The Development of Thomas Aquinas Doctrine of Sacramental Signification

IN GENERE SIGNI: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THOMAS AQUINAS’S
DOCTRINE OF SACRAMENTAL SIGNIFICATION
Luke Davis Townsend, B.A., M.Div.
A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Faculty of

Saint Louis University in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
2017

ProQuest Number: 10289270

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2017
i
COMMITTEE IN CHARGE OF CANDIDACY
Professor J.A. Wayne Hellmann, O.F.M. Conv.,

Chairperson and Adivsor
Professor Eleonore Stump
Professor Joseph P. Wawrykow
ii
In Honor of Mark and Corinne Townsend
and
In Loving Memory of Marvin R. Hollar
iii
Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1
I. The Present Study in General – Subject, Methods, Questions, Answers ......................... 1
II. Overview of Introduction .................................................................................................... 3
III. Survey of Secondary Literature ........................................................................................ 4
A) Broad Categories and Subcategories of Secondary Literature ....................................... 4
B) Studies of Sacramental Causality ..................................................................................... 5
C) The Sign and Cause Debate: Cause ................................................................................. 8
D) Sign and Cause: Attempted Balance or Reconciliation ................................................ 10
E) Sign and Cause: Sign...................................................................................................... 12
F) Secondary Literature on Causality not in the Sign and Cause Debate ........................ 15
IV. Position, Arguments, and Goals of this Study ............................................................... 16
A) Position of this Study ...................................................................................................... 16
B) Arguments of this Study.................................................................................................. 18
1) Development Occurred ................................................................................................. 19
2) Role of Signification at the Beginning of Thomas's Career ......................................... 19
3) Significatory Turn ......................................................................................................... 20
4) Role of Signification at the End of Thomas's Career ................................................... 21
5) Limitation of the notion of Causality ............................................................................ 21
6) The Standard Reading is Incorrect............................................................................... 22
7) Extra-Sacramentological Shifts .................................................................................... 23
8) Intra-Sacramentological Shifts ..................................................................................... 24
9) Signification Allows for a Better Sacramentology ....................................................... 26
10) Proper Reading of the Summa theologiae .................................................................. 27
C) Goals of this Study .......................................................................................................... 28
V. Methodology ....................................................................................................................... 29
A) Developmental Method ................................................................................................... 29
B) Choosing the Texts to Study ........................................................................................... 31
C) The Seven Texts of This Study ....................................................................................... 32
D) Approach of Each Chapter ............................................................................................. 33
VI. Overview of the Following Chapters .............................................................................. 34
A) Chapter One - Texts and Contexts ................................................................................. 34
B) Chapter Two - Scriptum super Sententiis .................................................................... 35
C) Chapters Three through Five - Intervening Texts......................................................... 36
D) Chapter Six - Summa theologiae ................................................................................... 36
E) Conclusion....................................................................................................................... 37
Chapter 1 - Texts and Contexts ................................................................................ 38

Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 38
I. Historical Context................................................................................................................ 39
A) Medieval Theological Education, Theological Methods, and Theological Genres ..... 39
1) The Shift from Monasticism to Scholasticism ............................................................... 39
2) Shifts in Genres of Theological Writing - Glossae to Sentence Commentaries to
Summae ............................................................................................................................. 40
iv
3) A Shift in Theological Methods - The Disputatio Method ............................................ 42
4) Further Refinements to the Sentence Commentary Genre ........................................... 43
B) Sources of Thomas’s Thought........................................................................................ 45
1) St. Augustine of Hippo .................................................................................................. 46
a) Works Cited in Thomas’s Sacramentology ........................................................................................... 46
b) Sacramentology .................................................................................................................................... 47
2) Pseudo-Dionysius ......................................................................................................... 48
3) Hugh of St. Victor ......................................................................................................... 52
4) Peter Lombard .............................................................................................................. 55
II. Biographical Context of the Seven Texts of this Study .................................................. 58
III. The Seven Texts of this Study – Dating, Authenticity, Genre, Audience, and Purpose
................................................................................................................................................... 67
A) Scriptum Super Sententiis (c. 1252-1256) – Text One................................................. 67
1) Dating and Authenticity ................................................................................................ 67
2) Genre, Audience, and Purpose ..................................................................................... 68
B) Questiones disputatae de veritate (c. 1256-1259) – Text Two ..................................... 69
C) De articulis fidei et ecclesiae sacramentis (c. 1261-1264) – Text Three ..................... 71
D) Corpus Christi Liturgy (c. 1264) – Text Four ............................................................... 73
E) Summa contra Gentiles (c. 1259-1267) – Text Five ..................................................... 75
2) Genre, Audience, and Purpose of the Summa contra Gentiles .................................... 76
F) Super Evangelium S. Ioannis lectura (c. 1270-1272) – Text Six ................................ 78
G) Summa theologiae (c. 1266-1273) – Text Seven ........................................................... 80
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 87
Chapter 2 - Sacramental Signification in the Scriptum super Sententiis .............. 88

Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 88
I. Sacramental Signification in the Scriptum super Sententiis (c. 1252-1256) – Text One of
Seven......................................................................................................................................... 89
A) Sacraments in General in the Scriptum ........................................................................ 89
1) Book IV, Prooemium..................................................................................................... 89
2) Book IV, Distinction One, Question One, Article One ................................................. 90
v
a) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, Respondeo – What Sacraments Are .................................................................... 90
b) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, Quaestiuncula One .............................................................................................. 91
c) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, Quaestiuncula Two .............................................................................................. 93
d) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, Quaestiuncula Three ........................................................................................... 94
e) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, Quaestiuncula Four ............................................................................................ 94
f) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, Quaestiuncula Five .............................................................................................. 96
3) Book IV, Distinction One, Question One, Article Two ................................................. 98
a) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 2, Respondeo – The Necessity of the Sacraments ................................................... 98
b) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 2, Quaestiunculae One through Five .................................................................... 100
4) Book IV, Distinction One, Question One, Article Three – In What the Sacraments
Consist ............................................................................................................................ 102
5) Book IV, Distinction One, Question One, Article Four .............................................. 109
a) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, Respondeo - The Efficacy of the Sacraments of the New Law .......................... 109
b) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, Quaestiuncula One ............................................................................................ 113
c) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, Quaestiuncula Two ............................................................................................ 114
d) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, Quaestiuncula Three ......................................................................................... 114
e) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, Quaestiunculae Four and Five .......................................................................... 116
6) Book IV, Distinction One, Question One, Article Five - The Efficacy of the Old
Sacraments ...................................................................................................................... 117
a) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 5, Respondeo ......................................................................................................... 117
b) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 5, Quaestiuncula One ............................................................................................ 118
c) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 5, Quaestiunculae Two and Three ........................................................................ 119
B) Sacraments in Particular in the Scriptum .................................................................. 121
1) Book IV, Distinctions Three through Six - Baptism.................................................... 121
2) Book IV, Distinction Seven - Confirmation ................................................................ 127
3) Book IV, Distinctions Eight through Thirteen - Eucharist ......................................... 129
a) Book IV, Distinction Eight, Article One ............................................................................................. 129
b) Book IV, Distinction Eight, Article Two ............................................................................................. 133
II. Synthesis and Analysis of Sacramental Signification in the Scriptum ........................ 135
A) The Essence of a Sacrament - What is a sacrament?.................................................. 136
B) What constitutes a sacrament? ..................................................................................... 136
C) How does a sacrament come to exist? .......................................................................... 137
D) What is the purpose and function of sacraments? ...................................................... 137
E) How are the sacraments causes? .................................................................................. 138
F) What is a sign and how are the sacraments signs? ..................................................... 139
G) What is the role that signification plays in the sacraments? ...................................... 141
H) What is the relationship of signification and causality in the sacraments?............... 142
I) What is Thomas’s attitude toward signification? ......................................................... 145
J) What role do faith and the Church play in the sacraments? ....................................... 146
K) Who are Thomas’s major influences? ......................................................................... 146
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 147
Chapter 3 - Sacramental Signification in Intervening Texts, pt. 1 – De Veritate,

De articulis, and the Corpus Christi Liturgy ........................................................ 148
Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 148
I. Sacramental Signification in De veritate, De articulis, and the Corpus Christi Liturgy
................................................................................................................................................. 149
A) Sacramental Signification in Questiones disputatae de veritate, q. 27 (c. 1256-1259) –
Text Two of Seven .............................................................................................................. 149
vi
1) De veritate Overview .................................................................................................. 149
2) De Veritate, q. 27, Article One - Is grace something created which is in the soul
positively? ....................................................................................................................... 149
3) De Veritate, q. 27, Article Two - Is gratia gratum faciens the same as charity? ....... 151
4) De Veritate, q. 27, Article Three - Can any creature be the cause of grace? ............ 154
5) De Veritate, q. 27, Article Four - Are the sacraments of the New Law the cause of
grace? ............................................................................................................................. 155
6) De Veritate, q. 27, Article Five - Whether in a person there is only one gratia gratum
faciens? ........................................................................................................................... 161
7) De Veritate, q. 27, Article Six - Whether grace is in the essence of the soul as in a
subject? ........................................................................................................................... 162
8) De Veritate, q. 27, Article Seven - Whether grace is in the sacraments?................... 162
B) Sacramental Signification in De articulis fidei et ecclesiae sacramentis (c. 1261-1264)
– Text Three of Seven ........................................................................................................ 165
1) Overview of De articulis ............................................................................................. 165
2) De articulis, Part Two (On the Sacraments of the Church), Prooemium ................... 166
3) The Sacraments in General in De articulis ................................................................. 172
4) The Sacraments in Particular in De articulis ............................................................. 174
5) The Eschatological End Point of De articulis ............................................................ 177
C) Sacramental Signification in the Liturgy for the Feast of Corpus Christi (c. 1264) –
Text Four of Seven............................................................................................................. 178
1) Overview of the Corpus Christi Liturgy ..................................................................... 178
2) Sources of the Corpus Christi Liturgy ........................................................................ 179
3) Five Theological Themes of the Corpus Christi Liturgy ............................................ 180
a) Theme One – Transubstantiation ........................................................................................................ 180
b) Theme Two – Deification .................................................................................................................... 180
c) Themes Three and Four – Unity and Church ..................................................................................... 181
d) Theme Five – Contemplative Devotion ............................................................................................... 182
4) Primary Sacramentological Metaphor of the Corpus Christi Liturgy ....................... 183
5) Signification in the Corpus Christi Liturgy ................................................................ 184
6) The Absence of a Doctrine of Sacramental Causality in the Corpus Christi Liturgy 187
II. Synthesis and Analysis of Sacramental Signification in De veritate, De articulis, and
the Corpus Christi Liturgy ..................................................................................................... 189
B) What constitutes a sacrament? ..................................................................................... 191
C) How does a sacrament come to exist? .......................................................................... 192
D) What is the purpose and function of sacraments? ...................................................... 192
E) How are the sacraments causes? .................................................................................. 193
F) What is a sign and how are the sacraments signs? ..................................................... 194
G) What is the role that signification plays in the sacraments? ...................................... 196
H) What is Thomas’s attitude toward signification? ........................................................ 198
I) What is the relationship of signification and causality in the sacraments? ................ 199
J) What role do faith and the Church play in the sacraments? ....................................... 201
Conclusion - How has Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental signification changed, and do
these changes represent development? ............................................................................... 204
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Chapter 4 – Sacramental Signification in Intervening Texts, pt. 2 - Summa
Contra Gentiles ......................................................................................................... 207
Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 207
I. Sacramental Signification in the Summa contra Gentiles (c. 1264-1265)– Text Five of
Seven ....................................................................................................................................... 207
A) Overview of the ScG...................................................................................................... 207
B) Book Three - Chapters 147 through 151 – Grace ....................................................... 209
1) b. 3, Chapter 147 – That Humans Need Divine Assistance to Attain Happiness ....... 209
2) b. 3, Chapters 148 and 149 – That Divine Help Does Not Force Virtue and Cannot Be
Merited ............................................................................................................................ 211
3) b. 3, Chapter 150 – What Grace Is ............................................................................. 212
4) b. 3, Chapter 151 – That Sanctifying Grace Causes the Love of God Within Humans
......................................................................................................................................... 213
C) Book Four - Chapters 21 and 22 - The Holy Spirit ..................................................... 214
D) Book Four - Chapters 56 through 58 - The Sacraments in General .......................... 217
E) Book Four - Chapters 59 through 78 - The Sacraments in Particular ...................... 227
II. Synthesis and Analysis of Sacramental Signification in the ScG ................................ 236
B) What constitutes a sacrament and how does a sacrament come to exist? .................. 237
C) What is the purpose and function of sacraments? ...................................................... 238
D) How are the sacraments causes?.................................................................................. 239
E) What is a sign and how are the sacraments signs? ..................................................... 240
F) What is the role that signification plays in the sacraments? ....................................... 241
G) What is Thomas’s attitude toward signification? ........................................................ 241
I) What role do faith and the Church play in the sacraments? ....................................... 242
J) What is Thomas’s doctrine of Grace?........................................................................... 244
Chapter 5 - Sacramental Signification in Intervening Texts, pt. 3 – Super

Evangelium S. Ioannis ............................................................................................. 247
Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 247
I. Sacramental Signification in Super Evangelium S. Ioannis lectura (c. 1270-1272) – Text
Six of Seven ............................................................................................................................ 248
A) Thomas’s Comments on John 1:33, 3:5, and 4:10 ...................................................... 248
1) Thomas’s Comments on John 1:33............................................................................. 248
2) Thomas’s Comments on John 3:5............................................................................... 249
3) Thomas’s Comments on John 4:10............................................................................. 253
B) John, Chapter Six, Lecture Six .................................................................................... 254
C) John Chapter Six, Lecture Seven ................................................................................. 261
D) Thomas’s Comments on John 11:44 and 15:4-9......................................................... 270
II. Synthesis and Analysis of Sacramental Signification in Super Evangelium S. Ioannis
................................................................................................................................................. 273
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C) What is the purpose and function of sacraments? ...................................................... 274
Chapter 6 - Sacramental Signification in the Summa theologiae ........................ 285

Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 285
I. Sacramental Signification in the Summa theologiae (c. 1273) – Text Seven of Seven . 285
A) Thomas’s Doctrine of Grace in the Summa – Prima secundae, Questions 110 through
112....................................................................................................................................... 285
1) I-II, Question 110 – The Essence of Grace ................................................................ 285
a) I-II, q. 110, Article One – Does grace imply anything in the soul? .................................................... 285
b) I-II, q. 110, Article Two – Is grace a quality of the soul? .................................................................. 286
c) I-II, q. 110, Article Three – Is grace the same as virtue? ................................................................... 290
2) I-II, Question 112 – God Alone is the Cause of Grace............................................... 291
B) The Sacraments in General - Summa theologiae III, q. 60-65 .................................. 293
1) Overview of Thomas’s Treatment of the Sacraments in General in the Summa ........ 293
2) III, Question 60 - What is a sacrament? ..................................................................... 293
a) III, q. 60, Article One – Is a sacrament a kind of sign?...................................................................... 294
b) III, q. 60, Article Two – Is every sign of a sacred thing a sacrament? ............................................... 296
c) III, q. 60, Article Three – Is a sacrament a sign of one thing only? ................................................... 302
d) III, q. 60, Article Four – Is a sacrament always something sensible? ............................................... 305
e) III, q. 60, Article Five – Are determinate things required for a sacrament? ...................................... 308
f) III, q. 60, Article Six – Are words required for the signification of the sacraments? ......................... 311
g) III, q. 60, Article Seven – Are determinate words required in the sacraments?................................. 315
h) III, q. 60, Article Eight – Is it lawful to add anything to the words of sacramental forms? ............... 318
3) III, Question 61 - The Necessity of the Sacraments .................................................... 319
a) III, q. 61, Article One – Are the sacraments necessary for salvation? ............................................... 319
b) III, q. 61, Article Two – Were the sacraments necessary before sin? ................................................ 324
c) III, q. 61, Article Three – Were Sacraments necessary after sin, but before Christ? ......................... 326
d) III, q. 61, Article Four – Are sacraments needed after Christ has come? .......................................... 328
4) III, Question 62 - The Principle Effect of the Sacraments, Which is Grace ............... 332
a) III, q. 62, Article One – Are the sacraments of the New Law the cause of grace? ............................. 333
b) III, q. 62, Article Two – Does sacramental grace confer anything more than the grace of the gifts and
the virtues? .............................................................................................................................................. 344
c) III, q. 62, Article Three – Do the sacraments of the New Law contain grace? .................................. 344
d) III, q. 62, Article Four – Is there a power for causing grace in the sacraments? .............................. 345
e) III, q. 62, Article Five – Do the sacraments derive their power from Christ’s Passion? ................... 347
5) The Apparent Reversions of Questions 61 and 62...................................................... 353
6) III, Question 63 - The Other Effect of the Sacraments, Which is Character .............. 356
a) III, q. 63, Article One – Is a character produced in the soul by the sacraments? .............................. 356
b) III, q. 62, Article Two – Is sacramental character a spiritual power? ............................................... 359
ix
c) III, q. 62, Articles Three through Six .................................................................................................. 360
7) III, Question 64 - The Causes of the Sacraments ....................................................... 361
8) III, Question 65 - The Number of the Sacraments ...................................................... 361
a) III, q. 65, Article One – Are there seven sacraments? ........................................................................ 361
b) III, q. 62, Articles Two through Four ................................................................................................. 364
C) The Sacraments in Particular in the Summa - III, q. 66-90....................................... 365
II. Synthesis and Analysis of Sacramental Signification in the Summa theologiae......... 368
C) What is the purpose and function of the sacraments? ................................................ 369
Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 381

Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 381
I. The Ten Central Arguments of this Study ...................................................................... 382
1) Development Happened ................................................................................................. 382
2) Role of Signification at the Beginning of Thomas’s Career ....................................... 384
3) Significatory Turn ......................................................................................................... 385
4) Role of Signification at the End of Thomas’s Career .................................................. 386
5) Limitation of the Notion of Causality ........................................................................... 387
6) The Standard Reading is Incorrect ............................................................................... 388
7) Extra-Sacramentological Shifts .................................................................................... 389
8) Intra-Sacramentological Shifts ..................................................................................... 393
9) Signification Allows for A Better Sacramentology ...................................................... 395
10) Proper Reading of the Summa theologiae .................................................................. 398
II. Scholarly Implications of this Study .............................................................................. 398
III. Practical Implications of this Study.............................................................................. 401
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 405
Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 406
Vita Auctoris ............................................................................................................ 412
x
Introduction
I. The Present Study in General – Subject, Methods, Questions, Answers
Understanding St. Thomas Aquinas is a pursuit of inestimable value for the Church, for
theologians, for scholars, and for the Christian life. Thomas's perspective on the truths of the
faith and the nature of reality has borne fruit for centuries and is no less fecund for persons in a
postmodern context. In hopes, therefore, of reaping a portion of the harvest, I study St. Thomas’s
thought on the sacraments. In particular, I focus on Thomas's teaching about the signification of
the sacraments,1 which has been undervalued, understudied, and ultimately misunderstood by
recent secondary literature.
A multitude of approaches exists for such a study, in addition to any number of valid
hermeneutics for viewing Thomas. My approach will be to view Thomas from the perspective of
historical theology. I see Thomas first and foremost as a theologian, and secondarily as a teacher,
whose primary goal is to understand and express divine Truth to the best of his ability and then
convey these truths to the faithful in order to equip them for the Christian life and lead them to
salvation. I, furthermore, believe that Thomas's writings are best understood when read in their
historical context, which includes both the broader context of medieval society, education, and
theology, and the more narrow context of Thomas's own life experiences.
Following upon these assumptions, therefore, I read Thomas using what I term a
developmental method. I read Thomas's doctrine of sacramental signification2 in light of the way
1
I understand signification to mean the act of signifying, which is what signs do. To define a sign for the purposes of this study, I follow the
definition of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. “A sign is that by means of which one attains to the knowledge of something else” Cf. S. Thomae
Aquinatis, Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, t. 4-12: Summae theologiae (Romae: Ex Typographia Polyglotta S. C. de
Propaganda Fide, 1888-1906), III, q. 60, a. 4, res. Signs lead persons from the known to the unknown, from the sensible to the intelligible, or
from the visible to the invisible. Hence, to study the signification of the sacraments is to study the way in which the sacraments are signs and the
way in which the sacraments communicate meaning beyond themselves, beyond their sensible elements, and beyond their visible acts.
2
In terms of the above definitions of signs, signification, and sacramental signification, Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental signification is his
teaching about how the sacraments are signs, as well as what, how and why the sacraments signify.
his teaching on his subject develops throughout his career. This method will provide a much
fuller, one might say, three-dimensional, picture of Thomas's doctrine. It considers Thomas's
thought not just at a particular instant in time or in a single text, but throughout his life; across a
variety of places, times, and situations; as well as across a variety of genres, audiences, and
purposes of writing. This developmental method, therefore, is more akin to a video than a
photograph. As such, it carries with it the ability to convey much more realistic depictions.
A historical theological hermeneutic and a developmental method, therefore, guides both
the questions I ask in this study and the way I go about answering them. My overarching
question is as follows: What is the role of signification in Thomas’s sacramental theology and
how does this role change throughout his career? I have selected the broad term 'role' because it
will allow me to incorporate many sub-questions about signification for Thomas. To speak of
signification's role in the sacraments requires, for instance, investigating how, what, and why the
sacraments signify; it also requires understanding how signification relates to the essence,
material, function, and end of the sacraments, as well as how Thomas uses the concept of
signification to accomplish theological work.
To answer these questions, I examine all of the major texts wherein Thomas discusses the
sacraments. I approach these texts in chronological order, and I then discern whether any
trajectory or development in thought is ascertainable. Studying each of these texts will yield
answers to each component of signification's role in the sacraments mentioned above, as well as
how these components were in motion in Thomas's mind. Ultimately, I conclude that, throughout
his career, Thomas expands the role that signification had to play in his sacramentology. He
moves from considering signification to be half of the sacrament's nature, a half subjected to the
sacraments’ nature as causes of grace, to considering signification to be the sacrament's sole
2
nature. Thomas comes to view signification, and not the sacraments’ efficient causality, as the
central organizing concept of his sacramental thought. The gradual transition to this position
allows Thomas to better integrate and synthesize his sacramentology with other areas of his
thought and to more easily answer the pressing theological questions of his day.
II. Overview of Introduction
This Introduction has six sections in total. Following Section I, above, and the present
Section II, in Section III of the Introduction, I survey the secondary literature on Thomas's
sacramentology as a means of locating the present study in the scholarly landscape. This survey
is not intended to be exhaustive, as the amount of literature on Thomas is immense. Rather, I
demonstrate that a standard reading of Thomas’s sacramentology exists in the collective
scholarly consciousness. I also here demonstrate that current scholarly literature fails to answer
my driving question.
In Section IV of the Introduction, which follows the literature review, I present a more
detailed account of the position, arguments, and goals of this study as a whole. I first address the
position of my study in light of other secondary literature. I then identify ten arguments that I
make throughout the course of the study, which intertwine with, support, and flow from my
central argument. Finally, I identify six goals for the present work.
In Section V of the Introduction, I detail the methods by which I arrive at my positions. I
say more about my developmental method and about the scholarly tools that I deploy in applying
it. I discuss the texts to be examined and the process whereby I selected them. I then provide an
overview of the structure and process of analysis that I use in each textually focused chapter.
Finally, in Section VI of the Introduction, I conclude with an outline of the chapters to come.
3
III. Survey of Secondary Literature
A) Broad Categories and Subcategories of Secondary Literature
The amount of literature on Thomas is vast and comes from a tremendous range of
disciplines. One can generally break down studies of Thomas's sacramental theology, however,
into two main categories, each of which contains a number of subcategories. At the highest level
there is a division between studying Thomas’s thought on the sacraments in general, which
involves addressing what sacraments are and how they work, and between studying Thomas's
thought on the sacraments in particular, which addresses issues that pertain to individual
sacraments and their administration. Since Thomas himself discusses signification under his
treatment of the sacraments in general, my focus is on the literature from this division.3
3
For key studies of Thomas's doctrine of the sacraments in particular and for studies of the sacraments in general that are only indirectly relevant
to my topic see the following studies organized first by relevance then alphabetically. Inos Biffi, "Eucharist as the Perfect Sign of Christ's
Passion," Osservatore Romano 1887, no. (2005): 10ff. Klaus Hedwig, "'Efficiunt quod figurant' Die Sakramente im Kontext von Natur, Zeichen
und Heil," in Thomas von Aquin, die Summa theologiae: Werkinterpretationen, ed. Andreas Speer (Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2005).
Gary Macy, "A Re-Evaluation of the Contribution of Thomas Aquinas to the Thirteenth-Century Theology of the Eucharist," in Intellectual
Climate of the Early University (Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan Univ, 1997); Gary Macy, The Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early
Scholastic Period: A Study of the Salvific Function of the Sacrament According to the Theologians, c.1080-c.1220 (Oxford; New York:
Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 1984). Marilyn McCord Adams, Some Later Medieval Theories of the Eucharist: Thomas Aquinas,
Giles of Rome, Duns Scotus, and William Ockham (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). Paul J. J. M. Bakker, "Hoc est corpus
meum: L'analyse de la formule de consécration chez des théologiens du XIVe et du XVe siècles," in Vestigia, Imagines, Verba: Semiotics and
Logic in Medieval Theological Texts (XIIth-XIVth Century). ed. Costantino Marmo (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997). D. Chardonnens, "Éternité du
sacerdoce du Christ et effect eschatologique de l'Eucharistie: La contribution de saint Thomas d'Aquin à un thème de théologie sacramentaire,"
Revue Thomiste 99, no. (1997): 159-80. Fernando Cifuentes Grez, Doctrina sacramental de Sto. Tomas (Santiago de Chile: Editorial del Pacifico,
1949). Gilles Emery, "The Ecclesial Fruit of the Eucharist in St. Thomas Aquinas," Nova et vetera 2, no. 1 (2004): 43-60; Gilles Emery, "Le
sacerdoce spirituel des fidèles chez saint Thomas d'Aquin," Revue thomiste 99, no. 1 (1999): 211-43. Pierre-Marie Gy, "La documentation
sacramentaire de Thomas d'Aquin: Quelle connaissance S Thomas a-t-il de la tradition ancienne et de la patristique?," Revue des sciences
philosophiques et théologiques 80, no. 3 (1996): 425-31; Pierre-Marie Gy, "Evolution de saint Thomas sur la théologie du sacrement de l'Ordre,"
Revue thomiste 99, no. 1 (1999): 181-89; Pierre-Marie Gy, "Divergences de théologie sacramentaire autour de s. Thomas," in Ordo sapientiae et
amoris: Image et message de saint Thomas d'Aquin à travers les récentes études historiques, hérméneutiques et doctrinales, ed. Carlos Josaphat
Pinto de Oliveria (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires, 1993); Pierre-Marie Gy, "L'Office du Corpus Christi et la théologie des accidents
eucharistiques," Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 66, no. 1 (1982): 81-86. Pierre-Marie Hombert, "La formule "ex opere
operato" chez saint Thomas," Mélanges de science religieuse 49, no. 3-4 (1992): 127-41. Thomas Humphries, "'These Words are Spirit and Life':
Thomas' use of Augustine on the Eucharist in Summa theologiae, III, 73-83," Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales 78, no. 1
(2011): 59-96. Matthew Levering and Michael Dauphinais, eds., Rediscovering Aquinas and the Sacraments: Studies in Sacramental Theology,
Hillenbrand Books collections series (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2009). Alfred Leslie Lilley, "The Sacramentalism of Aquinas," Modern
Churchman 16, no. 6-8 (1926): 391-401. Roger W. Nutt, "Configuration to Christ the Priest: Aquinas on Sacramental Character," Angelicum 85,
no. 1 (2008): 697-713; Roger W. Nutt, "From Within the Mediation of Christ: The Place of Christ in the Christian Moral and Sacramental Life
According to St. Thomas Aquinas," Nova et vetera 5, no. 4 (2007): 817-41. A. M. Roguet, Christ Acts Through the Sacraments (Collegeville,
Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1954). Jeremy Sienkiewicz, "The Eucharist and Salvation in the Thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Meaning and
Significance of Reception 'In voto'" (Catholic University of America, 2011). Denys Turner, "Sacrament and Ideology," New Blackfriars 64, no.
(1983): 171-80. Liam G. Walsh, The Sacraments of Initiation: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1988); Liam G.
Walsh, Sacraments of Initiation: A Theology of Rite, Word, and Life, 2nd ed., Studies Series (Chicago; Mundelein, Ill.: Hillenbrand Books,
2011); Liam G. Walsh, "The Holy Spirit in the Sacraments of Initiation," Antiphon 9, no. 3 (2005): 253-89. Thomas J. Bell, "The Eucharistic
Theologies of Lauda sion and Thomas Aquinas's Summa theologiae," Thomist 57 (1993): 163-85. Stephen L Brock, "St. Thomas and Eucharistic
Conversion," The Thomist 65, no. 4 (2001): 529-65. José Granados, "Bonaventure and Aquinas on Marriage: Between Creation and Redemption,"
4
Within Thomistic scholarship on the sacraments in general, subcategories of study largely
follow Thomas's own divisions of the subject. These subcategories include studies of causality,
signification, the institution of the sacraments, the effects of the sacraments, sacramental
character, the rites of the sacraments, the role of ministers, the role of recipients, the necessity of
the sacraments, the distinction between the sacraments of the Old and New Laws, the role of
intentionality in the sacraments, and studies of the form and matter of the sacraments, among
others. The subcategory of scholarship that most directly pertains to answering my stated
question is obviously that of signification. This subcategory is also where I would position the
present work.
B) Studies of Sacramental Causality
Unfortunately, scholarly writing on Thomas’s sacramentology, which fits only in the
subcategory of signification, is extremely scarce. In fact, I was unable to locate a single
exemplar. Rather, signification is typically addressed in studies that fit better in other
subcategories, chiefly in studies dealing with sacramental causality. This fact alone serves to
demonstrate the degree to which interpretations of Thomas's sacramentology are biased toward
causality.
This bias is also illustrated by the fact that the subcategory of causality has received the
most scholarly attention by far in the recent past. Some scholars, with whom I agree, attribute
this focus on causality, and concurrently the lack of attention on signification, to the Council of
Anthropotes: Revista di Studi sulla Persona e la Famiglia 28, no. 2 (2012): 339-59. Charles Journet, "Le mystère de la sacramentalité," Nova et
vetera (1974): 161-214. Daniel Keating, "Aquinas on 1 and 2 Corinthians: The Sacraments and Their Ministers," in Aquinas on Scripture
(London; New York: T & T Clark, 2005). Peter A. Kwasniewski, "St. Thomas Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy," in Liturgical Subject (Notre
Dame, Ind: Univ of Notre Dame Press, 2009). Peter J. Leithart, "Christs Christened into Christ: Priesthood and Initiation in Augustine and
Aquinas," Studia liturgica 29, no. 1 (1999): 68-83. Martin Morard, "L'eucharistie, clé de voûte de l'organisme sacramentel chez saint Thomas
d'Aquin," Revue thomiste 95, no. 2 (1995): 217-50. Maria C. Morrow, "Reconnecting Sacrament and Virtue: Penance in Thomas's 'Summa
Theologiae'," New Blackfriars 91, no. 1033 (2010): 304-20. Jan Heiner Tück, Gabe der Gegenwart: Theologie und Dichtung der Eucharistie bei
Thomas von Aquin (Freiburg im Breisgau; Basel; Wien: Herder, 2006). Paul de Vooght, "La théologie de la pénitence," Ephemerides theologicae
Lovanienses 25, no. (1949): 77-82.
5
Trent's reaction against Protestant denials of sacramental efficiency.4 Peter B. Garland and John
F. Gallagher, for instance, argue that Trent insisted that the sacraments were causative of grace,
which encouraged Catholic theologians to focus on this quality, which indirectly resulted in
scholarly neglect of signification.5 One can often discern in sacramental literature the attitude
that signification is a Protestant emphasis whereas sacramental efficiency is more distinctively a
Catholic emphasis.
Another possible reason for the lack of studies of Thomas's doctrine of sacramental
signification is the Neo-Scholastic movement, which followed the promulgation of Aeterni patris
in 1879. This interpretive tradition was born out of a reaction against modernity and modernity's
denial of all things supernatural. Neo-Scholastics found in Thomas a philosophical system that
was as rigorous as any modern philosophy and could be used to oppose modernist philosophy.
With its concern for philosophy and its concern to defend the intellectual tradition of the Church
in philosophical terms, Neo-Scholastics were far more prone to view Thomas as an Aristotelian
philosopher. Accordingly, in Thomas’s doctrine of the sacraments, Neo-Scholastics made more
of his use of the Aristotelian language of causality, than his discussions of signification, which fit
more with a spiritual, mystical, poetic, and contemplative view of Thomas, than the objective
and philosophical Thomas for which the Neo-Scholastics sought.
4
Cf. Council of Trent, Session VII, Canons V-VIII. These canons state: “Canon V: If any one saith, that these sacraments were instituted for the
sake of nourishing faith alone; let him be anathema. Canon VI: If any one saith, that the sacraments of the New Law do not contain the grace
which they signify; or, that they do not confer that grace on those who do not place an obstacle thereunto; as though they were merely outward
signs of grace or justice received through faith, and certain marks of the Christian profession, whereby believers are distinguished amongst men
from unbelievers; let him be anathema. Canon VII: If any one saith, that grace, as far as God's part is concerned, is not given through the said
sacraments, always, and to all men, even though they receive them rightly, but (only) sometimes, and to some persons; let him be anathema.
Canon VIII: If any one saith, that by the said sacraments of the New Law grace is not conferred through the act performed, but that faith alone in
the divine promise suffices for the obtaining of grace; let him be anathema.” The Latin text is as follows: “Canon V: Si quis dixerit, hæc
sacramenta propter solam fidem nutriendam instituta fuisse: anathema sit. Canon VI: Si quis dixerit, sacramenta novæ legis non continere
gratiam, quam significant; aut gratiam ipsam non ponentibus obicem non conferre; quasi signa tantum externa sint acceptæ per fidem gratiæ, vel
justitiæ, et notæ quædam Christianæ professionis, quibus apud homines discernuntur fideles ab infidelibus; anathema sit. Canon VII: Si quis
dixerit, non dari gratiam per hujusmodi sacramenta semper et omnibus, quantum est ex parte Dei, etiam si rite ea suscipiant, sed aliquando et
aliquibus: anathema sit. Canon VIII: Si quis dixerit, per ipsa novæ legis sacramenta ex opere operato non conferri gratiam, sed solam fidem
divinæ promissionis ad gratiam consequendam sufficere: anathema sit.” Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Cristendom, 3 vols., vol. 2 (New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1919).
5
Cf. Peter B. Garland, "The Definition of Sacrament According to Saint Thomas" (Diss, University of Ottawa Press, Pontificium Athenaeum
Angelicum, 1959), 2. See also, John F. Gallagher, Significando causant: A Study of Sacramental Efficiency, Studia Friburgensia (Fribourg:
University Press, 1965), 2.
6
I find both of these explanations plausible. Yet, regardless of the reason, there is a surplus
of studies of Thomas's notions of sacramental causality and a dearth of studies of his notions of
sacramental signification. In fact, to find out much about Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental
signification, one has to consult the literature on Thomas devoted to sacramental causality.
Within this literature, however, there is a subcategory that references sacramental signification
more reliably than other subcategories, namely, literature addressing the sign and cause debate.
Thomas’s sacramentology contains an inherent ambiguity. At various points in his writings,
Thomas says that the sacraments are signs, are causes, and that the sacraments are both signs and
causes. These statements raise questions about the relationship of signification and causality in
Thomas’s sacramentology, questions which have occasioned much scholarly debate.
Scholars in this debate fall into three categories: 1) those who think Thomas relates
causality and signification by entirely subjecting the sacraments nature as signs to their nature as
causes of grace, such that the sacraments are causes but as such may function as signs in some
respects; 2) those who think that Thomas imagines, but fails to specify, some way to reconcile or
balance signification and causality, such that the sacraments are both signs and causes; and, 3)
those who think that Thomas relates signification and causality by entirely subjecting causality to
signification, such that the sacraments are signs but may be said to function as causes in some
respects. Works that engage in this debate and attempt to address the relationship of signification
and causality in Thomas’s sacramentology are practically the sole source of scholarly
information about Thomas’s doctrine of signification. Thus, in the following sections, I examine
texts that fit into each of the three categories of this debate.
7
C) The Sign and Cause Debate: Cause
The first category of texts in the sign and cause debate consists of works by authors who
believe that Thomas's drastically prefers speaking about the sacraments in terms of causality.
These authors contend that Thomas subjects the fact that the sacraments are signs to fact that the
sacraments are first and foremost the causes of grace. As mentioned above, in the history of
Thomism since the Council of Trent, but especially in the Neo-Scholastic and manualist
movements following Aeterni Patris, these views have been the majority position.6 Rather than
surveying the entirety of this tradition, since it would lead to a lengthy digression, I discuss an
article that is both representative of Neo-Scholasticism and of Neo-Scholastic approaches to the
sign and cause debate, namely "Significación Y Causalidad Sacramental Según Santo Tomás De
Aquino" by Manuel J. Ordeig.
Ordeig's article argues that theoretically one might acknowledge there to be equality
between signification and causality, but for practical purposes, one must award priority to
causality. He claims that the signification of the sacraments of the New Law derives from and
must always be subject to the fact that they contain and are causes of grace. Ordeig’s primary
worry is that if one grants priority to signification, or makes the causing of grace related to or
dependent upon signification, then the sacraments devolve into an entirely subjective practice
that could or could not grant grace depending on whether and the degree to which any given
recipient of the sacrament recognizes the sign. Such an understanding is, according to Ordeig,
the root of the “Protestant heresy,” and especially that of the “Lutheran error.”7
6
Perhaps the foremost historical representative of the Neo-Scholastic tradition is Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. In his thought, he clearly
conceives of the sacraments as instrumental causes above all. Garrigou-Lagrange's position is so devoted to causal descriptions of the sacraments
that I have not seen it fit to include him in this discussion of the sign and cause debate. For him, the primacy of causality is indisputable. Cf.
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought, trans. Patrick Cummins (St. Louis, MO: Herder, 1950), 247-8. For a
helpful introduction to Garrigou-Lagrange's thought, see: Richard Peddicord, The Sacred Monster of Thomism: An Introduction to the Life and
Legacy of Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, 2005).
7
Manuel J. Ordeig, "Significación y causalidad sacramental según Santo Tomás de Aquino," Scripta Theologica 13, no. 1 (1981): 63-114.
8
Ordeig goes on to claim that Aquinas speaks of the sacraments as signs merely because
of the legacy of this notion in the tradition. According to Ordeig, Thomas’s triumph and
innovation was to subject the idea that sacraments are signs to the notion that sacraments are
efficient instrumental causes. Ordeig hereby articulates the standard Neo-Scholastic position.
Following in the footsteps of this interpretive tradition, Ordeig highly values understanding the
sacraments philosophically as efficient causes that God uses to cause grace in the souls of
sacramental recipients.
An additional text that comes down on the side of causality in the sign and cause debate
is Benoît-Dominique de la Soujeole’s article “The Importance of the Definition of Sacraments as
Signs.” This text falls short of Ordeig's and other Neo-Scholastics’ adamant stance on the
primacy of causality. De la Soujeole discusses sacramental signification and comes closer to
trying to balance signification and causality, but ultimately, despite the title of his article, he is
more concerned with causality and unsatisfactorily addresses signification. For instance, de la
Soujeole understands sacraments to be properly signs of the effect of grace. He writes,
“Therefore, we shall not say…that the sacrament is an ‘efficacious sign,’ but that the sacrament
is the sign of an efficaciousness.”8 In taking this position, de la Soujeole clearly subjects
signification to efficacy and causality. If the sacraments are signs, they are so only to point to the
causing of grace, which is their most important aspect.9
8
Benoît-Dominique de la Soujeole, "The Importance of the Definition of the Sacraments as Signs," in Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine,
the Sacraments, and the Moral Life, ed. Reinhard Hütter and Matthew Levering (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,
2010).
9
An additional text that one might place in this category is Dominic Holtz’s chapter, “Sacraments,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas. Holtz
mentions the signification of the sacraments, but argues that the sacraments are above all acts of God and thus above all instrumental causes. Cf.
Dominic Holtz, "Sacraments," in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, ed. Brian Davies and Eleonore Stump (Oxford; New York: Oxford
University Press, 2012), 448-58.
9
D) Sign and Cause: Attempted Balance or Reconciliation
The majority of studies that examine the relationship of signification and causality in
Aquinas endeavor to achieve a mediating position. These studies are usually the most useful
resources for information about Thomas's doctrine of sacramental signification. However, most
of these texts are still deficient in various respects. I here highlight four studies by three authors,
which are representative of the ‘attempted balance’ category and which demonstrate some
common shortcomings.
One of the best studies of Thomas's sacramentology is John F. Gallagher’s Significando
Causant: A Study of Sacramental Efficiency. Gallagher's text is admirable because it is able to
achieve a defensible explanation for how Thomas understands the sacraments to be both signs
and causes. In order to do this, Gallagher traces Thomas's notions of sacramental causality across
a number of his texts. Gallagher also devotes some attention to Thomas's notions of sacramental
signification. However, his treatment of signification is an afterthought. Gallagher only speaks of
the sacraments’ signification in a few pages of his final chapter,10 and he only treats it insofar as
it relates to causality. Gallagher does not discuss the overall role of signification or the doctrine's
development throughout Thomas's career, as he does with Thomas's notions of causality.
Gallagher thus illustrates a common pitfall in the literature with respect to signification. When
signification is addressed, it is almost always done so briefly, in passing, and as a means to
understanding some other topic, like causality.
Two more authors who have written pieces that fall into the mediating category are
worthy of note. The first is Thomas G. Weinandy and his article, “The Human Acts of Christ and
10
Cf. Gallagher, Significando causant: A Study of Sacramental Efficiency, Ch. 6, 221ff.
10
the Acts That Are the Sacraments.”11 This text attempts to explain how the sacraments might be
thought of as signs and causes; and, it is able to arrive at a reasonable position by focusing upon
the mediatorial nature of Christ. Weinandy's work, however, is more constructive and
philosophical in nature than historical and theological. He is less concerned to give a careful
exposition of Thomas's own notions of signification and causality than he is to develop an
account of how thinkers in the present might hold signification and causality in tension. This
illustrates another common shortcoming of the secondary literature.
The second author is Liam G. Walsh, who has two relevant texts, a chapter “Sacraments”
in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas,12 and an article, “The Divine and the Human in St.
Thomas’s Theology of the Sacraments.”13 Like Weinandy, Walsh posits a plausible
understanding of how one might think of the sacraments as both signs and causes. Unlike
Weinandy, however, Walsh does a better job of expounding Thomas's own thoughts on the issue.
Nonetheless, Walsh still believes that Thomas's sacramental theology is more concerned with
causality, and he gives this aspect the most attention. He writes, “There can be no doubt…that it
is particularly through his conception of divine causality that [Thomas] explains how sacraments
are a human experience of the presence and action of God.”14 Thus, Walsh does not address the
overall role of signification or provide a very close study of it. Furthermore, he confines his work
in both texts to Thomas's thoughts as expressed in the Summa theologiae. This narrow focus is
common and does not provide a full picture of Thomas's doctrine.
11
Thomas G. Weinandy, "The Human Acts of Christ and the Acts that are the Sacraments," in Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the
Sacraments, and the Moral Life, ed. Reinhard Hütter and Matthew Levering (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press,
2010).
12
Liam G. Walsh, "Sacraments," in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Rik van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow (Notre Dame, Indiana:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2005).
13
Liam G. Walsh, "The Divine and the Human in St. Thomas's Theology of Sacraments," in Ordo sapientiae et amoris: Image et message de
saint Thomas d' Aquin à travers les récentes études historiques, hérméneutiques et doctrinales. Hommage au Professeur Jean-Pierre Torell OP à
l' occasion de son 65e anniversaire, ed. Carlos-Josaphat Pinto de Oliveira (Fribourg: Studia Friburgensia, 1993).
14
Ibid., 326.
11
Hence, Gallagher's, Weinandy's, and Walsh's studies do adequately study the
signification of the sacraments in Thomas. Furthermore, these texts serve to illustrate the bias of
the standard reading of Thomas's sacramentology and of the available secondary literature on the
subject. The current bent may be said to be toward contemporary philosophical questions, not
Thomas's own concerns or own terms; toward reading a single text, usually the Summa
theologiae, as adequate for expressing Thomas's thought as a whole; toward an acontextual
reading of Thomas; and especially toward reading Thomas's sacramentology as ultimately or
overwhelmingly concerned with sacramental causality and as unconcerned with sacramental
signification. These aspects are characteristic of the standard reading of Thomas’s
sacramentology, and it is these aspects that I counteract with the present study.
E) Sign and Cause: Sign
A final category of texts in the sign and cause debate consists of texts that believe
Thomas relates signification and causality in the sacraments by subjecting causality to
signification, or that Thomas ultimately values signification as a concept to explain the
sacraments more highly than the concept of causality. Theoretically, this category should be the
most helpful for finding out Thomas's thoughts on sacramental signification and should be the
closest to texts which would fit in the empty subcategory of texts devoted solely to studying
sacramental signification. Unfortunately, texts that engage in the sign and cause debate and come
down firmly on the side of signification are lacking. In fact, I have been able to find only a single
author that advances something like this position, Colman O’Neill, who does so in, “The Role of
the Recipient and Sacramental Signification.”15
15
Colman E. O'Neill, "The Role of the Recipient and Sacramental Signification," The Thomist 21, no. (1958): 257-301; 508-40. While O'Neill
discusses signification and causality, it is debatable whether he is engaged in the sign and cause debate proper. His primary concern, as
12
As the title suggests, O’Neill’s focus is not on the sacraments themselves but on the
recipient of the sacraments. More specifically, O’Neill seeks to understand the role that the
intentionality of the recipient and the signification to the recipient plays in the sacraments. In
discussing this topic, however, O’Neill argues that “the sacraments are not merely efficient
causes but also, and primarily, signs of faith.”16 Hence, for O’Neill, the purpose of signification
is more than just to signify the effect of grace or the efficient cause of this effect as de la
Soujeole, Ordeig, and others would have it.
Understanding the sacraments’ signification as only a signification of the sacrament's
efficacy would mean, according to O’Neill, that the subject is merely a passive recipient of the
sacraments. Furthermore, this understanding fails to account for each of the following: the
subject’s participation in the sacramental sign (as for example when the subject is washed in
Baptism or eats the Eucharist), the intention of the subject to receive what the Church gives, the
faith of the subject expressed in receiving the sacraments, or the faith of the worshiping Church
expressed in administering the sacraments, all of which Thomas thinks must join together for a
sacrament to be efficacious. On this final component, O’Neill writes:
St. Thomas’s insistence on the intervention of the faith of the Church demonstrates beyond
any doubt that he regards the intentions of those concerned in the sacrament as pertaining
directly and immediately to the order of signification…Efficient causality of grace comes
after this as a consequence, an entirely gratuitous complement granted by God, not
essentially (though infallibly) connected with the ceremonial of the Church.17
O’Neill later adds that the active participation of the sacramental recipient in the sign, through
intentionality, faith, and the act of receiving the sacramental elements through the act of the
Church, “completes the application to himself of the sacrament as an action of Christ, first of all
mentioned below and as evident in the title of his work, is the role of sacramental recipients, not to determine how Thomas relates or reconciles
signification and causality in general. Nonetheless, O'Neill's work does argue for the primacy of signification and the necessity of properly
understanding it. Thus, I classify it here.
16
Ibid., 257. The emphasis is mine.
17
Ibid., 275.
13
and formally, on the level of signification, thus preparing the way for consequent efficient
causality. It is only [then] that there is any possibility of the sacrament producing an effect.”18
Thus, unlike the other authors mentioned thus far, O’Neill makes a logical argument
against the subjection of sacramental signification to sacramental causality. O'Neill's study of
and grasp of signification in Thomas's sacramentology far outpaces the other authors writing in
the sign and cause debate. His identification of the signifying elements at play in the sacramental
recipient's role alone demonstrates the depth and complexity of Thomas's notions of
signification. He thereby also demonstrates the detriment to scholarly understanding when
thinkers fail to study signification.
O’Neill’s work, however, only scratches the surface of Thomas's doctrine of sacramental
signification, even as it hints at the further depth that is present. O'Neill's study, for instance,
only considers the signification of the sacraments as it pertains to the recipient’s role, rather than
comprehensively. Even more narrowly, O'Neill focuses mainly on the intentionality and
dispositions of the recipient. This focus is understandable as it renders O'Neill's study article-
length. However, this limitation leaves much work to be done with respect to Thomas's doctrine
of sacramental signification. Focusing only on the recipient, for instance, does not allow O'Neill
to address the nature of signification itself or the nature of the sacraments themselves.
O'Neill's work also fails to account for the ultimate purpose of signification, to assess
how signification fits into and relates to aspects of Thomas's broader theology. It does not
monitor how Thomas's thoughts on signification changed throughout his career. In this regard,
O'Neill's work is limited by the fact that he confines his attention to Thomas’s thought primarily
18
Ibid., 297.
14
as expressed in the Summa, rather than throughout his corpus.19 The result of this constriction is
that O'Neill only provides only a snapshot of Thomas's thought at one point in time. He provides
no insight into how Thomas arrived at his position, how his position developed throughout time
and in changing contexts, or into other positions that Thomas's might have held at other times.
Thus, while O'Neill's work is excellent, his treatment of sacramental signification is insufficient.
O'Neill's dissenting opinion from the standard reading is a step forward, but it requires more
study and more voices to be added to it.
F) Secondary Literature on Causality not in the Sign and Cause Debate
Outside of the literature of the sign and cause debate proper, one additional text is helpful
to note in the current survey.20 This article, “Efficient Causality and Instrumentality in Thomas
Aquinas’s Theology of the Sacraments” by Philip Lyndon Reynolds, focuses strictly on
19
O’Neill, again an example of being better than most scholars on this issue, briefly mentions Thomas’s Scriptum and a few of Thomas's other
works. However, he only addresses them briefly, and he treats them only on his way to talking about the Summa. He makes no move of speaking
to the development of Thomas's thought.
20
A host of additional literature is available that is indirectly relevant to my topic, but discussion at length of it here would be more burdensome
than helpful. Most notably, there is a good deal of literature that takes a post-modern philosophical or semiotic approach to sacramental
signification. Some of these studies take Thomas as an opponent, however, and mention his sacramental theology only as a foil. I have examined
this literature, but my focus is on the thought of Thomas himself rather than on current philosophical debates. Hence, I will note these works here
only in passing. See especially: Louis Marie Chauvet, Symbole et sacrement: une relecture sacramentelle de l'existence Chrétienne, Cogitatio
fidei (Paris: Cerf, 1987); Louis Marie Chauvet, Du symbolique au symbole: Essai sur les sacrements (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1979); Louis
Marie Chauvet, "Causalité et efficacité: enjeux mediévaux et contemporains," Transversalités 105 (2008): 31-51. See also, J. A. Appleyard,
"How Does A Sacrament 'Cause By Signifying'," Science et Esprit 23, no. 2 (1971): 167-200. and Kenan B. Osborne, Christian Sacraments in a
Postmodern World: A Theology for the Third Millennium (New York: Paulist Press, 1999); Kenan B. Osborne, Sacramental Theology: A General
Introduction (New York: Paulist Press, 1988). For responses to the positions taken by these texts see: Bernhard Blankenhorn, "The Instrumental
Causality of the Sacraments: Thomas Aquinas and Louis-Marie Chauvet," Nova et vetera 4, no. 2 (2006): 255-93; Mervyn Duffy, How
Language, Ritual and Sacraments Work: According to John Austin, Jürgen Habermas and Louis-Marie Chauvet, Tesi Gregoriana Serie Teologia
(Roma: Editrice Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, 2005); Joseph C. Mudd, "From De-Ontotheology to a Metaphysics of Meaning: Louis-Marie
Chauvet and Bernard Lonergan on Foundations in Sacramental Theology," Proceedings of the North American Academy of Liturgy (2008): 114-
35; Joseph C. Mudd, "Eucharist and Critical Metaphysics: A Response to Louis-Marie Chauvet's Symbol and Sacrament Drawing on the Works
of Bernard Lonergan" (Boston College, 2010). Jason A. Fugikawa, "Sacramental Causality: The Approaches of St. Thomas Aquinas, Karl
Rahner, and Louis-Marie Chauvet" (Ph.D., Ave Maria University, 2011). Ralph Martin, "The Post-Christendom Sacramental Crisis: The Wisdom
of Thomas Aquinas," Nova et vetera 11, no. 1 (2013): 57-75. Philippe Bordeyne and Bruce T. Morrill, Sacraments: Revelation of the Humanity of
God: Engaging the Fundamental Theology of Louis-Marie Chauvet (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2008). For other studies of Thomas's
sacramental theology in general that are of only indirect help, or for studies that treat sacramental signification in manners similar to those already
presented above, see the following. David Berger, Was ist ein Sakrament?: der hl. Thomas von Aquin und die Sakramente im allgemeinen
(Siegburg: Schmitt, 2004); David Berger, Thomas Aquinas and The Liturgy, 2nd ed. (Ann Arbor, MI: Sapientia Press, 2005). John P. Yocum,
"Sacraments in Aquinas," in Aquinas on Doctrine: A Critical Introduction, ed. Daniel Keating Thomas Weinandy, and John Yocum (London;
New York: T&T Clark International, 2004). Bertrand-Marie Perrin, L'institution des sacrements dans le Commentaire des sentences de Saint
Thomas (Paris: Parole et silence, 2008). Nathan Lefler, "Sign, Cause, and Person in St. Thomas's Sacramental Theology: Further Considerations,"
Nova et vetera 4, no. 2 (2006): 381-404. Bernhard Blankenhorn, "The Place of Romans 6 in Aquinas's Doctrine of Sacramental Causality: A
Balance of History and Metaphysics," in Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, and the Moral Life, ed. Reinhard Hütter and
Matthew Levering (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010). Finally, Patrick Regan, "Signs that Signify and Sanctify:
The Scholastic Contribution to Understanding Sacraments," Assembly (Notre Dame, Ind.) 34, no. 4 (2008): 51-56.
15
Thomas's notion of causality, and it does not address signification at all. It thus is like the
overwhelming majority of texts on Thomas's sacramentology. Reynolds's argument, however,
even without mentioning signification, indirectly creates a space for it to play a role in Thomas's
sacramental thought. In short, Reynolds attempts to contravene the standard reading of Thomas's
doctrine of sacramental causality.21 Instead, he advances a so-called “minimal interpretation.”22
Reynolds claims that Thomas eventually “reduces the debate over sacramental causality to its
bare essentials”23 and that Thomas, in his Summa theologiae, comes to adopt a kind of apophatic
humility when it comes to speaking about sacramental causality, which he did not possess in the
Scriptum super Sententiis. Reynolds’s reading is thus of present interest because he adds another
dissenting voice to O'Neill's position against the standard causality-focused reading of Thomas's
sacramentology. Though he does not study signification or explicitly engage in the sign and
cause debate, Reynolds's argument calls into question the presumption that Thomas's
sacramentology is primarily concerned with the causality of grace.
IV. Position, Arguments, and Goals of this Study
A) Position of this Study
In the terms developed above, I position the present study first as a study of Thomas's
sacramental theology, and then as a study of Thomas’s doctrine of the sacraments in general.
This initial position does not mean that I will not consult Thomas's writings on particular
sacraments. Thomas's writings on the Eucharist, in particular, are illuminative of his doctrine of
21
This standard reading is roughly that Thomas moves from a hybrid dispositive/instrumental model of sacramental causality in his Scriptum to a
strictly instrumental model of causality in his Summa Theologiae as a result of his encounter with the thought of Averroës. The standard reading
also includes the assumption that the role Thomas assigns to causality increases in the Summa. Cf. H.F. Dondaine, "A propos d'Avicenne et de
saint Thomas: de la causalité dispositive à la causalité insturmentale," Revue Thomiste 51, no. (1951): 441-53.
22
Philip Lyndon Reynolds, "Efficient Causality and Instrumentality in Thomas Aquinas’s Theology of the Sacraments," in Essays in Medieval
Philosophy and Theology in Memory of Walter H. Principe, C.S.B.: Fortresses and Launching Pads, ed. James R. Ginther and Carl N. Still
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 79.
23
Ibid.
16
sacramental signification. However, I focus primarily on Thomas's writings that address the
sacraments in general. Thus, this study fits best in this subcategory.
From this point, the present work falls into the subcategory of studies of signification. As
mentioned above, this subcategory exists because it is a division of Thomas's own thought, not
because other scholarly works populate it. In fact, aside from perhaps the work of O'Neill, this
study is the only work of which I know to be devoted to studying Thomas's doctrine of
sacramental signification for its own sake, rather than studying it as a means of studying another
doctrine or as a part of a greater purpose, like providing a general summary of Thomas's
sacramentology.
As with the subcategory of causality, presumably, the subcategory of signification has a
further division of studies within it, which would theoretically be devoted to works that engage
in the sign and cause debate. I do not see the present study as primarily situated in this sub-
category. The study does not, for instance, primarily answer the question of how Thomas can
hold the sacraments to be both signs and causes; it does not primarily reconcile the sacraments'
nature as causes with the sacraments' nature as signs; and, it does not engage directly with
particular positions or contemporary voices in this debate. This is not to say that the findings of
this study will not be of the utmost relevance to the sign and cause debate, or even that the study
will not indirectly answer some of the key questions of this debate, like how Thomas imagines
signification and causality relating at various points in his career. Moreover, the arguments of
this study obviously come down on the side of signification in this debate. It would be fair to say,
therefore, that this debate frames the present study. However, my study is of a higher order.
Rather than taking part in the sign and cause debate itself, my study establishes what Thomas
thinks about signification, how he uses this notion, and how his thoughts change over time. None
17
of this has been adequately done. Applying any findings to the sign and cause debate is work for
a later date.
Finally, within these categories and as mentioned in Section I, I would position the
current study as a work of theology, first, and then more precisely as a work of historical
theology. This is not a work, for instance, of philosophy, or religious studies, or literary
criticism, or of pure history. It is a work intended to advance the academic and scientific24 study
of God by employing the tools of historical research and applying them to the revelatory
Tradition of the Church. In this regard, in addition to being positioned more or less in line with
the dissenting voices of O'Neill and Reynolds, I envision this work more broadly in line with the
work of Marie-Dominique Chenu and Jean-Pierre Torrell. Both of these historical theologians
made great strides not just in advancing historical knowledge and readings of Thomas, but of
recovering the mystical, spiritual, and radical sides of Thomas as well.
B) Arguments of this Study
Above, I have specified that the general argument of this study is that Thomas expands
the theological role of signification in his sacramentology over the course of his career while
contracting the theological role of causality. More specifically, however, I advance ten primary
arguments that support, comprise, or develop this overall thesis. These arguments, together with
my primary thesis, make up the answer to my driving question and its sub-questions. These
arguments are as follows.
