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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Who else has seven sacraments?
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Forthview
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# 12376
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Posted
I agree with what Michael has just said..before the 12th century the word 'sacramentum' had a wider meaning than it has now.Since the 12th century the seven sacraments have been considered as 'instrumental causes'of grace in which God works unfailingly.It is from this time that we have the definition of 'an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace'.
The term 'sacramentum' goes back to Tertullian who used this word to translate the Greek 'mysterion' Augustine said that a sacrament is a 'visible word'composed of word and material element.
Before the 12th century there was less difference between what we now call sacramentals and what we now call sacraments.
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
The term 'sacramentum' goes back to Tertullian who used this word to translate the Greek 'mysterion' Augustine said that a sacrament is a 'visible word'composed of word and material element.
I think it goes back further than that. I would defer to anyone who is an expert on the subject, but I think it comes from Roman law where it was used to describe the situation where a transaction had to be effected by a formal action. Banging on some scales was one of them.
A comparable from English law would be a will. One can't just intend to make a will. One has to sign and get it witnessed in a particular way. Otherwise it doesn't work.
On that score, legally rather than theologically, under English law, since 1753 marriage would be a sacramentum. It wouldn't be under other some other legal systems where a marriage can come into being by custom and usage, cohabitation or the presence of nkhoswe, without a ceremony.
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LutheranChik
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# 9826
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Posted
Just to unpack the Lutheran position a bit more: For Lutherans the term "Sacrament" tends to be reserved for those outward action/inward grace rites instituted by Christ for the benefit of the Christian community.
That is why marriage, while having sacramental qualities and while affirmed by Jesus as A Good Thing, isn't an official sacrament; it's not a specifically Christian institution, but rather a universal human one.
Other "minor sacraments" may indeed be beneficial for the faith community, but were not explicitly instituted by Christ.
And so on.
Although Philip Melanchthon once noted that, in a more general sense, "hundreds, maybe thousands" of aspects of life had a sacramental quality.
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venbede
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# 16669
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Posted
I'm fairly certain that during the Commonwealth in England, marriage in church was abolished.
Certainly when there was discussions at the Savoy House Conference with puritans about revising the BCP, they were very concerned that marriage could not be seen as a sacrament.
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Trisagion
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# 5235
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I think it goes back further than that. I would defer to anyone who is an expert on the subject, but I think it comes from Roman law where it was used to describe the situation where a transaction had to be effected by a formal action. Banging on some scales was one of them.
A comparable from English law would be a will. One can't just intend to make a will. One has to sign and get it witnessed in a particular way. Otherwise it doesn't work.
On that score, legally rather than theologically, under English law, since 1753 marriage would be a sacramentum. It wouldn't be under other some other legal systems where a marriage can come into being by custom and usage, cohabitation or the presence of nkhoswe, without a ceremony.
I don't think Forthview intended to suggest that the word was Tertullian's own coining but that he was the one who first used the word within the context of Christianity to translate the Greek mysterion.
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venbede
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# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
I'm fairly certain that during the Commonwealth in England, marriage in church was abolished.
Just looked up the Westminster Confession: marriage is certainly not a sacrament, but is appropriately solemnized by "a lawful minister of the Word".
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Man was made for joy and woe;
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
No, Trisagion. What I'm suggesting is something slightly different.
Tertullian was writing in Latin at a time when NT Greek was still a living language. He has an option of either keeping a Greek word and latinising it, like (say) episcopos, presbyteros or diakonos or using a Latin word to translate it.
He could have adopted 'mysterium'. If so, we would now use 'mystery' in place of 'sacrament', but after 1800 years of different development, it would not mean what 'mystery' now means in modern English. If he chooses an existing Latin word, it immediately becomes relevant what it meant in Latin before he chose it i.e. why choose that word? That is so, even if his use eventually gives a different swing to it.
Venbede, the question with marriage, is what are the different consequences that follow from classing it as a sacrament? What is the issue that makes it so important for the Puritans at the Savoy Conference that marriage should not be a Sacrament? That matters because otherwise, why does it matter whether there are 2, 7 or any other number?
It can't be the importance of marriage since if anything, the Puritans attached more important to it than anyone else. Is the issue indissolubility, because that doesn't have to follow? There is a strong argument that indissolubility encourages adultery, by losing the sense that it constitutes apostasising a marriage, as evidenced by the difference between C19 French and English attitudes to it.
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Trisagion
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# 5235
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Posted
Yes, Enoch, I was aware that that was what you were doing and I agree with you entirely. I simply think you misunderstood what Forthview was doing. I don't think he was suggesting that the only way to understand sacramentum is to understand mysterion, with all its connotations for Greek-speaking Christians, anymore than I think you are suggesting what was meant by Greek speaking Christians when using mysterion had no influence on Tertullian's when he chose sacramentum, with all it's connotations, to render it. If we are to understand the word sacrament, and how it has been used in Christian theology, it seems to me that the pre-history of both terms is indispensable and something of the sheer physicality of the way in which Tertullian and his contemporaries understood sacramentum is a massive part of that picture.
