RTS Papers / Summer 2017
Substance and Signs in the Sentences of Peter Lombard
THE DOCTRINE OF SIGNS AND THE CHURCH’S SACRAMENTS
1. Defining sacraments as signs of the sacred things signified
The closest Peter gets to bringing all three of Augustine’s points together — sign, word, and thing — is in his discussion of the sacraments. Perhaps the irony is that his definition of a sacrament, and his reason for why the word is important to make the sign intelligible, could have come right from one of the Reformers. There are four basic things to consider about a sacrament: 1. What is it? 2. Why was it instituted? 3. In what does it consist (or of what is it made)? and 4. What is the difference between the sacraments of the old and the new? To the first, a sacrament is “a sign of a sacred thing” [IV.3; Augustine, De civitate Dei, bk 10 c5] or “a visible form of an invisible grace” [IV.3; Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, b3 q84]. Underneath this, a sign is “a thing which, over and above the form which it impresses on the senses, causes something else to come into the mind through itself” [IV.4; Augustine, De doctrina christiana, bk 2 c1 n1].
Some signs are natural and others conventional. Sacraments belong to the latter category, but are not properly sacraments to the degree that they are not like the thing signified. A sacrament is not only to signify but sanctify. The sacraments were instituted for 1. humiliation, 2. instruction, and 3. exercise. The sacraments consist in two things: words and things. The what, why, and to what extent of circumcision is treated. Unsurprisingly, Peter sees the significance of the location of this sign to do with the role of lust in original sin. He downplays the old covenant signs. The observances of the “old law” are better called signs than sacraments. They are not properly sacraments, he says, because “they signify, but cannot confer the grace that justifies” [IV.9].
In the “new law” there are seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, holy orders, and marriage. These were not given before Christ came because he brought grace. Marriage is in a special category, being instituted before sin. John’s baptism was for penance, Christ’s for the remission of sins.
2. Baptism is “an exterior washing of the body made under a prescribed form of words.”
As Augustine said, “Take away the word, and what is the water other than water?” [IV.12; Augustine, In Ioannem, tr. 80, n3] Take away faith, and it is rambling over water. Some things in a sacrament are for adornment, others necessity. “The invocation of the Trinity is called the word by which the baptism is made sacred” [IV.12]. The ceremonial “adorning” of any sacrament turns out to be necessary, but not as much as the substance of the sacrament. For example, Peter examines the ramifications of omitting one or two of the Names in the baptismal formula, and concludes that faith in the mystery is what is most crucial.
As to its institution, the disciples were sent out to baptize during the earthly ministry. Thus Peter concludes that the Trinitarian formula, while not recorded, was with them then. Christ baptizes inwardly, but water is used because it shows cleansing. To be immersed once is acceptable, but three times is really correct [IV.17]. So we can see that though the sign is not the substance, yet the more accurate the sign is the more fitting, the more faith is exercised, the more virtue strengthened, and the more one’s heart is in the right place.
Some receive sacrament and thing, others sacrament and not thing, and others thing and not sacrament [IV.18]. Children at baptism receive both. Adults who are baptized with faith also receive both. Those who approach without faith, or false pretense, receive the sacrament but, not the thing. Even of children, nothing is remitted without someone else’s faith. That does not mean that the Catholic Church emphasizes the recipient’s faith in the act of the sacrament, but rather that there must be faith in bringing the person to the Church’s dispensation of grace. There is also a suffering that stands in for baptism, and yet the thief on the cross was not saved by his suffering but by his faith.
All who die without baptism are said to be damned, there being exceptions of suffering and faith. In the end baptism still adds things to one already justified by faith. It is still a sacrament of the remission of sins.
Baptism is equally holy when it is given by the good or bad to the good or bad. It is not the minister’s gift, but God’s; and “they have only the ministry, not the power, of baptism” [IV.29]. Although baptism cannot be of help outside the church. Christ alone has “the power to remit sins in baptism” [IV.31]. That is, Christ has the substance of this power, but he has given the priesthood on earth the authority of his sin. This begins to answer the next question: Who may baptize? Priests alone—women may not except “under a compelling necessity” [IV.32]. Many other questions arise. Should those baptized by heretics be rebaptized? No—unless the form is defective.
