119. Extreme Unction, Ordination, and Marriage. (Chapter 14. The Sacramental System.) (History of the Christian Church) (Schaff, Philip)

Extreme Unction, unctio infirmorum, the fifth in the list of the sacraments, is administered to those who are in peril of death, and is supposed to be referred to by James 5:14. Is any among you sick? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. The earlier view, represented by Hugo of St. Victor, Peter the Lombard, and also by Bonaventura, was that the sacrament is of Apostolic institution. Thomas Aquinas traced it directly to Christ. Many things, he said, were spoken by Christ to the Apostles which are not contained in the Gospels. Thomas was followed by Duns Scotus and the council of Trent. The effect of the sacrament is to remit venial sins and the remainders of sin left after penance, and to heal the body. It may be repeated. Extreme unction as well as the eucharist is to be denied to children on the ground that their bodily diseases are not caused by sin. Some Councils restricted it to those over fourteen. The element used is oil, consecrated by the bishop, and it is to be touched to the eyes, ears, nostrils, lips, hands, feet, and loins.

Ordination conveys sacramental grace to seven orders of the ministry: presbyters, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, lectors, and ostiarii or door-keepers. These seven correspond to the seven graces of the Spirit mentioned in 1 Cor. 12. The first three orders were instituted by Christ; the last four by the Church. The bishops do not constitute a distinct order, but are of the order of the priesthood. The episcopate is an office, a function; and as Peter Lombardus and Thomas Aquinas say again and again, it is not an order. Consecration to it has no sacramental character. The Schoolmen do not fail to insist upon the superior dignity of the bishop, but sacramental grace is exhibited in its highest form in empowering the priest to celebrate the mass. For the sake of fulness there are placed above the priesthood, the episcopate, patriarchate, and papacy.

The tonsure, a requirement for admittance to orders, is a sign of rule and perfection, for it is made in a circle. It also indicates that the mind is withdrawn from temporal things and fixed upon the contemplation of divine things.

According to Thomas Aquinas, there is more reason for regarding ordination a sacrament than for ascribing a sacramental character to the other six sacred ordinances, for ordination confers the power of administering the others. Its efficacious potency resides chiefly with the person dispensing the sacrament. From him grace is transmitted. The form or the symbols, used in the ceremony, are of subordinate or little importance. In fact, the symbols are scarcely referred to by Councils or Schoolmen in this period.

Ordination confers an indelible character upon those admitted to any of the orders. Its virtue is not affected by the character of the person ordained.

As for the validity of the sacramental acts of heretic and schismatic clergymen, great difference of opinion existed. The problem was so difficult as to appear to Gratian and Peter the Lombard insoluble or almost so. The difficulty was increased by the acts of Councils, condemning as invalid the ordinations of anti-popes and the ordinations performed by bishops whom anti-popes had appointed. The statements of Thomas Aquinas are difficult to understand. He made a distinction between the power potestas of ordination and the jurisdiction to perform the sacrament. Schismatic or heretic bishops retain the power; otherwise when such a bishop is reconciled to the Church, he would be ordained over again, which is not the case. But they have not the jurisdiction. As the bishop by his promotion to the episcopate receives no sacramental grace, so, as bishop, he possesses no indelible character. He is ordained not directly for God but for the mystical body of Christ. And those whom a schismatic bishop ordains do not in reality receive ordination, for they are ordained in the face of the prohibition of the Church.

As far as we can understand the Angelic doctor's position it is: the Church may withdraw from a bishop his right to confer orders while at the same time he retains the episcopal power to confer them. He insisted most strenuously on the permanence of the bishop's power received at consecration. The solution of the problem is of far-reaching importance, for it has a bearing on the sacramental efficacy of the acts of many priests who have been cut off from the Latin Church and the ecclesiastical titles of schismatic bodies, such as the Old-Catholics and the Jansenist Church of Holland.

Marriage has the last place among the sacraments because it has the least of spirituality connected with it. At first, the bed was undefiled, conception was without passion, and parturition without pain. Since the fall, marriage has become a remedy against lust and a medicine for unholy desire. At first it signified the union of the soul with God. Since it became a sacrament, it signifies, in addition, the union of Christ and the Church and the union of two natures in one person. The Vulgate's false translation of Ephes. 5:31, this is a great sacrament, confirmed the Schoolmen in placing matrimony among the sacraments. That which constitutes the sacramental element is the verbal consent of the parties, and also, as Thomas Aquinas thought, the priest's Benediction.

Thomas was inclined to permit marriage for boys after the age of fourteen and girls after the age of twelve. According to the same authority, children are to follow the social condition of the mother. The impediments to marriage were carefully catalogued and discussed. Their number was put at twelve, such as kinship, mistake, vows, and misrepresentation, and couched in the lines which Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas quote: - error, conditio, votum, cognatio crimen, cultus disparitas,1 vis, ordo, ligamen, honestas, si sis affinis, si forte coire nequibis haec socianda vetant connubia, facta retractant.

The Fourth Lateran modified some of the more severe restrictions of marriage within the limits of consanguinity, but declared children illegitimate whose parents were within the forbidden limits, even though the ceremony were performed in the church. The Councils of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries give frequent rules for marriage. They were to be performed before the Church and only after public announcement. The children of parties marrying unbelievers and the offspring of clandestine marriages were made illegitimate.

Death dissolves marriage and the surviving party has the right to marry again to the fourth time or even more often. Otherwise the marriage bond is perpetual vinculum matrimonii est perpetuum. This follows from two considerations: marriage involves the training of the children and is a symbol of the union between Christ and the Church. Matrimony becomes absolutely binding only upon copulation. Before that has taken place, one party or the other may go into an order and in this case the other party has the right to marry again.

Divorce was allowed for one cause only, fornication. The Schoolmen supported this position from the words of Christ. Divorce, however, is a separation, not a release with license to marry again. Marriage can never be annulled by the act of man. What God has joined together, no man can put asunder. Only after the death of the offending party may the innocent party enter again into a marriage contract. The second and subsequent marriages are a sacrament as the first marriage is.