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Forthview
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# 12376
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Posted
According to my sources 'sacramentum' in secular Roman usage was the sacred oath which a soldier made when entering the army.The oath was sometimes accompanied by a brandmark on the arm.
Tertullian spoke of Baptism in this way.The words 'I baptise thee etc' plus the water were the same as the words of the oath and the branding.
Certainly at that time Christians would not have argued about exactly how many signs there were which were outward signs conveying in word and matter God's grace to the faithful.It seems to me that all seven Sacraments recognised as such by the Catholic church since medieval times have their origins in words and directives of Jesus.
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leo
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# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
I'm fairly certain that during the Commonwealth in England, marriage in church was abolished.
Certainly when there was discussions at the Savoy House Conference with puritans about revising the BCP, they were very concerned that marriage could not be seen as a sacrament.
I think the commonwealth objected to the symblism of rings and the nuptial communion. Before the commonwealth, the vows were taken in the church porch. Pre-reformation, they proceeded into church for the nuptial mass. There ois a lot about this here.
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ken
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# 2460
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Posted
Many, probably most, weddings in England weren't in church anyway. There was no legal requirement for weddings to be in particular places, or for marriages to be registered, until the mid 18th century.
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Ken
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venbede
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# 16669
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Posted
I didn't have any point to make about marriage; I was just throwing a point into the pot.
I'm a great sacramentalist, but I am inclined to the view we'd be better off with civil weddings, with an optional church blessing for churchgoers.
The whole subject of marriage is an impossible labyrinth when you look at it.
Certainly, I don't regard my civil partnership as in any way second best. (We've been blessed together about four times without all expense of a white wedding.)
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Trisagion
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# 5235
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
According to my sources 'sacramentum' in secular Roman usage was the sacred oath which a soldier made when entering the army.The oath was sometimes accompanied by a brandmark on the arm.
Tertullian spoke of Baptism in this way.The words 'I baptise thee etc' plus the water were the same as the words of the oath and the branding.
Certainly at that time Christians would not have argued about exactly how many signs there were which were outward signs conveying in word and matter God's grace to the faithful.It seems to me that all seven Sacraments recognised as such by the Catholic church since medieval times have their origins in words and directives of Jesus.
I had a look in my Lewis and Short and it gives five uses the word was adopted into Christian use. In descending order of age: 'the sum which the two parties to a suit at first deposited, but afterwards became bound for' - from 'sacro' either because the losing party lost theirs to a sacred purpose or because the sums were deposited in a temple treasury; then 'a cause, a civil suit or process'; later still 'the preliminary engagement entered into by newly enlisted troops before they made their oath' - which oath only became compulsory after the first Punic war; then the 'military oath' itself; and finally 'something to be kept sacred'. Tertullian's eminently practical parallel seems characteristic of a tendency, even from antiquity, towards a powerfully practical tendency in Latin Christianity that easily morph's into the obsessive list making of the medieval theologians. It seems easier to do that if your dealing with sacramentum - this looks like one, and this doesn't - than if you are talking in terms of mysterion.
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PD
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# 12436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by scribbler:
The churches of the Anglican Continuum in the U.S. who subscribe to the Affirmation of St. Louis--and this includes +PD's jurisdiction the UECNA, whether he likes or not--explicitly recognize the seven sacraments.
Except that the Affirmation of St Louis is nowhere mentioned in the UECNA's current (1996) Constitution and Canons, but the Thirty-nine Articles are included in the Declaration of Conformity. The actual status of the Affirmation of St Louis in the UECNA is a bit of a mystery. I believe it was mentioned in the original Draft Constitution and Canons of 1984, but was deleted during the revision process. IIRC, 'cause I have not read it recently, the inter-communion agreement with the ACC says something about the Affirmation as being part of our common heritage, but is no more specific than that.
PD
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PD
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# 12436
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Posted
I should perhaps add that the Affirmation not being mentioned makes little real difference, as most of us - self included - take the 2+5=7 position anyway. The section of the Affirmation that has always made UECNA folks leary is that on 'The Use of Other Formulae' which seems to be an attempt to override the Articles of Religion; though the bit about liturgies incorporating the BCP gets a cold reception in some circles too.
In as much as the UECNA has a position on the Affirmation it is that it supplements and clarifies the BCP and the Articles by addressing some ambiguities in the latter. It also addresses some specific controversies that were kicking around in the 1960s and 70s. Of the late 1970s batch of Continuers the UECNA is probably the most preoccupied with the notion of being "the old PECUSA without the heresy and goofiness" and the least interested in trying to create an 'Anglo-Catholic Dream Church.'
+PD
[ 02. May 2012, 14:41: Message edited by: PD ]
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