One cannot be baptized in the mother’s womb. Jeremiah and John the Baptist are special circumstances and no norm can be based upon them. One done in jest is not a baptism since there is no faith. So if the substance is inward, why would he say that “the priest alone” is to baptize, with women, heretics, and those doing it in jest falling away on the spectrum toward impermissibility? It would seem to me that Peter is being consistent at least in the sense that as long as the focus of faith is on the substance of baptism, then the sign has God’s blessing.
3. Confirmation is “the giving of the Holy Spirit for strengthening, who in baptism was given for remission” [IV.39].
Only those who are successors to the Apostles may do this. Like baptism, this is not to be repeated. Peter’s section on confirmation is very brief.
4. The Eucharist is the “good grace” wherein we are perfected in the good (d.8).
“We are cleansed by baptism; we are perfected in the good by the Eucharist [IV.41]. This word means “good grace.” Peter sees the manna in the wilderness as the prefigurement of this sacrament in the old covenant. Melchizedek also prefigured it. When the words of Christ are said — “This is my body … this is my blood” — at this point the elements of bread and wine are changed. Once again there is the sacrament and there is the thing itself: the first being the form of the bread and wine, the second being twofold: “one contained and signified, the other signified but not contained” [IV.44]. Three things to distinguish: 1. the sacrament-and-not-thing is the species of bread and wine alone; 2. the sacrament-and-thing is Christ’s own flesh and blood; 3. the thing-and-not-sacrament is his mystical flesh.
There are two ways of partaking—one sacramental done by the good and bad; the other spiritual done only by the faithful. Believing in Jesus, abiding in him as the Vine, in this way one has truly eaten. Both the good and bad receive Christ’s true body and blood “under the sacrament” [IV.47]. What the wicked do not receive is the mystical flesh. Greater wickedness is done when good is received in a wicked way.
Those who say that the body of Christ is not on the altar except in the sign are considered heretics. Peter was aware of those who argued from the text of John 6 directly that these words are “spiritual” and the he is not talking about “flesh,” and that Christ is speaking just as metaphorically as when he is called “the rock” or “the door.”
He appeals to Augustine’s assessment that the body Jesus spoke of is both the same and not the same as that which they saw: that flesh to be conceived of visibly and invisibly. His “truth” or “true body” is on every altar the Eucharist is celebrated. This seems to be an equivocation between “truth” as a divine attribute and “true” as an adjective for a human property. Thus Peter (and perhaps Augustine too) is either unwittingly conflating the two natures or else forcing an amalgamation of the two, as in Monophysitism.
Here he says the blood is transformed from the wine. The very immolation in the hands of the priest is called the sacrifice, though it is a sign and not the thing. Critics pursue a “law of nature” to disprove it [IV.52]. But this doubts the power of Christ who made the world ex nihilo, and made a new nature and changed existing natures in the womb of the Virgin by the same. Ambrose and Augustine appeared to hold to the same view and offered plainer philosophical and theological arguments for it instead of the mangled Aristotelian logic later employed.
But what is the manner, or nature, of the change? It is “not formal, because the species of the things remain as they were before, as do their taste and weight” [IV.54]. Then it is substantial, because a substance changes into a substance. Objection. Each time therefore the body of Christ is made anew and even increased over time. How? We ascribe it to the divine will. We may have the irony that the assumption of voluntarism — even if not explicitly asserted — leads Augustine and Peter to the conclusion that what God wills here “trumps” the nature of things. At any rate, “after the consecration the substance of bread and wine is not there, although the species remain” [IV.57] The Lord gave himself under other species to prevent offence at the hand of unbelievers.
