sacrament

sacrament
/sak"reuh meuhnt/, n.
1. Eccles. a visible sign of an inward grace, esp. one of the solemn Christian rites considered to have been instituted by Jesus Christ to symbolize or confer grace: the sacraments of the Protestant churches are baptism and the Lord's Supper; the sacraments of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches are baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, matrimony, penance, holy orders, and extreme unction.
2. (often cap.) Also called Holy Sacrament. the Eucharist or Lord's Supper.
3. the consecrated elements of the Eucharist, esp. the bread.
4. something regarded as possessing a sacred character or mysterious significance.
5. a sign, token, or symbol.
6. an oath; solemn pledge.
[1150-1200; ME < ML sacramentum obligation, oath, LL: mystery, rite, equiv. to L sacra(re) to devote + -mentum -MENT]

* * *

Religious action or symbol in which spiritual power is believed to be transmitted through material elements or the performance of ritual.

The concept is ancient; prehistoric people believed that they could advantageously influence events in the natural world, such as weather patterns, through the performance of ritual. The word sacramentum was used in Roman law and later became an oath of allegiance soldiers swore in a sacred place. The sacrament is primarily associated with Christianity, and Christian theologians as early as St. Augustine focused on the proper definition of sacrament. Among Christians, sacraments are said to derive from practices instituted by Jesus, such as baptism, the washing of the feet, and the casting out of demons. There are seven sacraments of Roman Catholicism, as codified by St. Thomas Aquinas and promulgated by the Council of Trent: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, ordination, and matrimony. The Eastern Orthodox church generally accepts seven sacraments, even though no council accepted by the Orthodox church ever defined the number of sacraments. In most Protestant churches, however, only baptism and the Lord's Supper are recognized as sacraments, as the understanding of sacrament differs from that of the Roman Catholic church. See also samskara.

* * *

Introduction

      religious sign or symbol, especially associated with Christian churches, in which a sacred or spiritual power is believed to be transmitted through material elements viewed as channels of divine grace.

      The Latin word sacramentum, which etymologically is an ambiguous theological term, was used in Roman law to describe a legal sanction in which a man placed his life or property in the hands of the supernatural powers that upheld justice and honoured solemn contracts. It later became an oath of allegiance taken by soldiers to their commander when embarking on a new campaign, sworn in a sacred place and using a formula having a religious connotation.

Nature and significance
      When sacramentum was adopted as an ordinance by the early Christian (Christianity) Church in the 3rd century, the Latin word sacer (“holy”) was brought into conjunction with the Greek word mystērion (“secret rite”). Sacramentum was thus given a sacred mysterious significance that indicated a spiritual potency. The power was transmitted through material instruments and vehicles viewed as channels of divine grace and as benefits in ritual observances instituted by Christ (Jesus Christ). St. Augustine (Augustine, Saint) defined sacrament as “the visible form of an invisible grace” or “a sign of a sacred thing.” Similarly, St. Thomas Aquinas (Aquinas, Thomas, Saint) wrote that anything that is called sacred may be called sacramentum. It is made efficacious by virtue of its divine institution by Christ in order to establish a bond of union between God and man. In the Lutheran and Anglican catechisms it is defined as “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.”

      The term sacrament has become a convenient expression for a sign or symbol of a sacred thing, occasion, or event imparting spiritual benefits to participants; and such signs or symbols have been associated with eating, drinking, lustration (ceremonial purification), nuptial intercourse, or ritual techniques regarded as “means of grace” and pledges of a covenant relationship with the sacred order. In this way the material aspects have become the forms of the embodied spiritual reality.

Types and variations

Types
      The several types of sacraments (i.e., initiatory, purificatory, renewal, communion, healing, cultic elevation) are well exemplified in Christianity, though they also may be found in other Western religions, the Eastern religions, and preliterate religions.

      The word sacrament, in its broadest sense as a sign or symbol conveying something “hidden,” mysterious, and efficacious, has a wider application and cosmic significance than that used in Christianity. For example, the evolutionary process is viewed by some as a graded series in which the lower stratum provides a basis for the one next above it. The lower, indeed, seems to be necessary to the growth of the higher. This view has introduced concepts of new powers and potentialities in organic evolution culminating in the human synthesis of mind transcending the process. The entire universe, therefore, can be said to have a sacramental significance in which the “inward” (or spiritual) and the “outward” (or material) elements meet in a higher unity that guarantees for the latter its full validity. Thus, the sacred meal has been at once a sacramental communion and a sacrificial (sacrifice) offering (e.g., wine, bread, or animal as a sign or symbol of a divine death and resurrection for the benefit of man) in which the two fundamental and complementary rites have been closely combined throughout their long and varied histories.

