX), and to the words of the Apostle (Hebr. XIII, 4; 1 Cor. VII, 2, 28 ff.; 1 Tim. V, 11), and also to the blessing which Christ imparted by his presence to the nuptials in Cana of Galilee. But, first, that argument sought from silence, since it is negative, loses all force if against it, as has been done, positive arguments can be brought forward. Secondly, we said deliberately: explicitly and under that formula of words which we now use. For since the Fathers must be judged to have attributed the dignity of sacrament to marriage when they say that it was sanctified by Christ by the blessing of his presence, and since they object this sanctification against the heretics, it cannot simply be asserted that the Fathers did not use that argument. Indeed, on the contrary, it must be held that when the Fathers objected that blessing against the heretics, which the Greeks frequently do, they objected to them the account of a true sacrament. For just as they signified that the true account of sacrament is present in baptism when they spoke of the sanctification imparted to the waters in the Jordan by Christ, so they must be thought to speak of true sacramental sanctification when they say that Christ, by his presence, blessed and sanctified nuptials. For the rest, thirdly, the argument taken from the proper dignity of a true sacrament was in no way necessary for the Fathers; rather, it was enough to urge the divine institution. Indeed, the matter was being dealt with against heretics who, permitting to themselves any wandering concubitus whatever for the sake of pleasure, nevertheless condemned the procreation of children and nuptials, as Epiphanius and Clement of Alexandria testify concerning the Gnostics in the places cited, and Augustine concerning the Manichaeans in On Heresies, heresy 46: "They admonish their hearers that, if they use spouses, they should nevertheless avoid conception and generation, lest the divine substance which enters into them through foods be bound by the chains of flesh in offspring." And against Secundinus the Manichaean, chapter 22: "For you do not so much detest concubitus as nuptials." Cf. also Titus of Bostra, cited work, book II. Now this base opinion erred simply in that which belongs to natural right, and therefore to overthrow it, it was enough to teach that the procreation of offspring and marriage are according to nature and honorable, which all the Fathers furnish; and also from the Scriptures, which those heretics received in some manner, it was enough to show that the procreation of offspring and marriage, which nature demands, were confirmed by divine institution. And this was directly opposed to their opinion, who taught that to take a wife and procreate children was from Satan.

To the second, we respond first that the dignity of the sacrament of itself does not prevent these nuptials from being permitted, as was done from the beginning of the Church; wherefore neither in the nearest centuries was this argument too much to be urged, especially lest the preceding Fathers seem to be condemned as injurious toward the sacrament. For the rest, where the necessity of permitting it was lacking, and it was lawful for Bishops, without scandal and disturbance of the faithful, to guard the honor of the sacrament most fully, it is false that an argument was not also drawn thence for prohibiting these nuptials, although they had not yet invalidated them. For in the Council of Elvira it is indeed said, canon 15: "On account of the abundance of girls, Christian virgins are by no means to be given in marriage to the Gentiles, lest an age swelling in its flower be dissolved in adultery of the soul." But in canon 16 it is added: "But it has pleased us that they be given neither to Jews nor to heretics, because there can be no society of a faithful person with an unbeliever," certainly in a sacred thing; which reason is not one that may be denied to be sought from the dignity itself of the sacrament. The same reason is also contained implicitly in the opinion of Cyprian, which Augustine reports in the cited place: "St. Cyprian in the epistle On the Lapsed (compare it), among the evil morals of Christians, counts joining the bond of marriage with unbelievers, which he asserted to be nothing other than prostituting the members of Christ to the Gentiles; these in our times are now not thought to be sins, because in truth in the New Testament nothing has been commanded concerning this, and therefore it has been believed either to be lawful or has been left as doubtful." But since the Laodicean and Chalcedonian canons bring forward no special reason, they also exclude no suitable one.

3. As regards Jovinian, we respond that he too denied the distinction between the innocent and penitents, or equated penitents with the innocent (Jerome, cited work, book II, in proposition 1), and nevertheless, in order to show this parity, did not gather an argument from the fact that penance is a sacrament. Namely, he was instituting a comparison between the merits of each, the innocent and the penitent, which each could acquire for himself in his own state, and between the reward which he contended had been promised as the same to all because of their works, not between the rites by which some state was consecrated. Wherefore neither did he appeal to the account of sacrament in marriage, because he was comparing the state of marriage with the state of virginity, or the merits which in each state man and woman could attain, and he gathered the equal merit of the virgin and the spouse from the value of the works of each before God.