In what do these accidents (species, taste, weight) inhere? They exist without a subject — not in a subject — “because there is no substance there, apart from that of the Lord’s body and blood, which is not joined to those accidents” [IV.60]. There is a real breaking, but not of the incorruptible body of the Lord — not of the substance — but of the sign [IV.62]. Hilary said that wherever there is a part of the body there is the whole of it [IV.63]. Two are unworthy to receive it: those doing it contrary to its institution and those in mortal sin. A distinction is attempted between sacrifice and immolation, so that the two can be reconciled, namely, that Christ was sacrificed once and yet is daily immolated in the sacrament [IV.64]. It was instituted for two reasons: 1. increase of virtue and 2. medicine for our daily infirmity.
As he did with baptism, Peter must consider whether various things ruin the sacrament. In so doing he asks whether heretics or excommunicates confect the sacrament. Again it is God’s power working, not the priest’s. A dubious definition to “sacrifice” is given to the substance so signified [IV.67]. But the idea here is desecration, and Peter says the reason a heretic cannot so “confect” is that “because the holy angels, who assist at the celebration of this mystery, are not present when a heretic or simoniac presumes to desecrate this mystery” [IV.68]. I do not see how he got here. Likewise if an animal ate the bread it would not be the same.
5. Penance is, as Jerome said, “the second plank after shipwreck” (d.14).
The first plank is baptism. One can be renewed by penance. It is more than a sacrament; it is a virtue of mind. The exterior act is the sacrament, the sign; the repentance is the internal state—yet each is causal in justification [IV.70]. “Do penance” (Matt 3:2) was the biblical basis. Yet this was a mistranslation, as Erasmus’ 1516 Greek New Testament made plain. Gregory suggests that this must include the fruits of repentance: to decry and to not do. Several authors emphasize the need to progress away from those sins renounced with words. It is to sorrow in one’s soul and hate the vice and to will to do it no more. Lamentations are not necessarily penitence, being external [sign]. The violent kind of penance, of which Augustine spoke of “punishing in oneself,” is only that “penance of the perfect,” for whom there is nothing left of mercy [IV.74; Pseudo-Augustine, De vera et falsa poenitentia, c8]. He cites several authorities to argue that penance is efficacious many times and not merely once or twice.
Now because things like lamentations are external, they are on the manifest level and not the substantial. They may be a sign of true penitence or else not. Here in his investigation of penance we have some precursor to the Puritan introspective focus. Bewailing one’s sins are part of some of the definitions of penance he lists, and yet the tears and intensity of the moment are nothing without a true change of heart.
There are practical directives to the penitent. One must generally repent of all sins in order to repent of any one. The implication is that some attempt to repent of only one, deliberately neglecting penance for the others (d.15). And one should never divide confession among several priests to lessen the cumulative grossness of the body of our sin. False penance is not in conformity with the authorities or with the quality of the crime. A multitude of venial sins is as much of a burden as a great one.
The difference between sign and substance is also instructive when the matter is spiritual health. Granted that the medieval theologian would not have discussed this in the same way that a modern Evangelical would.
Nevertheless it would not seem that the Roman Catholic is “all externals” and the Evangelical is “more internal,” but both houses have their own versions of both and have means of weighing these movements of the soul and body by comparative human merit. From a statement by Ambrose, it is concluded that where the awareness of our sin is lacking, so too is faith, and since faith is what makes the sacrament virtuous, we are dependent upon our awareness of sin [IV.81].
Let me suggest that this is where the modern Arminian on will-powered-faith brings us under the same bondage. The performance of our faith in general, and our awareness of sin in particular, becomes meritorious.
There are three elements in the performance of penance: 1. compunction of heart, 2. confession of the mouth, and 3. satisfaction in deed. Augustine lists three varieties of sin: “in heart, in deed, in habit” [IV.88; Augustine, De sermone Domini in monte, sermon 1 c12 n35]. The last is also equated to word. These correspond to the threefold remedy of penance. So there is the deed (sign), the habit (word), and the heart (substance). The habit is “out there” and thus what most clearly “speaks” the fruits of repentance.