Variations
Sacramental ideas and practices in preliterate societies
      In preliterate society everyday events have been given sacramental interpretations by being invested with supernatural meanings in relation to their ultimate sources in the unseen divine or sacred powers. The well-being of primitive society, in fact, demands the recognition of a hierarchy of values in which the lower is always dependent on the higher and in which the highest is regarded as the transcendental source of values outside and above mankind and the natural order. To partake of the flesh (cannibalism) of a sacrificial (human sacrifice) victim or of the god himself or to consume the cereal image of a vegetation deity (as was done among the Aztecs in ancient Mexico), makes the eater a recipient of divine life and its qualities. Similarly, portions of the dead may be imbibed in mortuary sacramental rites (death rite) to obtain the attributes of the deceased or to ensure their reincarnation. To give the dead new life beyond the grave, mourners may allow life-giving blood to fall upon the corpse sacramentally. In this cycle of sacramental ideas and practices, the giving, conservation, and promotion of life, together with the establishment of a bond of union with the sacred order, are fundamental. In Paleolithic (prehistoric religion) hunting communities this sacramental idea appears to have been manifested in the sacramental rites performed to control the fortunes of the chase, to promote the propagation of the species on which the food supply depended, and to maintain right relations with the transcendental source of the means of subsistence, as exemplified in paintings—discovered in the caves at Altamira, Lascaux, Les Trois Frères, Font-de-Gaume and elsewhere in France and Spain—that show men with animal (nature worship) masks (illustrating a ritual or mystical communion of men and animals that were sources of food).

Sacramental ideas and practices in the ancient Near East
      When agriculture and herding became the basic type of food production, sacramental concepts and techniques were centred mainly in the fertility of the soil, its products, and in the succession of the seasons. This centralization was most apparent in the ancient Near East in and after the 4th millennium BC. A death and resurrection sacred drama arose around the fertility motif, in which a perpetual dying and rebirth in nature and humanity was enacted. In this sequence birth, maturity, death, and rebirth were ritually repeated and renewed through sacramental transitional acts, such as passage rites, ceremonies ensuring passage from one status to another. In passage rites the king often was the principal actor in the promotion of the growth of the crops and the propagation of man and beast and in the promotion of the reproductive forces in nature in general at the turn of the year.

Sacramental ideas and practices in the Greco-Roman world
      In the Greco-Oriental mystery (mystery religion) cults the sacramental ritual based on the fertility motif was less prominent than in the Egyptian and Mesopotamian religions. It did, nevertheless, occur in the Eleusinia, a Greek (Greek religion) agricultural festival celebrated in honour of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Kore. The things spoken and done in this great event have remained undisclosed, though some light has been thrown upon them by the contents of the museum at Eleusis, such as the vase paintings, and by later untrustworthy references in the writings of the early Church Fathers (e.g., Clement of Alexandria) and some Gnostics (early Christian heretics who held that matter was evil and the spirit good). The drinking of the kykeōn—a gruel of meal and water—can hardly be regarded as a sacramental beverage since it was consumed during the preparation for the initiation rather than at its climax. There is nothing to suggest that a ritual rebirth was effected by a sacramental lustration, or sacred meal, at any point in the Eleusinian ritual. What is indicated is that the neophytes (mystae) emerged from their profound experience with an assurance of having attained newness of life and the hope of a blessed immortality. From the character of the ritual, the mystery would seem to have been connected with the seasonal drama in which originally a sacred marriage may have been an important feature, centred in Demeter, the corn mother, and Kore (Persephone), the corn maiden.