24
I here mean scientific in the Medieval sense of an ordered rational pursuit, not in the modern sense of empirical natural science.
18
1) Development Occurred
First, I must establish that Thomas's sacramentology did in fact change over time. The
primary texts will support this easily enough. I next argue that certain changes represent
legitimate development, which I define as positive growth, maturation, improvement, or refining
of a person’s thought. Development is thus opposed to changes in form due to external
circumstances and instead consists in an essential change of mind in a demonstrably positive
direction. For instance, using two different examples to illustrate the same concept at two
different times or to two different audiences is a change, but not a development. On the other
hand, changing metaphors that one uses to illustrate a concept from one that leaves the concept
ambiguous or with many unanswered questions to one that more clearly explains the concept and
resolves contradictions is development, especially if one arrives at the new explanation as a
result of new insight or new life experiences. Some interpreters of Thomas have denied, either
implicitly or explicitly, that his teaching changed in any substantial way. With this and similar
positions, I beg to differ.
2) Role of Signification at the Beginning of Thomas's Career
In order to establish that development happened, I first must establish the starting point of
Thomas's doctrine of sacramental signification. I do this in Chapter Two and with this second
argument. I here argue that in Thomas's first major theological writing, his Scriptum super
Sententiis, he understands the sacraments to have a dual nature as both signs and causes. I also
argue that Thomas, at this point in his career, subjugates the sacraments’ significatory nature to
their causal nature. The role of signification in his initial formulation, therefore, is something
along the lines of an appendage. The tradition and the theological authorities that Thomas uses
19
obligate him to speak of the sacraments both with the language of signs and the language of
causes. Thomas places both of these concepts in the essence of what a sacrament is, but he
prefers to speak of the sacraments as causes and gives this concept the most theological weight.
He does so by making causality the means whereby he distinguishes the sacraments of the Old
Law and the seven sacraments of the New Law.
3) Significatory Turn
I next argue that Thomas gradually moves away from the sacramentology of his early
writings and that this move is characterized by, among other things, a shift away from using the
notion of causality as his primary means of understanding the sacraments. He then shifts into the
practice of using the notion of signification as the key sacramental concept. I suggest that this
significatory turn is first detectable during Thomas’s time in Orvieto, but that it culminated in his
writing of liturgical documents in 1264 for the feast of Corpus Christi. Thomas then persists in
this significatory emphasis. His subsequent writings evince a clear understanding that the
sacraments are solely signs, and they make extensive use of this concept to accomplish
theological work. This turn to the significatory thus took place when Thomas moved from the
highly academic and intellectual context of the University of Paris to a more pastoral context at
Orvieto. During this time, Thomas would have been teaching his common Dominican brothers
and writing liturgical texts of contemplation and praise for lay and religious persons alike. Rather
than being an alteration due to audience and context, though, I view this change as development
because Thomas continues to develop his significatory take on the sacraments when he
subsequently goes to Rome and back to the University of Paris.
20
4) Role of Signification at the End of Thomas's Career
To complete the narrative of the development, I next include an argument about the state
of Thomas’s sacramentology at the end of his career. Thomas maintains his significatory
emphasis through his writing of the Summa theologiae. In this text, Thomas had long since
abandoned his notion that the sacraments have a dual nature as both signs and causes. Here, he
characterizes the sacraments as having the sole essence of signs, or as he puts it “sacramentum
ponitur in genere signi.”25 Thus, I argue that at the end of his career, signification is the central
notion of Thomas's sacramentology.
5) Limitation of the notion of Causality
Thomas does, later in the Summa theologiae, still attribute causality to the sacraments.
However, when read in the context of the developmental trajectory of his previous writings, I
argue that Thomas drastically limits the applicability of this notion and subjugates it to the
sacraments' nature as signs. He teaches that one can use the language of causality to speak about
the sacraments only if one intends to express the very precise notion that God uses the
sacramental signs as a means of giving grace to human beings. Causality is thus not a part of the
sacraments’ essence; the sacraments cannot be said to be causes in any simple or unqualified
sense; and the sacraments cannot be said to cause anything themselves or by their own power.
The sacraments are rather signs that God uses, as signs, to lead humans toward God's self. By
this process of being lead, God actively communicates grace.
Hence, by the end of his career, Thomas repudiates the position he took in his earliest
writings. There, the sacraments were both signs and causes, and their causal nature was their
most theologically important characteristic. By the end of his career, though, Thomas comes to
25
Aquinatis, Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, t. 4-12: Summae theologiae, III, q. 60, a. 1, res.
21
see the sacraments as signs alone, and he merely acknowledges that one can speak of the
sacraments as signs that God uses to bring about certain effects. Signification thus has become
the sacraments' definitive concept, while causality is relegated to the position of being but a
single concept, which refers to but a single aspect of what the sacraments do.
6) The Standard Reading is Incorrect
In light of the previous arguments, with this study as a whole, I argue that the current
scholarly understanding of Thomas's sacramentology is wrong. The idea that causality is the
aspect of Thomas’s sacramentology most worthy of attention and study would be correct if it
were applied only to his earliest writings. If one limits one’s reading to Thomas’s most academic
writings, the Scriptum super Sententiis, the Summa theologiae, and his Disputed Questions, it
may even be possible to come to the conclusion that Thomas's sacramentology is organized
around the fact that the sacraments cause grace. However, when one places Thomas’s texts in
their proper contexts, when one reads all of Thomas's writings, and when one reads the Summa
theologiae in light of the trajectory of his sacramental thought's development, one reaches a
different conclusion. Reading Thomas in this way reveals that his sacramentology as a whole and
in its most mature form is oriented around an understanding of the sacraments as signs inundated
with meaning for individuals and for the Church community, which God uses to communicate to
humans in terms natural to them and which in all of their manifold meanings ultimately point
persons to Christ, who is the font of grace.
22
7) Extra-Sacramentological Shifts
I next argue that the shift toward signification in Thomas's sacramentology is intertwined
with several other shifts throughout the course of his career. Thomas's sacramentology has many
moving parts, most of which are correlated with his significatory turn. Due to the number and
nature of these changing notions, I have not found it possible to establish any causal relationships
among these moving parts. For instance, one may suspect that changes in Thomas's
understanding of the nature of grace could be responsible for changes in the role that Thomas
envisions signification playing in the sacraments, or vice versa. However, I have not seen
sufficient evidence to support either conclusion. Hence, with this argument and the next, I seek
to establish only the existence and correlation of several simultaneous shifts that occur as
Thomas's sacramental thought develops. All of these changes interweave and follow a consistent
developmental trajectory, even if one cannot state which movements lead and which follow. I
divide these shifts into extra-sacramentological shifts and intra-sacramentological shifts.
I identify five relevant extra-sacramentological shifts. First, I argue that along with the
development of Thomas's doctrine of sacramental signification, his doctrine of grace changes
from a created understanding to an uncreated understanding of grace. Thomas moves from
thinking that grace is a created ornament of the soul, to thinking that grace is God's own self-gift
and indwelling of the soul. Second and third, I argue that Thomas's anthropology and doctrine of
creation change throughout his career. Thomas moves from seeing humans as fallen creatures
entrapped by the material world, to seeing humans as body/soul composites who are essentially
bodily and spiritual, who are sign-making political animals, and who God always intended to
learn from material realities and to be lead by them into spiritual truths. Thomas thus changes
23
how he understands the human person and he changes his attitude toward created material
reality.
Fourth, I maintain that Thomas's attitude toward the Old Covenant changes, especially
his attitude toward the sacraments of the Old Law. Initially, Thomas thought that the sacraments
of the Old Law were inherently deficient acts that merely had the ability to point toward grace,
whereas the sacraments of the New Law are powerful acts that have the ability to cause grace.
He later moves into the more positive and less oppositional understanding that the purpose of
both the Old and New sacraments was to point to Christ and that they merely do so in different
ways befitting different times in history. The Old Sacraments pointed to Christ as one yet to
come, and the New Sacraments point to Christ as one who has come and is present and active.
Fifth and finally, I argue that a shift occurs in Thomas’s preferred source materials.
Thomas turns away from the thought of Hugh of St. Victor toward the thought of Pseudo-
Dionysius. He also more deeply appropriates the thought of Augustine. These shifts are
especially the case as regards the operative metaphor that Thomas uses to characterize the
sacraments. He moves from understanding the sacraments in Hugonian medicinal and remedial
terms to understanding the sacraments Dionysian analogical and Augustinian significatory terms.
8) Intra-Sacramentological Shifts
Within Thomas's doctrine of the sacraments, a number of shifts occur over the course of
his career along with his shift toward signification. Again, I name five of these changes. I argue
only for the correlation of all these shifts with the development of the doctrine of sacramental
signification. My suspicion with these intra-sacramentological changes is that Thomas's move
toward thinking of the sacraments in terms of signs made many of these other moves possible.
24
However, I leave this assessment up to the reader and focus merely on establishing the existence
of these shifts.
First, over time, I argue that Thomas's sacramentology became increasingly
Christological. This is not to say that it was not Christological to begin with, but by the end of
his career Thomas orients his sacramentology completely around leading persons to Christ.
Second, I argue that Thomas's sacramentology became more ecclesiological, and thus less
focused exclusively on individual salvation and more focused on the worship of the Christian
community in addition to the individual.
Third, Thomas's sacramentology, over the course of its development, became
increasingly deificatory. Thomas always closely linked his sacramentology to his eschatology,
but by the time of his writing of the Corpus Christi Liturgy, especially, Thomas adds to this a
distinctive insistence on the fact that the sacraments are meant to lead a person not just into
salvation and sanctification, but also into deification.
Fourth, I contend that Thomas's sacramentology developed to become more positive
overall. Thus, for example, as was mentioned in the previous argument, Thomas initially had a
negative attitude toward the sacraments of the Old law and toward material creation. To this, I
would add as well that he had a negative attitude toward signification and toward the human
condition. He depicted humans as enslaved by the material world and mired in sin. By his final
formulation, however, Thomas changes many of these negative portrayals. He of course still
envisions humans as sinful creatures, yet the emphasis of his sacramentology is not on delivery
from sin but on union with God. Thus, I characterize this shift as a move to a more positive
sacramentology.
25
Fifth and finally, I argue that Thomas's sacramentology became ever more pastoral,
mystical, and contemplative and less intellectual, objective, philosophical, and academic as
Thomas matured as a thinker. Thomas's sacramentology, of course, did not become any less
rigorous or less rational. However, Thomas did come to be able to better balance the intellectual
with the spiritual in his final sacramental articulation. He was able to more closely wed head and
heart, or body and spirit. This shift especially, I see as deeply interrelated with the shift from
causality to signification. I also believe this shift to flow from Thomas's work on the Corpus
Christi Liturgy and to be additionally supported by the biographical fact that Thomas's life's
journey culminated in a mystical experience that caused him to cease his academic pursuits in
the light of the sheer reality and beauty of what God showed him.
9) Signification Allows for a Better Sacramentology
My next argument is that Thomas's shift toward using signification as the central concept
of his sacramentology allowed him to improve his sacramentology as a whole. For this view, I
have two reasons. First, signification allowed Thomas to synthesize and integrate his
sacramentology better with the rest of his theology. Coming to view humans as sign-making
creatures who are a composite of body and soul and who are led to knowledge of the spiritual by
abstracting from sense data of the material, for instance, allowed Thomas to knit together his
anthropology and his sacramentology. God made humans learn through signs, and God teaches
humans about salvation through signs. Similarly, Thomas links his sacramentology to his
Christology by envisioning the sacraments as signs that lead persons to Christ and join them to
Christ's work. He links his sacramentology to his Ecclesiology by understanding the fact that
groups, just like individuals, both communicate meaning in the language of signs and worship by
26
the use of signs. Thus, understanding the sacraments in terms of signification allows Thomas to
create a systematic theology that is deeply unified and whose doctrines all join together for the
purpose of drawing persons into deifying communion with God.
Second, signification allowed Thomas to better teach his theology to laypersons, priests,
and academics alike. Signification serves as a positive, compelling, and easily understood
unifying metaphor. The idea of a sign is much more easily grasped, but no less powerful, than
the idea of secondary efficient instrumental causality. Furthermore, signification allowed
Thomas to teach better by allowing him to answer theological questions better. In his later
writings, Thomas answers a wide array of theological difficulties by referring back to the
sacraments’ nature as signs.
10) Proper Reading of the Summa theologiae
Lastly, as implied by my argument about the endpoint of Thomas's sacramentology, I
wish to explicitly argue for the proper way to read the Summa theologiae. This text cannot be
regarded as a kind of theological encyclopedia or manual, wherein one can simply look up the
answers to various theological problems. The Summa theologiae also cannot be regarded as the
sole expression of Thomas's thought, such that one need only consult the Summa to find out
Thomas's opinion on any particular matter. Finally, one cannot read the Summa theologiae,
atemporally or acontextually, as though the rational arguments contained therein contain timeless
philosophical truths that are objective and independent of the time and place in which they were
said.
Various scholars have held each of these attitudes throughout the years, and I contend
that they are all faulty. Thus, I argue that one must read the Summa theologiae in its
27
developmental context, in the context of Thomas's life and times, and in the context of the
trajectory of his own thought. This, of course, implies as well that the Summa theologiae is not
the only work of Thomas's that needs to be the focus of scholarly attention, which is another
common pitfall of the interpretive tradition.
C) Goals of this Study
Given how I position this study in the scholarly field and the arguments that I make, I
now turn to mention briefly six goals for this work. First, above all, I hope to provide the
scholarly community a greater understanding of Thomas's sacramentology and his doctrine of
sacramental signification. Second, I hope to recover the value, for systematic theology, for the
Church, and for the Christian Life, of conceiving of the sacraments in terms of signs first and
foremost rather than in terms of causality. I believe that a significatory understanding encourages
treating the sacraments like meaning-filled love letters, which invite and forge communion with
God and neighbor. While, on the other hand, conceiving the sacraments in terms of causality
risks depicting the sacraments as vending machines, which dispense a spiritual commodity.
Third, I hope that this study will work to contravene the typical understanding of
Thomas's sacramentology. Thomas’s sacramentology is not primarily a philosophical account of
the sacraments focused on the Aristotelian notion of causality. Aristotle is far from Thomas’s
primary inspiration for sacramentology, but one would not think as much from the scholarship.
Fourth, along similar lines, I hope that my work will encourage readers to look at Thomas
from a fresh perspective, thereby revitalizing the study of one of the greatest minds in the
Christian tradition. I hope to encourage persons to view Thomas both in more human and in
more spiritual terms. So often Thomas is regarded as a cold dry abstract intellectual with little or
28
nothing to say to the average person or the daily practice of the Christian life. With my reading
of Thomas, I hope to depict Thomas both as a real person who learned, changed his mind, and
grew, and as a person who cared deeply about communicating and commending the truths of the
faith as the surest guide for life and the surest path to beatitude.
Fifth, with this study, I hope to encourage a developmental method for reading Thomas,
and thus set an interpretive agenda for future scholarly work on other areas of Thomas's
theology. I believe that this method is capable of providing a much fuller understanding of
Thomas's theology, an understanding of how it grew and changed over time rather than just a
quick snapshot of how his thought on any given issue existed at one particular time or in one
particular context. Sixth and lastly, I hope that my study of Thomas's sacramentology will
provide information and a new perspective that will be valuable for the sign and cause debate
within study of Thomas's sacramentology. Though I do not intend to engage in this debate
explicitly, I do intend my work to be of use in advancing greater understanding of this area of
Thomas's thought.
V. Methodology
A) Developmental Method
I now turn to the methodology I employ to answer the guiding questions, demonstrate the
arguments, and accomplish the goals of this study. As mentioned, my primary methodology is
developmental. I understand this method to consist in the practice of analyzing texts from a
variety of contexts, discerning the similarities and differences of these texts, and formulating a
narrative, which conveys any growth or maturation present and which speaks to possible factors
that may have influenced changes. A developmental method thus interprets a thinker's thought in
29
light of how his or her thought changes throughout time and throughout various contexts. This
method seeks to present a full life-long view of a person's thought, which is inherently superior
to presenting the views of a single text.
The developmental method as a whole is diachronic, but it is premised on synchronic
comparative study of texts from throughout a thinker's corpus. This comparative work is
premised on the assumption that humans learn best by placing things in relationships and
observing similarities and differences. This assumption is especially appropriate for the current
research because it is shared by Thomas's own analogical theological method.
The developmental method is most directly supported by the tools of the historical-
critical method, which seek to understand texts in their historical contexts. Thus, before arguing
in favor of development, I situate each of Thomas's texts in their historical contexts, especially
the contexts of medieval education, medieval theological development, and the context of
Thomas's own life experiences. These three contexts are the most directly relevant for
understanding Thomas’s work, since he was a medieval theologian and educator.
In addition to understanding context, my historical-critical work requires analyzing the
dating and authenticity of each text examined, including where necessary its manuscript
tradition, as well as taking account of each texts’ genre, audience, and purpose. I also make
frequent use of source analysis as a tool for understanding Thomas's development. Much of this
work will take place in Chapter One.
The developmental method is able to accommodate any number of other scholarly
methods to better understand the texts it examines. In the particular case of studying Thomas's
sacramentology, certain theological and literary critical methods play supporting roles. In
particular, I make use of systematic theological analysis, in order to better understand how
30
Thomas weaves together his sacramental theology with other doctrines in order to present a
coherent, compelling, and comprehensive account of the Christian faith. I also use the literary
methods of word frequency studies and literary structural analyses in order to better understand
Thomas's writings and his emphases. With these methodological tools named, I now turn to
speak to the particular texts upon which I will focus these tools.
B) Choosing the Texts to Study
In order to locate which texts to include in this study, I began with a general perusal of
Thomas corpus, especially his most well known major texts. I was quickly able to make a list of
texts I needed to cover. I next looked through Thomas's minor texts for texts that were clearly
about the sacraments. This search expanded the number of texts I needed to address slightly.
However, I felt that more thorough methods were needed. Thus, in order to perform an
exhaustive search of Thomas’s entire corpus, I used Brepols Publishers’s Library of Latin Texts
database and the Index Thomisticus on CorpusThomisticum.org, both of which contain
searchable versions of all of Thomas's works.
I examined all of the places that Thomas used any of the words, “sacramentum,”
“significatio,” or “figura.” I used wildcard searches to ensure that I encountered all the forms of
these words, including both noun and verb forms. I then performed searches for some of the most
common phrases that Thomas uses when speaking about his doctrine of sacramental
signification, like “efficiunt quod figurant,” “significando causant” and “signum et causam.”
Through this procedure I compiled a complete list of where Thomas speaks of the sacraments.
This list, however, was entirely too long to cover in any reasonable sized study. Nor, as I
discovered after reading these texts, would such comprehensive coverage be necessary in order
31
to provide a full picture of the development of Thomas's doctrine. I thus began the process of
identifying the most important texts upon which to focus my study. I first eliminated any passing
references to the sacraments. I then identified the texts and passages that contained discussions
explicitly devoted to the doctrine of the sacraments. From here, I prioritized those discussions
that pertained to the doctrine of sacramental signification.
C) The Seven Texts of This Study
Ultimately, I decided to focus on seven texts of Thomas's for this study. These texts are:
1) Scriptum super Sententiis, 2) Questiones disputatae de veritate, 3) De articulis fidei et
ecclesiae sacramentis, 4) Thomas's Corpus Christi Liturgy,26 5) Summa contra Gentiles, 6)
Super Evangelium S. Ioannis lectura, and 7) Summa theologiae.27 Part of my selection criteria
also included ensuring that I had a good variety of contexts and genres of writing. These seven
texts span all of the major periods in Thomas's career. They also provide representative texts
from such diverse genres as a theological commentary, an academic disputation, a catechetical
work, a liturgical work, an apologetic or missionary-focused systematic theology, a biblical
commentary, classroom lectures, and a systematic theological textbook from a master
pedagogue.
After thoroughly studying each of these seven works, I made my final decisions about
what needed to be covered within each text. I deemed it unnecessary to study any text in its
entirety. My database work facilitated identifying the most relevant portions of each of these
texts, as well as those sections that needed to be mentioned, but could be discussed only briefly.
26
Thomas’s Corpus Christi Liturgy includes both a mass and an office. In general, I treat these as a single text, since they were written at the
same time and since most manuscripts place both together. For terminological purposes, when I refer to the Corpus Christi Liturgy, I mean both
the mass and the office. If I mean only one of these texts, I will either use their incipits, Cibavit eos (mass) and Sacerdos in aeternum (office), or
refer to them simply as the mass or the office. I elect not to italicize Corpus Christi Liturgy, because this is not the original or standard title.
27
Throughout this study, for the sake of simplicity I refer to these texts as: "the Scriptum", "De articulis", "the Corpus Christi Liturgy", "the
ScG", "the John Commentary", and "the Summa".
32
Occasionally, however, in studying these texts, I found other sections and themes that I deemed
worthy of mention, but were not explicit discussions of the sacraments or sacramental
signification. For instance, I found that Thomas's doctrine of grace and his anthropology had
bearing on his thoughts about sacramental signification and needed to be monitored. I also found
it necessary to keep an eye on the overarching metaphor that Thomas used to describe the
sacraments, on his attitude toward the sacraments of the Old Law, on his sources, on his doctrine
of deification, on the relationship of his sacramentology to his Ecclesiology and Christology, on
his attitude toward sacramental causality, and on his assessment of whether the sacraments have
a dual or singular nature. Hence, where I deem it necessary, I mention passages or sections that
are relevant to these themes, and thus are relevant to Thomas's doctrine of sacramental
signification.
Finally, I arranged my seven selected texts in chronological order and decided how to
group them into chapter-length studies. Ordering the chapters was not as simple a task as it may
seem. For some of these texts more than others, there is a substantial amount of scholarly debate
surrounding their exact dating. I address these issues further in Chapter One.
D) Approach of Each Chapter
In addition to proceeding chronologically through the seven selected texts, within each
text, I proceed linearly. The exception to this practice is within a given question or article. For
instance, for texts structured in a disputatio format,28 I often deem it better to present Thomas's
position (given in his respondeo) before considering objections to it, or Thomas's replies to these
objections. This retains the subject ordering established by Thomas, but renders it easier for
readers to follow his argument.
28
For more on this format, see the historical background section of Chapter One.
33
Each textual based chapter (Chapters Two through Six) begins with a guided linear
walkthrough of the relevant portions of each text. I here present Thomas's doctrines as clearly as
possible and while adding my own clarifying or interpretative comments. I present all texts that I
deem relevant, not just those that overtly support my arguments or the narrative I am presenting.
In the cases of texts that could be used as counter-evidence to my claims, I deal with their
possible interpretations in the course of this walkthrough.
Following this survey of the text, I include a synthesis and analysis section. Here, I pose
the same series of questions to each of the texts I examine. These questions pertain to the
overarching question of this study, the study’s main arguments, or the main themes I monitor in
Thomas's thought. For example, for each text, among other things, I consider what Thomas
understands a sacrament to be, how he understands the sacraments to be signs, his attitude
toward signification, how he understands the relationship between the signification and causality
of the sacraments, and what sources most inform his thought. I use these questions to provide an
overview of Thomas's doctrine at each point in his career and to facilitate tracing developments
in his doctrine.
VI. Overview of the Following Chapters
A) Chapter One - Texts and Contexts
Chapter One addresses the historical and biographical contexts of the seven texts of this
study. Chapter One begins by examining the broader historical context of Thomas's writings,
especially their context in the development of Medieval theological education, in the
development of different genres of theological writing, and in the development of medieval
theological methods. In this historical context section, I also provide some background
information on the major sources of Thomas's sacramental thought. Familiarity with key
34
thinkers, especially, Augustine, Peter Lombard, Hugh of St. Victor, and Pseudo-Dionysius, is
necessary both to contextualize Thomas's thought and to understand what Thomas is trying to do
in his sacramentology.
After establishing the broader historical context, I move to provide an overview of
Thomas's life. This biographical information will help better situate each of Thomas's writings in
their geographical and social locations, as well as in their general sitz im leben. This information
is necessary to keep in mind in order to properly interpret and understand each text to be
examined. Moreover, this biographical contextualizing will provide insight as to why any
changes in Thomas's thought may have occurred.
Following these general contexts, I turn to examine issues more particularly issues. For
each text treated, I consider issues of dating and authenticity, defending where necessary the
order in which I choose to examine the texts. I then speak to the genre, audience, and purpose of
each text, drawing heavily on the work of the historical context section.
B) Chapter Two - Scriptum super Sententiis
Chapter Two begins my examination of the seven selected texts. The Scriptum super
Sententiis, as Thomas’s first major systematic work, is first. In this Chapter Two, I proceed
through the relevant sections of the text explicating how Thomas develops and presents his
doctrine of sacramental signification. My goal is to establish a baseline understanding of
Thomas's thought about signification at the outset of his career. I end the chapter with the
aforementioned section of synthesis and analysis.
35
C) Chapters Three through Five - Intervening Texts
The textual chapters of this study organize Thomas's sacramental texts into five different
chronological categories. The first category is Thomas's first text, the Scriptum, the next three
categories include what I call the intervening texts, because they fall in between Thomas's first
text and his last text, the Summa theologiae. I divide the intervening texts into three parts for the
sake of manageability in each chapter. Chapter Three covers the intervening texts, part one,
which includes three shorter texts that span from Thomas's early career to the middle of his
career. Chapter Three covers De veritate, De articulis, and Thomas's Corpus Christi Liturgy.
Chapter Four covers the intervening texts, part two; it focuses on the Summa contra
Gentiles, a systematic work that was written roughly in the middle of Thomas's academic career.
Chapter Five then covers the intervening texts, part three. Chapter Five examines Thomas's
commentary on the Gospel of John, which is from the late middle of Thomas’s career. For
Chapters Three through Five chapters, I follow the same format as Chapter Two. I linearly
progress through the relevant portions of each text and conclude with a synthesis and analysis
section.
D) Chapter Six - Summa theologiae
In Chapter Six, I examine the sacramental portions of Thomas's final and arguably
greatest theological work, the Summa theologiae. From this text, one can discern the ultimate
form that Thomas imparts to his sacramentology. In this chapter, I devote particular effort to
reading the text in light of the developmental trajectory established by the previous chapters.
36
E) Conclusion
In the conclusion, I tie together the work of the previous chapters and orient it toward
answering my driving question and supporting my main arguments. I review the evidence for
each of my core arguments and bring these arguments to completion. I then discuss the
implications of my findings both for the scholarly community and for the life of the Church.
37
Chapter 1 - Texts and Contexts
Introduction
Properly understanding the seven primary texts of this study (the Scriptum, De veritate,
De articulis, the Corpus Christi Liturgy, the Summa contra Gentiles, the John Commentary, and
the Summa) and properly understanding the developmental trajectory of Thomas’s doctrine of
sacramental signification requires careful historical-critical work. All seven texts of these texts
must be situated in their general medieval context, and in their context in Thomas’s life. This is
the work of the present chapter.
Chapter One has three central sections: an historical context section (Section I), a
biographical context section (Section II), and a textual section (III). Section I situates Thomas’s
work in the historical context of Medieval education, Medieval theological methods, Medieval
theological genres, and in the context of Thomas’s theological sources. Since Thomas was above
all a theologian and a pedagogue, I have deemed these the most relevant contexts for
understanding the texts and doctrines at hand.1
Section II situates Thomas’s work in its biographical context. I will here provide a brief
sketch of Thomas’s life and career. I also indicate the general periods in which Thomas
composed the seven texts examined in this study. Section III then locates the dates of these texts
more precisely. I here deal with the difficulties and scholarly arguments for establishing precise
dates and authenticity. In this Section III, also, I discuss each of the seven texts’ genre, audience,
and purpose.
1
Thomas’s works may of course benefit from being read in other historical contexts as well, like their social, political, ecclesial, economic, or
philosophical contexts. However, I must leave this to other studies.
I. Historical Context
A) Medieval Theological Education, Theological Methods, and Theological Genres
1) The Shift from Monasticism to Scholasticism
The first and broadest context in which one should understand Thomas’s work is that of
the Medieval educational system. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries witnessed tremendous
shifts in society, thought, and religion – the rise of universities, the advent of Aristotle, and the
birth of mendicant religious orders serve as cases in point. Medieval education was likewise in a
state of flux. In the earlier Middle Ages, education was organized around the monastery.
Throughout the 12th century, however, both Cathedral schools and schools organized around
individual persons grew in prominence.2
By the thirteenth century, specialized universities began to prosper. Bologna, Oxford,
Padua, Toulouse, Orleans, Salerno, and Paris were some of the major centers of education, each
of which was known for excelling in one or two particular disciplines. Bologna was a center for
legal studies. The University of Salerno concentrated on medicine; and, the University of Paris
was renowned for the study of theology.
With the rise of universities, a change in modes of thought and teaching also occurred.
Teachers and students began more and more to organize knowledge around public debates
(disputations) and around the practice of relentless questioning. The term scholasticism refers to
these attitudes and processes as a whole, and by the time Thomas entered into the Medieval
educational system, the transition from monasticism into scholasticism was complete.
2
Ulrich Gottfried Leinsle, Introduction to Scholastic Theology (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 199. The school
that grew around Peter Abelard is a good example of the latter.
39
2) Shifts in Genres of Theological Writing - Glossae to Sentence Commentaries to Summae
With the shift of theological education from a monastic setting to a university context
also came a gradual shift in genres of theological writing. Observing the 11th through the 13th
centuries from the perspective of the longue durée, one sees the preferred means of theological
writing evolve roughly from glossae to summae. In a monastic context, the most common
practice of theological writing was to compose a marginal running commentary on a text, usually
the text of sacred Scripture, called a gloss. As theological writing and texts proliferated,
however, this commentary method became unwieldy, especially when one had theological
questions about a particular subject and not just about a particular text. By the end of the 13th
century, even while commentaries were still used, the summa, a systematically organized
compendium of theology that attempts to concisely present all the main points of sacred doctrine,
had come to the fore as the preferred means of writing, doing, and teaching theology. In order to
understand the way and the genres in which Thomas writes, one must understand something of
this shift in genres taking place in medieval theology.
Peter Lombard and his book of Sentences played a major role in the shift from glossae to
summae. The Sentences was a collection of sayings from the Church Fathers, especially
Augustine, organized topically rather than textually. In addition to collecting and organizing
these sayings, Peter advanced his own views about theological questions and issues as they
arose. The Sentences, therefore, can well be regarded as an early work of systematic theology.
Peter was not the first to compose a book of Sentences. Isidore of Seville (c. 560-633)
wrote a collection of Sententiae,3 and by the 12th century, such collections of opinions were a
distinct genre. Around this time as well, the frequency with which Sentence collections began to
be written increased. For instance, other notable contemporaries of Peter who composed books
3
Ibid., 31.
40
of Sentences include Roland of Bologna, Robert Pullen, and Robert of Melun.4 An anonymous
text entitled Summa sententiarum, from the Victorine school was also written and became
popular in the mid-12th century.
Among all these works, however, none witnessed the level of success that Peter’s work
achieved. In short, Peter’s text became the standard theological textbook for almost the next half
of a millennium. Next to Scripture, Peter’s text is likely one of the most commented upon books
in history. The Sentences path to this place of dominance is worthy of comment, as it helps flesh
out the changes taking place in genres of theological writing, and directly informs what Thomas
was doing when he wrote his Scriptum super Sententiis, his commentary on Peter’s Sentences.
Soon after the Sentences’s composition, students began making abbreviations of the text,
most likely as study aids.5 According to Raymond Martin, these works fall into at least eight
categories and stages.6 Also at an early date, students began to compose marginal glosses on the
Sentences. The first author to engage in this practice, in fact, was Peter Lombard himself. He
made revisions of the Sentences following his inaugural lectures on the book in 1156- 7 and
these took the form of marginal glosses.
Around the turn of the 13th century, a distinct new phase in Sentences literature, and thus
in genres of theological writing emerged, namely the Sentence Commentary. Stephen Langton is
generally acknowledged as the first author to have produced a work in this new genre.7 Langton,
the eventual archbishop of Canterbury, taught theology as a Master in Paris from 1180-1206.
During this time he lectured on the Sentences and composed his own gloss on the text. Out of
these glosses, Langton produced a commentary that had a number of new features when
4
Marcia L. Colish, Peter Lombard, 2 vols., Brill's Studies in Intellectual History (Leiden; New York: E.J. Brill, 1994), vol. 1, 64.
5
Philipp W. Rosemann, Peter Lombard, Great Medieval Thinkers (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 201.
6
Philipp W. Rosemann, The Story of a Great Medieval Book: Peter Lombard's Sentences, Rethinking the Middle Ages (Peterborough, Ont.;
Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 2007), 27-8. These eight categories include, for example, versified abbreviations, summaries, dictionaries of
the theological terms contained in the Sentences, and analytical tables.
7
Ibid., 55.
41
compared to glosses. His work, for instance, was no longer intended to provide literal exegesis.
Rather, he assumed that his reader was already familiar with Lombard’s text and used it as a
springboard for the discussion of theological difficulties. In treating these, Langton provided
several arguments for and against a certain view, before choosing sides in an additional section.
The format one sees in Langton’s Commentary is one of the hallmarks of later scholastic
writing, known as the disputatio method. The development of this method is another one of the
key changes that took place in theology leading up to Thomas’s time, and, as can be seen with
Langton, it develops alongside and becomes enmeshed in the new theological genres that were
emerging in the early 13th century. Continuing to trace the development of the Sentence
Commentary genre first requires more to be said about the disputatio method.
3) A Shift in Theological Methods - The Disputatio Method
In the early stages of the rise of scholasticism, the pedagogical focus in monasteries and
monastery schools was on the text of sacred Scripture. As just mentioned, in teaching the biblical
text, theologians would compose literal glosses. In teaching texts this way, however, questions
and difficulties would often arise and a given instructor would have to answer them. One can
regard the disputatio method as the formalization of this process of question and answer and the
translation of it into theological writing and thinking.
Both Sentence Commentaries and Summae can be seen as genres that developed in order
to facilitate dealing with theological difficulties that arose from careful textual examination. A
good example of the early phases of the disputatio method is Peter Abelard’s Sic et non, which
poses questions about contradictory points in the writings of theological authorities. The
scholastic concern for asking and resolving questions is also clearly reflected in the practice of
42
Disputed and Quodlibetal Questions, about which more will be said below, but which, in general,
were public debates held in a university setting and presided over by a particular master. These
events spawned their own genres of theological texts, of which the later 13th century Summae
can be seen as simplifications.
All these genres, Sentence commentaries, disputed questions, and Summae, came to share
in common the format of the disputatio. Herein, an author would pose a question and give
arguments in favor of different answers to this question. The author would then, in a section
known as a sed contra, cite various authorities that support the position that he intended to
defend. The author would next move on to argue for his position on the matter at hand, usually
by making careful conceptual distinctions. With these distinctions, the author would attempt to
resolve any apparent difficulties that might have arisen from conflicting authorities. Finally, the
author would offer a reply to the opposing viewpoint and attempt to show why it was mistaken.
This format is the basis for the vast majority of scholastic writings from the 13th century onward,
including Thomas’s Scriptum, his Disputed Questions, and his Summa theologiae.
4) Further Refinements to the Sentence Commentary Genre
After Langton, one final person played a key role in the place that the Sentences would
come to occupy in the landscape of Medieval Education, and thus in the genre shifts taking place
during this time period, namely Alexander of Hales. Although it is clear that Langton lectured on
the Sentences at Paris, he did so cursorie rather than ordinarie.8 Masters of theology delivered
ordinary lectures in the mornings on the text of sacred Scripture. By contrast, cursory lectures
could be delivered by bachelors, were given in the afternoons, and could be on other texts. This
8
Ibid., 60.
43
structure is very much akin to the way that tenured professors today might give a lecture to a
large class in the morning while graduate students might later lead smaller discussion sections.
Alexander of Hales forever impacted theological education when he chose, likely in the
1220’s, to lecture on Peter Lombard’s Sentences ordinarie. This move was highly controversial,
as it seemed to deemphasize Scripture.9 Nonetheless, Alexander’s approach stuck and was a
turning point from viewing the discipline of theology as focused on sacra scriptura to focused on
sacra doctrina. From this point, the Sentences became engrained in the standard theological
curriculum very quickly, to the point that by Alexander’s death in 1245, all students wishing to
become masters of theology had to compose a commentary on the Sentences.
Alexander is also credited for another innovation in the history of the Sentences. As a
result of his pedagogical activities, he sub-divided the Sentences into more manageable sections
called distinctions. Peter Lombard divided his work not only into four books, but also into
chapters. Book Four, for example, originally contained 290 chapters.10 Alexander, however,
further grouped these chapters into 50 distinctions. He also added prologues and divisiones
textus, which give the reader an overview of each section and alert one to the organizational
logic of the Sentences. These changes rendered the Sentences easier to use and made citing
certain portions of the text easier. Later commentators on the Sentences, Thomas included, would
introduce further divisions to make the text even more manageable. These divisions include
organizing Sentence Commentaries into parts, questions, articles, and even sub-questions, called
quaestiunculae. These divisions would later be included in most genres of theological writing
that employed the disputatio method, including disputed questions and Summae.
9
Cf. Ibid., 60-62.
10
Rosemann, Peter Lombard, 65.
44
The foregoing, then, provides an idea of the shifts taking place in theological writing and
theological education just prior to Thomas’s day. Thomas thus lived at a time when the preferred
means of learning, teaching, doing, and writing theology were in flux. He experienced much of
the old and the new forms of learning, and he wrote in all of the genres that have just been
mentioned. Most would say that Thomas himself played a pivotal part in charting the course for
theology in the centuries to come. With his two great Summae, the Summa contra Gentiles and
the Summa theologiae, he helped establish the dominance of this genre of theological writing. In
any case, these shifts are necessary to keep in mind in order to understand Thomas’s writings.
B) Sources of Thomas’s Thought
In addition to the educational and theological contexts just traced, one needs also a
general sense of the intellectual context in which Thomas wrote. The quickest way to obtain this
sense is to examine the sources and authorities that Thomas uses. Thus, I now discuss Thomas’s
four most important sources. These are Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, Hugh of St. Victor, and
Peter Lombard. The way in which Thomas relies upon these sources reveals much about the
development of his sacramental thought. Thus, discussing these thinkers here will bear the dual
fruit of establishing general intellectual context and familiarizing readers with some of these
thinkers’ key sacramental contributions.
45
1) St. Augustine of Hippo
a) Works Cited in Thomas’s Sacramentology
The foremost source for Thomas’s sacramentology is St. Augustine. Augustine was an
immensely prolific writer. His surviving corpus contains over 5.4 million words.11 There is no
need here to name all of Augustine’s works.12 It suffices merely to say that Augustine’s influence
on the Middle Ages, on Western theology, in general, and on Thomas Aquinas, in particular,
would be difficult to overstate. This influence will be seen below when discussing the works and
sacramental thought of Hugh of St. Victor and Peter Lombard. It will also be seen throughout the
chapters to come when discussing Thomas’s own sacramentology.
At present, I highlight the texts by Augustine that Thomas makes the most frequent use of
in his sacramentology. One can gain a good idea of which works these are by looking to
Thomas’s citations of Augustine in his Scriptum, which shows which works Thomas employed
most at the beginning of his career. In the sacramental portions of the Scriptum (Book IV,
Distinctions 1 through 42), the following are Thomas’s most cited of Augustine’s works: In
Ioannis evangelium (34 times), Epistolae (24 times), Confessiones (13 times), Sermones ad
populum (10 times), Super Genesim ad litteram (9 times), De vera et falsa poenitentia (9 times),
Enarrationes in Psalmos (7 times), Enchiridion (7 times), and Liber LXXXIII Quaestionum (5
times). Thomas thus makes the most frequent use of Augustine’s biblical commentaries,
sermons, and letters. As for Augustine’s major works, Thomas does reference them in the
Scriptum, but he does so with less frequency than one might expect. For instance, he cites De
Trinitate (4 times), De civitate Dei (4 times), and De doctrina Christiana (1 time). With all of
11
David Vincent Meconi, The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (2013), 82.
12
For a full list of Augustine’s works, see ibid., 243ff.
46
these citations, Thomas clearly relies upon Augustine a great deal. In fact, throughout the course
of the four books of his Scriptum, Thomas cites Augustine over 1000 times.13
b) Sacramentology
I now flag the two Augustinian sacramental ideas most necessary for understanding
Thomas. Additional ideas and key concepts from Augustine will be encountered throughout the
course of this work, but two, in particular, form a starting place for Thomas, as they were
bequeathed to him by several of his main sources. These ideas are Augustine’s understanding of
sacraments and Augustine’s understanding of signs.
Regarding sacraments, Augustine does not establish a single definition of a sacrament
and stick to it throughout much his career. Thus, no one formulation can be regarded as the
standard Augustinian definition of a sacrament. In part, this is the case because Augustine had a
much broader notion of sacraments than did scholastic-era theologians.14 For instance, Augustine
wouldn’t have numbered the sacraments at seven. What one instead finds in Augustine is a
variety of expressions of what a sacrament is, all of which lack the specificity that later
theologians would desire. These later sacramental thinkers, though, take up three particular
statements of Augustine and use them for definitional purposes. At various times, Augustine says
roughly that a sacrament is a visible form of an invisible grace,15 a sacred secret,16 and a sign of a
sacred thing.17 All of these notions, more or less, speak to the sacraments being essentially
communicative and essentially significative. They depict the sacraments as things that show,
13
Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, trans. Robert Royal, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1996 and
2003), 41.
14
One could also name the facts that Augustine was writing at a different stage in theological history, in different genres, and with concerns that
differed from scholastic theologians’ love of exact definitions and precise distinctions.
15
Cf. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, ed. E. Dekkers and J. Fraipont., CCL 40 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 1956), Ps. 105,22;
1562/6. Also, Augustine, Quaestionum libri septem, ed. J. Fraipont and D. de Bruyne., CCL 33 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 1958),
b. 3, q. 84; 228/885-88.
16
Cf. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps. 103, 3, n. 14.
17
Cf. Augustine, De ciuitate dei, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb., CCL 47 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 1955), b. 10, c. 5.
47
manifest, or point to the divine. Thus, signification is obviously central to Augustine’s
understanding of a sacrament.
Regarding signs, unlike his understanding of a sacrament, Augustine does articulate a
consistent definition. He says, “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.”18 Thinkers
from throughout Medieval history drew heavily upon this definition of a sign.
With this understanding in mind, one is able to see that Augustine considers the
sacraments to be essentially signs. A sacrament presents a person’s senses with a visible form,
like water or wine, which causes a person to know something other than that form, like an
invisible grace, a sacred secret, a divine power, or another sacred thing. Sacraments thus exist to
make visible the invisible and to communicate something about the divine which humans would
not be able to know otherwise.19 These two notions about sacraments and signs fit closely
together. They do not exhaust what Augustine has to say about the sacraments, but they are his
foundation.
2) Pseudo-Dionysius
The next source of note for Thomas’s sacramentology is Pseudo-Dionysius. The
surviving works in the Dionysian20 corpus number only four, in addition to some letters. These
18
Cf. Augustine, De doctrina christiana, ed. William M. Green, CSEL 80 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
1963), b. 2, c. 1, n. 1. For an especially helpful work on this definition, see Irène Rosier-Catach, "Signification et efficacité: sur les prolongements
médiévaux de la théorie augustinienne du signe," Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 91, no. 1 (2007): 51-74. See also Irène
Rosier-Catach, "Les sacrements comme signes qui font ce qu'ils signifient: signe efficace versus efficacité symbolique," Transversalités 105, no.
(2008): 83-106.
19
This is much like, for instance, a stop sign exists to communicate something to a person other than the fact that it is a shiny red and white
octagonal piece of metal. It instead communicates something that a person would not know were it not for the visible sign, namely, to stop.
20
Pseudo-Dionysius’s identity is unknown. The writings in Pseudo-Dionysius’s corpus claim to be authored by Dionysius the Aeropagite, the
Athenian convert of St. Paul mentioned in Acts 17:34. This identity was believed throughout the Middle Ages, including by Thomas. Thus,
scholastic theologians granted just shy of an apostolic authority to Pseudo-Dionysius’s texts. In the 15th century, Pseudo-Dionysius’s identity was
called into question. Since then, the scholarly consensus is that Pseudo-Dionysius was likely a Syrian and possibly a student of the Greek
48
works are The Divine Names, Mystical Theology, The Celestial Hierarchy, and The
Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Of these, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy pertains most directly to the
sacraments. Here, Pseudo-Dionysius discusses the three sacraments of Illumination (Baptism),
Communion, and “the sacrament of ointment.”21 For each of these, he describes the sacrament
itself and its rite. He also offers a meditation upon the sacrament’s meaning and symbolism.
b) Sacramentology
I now briefly note the key themes of Pseudo-Dionysius’s sacramentology, especially
those that Thomas most appropriates. The first of these are deification22 and its closely related
notion of participation in God. Both of these ideas are hallmarks of Pseudo-Dionysius’s thought
in general, in addition to being hallmarks of his sacramentology. Thus, in The Ecclesiastical
Hierarchy, Pseudo-Dionysius writes, “the continuous love of God and of all things
divine...consists of an inspired participation in the one-like perfection and in the one itself, as far
as possible. It consists of a feast upon that sacred vision which nourishes the intellect and which
divinizes everything rising up to it.”23 He continues, “What we must say is this. The blessed
Deity which of itself is God, is the source of all divinization. Out of its divine generosity, it
grants to the divinized the fact of this divinization.”24 As Thomas’s sacramental thought comes
to rely more and more on Pseudo-Dionysius, the concept of deification will grow in prominence.
The second emphasis of Pseudo-Dionysius’s sacramentology is on what he calls the
sacraments’ symbolism, which is roughly equivalent to what Thomas will call the sacraments
signification, namely what the sacraments represent and convey to persons, especially their
Neoplatonic Philosopher Proclus (d. 485CE). The earliest reference to Pseudo-Dionysius’s works is in 532CE. Thus, his works likely date to the
late fifth or early sixth century. Cf. Pseudo-Dionysius, Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. Colm Luibheid (New York: Paulist Press,
1987), 13.
21
Ibid., 224.
22
I regard the terms divinization and theosis to be synonymous with deification.
23
Pseudo-Dionysius, Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, 198.
24
Ibid.
49
spiritual or sacred meanings. This emphasis is seen in The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy in the very
structure of the work. For each of the three sacraments he discusses, Pseudo-Dionysius includes
an extended contemplation upon their meaning, symbolism, or signification.
Pseudo-Dionysius’s reason for so reflecting on the meaning of the sacraments is wrapped
up in his understanding of the sacraments and his understanding of human beings. Pseudo-
Dionysius depicts reality as a series of interwoven hierarchies, which lead and draw things back
to the ultimate hierarch, God. This is the topic of The Celestial Hierarchy and The Ecclesiastical
Hierarchy. The angelic Heavenly order reflects the beauty and majesty of God differently than
does the Earthly material order, but both nonetheless draw all things to God. Humans are a part
of the Earthly order, and God uses Earthly means of drawing them toward deification. Thus,
Pseudo-Dionysius writes:
...those beings and those orders which are superior to us are also incorporeal. Their hierarchy
belongs to the domain of the conceptual and is something out of this world. We see our
human hierarchy, on the other hand, as our nature allows, pluralized in a great variety of
perceptible symbols lifting us upward hierarchically until we are brought as far as we can be
into the unity of divinization. The heavenly beings, because of their intelligence, have their
own permitted conceptions of God. For us, on the other hand, it is by way of the perceptible
images that we are uplifted as far as we can be to the contemplation of what is divine.
Actually, it is the same one whom all the one-like beings desire, but they do not participate in
the same way in this one and the same being. Rather, the share of the divine is apportioned to
each in accordance with this merit.25
Thus, Pseudo-Dionysius thinks that humans are material creatures who understand things in
terms of sensible and perceptible images. It is therefore by the visible and symbolic sacraments,
and Pseudo-Dionysius would add, also by Sacred Scripture, which is also full of symbols, that
God works to deify human beings and unify them with God’s self through participation. Near the
end of his life, Thomas will have much the same sentiments to express.
25
Ibid., 197.
50
One final emphasis is worth noting in Pseudo-Dionysius’s sacramental thought. Pseudo-
Dionysius expresses many of the core concepts of what in Thomas will become the analogical
method of doing theology, which lies at the heart of Thomas’s sacramentology and even his
conception of reality. For instance, a hallmark of Pseudo-Dionysius’s thought, especially as
expressed in The Divine Names and Mystical Theology, is the via negativa and the notion that
human language is utterly insufficient to speak about the divine. Thomas adopts this same
premise at the outset of his Summa theologiae, and he uses it to explain why theology must
proceed to speak analogically. Our language is inadequate of itself to speak about God, but we
can still speak about God using analogies. Humans can use the things they know to help them
understand the things they do not know. They can use the material world to understand the
spiritual and intellectual world precisely because God has established each world, or order, or
hierarchy, to use Pseudo-Dionysius’s term, with the goal of drawing all things to God’s self in a
manner appropriate to those things being drawn.
These notions of Thomas’s are founded clearly in Pseudo-Dionysius. For instance,
Pseudo-Dionysius writes, “Our own hierarchy is itself symbolical and adapted to what we are. In
a divine fashion it needs perceptible things to lift us up into the domain of conceptions.”26 Thus,
Pseudo-Dionysius sees the sacraments as participating in the very purpose of our hierarchy. The
purpose of material reality is to symbolically, or analogically, lead humans from the material and
sensory realm into the spiritual realm and ultimately into deification. The sacraments, for
Pseudo-Dionysius, have this exact purpose, a purpose that Thomas will come to see and adopt as
his own throughout the course of his career.
26
Ibid., 199.
51
3) Hugh of St. Victor
The next figure that influenced Thomas’s sacramentology is Hugh of St. Victor. By far,
the most relevant work of Hugh’s27 for the current purposes is his De sacramentis Christianae
fidei. This text is the crowning achievement of Hugh’s career and the synthesis of his teaching. It
was completed about 1134.28 Contrary to what one might think from the title, this work is not
just about the sacraments as they are usually conceived today. Rather, the text is a fully
developed systematic theology that covers the whole of Christian doctrine and follows a deeply
Scriptural trajectory. Hugh’s focus is on salvation history, and he divides his work into two
books corresponding roughly to the time before and the time after Christ.
The first book of De sacramentis covers creation, the Trinity, the fall, the restoration of
humans, the institution of sacraments, the natural law, and the written law. The second book
covers the Incarnation, grace, the Spirit, the Church, Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist,
Marriage, vows, vices, Confession, Anointing of the Sick, the end of the world, and the renewing
of the world. Thus, even though Hugh treats many of the same subjects as Peter Lombard’s
Sentences, his systematic treatment of Christian teaching follows a Scriptural and narrative
organization rather than a strictly logical or doctrinal one. One hears echoes of Hugh’s twofold
division in both Peter Lombard’s doctrine of the sacraments and in Thomas’s. Both, for example,
make a division between sacraments of the Old Law and sacraments of the New.
27
Little is known about Hugh’s place and date of birth. The best current estimate is that he was born in Saxony around 1096. Hugh joined the
Canons Regular of St. Augustine and arrived at the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris before 1120. Soon thereafter, he began teaching and writing. He
became a Master before 1127, and he became the head of the school at St. Victor by 1133. Hugh continued teaching at St. Victor until his death
on February 11, 1144. Cf. Paul Rorem, Hugh of Saint Victor, Great Medieval Thinkers (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 11.
28
Hugh of St. Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De sacramentis), Mediaeval Academy of America Publication (Cambridge,
Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1951), ix.
52
b) Sacramentology
Hugh begins his sacramentology29 with Augustine’s definition of a sacrament. Hugh
writes, “A sacrament is a sign of a sacred thing.”30 Hugh, however, does not content himself with
this definition. He builds upon it and advances his own thoughts. Hugh therefore continues:
For just as in man31 there are two things, body and soul, and in one Scripture likewise two
things, letter and sense, so also in every sacrament there is one thing which is treated visibly
without and is seen, and there is another which is believed invisibly within and is received.
What is visible without and material is a sacrament, what is invisible within and spiritual is
the thing or virtue of the sacrament; the sacrament, however, which is treated and sanctified
without is a sign of spiritual grace and this is the thing of the sacrament (res sacramentum)32
and is received invisibly.33
Hugh thus here builds a twofold division into the very essence the sacraments.
One also sees this division in Hugh’s definitive definition of a sacrament, to which he is
building in the previously cited section. Hugh ultimately defines a sacrament as “a corporal or
material element set before the senses without, representing by similitude and signifying by
institution, and containing by sanctification some invisible and spiritual grace.”34 Thomas carries
this definition forward, as do many other theologians. With this definition, though, also comes
Hugh’s dualistic division between material and spiritual, between visible and invisible, and
between the sign and the thing or power of the sacrament.
29
Hugh’s treatment of particular sacraments of the Church within De sacramentis comes in Book II when he discusses the time of grace. His
discussion of sacraments in general, although he does not use this term, occurs in part IX of Book I. Hugh also discusses the sacraments after he
discusses the fall in Book I Part VII. In Part VIII, Hugh includes a digression on the restoration of humankind, wherein he discusses the
sacraments. This treatment of subjects in multiple places is a good example of a shortcoming that lead to Peter Lombard’s organization of
theology being preferred.
30
English translation taken from Hugh of St. Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De sacramentis), 154. For the Latin text, included
here and below see: Hugonis de Sancto Victore, De sacramentis Christiane fidei, Corpus Victorinum Textus historici (Monasterii Westfalorum
Münster; Westfalen, Germany: Aschendorff, 2008), I, p. IX, 2. “Sacramentum est rei sacre signum.”
31
A note on inclusive language: I use inclusive language throughout this study in everything that I compose myself. In order to be faithful to my
sources and faithful historically, I have elected not to change gendered language in historical texts, in translations that are not my own, or in
scholarly sources that do not use inclusive language.
32
The terminology of res and sacramentum later becomes the sacramentum tantum, res et sacramentum, and res tantum in Peter Lombard. For
more on these terms, see the section on Peter’s sacramentology, below.
33
Hugh of St. Victor, On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De sacramentis), 154. “Quemadmodum enim in homine duo sunt corpus et
anima et in una scriptura similiter duo littera et sensus sic in omni sacramento aliud quod visibiliter foris tractatur et cernitur. Aliud quod
invisibiliter intus creditur et percipitur quod foris est visibile et materiale sacramentum est. Quod intus est invisibile et spiritale res sive virtus
sacramenti. Semper tamen sacramentum quod foris tractatur et sanctificatur signum est spiritalis gratie que res sacramentum est et invisibilter
percipitur. ”
34
Ibid. “Potest dicere quia sacramentum est corporale vel materiale elementum foris sensibiliter propositum ex similitudine representans et
exstinctione significans et ex sanctificatione continens aliquam invisibilem et spiritalem gratiam.”
53
Beyond a definition, Thomas derives at least five additional sacramental concepts from
Hugh. The first is the idea that the sacraments are remedies. Hugh builds this notion into the
structure of his text. He discusses sacraments only after he discusses the fall and as the means by
which humans are restored to their pre-fall state and healed from the wound of sin. Thus, when
Hugh discusses the reason that God instituted the sacraments, he writes that humans were driven
from paradise by the sin of disobedience and subjected to the tyranny of the devil, but that God
tempered this just situation with mercy. God thus “prepared a remedy” for human sinfulness in
the form of “the sacraments of his salvation with which He might sign him with the expectation
of future sanctification.”35
Hugh carries the remedial metaphor throughout his work. Hence, for example, when he
later discusses the time of the institution of the sacraments, he writes, “For from the time when
man, having fallen from the state of first incorruption, began to ail in body through mortality and
in soul through iniquity, God at once prepared a remedy in His sacraments for restoring man.”36
He shortly thereafter continues, “all these things were done according to the judgment and
dispensation of the Physician, who saw sickness itself and knew what kind of remedies should be
applied to it on every occasion.”37 Thomas, especially in his Scriptum, will place a tremendous
amount of theological weight on the metaphor of the sacraments as remedies.
The second idea that Thomas carries forward from Hugh is an emphasis on the
importance of the institution of the sacraments. Hugh’s definition of a sacrament requires the
existence of a material element that naturally represents something. To this representation is then
added a more precise signification by institution. Hugh maintains that institution of the
35
Ibid., 148. “Itaque iam tunc ab ipso mundi exordio sacramenta salutis sue homini proposuit quibus eum sub expectatione future sanctificationis
cosignaret...”
36
Ibid., 150. “Ex quo enim homo a statu prime incorruptionis lapsus in corpore pro mortalitate in anima per iniquitatem egrotare cepit continuo
deus reparando inde sacramentis suis medicinam preparavit.”
37
Ibid. “Et hec omnia facta sunt secundum iudicium et dispensationem Medici qui morbum ipsum vidit et qualia ei remedia singulis temporibus
adhibenda essent agnovit.”
54
sacraments is necessary, otherwise any sign of a sacred thing could be a sacrament and the
material elements’ signification could be vague.
The third Hugonian theme in Thomas is that the sacraments are instituted for the
purposes of humiliation, instruction, and exercise. The fourth is the notion that the sacraments
contain invisible grace. The fifth and final theme is the teaching the sacraments begin to contain
grace as though they were vials of medicine, or as a vase contains something, when they are
consecrated.
Hugh ties together several of the five aforementioned themes in De sacramentis, Part IX,
Chapter Four. He here writes that five things are involved in the functioning of the sacraments:
“God, the physician; man, the sick person; the priest, the minister or messenger; grace, the
antidote; [and] the vessel, the sacrament. The physician gives, the minister dispenses, the vessel
preserves the spiritual grace which heals the sick recipient.”38 All of these notions – that a
sacrament is a remedy, that it works by humiliation, exercise, and education, that it must be
instituted, that it must be sanctified by a priest, and that it contains grace – find their way into
Thomas’s thought at various points, although he carefully nuances some of these ideas. Hugh of
St. Victor is, therefore, an integral source for understanding Thomas’s sacramentology.
4) Peter Lombard
I mentioned Peter Lombard39 above with respect to his place in Medieval education.
However, more needs to be said in order to understand his sacramentology and its use by
38
Ibid., 160. Punctuation added for clarity. “Deus medicus, homo aegrotus, sacerdos minister vel nuntius, gratia antidotum, vas sacramentum.
Medicus donat, minister dispensat, vas servat que sanat percipientem aegrotum gratiam spiritalem.”