Three questions: 1. Whether sin is remitted without confession? 2. Whether it is sufficient to confess to God alone? 3. Whether it suffices to confess to a layman? To the first there are contradictory answers. Augustine and Cassiodorus seem to say by contrition alone are sins remitted [IV.94-95; Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, on Ps. 31, n15]. So great is God’s pity and his promise. But from more and greater authorities he argues that to confess to another is more proper. Thus one is not truly penitent who has no intention to confess.
To the second, he does the same. First there are authorities showing how it is sufficient to be between God and the sinner. But then if there is time the confession must be made to a priest [IV.99]. Tears, bodily presence (at the confessional), and frequency are signs or more than signs? Pope Leo showed sensitivity to potential abuses and legitimate fears [IV.101]. To the third, priests are to be preferred, “But let each take care to seek a priest who knows how to bind and loose” [IV.102]. Yet it is allowed that confession to a layperson is acceptable if one cannot find a priest on the occasion. The question ends on a disturbing note: For what is confession effective? Answer: “it is a kind of punishment for the sin, as is satisfaction in deed” [IV.105].
Now if the remission is already from God, what is remitted to him by the priest? Is this what is meant by “temporal punishment”? Peter turns to the keys to answer this. Some say that while God alone raises to life — so dealing with the power of sin — he has given to the priests the power of releasing from eternal debt — so dealing with the punishment of sin. This is incredibly false and Peter seems to reject it. Even so, Peter says, there is a kind of remitting and retaining of sins by priests. Of binding or loosing, the Lord gives priests only the power to show that one is bound or loosed. In other words, there a sign of the true binding and loosing [IV.110]. And of course there are no literal metal keys — that is imagery: a sign.
When are the keys given and to whom? The bishops give them to priests when they are ordained. Yet there are “two keys,” one of the binding and loosing, the other of knowledge and discernment. Not everyone has both. Many become priests lacking the knowledge (one key) to know when one has been bound or loosed (other key). Peter seems to see this as a problem. He cites Gregory and Origen to the effect that this power is granted only to the Apostle Peter “and those who imitate him” [IV.115; Peter Abelard, Ethica, c26]. Yet this Peter is not satisfied with that. The key that is power alone is possessed by all, even while abused by many. So, this imagery of the “two keys,” while fanciful, tells a truth about the counseling skills necessary to be a priest.
What good is repentance at the end of life? There is a difference between the hope of still having a chance and the deliberate delay in the hopes of earthly treasures. Also there is the difference between turning out of love for God as opposed to that which is motivated by fear and necessity. As Augustine said, “Let no one await the time when he cannot sin” [IV.121; Augustine, On Penance]. Penance is seen, at least partially, as punishment, inflicted by a man against his own sins. No wonder he must wallow in it! Unless he has performed works of satisfaction. He must “prove,” with the help of the priest, that the debt has been satisfied. Is one’s contrition “good enough”? Peter and the authorities recognize that it has not been given to the Church to know the secrets of the heart.
Some sins remitted after this life, as in venial sins or as when there has been sufficient merit in this life. Augustine taught a precursor to Purgatory in the Enchiridion [IV.127; Augustine, Enchiridion, c69]. Much is made of Paul’s phrase of building on wood, hay, or stubble. These are said to be what burn away in the purifying fires of the age to come, in between this life and the eternal state. Augustine conceived of them as worldly affections or worldly goods. Do not confess, by false humility, what you have not done.
Do remitted sins return? In other words, is there a double jeopardy? He cites many authorities and certain Scriptures that seem to indicate a guilt incurred in the case of sins once forgiven — as the parable of the wicked servant — but these are not a return of the same sins, but rather the judgment for a more grievous sin. But God does not judge twice in the same matter, else God would be either wrong or unjust in the satisfaction he had for the justice previously repaid (d.22).
6. Extreme unction is that anointing the sick at the end of life (d.23).
This is done by the priest and is treated by Peter as different than simply praying for the sick and anointing them with oil during the regular course of life. Two other anointings exist: that of the chrism in which the Spirit is given, and that of catechumens and neophytes at baptism. As in the others, there is the sacrament and the thing itself. The sign is the outer anointing and the thing itself is on the inside, through which sins are remitted and virtue transmitted.