      In the 6th century BC, or perhaps very much earlier, the orgiastic religion of the god Dionysus, probably originating in Thrace and Phrygia, was established in Greece. In the Dionysiac rites the Maenads (female attendents) became possessed by the spirit of Dionysus by means of tumultuous music and dancing, the free use of wine, and an orgiastic meal (the tearing to pieces and devouring of animals embodying Dionysus Zagreus with their bare hands as the central act of the Bacchanalia). Though not necessarily sacramental, these rites enabled the Maenads to surmount the barrier that separated them from the supernatural world and to surrender themselves unconditionally to the mighty powers that transcended time and space, thus carrying them into the realm of the eternal. Ecstatic (ecstasy) rites of this nature did not commend themselves to the Greeks of the unemotional nonsacramental Homeric tradition; such rites did appeal, however, to many, some of whom had come under the influences of the Orphic (Orphic religion) mysteries in which it was possible for them to rise to a higher level in its thiasoi (brotherhoods). The purpose of the Orphic ritual was to confer divine life sacramentally on its initiates so that they might attain immortality through regeneration and reincarnation, thereby freeing the soul from its fleshly bondage.

Sacramental ideas and practices in the Indo-Iranian world
      To what extent, if at all, metempsychosis (the passing of the soul at death into another body) was introduced into Greece from India can be only conjectural in the absence of conclusive evidence. Though belief in rebirth and the transmigration (reincarnation) of souls has been widespread, however, especially in preliterate religions, it was in India and Greece that the two concepts attained their highest development. In post-Vedic (Vedic religion) (the period after the formulation of the Hindu sacred scriptures, the Veda) India, belief in the transmigration of souls became a characteristic doctrine in Hinduism, and the priestly caste (i.e., the Brahmiṇs) reached their zenith as the sole immolators of the sacrificial offerings; but sacramentalism was not a feature in the Brāhmaṇas (Brāhmaṇa), the ritual texts complied by the Brahmiṇs. In the earlier Vedic conception of soma, the personification of the fermented juice of a plant, comparable to that of ambros in Greece, kava in Polynesia, and especially haoma in Iran, the sacramental view is most apparent (see Hinduism).

      In Zoroastrianism haoma (Sanskrit soma, from the root su or bu, “to squeeze” or “pound”) is the name given to the yellow plant, from which a juice was extracted and consumed in the Yasna (Avesta) ceremony, the general sacrifice in honour of all the deities. The liturgy of the Yasna was a remarkable anticipation of the mass in Christianity. haoma was regarded by Zoroaster as the son of the Wise Lord and Creator ( Ahura Mazdā) and the chief priest of the Yasna cult. He was believed to be incarnate in the sacred plant that was pounded to death in order to extract its life-giving juice so that those who consumed it might be given immortality. He was regarded as both victim and priest in a sacrificial-sacramental offering in worship. As the intermediary between God and man, Haoma acquired a place and sacramental significance in the worship of Mithra (Mithraism) (an Indo-Iranian god of light) in his capacity as the immaculate priest of Ahura Mazdā with whom he was coequal. The Mithraic sacramental banquet was derived from the Yasna ceremony, wine taking the place of the haoma and Mithra that of Ahura Mazdā. In the Mithraic initiation rites, it was not until one attained the status of the initiatory degree known as “Lion” that the neophyte could partake of the oblation of bread, wine, and water, which was the earthly counterpart of the celestial mystical sacramental banquet. The sacred wine gave vigour to the body, prosperity, wisdom, and the power to combat malignant spirits and to obtain immortality (see Zoroastrianism).

      The early Christian leaders noticed the resemblances between the Mithraic meal, the Zoroastrian haoma ceremony, and the Christian Eucharist; and between Mithraism and Christianity, to some extent, there was mutual influence and borrowing of respective beliefs and practices. But Mithraism's antecedents were different, being Iranian and Mesopotamian with a Vedic background before it become part of the Hellenistic and Christian world (c. 67 BC to about AD 385).