39
Peter was likely born near Novara in Lombardy between 1095 and 1100. Sometime between 1136 and 1140, Peter made his way to the Abbey
of St. Victor in Paris. Cf. Rosemann, Peter Lombard, 34. Shortly thereafter, likely before 1145, he attained notoriety as a Master and theologian
at the University of Paris. The evidence for this is twofold. First, there is a letter by Bernard of Clairvaux to abbot Gilduin of St. Victor asking
55
Thomas. Peter’s extant works are few. They include a gloss on the Psalms, a gloss on the Pauline
epistles, and around 30 sermons. By far, however, Peter’s primary contribution to theological
history and to Medieval education is his Sentences. He completed an initial version of this text
in, or shortly after, 1154. He then taught the Sentences at Paris in the 1156-57 academic year,
adding notes, glosses, and making revisions as he went along. From these changes, a second and
final edition of the Sentences was published in 1158.40
b) Sacramentology
In the Sentences, Peter treats the sacraments in the first half of Book Four. In general,
Peter understands the sacraments to be signs, and he reinforces this significatory character at a
structural level, by dividing his four books into subjects that treat of things and subjects that treat
of signs. He recalls this structure at the outset of Book Four, where he opens with the words,
“After our treatment of what pertains to the doctrine of things which are to be enjoyed, and those
which are to be used, and of those which are to be enjoyed and used, let us now proceed to the
doctrine of signs.”41 Immediately thereafter, Peter identifies the purpose of the sacraments. He
writes, “God instituted the remedies of the sacraments against the wounds of original and actual
sin.”42 Thomas makes extensive use of a medicinal metaphor early in his career, which now can
be seen to come from Hugh through Peter.
that provisions be made there for Peter. Second, there is a reference to Peter as a “celebrated theologian” by a Bavarian poet, Walter Mapes.
Scholars have given several dates for the letter by Bernard. They agree though that the reference by Mapes dates to 1144. Cf. Ibid.; Peter
Lombard, The Sentences, trans. Giulio Silano, 4 vols. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2007), vol. 1, ix.; and Colish, Peter
Lombard, vol. 1, 16. During Peter’s time at the Abbey, it is probable that he was an extern student of Hugh of St. Victor. Cf. Ibid., 18. Peter
became the bishop of Paris in 1159. He died shortly thereafter, in late July 1160.
40
Rosemann, Peter Lombard, 55.
41
This English translation is taken from Lombard, The Sentences, 3. The Latin text cited here and below comes from Petri Lombardi, Magistri
Petri Lombardi Parisiensis episcopi Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, Tertia ed., 2 vols., Spicilegium Bonaventurianum (Grottaferrata: Editiones
Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1971). “Hic tractatis quae ad doctrinam rerum pertinent quibus fruendum est, et quibus utendum est,
et quae fruuntur et utuntur, ad doctrinam signorum accedamus.” In this division, Peter follows divisions made by Augustine in De doctrina
Christiana.
42
Lombard, The Sentences, 3. “...quia contra peccati originalis et actualis vulnera sacramentorum remedia Deus instituit.”
56
Following these and a few other prefatory remarks, Peter moves to establish what a
sacrament is. He brings forward several of St. Augustine’s notions mentioned above, namely that
a sacrament is a “visible form of an invisible grace,” “a sacred secret,” and “a sign of a sacred
thing.”43 This gives Peter occasion to give his definition of a sign. For this, he again makes
recourse to St. Augustine, specifically to De doctrina Christiana. Peter cites the definition, “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.”44 Ultimately, Peter synthesizes these
notions into his own definition of a sacrament, which he left to Thomas and to the Scholastic
tradition. Peter writes, “For a sacrament is properly so called because it is a sign of God’s grace
and a form of invisible grace in such manner that it bears its image and is its cause. And so the
sacraments were not instituted only for the sake of signifying, but also to sanctify.”45 Thus, Peter
insinuates the definition of a sacrament with both the notion of signification and with the notion
of causality. In this regard, he also brings forward Hugh’s dualism. He unfortunately, though,
does not specify the relationship of each of these two aspects in the sacraments. One might say,
however, that Peter does seem to regard signification as more foundational, based off of the fact
that he places it first and weaves it into the very structure of his work.
Peter’s next move is to employ his new definition of a sacrament to make a distinction
between the so-called “sacraments” of the Old Law and the sacraments of the New. Peter
maintains that the laws, rituals, and ceremonial observances given to the Jews were not
sacraments as all. These things were merely signs and were instituted “only for the sake of
43
Ibid. “Sacramentum est sacrae rei signum. Dicitur tamen sacramentum etiam sacrum secretum, sicut dicitur sacramentum deitatis: ut
sacramentum sit sacrum signans et sacrum signatum. Sed nunc agitur de sacramento secundum quod est signum. Item, sacramentum est
invisibilis gratiae visibilis forma.”
44
Ibid., 4. “Signum vero est res, praeter speciem quam ingerit sensibus, aliud aliquidex se faciens in cogitationem venire.” Cf. Augustine, De
doctrina christiana, (CSEL 80,33), b. 2, c. 1, n. 1.
45
Lombard, The Sentences, 4. “Sacramentum enim proprie dicitur, quod ita signum est gratie Dei et invisibilis gratiae forma, ut ipsius imaginem
gerat et causa exsistat. Non igitur significandi tantum gratia sacramenta instituta sunt, sed et sanctificandi.”
57
signifying, or for a burden.”46 They were thus not sacraments because they “could never justify
those who offered them.”47 Peter continues this discussion throughout the remainder of
Distinction One. In Distinction Two, he moves on to discuss the sacraments of the New Law in
general. The subsequent forty Distinctions then examine the sacraments on an individual basis.
Thomas’s Scriptum follows Peter in this structure and in this distinction between the sacraments
of the Old and New Law. Thomas does not go so far as to say that the practices given to the Jews
are not sacraments at all. He does, though, carry forward Peter’s negative attitude toward ritual
practices that are “only” or merely signs.
II. Biographical Context of the Seven Texts of this Study
Having provided some general historical and intellectual contextual information, I now
move to situate Thomas’s work in a more immediate context, that of Thomas’s own life
experiences. Doing so will allow one to better understand the circumstances in which Thomas
wrote each of the seven texts to be examined in this study, which will in turn allow one to better
understand each text. This process will also facilitate tracing a narrative of development
throughout Thomas’s academic career and understanding the factors that may have contributed
to the development of his sacramentology.
The exact time of Thomas’s birth is unknown and can only be estimated from remarks
about his age when he died. The general agreement of scholars today is that Thomas was born in
either 1224 or 1225, but according to J. P. Torrell, 1226 and 1227 cannot be definitively
excluded.48 The place of Thomas’s birth, on the other hand, can be stated with more confidence.
He was born in Roccasecca, in Southern Italy, at a castle his family had owned since the end of
46
Ibid., 5. “...quae tantum significandi gratia vel in onus instituta sunt.”
47
Ibid., 4. “quae nunquam poterant iustos facere offerentes.”
48
Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, 1.
58
the tenth century.49 Thomas’s family was thus part of the nobility. His father was Landolfo
D’Aquino and his mother, Landolfo’s second wife, was Donna Theodora, a noble woman from
Naples.50 Thomas had at least four brothers, five sisters, and three half-brothers. Among these,
Thomas was the youngest brother.
The custom of the time was for the youngest son to enter the service of the Church.
Thomas’s parents followed this custom. The family’s castle was near the eminent Benedictine
Abbey of Monte Cassino. Thus, Thomas’s parents sent him there as an oblate, most likely
between July 1230 and May 1231.51 By all accounts, the family had high hopes, and even
explicit plans, for him to become the Abbot of Monte Cassino when he reached adulthood. This
position would have secured, and even boosted, both the family’s political and social standing.
The next information available about Thomas’s youth comes from the spring of 1239. At
the behest of the Abbot of Monte Cassino, Thomas’s parents made arrangements for him to be
sent to Naples for more advanced education. At this time, even though he was fourteen or fifteen,
Thomas was in all likelihood still an oblate and had not yet made full monastic vows. This fact
would prove pivotal for Thomas, for while he was in Naples, he would encounter the
Dominicans, who had founded a priory there in 1231. Thomas came to decide that his future lay
with the Dominicans rather than the Benedictines.52
As for as his education in Naples, Thomas likely encountered something else during this
period that would shape his future, the natural philosophy of Aristotle. While he was in Naples,
he studied the liberal arts and philosophy, which were prerequisites for the study of theology. By
the 1230’s, the works of Aristotle and Averroës had made their way into the major cities of study
49
Ibid., 2.
50
James A. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Works: With Corrigenda and Addenda (Washington, D.C.: Catholic
University of America Press, 1983), 6.
51
52
Ibid., vol. 1, 8.
59
in Western Europe and had been inciting both excitement and controversy. Hence, in all
likelihood, Thomas would have been exposed to both of these thinkers during this highly
formative period of his life.
Thomas’s definitive choice to take the Dominican habit took place in April 1244. This
decision, along with his concurrent decision not to return to Monte Cassino, was not well
received by his family, especially his mother.53 The friars at Naples must have been aware of the
impending disapproval of Thomas’s family, for soon after Thomas decided to enter the Order of
Preachers, the friars made him leave the city and travel to Bologna. Upon hearing the news of
Thomas’s plans, his mother came to Naples to try to persuade Thomas to change his mind, and
she found that he had already been sent away. Not to be discouraged, however, she sent a courier
to two of her other sons instructing them to intercept Thomas, which they did. His brothers
brought him back to Roccasecca and kept him under house arrest for almost a year in an attempt
to get him to comply with their plans. Thomas was undeterred, and likely seeing his resolve, his
family gave in and eventually returned him to Naples in the summer of 1245.54
Soon after returning to Naples, Thomas was initiated as a friar and sent to Paris. Whether
Thomas studied as a student at the University Paris from 1245-48 is the matter of some debate. I
follow J. P. Torrell in this matter, who concludes that is “more than probable” that Thomas was
in fact a student at Paris during this time.55 Thomas would have likely completed his course in
the liberal arts and philosophy at this time. It is also possible that he began some studies of
theology during these years as well. More importantly, though, during his first stay in Paris,
Thomas encountered the teaching of Albert the Great and began to study under him. Thomas’s
53
Ibid., vol. 1, 9.
54
Ibid., vol. 1, 18.
55
Ibid., vol. 1, 20.
60
period in Paris ended when he accompanied Master Albert to Cologne in order to help establish a
Dominican studium generale there.
Thomas’s time in Cologne, which ran from 1248 till 1252, was busy. There, he took
several courses from Albert and helped compile the notes therefrom, including a course on
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and one on Pseudo-Dionysius’s Divine Names. Thomas also
served as Albert’s Biblical Bachelor at this time, which means that he would have taught several
courses cursorie on sacred Scripture. James Weisheipl maintains that Thomas’s lectures on
Jeremiah, Lamentations, and part of Isaiah date to the Cologne period.56 Finally, Thomas’s
ordination into the priesthood likely also took place here.
In late 1251 or early 1252, the master general of the Dominicans requested that Albert
recommend someone to teach as a bachelor in Paris. Albert selected Thomas, even though he
was younger than was normally required for this position.57 Consequently, in September of 1252,
Thomas returned to Paris and began teaching the Sentences as a bachelor. At this time, he would
have also begun writing his commentary on the Sentences. Thomas continued this work until
February 1256, when he was called upon to prepare his inaugural Magisterial lecture. Following
this lecture, Thomas was elevated to the rank of Magister in Sacra Pagina. At this time, Thomas
was not yet finished with his Scriptum.58 He would, however, finish soon after this event.
At the start of the 1256-57 academic year and for the next three years, Thomas remained
in Paris performing the duties of a magister in sacra pagina, which were to lecture, to dispute,
and to preach. During this period, Thomas composed his Contra impugantes Dei cultam et
religionem, his Super Boetium De Trinitate, his Quodlibets VII-XI, and his Questiones
disputatae de veritate. This final text is the only other text from this period that will be evaluated
56
Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Works: With Corrigenda and Addenda, 45.
57
58
Ibid., vol. 1, 54.
61
in the current study. This text is still representative of Thomas’s early thought, as it was
composed in a context much the same as that of the Scriptum.
The next several years of Thomas’s life and the works he produced during this period are
much less certain. In June of 1259, Thomas attended the general chapter of the Dominicans, held
in northern France at Valenciennes. Following this, he probably returned to Paris and gave a few
more lectures prior to the end of the month, when his regency in Paris ended.59 From here, and
for the next two years, Thomas’s whereabouts are not known. Two theories are possible. Pierre
Mandonnet hypothesized that during this time, Thomas went to Anagni, just southeast of Rome,
in order to become a lecturer in the pontifical curia of Alexander IV. James Weisheipl’s theory is
that Thomas returned to his home priory of Naples for this period. J. P. Torrell finds the latter
more likely, but he warns that no documentary evidence is available to support either theory.60
Whatever the case, Torrell points out that this would have been a period of relative leisure for
Thomas, which would have afforded him the opportunity to begin work on his second great
theological synthesis, the Summa contra Gentiles.
Following this relatively quiet period, Thomas went to Orvieto for several years. In
September of 1261, he was named as a lecturer of the Orvieto priory. This position meant that he
was to teach the fratres communes, the ordinary Dominican brothers who had not been selected
to pursue higher studies, as opposed to the brightest and most advanced theology students, whom
he was accustomed to teaching in Paris. At Orvieto, Thomas, of course, continued writing. He
here finished the Summa contra Gentiles. Also during this period, Thomas wrote his Exposito
super Iob ad litteram, his Contra errores Graecorum, his Catena aurea in Matthaeum, his De
articulis fidei et ecclesiae sacramentis and his liturgy for the feast of Corpus Christi, the latter
59
Ibid., vol. 1, 98.
60
Ibid., vol. 1, 99.
62
two of which will be treated in this study. The sacramentology of these two latter works
represent a transitional stage in Thomas’s theology. This theological transition surely reflects the
transition Thomas must have experienced when he moved from teaching in Paris at a university
to teaching in Orvieto at a priory.
Thomas’s four or five years in Orvieto ended in 1265. In September of this year, the
Dominican chapter held at Anagni commissioned Thomas to go to Rome and found a studium
there at Santa Sabina, which he did.61 Leonard Boyle points out that this studium was not to be a
studium generale, like the schools at Paris, Bologna, Oxford, or Cologne, or even a preparatory
studium provinciale, but rather a “studium peronale, founded as an experiment so that Thomas
could freely apply there a study program of his own choosing.”62 Thus, for this reason, in late
1265, Thomas left Orvieto for Rome.
Some scholars, like James Weisheipl and Pierre Mandonnet, imagine that Thomas’s stay
in Rome was relatively short and that in 1267 he moved north to Viterbo. Their basis for this
judgment is the fact that on June 5, 1267, the Dominican general chapter decided that “the
provincial of the Roman province should diligently see to it that the priory where the [papal]
curia resides, should be provided with suitable friars for the needs of the curia, particularly the
prior and the lector.”63 Since, Clement IV was, after 1266, residing in Viterbo, these scholars
conclude that Thomas must have been sent to serve the curia there. Other scholars, however,
including Torrell and Gauthier, point out that there is no direct evidence of Thomas leaving
Rome in 1267. They thus contend that the theory that Thomas was at Viterbo is “arrived at by a
purely imaginative inference” and “is not supported by any document.”64 In light of this lack of
61
Ibid., vol. 1, 142.
62
Ibid., vol. 1, 144.
63
Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Works: With Corrigenda and Addenda, 230.
64
Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 180.
63
evidence, it seems reasonable to agree with the likes of Torrell and Gauthier. In which case, one
would hold that Thomas likely stayed in Rome until 1268.
Whatever the case, the next period of Thomas’s life begins when he returns to Paris in
order to undertake a second teaching regency. The exact date and motivations for this return,
however, are unclear. Mandonnet gives mid-November of 1268 as a likely date for Thomas’s
departure from Rome. This would put Thomas’s arrival in Paris occurring sometime in January
of 1269. Gauthier, Walz, and Verbeke, however, find it unlikely that Thomas crossed the Alps in
the middle of winter. Thus, they place the start of Thomas’s journey several months earlier,
likely in early September.65
As for Thomas’s reasons for leaving Rome, scholars can only speculate. Unlike some of
Thomas’s other moves, he does not appear to have been commissioned by the Dominican Order
to return to Paris. It seems probable instead that Thomas chose to go to Paris in response to one
or perhaps several intellectual crises facing the city. One of these is the so-called Averroist crisis,
which surrounded the mistaken reading of Averröes wherein he was believed to teach
monopsychism, which is the doctrine that humans all share in only one and the same intellectual
soul. Another crisis at hand for the university community at Paris was a conservative
overreaction in response to the Averroist crisis that lead some to denounce the use of Aristotle
for theology totally. Finally, there was also at this time a renewed animosity against masters
from mendicant orders. Thus, Thomas likely felt a need to return to Paris in order to respond to
and take part in these various controversies. This position is further supported by the fact that
some of the most polemical of Thomas’s works date to this period, like De aeternitate mundi and
De unitate intellectus.
65
Ibid., 179-82.
64
In addition to taking place in these various controversies, during his second period in
Paris he also found time to write commentaries on Scripture, commentaries on Aristotle, and his
Summa theologiae, all while carrying out his teaching duties. This period was to last for almost
four years before Thomas made one final move, again at the prompting of the Dominican order.
On June 12, 1272, the Roman chapter met in Florence and again directed Thomas to
establish a studium. This time, Thomas was to found a studium generale and it was left to his
discretion to choose where he wanted to do so, who he wanted as staff, and the number of
students it would accept.66 Thomas chose to found this studium in Naples, and in the midst of a
still tumultuous political and intellectual situation in Paris, he left to travel there sometime in the
summer of 1272. Several documents place Thomas in Naples before September 10th.67
Thomas’s time in Naples was spent much like his other periods of teaching and writing.
He likely left Paris for Naples sometime around Easter of 1272, which would have put him in
Italy sometime around Pentecost.68 Thomas would have shortly thereafter begun teaching a
course on the Pauline letters, which would run from October 1272 until December 1273. Of
Thomas’s Pauline commentaries that exist today, Thomas’s work on the Epistle to the Romans is
the only one that can be traced with confidence to this period of teaching in Naples.69 Though,
parts of Thomas’s commentary on 1 Corinthians might be from his time in Naples as well.
Thomas also likely taught a course on the Psalms at Naples, which was interrupted by his
death and remained unfinished. The resulting commentary covers only the first 54 Psalms.
Torrell dates this course to the beginning of the academic year of 1273, and thus to September or
October. Finally, while Thomas was in Naples, he continued work on his Summa.
66
Ibid., vol. 1, 247.
67
Ibid., vol. 1, 248.
68
Ibid.
69
Ibid., vol. 1, 254.
65
The last months of Thomas’s life were filled with travel, fatigue, and illness. A downturn
began immediately following Thomas’s famed mystical vision. Very likely around the Feast of
St. Nicolas, December 6th, 1273, Thomas was celebrating mass and “underwent an astonishing
transformation.”70 After this mass, Thomas, who had been writing about the sacrament of
Penance in the Tertia pars of the Summa, gave up writing and dictating, and even did away with
his writing materials. When asked by his faithful friend and scribe Reginald of Piperno what the
problem was, Thomas replied, “I cannot do any more. Everything I have written seems to me as
straw in comparison with what I have seen.”71
Following this episode and accompanied by Reginald, Thomas was sent to rest at his
sister’s home, which was just south of Naples. Likely by the end of December or the beginning
of January, Thomas and Reginald returned to Naples briefly. Within the month and with Thomas
still not in good health, the pair set off to attend The Second Council of Lyons, which was called
by Gregory X and was set to begin May 1. On the way to the council, Thomas hit his head on a
fallen tree. He initially appeared to be okay following this incident. However, shortly thereafter,
toward the end of February, while still traveling, Thomas became increasingly ill. He lost his
appetite and was bedridden at a nearby castle. Shortly thereafter, Thomas was taken to the
nearby abbey of Fossanova, to be cared for by the monks there. He stayed for a few more weeks
at the abbey, but his health kept declining. He received Viaticum on March 4th or 5th and then
the anointing of the sick the following day. Thomas died at the abbey early in the morning of
March 7th, 1274.72
70
Ibid., vol. 1, 289.
71
Ibid.
72
Ibid., vol. 1, p. 293.
66
III. The Seven Texts of this Study – Dating, Authenticity, Genre, Audience, and Purpose
Having established a sketch of the events of Thomas’s life, I now return to the seven texts
that I will examine in this study. In this section, I will address some of the particular historical,
scholarly, and contextual issues facing each of these seven texts. I first speak to each text’s
dating and authenticity, especially if these are a matter of scholarly debate. I then identify each
text’s genre, audience, and purpose. Aside from familiarizing readers with these aspects in order
to understand what and why Thomas is writing, one should bear these particular contexts in mind
as an interpretive guide. Attentiveness to genre, audience, and purpose, will allow one to gauge
whether variations in Thomas’s sacramentology result from variations in form due to external
circumstances, or whether variations represent legitimate development.
A) Scriptum Super Sententiis (c. 1252-1256) – Text One
1) Dating and Authenticity
Establishing the dating and authenticity of the Scriptum super Sententiis is relatively
straightforward and presents no significant scholarly challenges. Thomas would have had to
write a commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences in order to become a Master at Paris. The
authenticity of the text available today is also well attested, even though a modern critical edition
is not available. This is the case because Thomas’s Scriptum was circulated widely. Initially, it
was even more widely used than his Summa theologiae.73
As for the dating of the Scriptum, no more exact dating is possible than was indicated
above in the biographical sketch. Thomas likely started the Scriptum in late 1252, when he
moved from Cologne back to Paris. Thomas would have worked on this text while he taught
until shortly after he was appointed as a Master. The chancellor of the University of Paris
73
Ibid., vol. 1, p. 47.
67
commissioned Thomas to write his inaugural lecture in February of 1256. The lecture would
have been given between March 3rd and June 17th of that year.74 Thus, Thomas’s Scriptum was
likely composed from late-1252 to mid-1256.
2) Genre, Audience, and Purpose
The genre, audience, and purpose of the Scriptum, are also relatively straightforward.
The genre of Sentence Commentaries has already been discussed above in the historical context
section. In short, these texts were the result of using Peter Lombard’s Sentences as a theological
textbook to teach students. They developed out of a live pedagogical context and thus followed
the disputatio method of asking and answering questions. Sentence Commentaries were textually
focused, aimed at exposition, and followed the overall structure set forth by Peter Lombard in his
own text. However, authors of Sentence Commentaries had license to go beyond the mere text of
Peter’s. They often posed theological questions of their own choosing and answered these
questions in their own fashion and to the best of their abilities. One might thus compare Sentence
Commentaries both to modern doctoral dissertations and to modern systematic theologies.
This genre, then, provides some insight into the audience and purpose Thomas had for
writing his Scriptum. The audience was to be theological Masters, and his purpose in writing
would have been to demonstrate both his own theological and intellectual abilities and the fact
that he was qualified and ready to join the ranks of the theological Masters. Thomas’s Scriptum,
therefore, ought to be read as a first attempt at composing a systematic collection of sacred
doctrine, from the hand of a neophyte who was being trained to carefully read and compare
authoritative texts and to answer questions arising from this work with an eye toward teaching
the Christian faith. Thomas’s young age ought also not go overlooked. He would have finished
74
Ibid., vol. 1, p. 51.
68
this text in his early 30’s. He was thus a young scholar and his thought had much room for
maturation over the twenty-year remaining course of his academic career.
B) Questiones disputatae de veritate (c. 1256-1259) – Text Two
The dating and authenticity of De veritate presents little problem. Thomas composed the
text over the three year period that he was a master in Paris, from 1256 to 1259, “at the rate,”
according to J. P. Torrell, “of some eighty articles per year, a number that corresponds rather
closely to the number of days of teaching.”75 This text contains twenty-nine questions. Thus,
question twenty-seven, which is on grace and which will be the focus of the present study, was
probably composed in 1259. As for the text’s authenticity, this is not in doubt in the slightest. In
fact, this text exists today in its original dictated form, which “is practically the equivalent of an
autograph manuscript and has, therefore, all the [same] advantages.”76 Chief among these
advantages include being able to observe Thomas in the process of composing and editing a text,
since erasures, corrections, and notes are evident.
In order to understand Thomas’s De veritate fully, perhaps even more so with this text
than the others examined in this study, one must bear in mind its genre and occasion for
composition. To do this, one must have an idea about the Medieval practice of holding public
academic disputes, as the genre of Disputed Questions flows directly from this practice. One of
75
Ibid., vol. 1, 62.
76
Ibid., vol. 1, 64.
69
the three primary functions of a Medieval magister, along with lecturing and preaching, was to
dispute.
A disputation took place over two days. The morning of the first day was entirely devoted
to the disputation and consisted of persons expressing and replying to a large number of theses,
opinions, and objections that pertained to the question at hand. Objections were usually
formulated first by Masters, other than the disputing Master, then by Bachelors, and then by
other students. A Master’s Bachelor usually addressed these objections as they were raised. The
Master, at this point, was there to provide assistance.
After the first morning of the disputation, the Master’s job was to compose a magisterial
determination on the question that had been discussed. Perhaps the biggest part of this
determination was to bring order and proper formulation to all the objections and opinions that
had been expressed in no given order during the dispute. The Master’s job also included
pronouncing his own expert opinion on the stated question and replying to the objections as he
formulated and organized them. The presentation of this magisterial determination was done on
the morning of the second day.
Magisterial determinations form the basis for the disputed question literary genre, of
which Thomas’s De veritate is an example. Due to the fact that this genre came out of extended
discussion from the entire university community, texts written in this genre are lengthy,
comprehensive, difficult, and technical. This genre represents the heights of scholastic
theological thought. One might compare the genre of Disputed Questions to today’s technical
academic journal articles. The goal of such writing is not simplicity or for the texts to be useful
for teaching those in training. Rather, through the dialogue of the best minds of the time, the aim
of such texts is to address theological problems as rigorously and with as much sophistication as
70
possible. Hence, the intended audience of Disputed Questions texts is narrow. These texts were
written for the highest of academic and university audiences, and thus for the best theological
and philosophical thinkers of the day.
The genre of disputed questions developed out of the scholastic love of rigorously
questioning texts. The development of the genre lies somewhere midway between the genre of
the Sentence Commentary and the genre of the Summa. On the one hand, the Sentence
Commentary genre was an early instance of the disputatio method applied to writing
theologically. On the other hand, one can see the genre of Summae as an attempt to streamline
the lengthy and difficult writing that came out of university disputations and to make this
knowledge more accessible to neophytes.77
C) De articulis fidei et ecclesiae sacramentis (c. 1261-1264) – Text Three
Thomas’s authorship of the short work, De articulis fidei, is not disputed. However, this
text is difficult to date precisely. Thomas wrote this text at the behest of Archbishop Leonardo,
who was the archbishop of Palermo from 1261 to 1270. The text is definitely written, therefore,
between these two dates. Scholars disagree considerably, though, about where within this range
to place the text. For instance, Mandonnet argues for an early dating of 1261-62, Weisheipl
suggests 1261-65, Lafont proposes 1262, Gauthier maintains a later dating of 1265-68, and
77
Given what disputed questions are and how they developed, I would add that it is most appropriate and will prove most helpful to examine this
kind of text from Thomas’s corpus and to do so between examining his Scriptum and his two Summae. This method will provide a good sampling
from various genres, which will display the way in which Thomas translates his doctrine of sacramental signification into each of these styles of
writing. The fact that Thomas writes in all three of the genres throughout the course of his career also serves to make the point that this historical
genre development did not take place in a strictly sequential or superseding fashion, even while the prominence of each of these genres
progressed linearly throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and was in a state of flux throughout Thomas’s life. Each of these genres
served distinct purposes and coexisted fruitfully, even while new genres came to the fore in order to meet the needs of theologians.
71
Mongillo gives a date between 1266-68.78 On the basis of the work’s doctrine of sacramental
signification, about which more will be said in Chapter Three, I find that a date early to middle
dating is probable. Thomas’s sacramental thought in this work evidences a shift away from his
thought as expressed in the earlier Scriptum and De veritate, but the text does not yet contain as
developed a shift as one finds in the Summa contra Gentiles or the Corpus Christi Liturgy.
Accordingly, I situate this text between the De Veritate and the Corpus Christi Liturgy, which
would give it a possible date range of 1261-1264. This range is supported by the fact that the
majority of the scholars listed above give dates that fall between these two dates.
Unlike disputed questions, Thomas’s De articulis does not have its own preexistent
literary genre; it is generally classified as an Opuscula theologica, a letter,79 or, as Torrell
identifies it, as a request for expert opinion.80 As mentioned above, Thomas wrote this text for
Leonard, the Archbishop of Palermo, who asked him to compose a short doctrinal summary that
could be memorized. Thomas agreed to this task and decided to structure this short work around
the Creed and the Sacraments. For each article of faith and each of the seven sacraments,
Thomas gives a brief summary and explanation. He then gives a short list of the principle errors
surrounding each subject that persons have fallen into throughout the ages, which Leonard asked
Thomas to do. Thus, in sharp contrast to the rigors and depth of the Scriptum and the De veritate,
in this text, one sees Thomas trying to be as simple as possible. I, therefore, identify the text as a
catechetical text intended to be a very basic introduction to the faith.
78
Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, 126. See also Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Works: With Corrigenda and
Addenda, 393.
79
Cf. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Works: With Corrigenda and Addenda, 392.
80
Cf. Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 352.
72
D) Corpus Christi Liturgy (c. 1264) – Text Four
The dating of Thomas’s Corpus Christi Liturgy does not present any significant
challenges. The feast of Corpus Christi was established with the Papal bull Transiturus, by
Urban IV on August 11th 1264. Thomas’s liturgy for this feast includes a mass, Cibavit eos, and
an office, Sacerdos in aeternum. I treat these as a single text because they were written together
and written at the same time. Given the date the feast of Corpus Christi was established,
Thomas’s liturgy for it likely reached its definitive form in early 1264.81
This liturgy’s composition history, manuscript tradition, and authenticity, however, are
the most difficult of any text to be examined in this study. Much of the confusion comes in with
the office. Three different versions of the Corpus Christi office exist, and both the office and the
mass come from at least seven different manuscript traditions. The earliest version of the office
is Animarum cibus, which was followed by Sapiencia aedificavit sibi and lastly by Sacerdos in
aeternum.82 Throughout the Tradition, Thomas was thought to have composed a Corpus Christi
office. However, for much of modern critical scholarship, which of the three versions of the
office Thomas wrote, or which parts of which offices he wrote, has been disputed. This was the
case, at least, until the work of Pierre-Marie Gy. Through his critical work on this text, Gy has
made a convincing case that Thomas was the author both of Sapiencia aedificavit sibi and of
Sacerdos in aeternum. Sapiencia aedificavit sibi served as something like Thomas’s first draft of
the office and Sacerdos in aeternum was the final version that was promulgated by Urban IV.
Gy’s results have been further confirmed by the work of Zawilla.83 As for the manuscript
81
Ibid., vol. 1, 130.
82
These are incipits. In the literature, the last two are often referred to as SAS and SIA, respectively.
83
For a detailed study of this text, and Thomas’s authorship, see the excellent work of Barbara R. Walters, Vincent Corrigan, and Peter T.
Ricketts, The Feast of Corpus Christi (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 33-36; 65-74. For a more introductory
treatment, see Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, 129-32.
73
tradition, there is no need to discuss its complicated details for the purposes at hand, except to
say that the text I use is the critical edition of Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 1143, which
is the same manuscript that Gy used for his work.84 This manuscript contains Thomas’s final
office, Sacerdos in aeternum, and his mass, Cibavit eos. These two texts together make up the
Corpus Christi Liturgy that I analyze in this study.
The genre of Thomas’s Corpus Christi office and mass, as well as their intended
audiences, is clear. The office of Sacerdos in aeternum consists of a series of prayers, hymns,
and readings for those in religious life to use on the feast of Corpus Christi at the hours of prayer.
The mass Cibavit eos likewise consists of prayers, hymns, and readings. Thomas wrote this text
for all the faithful to celebrate mass on the feast of Corpus Christi.
The occasion of Thomas’s composing this text, and his theological purposes in it,
however, are less obvious. In short, Pope Urban IV asked Thomas to write an office and a mass
for the Feast of Corpus Christi. However, exactly when this request was made is unknown, and
exactly why the Pope selected Thomas is also unknown. One may presume the Pope selected
Thomas because of his theological prominence, but this is only a speculation. Furthermore, it is
unclear why the existing office from Liège, the location of Julienne of Mount Cornillion, who
worked to found the feast, would not suffice. Finally, it is also not known with certainty why a
draft and a revision of this text both exist. It is possible that the first version (Sapiencia
aedificavit sibi) was celebrated and then Thomas felt the need to refine it shortly thereafter. In
spite of these unanswered questions, in general, one may venture to suggest Thomas’s overall
84
This manuscript is available in Walters, Corrigan, and Ricketts, The Feast of Corpus Christi, 240-361. See this text also for much more detail
on the manuscript tradition and the history of the Feast of Corpus Christi.
74
theological purpose. Thomas desires to inspire reverence, awe, love for, and contemplation of the
most holy sacrament of the Eucharist. This purpose will be clear upon examining these two
liturgical texts.
E) Summa contra Gentiles (c. 1259-1267) – Text Five
Thomas’s work on the Summa contra Gentiles (ScG) is spread out over many years due
to the size and scope of the undertaking. Moreover, Thomas revised the text several times before
it reached its final form. Thomas undoubtedly started the ScG before his time in Orvieto.
Gauthier and Torrell both believe that he likely began writing this work at the end of his first
Parisian regency.85 He probably had an early draft of the first 53 chapters of Book One by the
summer of 1259. Thomas also certainly worked on the ScG from 1259-1261, during his period of
relative leisure when his exact whereabouts are unknown. Lastly, the ScG was almost certainly
revised and completed when Thomas was in Rome between 1265 and 1267.86
The portions of the ScG that are relevant to the doctrine of sacramental signification are
likely all from Thomas’s time in Orvieto, probably toward the end of his stay there. Based on
Thomas’s references to the ScG in his other works, as well as his knowledge of Aristotle, and his
reference to other historical texts, Gauthier and Torrell conclude that Book Four was not
composed until 1264-65. For this reason, and on the authority of these two scholars, I have
elected to treat the ScG after the Corpus Christi Liturgy. Though parts of Book Four could have
been written earlier, the majority of texts that are relevant to the doctrine of sacramental
signification are from the end of Book Four and thus were very probably written in 1265.
85
86
Ibid. Torrell here follows Gauthier.
75
As for the authenticity of the ScG, there is no room for uncertainty. The text has always
been recognized as being written by Thomas. In fact, many parts of this text exist today in a
manuscript that was handwritten by Thomas himself. Torrell writes, “The Contra Gentiles is one
of the works we are privileged to have in large part in Saint Thomas’s own handwriting (about a
third of the work, from Book I, Chapter 13 until Book III, Chapter 120, but with many
lacunae.)”87 Thus, this text has the utmost reliability. The manuscript, moreover, witnesses to the
care with which Thomas wrote the ScG, as it shows many corrections and revisions.
2) Genre, Audience, and Purpose of the Summa contra Gentiles
The ScG’s exact genre, the purpose, and audience have been heavily debated. The
traditional understanding, which Torrell dates only to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is
that Thomas wrote the ScG, at the behest of Raymond of Peñafort, as a missionary manual in
order to convert Muslims in Spain.88 This understanding, however, does not cohere with all the
evidence presented by the text. For instance, the ScG does not seem to be taking particular aim at
Islam or the Islamic philosophies of Averröes or Avicenna. Rather, Torrell writes, it is aimed at
“a collection of various errantes, pagans, Muslims, Jews, heretics, who are both examined and
criticized.”89 Also quite evident upon reading the text is the fact that its audience is none of these
errantes, but rather Christians.
Thus, a number of competing scholarly theories have been advanced that try to capture
the genre and purpose of the ScG. Gauthier, for instance, views the ScG as a work of, in modern
terms, systematic as opposed to apologetic theology. He thinks the text aims at the pursuit of
87
Ibid., vol. 1, 101.
88
Ibid., vol. 1, 104.
89
Ibid., vol. 1, 105.
76
wisdom, and he even goes so far as to say that “rarely was a work less historical” than the ScG.90
Others, however, like Anton Pegis, disagree and still want to see in this text an intended
“Gentile” audience and a missionary or apologetic purpose.91 Still others have proposed various
mediating views, like Fernand Van Steenberghen and Albert Patfoort, who think that Thomas
wrote the text for committed Christian theologians and philosophers, but specifically, those who
might have to engage with non-Christians. According to these scholars, the ScG is not quite a
missionary manual or an apologetic theology; it is something more along the lines of a
systematic theology for those with ecumenical concerns.
I find this mediating position to be the most reasonable and to best account for the
evidence of the text, specifically the fact that the text was written to Christians and the fact that
the text maintains an eye toward various errors in faith. Thomas himself even writes, “I have set
myself the task of making known, as far as my limited powers will allow, the truth that the
Catholic faith professes, and of setting aside the errors that are opposed to it.”92 This statement
speaks both to the fact that Thomas aims to write a systematic theology and that it is one
especially concerned with refuting the errors of those who might oppose the Christian faith, be
they Muslims, Pagans, Jews, or heretics. Thus, one should interpret the text accordingly.
Two other matters of genre ought also be noted before examining this text itself. First,
unlike either the earlier Scriptum or the later Summa theologiae, the ScG is not written in a
disputatio format. In this regard, the text is more like the De articulis fidei than any other text
examined in this study. This is not to say, however, that the ScG shares the same level of
simplicity or popular level audience as the De articulis. In these respects, the ScG is still more in
90
Ibid. I, of course, completely disagree with this characterization.
91
Ibid.
92
English text taken from, Thomas Aquinas, On the truth of the Catholic faith: Summa contra Gentiles, trans. Anton C. Pegis (Garden City, N.Y:
Hanover House, 1955-57), b. 1, c. 2. The Latin text that follows is from: S. Thomae Aquinatis, Liber de veritate catholicae Fidei contra errores
infidelium seu Summa contra Gentiles, ed. P. Marc, C. Pera, and P. Caramello (Taurini-Romae: Marietti, 1961). “Assumpta igitur ex divina
pietate fiducia sapientis officium prosequendi, quamvis proprias vires excedat, propositum nostrae intentionis est veritatem quam fides Catholica
profitetur, pro nostro modulo manifestare, errores eliminando contrarios.”
77
line with the Scriptum and the Summa theologiae. Therefore, the ScG presents one with the
unique opportunity to observe Thomas’s attempts to compose a systematic treatment of the
Christian faith, for those who are theologically well-educated, while experimenting with methods
other than the ordinary academic method for accomplishing this goal.
Second, one ought not to overlook the impassioned and devotional tone of the ScG, a
tone that resembles the Corpus Christi Liturgy more closely than any other text examined thus
far. Gauthier, in particular, highlights this tone and describes it as personal, full of emotion, and
full of fervor.93 He even writes that the ScG is not a didactic work, but instead ought to be read as
“an essay in personal reflection.”94 Torrell agrees and describes the ScG a number of times as “a
personal labor.”95 Thus, again, the ScG provides its reader with a unique opportunity. One here is
able to see Thomas combine the personal and devotional fervor of a liturgy with the rigors and
content of a systematic theology.
F) Super Evangelium S. Ioannis lectura (c. 1270-1272) – Text Six
Thomas’s Commentary on the Gospel of John is very reliable from a dating and textual
standpoint. Scholars agree that this text dates to Thomas’s second period of teaching in Paris
(1268-1272) and also that Thomas probably taught the text of Scripture here in canonical order.
Furthermore, due to the size of this text, it is also clear that the course took up the span of two
academic years. It is therefore very likely that Thomas’s commentary on the Gospel of John was
written between 1270 and 1272.
As for the text’s origin and authenticity, Thomas’s commentary on John exists in the
form of a reportatio, which are lecture notes taken by a scribe or student in the class that Thomas
93
94
Ibid.
95
Ibid., vol. 1, 107.
78
was teaching. This report, though, is full and complete, does not, as some of Thomas’s other
commentaries, contain any interpolated texts from other authors, and is done by the hand of
Reginald of Piperno, Thomas’s longtime scribe, close associate, and friend. Moreover, it is
possible that Thomas himself looked over the text and approved it, even if he did not write it
down himself. Bartholomew of Capua and Tolomeo of Luca, early chroniclers of Thomas’s life
and works, both state that Thomas revised this reportatio.96 Torrell finds this somewhat unlikely,
but nonetheless states that this scriptural commentary is “among the most fully finished and most
profound that [Thomas] has left us.”97 Thus, in any case, one can use this text as a reliable piece
of evidence for judging Thomas’s theology.
Thomas’s commentary on John provides another witness to the way in which Thomas
translates his doctrine of sacramental signification into different genres of writing, for different
audiences, and in different social and historical contexts. This text is the result of Thomas’s class
lectures at the University of Paris. Thus, it is intended for advanced theology students. This text
differs from previous texts in the fact that it is not written for Masters of theology, for
catechumens, for worshipers, or for common mendicant friars.
As for the genre and purpose of the commentary, I have mentioned previously that the
job of a Master of theology was to lecture, to dispute, and to preach. This text flows from the
first of these tasks, legere, that is, to comment upon and lecture upon the text of sacred Scripture.
This commentary, hence, allows one to see Thomas engaging in the timeless work of
theologians, that of reading and writing about Scripture. The commentary furthermore represents
96
Ibid., vol. 1, 199.
97
Ibid., vol.1, 200.
79
the fruit of Thomas’s day-to-day work of teaching. Much as a professor’s lectures today,
Thomas’s Scriptural commentaries provide a different perspective on his thought than do his
polished Summae, his popular level works, or his disputations. Thus, for instance, rather than
being in the disputatio format or in the format of a sustained argument in a theological essay, his
commentary on John is textually focused and is not topically or doctrinally organized. Its intent
is not to systematically present Christian doctrine, or to answer explicit questions about the faith,
but rather to illuminate linearly the meaning of sacred Scripture.
Thomas’s ultimate purposes would likely have been twofold in this regard. He would
have aimed at teaching his students the truths of Scripture to prepare, no doubt, some of them to
teach these texts one day as Masters themselves. For all of his students, though, Thomas would
have had the goal in mind of teaching them to preach and to spread the good news. One thus sees
in these texts an interesting mix, from today’s perspective, of the academic and the evangelical.
One is thus here able to see Thomas’s attempts at being simultaneously educational and
devotional. For his doctrine of sacramental signification, this means being able to see not just
Thomas’s theology, but what he thinks is the beauty of it as well.
G) Summa theologiae (c. 1266-1273) – Text Seven
The Summa theologiae is without a doubt the most well known and the most widely used
of Thomas’s works. Historically and presently, many have regarded the Summa as encapsulating
Thomas’s entire theology and providing his definitive position on doctrine.98 Accordingly, this
text’s authenticity is not at all in doubt, even if some work remains to be done to bring its critical
98
This view, of course, is open to debate.
80
edition up to contemporary standards.99 The text’s precise dating, however, is not as certain as
may be expected. In general, Thomas almost surely began working on the Summa while he was
in Rome, which means he probably started composing it in 1265 or 1266. Thomas continued
writing, as mentioned above, until 1273, whereupon he left the work unfinished. The exact
timeline, however, for each of the individual parts of the Summa is uncertain.
Thomas very likely completed the entire Prima pars while he was in Rome, before 1268.
It is known as well that this initial section of the Summa circulated around Italy before Thomas’s
second Parisian regency.100 Both parts of the second part of the Summa, however, are more
difficult to date. Thomas began and worked on the Prima secundae during his time in Paris, thus
sometime after September 1268. Scholarly opinions differ, though, on when he finished this part
and transitioned into writing the Secunda secundae. Glorieux, Eschmann, and Weisheipl
maintain that Thomas finished the Prima secundae during the summer of 1270, then immediately
began the Secunda secundae, which he finished before December of 1271.101 Gauthier, however,
disagrees. He claims that the Prima secundae could not have been finished until 1271 because
Thomas cites a translation of Aristotle’s Rhetoric over 100 times, which he would not have had
access to until the end of 1270.102 Torrell agrees that Gauthier’s case is sound and merits assent,
but he admits that this timeline creates the problem of overburdening Thomas’s time in Paris. If
Gauthier were right, it would mean that Thomas composed the entire Secunda pars in less than a
year and a half, in addition to several other works and his teaching duties.
As for the Tertia pars, Thomas likely began it while he was still in Paris, at the end of
1271 or the beginning of 1272. While in Paris, Thomas only completed the first 20, according to
99
Cf. Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, p. 147.
100
Ibid., vol. 1, p. 146.
101
Ibid.
102
Ibid.
81
Eschmann, or 25, according to Glorieux, questions of the Tertia pars.103 These questions cover
Thomas’s Christology, specifically his doctrine of the Incarnation and Christ’s nature. The
remainder of the Tertia pars, then, dates to Thomas’s time in Naples and thus to 1272 and 1273.
Thomas almost certainly started his section on the sacraments in general in 1273 and transitioned
into examining the sacraments in particular before he ceased writing in early December of that
year. Roughly speaking, therefore, The Prima pars is the fruit of Thomas’s time in Rome, the
Secunda pars is from Thomas’s second period in Paris, and the Tertia pars dates to Thomas’s
final period of teaching in Naples.
The precise genre of the Summa has long been a matter of debate, with many interpreters
from different backgrounds wishing to claim the Summa for their particular area of study. Some
have seen the work as a work of philosophy with a theological subject matter.104 Some have seen
the work as the systematic theology par excellence. Some have seen the work as a conglomerate
of theology and philosophy, with Thomas maintaining rather hard and fast distinctions between
doing Philosophy at one time, and proceeding by reason alone, and doing Theology at another,
and making use of revealed data.105 Others have seen the Summa as something of an
encyclopedia, or manual of theology.106 All of these interpretations are possible and all lead to
helpful insights. The fact that so many persons from so many diverse backgrounds have been
able to find meaning in Thomas’s work surely attests to the genius and enduring contribution of
103
Ibid., vol. 1, p. 261.
104
One would name here the tradition of Analytic Thomism.
105
See, for example, the recent work by Brian Davies on the Summa. Cf. Brian Davies, Thomas Aquinas's Summa theologiae: A Guide and
Commentary (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
106
One would name here the manualist and Neo-Scholastic traditions.
82
the Summa. Nonetheless, historically speaking, I suggest that it is most accurate to regard the
Summa as a theological textbook in the tradition of Lombard’s Sentences.
Theologians of Thomas’s time experienced a need to continue organizing the knowledge
of sacred doctrine and continue rendering this knowledge more accessible to those just beginning
to study it. For the highest levels of theological discourse, the genre of disputed questions
existed. For inception into the ranks of the theological masters, the genre of the Sentence
Commentary existed. For those beginning to study to become masters, the Sentences themselves
were the textbook of choice. For all others though, a genre of theological text was still needed.
For the common mendicant brother and for those studying theology below the highest university
levels, for instance, in the schools that Thomas was so often engaged to found, a better way to
teach the faith was needed.
One sees an attempt to meet this pedagogical need not only in Thomas’s Summa
theologiae but also in the projects of Thomas’s contemporaries. For instance, Bonaventure felt
the need to write his Breviloquium in order that students might have access to learning sacred
doctrine from an accessible “brief discourse.” One sees Thomas himself searching for an
adequate means of teaching theology in his earlier Summa contra Gentiles, and in the fact that he
initially began another commentary on Lombard’s Sentences in 1265, before abandoning it to
write the Summa.107
Above all, however, Thomas himself attests to understanding the Summa as a theological
textbook in the context of medieval theological education and in the tradition of the Sentences
and Sentence Commentaries. He does so in the prologue to the Summa, which also speaks to the
work’s intended audience and purpose. Thomas states:
107
Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, p. 144.
83
Because the doctor of Catholic truth ought not only to teach the proficient, but also to instruct
beginners (according to the Apostle: As unto little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink,
not meat -- 1 Corinthians 3:1-2), we purpose in this book to treat of whatever belongs to the
Christian religion, in such a way as may tend to the instruction of beginners. We have
considered that students in this doctrine have not seldom been hampered by what they have
found written by other authors, partly on account of the multiplication of useless questions,
articles, and arguments, partly also because those things that are needful for them to know
are not taught according to the order of the subject matter, but according as the plan of the
book might require, or the occasion of the argument offer, partly, too, because frequent
repetition brought weariness and confusion to the minds of readers. Endeavoring to avoid
these and other like faults, we shall try, by God’s help, to set forth whatever is included in
this sacred doctrine as briefly and clearly as the matter itself may allow.108
In his remarks on these words, J.P. Torrell says well that, “Here indeed we find the concerns of a
pedagogue, and we understand them much better if we know to listen for an echo of the Orvieto
experience.”109 Thomas thus writes the Summa as an aid in teaching theology intended to help
meet the needs of those just beginning their studies and out of the results of his teaching not just
at the highest university levels, but even teaching his common Dominican brothers. Thomas thus
undertakes writing the Summa with the purpose of clarifying and logically ordering “Catholic
truth” and “whatever belongs to the Christian religion.”110 In these regards, Thomas is engaged
in exactly the same work as Peter Lombard, who sought to organize sacred doctrine logically that
it might better communicate the truths of the faith to his students.
A challenge to taking the words of Thomas’s prologue at face value, and with the
proposed interpretation, exists. Aside from the words of the prologue, it is difficult to imagine
that the Summa is written for beginners. The Summa seems far too difficult, too long, too
108
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Laurence Shapcote, Latin/English Edition of the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas (Lander,
Wyoming: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012), pro. “Quia Catholicae veritatis doctor non solum provectos debet
instruere, sed ad eum pertinet etiam incipientes erudire, secundum illud apostoli I ad Corinth. III, tanquam parvulis in Christo, lac vobis potum
dedi, non escam; propositum nostrae intentionis in hoc opere est, ea quae ad Christianam religionem pertinent, eo modo tradere, secundum quod
congruit ad eruditionem incipientium. Consideravimus namque huius doctrinae novitios, in his quae a diversis conscripta sunt, plurimum
impediri, partim quidem propter multiplicationem inutilium quaestionum, articulorum et argumentorum; partim etiam quia ea quae sunt
necessaria talibus ad sciendum, non traduntur secundum ordinem disciplinae, sed secundum quod requirebat librorum expositio, vel secundum
quod se praebebat occasio disputandi; partim quidem quia eorundem frequens repetitio et fastidium et confusionem generabat in animis
auditorum. Haec igitur et alia huiusmodi evitare studentes, tentabimus, cum confidentia divini auxilii, ea quae ad sacram doctrinam pertinent,
breviter ac dilucide prosequi, secundum quod materia patietur.”
109
110
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, pro.
84
rigorous, too precise, too complex, and to have an argumentation that is too advanced for
beginners. For instance, today the Summa is far more frequently the object of study of mature
scholars and doctoral students than of undergraduates, or even beginning seminary students.
Thus, it seems that either Thomas drastically overestimated the abilities of his students,
completely failed to accomplish what he set out to do, changed his mind about what he was
doing during the course of his writing, or had an ulterior purpose aside from his stated purpose.
I find the latter two options to be implausible because Thomas was under no constraints
to compose a text of a certain kind or revise that text for any purpose other than his own. One
could very well imagine some degree of the first two options. Even now, professors often
misjudge the capacities of their audiences. To the grandmaster of a subject, many things may
seem elementary that are far from it. This presumes, however, that years of teaching experience
would not have provided Thomas with a solid sense of what his students could understand, and
surely Thomas was far too intelligent to be incapable of learning such after so many years.
Thus, I think a different interpretation ought to be made. When one places the Summa in
its historical context and compares it with Disputed or Quodlibetal Questions, with Sentence
Commentaries, and even with the Sentences themselves, I think the Summa appears quite
manageable in comparison. This is not to say that it does not contain difficult concepts. Rather,
the Summa possesses more clarity, and with this clarity comes more ease of access than most of
these other texts. Even its size, which by contemporary standards is colossal, when compared to
some Sentence Commentaries is relatively compact. Another example of the way in which the
Summa is more suited for beginners is the fact that most of its articles contain only a few of the
most important objections. When compared to Disputed Questions, which can contain upwards
of 20 or 25 objections, the Summa begins to appear much more suited to neophytes.
85
With these comparisons in mind, one can begin to see how Thomas could write, and
actually mean, the words of his prologue. This interpretation is also supported by Torrell, who
would add that when Thomas wrote that his Summa was for beginners, “he was thinking less
about the intrinsic difficulty of the material being taught than about its arrangement in a body of
doctrine that would offer students, not only a simple series of questions (sometimes well,
sometimes ill juxtaposed), but indeed an organic synthesis that would permit them to grasp
internal links and coherence.”111 Thus, it is entirely possible to take Thomas’s stated purpose at
face value and accord these words their due interpretive weight.
Another possible objection to the understanding that I have proposed of Thomas’s genre,
audience, and purpose for writing the Summa exists. Some have read Thomas’s prologue as
being critical of the Sentences and the Sentence Commentary tradition, and thus have been
inclined to see Thomas as being opposed to Peter Lombard rather than following in his footsteps.
These thinkers see an animosity toward Peter in Thomas’s clearly negative attitude toward, “the
multiplication of useless questions, articles, and arguments” and toward authors who wrote not
based on the order of the subject matter, “but according as the plan of the book might require, or
the occasion of the argument offer.”112 I, however, see no reason to maintain this reading.
Thomas gives no indication that he has in mind the Sentences with these words. Due to the
disputatio method, any number of contemporary texts could have been seen as containing useless
and repetitive questions, articles, and arguments. Moreover, even if Thomas did have in mind the
Sentence Commentary tradition, this need not put him at odds with Peter himself, or even at odds
with the Sentence Commentary tradition in general. Thomas’s words give no indication that his
negative attitude extends further beyond the teaching of beginners. One need not read him as
111
112
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, pro.
86
critical of all complicated and repetitive theological texts in general, just of their usefulness for
teaching beginners. Thus, I find it entirely defensible to hold that Thomas imagined himself as
furthering Peter’s work, the work of improving theological education.
Thus, one may reasonably conclude that the genre of the Summa is that of a theological
textbook in line with the Sentences and the development of medieval theological education. The
audience of the Summa is those persons whom Thomas would identify as “beginners.” This is in
no way to say that the Summa is intended for the uneducated, or for a popular audience, or for
the beginning student. Rather, this text is for those beginning their theological education, which
would have been the culmination of their studies. The Summa is thus not a text written for
Masters of theology, or experts, or even those who wanted to go on to become Masters. The
Summa is, therefore, a different genre than the Scriptum or Disputed Questions.
Finally, one must conclude that the purpose of the Summa is to teach and to clarify the
Catholic faith in the best way possible. One should not understand the Summa to be a textbook in
the modern sense of the term, to mean that the Summa is somehow a dumbing down of doctrine,
or an expressing of doctrine at its most basic level. To the contrary, the purpose of the Summa is
to present the faith as logically as possible in all its fullness and richness.
Conclusion
With the Summa, the seventh and final text of this study, I conclude the contextualizing
and preliminary work that I have done in the present chapter. This work is necessary to interpret
each of the seven primary texts of this study correctly and in the proper context. Moreover,
understanding the dating, authenticity, genre, audience, and purpose of each of my seven texts
beforehand allows each chapter to begin immediately with Thomas’s sacramentology.
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Chapter 2 - Sacramental Signification in the Scriptum super Sententiis
Introduction
My purpose in this second chapter is to establish a baseline understanding of Thomas’s
earliest sacramentology, which he expresses in the Scriptum super Sententiis.1 In the light of the
contextualizing work of the previous chapter, I proceed directly into the text of the Scriptum
itself and progress linearly through it. I devote my attention to selected sections of Book IV,
Distinctions One through Forty-Two.2 These sections comprise Thomas’s teaching on the
sacraments, both in general and in particular.
Book IV, Distinction One, Question One is by far the most relevant for the doctrine of
sacramental signification. Here, Thomas discusses what a sacrament is, why sacraments are
necessary, in what a sacrament consists, and the efficacy of sacraments both of the Old Law and
New Law. I devote the most space to explicating this first question.
Thomas’s treatment of individual sacraments in particular forms the bulk of his treatment
of the sacraments in his Scriptum. However, many of these sections add little to his doctrine of
sacramental signification beyond what one can gain from Distinction One, Question One. Hence,
I only briefly examine some of Thomas’s thoughts about Baptism, Confirmation, and the
Eucharist. I select only passages that further clarify Thomas’s sacramental or significatory
thought.
Following this textual examination, I conclude this second chapter with an analysis and
synthesis of Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental signification in the Scriptum. I ask and answer a
1
Going forward, I refer to this work merely as “the Scriptum.”
2
I follow the standard format for citing the Scriptum and other Sentence Commentaries. The book is given in Roman numerals, distinction is
indicated by “d. #”, part by “p. #”, question by “q. #”, article by “a. #”, quaestiuncula by “qc. #”, followed by a section identifier. These include
“obj. #” for objecting arguments, “s.c.” for sed contra, “res.” for respondeo, and “ad obj. #” for replies to the objections. For more information
about the structure of the Sentences and Sentence Commentaries, see the historical context section in Chapter One .
series of questions about sacramental signification and its related concepts in order to highlight
key features, especially those that will later change. This final section, therefore, completes the
primary purpose of this chapter by establishing a starting point for Thomas’s doctrine, to which I
can compare his later works.
I. Sacramental Signification in the Scriptum super Sententiis (c. 1252-1256) – Text One of
Seven
A) Sacraments in General in the Scriptum
1) Book IV, Prooemium
Thomas begins Book Four of his Sentence Commentary with a prooemium, which
outlines the work that is to come. The first thing Thomas writes is the words of Scripture. He
gives the text of Psalm 106:20, which states, “He sent his word, and healed them: and delivered
them from their destructions.”3 With this one verse, Thomas establishes the cornerstone of his
early sacramentology. He identifies the purpose of the sacraments to be healing humans from
their sins. Thus, within the first sentence of the Scriptum one sees the influence of Hugh of St.
Victor’s medicinal or remedial metaphor.
Thomas thereafter continues by saying that from the sin of the first human, subsequent
humans incurred two things – death and infirmity.4 Humans incurred death because they cut
themselves off from the principle of life, and they incurred infirmity because they abandoned
grace. The only possibly remedy for this tragic state is the Word of God, who is the highest font
3
The English text of Scripture here and throughout this work is taken from the Douay-Reims Version due to its fidelity to the Latin text. The
Latin of this verse as Thomas renders it is as follows: “Misit verbum suum, et sanavit eos, et eripuit eos de interitionibus eorum.” S. Thomae
Aquinatis, Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, ed. R.P. Maria Fabianus Moos (Parisiis: P. Lethielleux, 1947), IV, pro., p. 1. This is
the best available edition of Thomas’s Scriptum. The Leonine critical edition of Thomas’s Sentence Commentary is currently in the works, but as
of the time of this writing has not been published. According to a representative of the Leonine Commission, with whom I corresponded, its
projected date of publishing is still several years in the future, and the commission strictly controls access to the work that has been done thus far.
There also exists no English translation of the Scriptum. The Aquinas Institute at Wyoming Catholic College is currently undertaking an Opera
Omnia Project, with the goal of translating all of Thomas’s works. At the time of writing, the Scriptum remained untranslated. All English
translations from this text that follow are my own.
4
Ibid. “Ex peccato primi hominis humanum genus duo incurrerat, scilicet mortem, et infirmitatem.”
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of wisdom and the source of life. Thomas supports these claims by thoroughly interweaving
them with Scriptural quotations, eight, to be exact, in the first seven sentences.