The arguments which are brought against the doctrine asserted in the two preceding theses are empty.

I. Against the truth asserted in these two Theses several things are commonly objected. The principal ones are these. 1. The act of marriage is base; but it is not fitting that the act of a sacrament be base. Indeed, 2. the act of marriage is not free from fault, for the Apostle grants it according to indulgence or pardon, 1 Cor. VII. 6; but Augustine says, On Original Sin, c. 38, that when pardon is granted, fault is denoted. And Didymus of Alexandria, Against the Manichaeans, teaches that men before Christ had marriage with sin, which sin Christ took away from nuptials just as he took sin away from other things. 3. Marriage is less noble than Virginity; but Virginity is not a sacrament; therefore much less is marriage. 4. In a sacrament an exterior religious ceremony is required; there is no such ceremony in marriage. 5. It is not enough, in order that something be a sacrament, that it be the sign of a sacred thing and have annexed to it a promise of grace, as is clear in martyrdom. 6. A sacrament of the New Law, taken strictly and properly, is a sign of grace not from its own nature, but from divine institution; but, etc. 7. If marriage confers grace, it follows that one who passes from the state of celibacy or virginity, which is more perfect, to the state of marriage, which is more imperfect and less acceptable to God, acquires grace from God, which seems absurd. 8. In marriage the contracting parties lawfully make an agreement about a dowry, which is not lawful in the sacraments. 9. A sacrament effects what it signifies; but marriage does not effect that which it signifies, for it signifies the union of Christ with the Church, which it does not effect.

II. I respond to the first. The act of marriage is honorable in itself, just as the legitimate procreation of children is honorable, and honorable is the act which nature itself urges. But what is base is that which is joined to it accidentally, that is, the movement of concupiscence rebelling against reason; yet this baseness of concupiscence by itself alone is not moral, and when it is employed for an honorable end, we use an evil well, as Augustine says (see what was said in the Treatise on God the Creator, Th. XLIV). Nor did St. Jerome speak except improperly when, defending virginity against Jovinian, L. I, n. 7, he says: "If it is good not to touch a woman, it is evil to touch her; for nothing is contrary to good except evil"; these last words are Tertullian's in the book On Monogamy. But it cannot be called evil except insofar as it is improperly understood as a lesser good. The same Jerome in the same place denies that he thinks every intercourse filthy, and says that he is not ignorant of honorable nuptials and an immaculate bed... "But we receive nuptials," he says, "in such a way that we prefer virginity." Thus Augustine, On the Good of Marriage, c. 8: "Therefore marriage and fornication are not two evils, of which one is worse; but marriage and continence are two goods, of which one is better." As regards Jerome, his epist. 48 to Pammachius should be read, in which he purposely defends himself from the charge that his praise of virginity was in some way a condemnation of marriage. For Jerome had been ill spoken of at Rome because of the writings against Jovinian. Cf. also his epist. 123 to Ageruchia and Augustine, Retractations, L. II, c. 22. Moreover, it must be observed that when Jerome compares marriage to virginity, he insists especially on the consideration of its use; for by reason of this he places nuptials in the lower place. Wherefore in the census of virgins he also places spouses abstaining from the act of marriage, and he opposes them to those who use it. But, that we may answer the difficulty more fully, copulation is not the act of the sacrament of marriage when it comes to be and confers grace, but an act of the sacrament in facto esse, or as permanent, as we shall explain in the following Thesis.

III. To the second. The indulgence which the Apostle grants regards not marriage itself, but only the use of marriage apart from the direct intention of offspring, for avoiding fornication. But that indulgence or pardon does not denote fault; for pardon or indulgence which supposes fault is that which is remission; but here there is no speech of this sort of pardon. "It is not lawful to doubt that nuptials are not a sin. Therefore the Apostle does not grant nuptials according to pardon; for who would hesitate to say that it would be most absurd to say that those to whom pardon is given have not sinned? But he grants according to pardon that intercourse which takes place through incontinence, not for the sole cause of procreating, and sometimes with no cause of procreating, which nuptials do not compel to happen, but obtain to be pardoned," says Augustine, On the Good of Marriage, n. 11. It is, namely, the due concession of a less perfect act so that a greater evil may be avoided; hence it is opposed to command. The Apostle does not command that act of itself, because of itself it would be more perfect to abstain; but he commands or counsels on account of the danger of incontinence; therefore he counsels not from the motive of the perfection of the act, but from the motive of human frailty, to which indulgence must be granted. But that spouses rightly use marriage on account of this direct end alone of avoiding incontinence, the Apostle here supposes, and above he teaches it, v. 2.

