Adolf Harnack · 12 of 17

3. On the History of Ecclesiastical Science.. · Part 3

The victory of the Monophysite doctrine of Christ concealed under the Chalcedonian formulæ, was all the more surprising from no practical religious use whatever being made of it, the real interest in Christ finding expression rather, on the one hand, in the idea of the poor life of Jesus and the Ecce homo, on the other hand, in the doctrines of reconciliation and of the Sacraments. But it is only apparently that the doctrine of reconciliation has the Greek Christology, together with the doctrine of the two natures, as its presupposition. This has been shown already above in connection with the reconciliation doctrine of Anselm, Abelard, and the Lombard. It still remains to us here to specify concisely the thoughts of the later Schoolmen on the work of Christ.

The Lombard had brought the merit of Christ into the foreground, and at the same time had given expression to all possible thoughts about redemption by Christ — the Anselmic theory excepted — and had attached himself closely to Augustine and Abelard (“reconciliati sumus deo diligenti nos” [we are reconciled to God, who loves us]). The modification in the thirteenth century consisted now in this, that, in opposition to Abelard, and with a certain adherence to Anselm, objective redemption (in its bearing upon God) was brought into the foreground, but at the same time, the point of view of merit, which Anselm had only suggested, was strongly emphasised. This turn of things appears already in Alexander of Hales and Albertus; but Thomas was the first to furnish a full, strictly-thought-out doctrine of redemption. Certainly even he alternates between the points of view, which is always a sign that the point of view is not firmly got hold of; for, where the sufficient reason is wanting, reasons tend to accumulate. But the sufficient reason was really wanting to Thomas; for P. III., Q. 46, Art. 1-3, the necessity of the death of Christ is explicitly rejected — God could also have simply remitted sin in the exercise of His free will, — the chosen way of deliverance by the death of Christ (liberatio per mortem Christi) is only the most fitting, because, by it, more and greater things are imparted to us than if we were redeemed solely by the will of God (sola voluntate dei).

There were three points of view especially which Thomas applied. First, he stated (Q. 46) a large number of arguments that were intended to prove that the death of Christ, with all the circumstances of His suffering, was the most fitting means of redemption. Within the lines of this idea many points of view are already suggested that deal with the facts. But above all the infinite pain which He endured is taken into account. His suffering (during His whole life and in death) is represented as being the sum of all conceivable suffering, in the sense too of its being His own pain and the pain of sympathy on account of our sin. Here justice is done to the Abelardian-Augustinian tradition, viz., that the suffering of Christ, the Mediatorial Man, is redemptive, inasmuch as it brings God’s love home to our hearts, becomes an example to us, recalls us from sin, and stirs as a motive responsive love. But on the other hand, the convenientius (more fitting) in an objective sense is also already brought out here, inasmuch as the death of Christ was the most fitting means for winning for men the gratia justificans (justifying grace) and the gloria beatitudinis (glory of beatitude).

In Q. 408, new points of view are now introduced under the heading “de modo passionis Christi quantum ad effectum” (on the mode of Christ’s suffering as regards its effect). The hypothetical character here passes into the rear behind the necessary result of the suffering. But the whole inquiry is dominated by the fundamental thought: “Christus non est passus secundum divinitatem, sed secundum carnem,” (Christ did not suffer as to His divinity, but as to His flesh), with which the divinity associated itself. Here the death of Christ is placed under the points of view of merit (Art. 1), satisfaction (Art. 2), sacrifice (Art. 3), redemption (Arts. 4 and 5), and “efficientia” (Art. 6). This is succeeded, in Quest. 49, by an inquiry as to how far the death of Christ has freed us from sin (Art. 1), from the power of the devil (Art. 2), and from liability to penalty (a reatu pœnæ) (Art. 3), and again, as to whether by it we are reconciled to God (Art. 4), whether by it entrance to heaven is secured for us (Art. 5), and whether by it Christ was exalted (Art. 6). Among these points of view there stand out prominently (secondly) that of satisfaction and (thirdly) that of merit as specially important.