Sacramental ideas and practices of pre-Columbian America
      The recurrent and widespread practice of holding sacred meals in the sacramental system, in addition to being well documented in the Greco-Roman world, also occurred in the pre-Columbian Mexican calendrical ritual in association with human sacrifice on a grand scale. In the May Festival in honour of the war god Huitzilopochtli, an image of the deity was fashioned from a dough containing beet seed, maize, and honey; then the image was covered with a rich garment, placed on a litter; and carried in a procession to a pyramid-temple. There pieces of paste similarly compounded and in the form of large bones were tranformed by rites of consecration into Huitzilopochtli's flesh and bones. A number of human victims were then offered to him, and the image was broken into small fragments and consumed (cannibalism) sacramentally by the worshippers with tears, fears, and reverence, a strict fast being observed until the ceremonies were over and the sick had been given their communion with the particles. This ceremony was repeated at the winter solstice when the dough was fortified with the blood of children, and similar images were venerated and eaten by families in their houses. The main purpose of the sacrament was to secure a good maize harvest and a renewal of the crops, as well as human health and strength. In Peru at the Festival of the Sun, after three days of fasting, llamas (llama), the sacred animals (animal), were sacrificed as a burnt offering, and the flesh was eaten sacramentally at a banquet by the lord of the Incas and his nobles. It was then distributed to the rest of the community with sacred maize cakes. Dogs, regarded as divine incarnations, also were slain and parts of their flesh solemnly eaten by the worshippers.

      Similar rites were celebrated in North America by Indians at the Feast of Grain among the Natchez of Mississippi and Louisiana and among the Creeks (Creek) in the Mississippi Valley when the corn was ripe. Among the Plains Indians (Plains Indian) sacrificial blood was employed sacramentally to make the earth fruitful by the fructifying power of the sun.

Theology and practice of sacraments in Christianity
      Though the widespread conception of the sacramental principle is an ancient heritage, in all probability going back before the dawn of civilization, it acquired in Christianity a unique significance. There it became the fundamental system and institution for the perpetuation of the union of God and man in the person of Jesus Christ through the visible organization and constitution of the church, which was viewed as the mystical body of Christ.

      In the 12th century the number of sacraments of the Western Christian church was narrowed by the theologian and bishop Peter Lombard to seven: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist (the Lord's Supper), penance, holy orders, matrimony, and extreme unction. This enumeration was accepted by St. Thomas Aquinas, the Council of Florence (1439), and the Council of Trent (1545–63). These rites were thus affirmed by the Roman Catholic Church (Roman Catholicism) as sacraments that were instituted by Christ. Protestant (Protestantism) reformers of the 16th century accepted two or three sacraments as valid: baptism, the Lord's Supper, and, in some fashion, penance. Eastern Orthodoxy also accepts the sevenfold enumeration. In addition to these, any ceremonial actions and objects related to sacraments that endow a person or thing with a sacred character have been designated “sacramental”; unlike those of dominical (i.e., Christ's) institution, however, they are not thought to convey divine grace ex opere operato (“it works by itself”) or to confer an indelible character on the recipient. Sacramentals include the use of holy water, incense, vestments, candles, exorcisms, anointing and making the sign of the cross, fasting, abstinence, and almsgiving.

      Baptism, as the initial rite, took the place of circumcision in Judaism in which this ancient and primitive custom was the covenant sign and a legal injunction rather than a sacramental ordinance. Baptismal immersion in water was practiced in Judaism for some time before the fall of Jerusalem in CE 70, and it was adopted by John the Baptist (John the Baptist, Saint) (a Jewish prophet and cousin of Jesus Christ) as the principal sacrament in his messianic movement.

      The purificatory lustration of John the Baptist, however, was transformed into the prototype of the Christian sacrament by the baptism of Jesus (Jesus Christ) in the river Jordan and by the imagery of this event combined with the imagery of his death and resurrection. A distinction was made, however, between the water baptism of John and the Christian Spirit Baptism in the apostolic church. Under the influence of St. Paul (Paul, the Apostle, Saint), the Christian rite was given an interpretation in the terms of the mystery religions, and the catechumen (initiate instructed in the secrets of the faith) was identified with the death and Resurrection of Christ (Rom. 6:3–5; Gal. 3:12). The bestowal of the new life constituted a sacramental rebirth in the church in union with the risen Lord as its divine head.

      Those who received baptism in early Christianity were adult converts. There is no scholarly consensus as to whether children, including infants, were baptized alongside their parents. By the 4th century the practice of infant baptism was universal.

