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The sacraments
The interpretation and number of the sacraments vary among the Christian
churches of the world. The number of sacraments also varied in the early
church, sometimes including as many as 10 or 12. In his Book of Sentences
(1148–51), Peter Lombard asserted that there were seven sacraments, a position
adopted by contemporary theologians. At the Council of Trent (1545–63), the
Roman Catholic Church formally xed the number of sacraments at seven:
baptism, con rmation, the Eucharist, penance, holy orders, matrimony, and
anointing of the sick. The theology of the Eastern Orthodox churches also xed
the number of sacraments at seven. The classical Protestant churches (i.e.,
Lutheran, Anglican, and Reformed) have accepted only two sacraments,
baptism and the Eucharist, though Luther allowed that penance was a valid
part of sacramental theology.

The New Testament mentions a series of “holy acts” that are not, strictly
speaking, sacraments. Though the Roman Catholic Church recognizes a
difference between such “holy acts,” which are called sacramentals, and

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sacraments, BRITANNICA
Eastern Orthodoxy does not, in principle, make such strict SUBSCRIBE LOG IN · JOIN

distinctions. Baptism
. and .the Eucharist,
. therefore,
. have been
. established. as
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sacraments of the church, but foot washing, which replaces the Lord’s Supper
BIOGRAPHIES EXPLORE
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in The Gospel According to John, was not maintained as a sacrament. It is still
practiced on special occasions, such as on Holy Thursday (the Thursday
preceding Easter Sunday) in the Roman Catholic Church and as a rite prior to
the observance of the Lord’s Supper, as in the Church of the Brethren. The
“holy acts” of the Eastern Orthodox churches are symbolically connected to its
most important mysteries. Hence, baptism consists of a triple immersion that
is connected with a triple renunciation of Satan that the candidates say and act
out symbolically prior to the immersions. Candidates rst face west, which is
the symbolic direction of the Antichrist, spit three times to symbolize their
renunciation of Satan, and then face east, the symbolic direction of Christ, the
sun of righteousness. Immediately following baptism, chrismation (anointing
with consecrated oil) takes place, and the baptized believers receive the “seal of
the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Scriptural traditions
The most important creation of church tradition is that of the Holy Scriptures
themselves and, secondarily, their exegesis (critical interpretations and
explanations). Exegesis rst appeared in Christian circles among gnostics and
the church catechists (teachers)—e.g., in the Christian school systems, such as
in Alexandria and Antioch. Gnostics and other groups that were regarded by
mainstream Christians as heretics could not claim the unbroken apostolic
tradition maintained by the orthodox Christian churches. They therefore had
an interest in claiming the tradition to justify their own movements. Exegesis
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wasENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
directly related to the development of a normative scriptural canon in the SUBSCRIBE LOG IN · JOIN

orthodox churches.
.
Eventually
.
it contributed
. .
to the emergence
.
of the
BIOGRAPHIES .
DEMYSTIFIED
catechetical schools.
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The rst representatives of early church exegesis were not the bishops but
rather the “teachers” (didaskaloi) of the catechetical schools, modeled after the
Hellenistic philosophers’ schools in which interpretive and philological
principles had been developed according to the traditions of the founders of
the respective schools. The allegorical interpretation of Greek classical
philosophical and poetical texts, which was prevalent at the Library and
Museum (the school) of Alexandria, for example, directly in uenced the
exegetical method of the Christian catechetical school there. Basing his
principles on the methods of Philo of Alexandria and Clement of Alexandria, his
teacher, and others, Origen—the Christian catechetical school’s most
signi cant representative—created the foundation for the type of Christian
exegesis (i.e., the typological-allegorical method) that lasted from the patristic
period and the Middle Ages until the time of Luther in the 16th century. Origen
based his exegesis upon comprehensive textual-critical work that was
common to current Hellenistic practices, such as collecting Hebrew texts and
Greek parallel translations of the Old Testament. His main concern, however,
was that of ascertaining the spiritual meaning of the Scriptures, the trans-
historical divine truth that is hidden in the records of the history of salvation.
He thus developed a system containing four types of interpretation: literal,
moral, typological, and allegorical. The fourfold sense of Scripture would come
to dominate medieval exegesis, though the allegorical understanding of
Scripture was the most common form of interpretation.

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During BRITANNICA
the Reformation, under the leadership of Luther, the literal meaning of SUBSCRIBE LOG IN · JOIN

the Scriptures usurped

. the
. preeminence
. of the
. allegorical. view. The literal
.
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interpretation of Scripture had its beginnings in the early church in school of
BIOGRAPHIES EXPLORE
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Antioch. In contrast to the Platonic tradition of the school of Alexandria, the
school of Antioch was guided by Aristotelian philosophy. In place of
allegorizing, which was consciously rejected, Antiochene exegesis was
occupied with textual criticism. Both traditions often were included together in
the so-called glosses of the Latin Middle Ages, such as in the Glossa ordinaria
(“Ordinary Glosses”), edited by Anselm of Laon (died 1117), and the Postillae—
the rst biblical commentary to be printed (1471–72)—of Nicholas of Lyra (c.
1270–1349).

According to his own statement, Luther’s inspiration came about through

re ection on the Scriptures—legendo et docendo (“by perusing and teaching”)
—in connection with his lectures on the Bible at the university of Wittenberg in
Germany. He used the preliminary work of humanist philologists for the
restoration of the Old and New Testament text (e.g., Erasmus’s 1516 edition of
the Greek New Testament in the lectures on the Letter of Paul to the Romans).
Luther replaced the traditional schema of the fourfold meaning of the
Scripture with a spiritual interpretation of the letter—i.e., one based on Christ.
Inasmuch as the letter, which speaks historically of the work of Christ, at the
same time always means this work as the salvation event that has happened
“for us,” it always contains the spiritual meaning in itself. In debates with the
Spiritualists and Enthusiasts, who made use of the allegorical-tropological
( gurative) method, Luther appealed ever more strongly to the unequivocal
“clarity” of the letter of the Scriptures, which contains the “clarity” of the

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“subject” expressed by it. HisBRITANNICA
exegesis is thus also a dogmatic one. The struggle SUBSCRIBE LOG IN · JOIN

between historical
. and tropological
. exegesis
. . was emphasized
. in the debate
.
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between Luther and Zwingli over the understanding of the Lord’s Supper.
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

During the early 18th century, biblical interpretation free of dogmatic interest
was achieved among theologians accused of heresy by orthodox colleagues of
their confession, such as among the Dutch Arminians (e.g., Hugo Grotius and
Johann Jakob Wettstein). Interest in the history of the Old and New Testament
period was growing; ancient Middle Eastern history, biblical geography and
archaeology, and the history of the religions of Hellenism were included in the
interpretation of the Scriptures. Historical criticism of the Bible, which was
independent of the moral and edifying evaluation of the Holy Scriptures,
emerged under the in uence of the Enlightenment and remained an
important approach in Bible studies in the 19th and 20th centuries.

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