The conception of satisfaction is obtained by taking (against Anselm) in the strictest sense the voluntariness of Christ’s sufferings, and then defining this voluntary suffering according to the particular rule, that satisfaction always consists in a gift for which the party injured has more love than he has hatred for the injury. This is shown in the suffering of Christ, which is described (see above) as not only suffering in death but suffering in life, and which has its value in the divine-human life of the Mediator. Just on that account the satisfactio is not only sufficient but superabundans; i.e., it is not only æqualis omnibus peccatis humani generis (equal to all the sins of the human race), but positively in excess of them. In this way an idea is obtained which, though apparently unobjectionable and worthy, was to give occasion to the most unhappy speculations. A vicarious penal suffering, in the strict sense of the terms, is not recognised even by Thomas, because on the whole question he allowed only a limited range to the justitia dei. Still, some lines of exposition in Quest. 49 touch on that thought.

With regard to merit, a distinct idea is to be got under this term as to how far Christ’s suffering really profits individuals. It is a circumstance of value that Thomas sets aside, and ceases to employ, the Greek thought which dominates his doctrine of the person of Christ, namely, that the humanity of Christ is in itself human nature in general. With this mechanical idea of the matter he was not satisfied. Here also we see that between his doctrine of the person of Christ, and his doctrine of His work, there is quite a chasm. Only once does he touch on the thought that God is reconciled because He has now found the good in human nature. Elsewhere he has quite a different view, with which indeed he crowns his discussion (Q. 48, 1), and of which as his discussion proceeds he never loses sight. It is the view hinted at by Anselm, that by His voluntary suffering Christ merited exaltation (Q. 49, 6), that the exaltation, however, cannot be conferred upon Him, but passes over from Him to the Church of which He is the Head. The fulness with which Thomas stated and repeated this thought is a guarantee that for him it was an extremely valuable one. It has also been expressed by him thus (Q. 48, Art. 2): “The head and the members are, as it were, one mystical person, and thus the satisfaction of Christ belongs to all believers, just as to His own members” (caput et membra sunt quasi una persona mystica, et ideo satisfactio Christi ad omnes fideles pertinet, sicut ad sua membra). Here, finally, the conception of the faithful (fideles) also (as the ecclesia) is introduced into the question about the effect and bearings of redemption; but only in the 1st Art. of Quest. 49 has Thomas come to deal more closely with faith — simply however to pass over at once to love: “It must be affirmed that by faith also there is applied to us the passion of Christ, with a view to its fruit being seen, according to the passage Rom. 3: ‘Whom God hath set forth as a propitiator through faith, etc.’ But the faith by which we are cleansed from sin is not fides informis, (unformed faith), which can exist even along with sin, but is fides formata per caritatem (faith deriving form from love), so that in this way the passion of Christ is applied to us, not intellectually merely, but also effectually.” (“Dicendum quod etiam per fidem applicatur nobis passio Christi ad percipiendum fructum ipsius, secundum illud Rom. 3: ‘Quem proposuit deus propitiatorem per fidem, etc.’ Fides autem per quam a peccato mundamur non est fides informis, quæ potest esse etiam cum peccato, sed est fides formata per caritatem, ut sic passio Christi nobis applicetur, non solum quantum ad intellectum, sed etiam quantum ad effectum.”)

When we review the exposition given by Thomas, we cannot escape the impression created by confusion (multa, non multum, [many things, not much]). The wavering between the hypothetical and the necessary modes of view, between objective and subjective redemption, further, between the different points of view of redemption, and finally, between a satisfactio superabundans and the assertion that for the sins after baptism we have to supplement the work of Christ, prevents any distinct impression arising. It was only a natural course of development when Duns Scotus went on to reduce everything entirely to the relative. It is what always happens when an attempt is made to find a surer hold for the actual in what is assumed to be the metaphysically necessary; this actual presents itself in the end only as the possible, and so, very soon also, as the irrational. No one thought of the moral necessity of penalty.