Thomas next establishes that it was necessary for the Word to be made flesh and that the
medicine of the Word is so great as to be able to heal the whole human race from their sickness
of sin. After the Word’s work, all that is still needed, Thomas thinks, is a way to apply this
“universal medicine”5 to particular patients. This is what the sacraments do. In this way, the
sacraments are “the divine power bringing about health secretly under the covering of visible
things.”6 Thus, Thomas reinforces the perspective that he will take in his Scriptum concerning
the sacraments. The sacraments are God’s way of healing humans from sin through the Word.7
2) Book IV, Distinction One, Question One, Article One
a) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, Respondeo – What Sacraments Are
Ever the logical thinker, Thomas begins Book Four proper at the most basic level. He
first works to establish an exact definition of sacraments. As should be clear from Chapter One,
establishing an exact definition of a sacrament is no easy task. Many authoritative definitions of
sacraments exist in the tradition, and Thomas must harmonize them with his own thoughts.
Thomas begins with the most standard and perhaps the most generic definition, the same
statement of St. Augustine’s with which Peter Lombard began, “A sacrament is a sign of a sacred
thing.”8 Thomas then composes objections that bring in three more definitions of a sacrament,
along with one definition of a sign. The definition of a sign is also the same definition of St.
5
Aquinatis, Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, pro., p. 2.
6
“et haec sunt sacramenta, in quibus sub tegumento rerum visibilium divina virtus secretius operatur salutem, ut Augustinus dicit.” Ibid., IV,
pro., 2. Thomas believes this quote to be from Augustine, but it is actually, according to Moos, from Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies, c. 19, n. 40.
7
In the rest of his prooemium, Thomas establishes the division of the work that follows and its connection to the work that precedes it. Book
Three of the Scriptum treated the Incarnate Word and the Word’s mission in coming to dwell with humans. Book Four deals with the effects of
this mission. The ultimate effect is, of course, the resurrection, the last things, and humans’ complete reunion with God. The proximate effect is
the Age of Grace, which is the time of the Church and the sacraments. Thomas thus divides this fourth book into two parts. His further
subdivisions, will become apparent as I progress through the text.
8
“Sacramentum est sacrae rei signum” Aquinatis, Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, qc. 1, p. 9.
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Augustine’s that Peter Lombard employed, “A sign is a thing that, besides the species that it
brings to the senses, of itself makes something else come into cognition.”9 The other definitions
of sacraments that Thomas addresses are as follows.
The first definition is Peter Lombard’s,10 “A sacrament is a visible form of an invisible
grace, that bears an image and appears as a cause.”11 The second is another definition of
Augustine’s, the same one that Thomas employed in the prooemium: “A sacrament is a visible
thing under the covering of which the divine power secretly works health.”12 The third and final
definition is the one formulated by Hugh of St. Victor: “A sacrament is a bodily or material
element outwardly set before the eyes, signifying from institution, representing from similitude,
and containing invisible grace from sanctification.”13 Thomas devotes a quaestiunculae to each
of these definitions in this first article. For each, he raises several objections about why it is
unfitting, before proceeding to defend why each is adequate and synthesize them all.
b) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, Quaestiuncula One
Thomas begins his respondeo to the first quaestiuncula, which provides his answer to
what a sacrament is, by establishing that sacraments exist in order to convey active sanctity and
thus make humans sacred, much as an ornament exists in order make something ornamented. In
order for this to happen, Thomas says, sacraments must work in a mode that is fitting to human
beings and in a manner of which humans are capable. At the heart of Thomas’s concept of a
person lies rationality, which is what distinguishes humans from other animals. Rationality,
Thomas continues, works by way of cognition arising from sense data. Thus, it is most fitting for
9
“Signum est res praeter speciem quam ingerit sensibus, aliquid aliud ex se faciens in cognitionem venire.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, qc. 2, p. 9.
10
This definition is also contained in an anonymous Victorine text, the Summa Sententiarum, tr. 4, c. 1.
11
“Sacramentum est invisibilis gratiae visibilis forma, ut imaginem gerat, et causa existat.” Aquinatis, Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri
Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, qc. 3, p. 10.
12
“Sacramentum est in quo sub tegumento rerum visibilium divina virtus secretius operatur salutem.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, qc. 4, p. 11.
13
“Sacramentum est corporale vel materiale elementum, extrinsecus oculis suppositum, ex institutione signans, ex similitudine repraesentans, et
ex sanctificatione invisibilem gratiam continens.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, qc. 5, p. 11.
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a human to be sanctified through that very mode by which all things become known to humans.
Humans are most fittingly sanctified by signification, which arises from sense data.
On this basis, Thomas maintains that the most fitting definition of a sacrament is the very
first one that he gave, namely Augustine’s definition that “a sacrament is a sign of a sacred
thing.” Thomas will later, in his replies, add to this definition. For now, however, he adds only a
single qualification. He says that one must understand that the mode of signifying sacred things
occurs by the similitude of sensible things, by which he means that sacred things are signified by
similar sensible things.14 Thomas says that the reason for this similitude requirement is that it is
fitting to human rationality.
This general definition allows Thomas to apply the term sacraments to both the
sacraments of the Old and New Laws.15 It does not, however, of itself distinguish between the
two. Thomas here feels the need to make this distinction. Thus, he says that the sacraments of the
Old Law only signify health that is to come, whereas the sacraments of the New Law “both
consecrate and signify sanctity...and even cause first sanctification, just as baptism sanctifies and
designates purity, and is a sign of the death of Christ.”16 This distinction allows Thomas to deal
with the multiple definitions of sacraments that he has cited. Some of them apply specifically to
the sacraments of the New Law, whereas others speak of sacraments Old and New.
Thomas develops this distinction more in his replies to the objections about the various
definitions. One objection to the definition that a sacrament is a sign of a sacred thing is that it is
too general. In fact, so the objection goes, almost any creature could be conceived of as a sign
leading one back to God, and thus a sign of a sacred thing. Hence, under this definition, anything
14
So, for example, the act of bodily washing with water signifies spiritual cleansing in Baptism.
15
For instance, following especially Hugh, Thomas thinks of things like circumcision, tithes, and sacrifices in the Old Testament to be sacraments
in a sense, though of course not in the same sense as the seven sacraments of the Church. The way to acknowledge the Old Testament rites as
sacraments without devaluing the seven sacraments of the Church is one of Thomas’s more pressing sacramental questions in the Scriptum.
16
Aquinatis, Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q.1, a. 1, res., p. 12.
92
could be called a sacrament. Thomas disagrees. He writes, “a sacrament ought to be understood
as a sign of a sacred thing as it is making sacred.”17 This further definition presumably applies
equally to the sacraments of the Old and New Laws. The Old sacraments can thus be conceived
as making one sacred by signifying the remedy for sin that was to come, whereas the sacraments
of the New Law make one sacred by both signifying and themselves causing this sanctity.
c) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, Quaestiuncula Two
Thomas’s second quaestiuncula addresses a definition of a sign. First of all, Thomas
accepts and defends Augustine’s conception that a sign is a thing that, when perceived, causes
something other than itself and its sensory data to enter into a person’s mind. Thomas modifies
Augustine’s definition, however, and advances his own definition of a sign, which will remain
roughly consistent throughout his works. He writes, “a sign, insofar as it is in itself, conveys
something manifest to us, by which we are led by the hand into the cognition of something
hidden.”18 He shortly thereafter formulates this as, “a sign conveys something known to us, that
we may be led into another cognition.”19 A sign, for Thomas, is thus something that leads a
person from what they know into an understanding or perception of what they do not know.
Given what a sign is, Thomas next proceeds to specify how exactly the sacraments of the
New Law signify. He says that they do so in three ways. First, the sacraments of the New Law
are rememorative signs. They serve to remind persons of the first cause of sanctification, Christ
and his work. Here, Thomas gives the example of the way in which baptism signifies the death
of Christ, and thus causes one to remember this event. Second, the sacraments of the New Law
are demonstrative signs. They signify the effect of sanctification even as they are making it come
17
“Sacramentum autem debet intelligi signum rei sacrae ut est sacrans.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 1 ad 2, p. 12.
18
“Signum, quantum est in se, importat aliquid manifestum quo ad nos, quo manuducimur in cognitionem alicujus occulti.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a.
1, ad qc. 1, ad 5, p. 13.
19
“Signum importat aliquod notum quo ad nos, quo manuducimur in alterius cognitionem.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 2, ad 1, p. 13.
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to be. They thus demonstrate to the perceiver. Demonstrative signification, Thomas says, is the
primary signification of sacraments of the New Law. Finally, the sacraments are prognostic
signs. The sacraments thus point ahead to eternal glory, which is the end to which the sacraments
lead. Whereas the chief signification of the sacraments of the New Law is demonstrative, the
chief signification of the sacraments of the Old Law was prognostic. Thomas hereby specifies
what he understands the signification of the sacraments in general to be. The sacraments lead one
backward to the knowledge of Christ, deeper into the knowledge of grace at present, and forward
to the knowledge of glory, to which God desires to draw persons.
d) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, Quaestiuncula Three
On the basis of what he has said thus far, Thomas is able to incorporate Peter Lombard’s
definition of a sacrament into his thought easily. Thomas does so in his reply to the third
quaestiuncula. Thomas takes “visible form of an invisible grace” to correspond exactly to his
idea that signs lead persons from the known to the unknown. The part of Peter’s definition that
says sacraments must “bear an image” has a similar correspondence. These phrases both specify
that a sacrament must work in a mode that is appropriate to human rationality. Invisible grace
must bear an image and condescend to meet humans at the sensory level. Finally, the part of
Peter’s definition that says a sacrament must “exist as a cause” maps to Thomas’s idea that a
sacrament is a sign of a sacred thing “as it is making sacred.”
e) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, Quaestiuncula Four
In addition to Peter Lombard’s definition of a sacrament, Thomas has two more
definitions to synthesize into his sacramentology, Augustine’s and Hugh’s. Thomas addresses
94
these definitions in quaestiuncula four and five respectively. Thomas’s reply to the fourth
quaestiuncula takes up Augustine’s idea that the sacraments are visible things under the covering
of which God secretly works salvation for the recipients. Thomas understands this definition as
applying primarily to the sacraments of the New Law and, more precisely, as speaking to the
capacity of the sacraments to be causes of grace, salvation, and healing from sin. Thus, he takes
this opportunity to speak in detail of the sacraments as causes for the first time.
Thomas does not assign primary causality to the sacraments. Rather, he maintains that
they are “ like secondary and instrumental causes.”20 Therefore, Thomas continues, “Sacraments
are defined as instruments of sanctification.”21 Here again, Thomas refines his definition of a
sacrament of the New Law. He specifies what kind of causes the sacraments are, and he will do
so even more specifically in later sections. For now, Thomas is content to explain the
instrumental causality of the sacraments, and the way that the divine power secretly operates. To
do so, he says that sacraments work in the same way in which an artist or carpenter applies his or
her power through the instrument of a saw. Thomas is fond of this and similar metaphors and
employs them several times. The sacraments are thus causes the same way that a saw, in the
hands of a master craftsman, is the cause of a bench.
Thomas lastly in this reply advances one further refinement of his own definition of a
sacrament. He writes, “Therefore, it must be said that a sacrament is both a sign and a cause.”22
This phrase forms a refrain that echoes through the coming pages. Though he initially
acknowledged and fully accepts the then standard definition that the sacraments are signs of
sacred things, Thomas very quickly, within the span of his opening article, adds on that the
sacraments proper can equally be understood as causes, and more precisely as instrumental
20
“quasi causae secundariae et instrumentales”. Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 4, p. 15.
21
“ideo definiuntur sacramenta sanctificationis instrumenta”. Ibid.
22
“ergo dicendum quod sacramentum est et causa et signum”. Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 4, ad 1, p. 15.
95
causes. Thus, for Thomas, the New sacraments have a kind of dual nature insofar as it is true to
say both that a sacrament is a sign and that a sacrament is a cause. This dual nature is what
Thomas thinks Augustine’s definition reveals, and as seen above, was also contained in Hugh’s
notion of the sacraments. The phrase “divine power secretly working health” in Augustine’s
definition refers to the nature of the sacraments as causes; and, the phrase “visible things” refers
to the nature of the sacraments as signs that allow what is secret and hidden to be seen. This dual
nature of the sacraments, of course, raises the question of how these two natures relate to one
another, but Thomas does not raise or address this question here.
f) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, Quaestiuncula Five
The final quaestiuncula in the first article brings in Master Hugh’s definition. Thomas
again is able to synthesize this definition into his sacramentology without too much difficulty. In
fact, he thinks this definition says the exact same thing as the definition given by Peter, with a
single exception. With respect to the exact correspondence, Thomas teaches that when Hugh
says “an exterior material element having been placed under the eyes,” it means the same thing
as a “visible form of an invisible grace.” Next, Thomas says that “representing from similitude,”
in Hugh’s definition, corresponds to “bears an image” in Peter’s definition. Lastly, Hugh’s
statement that the sacraments “contain invisible grace” is the same as to say, with Peter that the
sacraments “appear as a cause.”23 The single exception to this easy correspondence between
Peter and Hugh’s definition is merely the fact that Hugh goes a bit further than Peter in
specifying both the cause of the sacrament’s efficacy and the cause of the sacrament’s
signification. The efficacy of the sacraments, according to Hugh flows from their sanctification,
23
“Idem enim est dictum materiale elementum exterius oculis suppositum, et ex institutione significans, quod invisibilis gratiae visibilis forma; et
ex similitudine repraesentans, idem est ei quod dicitur, ut imaginem gerat; et ex sanctificatione invisibilem gratiam continens, idem est ei quod
dicitur: ut causa existat.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 5, p. 15.
96
and their signification flows from their institution. Peter definition fails to specify either of these
two facts.
In his exposition of Hugh’s definition of sacraments, Thomas builds upon the dual nature
that he established in the previous section. He even cements it by here referring to the sacraments
as being “in the genera of causes and signs”.24 More than any other concept, this dual nature
allows Thomas to synthesize and accommodate the most authoritative definitions bequeathed to
him by the tradition. Some of the traditional definitions, he thinks, refer more to the sign nature
of the sacraments, some apply more to the causal nature, and others, with varying degrees of
specificity refer to both.
In his closing replies to the fifth quaestiuncula, Thomas takes occasion from Hugh’s
definition to discuss the sign nature of the sacraments further, as the previous definition of
Augustine gave him occasion to discuss the causal nature of the sacraments further. In particular,
Thomas deals with the way the sacraments bear a natural similitude of sensible things. This
natural similitude is necessary on a basic level for the sign of the sacraments to make sense.
Signs, after all, must call to mind things other than themselves. The material and visible elements
of the sacraments must, therefore, have a “certain aptitude to signifying”.25 The problem with
this similitude is that natural things often bear many simultaneous similitudes. Using an example
that Thomas employs later in various forms, water has a natural aptitude to signify refreshment,
cleansing, and coolness, among other things. Due to these multiple significations, the institution
of the sacraments is necessary. From an element’s many possible natural similitudes, institution
establishes a single signification. In the given case of baptism, for instance, the water that is used
signifies cleansing because of the context in which the sacrament was instituted. Hence, Thomas
24
“in genere causae et signi”. Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 5, ad 1, p. 16.
25
“aptitudinem quamdam ad significandum”. Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 5, ad 4, p. 16.
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further specifies how signification works in the sacraments. Their signification first calls upon
the natural representations of the elements being used. It then situates this natural similitude in
the context of their historical institution, which determines exactly what each signifies.
3) Book IV, Distinction One, Question One, Article Two
Having established in the first article what sacraments are, what signs are, how the
sacraments are signs in general, and how the sacraments are causes in general, Thomas proceeds,
in Article Two, to discuss why humans need sacraments. He will here also develop in more detail
the way the sacraments function. In this article, I first discuss Thomas’s respondeo. I then turn to
the five quaestiuncula Thomas entertains.
a) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 2, Respondeo – The Necessity of the Sacraments
Thomas believes that the sacraments are necessary for human salvation, but are so only
with a very specific meaning of necessity. The sacraments are not necessary, for instance,
absolutely, which is to say, in the same way that God is a necessary being. Nor, are the
sacraments necessary in any way that would imply that God was forced to use them. “It is not as
though,” Thomas writes, “without [the sacraments] God would not be able to heal humans,
because the sacraments do not bind his power”.26 Rather, Thomas thinks, the necessity of the
sacraments is one of fittingness or congruity. He gives the example of when one says that a horse
is necessary to make a long journey. It is not as though the journey would be strictly impossible
without the horse. Riding a horse is simply the best way to make the trip.
26
“non ita tamen quod sine his Deus hominem sanare non posset, quia sacramentis virtutem suam non alligavit”. Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 2, res, p.
20.
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After establishing this point, Thomas spends the rest of his respondeo narrating why the
sacraments are an especially fitting means for God to heal humans from sin. First, the sensible
things of the sacraments were necessary because humans fell chiefly by sensible things. Sensible
things also hold back many from “rising into God.”27 In this way, Thomas ventures onto the
subject of theological anthropology. He describes the situation of humans after the Fall as
follows: “The human mind had known only to be occupied concerning sensible things, in so
much as certain persons believed nothing outside the sensible realm; and if anyone might be
coming to the cognition of intelligible things, they were judging them according to the mode of
sensible things.”28 Thomas thus thinks that humans have become trapped or limited by sensible
things. This enslavement pertains not just to human knowledge, but it also infiltrates human’s
affections and actions. Thomas thinks that humans inordinately love sensible things and cling to
them as to the highest goods. Humans furthermore make inordinate use of sensible things.
To remedy this situation, Thomas teaches, God chose to make the cure for human’s
sinfulness the very thing to which humans cling so tightly and to which they are enslaved.
Thomas writes, “therefore, it became necessary unto the cure of sin that man be made knowing
in spiritual things from the sensible.”29 It was most fitting for God to use sensible things to
educate humans about divine things because their fall into the sensible realm left them blind to
anything else. One hears in these sentiments the influence of Hugh of St. Victor. As one will
recall, Hugh maintained that the purpose of the sacraments was education, humiliation, and
exercise. The assumption behind this threefold purpose, especially that of humiliation, is the
notion that humans are subjected to sensible things by sin. Thomas thus very clearly brings
forward Hugh’s attitude toward the sensible as well as his idea that a key purpose of the
27
“eis detentus ne in Deum surgere posset”. Ibid.
28
“humana mens circa sensibilia tantum occupari noverat, intantum ut quidam nihil extra sensibilia crederent; et si qui ad cognitionem
intelligibilium pervenirent, ea secundum modum rerum sensibilium judicabant.” Ibid.
29
“Necessarium ergo fuit ad curationem peccatorum ut homo ex sensibilibus in spiritualia cognoscenda proficeret.” Ibid.
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sacraments is that of educating people in divine things from sensible things. Thomas thus writes,
“the utility of the sacraments is education and treatment,”30 an assertion which nicely illustrates
his continued devotion to the idea that the sacraments have a dual nature, in this case,
signification to educate persons and causality to treat their disease. Worth noting at this point
too, is the fact that Thomas fully shares and endorses Hugh’s negative attitude toward sensible
things. Sensible and material reality appears as a part of humans’ problem, as something that
traps humans, and as something that must be guarded against.
b) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 2, Quaestiunculae One through Five
Given how and why Thomas thinks the sacraments are necessary, only a little additional
space is needed to discuss the five main questions and the objections that Thomas entertains in
this second article of Question One. The first quaestiuncula objects that humans do not need the
sacraments at any point after the fall for four reasons. The first is that grace and the virtues
ought to suffice. The second, third, and fourth objections follow Master Hugh’s exact schema for
the sacrament’s purpose. The objection states that the sacraments are not fitting for humiliation,
for education, or for exercise, nor are these things needed. Thomas replies first with a quote from
St. Augustine. All religions, Augustine says, have exterior signs whereby they come together to
worship God. Christianity is no exception. As for grace and the virtues, these heal formally,
whereas the sacraments heal effectively. Thomas gives the example of health and medicine.
Health heals formally and medicine heals efficiently. Thus, a doctor gives someone health
through medicine, just as God gives people grace and the virtues through the sacraments.
The second quaestiuncula takes an opposite tact. Instead of arguing that the sacraments
are not necessary at all, these objections argue that humans needed the sacraments even before
30
“utilitas sacramentorum est eruditio et curatio”. Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 2, ad qc 2, p. 21.
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sin. The hope of the objections of this quaestiuncula is, of course, to challenge the very idea that
the sacraments are medicines for sin. There are three objections. The first is that humans needed
grace even in the state of innocence. The second is that humans before sin were still material and
thus even then the most fitting way of leading them to intelligible and divine things was through
material things; and, the third objection is that marriage was instituted before sin, so it appears
that the sacraments existed even prior to sin.
Thomas replies by citing Jesus and Hugh. In Matthew 9:12, Christ says that the healthy
do not need a doctor. Hugh also clearly maintains that the sacraments are “medicinal vases.”31
Hence, the sacraments were not necessary during the state of innocence because at that time
there was no disease of sin. Thomas also replies that the sacraments derive their power from the
Passion of Christ, which would not have happened if humans had not sinned. Hence, if the
Passion had not happened, neither would the sacraments have been necessary. This means that
humans did not need grace in the state of innocence. Therefore, the first objection is not valid.
Thomas finds the second objection a bit trickier. Humans were indeed material beings when they
were first created and they did acquire knowledge from sense perception. Yet, Thomas
maintains, they did not need to be educated about divine things from sensible things. Rather, they
had cognition of divine and intelligible things directly from their union with God and through
divine illumination. Therefore, in the state of innocence humans did not need the sacraments for
education. The final objection, about marriage, is again easy for Thomas. He says exactly the
same thing that Hugh teaches in his De Sacramentis. In the state of innocence, marriage was an
office, not a remedy for sin, and therefore before the Fall, there was no sacrament of marriage.
The third, fourth, and fifth quaestiunculae add little for present purposes. They object that
the sacraments were not needed during the time of the natural law, that the sacraments of the law
31
“vasa medicinalia”. Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 2, qc. 2, s.c., p. 18.
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of Moses did not need to be superadded to those of the natural law, and that the sacraments are
actually less needed in the age of grace, respectively. Thomas’s replies to these objections make
up a basic narrative of salvation history, very similar to the narrative followed by Hugh. In all the
different time periods of salvation history, the same faith was at work. What the ancients looked
forward to as coming, Thomas says, for modern persons now has come. As time progressed,
however, the sacraments that God instituted became clearer and more defined. Under the natural
law, after the Fall but before the Law of Moses, sacraments included things like circumcision,
“sacrifices, tithes, oblations, and the like.”32 Under the Law of Moses, more exact sacraments
were prescribed, like the temple ceremonial observances. Finally, under the Law of Grace,
persons have the sacraments as Christ has instituted them and as they have been empowered by
the work that Christ has done. During this time, in fact, the sacraments are most necessary
because the Age of Grace is the time of God’s mercy.33 With this brief run-through of salvation
history, and having established how and why the sacraments are necessary, Thomas concludes
his second article.
4) Book IV, Distinction One, Question One, Article Three – In What the Sacraments Consist
Article Three is the shortest article in the opening question; it is also the only article in
this section without quaestiunculae; yet, it is foundational for Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental
signification. Thomas here addresses whether the sacraments consist in both words and things.
Since this article is so short, I will address it in the order that is presented, rather than beginning
with the respondeo, as I have done above. The objections and replies to these objections ought
not to be difficult to keep in mind simultaneously as there are only five objections.
32
“sacrificia, decimae, oblationes, et hujusmodi.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 2, ad qc. 3, p. 22.
33
Ibid., IV. d. 1, q. 1, a. 2, qc. 5, s.c., p. 19.
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All of the objections argue that the sacraments do not consist in both words and things.
The first objection argues from the unity of the sacraments. Since a sacrament is a single unified
thing, it is not possible that it consists of two separate things. Words and Things are two separate
things. Hence, a sacrament cannot consist of words and things. The second objection employs a
citation of Hugh of St. Victor to try to argue the same thing. Here again, one sees, Thomas’s
heavy reliance on the authority of Master Hugh, even when Thomas is trying to construct
counter-arguments against which to argue. The objection concedes the point that words are
necessary for the sacraments, but it contends that, according to Hugh, a certain making of the
sacraments is also necessary. One does not include this making, however, in the definition of a
sacrament or name it as an integral part of sacraments in general. Likewise, even though words
are required to make a sacrament, one ought not to name them as essential.
The third objection appeals to a point Thomas has already established, and in so doing it
serves to reinforce the concept and further evince it as one upon which Thomas places great
weight. The objection starts with Thomas’s notion that both the nature and the function of the
sacraments is twofold. The text states, “Sacraments exist for signifying and causing.”34 The
objection then makes the point that sacraments are able to do both of these things without words.
Thomas has already discussed how sacraments might do the former. Every sacrament, which
consists of a material element, already bears natural significations. By virtue of institution, the
material elements of a sacrament come to bear specific significations. Likewise, sacraments are
also able to be causes of healing without words being added, just like a saw can still be an
instrument in the hands of a carpenter without any words needing to be spoken. Therefore, the
objection posits, the sacraments do not need words and cannot be said to consist in both words
and things.
34
“Sacramenta sunt ad significandum et causandum.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 3, obj. 2, p. 24.
103
The fourth and fifth objections make their points concisely. The fourth appeals to the
similarity between the sacraments of the Old Law and those of the New. The objector contends
that the sacraments of the Old Law did not have certain determined verbal formulations that
accompanied them. Thus, neither are these required for the sacraments of the New Law. The fifth
objection makes a similar move within the sacraments of the New Law; it contends that both
Penance and Matrimony do not have any specific verbal forms that are of their integrity. These
sacraments are unlike, for instance, Baptism and the Eucharist, which have specific things that
must be said for them to be valid.35 Since some sacraments have specific words and others do
not, one cannot say that all sacraments consist in both words and things.
To all these objections, Thomas opposes three points to the contrary before moving on to
explain his position in the respondeo. The first sed contra once again appeals to Master Hugh,
specifically to his point that the sacraments represent from similitude. The ultimate
representation of all of the sacraments, Thomas contends, are those things that Christ has
accomplished in his work and in his very person. The sacraments must, thus, bear a similitude to
Christ himself. Christ is, of course, the Word of God, who has been made flesh. “Therefore,”
Thomas writes, “since in Christ the Word was joined to a sensible thing, it is necessary that this
be the case even in the sacraments.”36 With this beautiful point, Thomas invites his reader to
closely identify Christ and the sacraments.
The second sed contra returns to the notion that the sacraments are medicines. Thomas
first gives the principle that a good medicine is proportionate to the disease it treats. He next
asserts that the disease of sin has infected humans thoroughly, in both their bodies and souls.
Accordingly, the sacraments, as medicines, ought to be something proportionate to both of these
35
These include, for example, baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, or consecrating the Eucharist with the words of
institution –”This is my body; This is the chalice of my blood.”
36
“Ergo cum in Christo fuerit verbum rei sensibili adjunctum, oportet quod hoc etiam sit in sacramentis.” Aquinatis, Scriptum super Sententiis
Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 3, s.c.1, p. 25.
104
aspects. The words of the sacraments thus correspond to the human soul and the visible things of
the sacraments correspond to the human body. Here again, Thomas views the sacraments as
having a dual nature. With this sed contra and the previous one, he relates this dual nature both
to the essence of Christ and to humans themselves. As Christ is Word and flesh, as humans are
soul and body, so are the sacraments words and things, signs and causes. This point, therefore,
gives one a sense of how Thomas relates signification and causality, even without his explicitly
explaining this relation. He conveys this relation by analogy both to Christ and to humans.
The final sed contra appeals to Hugh’s definition of the sacraments. This time, Thomas
employs the fact that the sacraments contain invisible grace from signification as his major
premise. His minor premise is then the text of 1 Timothy 4:5, which states, “Every creature of
God...is sanctified by the word of God.” Since, therefore, sanctification is an integral part of the
sacraments, and sanctification comes about by means of the word, the sacraments must have as a
part of their very essence both words and things. Sacraments must consist of a thing that is
sanctified, which contains invisible grace, and the words by means of which it is sanctified.
In Thomas’s respondeo, he further refines his definition of the sacraments of the New
Law. Thomas says, “this is common to all the sacraments – that they consist in sensible things
signifying invisible grace.”37 The sacraments of the New Law, however, additionally have the
characteristic that certain words are added to the sensible things. Thomas gives three reasons
why this is the case. First, the sacraments of the New Law do not only signify Christ’s
redemptive work, as do all the sacraments; they also flow from this work and are the “closest
effect” of the Passion itself. The nature of effects is that they bear an image of their causes
insofar as possible, and this is certainly the case for the sacraments. Therefore, similar to the
37
“quod hoc est commune in omnibus sacramentis quod consistant in rebus sensibilibus invisibilem gratiam significantibus.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1,
a. 3, res, p. 25.
105
point made in the first sed contra, because Christ is Word and flesh, the sacraments of the New
Law bear this image and consist in words and sensible things.
Second, Thomas appeals to the idea he previously introduced that the sacraments are
signs of the future (prognostic signs), of the present (demonstrative signs), and of the past
(rememorative signs). Given this threefold signification, Thomas claims, the sacraments of the
New Law are clearer signs than those sacraments of the Old Law. The past and present are more
clearly known than the future, and thus are able to be more clearly signified than the future.
Hence, the sacraments of the New Law, which more chiefly signify the past and present, have an
additional component added to them that corresponds to this clearer signification, namely the
signification of words, which is the clearest means of signification available to humans. For this
additional clarity, God added the signification of words to the signification of things for the New
Sacraments. Third, and finally, Thomas gives the same reason given in his third sed contra,
namely the sacraments “contain grace from sanctification which is by the word of God.”38
With these reasons established, Thomas turns to reply to the five objections that he gave
at the outset of the article. The first was that sacraments are one thing and cannot consist of the
two separate things of words and sensible elements. Thomas agrees that the sacraments are one
thing. He, however, begins his reply with a rather confusing phrase. He writes, “it must be said
that a sacrament is some one thing in the genus of sign or of cause.”39 The confusion comes with
the last phrase, that sacraments are in the genus of sign or cause. Above, as one will recall,
Thomas said that sacraments are in the genus of both signs and causes. Hence, at this point,
Thomas is unclear whether he considers sacraments to be in the genus of signs, causes, or both,
and if both how it is possible for a single thing to exist in two genera at once. Given the context
38
“Tertia ratio est, quia gratiam continent ex sanctificatione quae fit per verbum Dei, ut dictum est.” Ibid.
39
“Ad primum ergo dicendum, quod sacramentum est aliquid unum in genere signi vel causae.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 3, ad obj. 1, p. 25.
106
and Thomas’s teaching in the rest of Book Four of the Scriptum, it is likely that Thomas here
means that one can equally and interchangeably conceive of the sacraments as existing in the
genus of signs or in the genus of causes because the sacraments fit equally well in both of these
genera. Regardless, Thomas’s point for the moment is that the sacraments are one united thing,
and the fact that they consist in both words and things does not preclude their unity, especially
given that words and things are both united for a single purpose.
Thomas follows his point with three examples that speak to how the sacraments are
united. As when discussing Christ above, the way that Thomas illustrates the relation of the
sacrament’s dual nature as words and things here can serve as a clue for how he imagines the
relationship of the sacraments’ dual nature as signs and causes. The first example he gives is a
boat. Thomas states that a boat with many forces uniting to move it is better than a boat with
only one motive force. Thomas does not specify, but one might here imagine a boat with many
rowers out-speeding a rowboat with only a single rower. In like manner, words and things can
work together toward for sanctification better than could words or things alone.
Thomas’s second example is more compelling. He writes, “Just as father and mother are
one in generation; thus even words and things are one in signifying and causing, and by
consequence they bring about one sacrament.”40 One hears in this phrase echoes of the notion
that in marriage, husband and wife become one flesh. This union, in fact, seems much closer than
that of boat rowers, since it is a union that Christ says no one ought to separate.41 Thomas’s final
example connotes similar closeness. He invokes the notion that words are like the form of the
sacrament and things are like the matter.
40
“Et sicut pater et mater sunt unum in generatione; sic etiam verba et res sunt unum in causando et significando, et per consequens efficiunt
unum sacramentum.” Ibid.
41
Cf. Mark 10:9
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In these examples, and in the additional examples of the sacraments being words and
things like humans are body and soul and like Christ is Word and flesh, one sees the young
Thomas wrestling with the nature of the sacraments and struggling to express himself. As often
happens at the edges of human intellectual grasp, there is a lack of clarity. All Thomas seems to
be able to do here is point toward what he means by giving examples. One might even say
Thomas waxes poetic or mystical at this point by listing for his reader the most beautiful, most
intimate, and deepest unions of which he can think.42 All he can say is that the union of words
and things in the sacraments, and by extension the union of signification and causality, is
something like the unions of bodies and souls, mothers and fathers, and the hypostatic union.
I do not here mean to say, of course, that there is anything inferior about employing
mystical or analogical language. In fact, one of the triumphs of Thomas’s Summa theologiae is
its ability to better incorporate this mode of theologizing. However, at present, this language
feels out of sync with the surrounding text, which contains clear distinctions and rigorous
syllogisms, and with the academic genre in which Thomas is trying to write. This point of
doctrine, furthermore, is one I wish to highlight as an issue that leaves room for development and
increased clarity in Thomas’s later writings. For now, though, this section of Thomas’s text again
evinces the dual nature of the sacraments and how central this concept is to Thomas’s
sacramentology. Through and through the sacraments of the New Law are unions of two things.
This understanding is reflected in the metaphors that Thomas employs – signs/causes,
words/things, form/matter, soul/body, word/flesh, male/female, and visible/invisible, for
example.
Having replied to the first objection by insisting that the sacraments are indeed one thing,
even though they have a dual nature, Thomas turns to reply to the remaining objections. The
42
This is excepting, of course, the boat example.
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second objection regarded Hugh’s notion of making. Making, Thomas says upholding the
authority of Hugh, is indeed necessary for the sacraments. However, making does not pertain to
the essence of the sacraments, but rather to their use or dispensation. Words, on the other hand,
do directly pertain to the sacraments’ essence and therefore must be included in their definition.
Thomas replies to the third, fourth, and fifth objection tersely. To the third objection, that
the sacraments can both cause and signify without words, Thomas agrees with the first premise.
The essence of the sacraments consists in signifying and causing. Where Thomas disagrees,
however, is on the point that the sacraments can do either of these without words being added.
The fourth objection, regarding the similarity between the sacraments of the Old Law and the
New Law, does not follow because the sacraments of the New Law signify with more clarity
than the sacraments of the Old Law. They, therefore, require the clearer signification of words to
be added to their definition. Finally, to the fifth objection, Thomas replies that Penance and
Matrimony, insofar as they are sacraments and not in the aspect of Marriage as an office or
Penance as a virtue, do in fact consist of certain words. In Marriage, there must be words that
express consent and the blessing of the Church. In Penance, the priest utters words of absolution.
Therefore, the sacraments of the New Law clearly consist in both words and things.
5) Book IV, Distinction One, Question One, Article Four
a) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, Respondeo - The Efficacy of the Sacraments of the New Law
After Thomas spends two pages and one quaestiuncula establishing that the signification
of words is necessary for the sacraments, he spends 13 pages and five quaestiunculae discussing
the way in which the sacraments are causes. One cannot understand the changes in Thomas’s
doctrine of sacramental signification without referring to his doctrine of sacramental causality.
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Thus, I now examine this doctrine in the Scriptum, which is presented most clearly in this fourth
article. I begin with Thomas’s respondeo. Afterward, I examine selected objections and replies.
In the respondeo, Thomas first acknowledges the fact that “everyone is compelled to
position the sacraments of the New Law as causes of grace in some way, on account of the
authorities that expressly say this.”43 What the authorities do not specify, however, is how
exactly the sacraments are causes. Thomas traces two possible paths. The first path is to
understand the sacraments as sine qua non causes of grace. Under this theory, the sacraments
themselves do not cause grace to exist or be created in the soul. Rather, by “a certain ordination
of God”44 and by something resembling a pact, God stipulates that every time someone receives
the sacraments, God, God’s self, will directly cause grace in that person’s soul. Thomas gives the
example here of fiat money, as when a king who decrees that a lead coin will be accepted and
will be worth a certain amount of goods or services. The coin itself has no inherent value, but it
nonetheless works like something of value because the king has established a pact to this effect.
Under this pact theory, the sacraments are not causes by their own power, but they act like
causes because God makes them to be so.45
Thomas finds this pact theory of sacramental causality to be inadequate. First, it “does
not seem to suffice for saving the sayings of the saints”46 because it does not acknowledge that
the sacraments are really causes. Instead, this theory merely says that the sacraments work like
causes. At most, this kind of causality is accidental to the sacraments and ought not to be
included in the definition of a sacrament. Furthermore, this causality does not suffice for
43
“Omnes coguntur ponere, sacramenta novae legis aliquo modo causas gratiae esse, propter auctoritates quae hoc expresse dicunt.” Aquinatis,
Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, res., p. 31.
44
“per quamdam Dei ordinationem”. Ibid.
45
This theory, it is worthy of note, is more or less the position that St. Bonaventure advances in his Commentary on the Sentences. Cf.
Bonaventure, Commentary on the Sentences: Sacraments, trans. J. A. Wayne Hellman; Timothy R. LeCroy; and Luke Davis Townsend, vol.
XVII, Bonaventure Texts in Translation (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2016), IV, d. 1, p. 1, a. 1, q. 4, p. 61ff.
46
“Sed hoc non videtur sufficere ad salvandum dicta sanctorum.” Aquinatis, Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4,
res., p. 31.
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preserving the difference between the sacraments of the Old and New Laws. Hence, in the first
sed contra of this article, Thomas writes, “This difference is assigned commonly between the
sacraments of the New and Old law, that sacraments of the New Law effect what they signify,
[and] that sacraments of the Old Law are not adequate. But, sacraments figure invisible grace. If
therefore the sacraments of the New Law do not cause grace, they are not different in a certain
way from the sacraments of the Old Law.”47 Understanding the causality of the sacraments based
on a pact theory, therefore, “gives it nothing of the logic of cause, but only of the logic of
sign,”48 which renders there no real difference between the sacraments of the Old and New Law.
Thus, to Thomas’s mind, the sacraments of the New Law must really be both signs and causes.
The sacraments cannot really be signs and only act like causes, as the sine qua non or pact theory
would have it.
The second theory of causality that Thomas sees as a possibility is the one he advances as
his own. I designate Thomas’s position here, which he will later abandon, as the hybrid
efficient/dispositive theory. Thomas, employing the terminology of Peter Lombard, says that two
things are caused in the soul by the sacraments - a res et sacramentum and a res tantum. Thomas
describes the first, the res et sacramentum as either a character that is imprinted on the soul or an
ornament of the soul, depending on the sacrament.49 Thomas describes the second caused thing,
the res tantum, as the gift of God’s grace.
With respect to the res et sacramentum, the sacraments are efficient causes. With respect
to the res tantum, the sacraments are dispositive causes, hence why I call this a hybrid
efficient/dispositive theory. Thomas writes, “with respect to the first effect, the sacraments are in
47
“Haec differentia assignatur communiter inter sacramenta novae legis et veteris, quod sacramenta novae legis efficiunt quod figurant, quod
sacramentis veteris legis non competit. Figurant autem sacramenta invisibilem gratiam. Si ergo sacramenta novae legis gratiam non causant,
non differunt in aliquo a sacramentis veteris legis.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, qc. 1, s.c., p. 27.
48
“nihil dat eis de ratione causae, sed solum de ratione signi” ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, res., p. 31.
49
Whether the res et sacramentum is an ornament or a character depends on the sacrament, since only some sacraments, like baptism and orders,
convey an indelible character of the soul. Thomas will expand upon these notions when he discusses the sacraments in particular.
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some way efficient causes; but with respect to the second, they are disposing causes.”50 The most
the sacraments can do here, Thomas here thinks, is dispose one to receive grace as a gift from
God. God always wants to give humans this gift and therefore always reliably does so whenever
a person is properly so disposed. The sacraments reliably so dispose a person, “unless there is an
impediment on the part of the one receiving.”51 Thus, one can speak of the sacraments as
dispositively causing this gift.
Thomas unites both of these modes of causality with his notion that the sacraments are
instruments, by which God brings about health in diseased humans. “An instrument,” Thomas
writes, “is capable of a twofold act: one which it has from its own nature, another which it has as
movement from the primary agent.”52 Of their own accord and from their natural propriety, the
sacraments signify and cause certain effects in the soul, like ornaments and characters. In their
capacity as instruments in the hands of God, the sacraments are causes of grace. Thomas is here
careful to qualify, as he has established in his second article, that God doesn’t absolutely need
the sacraments and that all power of salvation lies completely with God. He thus writes,
“Therefore, it must be said that the principle agent with respect to justification is God, nor does
God need in this some instrument on his part; but on account of fittingness on the part of the
humans being justified, as has been said above, the sacraments are used as though [they were]
certain instruments of justification.”53
To Thomas’s mind, this hybrid efficient/dispositive theory is able to do much more
justice than the pact theory to the fact that the sacraments of the New Law are really causes and
are really different than the sacraments of the Old Law. By God’s most fitting decision, the
50
“Respectu ergo primi effecus sunt sacramenta causae aliquo modo efficientes; se respectu secundi sunt causae disponentes.” Aquinatis,
Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, res., p. 31.
51
“nisi sit impedimentum ex parte recipientis.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, res., p. 32.
52
“Instrumento autem competit duplex actio: una quam habet ex propria natura, alia quam habet prout est motum a primo agente”. Ibid.
53
“Dicendum est ergo, quod principale agens respectu justificationis Deus est, nec indiget ad hoc aliquibus instrumentis ex parte sua; sed
propter congruitatem ex parte hominis justificandi, ut supra dictum est, utitur sacramentis quasi quibusdam instrumentis justificationis.” Ibid.,
IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, res., p. 32.
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sacraments are instrumental causes that efficiently cause a character, or ornament, in the soul and
dispositively cause the grace of justification.54 In this way, quoting St. Augustine, Thomas says
the sacraments touch the body and cleanse the heart, and thereby “effect what they figure.”55
Not all of the objections in the five quaestiunculae of q. 1, a. 4 are relevant to the current
purposes. I thus only highlight those that are. The first quaestiuncula deals with objections that
claim the sacraments are not causes of grace at all. Two of these arguments are noteworthy,
namely the second and third objections. The second objection is that the sacraments are not
causes because one cannot place them in a genus of causality. The sacraments are not material or
formal causes, since they are not essentially related to grace, nor are they final causes, since they
are not the end of grace, nor are they efficient causes, since only God can effect grace. The third
objection is that, according to Aristotle, a cause is nobler than its effect. However, the
sacraments, as material elements, are in no way greater than grace. Hence, it seems that the
sacraments cannot be the cause of grace.
To the first of these two objections, Thomas says that the sacraments ought to be placed
in the genus of efficient causes. Thomas agrees with the objection that only God can cause grace
because grace must be created ex nihilo in the soul and only God can do this. Thomas disagrees,
though, that this fact precludes one placing the sacraments in the genus of efficient causes. The
sacraments are without a doubt the efficient causes of the res et sacramentum. They are causes of
54
In maintaining this position, Thomas is closer to the theology of St. Bonaventure that is often commonly understood. While St. Bonaventure
claims that the sacraments are sine qua non causes and Thomas rejects this position outright, both theologians maintain that the sacraments are in
some respect dispositive causes. In so doing, they both agree that God alone can create grace in the soul.
55
“Et ideo dicitur quod sacramenta efficiunt quod figurant” Aquinatis, Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, res.,
p. 33.
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grace insofar as they are instruments of God’s power. The sacraments are thus reduced to the
genus of efficient causality because God uses them efficiently.
To the second objection, Thomas responds that every cause is not always nobler than
every effect, and that this is especially the case with instrumental causes. Thomas gives the
example of a doctor who causes health by giving an injection. Health (the effect), is greater than
medicine (the secondary cause), but it is not greater than the doctor (the primary cause) who is
able to give it by applying the right medicine. In the same way, salvation is better than the
sacraments, but not greater than God who gives it.
c) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, Quaestiuncula Two
The objections of Quaestiunculae Two all make the argument that the sacraments do not
themselves have the spiritual power to cause grace. Each of these objections works together to
support something like the pact view that Thomas rejects. Thomas is thus able to solve the
objections with some of the arguments he uses in the respondeo. Furthermore, Thomas reasons,
“The sacraments are a certain kind of medicine. But all medicine has a certain power by which it
is effective. Therefore, in the sacraments there is also a certain power.”56 This power, as is clear
from Thomas efficient/dispositive theory, is the power to efficiently cause certain ornaments of
the soul and dispositively cause one to God’s unfailing work to create grace in the soul.
d) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, Quaestiuncula Three
The objections in Quaestiuncula Three argue that the sacraments’ power does not come
from the Passion of Christ. Thomas disagrees and uses the objections as an occasion to
56
“Sacramenta medicinae quaedam sunt. Sed omnis medicina habet aliquam virtutem per quam fit efficax. Ergo et in sacramentis est aliqua
virtus.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, qc. 2, s.c., p. 28.
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intimately connect the Passion and the sacraments. As said in the prooemium, the sacraments
apply the universal effect of Christ’s Passion, which is cleansing from sin, to particular diseased
persons. Thomas restates this fact here. He also argues that the sacraments flowed from the side
of Christ on the cross in the form of blood and water, which signifies the Eucharist and Baptism.
Aside from this overall argument, one particular objection is interesting in this
quaestiuncula. The objection states, “The sacraments are said to have efficacy from faith. But
faith is not only about the Passion, but also even about the other articles. Therefore, the
[sacraments] do not only have efficacy from the Passion.”57 To reply to this objection, Thomas
must speak to the role of faith in the sacraments. He first says that, as he has already well
established, God is the principle agent in the sacraments and the primary efficient cause. Along
with this causality, the Passion of Christ co-operates as the meritorious cause of human’s
justification. Finally, Thomas teaches instrumentality must be connected to a primary cause and
signification must be connected to a sign. This happens in the sacraments by means of the faith
of the Church in the meritorious cause of the sacraments, Christ’s Passion.
This is one of the very few times in the sacramental sections of Scriptum that Thomas
makes mention of the Church or of the role that faith plays in the sacraments. He writes, “the
efficacy of the [sacramental] instrument or the power is from three things: namely, from divine
institution just as from the cause of the principle agent, from the Passion of Christ as from the
first meritorious cause, [and] from the faith of the Church as from connecting the instrument to
the principle agent.”58 Faith, specifically faith in the efficacy and merit of Christ’s Passion, thus
has a role to play in sacramental efficacy, even though Thomas leaves this role relatively
undeveloped. Aside from saying that faith somehow connects the sign of the sacraments to what
57
“Sacramenta dicuntur a fide efficaciam habere. Sed fides non solum est de passione sed etiam de aliis articulis. Ergo non solum a passione
efficaciam habent.” Ibid.
58
“Ideo efficacia instrumentorum vel virtus, est ex tribus: scilicet ex institutione divina sicut ex principali causa agente, ex passione Christi sicut
ex causa prima meritoria, ex fide Ecclesiae sicut ex continuante instrumentum principali agenti.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, ad qc. 3, p. 36.
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they signify, Thomas fails to elaborate on what role signification has to play in this chain of
causality between God, Christ, and the Church. This point, therefore, serves as another instance
of an occasion when the young Thomas introduces ambiguity into the sacramentology of his
Scriptum, especially as regards his doctrine of sacramental signification.
e) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, Quaestiunculae Four and Five
The fourth quaestiuncula is relatively straightforward. The objections argue that the
sacraments do not contain grace, a point that Thomas has already addressed during his discussion
of Hugh’s definition of the sacraments. The fifth quaestiuncula is more relevant for the current
purposes. The objections here pertain to the argument that the grace caused by the sacraments is
the same as the grace that is given in the virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The first
objection maintains that the grace of the sacraments and the virtues is gratia gratum faciens, or
sanctifying grace. The second objection maintains that the grace of the sacraments and the
virtues both oppose sin. Since one thing has one contrary, the grace of the sacraments and virtues
must be the same.
To these objections, Thomas replies as follows. First, he agrees that the different graces
work together toward the same end, namely that of sanctification. However, he points out, one
ought also to consider these graces with respect to the variety of defects they oppose. In this
regard, sacramental graces work to oppose different defects, and therefore to heal different
afflictions caused by sin. Baptism, for instance, is a grace ordered to the cleansing of original sin,
whereas the virtue of faith works to oppose the specific sin of unbelief. Thus, Thomas thinks, all
graces are connected and ordered unto the perfect health of a human person, but this does not
imply that all graces are the same. The kind of grace that the sacraments cause is not the same as
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the graces given by the gifts and virtues, even though they all types of sanctifying grace. This
argument also resolves the second objection. The fact that all graces oppose sin does not mean
that one cannot make distinctions. With this point, Thomas concludes his fourth article.
6) Book IV, Distinction One, Question One, Article Five - The Efficacy of the Old Sacraments
a) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 5, Respondeo
Thomas’s primary interest in Book Four of the Scriptum is in the sacraments of the New
Law. In Article Five, however, he turns to establish his views about the sacraments of the Old
Law. In so doing, he is able to better situate his understanding of the sacraments of the New
Law. One can understand the New sacraments better by understanding precisely how they differ
from the Old. I begin my exposition of this fairly short article, once again, with the respondeo.
Thomas gives two views about whether the sacraments of the Old Law were able to
justify and convey grace. The first view is that in receiving the sacraments of the Old Law, one
drew upon a “work having been worked,” and did so by making a protestation of faith. This view
entails thinking of the Old sacraments as signs of the sacraments of the New Law and of the
Passion of Christ. The Old sacraments were able to justify, but they did so retroactively by virtue
of the Passion and the power at work in the New sacraments. Hence, the sacraments of the Old
Law were efficacious indirectly, whereas the sacraments of the New Law are efficacious
directly.
Thomas, however, says that “this opinion does not seem to fit the sayings of the saints.”59
Thomas specifically has in mind here the Apostle Paul and the idea that the law was insufficient,
was an occasion for death, and served only to demonstrate sin, not to cure it. Furthermore, this
position makes it such that the sacraments of the New Law have “none or a very small
59
“Sed haec opinio non videtur convenire dictis sanctorum”. Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 5, res., p. 41.
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preeminence”60 over the sacraments of the Old Law, which Thomas finds to be unacceptable.
The distinction between conferring grace directly or indirectly does not express how much
different and better the New sacraments are than the Old.
Hence, Thomas rejects this first position and advances the opposite. He thinks that the
difference between the sacraments of the Old Law and those of the New is the fact that the
former did not confer grace at all,61 whereas the latter do in fact confer grace. The former were
only signs, whereas the latter are both signs and causes. This position, however, leaves open the
question of what exactly the sacraments of the Old Law did and how they were able to do it.
Thomas answers this question in replying to the quaestiunculae, especially the second and third.
The first set of objections pertains to the main question at hand – whether the sacraments
of the Old Law confer grace. Three of these arguments are of present concern. The first objects
that sacraments are named from the fact that they make things sacred and that it is not possible to
make anything sacred except by grace. Thus, if the sacraments of the Old Law were really
sacraments, which unlike Peter Lombard, Thomas says that they are, they must have conferred
grace. The second point brings up the opinion of Hugh, who says that when humans began to be
sick, God prepared a remedy for them in the sacraments. The objection argues that no medicine
is able to work against sin without the use of grace. Hence, if the sacraments of the Old Law
were medicines, they conferred grace. Finally, one objection points out that it is impossible to
make satisfaction for sin without grace, but that the sacraments of the Old Law did precisely this
by means of sacrifice. Thus, it would seem that grace had to be involved.
60
“Et praeterea secundum hoc nulla esset vel valde modica praeeminentia sacramentorum novae legis ad sacramenta veteris legis.” Ibid.
61
Thomas makes an exception for circumcision. He discusses this sacrament in detail in question 2 of this distinction. This discussion, however,
has little bearing on his doctrine of sacramental signification. Thus, I will not address it at this time.
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To the first, Thomas replies that the sacraments of the Old Law were not sanctifying with
respect to the cleansing of sin and spiritual confirmation. They were only signs of these things.
Rather, the sacraments of the Old Law pertain to sanctification in the sense that they bring with
them “a certain surrender to something sacred,”62 and specify something as holy. Thomas’s
answer to the second argument listed above, which uses Hugh of St. Victor, is rather
unsatisfying. He addresses this point with a single sentence. He simply states, “It must be said
that the sacraments of the Old Law are called medicines with respect to signification and not
with respect to the collection of grace.”63 Thomas does not make it clear how medicines might
heal by signification and without respect to grace. His reply to the objection about satisfaction is,
however, better. He says that the sacraments of the Old Law, since they did not confer grace, did
nothing to wash away the stain of sin. They did, however, diminish a person’s guilt because they
were onerous. In this regard, the sacraments of the Old Law allowed people to make satisfaction
without providing full forgiveness and sanctification.
c) b. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 5, Quaestiunculae Two and Three
The second and third quaestiunculae address whether the sacraments of the Old Law
were meritorious and whether they were able to purge persons from the uncleanliness of the
flesh, respectively. Thomas says that they do both of these things. His position on the merit of
the Old sacraments is that they were meritorious and also worked to form the virtue of charity,
even though they did not confer sanctifying grace. This position, it is worthy of note, opposes the
view of Peter Lombard. Thomas finds it absurd to think that the works of the holy fathers of the
faith, which were commanded by God, were in no way of use to them. Hence, Thomas finds no
62
“Sanctificatio importat mancipationem alicujus ad aliquod sacrum.” Aquinatis, Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q.
1, a. 5, qc. 1, ad obj. 1, p. 42.
63
“Ad tertium dicendum, quod sacramenta veteris legis dicebantur medicinae quantum ad significationem, et non quantum ad collationem
gratiae.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 5, qc. 1, ad obj. 3, p. 42.
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problem in disagreeing with the Master of Sentences. However, out of respect to Peter, in
passing, Thomas excuses his position on a technicality.
Thomas uses the objections of the third quaestiuncula to advance another metaphor
designed to express the difference between the sacraments of the Old Law and those of the New.
He says that the sacraments of the Old Law were fleshly whereas the sacraments of the New Law
are spiritual. Thus, whereas the sacraments of the New Law are able, through grace, to cleanse
persons spiritually from both the stain and guilt of sin, the sacraments of the Old Law were
designed to cleanse people from the uncleanliness of the flesh, a purpose one sees in the
numerous laws regarding ritual purity. In this way, the sacraments of the Old Law “[induced]
people to fear and reverence of God, and [drew people] little by little from the flesh to the
spiritual.”64 Here one sees a consistent principle of Thomas’s sacramentology. The sacraments
are designed to lead persons from the flesh to the spirit, from the visible to the invisible. The
sacraments are designed to lead persons gradually to God. The sacraments of the Old Law did
this through signification, through meritorious works, through faith and charity, through the
other virtues, and through cleansing people from the flesh. The sacraments of the New Law go a
tremendous step further, however. They work to cause grace in a person, which works to
sanctify, clean, and heal a person fully in both body and spirit. The sacraments of the New Law
still work on the basis of a person’s faith and charity. However, they are empowered directly
from the Passion of Christ to be both signs and causes and thus to do what they signify.
64
“Ad tertiam quaestionem dicendum, quod veteris legis intentio erat homines ad timorem et reverentiam Dei inducere, et a carnalibus ad
spiritualia trahere paulatim.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 5, ad qc. 3, p. 43.
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B) Sacraments in Particular in the Scriptum
1) Book IV, Distinctions Three through Six - Baptism
Similarly for reasons of scope, it is not possible to examine Thomas’s forty distinctions
on the sacraments in particular with the same depth that I have given to the sections examined
above. Thomas expresses the vast majority of his thoughts about sacramental signification in d.
1, q. 1. Where Thomas talks about signification in his sections on the sacraments in particular for
the most part apply what he has already established or deal with the specific things that
individual sacraments signify. Accordingly, I will focus the exposition contained in this section
on the two most important sacraments, Baptism and the Eucharist, and will only treat the other
sacraments insofar as they establish points that are not more clearly made elsewhere. This focus
will serve to illustrate the way Thomas applies his doctrine and will provide the reader a sense of
what individual sacraments signify without dwelling unnecessarily on portions of the text that
add little to an understanding of Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental signification.
Thomas devotes four distinctions, Distinctions Three through Six, to the study of
Baptism. Distinction Three, deals with defining Baptism, with its form, its matter, its intention,
and its institution; Distinction Four, addresses baptismal character, which, as seen above, is the
res et sacramentum imparted by Baptism; Distinction Five examines the power of Baptism and
who is able to baptize; and, Distinction Six focuses both on what is required for Baptism on the
part of the one baptizing, the one being baptized, and for the rite itself. In order to examine this
section of the text, I proceed on a passage-by-passage basis, highlighting only the necessary
portions of these four distinctions.
The first such noteworthy passage occurs early in Question One when Thomas is
examining what Baptism is. Article One addresses several definitions of what Baptism is, which
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come from some of Thomas’s most cited authorities, Augustine, Hugh, Peter Lombard, Pseudo-
Dionysius, and John Damascene. Thomas proceeds to weave these definitions together, to show
why they are all valid, and to show why they all speak to various aspects of Baptism. In his reply
to the first objection of the first quaestiuncula, Thomas specifies what in Baptism is the
sacramentum tantum, what is the res et sacramentum, and what is the res tantum. The
sacramentum tantum is the flowing of water and the passing of this water over a person’s body.
Hence, the sign of Baptism is more than just the material element of water; it is the act of
washing a person. This sign, when sanctified by the words that make up the form of Baptism, in
turn efficiently causes the res et sacramentum of baptism, which is an indelible mark or a
character on a person’s soul. This character and the act of being washed together then
dispositively cause the res tantum of Baptism, sanctifying grace that spiritually cleanses.
The point that the signification of Baptism is washing, rather than water, causes Thomas
to raise a second objection. This point seems to go against the definition of Hugh of St. Victor,
who said that a sacrament must be a visible material element. Water, of course, is a material
element, but the act of washing is not. Hence, it would seem that washing could not be the sign.
In response, Thomas says that in Baptism there is both a remote and a proximate matter. The
remote matter is the water and the proximate matter is washing, which is done with the water and
which is a material element because it is a visible act done with a visible substance. Thomas says
that Hugh’s definition of Baptism merely names Baptism by its remote matter, whereas
Augustine and Peter Lombard define baptism by its proximate matter.
More of present interest, however, is something Thomas says when he is explaining this
position. He writes, “a sacrament of the New Law is a sign and a cause of grace; hence, insofar
as it is a sacrament, it is able to signify and to cause. However, water is not able to signify and to
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cause the effect of Baptism, except insofar as it is washing. Hence, essentially Baptism is
washing itself because it is instituted unto interior washing, which being signified by exterior
washing causes it.”65 Here again, one sees Thomas clearly assert that a sacrament of the New
Law is both a sign and a cause. One also finds in this passage though, the first occurrence of a
phrase that is unique to Thomas in explaining sacramental causality. Rather than saying that the
sacraments “efficiunt quod figurant,” effect what they figure, which was a standard phrase
Thomas inherited from Peter Lombard, Thomas writes that Baptism “significando causant,” or
causes by signifying. The difference between these two phrases seems to the degree to which
signs and causes are unified in the sacraments. In the former, the sacraments represent something
and cause the same thing. In the latter, signification is more deeply integrated and united to the
causing. The sacraments do not cause and signify, they cause by means of their signifying.