      With the development of infant Baptism, the regenerative initial sacrament was coupled with the charismatic apostolic laying on of hands (hands, imposition of) as the seal of the Spirit in the rite of confirmation (Acts 8:14–17). By the 4th century, confirmation became a separate “unction” (rite using oil) administered by a bishop or, earlier and in the Eastern Church, by a priest to complete the sacramental baptismal grace already bestowed at birth or on some other previous occasion. At first, especially in the East, a threefold rite was performed consisting of Baptism, confirmation, and first communion; but in the West, where the consecration of the oil and the laying on of hands were confined to the episcopate, confirmation tended to become a separate event with the growth in the size of dioceses. It was not, however, until the 16th century that Baptism and confirmation were permanently separated. In England Queen Elizabeth I was confirmed when she was only three days old; and infant confirmation is still sometimes practiced in Spain. But the normal custom in Western Christendom has been for confirmation to be administered at or after the age of reason and to be the occasion for instruction in the faith, as in the case of the mystae in the Mysteries of Eleusis. But whether or not confirmation conveys a new gift of the Spirit or is the sealing of the same grace bestowed in Baptism, which is still debated, it has come to be regarded in some churches as conferring an indelible quality on the soul. Therefore, it cannot be repeated when it has once been validly performed as a sacrament.

The Eucharist, or Lord's Supper
      Together with Baptism the greatest importance has been given to the Eucharist, both of which institutions are singled out in the Gospels as dominical (instituted by Christ (Jesus Christ)) in origin, with a special status and rank. Under a variety of titles (Eucharist from the Greek eucharistia, “thanksgiving”; the Latin mass; the Holy Communion; the Lord's Supper; and the breaking of the bread) it has been the central act of worship ever since the night of the betrayal of Jesus on the Thursday preceding his crucifixion. It was then that the elements of bread and wine were identified with the body and blood of Jesus in his institution of the Eucharist with his disciples and with the sacrifice he was about to offer in order to establish and seal the new covenant. This “presence” of Jesus has been variously interpreted in actual, figurative, or symbolical senses; but the sacramental sense, as the anamnesis, or memorial before God, of the sacrificial offering (atonement) on the cross once and for all, has always been accepted.

      Along these lines a eucharistic theology gradually took shape in the apostolic and early church without much controversy or formulation. In the New Testament, in addition to the three accounts of the institution of the Eucharist in the first three “books” of the New Testament known as Synoptic Gospels because they have a common viewpoint and common sources (Matt. 26:26ff.; Mark 14:22ff.; Luke 22:17–20), St. Paul's earliest record of the ordinance in I Cor. 11:17–29, written about CE 55, suggests that some abuses had arisen in conjunction with the common meal, or agapē (agape), with which it was combined. It had become an occasion of drunkenness and gluttony. To rectify this, St. Paul recalled and re-established the original institution and its purpose and interpretation as a sacrificial (sacrifice)-sacramental rite. Fellowship meals continued in association with the postapostolic Eucharist, as is shown in the Didachē (a Christian document concerned with worship and church discipline written c. 100–c. 140) and in the doctrinal and liturgical development described in the writings of the Early Church Fathers little was changed. Not until the beginning of the Middle Ages did controversial issues arise that found expression in the definition of the doctrine of transubstantiation at the fourth Lateran Council in 1215. This definition opened the way for the scholastic interpretation of the eucharistic Presence of Christ and of the sacramental principle, in Aristotelian terms. Thus, St. Thomas Aquinas maintained that a complete change occurred in the “substance” of each of the species, while the “accidents,” or outward appearances, remained the same. During the Reformation, though the medieval doctrine was denied in varying ways by the Reformers, it was reaffirmed by the Council of Trent (Trent, Council of) in 1551. Holy Communion was retained as a sacrament by most of the Protestant groups, except that those churches that see the supper solely as a memorial prefer to speak not of a sacrament but of an ordinance. The Society of Friends (Friends, Society of), the Salvation Army, and some of the Adventist groups have abandoned the practice and concept of a sacrament.