Duns Scotus draws the true logical conclusion from the theory of satisfaction (as distinguished from the idea of vicarious penal suffering), by tracing everything to the “acceptatio” of God. All satisfaction and all merit obtain their worth from the arbitrary estimation of the receiver. Hence the value of Christ’s death was as high as God chose to rate it. But in the strict sense of the term infinity cannot at all be spoken of here ; for (1) sin itself is not infinite, seeing that it is committed by finite beings (it is, at the most, quasi infinite, when it is measured, that is to say, though this is not necessary, by the injury done to the infinite God); (2) the merit of Christ is not infinite, for He suffered in His human (finite) nature; (3) in no sense is an infinite merit needed, because God can estimate any merit as highly as He pleases; for nothing is meritorious in itself, because nothing is good in itself, but the sovereign divine will declares what it wills to be good and meritorious. And so Duns has not hesitated to assert that an angel, or even a purus homo who should have remained free from original sin and been endowed with grace, could have redeemed us. It is a question merely of receiving the first impulse; the rest every man must acquire for himself together with grace. Grace must only raise him, so to speak, above the point at which he is dead. Of course, Duns made the further effort to show the conveniens of the death of the God-man, and here he works out essentially the same thoughts as Thomas. But this no more belongs, strictly speaking, to dogmatic. For dogmatic, it is enough if it is proved that in virtue of His arbitrary will God has destined a particular number to salvation; that in virtue of the same arbitrary will He already determined before the creation of the world, that the election should be carried out through the suffering of the God-man; and that He now completes this plan by accepting the merit of the God-man, imparting the gratia prima to the elect, and then expecting the rest from their personal efforts. Here the reason at bottom for Christ’s having died is its having been prophesied (see Justin), and it was prophesied because God so decreed it. Everything “infinite” — which is surely the expression for what is divine and alone of its kind — is here cleared away; as a fact, human action would have been enough here, for nothing is necessary in the moral sense, and nowhere does there appear more than a quasi-infinity. This theory, the product of thought on the uncontrollable, predestinating arbitrariness of God (and on legal righteousness), stands side by side with an explicit doctrine of two natures! But it is quite distinctly irreligious in this respect, that it confines the work of Christ to the procuring of that “gratia prima” (primary grace), which is nothing but the creating of a kind of possibility, in order that man may himself take concern for the reality of his redemption.

By Scotus it was brought about that this doctrine also became severed from faith, and was entirely transformed into a dialectic problem. In this lies the disintegration of dogma through Scotism. The doctrine of the Trinity, Christology, and the doctrine of redemption, were now happily withdrawn from the domain of the inwardly necessary, comforting faith that saves. Thus it continued to be in the Nominalist school. Only in the one particular, which, however, was constantly brought under the category of the conveniens — namely, that the love of God shown in the death of Christ becomes a motive to reciprocal love — did there survive a meagre remnant of an inspiring thought. While in the fourteenth century the Scotist theory of satisfactio secundum acceptationem (satisfaction on the ground of acceptance) gained always more adherents, was here and there carried even to the point of blasphemy by the formalism of dialectic, and had an influence even on the Thomists, traces are not wanting in the fifteenth century that more serious reflection, dealing with the essence of the matter, had begun to return. This had undoubtedly a connection with the revival of Augustinianism, perhaps also with a renewed study of St. Bernard, and it is to be met with more in the practical religious, than in the systematic expositions; indeed, in the former the thought of Christ’s having borne the penalty of guilt in the interests of the righteousness of God seems never to have entirely disappeared. Ritschl points to Gerson. “Gerson declares sin to be the crime of high treason, and finds God’s righteousness so great that in mercy He surrenders His innocent Son to penalty, evidences, in this way, the harmony between His righteousness and His mercy, and removes sin on condition that the sinner unites himself to Christ by faith, i.e., by obedience and imitation. In the Nominalist school the same view is still to be met with in Gabriel Biel. In the end, even John Wessel comes back to it.” But Ritschl is inclined to think that the idea of the penal value of Christ’s death, which, from the time of Athanasius, had ever again appeared sporadically in the Church, did not pass from Biel and Wessel to the Reformers.

B. The Scholastic Doctrine of the Sacraments.

The uncertainty of the Schoolmen regarding the doctrine of redemption, and the fact that the treatment of it could be as easily relegated by them to the School as the doctrines of the Trinity and of the natures in Christ, are explained from the circumstance, that in the doctrine of the Sacraments it was definitely set forth what faith in the divine grace in Christ needed. In the Sacraments this grace is exhibited, and in the Sacrament of the Eucharist particularly it is clearly and intelligibly traced back — through the doctrine of transubstantiation — to the in-carnation and death of Christ. That was enough. Those facts now form merely the presuppositions; faith lives in the contemplation and enjoyment of the Sacraments. But the Sacraments are committed to the Church, and are administered by the hierarchy (as servants, priests, and as judges). Thus the connection with Christ, which is effected only through the Sacraments, is at the same time mediated by the Church. Christ and the Church indeed are really made one, in so far as the same Church which administers the Sacraments is also, as the mystical body of Christ, so to speak, one mystical person with Him. This is the fundamental thought of Mediæval Catholicism, which was adhered to even by the majority of those who opposed themselves to the ruling hierarchy.