From this text, however, it is unclear whether the occurrence of these words is a passing
turn of phrase, or whether Thomas means it as a technical term equivalent to or meant to replace
“efficiunt quod figurant.” I tend to find the former view more likely based on the context, the fact
that Thomas says nothing else about this phrase, the fact that consistently throughout the
Scriptum Thomas places signification and causality beside one another, as implied by efficiunt
quod figurant, rather than more deeply integrated as this phrase would imply, and the fact that
this is the only time in the Scriptum that this phrase occurs. It is not until the later disputed
questions De veritate that Thomas will use this formulation again. I will hence have more to say
about these words at that point, in Chapter Two. For now, I wish merely to call attention to the
first use of this phrase and to suggest that perhaps his early writing on Baptism got Thomas to
65
“Ad secundum dicendum, quod sacramentum novae legis est signum et causa gratiae; unde secundum hoc est sacramentum, secundum quod
habet significare, et causare. Aqua autem non habet significare et causare effectum Baptismi, nisi secundum quod est abluens. Unde essentialiter
Baptismus est ipsa ablutio: quia ad ablutionem interiorem causandam institutus est, quam significando causat ipsa exterior ablutio.” Ibid., IV, d.
3, q. 1, a. 1, qc. 1, ad 2, p. 113.
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think more about the exact relationship of sacramental causality and signification than he did in
his earlier section on the sacraments in general.
The next passage that I wish to highlight is in the second article of Question One, which
deals with the form of Baptism, specifically the exact words that one must say in order for a
Baptism to be valid. In general, Thomas establishes that the words one ought to say during the
rite of Baptism are “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit.” However, Thomas quickly makes room for minor variations to this form. The third
quaestiuncula, for instance, objects that any addition to or subtraction from these words will
render a Baptism invalid. Thomas disagrees. He writes that if the faith of the whole Trinity is
maintained, yet only one of the names is said, the Baptism is still valid.66 As for additions,
Thomas gives the example of adding in an expression of intention to the form, as in “I intend to
baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Speaking this phrase
would still render the Baptism valid. Hence, it seems that the form of Baptism can remain intact
even in the presence of minor verbal variations.
Thomas makes this point and the reasoning behind it clearer in the fourth quaestiuncula,
which objects that any interruption in pronouncing the words of Baptism, or any transposition of
the words will render a Baptism invalid. Thomas again thinks that this is not the case. His point
to the contrary is the fact that changing the order of words or names does not change their
signification. He explains this further in his reply to Quaestiuncula Four. He writes, “the form of
words consists in three things, namely signification, the integrity of the words, and the order.”67
Given this fact, there are three possible positions regarding the integrity of Baptism. First, there
are some people who say that if any one of these things is altered during the rite of Baptism then
66
Ibid., IV, d. 3, q. 1, a. 2, qc. 3, s.c., p. 119.
67
“forma verborum consistat in tribus, scilicet significatione, integritate verborum, et ordine”. Ibid., IV, d. 3, q. 1, a. 2, ad qc. 4, p. 126
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the Baptism is invalid. Second, there are those who say that as long as there exists the proper
understanding, whether implicit or explicit, regardless of the exact words and their order, the
Baptism will be valid; and third, there is a middle position, which states that the integrity of the
words is what is most important. As long as the integrity remains, the Baptism is valid. Thomas
agrees with this third view.
The reasons Thomas gives in support of this third position again are one of the few times
in the Scriptum where he touches upon the role of faith in the sacraments. In this instance, he
mentions faith specifically as it relates to the signification of the sacraments. In order to explain
the second position above, that the words matter little as long as the proper understanding is
maintained, Thomas says that the form of the words pronounced with the sacraments is none
other than a profession of faith. The second position thus maintains that this faith is the most
important thing, and that as long as it is there, the exact words signifying it matter not. Thomas
sees things differently, however. He agrees that faith plays a role in the sacraments, but he
disagrees that the only signification of sacramental words is faith.
Thomas accordingly reminds his readers that both the form of the words pronounced
during a sacramental rite and the material elements of the sacraments themselves have
signification. What is required for the integrity of the sacrament, therefore, is not just interior
faith or intention, but the “fullness of signification,” which requires certain words that stem from
a sacrament’s institution and which focus the natural signification of the material elements. In
Baptism, for instance, certain words make an external bodily washing signify an internal spiritual
washing by the power of the Triune God. This focusing purpose of spoken words, therefore,
makes a middle way between the first two positions possible. The form of the words spoken
during a sacramental act matter, just not to the degree that any slight alteration will render the
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rite invalid. What matters is the “integrity of the words,” namely, their overall signification.
Hence, Thomas concludes, “If the order or something about the words changes which does not
take away either the signification or the integrity of the words, then [the baptism is valid].”68
One sees, therefore, in this article Thomas again saying that faith and signification play
important roles in the sacraments, in addition of course to the sacraments’ role of causing grace.
Thomas still, though, does not specify how these three elements relate to one another. He is very
careful to say that faith is not all that matters. He is also clear that what is signified by the words
pronounced during the rite of a sacrament must be more than faith, presumably either that of the
recipient, or the administrator, or the faith of the Church. The signification must express faith,
recall the sacrament’s institution, and properly determine the natural signification of the material
sacramental elements. What Thomas leaves unsaid is why all of these elements, the various
persons having faith and the several levels of signification, are required and how they work
together. Seemingly, by “valid baptism” Thomas would mean one that dispositively causes
sanctifying grace and results in one being spiritually washed from the stain of original sin. What
is ambiguous, though, is whether each of the elements listed here, which Thomas thinks are
necessary, are necessary in a sine qua non fashion, or whether they are necessary because they
play an active role and all work together to result in a person’s cleansing. Again, as in the many
places where Thomas says the sacraments are both signs and causes, it seems that he just has in
mind that all these elements are involved in the sacraments in some way. Thomas seems not to
have a very clear idea of how all these elements are are involved. In any case, he leaves this idea
unspecified.
68
“Si autem ordo, vel aliquid circa verba mutetur quod non tollit nec significationem nec integritatem verborum, erit Baptismus.” Ibid., IV, d. 3,
q. 1, a. 2, ad qc. 4, p. 126.
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2) Book IV, Distinction Seven - Confirmation
I will soon proceed to examine Thomas teaching on the foremost sacrament, the
Eucharist. On the way to this, however, a portion of Thomas’s examination of Confirmation,
which he deals with entirely in Distinction Seven, is noteworthy. In q.1, a. 1, Thomas addresses
whether Confirmation is a sacrament, a position that he of course defends. In this discussion, one
of the sub-questions that Thomas entertains is whether Confirmation is a nobler sacrament than
Baptism. He believes that it is, and he begins his argument for why this is the case by listing five
ways in which one sacrament is said to be nobler than another.
First, one can rank the sacraments based on the res tantum of each and thus based on the
effects of each sacrament. In this regard, Baptism is the noblest sacrament because it takes away
all of a person’s sin and washes that person from the guilt, punishment, and stain that comes with
sin. Second, one can judge the sacraments based on what is contained within them. If one were to
follow this method, the Eucharist would be the noblest sacrament because it contains the body
and blood of Christ. Third, one could consider the dignity that a sacrament puts in a person, and
here, Holy Orders would be the noblest because it enables a person to be able to confer the other
sacraments. Fourth, one could consider the noblest sacrament to be that one which is
administered by the noblest minister. In this case, Confirmation and Orders are tied because a
bishop confers both. Finally, one could rank the sacraments according to their signification rather
than their content. In this mode, Marriage would be the noblest of the sacraments because it
signifies the conjunction of Christ’s two natures.
Merely listing these five ways of ranking the sacraments, however, still leaves the initial
question unanswered. Thomas has, then, to say which mode of ordering the sacraments is to be
preferred. He states that the best way to consider the dignity of the sacraments is by looking to
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their content. Hence, the Eucharist ought to be considered the greatest of the sacraments. Thomas
explains why this is the case in the following manner. He writes, “the dignity which is in causing
prevails over that which is in signifying; and that which is in causing with respect to good,
simply speaking, prevails over that which is in the removal of evil.”69 Thus, the best manner of
ranking the dignity of the sacraments is with respect to what they cause and contain. In this way,
the Eucharist is the noblest, followed by Orders, Confirmation, Baptism, Penance, Extreme
Unction, and then Marriage.
More important than this ranking of the sacraments, however, is the reason that Thomas
gives for it. He clearly states that he regards the nature of the sacraments as causes to be higher
than the nature of the sacraments as signs. This is the only point in the Scriptum where Thomas
makes an explicit value judgment with regards to sacramental signification and causality. As I
have well established thus far, Thomas almost always links the sign and causal nature of the
sacraments, usually by saying that the sacraments are both signs and causes, or that the
signification and causality of the sacraments are united. Here, though, Thomas makes it clear that
even though there is a union, the union is not one of equal dignity. Using his earlier examples of
the union of Word and flesh in Christ, body and soul in a human person, or the union of husband
and wife in marriage, it makes sense that this union is not one among equals. As Christ’s divinity
is nobler than his humanity, as the human soul is nobler than the human body, and as, to the
medieval mindset, the male is the active power in a marital conjugation and is thus nobler than
the female, so is sacramental causality to be given pride of place over sacramental signification.
In light of this passage, one must conclude that in the Scriptum Thomas regards causality
to be more important than signification. This fact is also evident from the amount of space that
69
“Dignitas autem quae est in efficiendo, praevalet ei quae est in significando; et illa quae est in efficiendo respectu boni, simpliciter loquendo,
praevalet ei quae est in amotione mali.” Ibid., IV, d. 7, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 3, p. 266-7.
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Thomas devotes to discussing causality in q. 1 a. 4. He spends 13 pages on causality and only
two pages on the signification of words. More than any point thus far, I wish to draw the reader’s
attention to Thomas’s attitude on this subject. I will monitor this attitude throughout Thomas’s
later texts in order to determine whether it changes throughout his career. With this in mind, I
now move to examine Thomas’s thoughts on the signification of the Eucharist.
3) Book IV, Distinctions Eight through Thirteen - Eucharist
a) Book IV, Distinction Eight, Article One
Distinctions Eight through Thirteen address the Eucharist. For the present purposes, the
first question of Distinction Eight is of the most interest, as it examines the Eucharist itself.
Within this question, I focus on the first two articles, which discuss whether the Eucharist is a
sacrament and what the signification of the Eucharist is, respectively. The first quaestiuncula of
Article One argues that the Eucharist is not a sacrament. The second objection argues that the
Eucharist falls short of the definition of a sacrament of the New Law. This objection states, “In
every sacrament of the New Law, the same thing that is represented is effected by the sign
representing.”70 The objection continues to make the point that in the Eucharist the bread and
wine represent both the true and mystical body of Christ, but they do not cause them.
Thomas obviously defends the position that the Eucharist is a sacrament, and that it does
satisfy the requirements to be a sacrament of the New Law. One of his chief reasons for this is
the fact that the Eucharist confers grace, and, Thomas says, every act by a minister of the Church
that confers grace from the basis of the work that Christ has done is a sacrament.71 This point
also applies to why the Eucharist is a sacrament of the New Law, namely because the New
70
“In omni sacramento novae legis idem quod figuratur, efficitur per signum figurans.” Ibid., IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 1, qc. 1, obj. 2, p. 304.
71
Ibid., IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 1, qc. 1, s.c., p. 304.
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sacraments cause grace and so does the Eucharist. More specifically, though, to the second
objection, Thomas argues that the material element of a sacrament is never the cause by itself of
an effect of sanctification. Rather, as one sees from Hugh of St. Victor, both consecration and
God’s power working in the sacrament are required, and this is what happens in the Eucharist as
well. The material elements of bread and wine do not cause the body of Christ to be present,
rather consecration and divine power do. All of these, then, work together to cause the ultimate
end of the sacrament, which is grace.
One here sees that Thomas accepts at some level the definition of sacraments of the New
Law posed by the objection, that they effect what they represent. He, however, carefully clarifies
the way in which this definition is to be understood. This definition is, at root, a slight
restatement of the definition Thomas has established in other places; it again shows that the
sacraments of the New Law require signification and causality. This definition, however,
specifies a somewhat more reciprocal relationship between signification and causality than one
can find in Thomas’s other statements in the Scriptum. Rather than just saying, as one most often
sees, that the sacraments of the New Law are both signs and causes, this definition says that the
sacraments of the New Law represent something and then cause it by means of this very
representation. Of this idea, Thomas seems leery. He is careful not to attribute any causal power
to the signification itself, but rather to the sacraments’ consecration and instrumentality. As in
other places, Thomas here seems much more concerned with the sacraments’ causing than with
their signifying. His point is that the Eucharist qualifies as a sacrament of the New Law because
it confers grace by consecration and God’s using it as an instrument. The signification of the
material elements is involved, of course, but as Thomas develops it here, it appears as, at most, a
minor first step in the sacramental process.
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In the second quaestiuncula, and after this the second article, Thomas more closely
examines this first step of signification and specifies some of the exact things that the Eucharist
signifies. The second quaestiuncula contains objections that the Eucharist ought not to be
thought of as a single sacrament. One objection points out that there are two elements in the
Eucharist, the bread and wine. Thus, it would seem that these elements are separate sacraments.
Another objection runs similarly; it begins by saying that the Eucharist is a kind of sign and that
signs are considered multiple when they signify different things. Since, therefore, in the
Eucharist there are two signs, the bread and the wine, which signify two different things, the
body and blood of Christ, one ought to consider the Eucharist to be two different sacraments.
Thomas’s initial point to the contrary in reply to this objection is that the bread and the
wine do not ultimately signify two separate things. Individually and initially, they signify
Christ’s body and blood, but ultimately they signify Christ’s death. Thomas writes, “everything
that is in the Eucharist pertains to the same representing, namely the death of the Lord, and to the
same effecting, namely the grace by which a person is incorporated into the mystical body.”72
Thomas says something slightly different about the singular signification of the Eucharist later in
his full reply to Quaestiuncula Two. He writes:
From divine institution, therefore, the sacrament is ordered to spiritual nourishment, which is
signified by bodily nourishment. And because bodily nourishment requires two things,
namely, something in the way of food and something in the way of drink, thus the integrity
of this sacrament from divine institution is something in the way of food, namely the body of
Christ, and something in the way of drink, namely blood.73
72
“Omnia quae in Eucharistia sunt, pertinent ad idem repraesentandum, scilicet mortem domini, et idem efficiendum, scilicet gratiam, per quam
homo incorporatur corpori mystico.” Ibid., IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 1, qc. 2, s.c., p. 305
73
“Hoc autem sacramentum deputatum est ex divina institutione ad cibationem spiritualem, quae per cibationem corporalem significatur. Et quia
cibatio corporalis duo requirit, scilicet aliquid per modum cibi, et aliquid per modum potus; ideo ad integritatem hujus sacramenti ex divina
institutione est aliquid per modum cibi, scilicet corpus Christi; et aliquid per modum potus, scilicet sanguis.” Ibid., IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 2, p.
309.
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For Thomas, therefore, the Eucharist has multiple overlapping significations. The
elements themselves signify Christ’s body and blood. The body and blood initially signify
Christ’s true body as it underwent the Passion, and ultimately signify Christ’s mystical body, into
which believers are incorporated by the grace caused in the Eucharist. In addition to the
signification of the elements, though, Thomas adds the signification of the ritual act of partaking
of the Eucharist. Just like the sign of Baptism is ultimately washing and not just water, so in the
Eucharist the instituted sign is not just bread and wine, but the partaking of bread and wine in a
communal meal. This meal and its bodily nourishment then, in turn, signify the spiritual
nourishment a person receives from the grace of being incorporated into Christ’s mystical body.
Before moving on to consider the other significations of the Eucharist, in Article Two, I
here note a point that Thomas makes several times throughout this article. Although previously
he has acknowledged that some sacraments might be nobler depending on how one thinks about
them, Thomas here unhesitatingly regards the Eucharist to be the highest sacrament. He writes,
“this sacrament is the perfection of the other sacraments,”74 and also, “this sacrament is the
perfection of every perfection.”75 This is the case because the Eucharist contains Christ and
“Christ is the font of the Christian life.”76 The Eucharist therefore perfectly conjoins a person to
Christ and brings the other sacraments to completion. Furthermore, the Eucharist is the highest
sacrament because it most clearly signifies the Passion of Christ, from which the power of the
sacraments flow, just as the blood and water flowed from Christ’s side on the cross.77 In this
respect, “this sacrament is especially a memorial of the Lord’s Passion.”78 More than the
signifying aspect of the Eucharist, however, “the perfection of the sacrament is in the fact that it
74
“Hoc sacramentum est perfectio aliorum sacramentum.” Ibid., IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 1, res, p. 307.
75
“Hoc sacramentum est perfection omnium perfectionum.” Ibid., IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 1, p. 308.
76
“Fons autem christianae vitae Christus est.” Ibid.
77
Ibid., IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 3, p. 310.
78
“Hoc sacramentum est specialiter in memoriam dominicae passionis.” Ibid.
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contains grace.”79 Unlike the other sacraments, which Thomas says contain grace “by the mode
of intention,”80 the Eucharist contains “the fullness of grace in its font.”81
Thus, Thomas again here speaks of the signification and causality of sacraments. Both
the signification and the grace, which is contained and caused by the Eucharist, work together to
make the Eucharist the noblest sacrament. Yet, once again, when speaking of these two aspects,
Thomas grants preference to the role of the sacrament in containing and causing grace. It is
especially this role, Thomas says, that results in the perfection of the Eucharist and its exaltation
over the other sacraments. Hence, one sees here further evidence that Thomas sees more value in
the fact that the sacraments of the New Law are causes of grace, than in the fact that they signify.
b) Book IV, Distinction Eight, Article Two
In Article Two, Thomas focuses on the signification and figures of the Eucharist. Unlike
Article One, where he was concerned chiefly to demonstrate that the Eucharist is a sacrament, is
one sacrament, and is the highest sacrament, Thomas here, in three short quaestiunculae,
expressly deals with what the Eucharist signifies. The first set of objections argues that the
Eucharist ought not to be assigned a representation or figure at all. The second and third sets of
objections argue about specific prefigurations of the Eucharist. To the first quaestiuncula,
Thomas argues that it is appropriate to assign significations to the Eucharist. In support of this,
he claims that the Eucharist is essentially a memorial of the Passion of Christ, which is clearly
the Eucharist’s chief representation.
In his response to the second quaestiuncula, Thomas defends some of the prefigurations
of the Eucharist set forth by Peter Lombard. He states that there are two ways in which one ought
79
“Perfectio autem sacramenti est in hoc quod continet gratiam.” Ibid.
80
“per modum intentionis”. Ibid.
81
“plentitudinem gratiae in suo fonte”. Ibid.
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to think about how the Eucharist was prefigured and is a rememorative sign. First, one can
consider Eucharistic prefiguration with respect to the sign and causal nature of the sacrament
together. In this respect, the Eucharist was prefigured chiefly by the effusion of water and blood
from Christ’s side on the cross. This signification leads one back to the source of the sacraments’
power to cause grace, the Passion of Christ.
Second, though, Thomas says that one can consider the signification of the Eucharist with
respect to signs only. In this regard, each component of the Eucharist, the sacramentum tantum,
the res et sacramentum, and the res tantum, has different prefigurations. The sacramentum
tantum, the bread and wine, was prefigured by the offering of Melchizedek. The res et
sacramentum, which Thomas says is the Passion of Christ itself, was prefigured by the paschal
lamb; and the res tantum, which is grace, was prefigured by the manna in the wilderness, which
refreshed the Israelites and “had every taste of sweetness.”82
These sentiments beautifully reveal the depth of signification that Thomas thinks is at
work in the Eucharist. This sacrament is a singular sign, but it does not have a simple or singular
signification. Rather, the rite of the Eucharist resounds with a plethora of harmonically
interlocking significatory overtones that ripple both forward and backward in time. The
Eucharist firmly places its recipients within the history of Israel by recalling Melchizedek and
God’s gift of manna; it connects those who partake of it to Christ and his Passion, as the font
from which the forgiveness of sins flow; it recalls the Last Supper that Christ shared with those
who loved him; it reenacts a bodily meal and thereby points toward spiritual nourishment; in so
doing, it demonstrates the grace that is presently caused for the person receiving the Eucharist;
and, it ultimately points forward to the eternal life toward which God draws those who are in
Christ.
82
“omnem saporem suavitatis habens”. Ibid., IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 2, ad qc. 2, p. 314.
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Therefore, from the outset of his career, Thomas has a complex understanding of both the
way in which and what the sacraments signify. For all this sophistication, though, Thomas does
not specify how these significations tie into the essence or the primary function of the
sacraments. He also does not relate these significations to the causal capacity of the Eucharist.
As when he merely states that the sacraments are both signs and causes, Thomas again seems to
be placing notions beside one another without very deeply integrating them or explaining the
way in which sacraments can be both signs and causes. Thomas merely notes the many and
beautiful significations of the Eucharist in a few short passages before. He lists these
significations, but he does not enlist them to accomplish much particular theological work.
With this point, I conclude both my section on Thomas’s treatment of the Eucharist and
Thomas’s treatment of the sacraments in particular. Undoubtedly, many other portions of the
Scriptum could be examined fruitfully. My purpose in examining particular sacraments, though,
has been to provide the reader with a general sense of how Thomas applies significatory
concepts, to highlight a few of Thomas’s most important passages, and to give a sense of some
of the particular significations of the individual sacraments. This short overview of the
sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist suffices for this purpose.
II. Synthesis and Analysis of Sacramental Signification in the Scriptum
In this final analysis section, I pose a number of questions pertaining to Thomas’s
doctrine of sacramental signification and then answer them insofar as is possible on the basis of
the textual evidence established above. The questions I ask here will form a refrain throughout
the chapters to come. At the conclusion of each chapter, I pose the same questions and answer
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them on the basis of the specific texts being examined. This method will provide continuity and
will facilitate tracing doctrinal developments through Thomas’s works.
A) The Essence of a Sacrament - What is a sacrament?
Thomas gives a direct answer to the question of what a sacrament is in the opening article
of Book IV of the Scriptum. Thomas synthesizes and harmonizes several classical definitions of
a sacrament to conclude roughly that a sacrament is “a sign of a sacred thing as it is making
sacred.”83 At a number of points, Thomas modifies and builds on this formula. The common
thread, however, within this short definition, within the many classical definitions, and within
Thomas’s various qualifications, is the notion that sacraments have a dual nature as both signs
and causes. The essence of the sacraments is that they are signs of the sacred and causes of grace.
B) What constitutes a sacrament?
Corresponding with this dual nature, Thomas maintains that the sacraments are
constituted from two things – both words and things. The things, or material elements, of the
sacraments bear a natural similitude to other created realities and thus carry with them a number
of possible significations. The words that are added to these material things connect the
sacraments to their institution, which focuses their signification, and consecrates the material
elements, which renders them sacred means of the divine power. In this respect, words and
things make up roughly the matter of a sacrament. If the essence or form of a sacrament is to
signify sacred things and to cause grace, then the matter with this form is a certain natural
material element with certain consecrating words added to it, both of which have been divinely
instituted for the purpose of conveying grace.
83
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C) How does a sacrament come to exist?
Given the essence of a sacrament and of what it is made, it is next helpful to ask how a
sacrament comes to be. The chief efficient cause of the sacraments is unquestionably God, who
instituted the sacraments through the Law of Nature, the Law of Moses, and above all through
the New Law in Christ. In addition to this primary causality, though, Thomas teaches that priests
are secondary efficient causes of the existence of the sacraments. By virtue of the character that
was sacramentally imparted to them, priests add the spoken component to the divinely selected
material elements. Thus, sacraments come to exist by God’s institution and priests’ consecration.
D) What is the purpose and function of sacraments?
Thomas specifies the purpose and function of the sacraments in the Scriptum by his
persistent use of a single metaphor. The sacraments for Thomas are medicines and remedies
against sin. Thomas so often insists that the sacraments are remedies, that one is almost tempted
to see this as their primary essence. However, I suggest that this metaphor speaks more to the
end of the sacraments and how they work to bring humans to this end. In his prooemium to Book
IV, Thomas follows a problem and solution schema, into which this medicinal metaphor fits
perfectly. The problem for humans is that they have sinned. Humans are intended for everlasting
supernatural union with God, but they have incurred a wound that causes them to die and to be
enslaved within the sensible natural realm. The sacraments are God’s solution to this problem.
They are like medicinal vases that contain grace and impart this medicament to ailing victims.
The purpose of the sacraments, therefore, is to heal humans from sin. The end of the sacraments
is to restore humans to original health. Incidentally, this metaphor also dictates the nature of
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grace as it is presented in the Scriptum. Grace is like an ointment or a medicine, which is how the
sacraments function. Thomas is quite careful to specify that the sacraments do not literally
contain grace, as though grace were some kind of commodity. Nonetheless, the strong presence
of this metaphor can be seen as working against these qualifications and conveying a somewhat
objectified notion of the essence of grace.
E) How are the sacraments causes?
The next question I pose pertains to one aspect of the sacraments’ dual nature. Given that
the sacraments are both signs and causes, one must next understand what Thomas means by
causes and how exactly the causality of the sacraments work. In his sacramental writings,
Thomas never provides a precise definition of what he means when he calls something a cause.
He likely found this concept self-evident. A cause is what produces an effect. Thus, to place the
sacraments in the genus of causes means simply that they produce an effect.
To the question of how exactly the sacraments cause grace, in the Scriptum, Thomas
advances a hybrid efficient/dispositive theory. Thomas completely rejects that the sacraments are
sine qua non causes and that God establishes something like a pact that ensures the sacraments
work like causes. Rather, Thomas teaches that the sacraments are efficient causes of a certain
character or ornament of the soul, which is the res et sacramentum of each particular sacrament.
The sacraments are then dispositive causes of the res tantum, which is grace itself. Thomas
thinks that nothing created can efficiently cause grace. Only God can efficiently cause grace
because restoring a creature from a fallen sinful state, which is to say the act of sanctification, is
tantamount to an act of re-creatio ex nihilo. Furthermore, grace is supernatural and cannot be
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efficiently caused by anything natural. Thus, the sacraments are causes in two ways. They are
efficient causes and they are dispositive causes.
Thomas next places both of these kinds of causality in a broader category. He teaches
that the sacraments are instrumental causes of grace in both their efficient and dispositive
natures. In explanation, Thomas gives the example of a syringe in the hands of a doctor. It is
entirely accurate to say that the syringe causes health. The syringe merely does so in a different
mode of causality than one would speak of by saying that the doctor causes health, or the
medicine causes health. This, therefore, is the answer to how the sacraments are causes. God
uses the sacraments as instruments to efficiently cause ornaments of recipients’ souls and to
dispose them to receive God’s direct efficient causation of grace.
F) What is a sign and how are the sacraments signs?
I turn now to speak to the other aspect of the sacrament’s dual nature – their capacity as
signs. As the primary focus of this dissertation, at the end of each chapter, I devote the most
questions to the signification of the sacraments. I begin with Thomas’s understanding of the
concept of a sign. In the Scriptum, Thomas brings forward Augustine’s definition, which,
through Peter Lombard, had become the medieval standard.84 Thomas, however, slightly
modifies Augustine’s definition. Augustine says, “A sign is a thing that, besides the species that
it brings to the senses, of itself makes something else come into cognition.”85 Thomas’s
definition is “a sign, insofar as it is in itself, conveys something manifest to us, by which we are
lead by the hand into the cognition of something hidden.”86 Thomas also formulates this
84
Cf. Rosier-Catach, "Les sacrements comme signes qui font ce qu'ils signifient: signe efficace versus efficacité symbolique."
85
“Signum est res praeter speciem quam ingerit sensibus, aliquid aliud ex se faciens in cognitionem venire.” Aquinatis, Scriptum super Sententiis
Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, qc. 2, p. 9.
86
“Signum, quantum est in se, importat aliquid manifestum quo ad nos, quo manuducimur in cognitionem alicujus occulti.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a.
1, ad qc. 1, ad 5, p. 13.
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definition as, “a sign conveys something known to us, that we may be led into another
cognition.”87 Signs, therefore, according to Thomas, do not just bring something to mind beside
themselves. Rather, they point us to things and lead us into knowledge. They help move the mind
from what it does know into what it does not know.
This definition then raises the question: How do the sacraments lead persons from what
they know into what they do not know – how are the sacraments signs? Thomas says that the
sacraments are signs in at least three respects. The sacraments first are rememorative signs. They
recall the past, especially the history of God’s working salvation in the world. For example, the
act and elements of the Eucharist function together as a sign of Christ’s Passion, of the Last
Supper, of the manna in the wilderness, and of the sacrifice of Melchizedek, among other things.
By the visible act of eating a meal with material food and drink, persons are led by the hand, into
recalling God’s mighty saving works.
The sacraments, second, are demonstrative signs. They work to bring in the knowledge to
recipients of the current work that God is doing, even in the very act that is doing the signifying.
Again looking to the Eucharist as an example, this sacrament demonstrates what God is doing in
the present. The act of eating the Eucharist is a bodily meal. Through bodily nourishment, the
Eucharist points toward the spiritual nourishment of grace that God is presently effecting.
Finally, the sacraments are prognostic signs because they point recipients toward that to
which God is drawing them. The Eucharist, for example, gives persons a foretaste of the banquet
that is to come; it leads them from what they know of bodily meals into what they do not know
of the heavenly feast of eternal life and the beatific vision. Thus, the sacraments are signs in
these three senses. They lead persons forward, backward, and more deeply in the present to
knowledge of the unknown and invisible.
87
“Signum importat aliquod notum quo ad nos, quo manuducimur in alterius cognitionem.” Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 2, ad 1, p. 13.
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G) What is the role that signification plays in the sacraments?
Given what a sign is and the ways in which the sacraments are signs, I next ask what role
signification plays in the sacraments. Answering this requires an understanding of how Thomas
conceives of signification relating to the essence, material, function, and purpose of the
sacraments. With respect to essence, Thomas clearly sees signification as one half of the essence
of a sacrament. What is entirely less clear is how this half, signification, relates to the other half,
causality. I take up this question in its own section below. For now, it suffices to say that
signification plays the role of being a part of the sacraments’ essence.
Signification also plays a role in the material dimension of the sacraments. Sacraments
consist of material elements that combine with spoken words. Signification is integral to both of
these components. The material elements themselves “bear a natural similitude,” in the familiar
words of Hugh of St. Victor. Moreover, the words in which a sacrament consists and by which a
sacrament is consecrated and connected to its moment of institution also bear signification. In
fact, Thomas sees this verbal signification as more precise and as narrowing down all the
possible significations of the material elements. The concept of signification thus is integral to
Thomas’s explanation of the material dimension of the sacraments.
The same cannot be said, however, for the efficiency of the sacraments and for how the
sacraments of the New Law function. Again, the way that the signification of the sacraments
relates to their causality will be questioned below. Here, my question is what role the
sacraments’ signification plays in the workings of the sacraments, or, in bringing about their
efficacy. To this query, one must first say that the function of the sacraments is to heal persons
by making these persons sacred, per Thomas’s definition that a sacrament is “a sign of a sacred
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thing as it is making sacred.”88 One should next add that grace is what makes a person sacred,
and that the capacity of the sacraments to both contain and cause this grace is the aspect of the
sacraments that most directly pertains to their healing function. Thomas leaves unclear what, if
any, role signification plays in the sacraments’ functioning. Signification seems much more
clearly to correspond and be appropriated to the material nature of the sacraments and to be a
sort of sine qua non quality in this respect. One cannot have a sacrament unless it signifies
certain things, but this signification has little to do with how the sacraments do what they do.
Finally, I ask the question of how signification relates to the end and purpose of the
sacraments. Here, one would have to say that the ultimate end of the sacraments is sanctification;
it is, since the sacraments are remedies, to return human beings to their state of original health. In
their capacity as prognostic signs, the sacraments certainly point to this ultimate state of perfect
and eternal reunion with God. In their capacity as causes, however, the sacraments actually bring
about grace, which moves a person toward this state. Thus, again, grace and the sacraments’
causality of grace seems to play the far greater role with respect to the overall purpose of the
sacraments. Signification leads humans to the knowledge of where their ultimate destiny lies;
Causality actually takes them to this final end.
H) What is the relationship of signification and causality in the sacraments?
Several of the previous questions have been building to this question. Unfortunately, an
answer does not come easily. Thomas is at best unclear about how he understands the sacraments
to be both signs and causes and how he understands that the sacraments “efficiunt quod
figurant.” This lack of clarity is one reason why there has been so much debate surrounding this
issue. Thus, it may never be possible to specify the exact mechanism whereby Thomas, at this
88
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early point in his career, envisioned signification and causality working together to make up the
essence of the sacraments. Nonetheless, it is possible to say something about which concept
Thomas privileges and how the two concepts relate in regard to how much theological work they
accomplish for Thomas. Thus, I argue that at this point in his career Thomas relates signification
to causality by subjecting signification to causality and by giving more theological weight to the
concept of causality. I contend as well that in the Scriptum signification is not as deeply
integrated as Thomas’s notion of causality into his understanding of what the sacraments are and
do.
The subjection of signification is clear throughout the foregoing exposition. I have shown
that Thomas relegates signification to the material nature of the sacraments, whereas he exalts
the causality of grace as having everything to do with how the sacraments work and the purpose
for which they work. Though signification is clearly a part of the sacrament’s essence, the most
important part of that essence for the sacraments of the New Law is that the sacraments are
causes of grace.
Signification’s subjection is also implied by the amount of text that Thomas devotes to
his discussion of signification and to his discussion of causality. As mentioned above, Thomas
spends two pages and one quaestiuncula, in IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 3, discussing signification and the
fact that words are needed in the sacraments. He then spends 13 pages and five quaestiuncula, in
Article Four, specifying exactly the way in which sacraments are causes of grace. By itself, the
fact that Thomas has much more to say about causality than signification in this text is not
persuasive evidence that he subjects the latter to the former. It could just be the case that
causality is more complicated and requires further explanation, or that the way in which the
sacraments are causes is the more hotly debated issue in Thomas’s immediate context, whereas
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everyone agrees that the sacraments are signs. Nonetheless, seen as part of the cumulative case I
am making, the time Thomas spends on each nature of the sacrament is not insignificant.
Third, Thomas subjects signification to causality by the metaphors he uses to try to relate
the two concepts. Thomas is insistent that the sacraments are both signs and causes He is also
insistent that in the sacraments, signification and causality are united together in some common
purpose. Thomas gives a number of analogies. He says that the two natures of the sacraments are
united like mother and father in generation, like soul and body in the human person, and like
word and flesh in Christ incarnate. None of these analogical pairs, to the medieval mind, exist in
an equal relationship. Christ’s divinity is higher than his humanity. The soul is of more worth
than the body, and the male is the active power in generation while the female is the passive.
Therefore, in a similar way and by means of these analogies, Thomas grants a place of privilege
to the causal nature of the sacraments over their sign nature. He values the invisible realities that
the sacraments cause over the visible elements that lead people to these invisible realities.
Finally and even more definitively, is the fact that Thomas explicitly says that the
causality of the sacraments has a nobler role to play. He writes, “the dignity which is in causing
prevails over that which is in signifying.”89 Thus, it is clear that while Thomas imagines some
kind of cooperative relationship between signification and causality in the sacraments, he does
not imagine this to be an equal relationship. Thomas instead, in the Scriptum, clearly thinks that
the causality of the sacraments has the greater role to play. Signification is a necessary
component of the sacraments of the New Law, but it is not what makes them so vital.
89
“Dignitas autem quae est in efficiendo, praevalet ei quae est in significando.” Ibid., IV, d. 7, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 3, p. 266-7.
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I) What is Thomas’s attitude toward signification?
This conclusion leads me to another question, which itself provides additional evidence
for signification’s subjection. One should note Thomas’s attitude toward signification in the
Scriptum, an attitude that I contend is on the whole a negative one. This position follows first
from the text cited above where Thomas says that causality has greater dignity. It furthermore
follows from the way that Thomas speaks about signification and the sensible realm in the
prooemium and throughout his first question. Following Hugh, Thomas thinks that because of
the first sin, humans were imprisoned in the sensory realm and lost sight of invisible realities.
Part of the weakness of sinfulness is thus the fact that humans enslave themselves to sensory
things and chase after them as though they were things that can make them happy.90
Thomas would of course say that the sensory realm is good in itself, but he would also
maintain that God never intended for the material world to be the entirety for which humans
were made. The sensory and significatory nature of the sacraments, therefore, appears in the
Scriptum, to be a divine condescension. Humans have become subservient to sensible things.
God then decides to save them from this slavery by means they can comprehend. God gives
humans a means of grace appropriate to their level and needs. This fits well with Thomas’s
notion that the sacraments are remedies. God gives humans medicine that they can take. Were it
not for sin the sacraments would not even be necessary and were it not for humans’ subjection to
sensible things, the signification of the sacraments would not be necessary. Thus, Thomas sees
the significatory role of the sacraments as a condescension to human’s deplorable state, an
attitude that is far from regarding signification as inherently positive.
90
Cf. Ibid., IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 2, qc. 1, obj. 2, p. 17.
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J) What role do faith and the Church play in the sacraments?
I now turn to two final questions before concluding this chapter. First, it will prove
helpful to monitor throughout each text the role played in the sacraments by both faith and the
Church. In the portions of the Scriptum that deal with sacramental signification, Thomas has
little to say about either of these aspects aside from the fact that they are both involved in some
respect. The Church is, of course, responsible for administering the sacraments and carrying
them down through the ages. Faith and being a baptized member of the Church are required for
the sacraments to have efficacy. Thomas says also that faith in the Passion of Christ91 is required
in order to connect the instruments of the sacraments to their principle agent, God.92 Otherwise,
though, Thomas leaves unclear how the sacraments relate to an individual’s faith and what role
faith has in the rites of the Church.
K) Who are Thomas’s major influences?
Lastly, I pose a question about the major influences of Thomas’s sacramental theology in
his Scriptum. By this point, these sources are familiar. Augustine, Peter Lombard, Hugh of St.
Victor, and Aristotle are Thomas’s primary sources. Among these though, I have shown that
Hugh of St. Victor looms the largest, even in light of how clearly influential Augustine and Peter
Lombard are. Thomas cites Augustine and Peter far more often than Hugh. However, Hugh’s
definition of the sacraments and his concept of the sacraments as medicines could not be more
central to Thomas’s sacramentology in the Scriptum. These concepts appear at Thomas’s every
turn. Whether Hugh remains so important for Thomas’s sacramentology throughout his future
writings, remains to be seen.
91
Faith in the Passion is required and still works even if it is the faith of the Church rather than that of an individual, as it is in the case of infant
baptism.
92
Cf. Aquinatis, Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 4, ad qc. 3, p. 36.
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Conclusion
With a baseline understanding of Thomas’s sacramental teachings at the beginning of his
career established, I conclude Chapter Two. This baseline and its component concepts are
necessary for understanding Thomas’s later sacramentology. One must especially grasp the
initial state of Thomas’s views in order to judge whether Thomas’s thought on the doctrine of
sacramental signification developed. One must also grasp these views in order to follow the
remaining course of my argument. To the next phase of this argument, I now proceed.
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Chapter 3 - Sacramental Signification in Intervening Texts, pt. 1 – De Veritate,
De articulis, and the Corpus Christi Liturgy
Introduction
Having examined Thomas’s understanding of sacramental signification at the beginning
of his career, I now begin to trace how Thomas’s views change throughout his career. Chapters
Three through Five treat in chronological order what I call ‘intervening texts’ – those texts that
discuss the doctrine of sacramental signification and fall between Thomas’s first major text, the
Scriptum super Sententiis, and his last major text, the Summa theologiae. The present chapter
covers sections from Thomas’s three earliest intervening texts: 1) Questiones disputatae de
veritate, q. 27, which is about grace; 2) De articulis fidei et ecclesiae sacramentis, Part Two,
which addresses the sacraments of the Church; and 3) Thomas’s liturgy for the feast of Corpus
Christi, which includes the office, Sacerdos in aeternum, and the mass, Cibavit eos.1 The chapter
progresses with the same structure as Chapter Two. First, I examine the content of each text
chronologically (in Sections I.A through I.C below). I then conclude the chapter with a section of
synthesis and analysis (Section II, below), which asks the same series of questions used to
conclude Chapter Two.
1
As mentioned in Chapter One, I treat the component parts of Thomas’s Corpus Christi Liturgy, which include his mass and his office, as a
single text because they were written at the same time, have the same subject matter, and are usually included together in manuscripts.
I. Sacramental Signification in De veritate, De articulis, and the Corpus Christi Liturgy
A) Sacramental Signification in Questiones disputatae de veritate, q. 27 (c. 1256-1259) –
Text Two of Seven
1) De veritate Overview
Thomas’s Questiones disputatae de veritate is an impressive undertaking, for its length,
its breadth, and its depth, as well as for its content and theological value. The work contains 29
questions, which include a total of 253 articles.2 The title, De veritate, comes from the first
question Thomas addresses, rather than the subject matter or the theme of the entire work.3 The
work in fact discusses a wide variety of subjects, which are organized into two main parts.4 The
first twenty questions pertain to truth and knowledge, and the last nine questions address
goodness and the desire for goodness. Within these two main parts, there exists a parallel
structure. In both halves of the work, Thomas treats first God, then humans, and then Christ.5
Question 27, addresses grace. It contains seven articles,6 two of which directly discuss the
sacraments. I examine all of these articles in order, but I devote the most attention to articles one,
four, and seven.
2) De Veritate, q. 27, Article One - Is grace something created which is in the soul positively?
Due to the large number of objections in Disputed Questions, eleven in this first of seven
articles, I begin with Thomas’s respondeo and then refer back to the objections and the points to
2
3
For instance, other questions pertain to God’s knowledge, the divine ideas, the divine Word, providence, predestination, prophesy, faith,
conscience, human knowledge, Christ’s knowledge, the nature of goodness, God’s will, the senses, the passions, justification, and, most
importantly for the current purposes, grace, which Thomas addresses in question 27.
4
5
Torrell, following Serge-Thomas Bonino, states that the parallel structure speaks only to God and humans, but Thomas clearly places Christ at
the end of each section, an organizational move which he will continue to make throughout his career and which one sees in the Summa
theologiae.
6
The articles address the following questions: Is grace something created which is in the soul positively? Is gratia gratum faciens the same as
charity? Can any creature be the cause of grace? Are the sacraments of the New Law the cause of grace? Whether in a person there is only one
gratia gratum faciens? Whether grace is in the essence of the soul as in a subject? And, whether grace is in the sacraments?
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the contrary as needed. Thomas helpfully begins his response by precisely defining grace, by
giving the senses in which one can speak of grace, and by narrowing his focus. Thomas writes
that gratia can be taken in two senses. First, the word can mean a gift that is freely given, as
when someone says, “I do you this grace.”7 Second, grace can mean being favorably received, as
when one says, “That fellow is in the king’s good graces.”8 In accordance with these two senses,
in matters pertaining to God, there are two kinds of grace.
The first kind of grace is gratia gratis data, which is a particular gift of grace that God
freely gives to a person as God sees fit. Gifts that could be considered gratia gratis data include
things like the gift of wisdom, or the gift of prophesy. The second kind of grace is gratia gratum
faciens, which is often rendered in English as sanctifying grace. This kind of grace is the grace
that saves a person, or in Thomas’s terms, renders a person pleasing to God. This is the kind of
grace that Thomas aims to talk about in this question. The overarching question of the article is
thus whether the gift of sanctifying grace is something created in a human soul, or whether it is
just a way of signifying something in God, like God’s favor, or God’s finding a particular person
worthy of eternal life.
Thomas’s answer to this guiding question is the former - that grace is something created
in the soul. Thomas believes that being given grace actually changes something in a person and
puts something into a person that makes her or him worthy of eternal life. Thomas supports this
answer as follows. He establishes first of all that God loves all creatures, which means that God
wishes the good of all things. In this broad sense, all things have God’s grace. In a more narrow
sense, though, as applied to humans and as commonly used, gratia gratum faciens means more;
7
The best available Latin edition of this text is S. Thomae Aquinatis, Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P. M. edita, t. 22: Quaestiones disputatae de
veritate (Ad Sanctae Sabinae/Editori di San Tommaso, Roma 1970-76), q. 27, a. 1, res. I used this text in preparing my argument. Because an
electronic text was required, the Latin reproduced here and below is taken from S. Thomae Aquinatis, "Quaestiones disputatae de veritate,"
http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/qdv27.html. There are no significant differences between these texts in the quotations used. The English text
taken from, Thomas Aquinas, Truth, trans. Robert W. Schmidt, vol. 3 (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1954). “Facio tibi hanc gratiam.”
8
Aquinas, Truth, 3, q. 27, a. 1, res., 310. “Iste habet gratiam regis.”
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it means, “God wills [a person] a certain supernatural good, which is eternal life.”9 After
establishing this, Thomas contends that God does not will eternal life for anyone who is
unworthy. This position immediately poses a problem, however, for it is clear that on the basis of
human nature that no one is worthy of eternal life. There must be something else, therefore, in a
person, indeed there must be something given to a person, in order for God to find him or her
worthy of eternal life. This something is none other than the gift of grace, making the person
gracious before God.10
Given this position, Thomas addresses some specific objections. For the current purposes,
none of these need to be examined in detail. One point to the contrary is of interest, however.
Thomas here writes, “Grace is therefore an effect of God in the soul.”11 This narrows Thomas’s
definition of grace. It does not yet specify exactly what he thinks grace is, though. Thomas has
only said that he is not talking about gratia gratis data, that gratia gratum faciens is some sort of
created thing, an effect, caused in a person by God, and that gratia gratum faciens makes a
person worthy of eternal life. The reader must wait until the second article for Thomas to
continue refining his definition.
3) De Veritate, q. 27, Article Two - Is gratia gratum faciens the same as charity?
Thomas next moves to address the question of whether grace is the same thing as charity.
He begins by giving two opinions. Some have said that grace and the virtues essentially refer to
the same thing. This position is not to say that there is no distinction to be made between grace
and charity, or grace and the virtues. Persons who hold this view would instead say that this
9
Ibid. “Deus vult ei aliquod bonum supernaturale.”
10
Thomas is abundantly clear that the something that is in a person, whereby God finds that person worth of eternal life is not there by any merits
or inherent worthiness of the person. A person’s worthiness does not cause God to find them deserving of eternal life. Rather, it is the other way
around. God’s will to save a person causes God to give a person something, grace, whereby that person is made worthy of eternal life.
11
Aquinas, Truth, 3, q. 27, a. 1, s.c., 309. “Ergo gratia est aliquis effectus Dei in anima.”
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distinction is a conceptual one, rather than an actual one. The second opinion is, to the contrary,
that there is a real distinction between the essence of grace and the virtues and thus between
grace and charity. Thomas says that this second opinion “seems the more reasonable.”12
To justify this claim, Thomas beautifully and succinctly synthesizes the relationship
between grace, charity, and the virtues. He writes, “there are three prerequisites for obtaining any
end among natural things: a nature proportioned to that end, an inclination which is a natural
appetite for that end, and a movement toward the end.”13 Human beings have all three of these
things with respect to their natural end. Thomas writes, “That end is a contemplation of divine
things such as is possible to man according to the capabilities of his nature; and in this
contemplation philosophers have placed humans’ ultimate happiness.”14 However, as established
in the preceding article, God has prepared for some persons an end that is not natural but is
supernatural. This end is none other than “the vision of God by His essence.”15 This end requires
a person to be given something that proportions her or him to this end, to be given an appetite for
that end, and to be given a movement toward that end. Thomas, therefore, maintains that grace is
that thing which makes a person proportioned or dignified enough to have a supernatural end;
charity is that thing which inclines the will to desire a supernatural end; and, the virtues are the
things whereby a person can begin to work toward a supernatural end. These three things must,
therefore, be actually and not just conceptually distinct because capacities, appetites, and
operations are actually distinct.
Thomas’s reply thus further refines his definition of grace. Grace is not just an effect of
God in the soul, it is a thing placed in a person’s soul that proportions one to a supernatural end.
12
Ibid., q, 27, a. 2, res., 314. “et haec opinio rationabilior videtur.”
13
Ibid., q, 27, a. 2, res., 314-5. “ad consecutionem alicuius finis in rebus naturalibus tria praeexiguntur: scilicet natura proportionata ad finem
illum; et inclinatio ad finem illum, quae est naturalis appetitus finis; et motus in finem.”
14
Ibid., q, 27, a. 2, res., 315. “qui finis est aliqua contemplatio divinorum, qualis est homini possibilis secundum facultatem naturae, in qua
philosophi ultimam hominis felicitatem posuerunt.”
15
Ibid. “in visione Dei per essentiam”.
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Thomas still has not, however, specified exactly what this thing is. Throughout his replies and
points to the contrary, though, he provides a few more clues. For instance, Objection Seven
appeals to the Aristotelian categories to classify grace. The objection states that since grace is an
accident, it must be in the genus of quality. Within this genus, it must be in the first species of
quality, which includes habits and dispositions. Within this species, grace is not knowledge, so it
has to be virtue, and charity is the only virtue that could possibly be called grace. Hence, the
objection concludes, grace is the same as charity.
Thomas rejects this conclusion on the grounds that “the philosophers knew only those
accidents of the soul which are directed to acts proportioned to human nature.”16 Grace was
unknown to the philosophers of old and is not natural. Therefore, it cannot be classified
according to the categories of natural science and philosophy. Nonetheless, Thomas does
concede one of the premises of this objection. He agrees that grace is in the species of quality,
but he disagrees that it is either a habit or a disposition. This reply, therefore, adds slightly to
Thomas’s expressed understanding of grace. Grace is more than just some thing caused in the
soul; it is a created quality of the soul caused by God.
Thomas further reinforces that grace is created in his second point to the contrary. He
here appeals to Romans 5:5, which states, “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by
the Holy Spirit who is given to us.” On this basis, Thomas reasons that the giving of the Holy
Spirit must precede the gift of charity since it is by the Holy Spirit that charity is given to us.
More than this though and, one might add, not stated in the text, Thomas also contends that the
Holy Spirit is only given to a person following a certain gift of God being given to that person,
which is grace. Thus, Thomas distinguishes three distinct events in a person’s justification,
16
Ibid., q. 27, a. 2, ad obj. 7, 316. “quia philosophi non cognoverunt nisi illa animae accidentia quae ordinantur ad actus naturae humanae
proportionatos.”
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namely the gift of grace, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the gift of charity. These three events
are, apparently, for Thomas not the same as the aforementioned three gifts pertaining to a
person’s supernatural end, namely grace, charity, and the virtues. It is unclear exactly how
Thomas relates the two triplets. He never, in fact, said that there were only three things given to a
person in justification. Thus, maybe the gift of the Holy Spirit is just one more gift in addition to
the dignity of a supernatural end, an appetite for this end, and the means to work toward it.
In any case, this passage clearly illustrates that, at this point in his career, Thomas thinks
the gift of grace is something other than and prior to, at least logically, the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit.17 The gift of grace is thus not the gift of God’s very self, which is uncreated. Rather, grace
is, as Thomas has well established, some created quality in the soul. Thomas’s opinions on this
matter are crucial to monitor throughout his corpus in order to understand the changes in his
doctrine of sacramental signification.
4) De Veritate, q. 27, Article Three - Can any creature be the cause of grace?
As in his Scriptum, Thomas’s idea of grace in the De veritate is such that it requires him
to say that no creature can cause it. Article Three of Question 27 gives him occasion to support
this position further. He states, “It must simply be granted that no creature can effectively create
grace.”18 For this view, Thomas gives three main reasons. First, grace is a perfection of the soul
that gives humans a supernatural end. Nothing, however, is able to make something natural begin
to be supernatural except God, who alone has the power of determining the natures. The power
of a natural creature naturally extends only to natural things. Creatures thus lack the power to
cause supernatural effects, of which grace is a paramount example.
17
Thomas is shortly hereafter careful to clarify, as he always makes a point to do, that in fact the whole Trinity dwells within a person, not just
the Holy Spirit. Indwelling is typically appropriated to the Holy Spirit by the limitation of human speech, but, of course, in fact where one person
of the Trinity dwells so dwell the other two.
18
Aquinas, Truth, 3, q. 27, a. 3, res., 320-1. “Dicendum, quod simpliciter concedendum est, quod nulla creatura potest creare gratiam effective.”
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The second reason Thomas gives is based on the work done by grace. Thomas teaches,
following Augustine, that grace changes a person’s will to make it naturally desire the good.
Only God can change a human’s will because the will is immaterial and irrespective of the body.
The will’s natural desires, like the desire for happiness, for instance, are, so to speak, hard-wired
into a person. The will’s natural desires are thus beyond the realm in which human or natural
power operates. Since no creature can reform or alter the will at an essential level, and since
grace does exactly this, it follows that no creature can cause grace.
Third and finally, in a passage charged with the logic of exitus/reditus, Thomas argues
that no creature can cause grace because of the end to which grace acts. Ends must be
proportionate to the power that is acting. Ends must also be proportionate to beginnings. Thomas
then says the beginning and end of the whole universe is one, namely God. Since God alone has
the power of creation, the beginning of all things, God alone also must have the power to bring
things to the end of union, or reunion as it were, with God’s very self, which is the end that grace
bestows upon the human person. Thomas also makes a similar point in his sed contra when he
argues that the act of justification is greater than the act of creating Heaven and Earth. Thus,
“since no creature can create heaven and earth, neither can it confer grace.”19 With this position
well established, Thomas moves on to the next article.20
5) De Veritate, q. 27, Article Four - Are the sacraments of the New Law the cause of grace?
Thomas’s basic position on the sacraments’ causality of grace remains unchanged during
the two or three years between the Scriptum and De veritate. His overall argumentative strategy
19
Ibid., q. 27, a. 3, res., 320. “Cum igitur creare caelum et terram nulla creatura possit, nec gratiam conferre poterit.”
20
In addition to these three primary reasons, Thomas brings up many others through the objections and his replies. He lists and responds, in fact,
to 25 different points against the opinion that a creature cannot cause grace. This fact shows just how hotly debated this question was in Thomas’s
time. For the current purposes, though, there is no need to rehash this debate in detail. This is all the more so given that many of the objections
and replies are merely applications of the three primary reasons just examined.
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is also similar. He first insists that the tradition requires the sacraments of the New Law to be the
cause of grace, and then explains in what sense this is true. In support of the tradition’s opinion,
Thomas appeals to Peter Lombard, Ambrose, and Hugh of St. Victor in his sed contra. He then
explains the way in which the sacraments cause grace, as he did in the Scriptum, by painting a
sharp contrast between the sacraments of the Old Law and those of the New. The sacraments of
the Old Law, Thomas writes, were “only signs of grace,” whereas the sacraments of the New
Law are “both the sign and the cause of grace.”21 Thomas thus maintains the dual nature of the
sacraments, just as in the Scriptum.
Thomas includes, however, one slightly new restatement of this dual nature in the
opening paragraph of his respondeo. He adds the notion of instruction. Thomas writes, “the
sacraments of the Old Law did not confer [grace] but merely signified [it]. But signification
pertains to instruction.”22 Thus, Thomas, concludes “the Old law merely instructed...[whereas]
the New Law both instructs and justifies.”23 Regarding this new addition, I have two points.
First, it reveals that Thomas thinks the only, or at least the main, purpose of signification is to
convey information, which is why he identifies signification with instruction. This notion of
signification recalls Augustine’s idea that a sign is some sensible thing that conveys to the mind
something other than its sensible species.
Second, this new aspect of characterizing the difference between the sacraments of the
Old and New Laws evinces a negative and, one might even say, condescending attitude toward
signification. Thomas here associates signification consistently with inadequacy. The sacraments
of the Old Law merely signified and merely provided instruction. They were thus not able to do
anything that mattered ultimately. On the other hand, the sacraments of the New Law are able
21
Aquinas, Truth, 3, q. 27, a. 4, res., 331. “Sic ergo, quia vetus lex tantum instruebat, eius sacramenta erant gratiae solum signa; quia vero nova
lex et instruit et iustificat, eius sacramenta sunt gratiae et signum et causa.”
22
Ibid. “quam quidem veteris legis sacramenta non conferebant, sed tantum significabant. Signa vero ad instructionem pertinent.”
23
Ibid. “Sic ergo, quia vetus lex tantum instruebat, eius sacramenta erant gratiae solum signa; quia vero nova lex et instruit et iustificat”.
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not only to signify, but to confer; they not only to point to grace, but cause it; they not only
instruct a person but make a person sacred. Thomas adopts these sharp contrasts in order to
highlight and “safeguard the dignity of the sacraments of the New Law,”24 and also to emphasize
the greatness of grace. However, this approach comes at the cost of, among other things,
devaluing and even undermining the role that signification plays in the sacraments. One sees this
fact in the Scriptum, and one sees it here again in the De veritate. Thomas thus clearly teaches
the preeminence of causality in the sacraments of the New Law.
Next, in this article, Thomas considers the nature of the sacrament’s causality. Again, as
in the Scriptum, he rules out the possibility that sacramental causality is of a sine qua non nature.
He even gives the same example of fiat money and a lead coin. His primary argument also again
is the fact that sine qua non causality makes the sacraments mere signs and that it does not do
enough to distinguish the sacraments of the Old and New Laws. Therefore, Thomas concludes
that one must regard the sacraments of the New Law as instrumental causes.
Thomas’s explanation of the sacraments’ instrumental causality is also similar to his
exposition in the Scriptum. For instance, he still employs the example of a craftsman using a saw
to make a bench. His explanation differs, however, in two respects. First, Thomas is more
Christological here than when he made the same point in the Scriptum. He here gives a new
example of instrumental causality, which he draws from John Damascene. Thomas claims that
the humanity of Christ was an instrument of Christ’s divinity and thus an instrumental cause of
humans’ justification. In the same way, the sacraments are God’s instruments of justification and
are brought about instrumentally by Christ’s humanity. The sacraments apply to individuals the
justification that Christ wrought. Thomas thus here takes a step beyond his Scriptum. His
doctrine of causality has not changed essentially, but he more fully theologically integrates
24
Ibid. “Haec autem opinio non videtur sufficienter dignitatem sacramentorum novae legis salvare.”
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causality into his broader theology. Thomas begins to weave his sacramentology, his doctrine of
grace, his doctrine of justification, his Christology, and his soteriology together in way that he
did not quite achieve in the Scriptum.
Second, Thomas’s explanation of sacramental causality differs from his explanation in
the Scriptum with respect to the hybrid efficient/dispositive theory. At this point, Thomas still
seems to maintain the essence of this theory. He brings up dispositive causality several times,
especially in replying to Objection Three and Nine. However, the hybrid efficient/dispositive
theory does not receive the attention that it did earlier and it includes a few curious alterations.