Penance
      In its formulation, the Christian doctrine of conciliation, which, as St. Paul contended, required a change of status in the penitent, had to be made sacramentally effective in the individual and in redeemed humanity as a whole. In the Gospel According to Matthew (16:13–20, 18:18) the power to “bind and loose” was conferred on St. Peter and the other Apostles. Lapses into paganism and infidelity in the Roman world by the 3rd century had demanded penitential exercises. These included fasting, wearing sackcloth, lying in ashes and other forms of mortification, almsgiving, and the threat of temporary excommunication. Details of the sins committed were confessed (confession) in secret to a priest, who then pronounced absolution and imposed an appropriate penance. In 1215 the sacrament of penance received the authorization of the fourth Lateran Council and was made obligatory at least once a year at Easter on all mature Christians in Western Christendom. When pilgrimages to the Holy Land, to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, or going on a Crusade could be imposed as penitential exercises, commutation by means of payment of money led to abuses and traffic in indulgences (indulgence) and the treasury of merits, a superabundance of merits attributed to Christ and his saints that could be transferred to sinful believers. The abuses opened the way for the Reformation reaction against the penitential system, before they were abolished by the Council of Trent. The power of absolution was retained in the Anglican ordinal and conferred upon priests at their ordination and in the Order of the Visitation of the Sick. The sacrament of penance, however, ceased to be of obligation in the Anglican Communion, though it was commended and practiced by John Whitgift, Richard Hooker, and, after the Restoration in 1660 by the Nonjurors (Anglican clergy who refused to take oaths of allegiance to William III and Mary II in 1689) and revived by the Tractarians (Anglo-Catholic advocates of High Church ideals) after 1833, who encountered some Protestant opposition notwithstanding its entrenchment in canon law and in The Book of Common Prayer.

      Most Christian theologians have claimed that the ministry (episcopacy) of bishops (bishop), priests (priest), and deacons (deacon) derives its authority and sacramental efficacy from Christ through his Apostles. In the Roman Catholic Church it has been maintained that a special charismatic sacramental endowment conveying an indelible “character” has been conferred on those who receive valid ordination by the laying on of hands on their heads by bishops (who thus transfer to them the “power of orders”), prayer, and a right intention. In Protestant churches the ministry is interpreted as a function rather than as a status. Just as the sacramental power to ordain, confirm, absolve, bless, and consecrate the Eucharist can be given, so also it can be taken away or suspended for sufficient reason.

Marriage
      In the Roman Catholic Church the institution of matrimony was raised to the level of a sacrament because it was assigned a divine origin and made an indissoluble union typifying the union of Christ with his church as his mystical body (Matt. 5:27–32; Mark 10:2–12; Luke 16:18; I Cor. 7:2, 10; Eph. 5:23ff.). The adherence of Jesus to a rigorist position in regard to divorce and remarriage (Matt. 19:9; i.e., adultery being the only cause for divorce), similar to that adopted by the rabbinical school headed by the conservative teacher Shammai (Shammai ha-Zaken) in Judaism, was made the basis of the nuptial union as taught by St. Paul, except in regard to the dissolution of a marriage contracted between a Christian and a pagan who refused to live with his or her partner (I Cor. 7:2ff., 15ff.).

      Apart from this deviation, known as the “Pauline Privilege,” which was recognized in canon law in the 13th century, a marriage validly contracted in the presence of a priest, blessed by him, and duly consummated has been regarded as a sacramental ordinance by virtue of the grace given to render the union indissoluble. However, canon law allows for the “annulment” of marriages. In Protestant churches, marriage is regarded as a rite, not a sacrament; views on divorce, however, vary, and many traditional notions of marriage and divorce are now being debated.

Last unction
      In Christianity anointing of the sick was widely practiced from apostolic times as a sacramental rite in association with the ceremony of the imposition of hands to convey a blessing, recovery from illness, or with the last communion to fortify the believer safely on his new career in the fuller life of the eternal world. Not until the 8th and 9th centuries, however, did extreme unction, another term for the final anointing of the sick, become one of the seven sacraments. In Eastern Christendom, it has never been confined to those in extremis (near death) nor has the blessing of the oil by a bishop been required; the administration of the sacrament by seven, five, or three priests was for the recovery of health rather than administered exclusively as a mortuary rite. Extreme unction is also coupled with exorcism for the restraint of the powers of evil—a practice taken over from Judaism by the early church and still retained by the Orthodox Eastern Church for mental diseases.

Conclusion
      The ecumenical movement (ecumenism) in the 20th century initiated reforms in liturgical worship and in private devotions within Christianity. Such reforms, involving the celebration of sacraments (primarily the Eucharist), did much to promote the recovery of a unity among Christians that transcends differences in beliefs and ritual practices. The second Vatican Council (1962–65) played a significant part in the process of recovery of unity and of renewal. In Protestantism the liturgical reforms and ecumenical dialogues of the 20th century likewise entailed a preoccupation with the sacraments.