The Schoolmen’s doctrine of the Sacraments has its root in that of Augustine; but it goes far beyond it (formally and materially). Above all, there was not merely a passing out of view in the Middle Ages of the connection between verbum and sacramentum, on which Augustine had laid such stress, but the verbum disappeared entirely behind the sacramental sign. The conception became still more magical, and consequently more objectionable. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that in its seven Sacraments Catholicism created a very efficient and impressive institution of an educational kind, the service of which, however, for the individual, did not consist in giving him certainty of salvation, but in training him as a member of the Church. And yet the mediæval doctrine of the Sacraments must be regarded, at least in its Thomist form, as the logical development of the Old Catholic fundamental view; for the definition of grace given by Thomas (P. III., Q. 62, Art. 1): “grace is nothing else than the communicated likeness of the divine nature, according to the passage II Pet. I: he hath given to us great and precious promises, that we may be partakers of the divine nature” (gratia nihil est aliud quam participata similitudo divinæ naturae secundum illud, II Pet. I: Magna nobis et pretiosa promissa donavit, ut divina simus consortes natura), allows of no other form of grace than the magical sacramental. Augustine’s view, which, however, does not at bottom contradict the one just stated, is here thrust aside, and only comes under consideration so far as a link with it is found in the “participata similitudo divine naturae” (communicated likeness of the divine nature). Hence the further suppression of the verbum, to which even Augustine, though he has the merit of having taken account of it, had not done full justice.

A strictly developed doctrine of the Sacraments could not exist, so long as the number of the Sacraments was not definitely fixed. But on this point, as antiquity had handed down nothing certain, the greatest vacillation prevailed for centuries, so difficult was it to determine anything which had not already been determined by the tradition of ancient times. The doctrine of the Sacraments was accordingly developed under the disadvantage of not knowing for certain to what sacred acts the general conceptions were to be applied. Still, theology had already wrought for long with the number seven, before the number was officially recognised by the Church.

The number seven developed itself in the following way: As sacred acts in a pre-eminent sense, there had been handed down from ecclesiastical antiquity only baptism and the Eucharist, but baptism included the Chrisma (anointing). This last could be counted separately or not. At the same time, there was an indefinite group of sacred acts which were enumerated quite variously (the reckoning of the Areopagite was not determinative). Bernard, e.g., speaks of many Sacraments, and himself mentions ten. Even Hugo of St. Victor gives quite a special place to baptism and the Eucharist. Yet it was just he who contributed to a widening of the conception. By him, as well as by Abelard, there are reckoned as the sacramenta majora or spiritualia baptism, the Eucharist, confirmation, unction and marriage. How this combination arose is unknown. It continued to exist, however, in the school of Abelard, i.e., there was no reduction again made, only additions followed. Robert Pullus may have exercised an influence here, who in his Sentences counts along with the other three Sacraments, not unction and marriage, but confession and ordination. From the combination of these reckonings the number seven as applied to the Sacraments may have arisen. No doubt the sacred number also gave fixity to this particular enumeration. It is first found in the Sentence Book of Alexander III., when he was still Master Roland, and then in the Lombard. The latter however represents it, not as a recognised tenet, but as his own view, without specially emphasising it. The vacillation continued to exist even in the period that followed. The decrees of the great Councils of 1179 and 1215 imply that there was still nothing fixed as to the number of the Sacraments. But the great Schoolmen of the thirteenth century, who followed the Lombard, all accepted seven as the number of the Sacraments, and although special stress was laid by them on baptism and particularly the Eucharist, which was described, e.g., by Thomas as the most potent of all the Sacraments (“potissimum inter alia sacramenta sacramentum,”) they already made some attempt to vindicate the number on internal grounds. For the first time at Florence (1439) was there a definite ecclesiastical declaration made as to seven being the number of the Sacraments.