Thomas does not map efficient causality to the res et sacramentum of the sacraments, or
dispositive causality to the res tantum. He also does not place dispositive and efficient causality
in the broader category of instrumental causality. In fact, Thomas does not call the sacraments
efficient causes in De veritate at all. He only ever calls the sacraments instrumental causes.
One can thus see Thomas’s thoughts on sacramental causality beginning to shift.25 The
disputed question genre of De veritate is the perfect place to go into minute detail about how
exactly instrumental, efficient, and dispositive causalities relate. Yet, Thomas scales back this
discussion. He seems to have lost his proclivity to think of the sacraments as efficient causes, and
instead prefers to the notion of instrumental causality. Hence, even though Thomas’s exposition
of sacramental causality is here much the same and certainly has not reversed course, his
doctrine has, even in three short years, changed from emphasizing efficient causality to
emphasizing instrumental causality.
After explicating his own position, Thomas argues against 19 objections. I note three
points about his replies. First, Thomas still uses a medicinal metaphor to characterize the
25
This interpretation is even more plausible given the fact that Thomas does in fact, by the time of writing his Summa, completely abandon an
efficient/dispositive theory of sacramental causality. For more on this, see Ch. 7 below. See also, Gallagher, Significando causant: A Study of
Sacramental Efficiency, Ch. 3.
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sacraments. In his reply to Objection 14, Thomas speaks of the sacraments as remedies. In
particular, he calls the sacraments of the New Law “strong remedies” and the sacraments of the
Old Law “weak remedies,” which continues the sharp contrast and negative attitude mentioned
above. Of particular note here, however, is the fact that this medicinal metaphor is much less
prominent than it was in the Scriptum. Thomas only calls the sacraments remedies or medicines
in Objections 14 and 16 (and their corresponding replies) of Article Four and in Objection 15 of
Article Five.
This curtailing of the medicinal metaphor could be due to the fact that the Disputed
Question genre is different than the Sentence Commentary genre. Perhaps in this rigorously
technical academic text, there is less need for an overarching, unifying, or explanatory metaphor
around which to construct a sacramentology. I find this possibility unlikely, however, because
both the Scriptum and the De veritate were written to similar audiences, namely Masters in
theology as opposed to a popular, lay, or neophyte audience. Thus, another reason for the sharp
decline in Thomas’s use of this metaphor could be dissatisfaction with its explanatory power.26
The second point of interest comes in Thomas’s reply to Objection 13. This objection
contends that the sacraments do not cause grace because it would be unfitting to think of God
using a corporal instrument to produce a spiritual effect since material instruments are not
proportioned to immaterial effects. To this view, Thomas replies, “In keeping with its own form,
a sacrament signifies, or is such as to signify, the effect to which it is divinely ordained. In this
respect, it is a suitable instrument, because the sacraments cause by signifying.”27 This, then, is
the second of three times in Thomas’s corpus where he says that the sacraments “significando
causant.” The first was in Scriptum IV, d. 3, q. 1, a. 1, qc. 1, ad 2. The third time is in the next
26
As with the efficient/dispositive theory above, this interpretation too is reinforced by the fact that Thomas does eventually abandon, at least
practically, a medicinal metaphor. For more on this, see the section on De articulis, below.
27
Aquinas, Truth, 3, q. 27, a. 4, ad obj. 13, 335. “sacramentum secundum propriam formam significat vel natum est significare effectum illum ad
quem divinitus ordinatur; et secundum hoc est conveniens instrumentum, quia sacramenta significando causant.”
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question of the De veritate, q. 28, a. 2, ad obj. 12. Here, in order to make a point about
circumcision, Thomas writes, “the sacraments cause by signifying, for they cause what they
represent.”28 Thus, two times in very close succession, Thomas takes a step beyond saying that
the sacraments are both signs and causes and beyond the medieval formula that the sacraments
“effect what they figure,” which he also invokes here.
The fact that Thomas hereafter ceases to use the phrase “significando causant,” informs
how its use here ought to be interpreted.29 For this reason, I do not see the use of this phrase as
indicative of a monumental development or major shift. Instead, especially taken in light of the
other instances cited above of Thomas refining his thought, I think this phrase is an instance of
Thomas searching for some better means of relating and integrating the ideas of causality and
signification than those that were bequeathed to him by the tradition. The fact that the use of
“signficando causant” is an apparently abortive attempt to achieve greater integration thus serves
to highlight Thomas’s attempts to grow.
The third and final point that I wish to make pertaining to Article Four concerns its
sources. Thomas places himself in conversation first of all with Augustine. Also referenced
briefly throughout Question 27 are Ambrose, Peter Lombard, Anselm, John Damascene, and, of
course, the text of Scripture. In addition to these, however, Thomas invokes the authority of two
more thinkers. The first is Hugh of St. Victor and the second is Pseudo-Dionysius. As seen in
Chapter Two, Thomas made extensive use of Hugh of St. Victor’s thought in his Scriptum. Hugh
is again present in the De veritate. Hence, no major source shifts have occurred. However,
Hugh’s role is not as extensive in the De veritate as it was in the Scriptum. For instance, Thomas
28
Ibid., q. 28, a. 2, ad obj. 12, 364. “sacramenta significando causant; hoc enim causant quod figurant.”
29
Authors like John Gallagher, who see in this phrase a key to interpreting the whole of Thomas’s sacramentology might do well to keep this in
mind.
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only references Hugh four times in Question 27, twice in Article Four and twice in Article
Seven. Thomas thus makes much less use of Hugh in the De veritate than he did in the Scriptum.
This fact is especially interesting in contrast to Thomas’s use of Pseudo-Dionysius.
Thomas barely referenced Pseudo-Dionysius at all in the sacramentology of the Scriptum. In
Question 27 of the De veritate, on the other hand, Thomas cites Pseudo-Dionysius 11 times in a
relatively short section of the text, four of which occur in this fourth article on the sacraments.
The increased use of a source alone is not evidence of a major change in Thomas’s sacramental
theology. Nonetheless, taken with the other modifications noted here, one ought not to overlook
this fact. In it, one can see the foundations of Thomas’s sacramentology beginning to shift.
6) De Veritate, q. 27, Article Five - Whether in a person there is only one gratia gratum faciens?
In Article Five, Thomas turns to consider the nature and divisions of grace. He does this
specifically with an eye toward answering the question of whether grace is singular or multiple.
First, he divides grace, as he has already done, into gratia gratis data and gratia gratum faciens.
Gratia gratis data, Thomas says, is manifestly multiform because God grants different freely
given gifts to different people and often grants many of these different gifts to the same person.
Thomas is more concerned, however, as he has been throughout Question 27, with gratia gratum
faciens. Thomas divides this kind of grace into the divine acceptance itself on God’s part and the
created gift placed within the human soul that makes a person worthy of eternal life. Thomas
maintains that grace in both of these senses is one and the same thing.
One additional aspect of this article is of note. Thomas uses a medicinal metaphor for the
sacraments in Objection 15 and in his Reply to Objection 12. For example, he writes, “the
different effects of the sacraments are like different medicines for sin and different shares in the
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efficacy of our Lord’s Passion.”30 Thus, even while the medicinal metaphor is not quite as
central in De veritate as it was in the Scriptum, Thomas still employs it.
7) De Veritate, q. 27, Article Six - Whether grace is in the essence of the soul as in a subject?
Like Article Five, Article Six does not contain much that advances an understanding of
Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental signification. The article pertains to the subject of grace. If
grace were a virtue, one would have to say that the essence of the soul could not be the subject of
grace, because the subject of virtues must be powers instead of an essence. However, since
Thomas has already argued that grace is actually, as opposed to formally, distinct from the
virtues, he maintains that the subject of grace is, in fact, the essence of the soul itself. This allows
Thomas to state that the soul itself, in its very essence, by grace is made into a “partaker of the
divine nature.”31 This partaking would not be possible if grace did not touch the soul’s essence.
With this point established, Thomas proceeds to the final article of this question.
8) De Veritate, q. 27, Article Seven - Whether grace is in the sacraments?
Thomas’s final question in this article flows from the previous sections. Since the proper
subject of grace is the essence of the human soul, Thomas next asks how one can say that the
subject of grace is also the sacraments, as is implied by the idea that the sacraments contain
grace. Thomas’s answer is that grace is not in the sacraments as in a subject, but that nonetheless,
one can say the sacraments contain grace because they cause grace instrumentally. Thus, grace is
30
Aquinas, Truth, 3, q. 27, a. 5, ad obj. 12, 343. “diversi sacramentorum effectus sunt ut diversae medicinae peccati, et participationes virtutis
dominicae passionis”.
31
Ibid., q. 27, a. 6, res., 347. “consortem divinae naturae”. Thomas’s usage of this phrase evokes the concept of deification, which, I will argue
below, eventually comes to a place of prominence in Thomas’s sacramentology. One can regard the use of this phrase here as a seed or a
foreshadowing of Thomas’s later use of this doctrine. Its passing nature, however, precludes one from making much more of it at present.
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in the sacraments not as accidents in a subject but as an effect is in a cause. This position is
consistent with the position of the Scriptum.
Here, however, Thomas goes into more detail. He gives four ways in which one might
understand a cause to be in an effect. First, there is the case of univocal effects, where an effect is
in a cause by the same natural existence. For example, when one says that fire causes the air to
be heated, the effect, heat, is the same in both the fire and in the air. Second, there is the case of
equivocal effects, where an effect exists differently in the cause and the effect. Thomas here
gives the example of the sun heating the air, in which case the heat that is in the sun and the heat
that is in the air do not share in the same natural existence.32 Third, Thomas says that an effect
can exist in its cause not naturally or materially, but spiritually and statically. As examples,
Thomas names the idea of art in the mind of an artist and the idea of a house in the mind of a
builder. In these cases, the effects resemble and are in their causes. However, this case differs
because of its spiritual nature. The idea of a house in the mind of a builder has no real being, as
does heat in fire. Yet, one is still able to speak of this effect being in its cause.
With this third example, Thomas gets much closer to what he means when he says that
the sacraments contain grace. It is not until the fourth example, however, that he arrives at his
exact meaning. He says that one can imagine an effect existing in its cause not spiritually and
statically, but spiritually and dynamically. The only illustration Thomas gives here is, again, that
of an instrument, “through the mediation of which” he writes, “forms flow from the principal
causes into their effect.”33 Thus, one might imagine saying that grace is in the sacraments in the
same way that effects are in their causes and in the same way that the form of a bench is in a
saw. The bench flows through the saw, from the mind of a craftsperson, and thus, in a very
32
It is somewhat unclear exactly what Thomas imagines the essence of the sun to be and thus how he imagines heat to exist in the sun. One could
perhaps understand that the sun heats the air by light where as the fire heats the air more directly. Regardless of the strength of this example,
though, Thomas’s point about equivocal effects still remains.
33
Aquinas, Truth, 3, q. 27, a. 7, res., 349. “quibus mediantibus defluunt formae a causis principalibus in effectus”.
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narrow and specific sense, a bench is in a saw and a saw contains the form of the bench. “Hence,
Thomas says, “grace is in the sacraments as its instrumental and disposing causes, and this by
reason of the power through which they work toward the production of grace.”34
In this fourth example, one again sees Thomas’s allegiance to a hybrid
efficient/dispositive theory. Even more so than in the Scriptum, Thomas maps this theory onto
the notion that the sacraments are instrumental causes. Thus again, Thomas emphasizes the
notion of the sacraments as instruments, while only incidentally mentions that the sacraments are
also both efficient and dispositive causes. This is the opposite of his presentation in the Scriptum,
where Thomas took much greater pains to explain in detail how the sacraments are both efficient
and dispositive causes, and only incidentally mentioned that they were also instrumental causes.
Thomas’s doctrine of the sacraments thus is on the move.
I highlight two more points in this final article. First, Thomas appeals to the authority of
Hugh of St. Victor on two occasions, first in Objection One and then in the first sed contra. As
mentioned above, Hugh thus still looms in the background of Thomas’s thought, as is evidenced
both by Thomas’s continued citation of him and by Thomas’s continued use of Hugh’s medicinal
metaphor. Second, Thomas, again in this article, uses the sacraments’ causality of grace as a
means of sharply distinguishing between the sacraments of the Old and New Laws, and as a
means of emphasizing the dignity of the sacraments of the New Law over and against the
sacraments of the Old Law. This characterization occurs in the sed contra, where Thomas refers
to Paul’s view that the sacraments of the Old Law are “weak and needy elements.”35 Thomas
states, “if grace were not in the sacraments of the New Law, they also would be ‘weak and needy
34
Ibid., q. 27, a. 7, ad s.c., 350. “gratia esse in sacramentis sicut in causis instrumentalibus et dispositionibus; et hoc ratione virtutis, per quam
ad gratiam operantur.”
35
This reference occurs in Galatians 4:9.
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elements’ themselves. But that is absurd.”36 Here again, clearly, Thomas disparages the
significatory role of the sacraments in order to exalt their causal role. The dignity of the
sacraments of the New Law lies solely in their ability to cause grace by instrumentally
containing it. With this point, I conclude my examination De veritate and turn to De articulis.
B) Sacramental Signification in De articulis fidei et ecclesiae sacramentis (c. 1261-1264) –
Text Three of Seven
1) Overview of De articulis
As the full name of the text implies, De articulis is divided into two parts, of which the
second part succinctly states Thomas’s sacramentology. In this second part, after an introductory
section, Thomas follows roughly the same organizational schema for the sacraments as he did in
the Scriptum. First, he treats of the sacraments in general, and then of each of the seven
sacraments in particular. Thomas also follows the same ordering of particular sacraments. He
treats Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Orders, and then Marriage.
Three things, however, are new in the general structure of De articulis. First, within his
treatment of each sacrament in particular, Thomas follows a very meticulous formula, which
distils his teaching to its essence.37 For each sacrament, except marriage, Thomas states, the
sacrament’s matter, its form, its minister, its effect, and then some of the historical errors held
about it. Second, Thomas ends this short text with a section on eternal glory, which he says
consists in seven gifts. In the Scriptum, of course, the second half of Book Four pertains to
matters of eschatology. It is thus no surprise to find Thomas in the De articulis connecting the
sacraments to the state of future glory. Seeing eternal glory as consisting in seven gifts, however,
36
Aquinas, Truth, 3, q. 27, a. 7, s.c., 349. “Si ergo in sacramentis novae legis non esset gratia, essent ipsa infirma et egena elementa; quod est
absurdum.”
37
As one will recall, Archbishop Leonard asked for a text that could be memorized. Thomas’s structure would have been helpful in this regard.
165
is a new addition. Third, this text is structurally unique for the fact that, unlike the texts that have
been examined thus far, De articulis does not follow a disputatio format. This text, hence,
provides the first opportunity to observe Thomas writing about the sacraments in a non-academic
format to a non-academic audience.
2) De articulis, Part Two (On the Sacraments of the Church), Prooemium
The genre of this text lends its self to a linear explication, especially as it does not contain
objections and replies. Thus, I will proceed in the order in which Thomas writes. He begins by
stating, “We shall now consider the Sacraments of the Church. We shall treat them under one
heading, since they all pertain to the effect of grace.”38 This opening sentence illustrates two
points, one of which represents continuity and the other of which represents change. First,
Thomas says that all the sacraments pertain to the effect of grace. This sentiment is consistent
with his previous teaching, and it serves as an example of how Thomas still chooses to
emphasize causality over signification in this text. This point will be further substantiated below.
Second, Thomas’s opening phrasing puts the Church in a place of prominence. This
emphasis is maintained throughout the text. Thomas mentions the Church sixteen times, a
frequency that stands in sharp contrast to the Scriptum. For instance in Book Four, Distinction
One of the Scriptum, which treats the sacraments in general, Thomas only mentions the Church
twelve times. Thus, Thomas speaks of the Church 33% more in De articulis than he does in a
parallel section of the Scriptum that is almost eleven times longer.
38
The best Latin edition is S. Thomae Aquinatis, Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P. M. edita, t. 42: De articulis Fidei et Ecclesiae sacramentis ad
archiepiscopum Panormitanum (Roma Editori di San Tommaso, 1979). I used this text in preparing my argument. Because an electronic text was
required, the Latin reproduced here and below is taken from S. Thomae Aquinatis, "De articulis Fidei et Ecclesiae sacramentis,"
http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/oss.html. There are no significant differences between these texts in the passages cited here. English text
taken from Thomas Aquinas, The Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. Joseph B. Collins (New York: Joseph F. Wagner, Inc.,
1939), 119. “Nunc restat considerandum de Ecclesiae sacramentis, quae tamen omnia comprehenduntur sub uno articulo, quia ad effectum
gratiae pertinent.”
166
A change in Thomas’s sacramentology has thus occurred between these two texts.
Whether this change qualifies as development, however, is open for debate. One could maintain
that this shift is attributable to the different genre and audience of De articulis. It could make
sense that Thomas mentions the Church more in a text designed for the instruction of laypersons
within the Church than he does in an academic text. I argue, however, that the new emphasis on
the Church does represent legitimate growth and development of thought because it persists
throughout Thomas’s later sacramental writings and throughout different, less ecclesial, genres.
The chapters to come will provide evidence in support of this interpretation.
Following the first sentence in the introduction, Thomas makes several points that are
now quite familiar. He first appeals to Augustine in order to define a sacrament. He says that a
sacrament is a sacred sign or a sign of a sacred thing. Thomas then makes his now standard
distinction between the sacraments of the Old and New Laws. He says that the sacraments of the
Old Law “only signified”39 and did not cause grace. Once again, one here sees Thomas’s
negative attitude toward signification, which he immediately reinforces by reminding the reader,
as he consistently does in previous texts, that Paul called the sacraments of the Old Law “weak
and needy elements.”40 Thomas writes, “[The sacraments of the Old Law] were needy because
they did not contain grace, and they were weak because they could not confer grace.”41 This is,
of course, opposed to the sacraments of the New Law, which are able to do both of these things
and which Thomas, incorporating another familiar definition, says are visible forms of invisible
grace.
In addition to these consistent ideas, though, Thomas makes three moves that occur in
this introduction for the first time. The first reinforces and further illustrates Thomas’s new
39
Aquinas, The Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas, 119. “quae quidem solum significabant Christi gratiam, non tamen eam
causabant.”
40
Ibid. “egena et infirma elementa”.
41
Ibid. “egena quidem, quia gratiam non continebant; et infirma, quia gratiam conferre non poterant.”
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emphasis on the Church. He lists the seven sacraments in the order in which he will address
them, but he then divides them into new grouping. Thomas did not even name this grouping in
the Scriptum, when he listed out all the ways in which one might order and group the sacraments
from most noble to the least noble.42 Thomas says that five sacraments, Baptism, Confirmation,
Eucharist, Penance, and Extreme Unction, “are intended to bring about the perfection of the
individual man in himself; whereas the other two, Orders and Matrimony, are so constituted that
they perfect and multiply the entire Church.”43 Thus, Thomas integrates the Church into his
understanding of the essence of the sacraments more fully than he has done previously. At least
two of the sacraments, here, have a role beyond that of healing individual persons. They have a
role to play in the community of believers.
The fact that Thomas’s sacramentology has undergone development becomes even more
pronounced given the second new move Thomas makes in this introduction. He switches from
using a medicinal or remedial metaphor for the sacraments, which he took from Hugh of St.
Victor, into using an analogy between the bodily and spiritual lives. Thomas writes, “the spiritual
life conforms to the physical life.”44 Thus, humans have need of four things in order to maintain
a bodily life. First, they need to receive life through generation and being born. Second, they
need growth, in order to mature and be brought to their proper stature and strength. Third, they
need sustenance in the form of food to support their lives; and fourth, in the event that humans
become wounded or ill, they need some means to return to health.
Since the spiritual life parallels the bodily life, Thomas says, all four of these things are
needed for the spiritual life to flourish. Accordingly, God meets these needs in the sacraments.
Humans first need some means of generation or being born into the spiritual life. For this, there
42
Cf. Scriptum, IV, d. 7, q. 1, a. 1.
43
Aquinas, The Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas, 120. “quorum prima quinque ordinantur ad perfectionem unius hominis in
seipso, sed alia duo, scilicet ordo et matrimonium, ordinantur ad perfectionem et multiplicationem totius Ecclesiae.”
44
Ibid. “Vita enim spiritualis conformatur vitae corporali.”
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exists Baptism. Second, humans need to grow and mature into perfect strength, and for this, there
is the sacrament of Confirmation. Third, humans need to be nourished and have their spiritual
life sustained through spiritual food. Thus, there is the sacrament of the Eucharist. Finally,
humans occasionally need to be restored to spiritual health when they fall from it, and for this
God has prepared the sacraments of Penance and Extreme Unction. Thomas then, to conclude his
introduction, somewhat clumsily tacks on the sacraments of Order and Marriage, which do not fit
quite as well into his analogy. The reason for this, apparently, is the grouping that Thomas gave
previously. These two sacraments are for the “common good of the Church.”45 Hence, they do
not have an exact parallel with the individual spiritual life.
Thomas’s decision to change to an analogy of the spiritual life from a medicinal
metaphor indicates clear development in his sacramental theology. One cannot attribute this
change to the fact that this text is written in a different genre and is intended for a different
audience than the texts previously examined. A medicinal metaphor would have been just as
appropriate and easy for laypersons to understand, as it would have been for masters. Thus,
Thomas apparently finds this new analogy better in some regard, likely in its expressive or
explanatory value, than a medicinal metaphor alone.
Thomas’s method of changing his sacramentology is also worthy to note. He does not
recant his previous position. He does not say that he was mistaken to think of the sacraments as
medicines, nor does he entirely abandon this notion, which has a clear presence in the tradition.
Rather, Thomas moves his thought forward by introducing a new schema that encompasses,
particularizes, and downplays the previously dominant concept. For example, Thomas’s fourth
point about what is required for both the physical and spiritual lives leaves room for notions of
healing or restoration. Thus, he accepts that one can speak of the sacraments as medicines, but
45
Ibid., 121. “Quantum autem ad communem Ecclesiae utilitatem ordinantur duo sacramenta, scilicet ordo et matrimonium.”
169
drastically narrows the applicability of this concept. He moves from thinking of all of the
sacraments as medicine to thinking only of two of the sacraments as medicines, Penance and
Extreme Unction. It is also interesting to note that in this entire text, Thomas never uses the
words medicine or remedy. He merely says that Penance and Extreme Unction are intended for
healing. Thus, Thomas absolutely changes directions in this text, but he does so in a way that
manages not to leave behind anything in the tradition or anything that he has said previously.
Thomas will later use this same approach when he expands the role of sacramental signification.
Third and finally, concurrent with a downplaying of medicinal language, Thomas makes
another change in writing this text. In sharp contrast to the previous texts examined, Thomas
makes no mention at all of Hugh of St. Victor in this work. This could be due to the text’s short
length and to its popular-level audience. Thus, it would be unjustified to claim that Thomas has
in any sense rejected Hugh. Nonetheless, Hugh’s absence is conspicuous. This is the case
especially given the fact that Thomas has no problem citing Augustine in this text. Therefore,
along with the change of his overarching sacramental metaphor, one should note that in the
course of the texts examined thus far, Thomas is becoming less and less reliant upon Hugh.
At this point, these changes call for an interpretation in view of Thomas’s sacramental
theology throughout his career. I suggest first of all that the shift in guiding imagery is an
instance of Thomas beginning to develop his own distinctive theological voice rather than
relying quite so heavily on the voices of previous theological authorities. The emergence of
Thomas’s own voice is also illustrated by his diminishing reliance on Hugh. Finally, one can see
Thomas’s thought becoming more uniquely his own in the fact that he moves from using a
metaphor to establishing an analogy, a mode of thought which especially marks his later
writings. Thomas’s love of analogy, his use of it in his sacramental theology, and its bearing on
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his doctrine of sacramental signification will be discussed further in the texts yet to be examined,
especially the Summa theologiae. At the moment, however, it suffices to point out that Thomas’s
move toward analogy is a clear developmental step toward his ultimate positions.
One can interpret the shift to analogy in this text as a sign of theological growth in a
number of additional respects as well. First, Thomas’s analogy between the spiritual and physical
lives is more positive than his previous metaphor, and as such is more capable of encouraging
people to receive and revere the sacraments. Viewing the sacraments solely as medicines casts a
negative light on many aspects of Thomas’s theological narrative. This perspective renders
humans as fallen creatures, who have failed to live up to God’s plans. The way Thomas presents
this narrative from Hugh of St. Victor also negatively characterizes the material world, to which
humans have willingly enslaved themselves. Signs are negatively characterized here because
they are only necessary as God’s condescension to humans, who have limited themselves to the
sensory realm. Even the sacraments themselves are negatively cast in this perspective because
they are only necessary because of human failures. Put simply, no one likes taking medicine. To
do so is at best a burden that one must endure for the sake of becoming healthy.
The analogy Thomas adopts in De articulis, on the other hand, does away with the need
for these negative characterizations, even if in fact some of them hang on as remnants.46 With
this analogy, the sacraments do not appear as an onerous condescension or means of fixing what
went wrong. They instead appear as a positive means of fostering the spiritual life. With this
metaphor, Thomas replaces the burden of taking medicine with talk of more attractive things like
generation, growth, sustenance, healing, and community. This change in tone would clearly
render the sacraments more appealing to a lay audience.
46
For example, Thomas’s characterization of signification in this text is still largely negative, as is his characterization of the sacraments of the
Old Law.
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One should, therefore, regard Thomas’s newly expressed desire to speak of the
sacraments more positively as an area of growth in his doctrine. Not only is a positive narrative
to be preferred to a negative one, but this new analogy also enables Thomas to more deeply
integrate the sacraments with God’s plan for creation. Conceived as a medicinal rescue mission,
the sacraments at best can be thought of as an adaptation on God’s part to human sinfulness.
However, in the terms of an analogy with the bodily life, the sacraments appear as a part of
God’s plan all along. As God designed the bodily life to work by means of generation, growth,
and sustenance, so also God intended the spiritual life to work by means of the sacraments. This
change is undoubtedly an improvement, and thus a development of Thomas’s doctrine.
3) The Sacraments in General in De articulis
Having articulated an overarching sacramental analogy in his introduction, Thomas turns
to discuss the sacraments in general. He begins by stating what the sacraments do and require.
Thomas says that all the sacraments, by which he, of course, means the sacraments of the New
Law, confer grace. In order to do this, three things are needed. A sacrament is made of, and thus
requires, words and things, which are the sacraments’ form and matter. Sacraments also must
have a minister, who has the intention of doing what the Church does.
Thomas next discusses what is required for a sacrament to be efficacious for recipients. A
sacrament can be validly confected, have the right form, matter, and minister, and yet have its
effect of grace impeded on the part of the recipient. Thomas does not spell out in detail the ways
in which a recipient may fail to receive the full effect of any given sacrament. He only gives the
example of “if one feigns to receive” a sacrament or receives it “with a heart unprepared to
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receive worthily.”47 If this happens, a person may not receive the effect of a sacrament even if he
or she receives the sacrament itself. On the other hand, Thomas says, it is possible for some
people to receive the effect of a sacrament even without receiving the sacrament itself. This is
possible because of a person’s devotion, “which they may have in desire, or in a vow.”48
In his discussion of the sacraments in general, Thomas does not make any connection
between a sacrament’s signification and its efficacy. For instance, has does not specify whether a
person, or even a sacrament’s minister, must be aware of what is being signified by the
sacramental act, the sacramental matter, or the sacramental form. He also does not specify what a
sacrament’s signification has to do with its effect, for instance, whether the signification merely
points to the effect, whether it works to bring about the effect, or whether the sign and the effect
are just two component parts of a sacrament. I suggest that the omission of specificity about the
relationship between signification and causality is further evidence of Thomas’s undervaluing of
sacramental signification at this point in his career. Thomas evidently does not feel here that the
specifics of signification are worthy of his audiences’ attention.
Thomas concludes his discussion of the sacraments in general by mentioning the fact that
some sacraments impress a character, while others do not. Orders, Baptism, and Confirmation,
for instance, impress an indelible character upon a person’s soul, and thus they may never be
repeated. Penance, the Eucharist, Extreme Unction, and Marriage, however, do not convey a
character, and thus they may be received more than once, and may even, in the case of Penance
and the Eucharist, be received frequently. This view, along with some of the other points
mentioned directly above, is the same as Thomas has articulated in Book Four of the Scriptum.
Most of the particulars, of Thomas’s doctrine of the sacraments in general, remained unchanged
47
Aquinas, The Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas, 122. “si fictus accedat, et non corde parato ad suscipiendum sacramentum.”
48
Ibid. “ quod habent in voto, sive desiderio.”
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in this text, even while Thomas reframes these teachings in a new analogy and even while they
contain some new emphases. This serves to make the point that development in Thomas’s
doctrine need not look like complete revision or a change in doctrine. Development in form,
clarity, and integration is nonetheless development.
4) The Sacraments in Particular in De articulis
Thomas next addresses each of the sacraments in order. As he does so, he makes a point
to identify each sacrament’s matter, form, minister, effect, and the errors persons have made
about the sacrament. Of interest in this structure, is the fact that Thomas evidently does not think
it important to specify the signification of each sacrament and he does not think that a
sacrament’s signification is an essential part of a lay doctrinal summary. This is again evidence
that Thomas undervalues and discounts the importance of signification in his sacramentology.
Otherwise, it would have been quite easy for him to include a brief statement of what exactly the
sign is of each sacrament, just as he found it necessary to do for the effect of each sacrament.
Thomas does, however, mention sacramental signification with respect to three of the
sacraments in this section of the text. Rather than explicate all of what Thomas says about each
particular sacrament, then, I will instead briefly examine these three instances and a few other
points of note in this section. This practice will demonstrate both Thomas’s doctrine of
sacramental signification and how he applies his general ideas to particular sacraments.
The first time Thomas mentions the signification of a particular sacrament is in his
discussion of Confirmation. He does not tell what the sacrament itself signifies, what the
sacramental acts signify, or even what the words of the sacrament signify. Rather, he only
mentions what chrism signifies. Thomas writes, “The matter of this Sacrament is chrism made
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from oil, which signifies the bright luster of conscience, and from balsam, which signifies the
odor of a good name.”49 Thus, Thomas only thinks to note signification in passing. The
sacrament’s signification thus seems like an afterthought or a fun fact, which would explain why
Thomas mentions the signification of Confirmation’s matter, and just before this, says nothing
about any signification of any part of Baptism.
The second sacrament for which Thomas mentions signification is the Eucharist. Thomas
makes two remarks. First, when discussing the matter of the Eucharist, he says that the sacrament
consists of bread and wine, with the wine consisting of grapes mixed with a little water. At this
point, Thomas writes, “The water signifies the faithful who are incorporated into Christ.”50 Much
like Thomas’s previous comment about Confirmation, his mention of signification here seems to
be made in passing, or at most as a brief explanation about why water is mixed with the wine.
Thomas thus does not present a sacrament’s signification as in any way essential.
The second remark about the signification of the Eucharist occurs when Thomas explains
his view about the sacramentum tantum, the res et sacramentum, and the res tantum of the
Eucharist. His teaching here is the same as his teaching in the Scriptum, with one exception. As
in the Scriptum, Thomas says that the res tantum of the Eucharist is the unity of Christ’s mystical
body. Here, however, Thomas explicitly identifies this with the Church. He writes:
In this Sacrament there is that which is the sacramentum tantum, that is, the species of bread
and wine; and that which is known as the res et sacramentum, that is, the true Body of Christ;
and that which is the res tantum, that is the unity of the Mystical Body, that is, the Church
which this Sacrament both signifies and causes.51
One sees in this sentence, again, Thomas’s growing emphasis on the Church. One also
sees, though, Thomas recalling the dual nature of the sacraments as both signs and causes. Thus,
49
Ibid., 124. “materia est chrisma confectum ex oleo, quod significat nitorem conscientiae, et balsamo, quod significat odorem bonae famae.”
50
Ibid., 125. “nam aqua significat populum, qui incorporatur Christo.”
51
Ibid., 126-7. “Sic igitur in hoc sacramento est aliquid quod est sacramentum tantum, scilicet ipsa species panis et vini; et aliquid quod est res
et sacramentum, scilicet corpus Christi verum; et aliquid quod est res tantum, scilicet unitas corporis mystici, idest Ecclesiae, quam hoc
sacramentum et significat et causat.”
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the Eucharist is both a sign and a cause of the Church. Thomas’s mention of signification here
affords it a more substantial role to play in the sacraments than his previous mentions in this text.
However, signification still seems to be an afterthought mentioned in passing. Thomas does not
make a point to mention the signification of the Eucharist. He only mentions it while he is
explaining some other aspect. Hence, even here, one can conclude that Thomas affords little
value to the role of signification.
The third sacrament about which Thomas mentions signification is Marriage, the
discussion of which is structurally anomalous. Instead of discussing the sacrament’s matter,
form, minister, and effects, Thomas provides the efficient cause of Marriage and the goods of
Marriage. He does, however, as in his other sections, still conclude by naming some errors
regarding Marriage. Why Thomas chooses to break from his previous method for only this
sacrament is unclear. Matrimony still certainly has matter, form, a minister, and effects. In any
case, in altering his pattern, Thomas also mentions the sign of Matrimony. He writes,
“Matrimony is the seventh Sacrament. It is a sign of the union between Christ and the Church.”52
One here again sees an illustration of the way in which Thomas emphasizes the Church in this
text. Thomas’s use of signification in this sentence, however, does not emphasize its role in the
sacraments. Rather, Thomas only acknowledges a signification and continues.
Thus, one can conclude that in De articulis, the role that signification has to play in the
sacraments is minimal at most. Thomas does say, by employing Augustine’s standard definition,
that the sacraments are signs. On a few occasions as well, Thomas mentions a sacrament’s
signification in passing or as an explanatory tool. However, by and large, in this text, Thomas is
much more concerned both with the fact that the sacraments cause grace, which he highlights in
his treatment of the sacraments in general, and with the effects that the sacraments cause, which
52
Ibid., 130. “Septimum sacramentum est matrimonium, quod est signum coniunctionis Christi et Ecclesiae.”
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forms part of his structure and which he discusses for every sacrament in particular except
Marriage. In this way, Thomas conveys that the most important thing about the sacraments is
that they cause grace. Thomas again associates signification more closely with the “weak and
needy” sacraments of the Old Law than with the efficacious power of the sacraments of the New
Law.
5) The Eschatological End Point of De articulis
Before moving on to examine the final intervening text of this chapter, I briefly mention
the way in which Thomas concludes De articulis. He does so by connecting the sacraments to
eschatology more directly than he has done in either of the previous texts examined. Thomas
says, “By the reception of these Sacraments, [a person] is led to future eternal glory which
consists in seven gifts, three of the soul and four of the body.”53 By this statement too, Thomas
emphasizes the causality of the sacraments, for this being led to future glory does not carry the
connotation of being directed by signs, but rather of being brought to glory by means of the grace
that the sacraments cause.
Also of interest here, however, is the fact that Thomas concludes with such an
eschatological thrust. It is evident through his enumeration of these seven gifts that Thomas is
trying to excite his readers with the glories that await those who allow the sacraments to do their
work of causing grace. For instance, the gifts for the soul are the vision of God’s essence, an
understanding of God, and the perfect enjoyment of God. The gifts of the body are impassibility,
brilliancy, agility, and subtlety. All of these gifts are attractive, and Thomas even concludes with
a prayer asking that God lead persons to all these things. Such devotional fervor was absent from
53
Ibid., 131. “Horum autem virtute sacramentorum homo perducitur ad futuram gloriam, quae consistet in septem dotibus: tribus animae, et
quatuor corporis.”
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Thomas’s previous writing on the sacraments, very likely due to their genre. However, above
this new devotional dimension, the degree of eschatological emphasis in this text was not seen
earlier.
C) Sacramental Signification in the Liturgy for the Feast of Corpus Christi (c. 1264) – Text
Four of Seven
1) Overview of the Corpus Christi Liturgy
Thomas’s Corpus Christi Liturgy consists of a divine office, Sacerdos in aeternum, and a
mass, Cibavit eos. As mentioned in Chapter One, I treat the mass and the office as a single text,
which I refer to as the Corpus Christi Liturgy. This text includes prayers and hymns, which
Thomas himself wrote for the occasion. Thomas also includes a number of readings, some of
which he composed himself, but the majority of which he selected and excerpted from
authoritative works. The nature of the Corpus Christi Liturgy renders it quite different than the
previous texts examined and also quite difficult to analyze. The difficulty is compounded by the
fact that Thomas does not explicitly set out in this text to expound doctrine and the fact that few
places in the text directly mention sacramental signification. Nonetheless, this text remains
valuable for tracing the development of Thomas’s sacramentology; it provides another
perspective and another genre through which to examine how Thomas expresses his
sacramentology. Due to the difficulties named above, progressing linearly through this text, in
the fashion done in De articulis, will not prove the best method. Instead, I will proceed on a
topical basis. I discuss the sources Thomas uses (Section 2, below), five theological themes of
the text (Section 3), the primary metaphor that Thomas employs to speak of the sacraments
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(Section 4), Thomas’s use of signification in the text (Section 5), and the absence of the doctrine
of sacramental causality (Section 6).
2) Sources of the Corpus Christi Liturgy
First, as always, the sources that Thomas uses provide insight into his thought and its
basis. In this text, Thomas sources are revealed by the texts he selects as readings. Thomas
makes extended use of the ever-present Augustine, especially some of his Eucharistic sermons.
This usage is no surprise. Thomas also includes selections from Book Four of Peter Lombard’s
Sentences. Like Augustine, the fact that Peter has influenced Thomas’s sacramentology is no
surprise. It is, however, somewhat unusual for Thomas to use Peter in this particular context.
Few would regard Lombard’s Sentences as devotional, and Thomas often prefers other
authorities to that of the Master. Hence, his use of Lombard here, together with his use of
Augustine, serves to illustrate a continuity of sources with his previous writings.
Several other sources, however, speak more to a narrative of discontinuity. Chief among
these is Thomas’s extended use of texts from Gratian’s De consecratione, an authority and a text
which has made almost no showing in the previously examined sacramental writings and which
forms the bulk of the readings for the liturgy. Other cited authorities that figure more
prominently here than in previous texts include Ambrose, Hilary, Eusebius, Pope Leo,
Paschasius Radbertus, and Alcuin, many of whom are brought forward from Gratian’s text. The
presence of all these new sources weighs in favor of the interpretation that the sacramental
theology of this text is different than that which came before it. This view is rendered even more
plausible by the absence of one particular source, that of Hugh of St. Victor. Thomas never
mentions Hugh at all and does not include any of his texts as readings. Thus, from the
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perspective of sources, Thomas’s Corpus Christi Liturgy represents a shift from his earlier
writings of the Scriptum and the De veritate.
3) Five Theological Themes of the Corpus Christi Liturgy
a) Theme One – Transubstantiation
A shift can also be seen in the main themes of this work, which is the second point I wish
to raise. I suggest that the liturgy as a whole has at least five main themes that Thomas
highlights, both with his own writing and with his selection of office readings. The first theme is
transubstantiation and the fact that Christ is truly present in the sacrament of the Eucharist. This
emphasis is to be expected given the nature of the feast of Corpus Christi. Hence, little else needs
to be said about this emphasis here.
b) Theme Two – Deification
The second theme is deification, which is more unexpected. Thomas puts this notion at
the forefront by mentioning it in the first reading, which Thomas writes himself rather than
taking from another text. Thomas’s opening words are:
The boundless favors of divine generosity, shown to the Christian people, bestow an
inestimable dignity on them. There neither is nor ever was so great a nation having gods so
near to itself as our God is to us. The only-begotten Son of God, desiring that we be
participants in his divinity, took on our nature, so that, having become man, he might make
men Gods.54
This notion of deification, and especially its concurrent idea of participation, continues
throughout the liturgy, even in the readings that Thomas selects by other authors.
54
Both the Latin text and the English text here cited are taken from Walters, Corrigan, and Ricketts, The Feast of Corpus Christi, 258. “Immensa
divinae largitatis beneficia, exhibita populo Christiano inextimabilem ei conferunt dignitatem. Neque enim est aut fuit aliquando tam grandis
nacio quae habeat deos appropinquantes sibi, sicut adest nobis Deus noster. Unigenitus siquidem Dei filius, suae divinitatis volens nos esse
participes, nostram naturam assumpsit, ut homines deos faceret factus homo.”
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For example, later in reading nine, Thomas includes a text from Alcuin. This text states,
“Certainly the son, who was born equal, is not made better through the participation of the father,
as he makes us better through the participation of the son through the unity of the body and blood
which that food and drink signifies.”55 This key theme of deification, here referenced by the idea
of our participating in the Son as the Son participates in the Father, is undoubtedly a new
emphasis of Thomas’s sacramental theology that emerges in this text. This is not to say that
deificatory notions were entirely absent from Thomas’s earlier sacramental texts.56 Thomas was
certainly aware of the concept of deification from his earliest writings. However, at no prior
point does Thomas emphasize and integrate the concept of deification into his sacramental
theology, as he does in the Corpus Christi liturgy.
c) Themes Three and Four – Unity and Church
The third and fourth themes are unity and the Church, respectively, which are closely
related. In particular, Thomas emphasizes that the Eucharist signifies unity within the Church.
For instance, in one of Thomas’s prayers, he writes, “We ask, Lord, that you mercifully grant to
your Church the gifts of unity and peace, which are mystically signified beneath the gifts we
offer.”57 As above with deification, Thomas also continues this emphasis in the selection of texts
that he makes for the readings. In addition to the Alcuin text, the following text from Augustine
illustrates the ideas of peace and unity in the Church, as well as further notions of signification
and participation. Augustine writes:
55
Ibid., 288. “Non enim filius participatione patris fit melior, qui est natus equalis, sicut participatione filii per unitatem corporis et sanguinis
quam illa manducatio potacioque significat, efficit nos meliores.”
56
See for example, Scriptum IV, d. 12, q. 2, a. 1, qc. 1, res. A reference also was made to deification in the De veritate, q. 27, a. 6, res., as
mentioned above. For more information on deification in Aquinas, see Luke Davis Townsend, "Deification in Aquinas: A Supplementum to The
Ground of Union " Journal of Theological Studies 66, no. 1 (2015): 204-34.
57
Walters, Corrigan, and Ricketts, The Feast of Corpus Christi, 320. “Ecclesie tue quesummus Domine unitatis et pacis propicius dona concede
que sub oblatis muneribus mistice disignantur.”
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In this way, our Lord Jesus Christ signified to us that he wished us to belong to him, he
consecrated the sacrament of peace and of our unity at the table. Whoever receives the
sacrament of unity and does not keep the bond of peace, does not receive the sacrament for
himself but testimony against himself. It is in no way to be doubted by anyone that each of
the faithful is a participant in the body and blood of the Lord from the time when he is made
by baptism a member of Christ, and is not kept from the fellowship of that bread and cup
even if he left this world before he could eat that bread and drink the cup, since he was
already a part of the unity of the body.58
Thus, through the words of Augustine, Thomas emphasizes to his readers the key themes of both
unity and the Church. Unlike the new emphasis on deification in this text, however, this ecclesial
theme is clearly continued from Thomas’s earlier De articulis.
d) Theme Five – Contemplative Devotion
Finally, I suggest that Thomas’s Corpus Christi Liturgy contains one final theme, which
may be characterized as that of devotion. As with Thomas’s emphasis on transubstantiation, a
worshipful or devotional characteristic of this text is not surprising. This is, in fact, what the text
is designed to do. However, it should not go without noting that the nature of this devotion is
ordered toward leading persons to contemplation. Thomas aims to engender in those who partake
in this liturgy an awestruck reverence around the sacrament of the Eucharist and a desire to
reflect on God’s great works. Thus, one finds Thomas asking, “what is more wondrous than this
sacrament?”59 One finds Thomas speaking often of the sacrament’s delicacy and of the spiritual
sweetness to be found in within it.60 Moreover, one finds Thomas often speaking of the idea of
memory, remembering, and the sacrament as a memorial, wherewith he directs those who
participate in this liturgy to contemplate the meaning of what Christ has done and continues to do
58
Ibid., 354. “Ita dominus noster Iesus Christus nos significavit, nos ad se pertinere voluit, mysterium pacis et unitatis nostrae in mensa
consecravit. Qui accipit mysterium unitatis et non tenet vinculum pacis, non mysterium accipit pro se, sed testimonium contra se. Nulli est
aliquatenus ambigendum unumquemque fidelium corporis et sanguinis dominici tunc esse participem, quando in baptismate efficitur membrum
Christi, nec alienari ab illius panis calicisque consortio, etiam si antequam panem illum comedat calicemque bibat, de hoc saeculo migraverit, in
unitate corporis constitutus.”
59
Ibid., 258. “Quid hoc sacramento mirabilius?”
60
Ibid., 260.
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through the Eucharist.61 Due, presumably, to the genre of the academic and catechetical texts
examined thus far, this contemplative and devotional dimension of Thomas’s sacramentology
has not yet been strongly expressed. This text, however, allows one to see how Thomas applies
his sacramental theory to the practical aspects of the Christian life.62 He does so by directing
persons to contemplate God’s graciousness and the mysteries of the faith.
4) Primary Sacramentological Metaphor of the Corpus Christi Liturgy
A third point I wish to make about this text pertains to the main metaphor whereby
Thomas conceives the sacraments. As seen previously, in De articulis, Thomas shifted his
dominant metaphor about the sacraments from the idea that the sacraments are remedies or
medicines to an analogy between the physical and spiritual lives. Neither of these conceptual
devices, however, makes an appearance in his Corpus Christi liturgy.63 Rather, I contend that the
primary metaphor to conceive the sacraments in this text is found in Thomas’s ideas of unity and
deification. The role and purpose of the Eucharist is to unite one with Christ and thereby allow
Christ, God become human, to make humans become gods.
A metaphor of unity and deification is conveyed in many forms throughout the text. One
of the best examples is the reference Thomas and his selected readings make to Augustine’s idea
that a chief sign of the wine and bread in the Eucharist is unity. This is the case because wine is
made into one from many grapes and bread is made into one from many grains.64Another text
that conveys this overarching unity metaphor is by Gratian. The reading states:
61
Ibid.
62
I by no means wish to establish a division or dichotomy between theory and practice with the use of these terms. I merely need some way to
signify the distinction between the academic study of the faith and the lived daily practice of the faith.
63
The word medicine appears on two occasions, both of which are in quotations. Much as he did in De articulis, Thomas also, on a few
occasions, speaks of health, or the fact that the Eucharist is salubrious. Neither of these facts, though, supports the idea that Thomas uses a
medicinal metaphor for the sacraments in this Liturgy.
64
This image of Augustine’s is alluded to numerous times. The best statement of it is in a text by Peter Lombard. Cf. Walters, Corrigan, and
Ricketts, The Feast of Corpus Christi, 360.
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The chalice of the Lord ought to be offered with wine and water mixed, because we see the
people represented by the water, the blood of Christ shown by the wine. Therefore, when
wine and water are mixed in the chalice, the people are joined with Christ, and the crowd of
believers are combined and united with him in whom they believe, and this combination and
union of water and wine is mixed in the chalice of the Lord in such a way that the mixture
cannot be separated.65
In the Corpus Christi Liturgy, therefore, one sees a shift to a new guiding image for conceiving
the sacraments, that of unity with Christ and deification through this union. Taken together with
the fact that Thomas’s previous text also eschews a medicinal metaphor, one would be justified
in maintaining that by this point in his career, Thomas has moved beyond his earlier attempt to
conceive the sacraments remedially.
5) Signification in the Corpus Christi Liturgy
The fourth point I wish to make is that this text does not neglect the significatory aspects
of the Eucharist. One might not wish to go so far as to say that the Corpus Christi Liturgy
emphasizes or highlights sacramental signification. The significatory content in this text could
still be regarded as thin. However, the dimension of signification is still palpably present,
especially when compared to the earlier De articulis. One can observe some of Thomas’s
mentions of signification in the excerpts from the liturgy examined above. Thomas’s emphasis
that the Eucharist signifies the unity of the Church serves to illustrate that Thomas remains
sensitive to the sign dimensions of the sacraments. This point is also illustrated by the texts
above that speak of what the grapes and wheat signify, or what the water mixed with wine
signifies. In and through these texts, Thomas is educating both religious and laypersons as to the
deeper meaning and the deeper significance that lies behind the Eucharistic elements. While this
65
Ibid., 347. “Calix etiam dominicus vino, et aqua permixtus debet offerri, quia videmus in aqua populum intelligi, in vino vero ostendi
sanguinem Christi. Ergo cum in calice vinum aqua misceatur, Christo populus adunatur, et credentium plebs ei in quem credit copulatur et
iungitur; quae copulatio et coniunctio aquae et vini sic miscetur in calice domini, ut mixtio illa non possit separari.”
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move alone is not enough to justify seeing an outright emphasis on signification in this liturgy, it
is enough to demonstrate that Thomas is aware of the need for persons to understand sacramental
signification. It thus demonstrates that Thomas theologically values signification more here than
he did previously.
One reaches a similar conclusion upon observing the number of times throughout the
Liturgy that Thomas discusses the figures of the Eucharist, its prefigurations, or what the
Eucharist recalls. As mentioned above, Thomas often speaks of the Eucharist’s rememorative
character. For instance, Sacris sollempniis, a hymn of the Corpus Christi Liturgy, he writes:
The night of the Last Supper is recalled, in which Christ is believed to have given to his
brethren lamb and unleavened bread, according to the rights granted to the forefathers. The
meal completed, after the symbolic lamb, the divine body was given to his disciples, entirely
to all, entirely to each, by his own hands, this we proclaim.66
Thomas instructs liturgical participants about the capacity of the sacrament to signify
things in the past also through the readings he selects. A reading of a text by Ambrose, for
instance, discusses the prefigurations of the Eucharist that one sees in the acts of Melchizedek
and Moses. He speaks in particular of God’s instruction to Moses to use a rod to get water from a
rock. The text states:
The rock was Christ. ...Behold the mystery. Moses is the prophet. The rod is the word of
God. The priest touches the rock with the word of God, and water flows, and the people
drink. Therefore, the priest touches the chalice, he pours water into the chalice, and it
springs into eternal life, and the people of God drink.67
Through this text, therefore, one sees that Thomas is acutely aware of the manifold significations
present in the celebration of the Eucharist. One also sees the way in which these significations
both were prefigured by events in Scripture and recall them for persons in the present. Moreover,
one here sees that Thomas finds it important to call persons’ attention to these significations and
66
Ibid., 252. “Noctis recolitur cena novissima, qua Christus creditur agnum et azima dedisse fratribus iuxta legitima priscis indulta patribus.
Post agnum typicum expletis epulis corpus dominicum datur discipulis sic totum omnibus, quod totum singulis eius fatemur manibus.”
67
Ibid., 347. “Petra autem erat Christus...Vide misterium: Moyses, hoc est propheta. Virga, hoc est verbum Dei. Sacerdos verbo Dei tangit
petram et fluit aqua et bibit populus Dei. Tangit ergo sacerdos calicem, redundat aqua in calice, et salit in vitam aeternam, et bibit populus Dei.”
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to make them aware of the layers of meaning behind almost every minute detail of the
sacramental celebration.
Finally, I mention one other passage of the Corpus Christi Liturgy where Thomas makes
a point to include significatory content, namely the hymn Lauda Syon. This hymn is especially
interesting because, in it, one sees Thomas teaching persons about the signification of the
sacraments not through readings, not through scriptural or doctrinal exposition, but through song
and through praise. This hymn, which includes such worshipful lines as “Let praise be full, let it
be sonorous, let the jubilation of the spirit be joyful, let it be decorous,”68 manages to convey a
substantial amount of doctrinal content and illustrates many of the points made above. Thomas
speaks of memory, and how the meal celebrated in the Eucharist is specifically done in memory
of the meal Christ shared with his disciples. He speaks of the past things that this meal signifies
when he composes the line, “It was pre-signed in figures, when Isaac was sacrificed, when the
lamb of the Passover was delegated, when manna was given to the fathers.”69 He speaks as well
of the future things that the Eucharist signifies, by asking Christ to make us his table companions
in glory as members of the communion of the saints.
Moreover, at one point, Thomas goes out of his way to characterize the sacraments as
significatory. He writes, “The teaching is given to Christians that bread transforms into flesh and
wine into blood. Undaunted faith confirms what you do not touch, what you do not see, against
the order of things. Under diverse species, signs only, and not things, lie hidden extraordinary
things. His flesh as food, his blood as drink; yet Christ remains whole under each species.”70
Thus, in the midst of praise, Thomas finds it necessary and helpful to insert the metaphysical
68
Ibid., 312. “Sit laus plena, sit sonora; sit iucunda, sit decora mentis iubilatio.”
69
Ibid. “In figuris praesignatur, cum Isaac immolatur, agnus Paschae deputatur, datur manna patribus.”
70
Ibid. “Dogma datur Christianis, quod in carnem transit panis et vinum in sanguinem; quod non capis, quod non vides, animosa firmat fides
praeter rerum ordinem. Sub diversis speciebus, signis tantum et non rebus latent res eximiae, caro cibus, sanguis potus,manet tamen Christus
totus sub utraque specie.”
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clarification that the Eucharistic elements are essentially “signis tantum et non rebus.” In this, the
Corpus Christi liturgy evinces a substantial amount of concern for sacramental signification.
There could be insufficient evidence, at this point, for one to determine whether this concern and
whether the amount of significatory content in this Liturgy is substantial enough to represent a
definite shift in emphasis in Thomas’s sacramentology. To make a decision about this issue, one
needs to situate this text in the context of Thomas’s other sacramental texts and the overall
development of his doctrine, which will be done in the following pages and chapters.
6) The Absence of a Doctrine of Sacramental Causality in the Corpus Christi Liturgy
Nonetheless, there is one final point in favor of the interpretation that in the Corpus
Christi Liturgy one sees Thomas’s sacramental emphasis moving from a concern with causality
to a focus on signification. My fifth and final point regards the doctrine of sacramental causality
in this text. Thomas makes no mention in any part of this liturgy of the teaching that the
sacraments are causes of grace. The word ‘cause,’ in fact only appears five times in this text’s
approximately 20,000 words, most of which are in texts Thomas cites, and none of which say
anything about the sacraments causing grace.
Thomas’s failure to speaking of the sacraments as causes is surprising for three main
reasons. First, it is surprising because Thomas has a great deal to say about the sacraments being
the cause of grace in every other text he has written on the subject up until this point. In fact, in
these other texts, as has been seen, the sacraments’ causal nature appears to be one of the most
important things to discuss. Second, the lack of any causal language is surprising in light of the
amount of attention that Thomas gives in this text to the significatory dimension of the
sacraments. In his previous texts, Thomas pairs signification and causality, even when he
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emphasizes one of these pairs much more than the other. One would thus think that if Thomas
finds occasion in this Liturgy to speak of the Eucharist as a sign, that he would also have had the
chance to speak of its causal character. Third, the lack of causal language is surprising because of
the massive amount of other doctrinal content that Thomas covers. Theoretically, one might
think that Thomas decided not to speak of the sacraments as causes in this text because the text is
a liturgy and not an academic text. However, this line of reasoning does not stand in light of the
amount of other content that Thomas covers and the way that he covers it. One example of this
doctrinal content is the hymn mentioned above, Lauda Syon, where Thomas does not hesitate to
insert a metaphysical qualification into a hymn of praise.
More than this, however, when one looks at this liturgy as a whole, one realizes that it
contains a staggering amount of academic theology and doctrine, in spite of the fact that it was
intended for a primarily non-academic audience. Thus, for instance, the text makes it a point to
speak of the sacramentum tantum, the res et sacramentum, and the res tantum of the Eucharist.71
The text includes a tremendous amount of information about transubstantiation, the fraction of
the elements, and the way in which Christ is present in the elements in such a way that his body
is not broken or divided. The text speaks against a number of Eucharistic heresies and
misunderstandings, including that of Berengar of Tours.72 The text addresses the doctrine of ex
opere operato;73 the daily reception of the Eucharist; the reception of the Eucharist by sinners;
whether the Eucharist is a continuing and different sacrifice than that of Christ’s; the
prefigurations and symbolism of the Eucharist; the fact that all the daily masses offered
71
Ibid., 336.
72
Ibid., 339.
73
Ibid., 339-40.
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throughout the world and throughout time are really one; why Christ’s body and blood are
hidden under different species;74 deification; and, doctrine about Christ’s mystical body.
Thus, Thomas finds a way to answer the vast majority of questions that are addressed in
the academic genre of his Scriptum and Disputed Questions in the non-academic genre of a feast-
day liturgy. Looking at the amount of doctrine he is able to convey, one could not possibly
maintain that Thomas avoided speaking about the causality of the sacraments because such a
topic is too academic, or even because he did not have room or opportunity to do so. One must,
therefore, conclude that Thomas consciously chooses to avoid talking about sacramental
causality in this text. Why he does so can, of course, not be stated with certainty. However, the
simplest and most reasonable explanation would be that Thomas has reevaluated the theological
importance of sacramental causality. One can regard such a reevaluation as nothing less than a
development in Thomas’s sacramentology. Seeing this change in the overall trajectory of
Thomas’s sacramental thought again further supports this interpretation.
II. Synthesis and Analysis of Sacramental Signification in De veritate, De articulis, and the
Corpus Christi Liturgy
As at the end of Chapter Two, I now turn to bring together and analyze Thomas’s
doctrine of sacramental signification as it is presented in the three texts examined in this chapter,
De veritate, De articulis, and the Corpus Christi Liturgy. I do this by means of posing a number
of questions to the texts. These questions are the same ones I asked at the end of the last chapter,
with the exception of the additional concluding question of how Thomas’s doctrine has changed
over the course of the four texts examined thus far. This question will sum up the previous
74
Ibid., 359.
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questions and will facilitate the construction of a developmental narrative about Thomas’s
doctrine of sacramental signification.
In the first two texts examined in this chapter, Thomas’s understanding of the essence of
a sacrament appears to be unchanged from the time he wrote his Scriptum. In both the De
veritate and the De articulis, Thomas clearly maintains that the sacraments of the New Law have
a dual nature as both signs and causes. He also holds that the ability to cause grace is what
distinguishes the New sacraments from the Old. Thomas advances this view both in De veritate
q. 27, a. 4, and in the introduction of Part Two of the De articulis. Furthermore, in both of these
texts, Thomas provides the same standard definitions of a sacrament that he employed in the
Scriptum. In the De veritate, for instance, Thomas invokes the Master’s definition that a
Sacrament is “the visible form of an invisible grace, in the sense that it bears the image and
becomes the cause of the grace.”75 In the De articulis, Thomas uses Augustine’s definition that a
sacrament is a “sign of a sacred thing,”76 before immediately going on to say that the sacraments
are visible forms of an invisible grace. Thus, in these two texts, Thomas is evidently working
with much the same idea of the essence of the sacraments as he was in his Scriptum.