Augustine indeed judged that that intercourse of spouses which takes place on account of incontinence (for the sake of pleasure), and not for the sole cause of procreating, is venial sin. "Conjugal intercourse for the sake of begetting has no fault; but that for satisfying concupiscence, yet with one's spouse, because of the faith of the bed, has venial fault; but adultery or fornication has lethal fault" (l. c., n. 6). St. Thomas partly agrees with him, Suppl., On Marriage, q. XLIX, a. 5. But since marriage was instituted also as a remedy for concupiscence, if spouses come together for the sake of pleasure, intending this likewise, that they avoid incontinence in themselves, since this is a most honorable end, even if they do not intend the generation of offspring, provided they do not positively exclude it, they are to be charged with no fault. Read the approved moral theologians.

IV. To the third. If state is compared with state, the state of continence is more perfect; but nothing prevents a state which of itself is more imperfect from being consecrated by a sacrament, and under this respect from surpassing the other, if there is some special reason for that state. But the special reason for marriage is that it is instituted for the common good, for the propagation of the human race. Therefore it was fitting that by sanctifying grace marriage should be consecrated and should become in the New Law a sacrament, marriage on which the family and the whole of society depends, by which the creative action of God is continued through the propagation of children for his worship, so that thus, under the guardianship and direction of the Church, to which the sacraments have been entrusted, the whole human family might be in its very beginning.

To the fourth. The exterior religious ceremony is that rite (which one it is we shall say in Th. XI) by which marriage comes to be, and by which the union of Christ with the Church and the holy union of spouses is represented.

To the fifth. There is indeed required besides a divine institution, by which something is instituted as sign and cause of sanctification, as a rite actively sanctifying as the instrument of God sanctifying; but this has place in marriage, not in martyrdom.

To the sixth. Marriage from its nature is indeed apt for signifying, but actually, from divine institution, it signifies the union of Christ with the Church and the grace which it confers. But it makes no difference that that which is assumed to be a sign is already something existing in nature and a work of nature.

To the seventh. Bellarmine responds (On Marriage, l. I, c. 5): "It is one thing to compare state with state, another to compare state with sacrament. The state of continence is higher and more perfect than the state of marriage and of greater grace and merit; nevertheless the sacrament always increases grace in whatever state it is received. Wherefore one who is continent, while he contracts marriage, grows in grace; but if that same continent person, for the sake of God, had despised human nuptials, he would have found more grace with God than is that which is given through the sacrament of marriage." Thus, for one to whom it is open to do two works, one more perfect, the other less, he who does that which is less perfect, when he is not bound to the more perfect, obtains an increase of grace; yet he would have obtained a greater increase of grace if he had done the other, more perfect work.

To the eighth. A dowry is not given on account of the sacrament or on account of the sacramental contract, but on account of the burdens to be borne in the undivided society of life, which follow marriage not insofar as it is a sacrament, but insofar as it is a certain contract producing a determinate society.

To the ninth. Enough has already been done. For marriage, when it comes to be, signifies the union of spouses, and that union as holy, which is the representation of the union of Christ with the Church.

VIII. QUESTION II. Is matrimony in the evangelical law a true sacrament? ANSWER. Hus, Luther, Calvin, and the Protestants deny it; but it is of faith that it is a true sacrament, St. Paul saying, Ephesians 5: For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the Church. There is added the perpetual tradition of the Church, whose documents I have given in Vol. X, Book 2, dissertation 1, chapter 4.

IX. QUESTION III. Whether matrimony celebrated between absent faithful through a proctor be a true sacrament? ANSWER. Soto, Isambert, Gotti, Tournely, and very many others affirm it. Victoria, Cano, Cajetan, Catharinus, Vanroy, and others deny it. This second opinion is to me the more probable. For no sacrament is celebrated between the absent. Nor do these words I join you together, and so forth, require the contracting parties present any less than those other words I absolve thee require a present penitent. The use of absolution given to one absent Clement VIII condemned. Tournely answers that absolution given to one absent is not against the nature of the sacrament, and could be given, did not the prohibition of Clement VIII stand in the way. This answer seems futile. Did Clement VIII condemn the aforesaid opinion at his own arbitrary pleasure? He condemned it because these words I absolve thee require a present penitent. Valid therefore will be a matrimony entered upon between absent parties through a proctor in the character of a natural and civil contract; but that it is not a true sacrament is to me the more probable.

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.