The technical revision of the conception of the sacrament begins with Hugo of St. Victor. He sets out from the Augustinian definition: “sign of a sacred thing” (“visible form of invisible grace”), but it appears to him unsatisfactory, because too wide. He adds to it two things: first, that the sacrament must have a natural resemblance to the sacred thing which it represents; second, that it is also the vehicle of this sacred thing, and communicates it to the receiver of the sign. Hence (de sacram, Christ. fid. I. 9, 2): “A sacrament is a corporeal or material element set forth sensibly to view, representing by resemblance, signifying by institution, and containing by consecration some invisible and spiritual grace” (sacramentum est corporale vel materiale elementum foris sensibiliter propositum ex similitudine repræsentans, ex institutione significans et ex sanctificatione continens aliquam invisibilem et spiritalem gratiam), or (Summa tract. IV. 1): “a sacrament is a visible form of invisible grace conveyed in it, i.e., which the sacrament itself conveys, for it is not only the sign of a sacred thing, but also its efficacious operation” (sacramentum est visibilis forma invisibilis gratiæ in eo collatæ, quam scil. confert ipsum sacramentum, non enim est solummodo sacræ rei signum sed etiam efficacia). The sacrament has, further, the similitudo from nature, the significatio from institution, the efficacia through the consecrating word of the priest, or the first from the Creator, the second from Christ, and the third from the dispenser (!). This German “Mystic” was therefore the first to give fixed form to the mischievous definition which so sadly externalised the sacrament and eliminated the word. The Augustinian distinction between the sacrament and the saving benefit in the sacrament (res sacramenti or res cujus sacramentum est) Hugo retained.

Hugo’s definition passed over to the Lombard, and was never again set aside in the Church. By it the Sacraments, in the stricter sense of the term, were raised above the field of the “sacramentalia”: the Sacraments are not merely signs; they are vehicles and “causes” of sanctification. The Lombard defines thus (Sent. IV., Dist. 1 B): “That is properly called a sacrament which is a sign of the grace of God, and a form of invisible grace in such a way that it bears the image thereof, and exists as a cause (et causa existat). Sacraments, therefore, are instituted for the purpose, not merely of signifying, but also of sanctifying. For things that are merely instituted for the sake of signifying are only signs and not sacraments, as were the carnal sacrifices and ceremonial observances of the old law.” But, further, Sacraments are “;signa data” (signs given, not “natural” signs), in the sense, namely, that they rest on free divine institution. The Lombard differs, accordingly, from Hugo in his regarding as necessary, not a corporeal or material element, but only some kind of sign, which may therefore consist also in an act; and also in his not saying that the Sacraments contain grace, but only — with greater caution — that they effect it causally.

In general, this definition of the Lombard lies at the foundation of the later definitions. But the more firmly it came to be held that the number of the Sacraments was seven, the more distinctly was the difficulty felt of applying the definition given to all the Sacraments individually. Hence it is not to be wondered at that the Nominalist theologians abstained more and more from giving a general definition that dealt with the essence.