The same statement, however, cannot as easily be made about Thomas’s understanding of
the essence of a sacrament as expressed in his Corpus Christi Liturgy. First, this text gives no
indication that the sacraments have a dual nature as both signs and causes because the text
nowhere describes the sacraments as the causes. Second, Thomas nowhere defines the
sacraments or the Eucharist as a sign of a sacred thing or a visible form of an invisible grace,
75
Aquinas, Truth, 3, q. 27, a. 4, s.c. 1, p. 329. “sacramentum est invisibilis gratiae visibilis forma, ut imaginem gerat, et causa existat.”
76
Aquinas, The Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas, 119. “sacramentum est sacrum signum, vel sacrae rei signum.”
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although there is an interplay between the notions of visible and invisible at several points
throughout the work. Even given both of these points, however, Thomas does not provide the
reader with enough information to decide with certainty whether his understanding of the
essence of a sacrament has been altered. Thomas does not, for instance, provide another positive
statement of the essence of a sacrament, and nothing that he says openly conflicts with his
previous views. Nonetheless, the Corpus Christi Liturgy is obviously different than what has
come before it. One must therefore say that this difference likely extends even to Thomas’s
understanding of the essence of a sacrament. Otherwise, one would find some mention
somewhere that the Eucharist is both a sign and a cause, rather than finding a glaring absence of
causal language.
B) What constitutes a sacrament?
As far as these texts permit one to state, it would appear that Thomas’s understanding of
both the material and efficient causes of the sacraments have remained largely consistent. Of
course, throughout all three of the texts in this chapter, the exact material of the sacraments has
not changed. The Eucharist, for instance, consists of wheat bread and wine mixed with water.
Baptism is in water. More than this, however, Thomas is consistent with his doctrine that the
sacraments consist of both words and material elements. This is most evident in the structure of
De articulis, where Thomas is careful to specify both the form and the matter of each sacrament.
This understanding is also clear in the Corpus Christi Liturgy when Thomas speaks of the
elements of the Eucharist.
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C) How does a sacrament come to exist?
Similarly, insofar as these texts give one license to say, Thomas maintains a consistent
position on how the sacraments come to be. Above all, God is the primary efficient cause of the
sacraments. This is clear, for instance, in the De veritate, where Thomas describes the
sacraments as instrumental causes used by God. It is clear too when Thomas discusses the
doctrine that the sacraments function ex opere operato in the Corpus Christi Liturgy.77 Lastly,
the fact that Thomas conceives of priests as secondary efficient causes, who are needed in order
to consecrate the sacraments, is also reflected in these texts. The best illustration of this is the
structure that Thomas adopts in the De articulis. Here, in his treatment of the sacraments in
particular, Thomas specifies the minister and the intentions required for each sacrament.
D) What is the purpose and function of sacraments?
Unlike Thomas’s notion of the formal, material, and efficient causes of the sacraments,
Thomas’s understanding of the purpose of the sacraments is much more in flux throughout the
three texts examined in this chapter. The ultimate end toward which the sacraments bring people
remains roughly the same, salvation and eternal glory. However, both the role that the
sacraments play in bringing persons to this end and the way the sacraments accomplish this role
appear to shift along with Thomas’s operative metaphors in each text.
In the De veritate as in the Scriptum, Thomas has a medicinal understanding of the
sacraments. The purpose of the sacraments is thus to cure humans from the wound of sin by
making this medicine available to them in a visible form. This form is required because humans’
sin trapped them in and subjected them to the sensible realm.
77
Walters, Corrigan, and Ricketts, The Feast of Corpus Christi, 339-40.
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In the subsequent De articulis, though, a medicinal account no longer speaks to the full
role of the sacraments. Rather, in this text, the purpose of the sacraments is to give humans
spiritual life, to help them mature in this life, and to sustain them in it. In this alternative account,
the sacraments are visible signs, not as a condescension into a state of subjection, but in order to
be an analogy that instructs persons and directs them to spiritual realities. In this conception, the
sacraments do not only give spiritual health but also give spiritual life, which includes but is
broader than medicinal healing.
Finally, in the Corpus Christi Liturgy, Thomas’s understanding of the purpose of the
sacraments takes another step. The goal of the sacraments is not just that of giving persons
spiritual life, but through this life to unify a person with Christ and with others. The sacraments,
and chiefly the Eucharist, serve to make persons ever more Christ-like, to unify them ever more
with God, and ultimately bring persons to deification. As becoming gods is much more than
being healed from a disease, it is evident that Thomas’s understanding of the purpose of the
sacraments has changed dramatically compared to the texts examined earlier.
E) How are the sacraments causes?
Given what sacraments are, I now question how Thomas understands sacramental
causality in these three texts. Thomas really only provides an answer to this question in the De
veritate. In this text, Thomas maintains a hybrid efficient/dispositive theory of sacramental
causality. However, he somewhat downplays this notion in favor of speaking of the sacraments
as instrumental causes of grace. As for how Thomas conceives causality beyond the De veritate,
in the De articulis, Thomas still speaks of the sacraments as causes. He also names the effects of
each sacrament. However, perhaps because this is a text for non-academics, he does not specify
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the exact kind of causality at work in the sacraments, or how this causality functions. Even less
can be said about sacramental causality in the Corpus Christi Liturgy, because, as mentioned
above, this text does not speak of sacramental causality at all.
F) What is a sign and how are the sacraments signs?
Thomas gives no indication in any of the three texts of this chapter that he has changed
his understanding of what a sign is. In fact, in none of these texts does he even give a definition
of a sign. Thus, the reader is left to presume that he is working from the same notion based on
Augustine’s definition that he has established in the Scriptum, namely that “a sign, insofar as it is
in itself, conveys something manifest to us, by which we are led by the hand into the cognition of
something hidden.”78
One can still ask, however, how the sacraments work as signs and whether this
understanding changes in each text. In the De veritate, Thomas gives little through which the
reader can discern his exact notion of sacramental signification. He says first that signification
pertains to instruction.79 Thus, one can say that the sacraments are signs because they convey
information, presumably about the faith or about spiritual things. In this sense, even the
sacraments of the Old Law were signs. Hence, Thomas notes on multiple occasions that the
sacraments of the Old Law were signs of grace. In this respect, the sacraments of the Old Law
were prognostic signs, though Thomas does not identify them as such because they pointed to the
future. Thomas also does not specify whether this same quality extends to sacraments of the New
Law, but again, presumably, it does. Finally, in De veritate, Thomas speaks of the sacraments as
78
“Signum, quantum est in se, importat aliquid manifestum quo ad nos, quo manuducimur in cognitionem alicujus occulti.” Aquinatis, Scriptum
super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 1, ad 5, p. 13.
79
Aquinas, Truth, 3, q. 27, a. 4, res., 331.
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“causing by signifying.”80 In some regard, therefore, one must understand that the way the
sacraments work as signs influences the way that they work as causes. However, again, Thomas
does not make it clear how this is the case.
In the De articulis, Thomas’s description of the signification of the sacraments seems to
be much the same. Thomas says several times that the sacraments of the Old Law signified the
grace of Christ. He speaks of the character impressed by some sacraments as a spiritual sign, and
he also speaks on a couple of occasions of some of the present significations of the sacramental
elements. For instance, the oil of confirmation signifies the “bright luster of conscience,”81 and
the water mixed with the wine in the Eucharist signifies the faithful being incorporated into
Christ. In these regards, the sacraments would be functioning as demonstrative signs, because
they are especially concerned to demonstrate things in the present.
Thomas’s characterization of how the sacraments work as signs in his Corpus Christi
liturgy is more thoroughly explained. As in the Scriptum, the Corpus Christi Liturgy shows the
sacraments functioning as rememorative, demonstrative, and prognostic signs. Thomas’s first
emphasizes memory and the way that the truths of the sacraments were represented in figures
from the Old Testament and the history of Israel. Thomas, for instance, makes a point to include
readings that discuss Melchizedek and Moses getting water from the rock. Thomas’s
characterization of the sacraments as communicating information about the present is evident as
well. For example, Thomas says things like the Eucharistic meal signifies the unity of the Body
of Christ and that the water mixed in with the wine signifies the same thing. Lastly, Thomas
characterizes the sacraments as prognostic signs on the occasions, especially in his hymns, that
he says the Eucharist points one to the Eschatological Banquet with Christ in glory.
80
Ibid., q. 27, a. 4, ad obj. 13, 335. “significando causant”.
81
Aquinas, The Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas, 124. “nitorem conscientiae”.
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Therefore, Thomas has more to say about how the sacraments are signs and what exactly
they signify in his Corpus Christi Liturgy as compared to the De veritate or the De articulis. This
is clearly a difference in these three texts. It is less clear, however, that this change represents
any kind of development or growth. Thomas’s explanation of the aspects of sacramental
signification in his Corpus Christi Liturgy, while arguably more detailed, do not seem to diverge
in substance from his teaching in the Scriptum. The sacraments still appear to signify in the same
way and to signify many of the same things, even while, as established above, the purpose of the
sacraments in Thomas’s theology has clearly developed.
G) What is the role that signification plays in the sacraments?
If Thomas understands what signification is in the same way and also understands it to
work in roughly the same way, the next question one must consider is whether the role that
signification plays in the sacraments has remained consistent throughout these three texts. My
answer is that it does so in De veritate, but not in De articulis or the Corpus Christi Liturgy. That
Thomas’s views remained largely unchanged between the Scriptum and the De veritate has been
well established. There is thus no cause to suspect that the role of signification has changed.
This is not the case, though for the other two texts. First, in the De articulis, the purpose
and central metaphor that Thomas uses for the sacraments has changed. In changing to an
analogy of the spiritual life, Thomas expands the role that signification has to play in the
sacraments because he insinuates signification more deeply into the purpose of the sacraments,
specifically in view of their purpose of functioning as an analogy. The purpose of the sacraments
in this text is to grant spiritual life through grace and to point to this grace and indeed to the
spiritual life itself by means of visible realities, which form the first half of the analogy, the
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known half as opposed to the unknown half. Thus, Thomas places signification more fully at the
heart of the sacraments’ purpose. This purpose is no longer solely to cause grace like a medicine
causes health, but is to signify grace by means of this analogy between the physical and spiritual
lives.
This purpose does not, of course, mean that the sacraments in this text no longer have the
role of causing grace. They certainly do. I mean only that insofar as Thomas adopts this new
metaphor, he also expands the role that signification must play in the sacraments. As seen in this
text, though, Thomas has left this implication underdeveloped by the fact that he still speaks
mostly of the sacraments as causes of grace and speaks very little about their signification. It is
not at all clear, therefore, whether Thomas intends at this point to give a greater role to
signification or whether he just wants to try out a new metaphor, which just happens to imply a
greater significatory role. Nevertheless, one must still conclude that De articulis imagines
signification playing a greater role in sacramentology than either of the previous two texts.
While in De articulis the new role for signification could be an unintended consequence,
one cannot say that this is the case for the Corpus Christi Liturgy. One must say that the role of
signification is greatly expanded in this text by virtue of the fact that Thomas speaks in many
places of the sacraments as signs and speaks nowhere of them as causes. Omitting causality
necessarily causes signification to, so to speak, pick up the slack. As established above, such an
omission cannot reasonably be regarded as an oversight. Thus, one can only interpret the Corpus
Christi Liturgy as an instance of Thomas intentionally expanding the role that signification plays
in the sacraments. What precisely Thomas understands this role to be, however, is not yet clear.
One could say that signification here points persons toward the unity of the body of Christ,
which the Eucharistic elements and rites signify. It appears as well that contemplation of the
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deeper meanings of these elements and rites facilitates this end. However, one cannot state more
than this with certainty. In any case, though, in his Corpus Christi Liturgy, Thomas expands the
role that signification plays in the sacraments and does so intentionally.
H) What is Thomas’s attitude toward signification?
Along with the gradually expanding role of signification, one can also observe a shift in
Thomas’s attitude toward signification by the time he writes the Corpus Christi Liturgy.
Thomas’s attitude in both the De veritate and the De articulis toward the significatory aspects of
the sacraments is negative, just as it was in his Scriptum. In both texts, Thomas maintains a sharp
contrast between the sacraments of the Old Law and those of the New. In so doing, he associates
the sacraments of the Old Law more with signification and the sacraments of the New Law more
with causality. On this basis, he then characterizes both the sacraments of the Old Law and
signification as deficient or, in the words of the Apostle, as weak and needy. In both texts, as in
the Scriptum, Thomas furthermore refers to the sacraments of the Old Law as “mere signs” or
“only signs,” which, of course, also implies the lesser role vis-à-vis sacramental causality.
This negative attitude is the case in the De articulis in spite of the slightly expanded role
given to signification. This is one reason why one might regard this expanded role occurred as a
secondary consequence rather than as a decision for its own sake. It would seem as though
Thomas’s opinion of the significatory role of the sacraments had not yet caught up with the
nascent emphasis his sacramentology asked it to bear. In the De articulis, therefore, one sees
Thomas asking signification to perform the mutually exclusive jobs of being devalued in order to
exalt the sacraments of the New Law, and of playing the chief role in the essential purpose of the
sacraments of the New Law, which lead persons to spiritual life by signifying it analogically.
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Thomas’s attitude, however, comes around with regard to signification by the time he
writes his Corpus Christi Liturgy. Nowhere in this text does he attempt to exalt the sacraments of
the New Law by downplaying those of the Old. Nowhere in this text does he speak of
signification as inherently lacking, and nowhere in the text does he call any sacramental signs
weak and needy. Instead, as seen above, Thomas speaks often of the figures and significations of
the Eucharist. He makes a point to tell the meanings of the sacramental elements and acts, and he
shows how these signs, which point to the past, present, and future, fulfill the signs made by
those persons and prophets under the Old Law. Thus, Thomas clearly has a more positive
attitude in this text toward sacramental signification, which both corresponds to and reinforces
the shift in the role that Thomas is asking signification to bear. In the Corpus Christi Liturgy, as
Thomas’s depiction of the sacraments as causes decreases, his depiction of the sacraments as
signs, and his estimation of signification itself, increases.
I) What is the relationship of signification and causality in the sacraments?
The shifts taking place across these three texts next lead to the question of how exactly
Thomas conceives the relationship of signification and causality. In the De veritate, this
relationship is much the same as it was in the Scriptum. In both texts, Thomas sees the
sacraments as having the dual nature of both signs and causes. In both texts, he has a negative
attitude toward signification; and, he clearly emphasizes the causal role of the sacraments,
thereby subjecting signification to causality. In the Scriptum, as one will recall, Thomas is
unclear about how exactly the sacraments are both signs and causes. He merely insists that the
sacraments are both, and then he gives some examples of how this might be the case. In the De
veritate, Thomas never addresses the question of how signification and causality might relate. He
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thus does not provide any more clarity on the issue here than he did previously. He does,
however, on two occasions, say that the sacraments “significando causant.” This may suggest
some closer relation in his mind than he imagined when writing the Scriptum, because, with this
phrase, signification and causality are linked, mutually reinforcing, and seem to work together
toward the same end. The two uses of this phrase, however, is not enough evidence to be able to
definitively state that some shift has occurred both because Thomas uses it before and because he
here provides no more explication of it than he did previously. Thus, one must conclude that the
relationship of signification and causality in the De veritate is the same as it was in the Scriptum.
Thomas insists that the sacraments are both signs and causes, is relatively unclear about how this
is the case, but at the same time clearly subjects signification to causality.
Much the same can be said for the De articulis. Thomas says nothing about how the
sacraments are both signs and causes, but he clearly thinks that they are both, even if in this text,
unlike his previous ones, he falls short of ever saying exactly this. Also as in his previous texts,
Thomas clearly subjects signification to causality in the De articulis. If anything, this subjection
comes through even stronger in the De articulis than it did in the De veritate because this text is
so short, because the first thing Thomas provides the reader is his Old vs. New, weak/needy vs.
strong/efficacious characterization, and because Thomas tells each sacraments effect while only
rarely mentioning their signification.
Again, however, a clear change occurs with Thomas’s Corpus Christi Liturgy. One can
no longer say that Thomas is subjecting signification to causality because he speaks only of
signification and never of causality. Other than this, though, and for this very reason, it is almost
impossible to say how Thomas relates signification and causality in this text. He evidently flips
the dominance of the concepts here. He evidently flips the emphasis that he gives each one.
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However, he does not specify how each of these concepts functions with respect to one another
or with respect to the functioning of the sacraments in general. He, in fact, gives no indication of
their relation whatsoever. Thus, one thing remains consistent across all of the texts examined
thus far. Thomas remains unclear about how he imagines sacramental signification and
sacramental causality relating to one another.
J) What role do faith and the Church play in the sacraments?
In all three of the texts examined here, as in the Scriptum, Thomas is vague about the role
that faith plays in the sacraments. The only time he addresses this issue in these intervening texts
is in the De articulis. Thomas here mentions that the effect of the sacrament can be impeded on
the part of the recipient, and he gives the example of if a person feigns to receive the sacrament
or receives it unworthily.82 Presumably, this situation would include a person’s failing to have
proper faith. This would, in turn, render faith and the proper intention on the part of the person
receiving the sacrament as something like a sine qua non condition for the sacraments to be
efficacious. This is roughly the view that Thomas espoused in the Scriptum. He thus gives no
warrant for concluding that his views have changed in this regard.
Thomas’s views on the Church, however, are more evidently in flux. One can see this
first of all in the newly formed emphasis on the Church in the De articulis. This emphasis
continues in the Corpus Christi Liturgy. More than merely continuing, though, the role that the
Church plays in these texts increases. In the De articulis, the Church is clearly present and
involved, but its role doesn’t seem to be related to the essence of the sacraments. The Church just
has the role of administering the sacraments. Thomas also says that the purpose of two of the
sacraments is for the good of the Church, namely orders, through which the Church is ruled and
82
Ibid., 122.
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spiritually multiplied, and marriage, through which the Church is physically multiplied.83 Just
acknowledging that the sacraments have a job to do in the life of the Church community, as
opposed to just dispensing grace to an individual, is a clear area of growth as compared to the
Scriptum or the De veritate, where the Church was relatively unmentioned.
This growth expands further, though, in the Corpus Christi Liturgy. Here, the unity of the
Church, conceived as Christ’s mystical body, is emphasized and is seen as the chief signification
and chief purpose of the Eucharist. Here, therefore, rather than allowing the Church to lurk in the
background, Thomas places the Church at the very height of the purpose of the greatest
sacrament. All the sacraments are ordered toward the Eucharist, which is ordered toward
bringing all Christians together in a single united community in Christ. This role too plays into
the theme of deification present in this text. The sacraments incorporate persons in the Church,
which incorporates them into Christ, which works to make them more Christ-like, which is none
other than to make them become gods.84 Thus, one sees here Thomas integrating his theology to
a much higher degree than he has done previously. He is linking his sacramentology, his
Christology, his ecclesiology, and his soteriology, and he is orienting them all toward the
singular end of deification, which serves as his eschatology.
The sources of and influences upon Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental signification at this
point in his career vary. Some have remained constant, some have faded into the background,
and others have been added. Augustine is the most constant figure in Thomas’s thought. Thomas
references him in every text, and Thomas’s use of Augustine has not yet appeared to increase or
83
Ibid., 121.
84
Thomas would of course very quickly point out that this makes persons gods by partition not by nature. For more on this, see Townsend,
"Deification in Aquinas: A Supplementum to The Ground of Union ".
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decrease. Another relatively constant source is that of Peter Lombard. He is, certainly, not as
prominent as he was in the Scriptum, but this is likely due to Thomas’s moving away from the
genre of the Sentence Commentary. Peter’s continuing influence is witnessed to by his inclusion
in the readings for the Corpus Christi Liturgy, where Thomas could have easily omitted him.
As for sources that have faded into the background, none of these are more noteworthy
than the case of Hugh of St. Victor. Hugh occupied a prominent place in the sacramentology of
the Scriptum, and his influence could still be felt in the De veritate. After this text, however,
Hugh drops out of the picture. Thomas does not mention him at all in the De articulis or the
Corpus Christi Liturgy. More than this, however, Thomas also moves away from using Hugh’s
medicinal metaphor in these texts. This suggests not just an oversight or lack of occasion to cite
Hugh, but rather a conscious decision to turn away from Hugh’s thought.
Finally, with regard to new sources, one sees several emerge in these texts. Pseudo-
Dionysius makes a more prominent appearance in the De veritate. Moreover, the likes of
Gratian, Ambrose, Hilary, Eusebius, Pope Leo, Paschasius Radbertus, and Alcuin make an
appearance in the Corpus Christi Liturgy. These new sources perhaps indicate the fact that
Thomas’s research of, reading in, and expertise with the broader tradition of sacramentology
have been expanding. None of these new sources, at this point, however, emerge as figures of
overwhelming influence. If one had to say which authority was stepping up to fill the void left by
Thomas’s move away from Hugh, the most likely candidate would be Augustine.
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these changes represent development?
To conclude this section and this chapter, I pose the question of whether Thomas’s
doctrine of sacramental signification has changed in the three texts examined as compared to the
Scriptum. The answer to this question is, clearly in light of all that has been demonstrated,
undoubtedly in the affirmative. Thomas has, first of all, abandoned his medicinal metaphor and
set off in search of a new means of characterizing the sacraments. He introduces an analogy with
the spiritual life, as well as the notion of unity in the body of Christ leading toward deification.
Second, Thomas changes the role that signification plays. He places signification ever more
firmly at the center of the sacrament’s essence both when he makes the primary role of the
sacraments to be analogical and when he imagines the sacraments as key steps in the process of
deification. Third, Thomas changes his attitude toward signification from negative to positive.
Fourth, he changes the way he relates signification and causality by flipping the subjection of the
concepts. He moves from devaluing signification in favor of causality toward speaking only of
signification and thus devaluing causality. Fifth, Thomas greatly expands his emphasis on the
Church.
Given these changes, one must next consider whether these changes represent growth,
maturation of thought, and thus development in the essence of Thomas’s sacramentology, or
whether they represent insignificant variations in form due to things like the genre in, audience
to, and purpose for which Thomas writes. Based on what has been shown thus far, one must
conclude that these changes are legitimate developments. A clear trajectory away from his
earliest teaching emerges in these intervening texts. Thomas moves away from devaluing
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signification into increasingly appreciating its theological value. This occurs in spite of and
across a variety of texts, and therefore cannot be a mere formal alteration.
Moreover, one must conclude that the trajectory I have traced in this chapter
demonstrates that Thomas doctrine is growing and maturing theologically, rather than remaining
essentially unchanged. By the Corpus Christi Liturgy, Thomas’s sacramentology becomes much
more deeply integrated with other areas of his thought. Thomas marshals his sacramentology, his
Christology, his ecclesiology, and his soteriology, and unites them in the common purpose of
leading persons toward deification. One sees the first signs of this even in the De veritate, where
I noted that Thomas’s explication of sacramental causality became more Christological than it
was previously. One sees this in the De articulis, where I noted that Thomas ended on a
decidedly eschatological note. One sees this is in the increased role given to the Church in both
the De articulis and the Corpus Christi Liturgy, and one sees this above all in the Corpus Christi
Liturgy when Thomas gives all these aspects their direction toward deification. Finally,
Thomas’s sacramentology has become less individualistic, less objectively focused on
substances, less negatively conceived, and less focused on causing grace. All of which are clear
improvements.
One, therefore, has every reason to conclude that Thomas’s sacramentology, and
specifically his doctrine of sacramental signification, is becoming more integrated with the rest
of his theology, is getting better, and is therefore developing. Of interest to note as well is the
fact that this development takes place around the time when Thomas goes to Orvieto (1261-
1265) and thus when Thomas moves from teaching in a strictly academic university context to
teaching common brothers in a more ministerial context. This experience of practical ministry
could very well have served as a further education for Thomas, which allowed him to improve
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his theology. Perhaps this experience of integrating the intellectual with the practical helped
Thomas to better integrate the diverse aspects of systematic theology toward the practical end of
sanctification and ultimately deification.
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Chapter 4 – Sacramental Signification in Intervening Texts, pt. 2 - Summa
Contra Gentiles
Introduction
The Summa contra Gentiles (ScG) is the next text where Thomas treats the doctrine of
sacramental signification. Chapter Four proceeds as follows. First, I examine the text of the ScG.
I focus, with varying emphasis, on four sections of the text: 1) Book Three, ch. 147-51, which
deal with grace; 2) Book Four, ch. 21-22, which is about the Holy Spirit’s relationship to grace;
3) Book Four, ch. 56-58, which discusses the sacraments in general; and 4) Book Four, ch. 59-
78, where Thomas covers the sacraments in particular. These passages are covered in Sections
I.B through I.E, below. I conclude Chapter Four, as previously, with a section of analysis and
synthesis (Section II).
I. Sacramental Signification in the Summa contra Gentiles (c. 1264-1265)– Text Five of
Seven
A) Overview of the ScG
Before turning to the four specific sections of the ScG, which pertain to sacramental
signification, I provide a contextualizing overview of the work. The ScG as a whole is divided
into four books. For the first three books, Thomas makes arguments about the faith by means of
natural reason. Books One through Three of the ScG cover, God, Creation, and Providence,
respectively. Thomas summarizes these books as follows at the beginning of Book Three. “Since
we have treated of the perfection of the divine nature in Book One, and of the perfection of His
power inasmuch as He is the Maker and Lord of all things in Book Two, there remains to be
treated in this third Book His perfect authority or dignity, inasmuch as He is the End and Ruler
of all things.”1
Within Book Three, Thomas first discusses God as the end of all things. He then covers
God’s government of all creatures, before concluding with a section on God’s government of
rational creatures. Thomas’s discussion of grace, which is the first section I discuss below,
occurs at the end of Book Three of the ScG, during his discussion of how God governs rational
creatures.
Book Four of the ScG, in contrast to the first three books, discusses the Christian faith on
the basis of revelation, as opposed to merely natural reason. Thomas writes, “Since it was a
feeble knowledge of God that man could reach [by natural reason]...out of a superabundant
goodness, therefore, so that man might have a firmer knowledge of Him, God revealed certain
things about Himself that transcend the human intellect.”2 Book Four’s structure mirrors the
structure of Books One through Three. Thus, Thomas first treats God, then God’s works, then
the results of these works for humans. More precisely, Thomas first examines the doctrine of the
Trinity, then the Incarnation, and then the effects of grace, which are the sacraments and the last
things.
Within Book Four, Thomas devotes three chapters, 56 through 58, to the sacraments in
general. Chapter 56 is on the necessity of the sacraments; Chapter 57 is on the distinction
between the sacraments of the Old and New Laws; and Chapter 58 on the number of the
1
The English translation included here is from Aquinas, On the truth of the Catholic faith: Summa contra Gentiles, b. 3, c. 1. The best available
Latin edition, as well as the text reproduced here and below is from: Aquinatis, Liber de veritate catholicae Fidei contra errores infidelium seu
Summa contra Gentiles.“Quia ergo in primo libro de perfectione divinae naturae prosecuti sumus; in secundo autem de perfectione potestatis
ipsius, secundum quod est rerum omnium productor et dominus: restat in hoc tertio libro prosequi de perfecta auctoritate sive dignitate ipsius,
secundum quod est rerum omnium finis et rector.”
2
Aquinas, On the truth of the Catholic faith: Summa contra Gentiles, b. 4, c. 1. “Quia igitur debilis erat Dei cognitio ad quam homo per vias
praedictas intellectuali quodam quasi intuitu pertingere poterat, ex superabundanti bonitate, ut firmior esset hominis de Deo cognitio, quaedam
de seipso hominibus revelavit quae intellectum humanum excedunt.”
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sacraments of the New Law. Chapters 59 through 78 then address the sacraments in particular, in
the same order that Thomas has used in his previous works.
B) Book Three - Chapters 147 through 151 – Grace
1) b. 3, Chapter 147 – That Humans Need Divine Assistance to Attain Happiness
The first section of the ScG that is relevant to the doctrine of sacramental signification is
Book Three, Chapters 147 through 151. Thomas here discusses his doctrine of grace. Thomas
establishes first, in Chapter 147, that humans cannot reach happiness without divine assistance.
He argues that this is the case because humans have a rational nature and naturally desire to
know true things, including God, who is the Truth itself. However, to truly know God requires
that humans see God as God really is, which is vastly beyond humans’ natural capacities. Thus,
humans, who are natural creatures, ultimately have a supernatural end,3 and the only way they
can reach this end is if God elevates them to it. Thus, Thomas argues, humans have need of
divine assistance in order to be happy, and this assistance is none other than grace.
Regarding Chapter 147, I wish to make five points. First, in the very structure of the
argument itself, one sees the logic of deification, which Thomas clearly emphasized in his
Corpus Christi Liturgy. In Chapter 147, Thomas does not speak explicitly of humans becoming
gods. However, he does explicitly claim that humans must become more than human in order to
reach their true end. He also speaks of a “higher participation in [this] end,”4 and of seeing God’s
very essence. These notions are the components of a doctrine of deification. The presence of
these notions here should cause one to look for a continued theme of deification in the ScG, all
3
Whether this end is natural to humans, or the result of the gift of grace, is a hotly debated matter. See Henri de Lubac, The Mystery of the
Supernatural, Milestones in Catholic Theology (New York: Crossroad Pub., 1998). See also, Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See
God According to St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters, 2nd ed., Faith and Reason: Studies in Catholic Theology and Philosophy (Ave
Maria, FL: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2010).
4
Aquinas, On the truth of the Catholic faith: Summa contra Gentiles, b. 3, c. 147. “altiorem participationem finis perveniunt”.
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the more so because the ScG was written so closely to the Corpus Christi Liturgy, which so
clearly contained a deificatory emphasis.
Second, Thomas speaks in Chapter 147 of humans’ sensory nature, and in so doing, he
has a much more positive attitude toward sensory knowledge than he did in his Scriptum.
Thomas writes:
man is given understanding and reason, by which he can both discern and investigate the
truth; as he is also given sensory powers, both internal and external, whereby he is helped to
seek the truth; as he is also given the use of speech, by the functioning of which he is enabled
to convey to another person the truth that he conceives in his mind—thus constituted, men
may help themselves in the process of knowing the truth.5
Thus, here humans do not appear to be trapped in the sensory realm. Rather, the senses appear as
a gift from God designed to lead humans into truth.
One more point follows from this same passage, my third point overall. Thomas here
places signification in the midst of his theological anthropology. Human nature is not merely
rational. According to Thomas here, human nature is also sensory and significatory. Humans’
true essence is to reason about sensory things in order to come to truth and then to communicate
these truths to one another by means of language, which is nothing more than a sequence of
auditory signs. One sees here as well Thomas’s recognition that humans are not isolated
individual creatures, but rather “naturally social animal[s].”6
My fourth point pertains to Thomas’s attitude toward material reality. Rather than
making human sense perception and the material world things that must be overcome and left
behind if one is to pursue the spiritual life, Thomas here envisions them as a means whereby
humans come to know truth. Thomas thus sees the problem of the human condition much more
precisely. The problem is not the sensory world, but “the passions of [humans’] sensory nature,
5
Ibid. “inquantum homini datus est intellectus et ratio, per quae veritatem et discernere et investigare possit; datae sunt etiam ei vires sensitivae,
et interiores et exteriores, quibus ad investigandam veritatem adiuvetur; datus est etiam ei loquelae usus, per cuius officium veritatem quam
aliquis mente concipit, alteri manifestare possit; ut sic homines seipsos iuvent in cognitione veritatis”.
6
Ibid. “cum sit homo animal naturaliter sociale”.
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and the feelings whereby he is attracted to sensible and lower things.”7 Thomas continues, “The
more he attaches himself to these, the farther he is removed from his ultimate end, for these
things are below man, whereas man’s end is above him.”8 Thomas therefore is more careful here
than he was in the Scriptum. The sensory realm is good and, in fact, is designed to serve as a sign
leading the rational creature to the truth. The problem is when humans mistake the sign for an
end in itself, attach themselves to it, and refuse to be led by it to their true end.
Fifth and finally, Thomas uses a familiar metaphor in his theological anthropology here.
Thomas says that human reason is like an instrument of God, very much like a saw that a skilled
carpenter uses to form a bench. As a saw does not live up to its full potential of bench-making by
virtue of its own inherent power, but rather only when it is elevated by allowing a higher power
to flow through it, so human beings’ true end and full potential cannot be reached by their own
operation, but rather can only be reached when God elevates humans and works through them
with supernatural power. By using this metaphor, Thomas is not just recycling examples. To the
contrary, he hereby establishes a deep link between his theological anthropology and his
sacramentology. Thomas teaches that God works through a human person’s intellect, through
material realities, and through visible signs all in the same way and for the same purpose. God
uses all of these things as instruments to bring about salvation, which is none other than a
person’s ultimate end, ultimate happiness, and ultimate deification.
2) b. 3, Chapters 148 and 149 – That Divine Help Does Not Force Virtue and Cannot Be Merited
Chapters 148 and 149 likewise treat of preliminary issues. They do not, however, contain
as much that is relevant to the doctrine of sacramental signification as does Chapter 147. They, in
7
Ibid. “Impeditur etiam ex passionibus partis sensitivae, et ex affectionibus quibus ad sensibilia et inferiora trahitur”.
8
Ibid. “quibus quanto magis inhaeret, longius ab ultimo fine distat: haec enim infra hominem sunt, finis autem hominis superior eo existit.”
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some respects, only qualify what Thomas said here. Chapter 148, for instance, aims to avoid
determinism; it establishes that human beings are not forced into the good by this divine power
flowing through them. At no point does God’s assistance violate human free will. Similarly,
Chapter 149 aims to avoid Pelagianism. Thomas here establishes that humans can in no way
merit or earn God’s assistance.
3) b. 3, Chapter 150 – What Grace Is
With Chapter 150, Thomas turns to answer the question of what grace is. He specifically
has in mind to establish an understanding of gratia gratum faciens, or sanctifying grace. Thomas
makes a number of points here. Aside from just saying that grace is divine assistance toward
human’s supernatural end, which he has already established, Thomas establishes that this grace
is a form and perfection9 that remains in a person, as opposed to something like a motion or a
passion that is temporarily applied to a person. Thomas establishes as well that this form is a
special mark that designates a person as specially loved by or delightful to God. This idea is
highly sacramental because it invokes notions of signs and of being indelibly marked by a certain
character. Finally, Thomas adds that this form must be supernatural because it proportions a
person to a supernatural end, because it enables a person to perform good acts easily, and
because it grants a supernatural efficacy to actions whereby one may merit a supernatural end.
One hears in this description of grace echoes from De veritate. Grace must be something
in a person. Grace is something that proportions a person to a supernatural end, and grace
remains with a person. However, some things are markedly different. Chiefly, one sees no
indication that grace is something created within a person. Thomas never calls grace created, as
he did in De veritate. Furthermore, grace in the ScG seems much less like an object. Thomas
9
Ibid., b. 3, c. 150. “Oportet autem hanc gratiam aliquid in homine gratificato esse, quasi quandam formam et perfectionem ipsius.”
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nowhere describes grace as an ornament or a created thing. Rather, he speaks of grace as an
inhering form. Lastly, Thomas emphasizes the fact that grace is supernatural much more in the
ScG than he did in De veritate. Thus, evidently, some of Thomas’s ideas about grace have
changed. One question of particular interest is whether Thomas now envisions grace to be
something uncreated rather than created. At this point, no answer can be certain, as Thomas has
only omitted calling grace something created. However, this omission may legitimately justify
the suspicion that Thomas’s views on this subject have shifted.
4) b. 3, Chapter 151 – That Sanctifying Grace Causes the Love of God Within Humans
Chapter 151 provides another piece of evidence in favor of the idea that Thomas now
understands grace as something uncreated, namely as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or in fact
of the whole Trinity. Chapter 151 covers the question of whether grace causes the love of God
within us. Thomas here argues that the chief effect and the whole point of grace in a person is
that the person comes to love God. Thomas thus writes in a beautiful passage, “Indeed, this is the
principal thing in the lover’s intention: to be loved in turn by the object of his love. To this, then,
the lover’s main effort inclines, to attract his beloved to the love of himself; unless this occurs,
his love must come to naught.”10 Thus, Thomas concludes, the effect of God’s love in a person,
which is grace, is to make that person able to love God in return.
Later in this section, Thomas cites Paul in support of his view. He writes, “Hence, the
Apostle says, in Romans (5:5): ‘the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy
Spirit, Who has been given to us.’”11 Though Thomas does not yet say so explicitly, his use of
this verse here makes it seem very much like the gift of grace is the same gift as the gift of the
10
Ibid., b. 3, c. 147. “Hoc enim est praecipuum in intentione diligentis, ut a dilecto reametur: ad hoc enim praecipue studium diligentis tendit, ut
ad sui amorem dilectum attrahat; et nisi hoc accidat, oportet dilectionem dissolvi.”
11
Ibid. “Hinc est quod apostolus dicit, Rom. 5-5: caritas Dei diffusa est in cordibus nostris per spiritum sanctum, qui datus est nobis.”
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Holy Spirit. Throughout this section, he has established in numerous ways that grace causes the
love of God in a person, and he here concludes that the Holy Spirit causes the love of God in a
person. Thus, it would seem as though Thomas’s understanding of grace may very well have
shifted from seeing grace as a created thing within a person to seeing grace as God’s very own
presence within a person. More, of course, on this still needs to be said, and will be below.
Thomas’s treatment of grace continues throughout the remaining 12 chapters of Book
Three. Thomas’s next two chapters cover whether grace causes faith and hope, respectively.
Chapter 154 addresses gratia gratis data. The following chapters cover the grace of
perseverance, the grace of restoration, and the way grace and providence relate to sin. For the
current purposes, no additional time needs to be spent here. Thus, I now move to Book Four.
C) Book Four - Chapters 21 and 22 - The Holy Spirit
The first topic that Thomas treats in Book Four, when he turns from things that can be
known by natural reason to things that can only be known by revelation, is the Trinity. Thomas
then discusses the Holy Spirit. Of present issue in this discussion is the way in which Thomas’s
doctrine of the Holy Spirit connects to his doctrine of grace, which in turn serves as a foundation
for his doctrine of the sacraments. Specifically, chapters 21 and 22 help one to better answer the
question of whether Thomas now imagines grace as something created within a human being, or
whether he thinks that grace is more properly understood as the uncreated gift of God’s own
indwelling within a person. I argue that in the ScG Thomas understands grace to be the latter.
Chapters 21 and 22 confirm this reading.
Thomas begins chapter 21 roughly where I left off in discussing the previous section,
namely with Romans 5:5. Thomas’s opening section states:
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When we are somehow made like a divine perfection, perfection of this kind is said to be
given us by God; so wisdom is said to be a gift from God to us when we are somehow made
like the divine wisdom. Since, then, the Holy Spirit proceeds by way of the love by which
God loves Himself, as was shown, from the fact that in loving God we are made like to this
love, the Holy Spirit is said to be given to us by God. Hence the Apostle says: ‘The charity of
God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit, who, is given to us.’12
One again here immediately sees the logic of deification. For humans to receive the gift of divine
perfection, they must become like the very gift that they receive. To become perfect, humans
must become God-like. One also sees Thomas saying almost exactly the same thing about the
Holy Spirit as he said about grace earlier. Since God loves humans, God gives them something
that causes love within them and makes them like God’s own love. This can be said equally
about grace and the Holy Spirit.
Thomas continues to closely link the gift of grace and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit
throughout this chapter. For example, he writes, “nothing operates where it is not...hence, since
the charity by which we love God is in us by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit Himself must also
be in us, so long as the charity is in us.”13 Thomas thus again makes the point that the love of
God, which is the chief effect of grace, is none other than the effect of the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit. This passage also makes it clear that Thomas does not intend his reader to understand that
there are two separate gifts, the gift of the Holy Spirit and the gift of grace, both of which result
in a person loving God. Thomas gives no indication that this could be the case. He nowhere says
that these two things are separate and he nowhere attempts to relate them. He instead equates the
two gifts by speaking of them both in the same way.
One final paragraph in Chapter 21 is worth noting for the way in which it unites the ideas
of deification, grace, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This paragraph states:
12
Ibid., b. 4, c. 21. “Unde apostolus dicit, Rom. 5-5: caritas Dei diffusa est in cordibus nostris per spiritum sanctum, qui datus est nobis.”
13
Ibid. “nihil autem operari potest ubi non est...Unde, cum caritas, qua Deum diligimus, sit in nobis per spiritum sanctum, oportet quod ipse
etiam spiritus sanctus in nobis sit, quandiu caritas in nobis est.”
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This, too, is manifest: just as, to get a body to the place of fire, it must be likened to fire by
acquiring that lightness according to which fire is moved by its own motion; so also, to get a
man to the beatitude of divine enjoyment which is proper to God in His own nature, these are
necessary: first, that by spiritual perfections he be likened to God; then, that he operate with
these perfections; and thus, lastly, achieve that beatitude we mentioned.14
The logic of deification is present in this text because Thomas again insists that humans must be
likened to God in order to reach their final end of divine enjoyment since such a state is proper
only to God.
What Thomas following this quotation sounds much like what he has said before about
grace. To get humans to a supernatural end, they have to be given some supernatural perfection.
They then have to act by these perfections in order to finally achieve their ultimate end.
However, here instead of using this logic to explain grace, Thomas applies it to the indwelling of
the Holy Spirit. He continues, “Of course, the spiritual gifts are given to us by the Holy Spirit, as
was shown. And thus by the Holy Spirit we are configured to God and through Him we are made
ready for good operation. And by the same Spirit the road to beatitude is opened to us.”15
Thomas therefore evidently understands the indwelling of Holy Spirit to be what ultimately leads
a person to salvation, to be what makes a person favorable to God (gratum faciens), and to be
what sanctifies a person. One must, therefore, conclude that in this text, the gift of grace is at root
the gift of the Holy Spirit. This means that Thomas understands grace no longer as some thing or
ornament that is created within a person. Rather, Thomas now imagines grace as the uncreated
gift of God’s indwelling within a person.
Before moving on to Thomas’s doctrine of the sacraments proper, one more point is of
interest in the following chapter. Here, Thomas turns to examine some of the effects of the
14
Ibid. “Manifestum est autem quod, sicut ad hoc quod corpus aliquod ad locum ignis perveniat, oportet quod igni assimiletur levitatem
acquirens, ex qua motu ignis proprio moveatur; ita ad hoc quod homo ad beatitudinem divinae fruitionis, quae Deo propria est secundum suam
naturam, perveniat, necesse est, primo quidem quod per spirituales perfectiones Deo assimiletur; et deinde secundum eas operetur; et sic tandem
praedictam beatitudinem consequetur.”
15
Ibid. “Dona autem spiritualia nobis per spiritum sanctum dantur, ut ostensum est. Et sic per spiritum sanctum Deo configuramur; et per ipsum
ad bene operandum habiles reddimur; et per eundem ad beatitudinem nobis via paratur.”
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Spirit’s indwelling. He names, for instance, that the Holy Spirit causes joy, that the Spirit causes
a person to will what God wills, and that the Holy Spirit moves persons away from being
enslaved to the passions of the flesh. Thomas also here, however, continues a theme that first
cropped up in his Corpus Christi liturgy, the theme of contemplation. He writes, “First, indeed,
this appears to be especially proper to friendship: really to converse with the friend. Now, the
conversation of man with God is by contemplation of Him...since, therefore, the Holy Spirit
makes us lovers of God, we are in consequence established by the Holy Spirit as contemplators
of God.”16 Thomas then supports this with 2 Corinthians 3:8. “Hence, the Apostle says: ‘But we
all beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from
glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.’”17 As in the previous chapter, notions of deification,
of loving God, of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and of grace are all present in this selection.
However, here, Thomas adds in a role for contemplation to play. The Holy Spirit both makes
humans lovers of God and contemplators of God, which seem to be complements.
D) Book Four - Chapters 56 through 58 - The Sacraments in General
I arrive now at the point in the ScG where Thomas discusses the sacraments explicitly.
He begins, per usual, with a discussion of the sacraments in general before moving on to a
discussion of the sacraments in particular. Thomas’s first topic is the necessity of the sacraments,
which he discusses in Chapter 56. Thomas writes:
Since, however (as has already been said), the death of Christ is, so to say, the universal
cause of human salvation, and since a universal cause must he applied singly to each of its
effects, it was necessary to show men some remedies through which the benefit of Christ’s
16
Ibid., b. 4, c. 22. “Et primo quidem, hoc videtur esse amicitiae maxime proprium, simul conversari ad amicum. Conversatio autem hominis ad
Deum est per contemplationem ipsius: sicut et apostolus dicebat, Philipp. 3-20: nostra conversatio in caelis est. Quia igitur spiritus sanctus nos
amatores Dei facit, consequens est quod per spiritum sanctum Dei contemplatores constituamur.”
17
Ibid. “Unde apostolus dicit, II Cor. 3-18: nos autem omnes, revelata facie gloriam Dei speculantes, in eandem imaginem transformamur a
claritate in claritatem, tanquam a domini spiritu.”
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death could somehow be conjoined to them. It is of this sort, of course, that the sacraments of
the Church are said to be.18
This passage illustrates four points. First, as was initially seen in his De veritate, Thomas
establishes a firm Christological foundation for his doctrine of the sacraments. Christ’s work
results in salvation for all people, but individuals must appropriate the benefits of this work, and
this is the work of the sacraments. Second, in tandem with the Christological grounding, one also
sees Thomas here foreground an explanation of the sacrament’s role that he has not previously,
specifically the idea that sacraments individually appropriate Christ’s universal work. Third, one
notes here the continued emphasis on the Church, which Thomas has developed in his previous
texts. Finally, one sees Thomas again refer to the sacraments as remedies, a term which he uses
fifteen times in Book Four of the ScG, five of which occur in this chapter. This might
legitimately cause one to suspect that Thomas has returned to his earlier medicinal metaphor for
explaining the sacraments. I argue that this is not the case, the reason for which will be provided
below when I examine Chapter 58.
Immediately after his Christological opening, Thomas states, “Now, remedies of this
kind had to be handed on with some visible signs.”19 He then gives three reasons why this is the
case. First, God provides for humans according to their condition. Humans, Thomas writes, are
“brought to grasp the spiritual and intelligible naturally through the senses. Therefore, spiritual
remedies had to be given to men under sensible signs.”20 Second, Thomas says that instruments
must be proportioned to their causes, which means that the sacraments must be proportioned to
the Incarnate Word. Thus, since Christ was the paramount instance of the divine power working
18
Ibid., b. 4, ch. 56. “Quia vero, sicut iam dictum est, mors Christi est quasi universalis causa humanae salutis; universalem autem causam
oportet applicari ad unumquemque effectum: necessarium fuit exhiberi hominibus quaedam remedia per quae eis beneficium mortis Christi
quodammodo coniungeretur. Huiusmodi autem esse dicuntur Ecclesiae sacramenta.”
19
Ibid. “Huiusmodi autem remedia oportuit cum aliquibus visibilibus signis tradi.”
20
Ibid. “Est autem talis hominis conditio quod ad spiritualia et intelligibilia capienda naturaliter per sensibilia deducitur. Oportuit igitur
spiritualia remedia hominibus sub signis sensibilibus dari.”
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in a visible form, the sacraments too are most fittingly visible signs. Third and finally, Thomas
says the sacraments must be visible signs because humans fell into sin by clinging inordinately to
sensible things. He writes:
Therefore, that one might not believe visible things evil of their nature...it was fitting that
through the visible things themselves the remedies of salvation be applied to men.
Consequently, it would appear that visible things are good of their nature—as created by
God—but they become damaging to men so far as one clings to them in a disordered way,
and saving so far as one uses them in an ordered way.21
One may note in these reasons several aspects that bear upon Thomas’s doctrine of
sacramental signification. Thomas again says that the sacraments are signs because God must
condescend to humans’ sensible nature. Unlike his earliest texts, however, in the ScG, this
condescension does not have a negative connotation, nor does Thomas have a negative attitude
toward the sensible realm. In fact, the material world appears quite exalted through in this
chapter. God does not give humans sensible signs because they have imprisoned themselves in
the material realm. Rather, God does this because it is God’s very nature to meet things where
they are and give them exactly what they need. The senses, as was the case earlier in Book
Three, are a natural and good part of human nature whereby humans are “brought to grasp the
spiritual and intelligible naturally.”22 The material created realm, in fact, even has the dignity of
being given the Incarnate Word. God thus acts the same way in both Christ and the Sacraments,
by coming to meet humans in terms they can understand.
If one is not convinced of the new positive value that Thomas places on both the senses
and visible things, one need only look to the third reason Thomas gives. Here, Thomas
completely overturns the opinion of Hugh, who said that humans fell to visible things and that
21
Ibid. “Ne igitur crederetur visibilia ex sui natura mala esse, et propter hoc eis inhaerentes peccasse, per ipsa visibilia congruum fuit quod
hominibus remedia salutis adhiberentur: ut sic appareret ipsa visibilia ex sui natura bona esse, velut a Deo creata, sed hominibus noxia fieri
secundum quod eis inordinate inhaerent, salutifera vero secundum quod ordinate eis utuntur.”
22
Ibid. “Est autem talis hominis conditio quod ad spiritualia et intelligibilia capienda naturaliter per sensibilia deducitur. Oportuit igitur
spiritualia remedia hominibus sub signis sensibilibus dari.”
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the sacraments are visible in order for humans to learn humility by being humiliated to seek
salvation from visible things. Rather, Thomas says that the sacraments are visible in order that
humans might learn that “visible things are good of their nature—as created by God.” The
problem here, as in Book Three, is not the visible created realm but instead when persons cling
to visible things in a disordered way. Thomas even follows this third reason by making reference
to certain heretics who think all visible things are evil and want all visible things removed from
the sacraments. Thomas thus completely precludes anyone from thinking that the visible material
world is anything but good and exactly intended by God.
Finally, of note also in chapter 56, before moving on to the next chapter, is the fact that
Thomas begins his sacramentology on a firmly significatory basis. He speaks first and foremost
of the sacraments as signs, and he does so at length. He gives his own reasons why the
sacraments are signs, and he expresses exactly the value he sees in the sacraments being
understood as signs. Thomas says that humans need visible signs because they are deeply
material and sensory creatures. He says that the sacraments are visible signs because Christ was
the Word made visible; and, he says that the sacraments are visible signs in order to teach
humans about the goodness of the material realm. In the ScG, therefore, Thomas continues the
emphasis on signification that he had in the Corpus Christi Liturgy.
In chapter 57, Thomas turns to consider the way in which the sacraments of the New Law
are to be distinguished from those of the Old Law. He begins by linking both the sacraments of
the Old and New Laws to the Passion of Christ. Moreover, he makes the point that both the
sacraments of the Old Law and the New Law gain their efficacy from and represent the passion
of Christ. Thomas writes, “Since the sacraments of this visible kind got their efficacy from the
passion of Christ and in some way represent it, they must be such as to be in harmony with the
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salvation wrought by Christ.”23 Thomas speaks both of the sacraments of the Old Law and the
New Law in this quotation because both are “sacraments of this visible kind.” Thomas does not
begin to distinguish between sacraments of the Old and New Laws until the next sentence. He
continues:
Now, this salvation was promised, indeed, before Christ’s Incarnation and death but not
presented (exhibita): it was the incarnate and suffering Word who brought about this kind of
salvation. Therefore, the sacraments which preceded Christ’s Incarnation had to be such that
they signified and somehow promised salvation. But the sacraments that follow the suffering
of Christ had to be such that they may present (exhibeant) this salvation to men, and not only
demonstrate [it] by signifying.24
I have five points about this short passage. First, the last line of this passage, when
Thomas says that the sacraments do “not only demonstrate [salvation] by signifying,” may lead
one to think that he once again displays a negative attitude toward signification and the
sacraments of the Old Law. This interpretation, however, does not follow. Thomas does not use
this “only” with a negative connotation or to imply the deficiency of either signification or the
sacraments of the Old Law. Instead, this is an additive “only.” The sacraments of the Old Law
signify and promise salvation; the sacraments of the New Law signify and exhibit salvation as
being already available. The “only” here does not signify a lack of the Old sacraments, but rather
a different role of the New sacraments. This interpretation is further confirmed in the following
paragraph, as well as by the rest of the points I raise about the current paragraph.
A second point about the above passage is closely related to and mutually reinforcing of
my first point. Thomas does not here, or anywhere in the ScG, call the sacraments of the Old
Law weak and needy elements. Thus, Thomas refrains from characterizing the sacraments of the
23
Ibid., b. 4, c. 57. “Deinde considerandum est quod, cum huiusmodi visibilia sacramenta ex passione Christi efficaciam habeant et ipsam
quodammodo repraesentent, talia ea esse oportet ut congruant saluti factae per Christum.”
24
The translation here and in the previous quotation in Pegis’s version did not adequately render the Latin text and is in fact quite misleading. His
translation interprets the text in the direction of continuity with Thomas’s previous doctrine, when in actuality Thomas is here making a change.
Hence, these translations are my own. The Latin reads, “Haec autem salus, ante Christi incarnationem et mortem, erat quidem promissa, sed non
exhibita: sed verbum incarnatum et passum est salutem huiusmodi operatum. Sacramenta igitur quae incarnationem Christi praecesserunt, talia
esse oportuit ut significarent et quodammodo repromitterent salutem: sacramenta autem quae Christi passionem consequuntur, talia esse oportet
ut salutem hominibus exhibeant, et non solum significando demonstrent.”
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Old Law as deficient or inherently lacking. Thomas instead presents the relationship of the Old
and New sacraments as merely a relationship of difference rather than as a relationship of better
to worse.
Third, in this section, Thomas does not have a negative attitude toward signification, as
he did when discussing this issue in previous texts. Following from the first and second points
just made, Thomas does not speak of any sacraments as only or mere signs. Rather, he
characterizes both the sacraments of the Old and New Laws as equally signs. This positive
attitude toward signification has already been seen in Chapter 56, above. It would make very
little sense to argue that the sacraments of the Old Law are lacking because they were mere signs
immediately after arguing why it was a virtue for all sacraments to be signs. Thus, one sees
Thomas in this passage continue his positive characterization of signification.
Fourth, and perhaps most significantly, one other aspect of Thomas’s previous treatments
of this topic is glaringly absent. Thomas does not use the concept of causality to distinguish
between the Sacraments of the Old and New Laws. In his earlier texts, especially the Scriptum,
Thomas distinguishes between the sacraments of Old and New Laws in a consistent way. He
depicts the sacraments of the Old Law as mere signs and then depicts the sacraments of the New
Law as both signs and causes, and perhaps even primarily as causes. Unlike the Old sacraments,
in the Scriptum, the New sacraments do not merely signify grace, they actually bring it about
within a person.
In the ScG, however, Thomas abandons this Old versus New strategy for talking about
the sacraments. In fact, just like in the entirety of the Corpus Christi Liturgy, in the ScG, Thomas
does not call the sacraments causes of grace at all. The closest Thomas comes to doing so is in
the first sentence of this chapter, where he says that the sacraments receive their efficacy from
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the Passion of Christ. I have already demonstrated, however, the fact that this text refers both to
the sacraments of the Old and New Laws. Furthermore, calling the sacraments efficacious for
salvation is not the same thing as saying that their inherent nature and distinguishing quality is
that they are causes. The distinguishing factor that Thomas uses now, instead, is the notion of
future versus present, coming versus arrived, or promised versus exhibited. Thus, Thomas’s
sacramentology has undoubtedly changed. It now avoids establishing a dichotomy between
signification and causality, avoids negatively characterizing the sacraments of the Old Law,
avoids speaking of the sacraments as causes of grace, and avoids negatively characterizing
signification.
A fifth point flows from the previous four. Thomas presents the Old and New sacraments
much more in harmoniously than he did before, even in answering the question of how they are
distinct. In his earliest texts, Thomas used his discussion of the sacraments of the Old Law as a
foil for talking about the sacraments of the New Law. The deficiency of the Old sacraments
emphasized the difference, the value, and the dignity of the New. In the ScG, however, the
sacraments of the Old and New Laws are much more in line. Both are signs that God uses to
point toward the salvation that humans may obtain in Christ and Christ’s Passion renders both
valuable. The sacraments of the Old and New Laws remain distinct, but this new presentation
does not make this distinction in terms of black and white, good and bad, effective and
ineffective. As such, God’s dealing with creation appears to be much more consistent.
Throughout history, God works the same way and for the same end, to lead persons by signs to
the salvation wrought by Christ.
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The harmony between the sacraments comes across even more clearly in the next
paragraph. This paragraph also demonstrates that Thomas has ceased to characterize the
sacraments of the Old Law negatively. Thomas writes:
without change or regret one who disposes things may dispose things differently in harmony
with a difference of times; thus, the father of a family gives one set of orders to a small child
and another to one already grown. Thus, God also harmoniously gave one set of sacraments
and commandments before the Incarnation to point to the future, and another set after the
Incarnation to present (exhibendum) things present and bring to mind things past.25
Thomas clearly emphasizes the harmony between the sacraments of the Old and New Laws
because he twice uses the word harmony. This paragraph also shows Thomas depicting God as
consistent in giving the Old and New Laws. Finally, the last sentence again shows that the
distinction between the sacraments of each Law is not one of efficacy or causality. Rather, the
distinction is between that which is future and that which is both past and present.
The final chapter about the sacraments in general in the ScG takes up the topic of the
numbering of the sacraments, as well as the divisions and groupings of the seven sacraments.
Thomas’s explication here is much the same as he gave in De articulis. Thomas establishes an
analogy between the bodily and spiritual lives. He then says that three things are necessary per se
for the spiritual life and a fourth is necessary accidentally.26 Birth, growth, and nourishment are
necessary per se for natural bodily life, and healing is necessary accidently, in the event that a
body becomes weak, sick, or injured. Thus, Thomas argues, the same things are necessary for the
spiritual life, and God has provided for these necessities through the sacraments. Baptism
corresponds to birth; Confirmation corresponds to growth; the Eucharist corresponds to
25
Aquinas, On the truth of the Catholic faith: Summa contra Gentiles, b. 4, c. 57. “Fit autem absque mutatione disponentis vel poenitentia, quod
diversa disponat secundum congruentiam temporum diversorum: sicut paterfamilias alia praecepta tradit filio parvulo, et alia iam adulto. Sic et
Deus congruenter alia sacramenta et praecepta ante incarnationem tradidit, ad significandum futura: alia post incarnationem, ad exhibendum
praesentia et rememorandum praeterita.” For the most part, this translation is Pegis’s. I have changed the way he translated exhibendum,
however, in order to remain consistent with my translation above.
26
Ibid., b. 4, c. 58.
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nourishment; Penance corresponds to the healing of the soul; and, Extreme Unction corresponds
to the spiritual healing of the soul flowing “to the body when this is timely.”27
Continuing his analogy, Thomas says that in the bodily life two things mark birth or
propagation. First, generation requires parents, and second, generation requires a political regime
that provides for a peaceful life. These two requirements are also mirrored by the spiritual life.
The political regime that makes a peaceful and ordered spiritual life possible corresponds to the
role of priests and thus to the sacrament of orders. Finally the propagation of both “the bodily
and the spiritual lives simultaneously,” corresponds to the sacrament of marriage.
Three points ought to be noted about Chapter 58. First, in Thomas’s explication of the
analogy of the bodily and spiritual life, he seamlessly incorporates the sacraments of orders and
marriage. In De articulis, these two sacraments felt somewhat awkwardly tacked on at the end.