The Rev. Edwin Oliver James

Additional Reading
The standard pioneer work on the wider pre-Christian occurrence and interpretations is W.R. Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, 3rd ed. (1927), stressing sacramental communion with the deity. A. Gardner, History of Sacrament in Relation to Thought and Progress (1921), applied the sacramental principle to various aspects of life and belief; and R.R. Marett, Sacraments of Simple Folk (1933), wrote on sacraments in primitive culture. In his Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (1961), R.C. Zaehner discussed the anticipation of the Christian eucharistic sacramental rite in the Yasna ceremony in the Avestan liturgy. The basic sacramental beliefs and cults throughout the ages are examined anthropologically in E.O. James, Sacrifice and Sacrament (1962).A good general study of the Christian doctrine of sacraments is P.T. Forsyth, Lectures on the Church and the Sacraments (1917). O.C. Quick, The Christian Sacraments (1927, reprinted continually to 1952), is one of the most comprehensive surveys. The positions of various religious bodies are presented in the following: A.J. Tait, Nature and Functions of the Sacraments (1917), the evangelical viewpoint; B. Leeming, The Principles of Sacramental Theology, new ed. (1960), the Roman Catholic viewpoint; D.M. Baillie, The Theology of the Sacraments and Other Papers (1957), the Protestant viewpoint; and A. Schmemann, Sacraments and Orthodoxy (1965), the Orthodox viewpoint. J.H. Srawley, Liturgical Movement: Its Origin and Growth (1954), examines the development of sacramental worship with special reference to lay participation. See also Joseph Martos, Doors to the Sacred: A Historical Introduction to Sacraments in the Catholic Church (1981).

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР
Synonyms:

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Sacrament — Studioalbum von Lamb of God Veröffentlichung 2006 Label Epic Records …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Sacrament — Sac ra*ment, n. [L. sacramentum an oath, a sacred thing, a mystery, a sacrament, fr. sacrare to declare as sacred, sacer sacred: cf. F. sacrement. See {Sacred}.] 1. The oath of allegiance taken by Roman soldiers; hence, a sacred ceremony used to… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • sacrament — SACRAMÉNT, sacramente, s.n. Nume dat în religia catolică fiecăreia dintre cele şapte taine bisericeşti. – Din fr. sacrement, lat. sacramentum. Trimis de LauraGellner, 17.07.2004. Sursa: DEX 98  SACRAMÉNT s. v. cuminecare, cuminecătură,… …   Dicționar Român

  • Sacrament — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Sacrament Álbum de Lamb Of God Publicación 22 de agosto de 2006 Grabación Inicios 2006 …   Wikipedia Español

  • Sacrament — Sacrament …   Википедия

  • sacrament — ► NOUN 1) (in the Christian Church) a religious ceremony or ritual regarded as imparting divine grace, such as baptism and the Eucharist. 2) (also the Blessed Sacrament or the Holy Sacrament) (in Catholic use) the consecrated elements of the… …   English terms dictionary

  • sacrament — (n.) late 12c., from O.Fr. sacrament (12c.), from L. sacramentum a consecrating, from sacrare to consecrate (see SACRED (Cf. sacred)); a Church Latin loan translation of Gk. mysterion mystery …   Etymology dictionary

  • sacrament — [sak′rə mənt] n. [ME < OFr sacrement < LL(Ec) sacramentum, the gospel, a secret, sacrament (used as transl. of Gr mystērion) < L, an oath of allegiance, orig., sum deposited by the two parties to a suit < sacrare, to consecrate <… …   English World dictionary

  • Sacrament — Sac ra*ment, v. t. To bind by an oath. [Obs.] Laud. [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Sacrament — est le quatrième album du groupe Lamb of God sorti le 22 août 2006. Liste des chansons Walk With Me In Hell 5:12 Again We Rise 4:30 Redneck 3:40 Pathetic 4:32 Foot To The Throat 3:13 Descending 3:35 Blacken The Cursed Sun 5:28 Forgotten (Losts… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Sacrament — (v. lat. Sacramentum, s.d.), im kirchlichen Sprachgebrauch seit Tertullian die wichtigsten kirchlichen Ceremonien überhaupt u. namentlich geheimnißvolle od. symbolische Religionshandlungen, nachdem die Vulgata das Wort μυστήριον durch sacramentum …   Pierer's Universal-Lexikon

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”