Thomas begins (III., Q. 60) his statement of the doctrine of the Sacraments with the words: “After consideration of those things which relate to the mysteries of the incarnate Word, there are to be considered the Sacraments of the Church, which have efficacy from the incarnate Word Himself” By these terms, the unguarded definition of Hugo is set aside. He then proceeds, down to Quest. 65, to state the general doctrine of the Sacraments. Here it is worthy of note that Thomas, going still further than the Lombard, modifies the cruder conception of Hugo (“continet”). Indeed, he will not accept, without guarding clauses, the “causa existit” of the Lombard. He rejects, certainly, the opinion of Bernard and others, that God only works “adhibitis sacramentis” (with employment of sacraments). This would not lead beyond an interpretation of them as signs; but he then shows that it can be said of the Sacraments that “in some way” (per aliquem modum) they “cause grace.” The “causa principalis” of grace, rather, is God, who works as the fire does by its warmth, that is, communicates in grace His own nature. The Sacraments are the “causa instrumentalis”; but this latter cause “does not act by virtue of its own form, but only through the impulse it receives from the principal agent” (non agit per virtutem suæ formæ, sed solum per motum quo movetur a principali agente). “Hence the effect does not derive its character from the instrument, but from the principal agent; as a couch does not derive its character from the axe, but from the design which is in the mind of the artificer (unde effectus non assimilatur instrumento sed principali agenti; sicut lectus non assimilatur securi, sed arti, quæ est in mente artificis). And in this way the Sacraments of the new law cause grace, for they are applied to men by divine appointment (ex divina ordinatione) for the purpose of causing grace in them (ad gratiam in eis causandam). . . . It is to be asserted that the causa principalis cannot properly be called the sign of an effect that may be hidden (effectus licet occulti), though the cause itself is sensible and manifest; but the causa instrumentalis, if it be manifest, can be called the sign of a hidden effect, because (eo quod) it is not only cause, but also in a certain way (quodammodo) effect, in so far as it is set in motion (movetur) by the principal agent. And according to this, the Sacraments of the new law are at the same time causes and signs, and hence it is that it is commonly said of them, that they effect what they symbolise (efficiunt quod figurant).” The “causæ et signa” is in the style of Old Catholic thought; but the opposition of a spiritual to a coarse Mysticism is quite specially apparent here. In the period that followed, the loosening of grace from sacrament, in the sense of regarding the latter as merely associated with the former, was carried still further, but not because a more spiritual view was advocated (as by Thomas), or because weight was laid on the “word,” but because the conception of God, which indeed exercised its influence even upon Thomas, only in another way, allowed only of a conjunction by virtue of divine arbitrariness. Bonaventura already had denied, both that the Sacraments contain grace substantially (substantialiter), and that they effect it causally (causaliter); God has not bound His grace to the Sacraments, but has appointed by decree (“ex decreto”) that it shall be derived “per sacramenta” from the supreme physician, Christ. In this direction Scotus went further. He defines the Sacrament as “a sensible sign, which efficaciously signifies, by divine appointment, the grace of God, or the gracious effect of God, and is ordained for the salvation of man the pilgrim” (signum sensibile, gratiam dei vel effectum dei gratuitum ex institutione divina efficaciter significans, ordinatum ad salutem hominis viatoris). But the ambiguous formula, which he employs elsewhere also, “significans efficaciter effectum dei gratuitum” (signifying efficaciously the gracious effect of God), really means that God’s grace works side by side with the Sacraments; for the cause of grace is exclusively the divine will, while this cause is represented by the Sacrament, in the Sacrament’s accompanying it (concomitatur). There does not lie in the Sacraments an “intrinsic supernatural virtue,” but (in Sentent. IV., Dist. 1, Q. 5) “the receiving of the Sacrament is an appointment binding in order to the effect which the Sacrament signifies (dispositio necessitans ad effectum signatum per sacramentum), not, indeed, through some intrinsic form, . . . but only per assistentiam dei (through the aid of God), who causes that effect, not of absolute necessity, but by a necessity that has regard to the power ordained (necessitate respiciente ad potentiam ordinatam). For God has made the appointment universal (disposuit universaliter), and has certified to the Church (but how ?) that on him who receives such a Sacrament, He will confer the signified effect.” The same doctrine was taught by Occam and Biel. But this view is directly counter to that of Thomas, who had asserted that in the Sacrament itself there is inwardly present “a virtue for producing the sacramental effect” (virtus ad inducendum sacramentalem effectum). The Nominalist thesis wanted inward stability; for it is quite formalistic, and leaves the concrete nature of the gracious effect out of account. This point being reached, a threefold development was possible; either that there should be a turning back to the Old Catholic realism of Thomas (Biel already entered upon this course, and later Catholicism followed him), or that the Sacraments should be conceived of strictly as signs (thus many mediæval sects and Zwingli), or that the content of the gracious will of God should be defined anew, namely, as the word of the gospel, and it should be shown that this word forms also the content of the Sacrament, that the two therefore coincide. Of one thing, at any rate, there can be no doubt, viz., that the motive of the so-called “evangelical” opposition on the part of many sects and “Earlier Reformers” to the reigning view of the Sacraments, is to be sought for in logical Nominalism, that at bottom the opposition directed itself therefore against the Thom ist practice. The “word,” so far as my knowledge goes, was not seen to be the content of the Sacrament and of the divine will.