7. Of ecclesiastical orders there are seven: door-keeper, lector, exorcist, acolyte, subdeacon, deacon, and priest (d.24).
The first of these is like an usher, the second like the reader of the passage, the fourth were candle-lighters, but these can be anyone who sets up the sanctuary. Subdeacons perform the same during the service — say, by receiving and carrying that which the elders administer. Above even the priests (or presbyters) are the bishops. And he acknowledges that “only two are called sacred,” namely presbyters and deacons, as only they have Apostolic testimony [IV.147]. But what is such an order? It is a mark whereby one is granted power and office. It is a sacrament because it is a sacred thing being conferred.
Of those ordained by heretics, logic would demand that it is the same as when a heretic performs baptism or the Eucharist. However Peter compares the authorities: many deny that the schismatics can confer any grace but baptism. Simony is heresy and occurs any time a sacred grace is given at price. There is a distinction made between those who are ordained by them knowingly and those unknowingly. The latter are still ordained.
8. Marriage is the sacrament ordained by the Lord before sin
As a whole it is twofold—first, for function, being undefiled; second, for remedy, to prevent illicit stirrings [IV.157]. The Augustinian error clearly agreed to: marriage is good even after the fall, yet physical intimacy is tainted even in marriage. It is allowed, a venial sin. It is not clear whether consummation is the substance or the sign of marriage, given the statements by Augustine and others [IV.160]. Obviously earthly marriage is a sign of Christ and the church. Also, the physical union is a sign of the union of souls [IV.160-61].
What is the nature of marriage: its efficient and end causes? Its efficient cause in consent in words. So there is the ceremonial aspect of signs. So it is not the consummating physical act that makes it. Some view that pre-consummation phases as the two being spouses yet not married. Also there is the question of whether one spouse can join a monastery without the other’s consent. But this follows from the prior notion. One cannot do this once married.
Whether future consent with an oath makes a marriage — in other words, if a man promises (by oath) to marry a woman at some later time. It is one thing to promise and another to do — which is the sign? It is the ceremony that is the sign. So they have committed perjury if they do not follow through, but if they are married to another later, those marriages are not to be dissolved. The division between the necessity of the sacrament and its decorum seems to regard the sign and thing as well. Yet without these rights they are not lawfully married [IV.171]. Coercion and conjugal consent are opposed. It follows from this and from what has been said already that one cannot be coerced into marriage.
Some error can also nullify consent — but there are four kinds of errors. An error with regard to person is when it is the wrong person said. An error with regard to fortune is when someone is mislead about the other’s wealth. An error with regard to condition occurs with one being either a slave or free. An error with regard to quality when one who is thought good is actually wicked. Errors of condition and person nullify; the others do not.
The final cause of marriage is the procreation of offspring [IV.177]. And there are three goods of marriage — faith, offspring, sacrament — which began to explain a way to excuse physical relations. There is a twofold separation. Bodily the two can be separated for a time, either wrongly, by fornication (cf. Matt 5:31), or rightly, by consent to focus on the sacred (cf. 1 Cor. 7:5). On marriage being a sacrament “Faith” is being used as “faithfulness” [IV.179]. So not all three of these are present in every marriage. If these are present the marriage is commended, but if they are not, the marriage is not thereby annulled.
Abortion is murder [IV.181]. Sex for pleasure, rather than procreation, is equalled by Peter to adultery and to treat the wife as a prostitute. This may be the one item on which the Augustinians would find some agreement with Karl Marx! Although for the latter, the ground of the “evil” was that marriage was essentially an economic transaction, and that this financial gain for the wife is what made her a prostitute. But intercourse within marriage — not for procreation — was merely a venial sin for the Augustinian view. There is one possible qualification for all this: namely where all three goods are present; in such a case the fleshly pleasure isn’t sin [IV.185].
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