Here, however, Thomas places both the bodily and spiritual lives in their social context. The
flourishing of the individual bodily life requires the preexisting social realities of parents and a
peaceful society. So too, therefore, does the spiritual life require parents and the context of the
Church. On this point, one sees that Thomas’s doctrine has clearly developed. He is now able to
present a more coherent and all-encompassing analogy. One sees here too another instance of
how Thomas’s sacramentology has become less individualistic and more ecclesiological.
Thomas thus has more of an eye on social and communal realities than he did earlier.
Second, Thomas no longer paints as sharp a division or establishes a hard dichotomy
between the bodily and spiritual lives. For instance, in the analogy of the De articulis, Thomas
clearly divides bodily and spiritual generation between matrimony and orders. Parents were
responsible for physical propagation while the clergy was responsible for spiritual propagation.
In the ScG, however, Thomas recognizes that parents are responsible for both bodily and
27
Ibid. “vel ex anima derivatur ad corpus, quando fuerit opportunum, per extremam unctionem.”
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spiritual propagation. Priests still pertain to the spiritual, but parents now pertain to both the
spiritual and physical. This is another instance of growing sophistication in Thomas’s doctrine.
He now more highly esteems marriage and the roles of parents. This could stem from Thomas’s
rather new emphasis on the inherent goodness of the material and sensory side of creation. In any
case, these two developments certainly correlate to one another.
Finally, Thomas’s continued use of an analogy between the spiritual and physical lives
serves to reinforce the point I made above about his use of a remedial metaphor. In light of
Chapter 58, Thomas has clearly not slipped back into the use of a medicinal metaphor. Rather, he
chooses to employ again and develop further the analogy between the bodily and spiritual lives.
Thus, Thomas’s occasional practice of calling the sacraments remedies should not be interpreted
as indicative of an overarching metaphor. This language instead must be situated in the analogy
he establishes, which of course makes room for the fact that in both the spiritual and bodily lives
humans from time to time need healing. If anything, Thomas further downplays the notion of the
sacraments as medicines in this text because he identifies healing as accidental to life.
With Chapter 58, Thomas concludes his treatment the sacraments in general. Before
moving on to examine the sacraments in particular, however, one final point ought not to go
unnoticed. In the ScG, Thomas completely abandons his previous teaching about the dual nature
of the sacraments. At no point in Book Four does Thomas say that the sacraments are both signs
and causes. In fact, at no point in Book Four does Thomas say that the sacraments are causes of
grace at all. Rather, he presents the sacraments as having a singular nature and singular essence.
The sacraments are simply signs. They are not both signs and something else. This doctrine of
the sacraments’ singular nature was first seen in the Corpus Christi Liturgy. However, due to the
unsystematic genre of this text, it was not possible to say with certainty that Thomas had
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changed his previous teaching. Taking both the Corpus Christi Liturgy and the ScG together,
however, one can draw precisely this conclusion. In two different texts, at two different times,
Thomas has decided to speak of the sacraments only as signs and not at all as causes. This can be
regarded as nothing aside from a conscious decision, all the more so given the fact that the ScG
has the same scope and depth as any of Thomas’s previous theological syntheses. Thomas’s
sacramentology has thus clearly developed from his earliest writings. He has expanded his
doctrine of sacramental signification and contracted his doctrine of sacramental causality.
E) Book Four - Chapters 59 through 78 - The Sacraments in Particular
Much of what Thomas says about the sacraments in particular in the ScG has to do with
either practical concerns or particular heresies that have been held about certain sacraments.
Thus, much in these chapters do not directly pertain to the doctrine of sacramental signification.
There are, however, some notable exceptions. Hence, I examine the relevant passages now.
Chapter 58 is on Baptism. Thomas begins by relating this sacrament back to his analogy
between the physical and spiritual lives. He states that the primary purpose of Baptism is to give
one spiritual life, which requires that those things holding a person in death be removed, namely
original and actual sins. Thomas next addresses the material of Baptism, which is water. He
writes, “because the sensible sign of a sacrament must be harmonious with the representation of
its spiritual effect, and since washing away filth in bodily things is done more easily and more
commonly by water, baptism is, therefore, suitably conferred in water made holy by the Word of
God.”28 One sees here already decidedly more emphasis on signification than Thomas made
previously in the parallel section of De articulis. In this earlier text, Thomas also teaches that,
28
Ibid., b. 4, c. 59. “quia signum sensibile sacramenti congruum debet esse ad repraesentandum spiritualem sacramenti effectum, foeditatis
autem ablutio in rebus corporalibus facilius et communius fit per aquam: idcirco Baptismus convenienter in aqua confertur per verbum Dei
sanctificata.”
227
per his analogy, Baptism corresponds with spiritual birth and that its matter is water. Earlier,
though, Thomas makes no mention of the sacrament’s signification, whereas in the ScG, Thomas
both specifies this signification and explains that there must be a correspondence between a
sacrament’s sensible sign and spiritual effect. Moreover, earlier, Thomas identified the matter of
Baptism as being solely water, whereas here he identifies it as being water made holy by the
Word of God. Here, verbal consecration is necessary for the sacrament, and the reason for this
can be none other than to make the sacrament’s signification complete. Thus, again, one sees
Thomas evincing more of a concern for signification than he did previously.
This chapter also raises one more point. In the final paragraph, Thomas speaks of
Baptism curing an infection. One might regard this as an instance of Thomas falling back into a
medicinal metaphor. However, this is not the case for two reasons. First, Thomas opens this
chapter by making reference to his analogy between the bodily and spiritual lives. This is
therefore still his overarching image. Second, Thomas uses this mention of infection, by which
he means original sin, as an argument that baptism should not be repeated. Rather than here
saying that all the sacraments are medicines against sin, Thomas is instead making the point that
Baptism gets rid of original sin. This mention of infection is therefore not a global metaphor.
In Chapter 60, Thomas addresses Confirmation. He again starts with his analogy between
the bodily and spiritual lives, and he again emphasizes signification. For instance, in his first
paragraph, Thomas writes, “they who receive the sacrament of confirmation are signed with the
sign of Christ; this is the sign of the cross by which He fought and conquered. This sign they
receive on the forehead as a sign that without a blush they publicly confess the faith of Christ.”29
29
Ibid., b. 4, c. 60. “hi qui confirmationis sacramentum suscipiunt signo Christi insigniuntur, videlicet signo crucis, quo pugnavit et vicit. Hoc
autem signum in fronte suscipiunt, in signum quod publice fidem Christi confiteri non erubescant.”
228
Thomas even then continues to specify how this signing takes place and what the signification of
the matter of this sacrament is. He writes:
This signing takes place with a mixture of oil and balm which is called chrism, and not
without reason. For by the oil one designates the power of the Holy Spirit, from whom
Christ, too, is called ‘anointed;’ and consequently from Christ they are called ‘Christians,’ so
to say, as fighting under Him. And by the balm, through its fragrance, good repute is
indicated.30
Thus, again, one clearly sees Thomas’s newfound emphasis on signification. Whereas in an
earlier text with the same structure, same subject matter, and same overarching analogy for the
sacraments, Thomas barely mentioned signification at all, now Thomas mentions the
signification of each part of each particular sacrament. He thus clearly regards signification as a
key concept in explaining the purpose and essence of each sacrament.
In Chapter 61, on the Eucharist, Thomas’s pattern of appealing to signification continues.
In Chapter 61, Thomas first says that the purpose of the Eucharist is spiritual nourishment, which
is signified by a bodily meal. This purpose is why bread and wine are the matter of the Eucharist.
Thomas writes, “Spiritual effects were fittingly given under the likeness of things visible (as was
said); therefore, spiritual nourishment of this kind is given to us under the appearances, of the
things which men rather commonly use for bodily nourishment. Bread and wine are of this sort.
Accordingly, this sacrament is given under the appearances of bread and wine.”31
Thomas also uses the signification of the Eucharist to explain why Christ is substantially
present in the Eucharist and not in Baptism. Thomas writes:
He who begets is joined to the begotten in one way, and nourishment is joined to the
nourished in another way in bodily things. For the one who begets need not be conjoined to
the begotten in substance, but in likeness and in power only. But nutriment must be
30
Ibid. “Haec autem insignitio fit ex confectione olei et balsami, quae chrisma vocatur, non irrationabiliter. Nam per oleum spiritus sancti virtus
designatur, quo et Christus unctus nominatur, ut sic a Christo Christiani dicantur, quasi sub ipso militantes. In balsamo autem, propter odorem,
bona fama ostenditur”.
31
Ibid., b. 4, c. 61. “Et quia spirituales effectus sub similitudine visibilium congruum fuit nobis tradi, ut dictum est, huiusmodi spirituale
alimentum nobis traditur sub speciebus illarum rerum quibus homines communius ad corporale alimentum utuntur. Huiusmodi autem sunt panis
et vinum. Et ideo sub speciebus panis et vini hoc traditur sacramentum.”
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conjoined to the one nourished in substance. Wherefore, [so] that the spiritual effects may
answer the bodily signs, the mystery of the incarnate Word is joined to us in one way in
baptism which is a spiritual rebirth, and in another way in this sacrament of the Eucharist
which is a spiritual nourishment. In baptism the Word incarnate is contained in His power
only, but we hold that in the sacrament of the Eucharist He is contained in His substance.32
Finally, and immediately after the previous two points, the concept of signification allows
Thomas to respond to one more question in this chapter, that of why two elements of the
Eucharist are needed. Thomas answers, “since the fulfillment of our salvation took place through
the passion and death of Christ, in which His blood was separated from His flesh, we are given
the sacrament of His body separately under the appearance of bread, and of His blood under the
appearance of wine — and so we have in this sacrament both memory and the representation of
our Lord’s passion.”33 Thus, the Eucharist is in two elements because of its signification.
This chapter on the Eucharist is especially interesting for Thomas’s doctrine of
sacramental signification. As in the previous chapters on particular sacraments, Thomas here
makes much more frequent use of the concept of signification and imagines signification as
playing a much more central role in the sacraments than he did previously. Moreover, Thomas
uses the concept signification to answer all of the sacramental questions he raises in Chapter 61.
This consistent usage demonstrates that signification allows Thomas to better explain the
purpose of the sacraments and better answer common sacramental questions. By appealing to
signification so consistently, Thomas’s sacramentology appears much more integrated. Hence,
Thomas is able to answer theological questions simply by appeal to the sacraments’ sole essence,
rather than by bringing in external concepts or accidental qualities.
32
Ibid. “Sed considerandum est quod aliter generans generato coniungitur et aliter nutrimentum nutrito in corporalibus rebus. Generans enim
non oportet secundum substantiam generato coniungi, sed solum secundum similitudinem et virtutem: sed alimentum oportet nutrito secundum
substantiam coniungi. Unde, ut corporalibus signis spirituales effectus respondeant, mysterium verbi incarnati aliter nobis coniungitur in
Baptismo, qui est spiritualis regeneratio; atque aliter in hoc Eucharistiae sacramento, quod est spirituale alimentum. In Baptismo enim
continetur verbum incarnatum solum secundum virtutem: sed in Eucharistiae sacramento confitemur ipsum secundum substantiam contineri.”
33
Ibid. “Et quia complementum nostrae salutis factum est per passionem Christi et mortem, per quam eius sanguis a carne separatus est,
separatim nobis traditur sacramentum corporis eius sub specie panis, et sanguinis sub specie vini; ut sic in hoc sacramento passionis dominicae
memoria et repraesentatio habeatur.”
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Unlike Baptism and Confirmation, which each take up a single chapter each, the
Eucharist receives nine chapters. Chapters 62 through 69 deal with different heresies and errors
about the Eucharist. For the most part, these need not be examined here in detail. One exception,
however, is in Chapter 69, which further illustrates how Thomas uses signification to answer a
theological difficulty. Thomas here asks whether the Eucharistic bread ought to be leavened or
unleavened, and he bases his answer on signification. First, Thomas cites Gregory, who writes,
“The Roman Church offers unleavened bread because our Lord took on flesh without any
mixture. But the rest of the Churches offer leavened bread, since the Word of God was clothed
with flesh, and is true God and true man, just as the leaven is mixed with the paste.”34 Thomas
then concludes, “Nonetheless, there is greater harmony with the purity of the mystical body, that
is, the Church, of which there is also a figure in this sacrament, in the use of unleavened bread;
as the Apostle has it: ‘Christ our Pasch is sacrificed. Therefore let us feast... with the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth.’”35 Thomas therefore again depicts signification as the central
concept of the sacraments on the basis of which one may judge proper practice. He also here
again maintains his emphasis on the Church and on the unity of the Mystical Body, which he so
well established as a key theme of the Corpus Christi Liturgy. Thus, again, one sees that
Thomas’s sacramentology has shifted from his earlier writings and earlier concerns.
Chapters 70 through 72 discuss the sacrament of Penance, and Chapter 73 discusses the
sacrament of Extreme Unction. In these chapters, I call attention to two points. First, especially
in chapter 73, Thomas often makes mention of medicinal notions of the sacraments. He speaks of
sin as an infirmity of the soul; he speaks of the restoration of health; and, he speaks a few times
34
Ibid., b. 4, c. 69. “Nam, ut Gregorius dicit in registro: Romana Ecclesia offert azymos panes, propterea quod dominus sine ulla commixtione
carnem suscepit. Sed caeterae Ecclesiae offerunt fermentatum: pro eo quod verbum patris indutum est carne, et est verus Deus et verus homo,
sicut et fermentum commiscetur farinae.”
35
Ibid. “Congruit tamen magis puritati corporis mystici, idest Ecclesiae, quae in hoc sacramento configuratur, usus azymi panis: secundum illud
apostoli, I Cor. 5-7 Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus. Itaque epulemur in azymis sinceritatis et veritatis.”
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of medicine. However, as was the case above, it is still clear that Thomas has moved on from the
medicinal metaphor as it was present in the Scriptum. One expects this language to occur in the
chapters on Penance and Extreme Unction because these fit into Thomas’s bodily and spiritual
analogy as those things with correspond to bodily healing. Thus, it is clear that this analogy is
still the controlling theme in this context. Moreover, though, every time Thomas speaks of these
sacraments as medicine, he does so in the mode of analogy. For example, when discussing where
one should be anointed for Extreme Unction he writes, “just as bodily medicine must be applied
at the source of the infirmity, so this anointing is used on those parts of the body from which the
weakness of sin proceeds.”36 Thus, Thomas still carefully uses a bodily and spiritual analogy
rather than a medicinal metaphor, even when speaking of those sacraments that correspond to
bodily healing.
The second point that arises in Chapters 70 through 73 has to do with the relationship of
the sacraments with grace. In these chapters, Thomas mentions grace several times. Specifically,
he says that grace is conferred (conferatur) upon humans by the sacraments. One may be
tempted to interpret these statements as synonymous with saying that the sacraments cause grace,
and thus as evidence that Thomas’s doctrine is unchanged in essence. However, such an
interpretation would be incorrect. In every case that Thomas mentions the sacraments’
relationship to grace in the ScG, a total of nine times, he says that they confer grace. He never
says, as he previously did frequently and freely, that the sacraments cause grace. Thomas never
even cites an authority that calls the sacraments causes; and, he does not include any section
explicating a doctrine of sacramental causality. Far from ‘conferring’ being a synonymous term,
therefore, Thomas seems to be making an intentional effort to avoid using the language of
36
Ibid., b. 4, c. 73. “sicut medicatio corporalis adhibenda est ad infirmitatis originem, ita haec unctio illis partibus corporis adhibetur ex quibus
infirmitas peccati procedit.”
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causality with regard to the sacraments’ relationship to grace. No other explanation gives a
plausible reason for why the Corpus Christi Liturgy and the ScG never say that the sacraments
are the causes of grace, even in speaking of grace as involved in and related to the sacraments.
Chapters 74 through 77 pertain to the sacrament of Orders. Once again, Thomas has
much to say about signification. One of the best examples occurs when Thomas explains why the
sacrament of orders is a sacrament and is needed. He writes, “This spiritual power from Christ,
then, flows into the ministers of the Church; the spiritual effects on us, of course, derived from
Christ, are fulfilled under certain sensible signs, as is clear from the foregoing; therefore, this
spiritual power also had to be passed on to men under certain sensible signs.”37 Thomas then
concludes, “But, whenever something spiritual is transferred under a bodily sign, we call it a
sacrament. Clearly, then, in conferring the spiritual power, a certain sacrament is enacted which
is called the sacrament of orders.”38 Here again, therefore, Thomas places signification at the
heart of his explanation of a sacrament. Ordination consists in being given spiritual power by
sensible signs to disperse spiritual effects under sensible signs.
Thomas in these chapters also continues to emphasize many of the themes that have been
mentioned above. For example, he still uses his analogy between the bodily and spiritual life,
here takes the form of comparing the Church to an ideal earthly government that makes possible
the peaceful bodily life and flourishing of its people. This raises a second point. Thomas also has
a great deal to say in these chapters about the Church. This topic is, of course, to be expected in a
discussion of orders, but it nonetheless suffices to demonstrate Thomas’s consistent attention to
the sacraments’ ecclesiological dimension, which was lacking in his earlier writings.
37
Ibid., b. 4, c. 74. “Quia igitur haec spiritualis potestas a Christo in ministros Ecclesiae derivatur; spirituales autem effectus in nos a Christo
derivati, sub quibusdam sensibilibus signis explentur, ut ex supra dictis patet: oportuit etiam quod haec spiritualis potestas sub quibusdam
sensibilibus signis hominibus traderetur.”
38
Ibid. “Quandocunque autem aliquid spirituale sub signo corporali traditur, hoc dicitur sacramentum. Manifestum est igitur quod in collatione
spiritualis potestatis quoddam sacramentum peragitur, quod dicitur ordinis sacramentum.”
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More than just mentioning the Church, though, Thomas has much to say about the unity
of the Church, toward which he conceives the sacrament of Orders to be oriented. As in the
earthly realm, peace and unity among persons are advanced when all are led by and obey a single
person. Clearly, in the case of the Church, this person is Christ, but “because He was not going to
be with all the faithful in bodily presence, He chose ministers to dispense the things just
mentioned to the faithful.”39 Specifically, Christ left the care of his faithful “to one who would in
His place have the care of the universal Church,”40 namely Peter and his successors.
This logic illustrates another emphasis of both the ScG and of these chapters on Orders.
Thomas continues to provide his readers with a thoroughly Christological sacramentology. As
with the previous chapters, each individual sacrament’s power flows from the Passion of Christ
and each individual sacrament’s purpose is to lead persons back to Christ. The sacrament of
Orders does this through the dispensation of the other sacraments. Thomas makes it clear,
though, that Christ is the ultimate minister of grace through the sacraments. This is why, he
explains, a sacrament’s validity does not depend on the virtue of an individual priest. Even a
sinful minister can confer a sacrament because he does so by virtue of Christ. Thus, again,
Thomas provides his sacramentology with a thoroughly Christological character.
The final sacramental chapter in the ScG addresses Marriage. Thomas begins this
discussion with the premise that “by the sacraments men are restored to grace.”41 This again is
another instance where Thomas mentions the sacraments and their relationship to grace while
carefully avoiding the language of causality. He even here avoids saying that the sacraments
confer grace. Rather, the sacraments restore persons to grace. This language, one should note,
fits much better with the notions Thomas has established in Book Three, specifically, that grace
39
Ibid., b. 4, c. 76. “quia corporaliter non cum omnibus fidelibus praesentialiter erat futurus, elegit ministros, per quos praedicta fidelibus
dispensaret, ut supra dictum est.”
40
Ibid. “oportuit ut alicui committeret qui loco sui universalis Ecclesiae gereret curam.”
41
Ibid., b. 4, c. 78. “Quamvis autem homines per sacramenta restaurentur ad gratiam”.
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is uncreated and that grace is synonymous with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. These ideas of
grace are much more relational than commodified. Thomas reinforces this idea at the outset of
this final chapter. A created form, ornament, or habit can be caused, but the gift of a relationship
can only be conferred and, if lost, restored.
As with Orders, with the sacrament of matrimony, one again sees the same emphases of
signification, analogy, Christ, Church, and unity. For example, all of these emphases are present
when Thomas writes, “as in the other sacraments by the thing done outwardly a sign is made of a
spiritual thing, so, too, in this sacrament by the union of husband and wife a sign of the union of
Christ and the Church is made.”42 Thomas also again uses signification to express the essence of
a sacrament and answer questions about it. Hence, to explain why matrimony is the indivisible
union of one man and one woman, Thomas says, “Since, then, the union of husband and wife
gives a sign of the union of Christ and the Church, that which makes the sign must correspond to
that whose sign it is. Now, the union of Christ and the Church is a union of one to one to be held
forever.”43 “Necessarily, then,” Thomas concludes, “matrimony as a sacrament of the Church is
a union of one man to one woman to be held indivisibly, and this is included in the faithfulness
by which the man and wife are bound to one another.”44 Thus, throughout his entire treatment of
the sacraments in particular, Thomas consistently emphasizes the notion of signification.
Two final points are of note before concluding this explication of the sacramentology of
the ScG. First, in chapter 78, Thomas makes use of the standard phrase that the sacraments
“effect what they figure.” He does not say in this text that the sacraments “cause by signifying.”
The latter would not fit with Thomas’s apparent agenda to avoid the language of causality. The
42
Ibid. “Et sicut in aliis sacramentis per ea quae exterius aguntur, spirituale aliquid figuratur; sic et in hoc sacramento per coniunctionem maris
et feminae coniunctio Christi et Ecclesiae figuratur”.
43
Ibid. “Quia igitur per coniunctionem maris et feminae Christi et Ecclesiae coniunctio designatur, oportet quod figura significato respondeat.
Coniunctio autem Christi et Ecclesiae est unius ad unam perpetuo habendam”.
44
Ibid. “Necesse est igitur quod matrimonium, secundum quod est Ecclesiae sacramentum, sit unius ad unam indivisibiliter habendam. Et hoc
pertinet ad fidem, qua sibi invicem vir et uxor obligantur.”
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former, however, fits nicely with the theme of analogy that Thomas has developed. The
sacraments lead to what is invisible by means of the visible.
One may also question at this point whether saying that the sacraments have effects is not
the same thing as saying that the sacraments are causes. I argue that it is not. To say that the
sacraments are causes places causality in the essence of the sacrament. To instead say that the
sacraments have effects specifies only an accidental characteristic. A stick can have the effect of
poking something, but it would be misleading to say that a stick is essentially a cause of poking.
Thus, in abandoning the idea of the sacraments’ dual nature, Thomas says that the sacraments are
signs and avoids saying that they are causes, but he need not avoid saying that they have effects.
Second, Thomas, much as in the De articulis, ends his sacramental discussion
eschatologically. All of the sacraments, Thomas says receive their power from Christ’s passion
and all lead back to union with Christ at the end of this world, which requires a bodily
resurrection. In this final orienting, therefore, one again sees Christology. One also sees,
Thomas’s positive attitude toward the physical, material, bodily, created realm. Finally, in this
eschatological conclusion, one sees again how deeply Thomas has come to conceive the
sacraments as signs. The essence of the sacraments is to lead persons from known sensible
realities into unknown spiritual realities by means of analogy. The point of the sacraments is to
point persons to Christ in the past, present, and future.
II. Synthesis and Analysis of Sacramental Signification in the ScG
I turn now, as in the previous chapters, to analyze Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental
signification in the ScG by posing a number of questions and answers them on the basis of the
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evidence provided in the text. First, I ask what the essence of a sacrament is in the ScG. Here, in
light of overwhelming evidence, one must say that a sacrament is essentially and solely a sign.
Unlike Thomas’s earliest texts, he makes no mention whatsoever in the ScG of the sacraments
having a dual nature. He never calls the sacraments signs and causes, or signs and anything. The
fact that Thomas begins his discussion of the sacraments in general by identifying the sacraments
as signs and by giving reasons why this must be the case is the first clue to this nature. The fact
that Thomas makes a point to discuss the signification of each sacrament when he examines it in
particular is a second clue; but, perhaps the best evidence that Thomas has abandoned his notion
of the sacraments dual nature is the fact that he never once refers to the sacraments as causes of
grace in this text. Thus, one must conclude that in the ScG, the essence of a sacrament is that it is
a sign of a sacred thing.
B) What constitutes a sacrament and how does a sacrament come to exist?
As in Chapter Three of this study, Thomas’s notions of the material and efficient
dimensions of the sacraments appear to have remained consistent across his texts thus far. In the
ScG, materially, a sacrament is still a visible element united to a spoken word. The reason for
this quality that Thomas gives is the sacraments’ resemblance to Christ. Thomas writes, “the first
and universal cause of human salvation is the incarnate Word, as is clear from the foregoing.
Therefore, harmoniously the remedies by which the power of the universal cause reaches men
had a likeness to that cause —, that is, the divine power operates in them under visible signs.”45
As for how sacraments come to exist, Thomas still says that the sacraments’ primary efficient
cause is God as the incarnate word, and their secondary efficient cause is the consecration of a
45
Ibid., b. 4, c. 56. “Prima autem et universalis causa humanae salutis est verbum incarnatum, ut ex praemissis apparet. Congruum igitur fuit ut
remedia quibus universalis causae virtus pertingit ad homines, illius causae similitudinem haberent: ut scilicet in eis virtus divina invisibiliter
operaretur sub visibilibus signis.”
237
priest. This fact is evident throughout Book Four where Thomas speaks of God instituting the
sacraments. It is evident too in Chapter 77, where Thomas teaches that even a bad priest can still
validly confect the sacraments by virtue of the power given by God to him at his ordination.
C) What is the purpose and function of sacraments?
As seen in the previous chapter, Thomas’s understanding of the purpose of the
sacraments has changed. He consistently thinks that the sacraments lead persons to eternal glory.
However, the way that sacraments do this and their ultimate purpose are not the same here as in
his earliest writings. In the ScG, Thomas evinces a different understanding of the role of the
sacraments in his first sentence about them. He writes, “the death of Christ is, so to say, the
universal cause of human salvation, and since a universal cause must be applied singly to each of
its effects, it was necessary to show men some remedies through which the benefit of Christ’s
death could somehow be conjoined to them. It is of this sort, of course, that the sacraments of the
Church are said to be.”46 Thus, the ultimate purpose of the sacraments is to appropriate
individually what Christ has gained universally.
The sacraments accomplish their purpose of appropriating Christ’s universal work by
being signs. Sacraments first signify the spiritual life by means of visible material elements and
acts. This signification leads persons to knowledge of spiritual realities. The sacraments then
point persons to Christ because all the sacraments are oriented toward Christ and because the
power of the sacraments flows from the Passion of Christ. Thomas communicates this narrative
in by constructing a harmonious relationship between the sacraments of the Old and New Laws.
Thomas says that the Old and New sacraments both point to Christ. The Old sacraments point
46
Ibid. “mors Christi est quasi universalis causa humanae salutis; universalem autem causam oportet applicari ad unumquemque effectum:
necessarium fuit exhiberi hominibus quaedam remedia per quae eis beneficium mortis Christi quodammodo coniungeretur. Huiusmodi autem
esse dicuntur Ecclesiae sacramenta.”
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forward to Christ’s coming, and the New sacraments point to Christ present. By leading persons
to Christ, both allow persons to receive the results of Christ’s universal work.
What flows from the font of Christ’s merits is, of course, grace. As I demonstrated above,
Thomas presents grace in the ScG as a relationship with God through the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit. Furthermore, the shape of eternal glory has been shown in the ScG to be distinctively
deificatory. Thus, with regard to the final cause of the sacraments, their purpose, and their
function in leading persons to their ultimate end, the ScG tells the following narrative. Christ
universally won salvation for all people by his earthly work. The sacraments join persons to this
work signifying. They signify by means of analogy the spiritual life and they lead persons to
Christ. By coming to Christ and by virtue of Christ’s work, persons are able to receive the Holy
Spirit, who indwells them, pours forth the love of God in them, proportions them for a
supernatural end, conforms them to Christ, and ultimately leads them into deification.
D) How are the sacraments causes?
Several of the questions that I have been able to ask and answer in the previous chapters
are no longer applicable to the ScG. The first such of these questions is the way in which Thomas
understands the sacraments to be causes. The answer, of course, is that Thomas does not seem to
understand the sacraments as causes in this text. As shown above, the closest Thomas comes to
speaking of the sacraments as causes is when he states that they confer (conferatur) grace.
However, as also shown above, causing and conferring are not synonymous. Thus, one must
conclude that the ScG does not contain a doctrine of sacramental causality. This does not mean,
of course, that Thomas has entirely rejected the notion of causality in the sacraments. He never,
for instance, says that the sacraments are not causes or cannot be conceived of as such. Thomas
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likely could not have made such a statement even if he wanted to, due to the number of
authorities throughout the tradition that speak of the sacraments in terms of causality. His
avoidance of the topic altogether should thus be interpreted not as a rejection of causality but as
an extreme downplaying of the importance of causal notions when speaking about the
sacraments.
E) What is a sign and how are the sacraments signs?
Thomas gives no definition of what a sign is in his ScG. The way in which he uses the
term, however, leads one to believe that his understanding of signs has remained unchanged. For
instance, from Chapter 56, one sees that signs have to do with the senses, and specifically have to
do with something presented to the senses, which leads one into knowledge of something other
than what is sensed. This understanding is consistent with Augustine’s definition of a sign that
Thomas first gave in the Scriptum. As for the way in which the sacraments qualify as signs, this
is also roughly consistent with the previously examined texts. The sacraments are signs because
they point to things and lead persons from things known to things not previously known. One
might say that the sacraments in the ScG have more of an analogical hue than in some previous
texts. The sacraments lead persons from material realities into spiritual ones based on an analogy
between these two realms. This understanding was also displayed in De articulis. Thus, one
might conclude that Thomas’s understanding of signs has developed somewhat from his earliest
writing, but has remained consistent since then.
240
F) What is the role that signification plays in the sacraments?
Due to the fact that in the ScG the sacraments are solely signs, the role that signification
has to play in the sacraments is equivalent to the role that sacraments have to play in the
economy of salvation. Signification simply is the role of the sacraments because the sacraments
simply are signs. Thus, per the narrative traced above, the role of signification is to lead persons
to spiritual realities and thus to Christ, who is the font of grace, which is the indwelling of the
Holy Spirit, by which persons are gifted with relationship with God, which will lead to
deification. The sacraments direct persons on this path of salvation and sanctification by being
signs, by always pointing to Christ, and by always signifying the gift of grace.
G) What is Thomas’s attitude toward signification?
Completely unlike Thomas’s earliest texts, but very much like the Corpus Christi Liturgy,
Thomas’s attitude toward signification in the ScG is positive. This is evident above all in the new
way in which he discusses the sacraments of the Old and New Laws. He no longer uses causality
as the distinguishing factor between these two ages. He no longer says that the sacraments of the
Old Law were merely signs or only signs, and he no longer calls the sacraments of the Old Law
weak and needy elements. Instead, Thomas depicts the sacraments of the Old and New Laws as
harmoniously related because all sacraments are signs pointing to Christ. With this
characterization, he paints signification in a much more positive light, not as a deficient quality
that needs the causality of grace to be superadded. Thomas’s positive attitude toward
signification is also clearly seen in the fact that he values signification so highly as to identify it
as the sole essence of the sacraments, to speak about it with regard to every particular sacrament,
and to dispense with speaking of the sacraments as causes in order to emphasize their role as
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signs. Thus, more so than any text thus far, Thomas’s attitude toward signification is highly
positive. His estimation of this concept, in fact, could scarcely get any higher.
Even though Thomas does not speak of the sacraments as causes in the ScG, actually by
virtue of this fact, one must conclude that Thomas has drastically altered the way in which he
conceives the relationship of signification and causality in the sacraments. In his earlier texts, the
sacraments were both signs and causes, but not equally so. The notion of causality was in a place
of dominance. By the time he writes the ScG, this dominance flips. The sacraments are signs and
signs alone. Hence, this concept is the central notion at this phase in Thomas’s sacramentology.
As mentioned above, though Thomas has removed causality from the essence of the sacraments,
one cannot conclude that he has rejected the concept of causality entirely. Rather one might say
that, in the ScG, Thomas completely subjugates causality to signification. This subjection is to a
degree much greater than the prior subjugation of signification because in earlier texts Thomas
still holds that the sacraments are signs. Hence, more than just flipping the dominance of these
concepts, Thomas increases the distance with which these two concepts are separated. In the
ScG, signification is in full control.
I) What role do faith and the Church play in the sacraments?
Thomas continues, in the ScG, the ecclesiological emphasis that was absent from his
earliest writings and first made a pronounced appearance in De articulis. The Church plays the
vital role in the economy of salvation of connecting persons to Christ and Christ’s universal
work. The Church confects and dispenses the sacraments whereby persons appropriate the
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benefits of Christ’s work. Hence, Thomas writes, “the power of orders is principally ordered to
consecrating the body of Christ and dispensing it to the faithful, and to cleansing the faithful
from their sins.”47 The Church also unites persons to Christ by means of the unity of the mystical
body, which is signified and brought about through the Eucharist and which Thomas mentions in
Chapter 69. The Church, furthermore, plays the role of establishing a peaceful context in which
persons may lead the spiritual life. This role is seen when Thomas lays out his analogy of the
bodily and spiritual lives. As Earthly reigns and governments are needed for persons to flourish
in the bodily life, so also is the Church needed for persons to lead fruitful spiritual lives.
As for the role that faith plays in the sacraments, Thomas still says little. Still, however,
one can conclude that faith has some role to play in the workings of the sacraments. This role is
perhaps most evident when Thomas discusses the sacrament of confirmation. He writes:
The perfection of spiritual strength consists properly in a man’s daring to confess the faith of
Christ in the presence of anyone at all...and because fighters under a prince carry his insignia,
they who receive the sacrament of confirmation are signed with the sign of Christ; this is the
sign of the cross by which He fought and conquered. This sign they receive on the forehead
as a sign that without a blush they publicly confess the faith of Christ.48
Thus, in this respect, the sacraments appear to be something like a protestation of a person’s
faith, which at the same time strengthen a person in faith and the spiritual life. Given as much,
this understanding appears to be relatively consistent with what Thomas has said in previous
texts.
47
Ibid., b. 4, c. 75.
48
Ibid., b. 4, c. 60. “Perfectio autem spiritualis roboris in hoc proprie consistit, quod homo fidem Christi confiteri audeat coram
quibuscumque...Et quia pugnantes sub aliquo principe eius insignia deferunt, hi qui confirmationis sacramentum suscipiunt signo Christi
insigniuntur, videlicet signo crucis, quo pugnavit et vicit. Hoc autem signum in fronte suscipiunt, in signum quod publice fidem Christi confiteri
non erubescant.”
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J) What is Thomas’s doctrine of Grace?
Of the texts examined thus far, Thomas’s doctrine of grace is most apparent in ScG and
De veritate. Between these two texts, substantial changes have occurred. By far the biggest of
these changes is the created or uncreated nature of grace. In De veritate, Thomas imagines grace
to be something created by God within a person’s soul, which proportions a person for a
supernatural end and makes it possible for them to reach it. In the ScG, however, Thomas never
says that grace is something created. Rather, he talks about it as synonymous with the indwelling
of the Holy Spirit. Grace is thus not a created form or ornament that is caused within a person’s
soul; it is the gift of a relationship with God that takes the form of God’s very self coming to a
person and indwelling that person’s soul. Grace thus is something in which one can participate to
varying degrees, rather than something that is caused within a person in varying amounts. Thus,
in the ScG, grace is conceived as a relationship, not a commodity.
The genre of the ScG does not particularly dispose Thomas to make extensive reference
to authorities. This is very much unlike the Scriptum, which highly encouraged this practice.
Thus, Thomas’s influences in the ScG are not as obvious. As is to be expected, Thomas cites
Augustine more than anyone. He references him seven times throughout Book Four. Again
conspicuously absent from Thomas’s sources is Hugh of St. Victor. Thomas does not mention
him at all in Book Four and, as shown above, does not make use of his medicinal metaphor or
other key concepts. Present in Hugh’s place though is again Pseudo-Dionysius. Thomas only
references him four times throughout Book Four, and only one of these occurs in a chapter on the
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sacraments. Nonetheless, Dionysius makes an explicit appearance, which is more than can be
said of Hugh, Peter Lombard, and many other authorities that Thomas has employed previously.
The fact that Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental signification and its related concepts have
changed from his previous texts to the ScG is indisputable in light of the evidence presented
above. Thomas has changed his doctrine of grace. He has changed his doctrine of the
sacrament’s dual nature. He has changed the role that signification plays in the sacraments. He
has changed the relationship between signification and causality in the sacraments. He has
changed his attitude both toward signification and toward the sacraments of the Old Law. He has
continued to increase his emphasis on the Christological, ecclesiological, and eschatological
dimensions of the sacraments. He has continued to move away from a medicinal metaphor into
an analogy between the bodily and spiritual lives; and, he has put forth a new deificatory
narrative about the role that the sacraments play in the economy of salvation.
The question thus remains as to whether these shifts represent doctrinal development or
whether they are mere alterations in form. One must conclude that these shifts are genuine
developments. Development can be seen, for example, in the fact that Thomas maintains his
analogy of the bodily and spiritual lives while improving and refining it. Development can be
seen as well in Thomas’s more positive attitudes toward the sacraments of the Old Law and
toward signification. He has ceased to disparage an entire era of salvation history and instead has
newly advocated for appreciation of God’s providence throughout all times. Development can be
seen in the fact that Thomas now has a much more positive attitude toward the created material
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and sensory realm. This better attitude results in a more holistic theological anthropology that
values the body and the physical realm and takes better account of the fact that God looked at all
of creation and pronounced it very good. Development is evident too in Thomas’s new doctrine
of grace. Thomas gives an expanded role to the Holy Spirit, and he gives a more relational
account that emphasizes God’s impassioned love for human beings. Finally, development exists
in the integration of Thomas’s theology, which is made possible by the concept of signification.
As in the Corpus Christi Liturgy, Thomas weaves together his Christology, his Pneumatology,
his anthropology, his eschatology, his doctrine of grace, his ecclesiology, and a doctrine of
deification, among other things, into his sacramentology. All of these doctrines cohere around
Christ, to whom the sacraments lead persons by signifying.
All of these instances of development are far more than mere changes. They are
undoubted improvements and marks of growing sophistication and maturity of thought.
Therefore, one should conclude that from his Scriptum to his Summa contra Gentiles, Thomas’s
sacramentology has developed and has done so in the direction of his doctrine of sacramental
signification.
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Chapter 5 - Sacramental Signification in Intervening Texts, pt. 3 – Super
Evangelium S. Ioannis
Introduction
Between the Summa contra Gentiles and the Summa theologiae, Thomas wrote a text that
will serve to connect his mid-career sacramental writings to his late career sacramental writings,
namely his commentary on the Gospel of John. Thomas, of course, wrote many more biblical
commentaries, many of which contain discussions of the sacraments. Most of these
commentaries, however, date to a similar period in Thomas’s life and express a sacramentology
similar to his John commentary. Accordingly, I take the John Commentary as representative of
Thomas’s mid-to-late career biblical commentaries.
Chapter Five proceeds as follows. I focus on three sets of passages. First, in Section I.A, I
examine some of Thomas’s comments on Baptism, which occur in reference to John 1:33, 3:5,
and 4:10. Second, in Sections I.B and I.C, I examine Thomas’s comments on John 6, specifically
his sixth and seventh lectures, which address the Bread of Life Discourse from John 6:47-60.
Third, in Section I.D, I highlight two additional references to the sacraments that Thomas makes
when writing about John 11:44 and 15:4-9. As usual, I conclude Chapter Five with a synthesis
and analysis section (Section II).

I. Sacramental Signification in Super Evangelium S. Ioannis lectura (c. 1270-1272) – Text
Six of Seven
A) Thomas’s Comments on John 1:33, 3:5, and 4:10
1) Thomas’s Comments on John 1:33
In the beginning, the Gospel of John discusses Christ’s baptism. In John 1:32 and
following, John writes that unlike the baptism of water, Christ has the power to baptize with the
Holy Spirit.1 Upon this concept, Thomas comments that Christ has a threefold power in baptism,
the power of efficiency, of ministry, and of excellence. The first is the power “by which [Christ]
interiorly cleanses the soul from the stain of sin.”2 The power of efficiency, Thomas says, cannot
be communicated to anyone else. The second is the power of administering the sacrament of
baptism, and Christ can and, in fact, does communicate this power to others. Finally, Christ has
the power of excellence in the sacraments, which is again his alone.
Thomas next says that Christ’s third power of excellence in the sacraments “shows itself
in four things.”3 First, this power is shown in the institution of the sacraments, because only God
can institute, change, or dispense with the sacraments. Furthermore, Thomas says, “by their
institution the sacraments give invisible grace, which only God can give.”4 Second, Christ’s
power of excellence is shown in “the efficacy of Christ’s merits, for the sacraments have their
power from the merit of Christ’s passion”5 Thomas then writes, “The third [thing] is that Christ
can confer the effect of baptism without the sacrament; and this is peculiar to Christ. Fourthly,
1
These verses state: “And John gave testimony, saying: I saw the Spirit coming down, as a dove from heaven, and he remained upon him. And I
knew him not; but he who sent me to baptize with water, said to me: He upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining upon
him, he it is that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost” John 1:32-33 (DRA).
2
The English text here is taken from Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John trans. Fabian Larcher and James A. Weisheipl, 3 vols.
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press 2010), v. 1, c. 1, l. 14, n. 276, p. 111-12. The best Latin text, and the text I used in
preparing my argument is from S. Thomae Aquinatis, Super Evangelium S. Ioannis lectura (Taurini-Romae: Marietti, 1972). Because an
electronic text was needed, the Latin text reproduced here is from S. Thomae Aquinatis, "Super Evangelium S. Ioannis lectura,"
http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/cih00.html. For the passages cited, there are no significant differences between these texts. “Una est
efficientiae, qua mundat interius animam a macula peccati.”
3
Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John v. 1, c. 1, l. 14, n. 276, p. 112. “apparet in quatuor”.
4
Ibid. “Nam sacramenta invisibilem gratiam conferunt ex eorum institutione; conferre autem gratiam solius Dei est: et ideo solus qui est verus
Deus potest sacramenta instituere.”
5
Ibid. “Secundum est quantum ad meriti Christi efficaciam: nam ex merito passionis Christi sacramenta virtutem habent.”
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because at one time baptism was conferred in the name of Christ, although this is no longer
done.”6 Thomas’s teachings here illustrate two points about sacramental signification.
First, Thomas’s teaching, about the threefold power of Christ and the fourfold way in
which Christ’s power of excellence is demonstrated, shows the continued Christological
orientation of his sacramentology. Christ is the one working in the sacraments and the one who
makes baptism efficaciously cleanse recipients from sin. Christ communicated the power of
administering the sacraments to others, but still remains active in the sacraments himself. Thus,
one again sees Thomas say that the sacraments derive their power from Christ’s Passion. Here,
however, Thomas goes a step further in terms of specificity. He teaches that the sacraments
specifically derive their power from “the merit of Christ’s Passion.”7
Second, one, here again, sees Thomas speak of the efficacy of the sacraments without
invoking the concept of causality. One may expect talk about the “power of efficiency” to
prompt Thomas to speak of the sacraments as instrumental causes. Yet, Thomas chooses not to
use this concept here. He says that the sacraments confer or give invisible grace, but he does not
say that the sacraments instrumentally cause this grace. Thus, as his other texts following the De
articulis, Thomas seems carefully to avoid using the language of causality.
Thomas brings up Baptism again when he comments on John 3:5.8 Here, Thomas reflects
upon why water is necessary for the regeneration of a person. He gives three reasons. He writes:
First, because of the condition of human nature. For man consists of soul and body, and if the
Spirit alone were involved in his regeneration, this would indicate that only the spiritual part
of man is regenerated. Hence in order that the flesh also be regenerated, it is necessary that,
6
Ibid. “Tertium est quia Christus potest conferre effectum Baptismi sine sacramento: quod solius Christi est. Quarto quia aliquo tempore
Baptismus conferebatur ad invocationem nominis Christi; sed modo non ita fit.”
7
Ibid. “nam ex merito passionis Christi”.
8
This verse states: “unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” John 3:5 (DRA)
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in addition to the Spirit through whom the soul is regenerated, something bodily be involved,
through which the body is regenerated; and this is water.9
Second, Thomas says:
Water is necessary for the sake of human knowledge. For, as Dionysius says, divine wisdom
so disposes all things that it provides for each thing according to its nature. Now it is natural
for man to know; and so it is fitting that spiritual things be conferred on men in such a way
that he may know them...the natural manner of this knowledge is that man know spiritual
things by means of sensible things, since all our knowledge begins in sense
knowledge...Therefore, in order that we might understand what is spiritual in our
regeneration, it was fitting that there be in it something sensible and material, that is, water,
through which we understand that just as water washes and cleanses the exterior in a bodily
way, so through baptism a man is washed and cleansed inwardly in a spiritual way.10
Third and finally, Thomas says, water is necessary “so that there might be a
correspondence of causes.”11 By this, he means that “the cause of our regeneration is the
incarnate Word: ‘He gave them power to become the sons of God,’ as we saw above (1:12).
Therefore it was fitting that in the sacraments, which have their efficacy from the power of the
incarnate Word, there be something corresponding to the Word, and something corresponding to
the flesh, or body.”12 In Baptism, of course, though Thomas does not mention as much here, the
sacramental form of pronouncing Baptism in the name of the Trinity corresponds to the Word
and the material water corresponds to the flesh or the body. Through this correspondence, the
person baptized is “conformed to the death of Christ, since [they] are submerged in [water]
9
Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John v. 1, c. 3, l. 1, n. 443, p. 168. “Primo quidem propter humanae naturae conditionem. Homo enim
ex anima et corpore constat, et si in eius regeneratione esset spiritus tantum, solum quod spirituale est hominis, ostenderetur regenerari. Ut ergo
regeneretur etiam caro, oportet quod sicut est ibi spiritus, per quem regeneratur anima, ita sit ibi aliquid corporale, per quod regeneretur
corpus; et hoc est aqua.”
10
Ibid. “Secundo propter humanam cognitionem: nam, sicut Dionysius dicit, divina sapientia ita omnia ordinat ut unicuique provideat secundum
modum suae conditionis. Homo autem est naturaliter cognoscitivus; oportet ergo eo modo dona spiritualia hominibus conferri, ut ea cognoscant;
I Cor. II, 12: ut sciamus quae a Deo donata sunt nobis. Naturalis autem modus huius cognitionis est ut spiritualia per sensibilia cognoscat, cum
omnis nostra cognitio a sensu incipiat. Oportuit ergo ad hoc quod intelligamus id quod spirituale est in hac regeneratione, quod esset in ea
aliquid sensibile et materiale, scilicet aqua: per quod intelligamus quod sicut aqua lavat et purgat corporaliter exterius, ita et per Baptismum
homo lavatur et purgatur interius spiritualiter.”
11
Ibid. “propter causae congruitatem”.
12
Ibid. “nam causa nostrae regenerationis est verbum incarnatum. Supra I, 12: dedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri. Congruit ergo quod in
sacramentis, quae efficaciam habent ex virtute verbi incarnati, sit aliquid correspondens verbo, et aliquid correspondens carni, seu corpori.”
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during baptism as Christ was in the womb of the earth for three days.”13 Furthermore, Thomas
adds, the water in Baptism corresponds to, that is to say, it recalls and “was suggested in the first
production of things, when the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.”14 For the waters of
Baptism, however, “a greater power was conferred on water by contact with the most pure flesh
of Christ; because in the beginning water brought forth crawling creatures with living souls, but
since Christ was baptized in the Jordan, water has yielded spiritual souls.”15
Thomas’s three reasons about the necessity of water yield several key insights into his
doctrine of sacramental signification. The first and second reasons that Thomas gives together
recall the theological anthropology that he put forth in his ScG. This anthropology is decidedly
more positive with respect to humans’ sensory and material nature than the anthropology of the
Scriptum. Rather than being trapped in the sensory realm and subjugated under that by means of
which they fell into sin, in the ScG, Thomas envisions humans as naturally coming to know
things by the senses. One sees the same sentiments expressed here.
In his first reason about why water is necessary, Thomas develops the position that
humans are both bodily and spiritual creatures together, as opposed to being spiritual creatures
who are embodied. Thomas also here precludes one from holding the notion that only the bodily
part of humans was affected by the fall. Since humans are both bodily and spiritual creatures
together, both of these aspects need to be regenerated in Baptism. Accordingly, Baptism consists
of both words and water.
Thomas’s second reason for the necessity of water flows from the first and likewise
mirrors the anthropology of the ScG. Since humans are inherently bodily and spiritual
13
Ibid. “ut scilicet per eam configuremur morti Christi, dum submergimur in ea, quando baptizamur, sicut Christus tribus diebus fuit in ventre
terrae”.
14
Ibid. “Hoc etiam mysterium in prima rerum productione signatum est, Gen. I, quando spiritus domini ferebatur super aquas.”
15
Ibid. “Sed per tactum mundissimae carnis Christi maior virtus collata est aquis: quia in principio producebant aquae reptile animae viventis;
sed ex quo Christus baptizatus est in Iordane, animas spirituales aqua reddit.”
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composites, they come to know things intellectually by means of their bodies and by means of
their bodily senses. Thus, Thomas writes, “all our knowledge begins in sense knowledge.”16
Water is necessary so that human’s senses might lead their intellects from what is bodily and
material to what is immaterial and spiritual. Thomas’s logic here is relentlessly significatory.
Signs lead persons from what they know and what is presented to their senses, into what they do
not know and what is not immediately present. Knowing through signs, Thomas thinks, is an
integral part of how the human intellect works. Thus, signification is no less integrally how the
sacraments work, what the sacraments are, and how God uses the sacraments to communicate
with humans, whether this communication is of information or of grace. In this logic,
furthermore, one recognizes the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius, to whom Thomas appeals in this
second point.
Thomas’s third reason why water is required for a person’s regeneration is no less reliant
upon signification. One might be tempted to think based on the opening sentence of this
paragraph, where Thomas speaks of the “correspondence of causes,” that Thomas is poised to
appeal to a notion of the sacraments as causes. He does not. Thomas appeals not to the
sacraments as causes of grace, but to Christ as the cause of regeneration. The sacraments,
Thomas says, should fittingly correspond to Christ, the cause. The sacraments must resemble the
source of their power because it is to this source that they lead sacramental recipients. Thus,
Thomas here speaks of the way in which a person’s submersion in water signifies Christ being
“in the womb of the earth for three days”.17 Thomas also points out how the water in Baptism
signifies and was signified by the primordial waters of creation in Genesis. Thus, even though
Thomas uses the word “causes”, he in no way calls the sacraments causes or uses the logic of
16
Ibid. “cum omnis nostra cognitio a sensu incipiat”.
17
Ibid. “sicut Christus tribus diebus fuit in ventre terrae”.
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causality to help explain the sacraments. To the contrary, Thomas’s reasoning about Baptism in
the John Commentary is thoroughly significatory.
Thomas’s third reason also illustrates another key theme of Thomas’s mid-career
sacramentology, namely the theme of deification. In explaining his third reason, Thomas
mentions John 1:12, which refers to humans having the power to become children of God. Talk
of divine adoption is a hallmark of deificatory thought. On its own, Thomas appealing to this
verse need not necessarily be a reference to deification. It is not all that remarkable for Thomas
to refer to a verse from John in a commentary on John. However, shortly thereafter, Thomas
speaks of persons being buried with Christ and conformed to the death of Christ. The idea of
persons becoming conformed to Christ is another mark of deification. Thus, again, Thomas
connects his doctrine of the sacraments to his doctrine of deification, and he does so by means of
his doctrine of sacramental signification. Since the sacraments are signs, they bear the image of
the one to whom they point, the one to whom they lead, and the one to whom they conform
recipients through reception and perception.
The final remark about Baptism that I wish to highlight is Thomas’s discussion of John
4:10.18 In his comments on this verse, Thomas does not directly mention Baptism, but he does
speak about living water. He also brings up Baptism immediately prior to this section.19 Hence, I
extend his comments on John 4:10 to Baptism. About living water, Thomas first says that it
“signifies the grace of the Holy Spirit.”20 This is the case because, like water, grace cleanses,
18
This verse states: “Jesus answered, and said to her: If thou didst know the gift of God, and who he is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou
perhaps wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.” John 4:10 (DRA)
19
Cf. Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John v. 1, c. 4, l. 1, n. 561, p. 210.
20
Ibid., v. 1, c. 4, l. 2, n. 577, p. 214. “quod per aquam intelligitur gratia spiritus sancti”.
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gives refreshment, gives relief from temptations, and satisfies a person’s desires. Thus, Thomas
here clearly connects his doctrine of grace to his doctrine of the sacraments.
After this comment, Thomas continues reflecting on living water by distinguishing it
from non-living water. Non-living water is disconnected from its source. As an example, Thomas
gives rainwater collected in a pond or a cistern. Living water, on the other hand, maintains its
connection to its source, like a river or a stream. Thus, Thomas says:
The grace of the Holy Spirit is correctly called living water, because the grace of the Holy
Spirit is given to man in such a way that the source itself of the grace is also given, that is,
the Holy Spirit. Indeed, grace is given by the Holy Spirit: ‘The love of God is poured out into
our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us’ (Romans 5:5). For the Holy Spirit is
the unfailing fountain from whom all gifts of grace flow.21
One here sees two things regarding Thomas’s sacramentology. First, one sees a
Pneumatological emphasis. The Holy Spirit has a substantial role to play in the sacraments,
namely, the Spirit’s work and power gives a person grace through the sacraments. Second, one
sees Thomas again put forward an uncreated doctrine of grace in connection to the indwelling of
the Holy Spirit and the sacraments. The sacraments thus give living water, not just grace, but
grace and the source of that grace, which is the very indwelling of God within a person. Thus,
Thomas has clearly altered the way he thinks about the sacraments giving grace since his
Scriptum and De veritate.
B) John, Chapter Six, Lecture Six
The section of the John Commentary most focused on sacramentology is Chapter Six,
Lectures Six and Seven. Lecture Six covers John 6:47-52, which contains the Bread of Life
21
Ibid., v. 1, c. 4, l. 2, n. 577, p. 215. “Secundum hoc ergo gratia spiritus sancti recte dicitur aqua viva, quia ita ipsa gratia spiritus sancti datur
homini quod tamen ipse fons gratiae datur, scilicet spiritus sanctus. Immo per ipsum datur gratia; Rom. V, 5: caritas Dei diffusa est in cordibus
nostris per spiritum sanctum, qui datus est nobis. Nam ipse spiritus sanctus est fons indeficiens, a quo omnia dona gratiarum effluunt”.
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Discourse.22 As is his method, Thomas proceeds carefully through each phrase of each verse,
explaining its meaning, anticipating questions that might arise about it, and answering these
questions. In so doing, Thomas explicitly teaches about signification and the Eucharist. He does
so initially when he comments on verse 49.
Considering verse 49, Thomas reflects on what Christ here means when he speaks of
death, which provides a clue to what Christ means in the next verse when he states that if anyone
eats of the bread of heaven he or she will not die. Thomas says each of these references to death
can be understood in two ways, either as referring to physical death or spiritual death. Obviously,
Thomas says, both the Jews who ate manna in the dessert and Christians who now partake of the
Eucharist will die a physical death. He continues, “But if [Christ] is speaking of spiritual death, it
is clear that both then among the Jews and now among the Christians, some die spiritually and
others do not. For Moses and many others who were pleasing to God did not die, while others
did. Also, those who eat this bread [of the Christians] unworthily, die spiritually.”23 Thomas thus
does not read these verses as being derogatory toward Jews, as demeaning the old in favor of the
new, or as downplaying the figure in favor of the truth. To the contrary, Thomas points out the
good and bad both among Christians and Jews, among those who ate of the old bread and those
who eat of the new. This reading thus fits Thomas’s recent pattern of refusing to exalt the New
sacraments at the expense of the Old.
This reading is confirmed in Thomas’s following paragraph, where Thomas continues to
point out the similarities and differences between the bread of the Jews and the bread of
Christians. In order to do this, Thomas invokes of the concept of signification. He writes:
22
This passage is as follows: “Amen, amen I say unto you: He that believeth in me, hath everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers did
eat manna in the desert, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die. I am the living
bread, which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of
the world.” John 6:47-52 (DRA)
23
Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 954, p. 40. “a Si vero loquitur de morte spirituali, manifestum est quod hic et ibi
quidam spiritualiter moriuntur, et quidam non. Nam Moyses, et multi qui Deo placuerunt, mortui non sunt, licet alii mortui sint. Similiter et qui
istum panem indigne sumunt, moriuntur spiritualiter.”
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The food of the Jews has some features in common with our spiritual food. They are alike in
the fact that each signifies the same thing: for both signify Christ. Thus they are called the
same food... because each is a figure of the spiritual food. But they are different because one
was a figure alone; while the other contains that of which it is the figure, that is, Christ
himself. Thus we should say that each of these foods can be taken in two ways. First, as a
sign alone, i.e., so that each is taken as food alone, and without understanding what is
signified; and taken in this way, they do not take away either physical or spiritual death.
Secondly, they may be taken in both ways, i.e., the visible food is taken in such a way that
spiritual food is understood and spiritually tasted, in order that it may satisfy spiritually. In
this way, those who ate the manna spiritually did not die spiritually. But those who eat the
Eucharist spiritually, both live spiritually now without sin, and will live physically forever.
Thus, our food is more than their food, because it contains in itself that of which it is the
symbol.24
In this passage, four things are of note for Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental
signification. First, as with the previous paragraph, Thomas maintains a more positive attitude
toward the sacraments of the Old Law than he did in his earliest writing. This change in attitude
accords with an increased valuation and appreciation of the significatory role of the sacraments
because the changes occur concurrently and are related logically. If one understands the Old
sacraments as signs alone and one comes to have a greater appreciation for the value of
signification, then one will necessarily have a greater appreciation for the value of the Old
sacraments. The same can also be said in reverse. I thus do not specify a causal direction
between Thomas’s more positive attitude toward signification and the sacraments of the Old
Law. The two, however, are clearly correlated.
Second, in having a more positive attitude toward the sacraments of the Old Law,
Thomas in no way fails to recognize a distinction between the Old and New sacraments. Thomas
makes a distinction, but he does so differently here than he did earlier. He does not make this
24
Cf. Ibid. I have modified the translation above slightly, in order to more faithfully render the Latin. “Ad quod dicendum est, quod cibus ille cum
cibo nostro spirituali convenit. Conveniunt quidem quantum ad hoc quod uterque idem significat: nam et ille et iste Christum signat, propter
quod dicitur idem cibus; I Cor. X, 3: omnes eamdem escam manducaverunt. Eamdem dicit, quia utraque est figura spiritualis escae. Sed
differunt, quia ille figurabat tantum, sed panis iste continet quod figurat, scilicet ipsum Christum. Dicendum ergo, quod uterque ciborum istorum
potest dupliciter sumi: vel quantum ad signum tantum, idest quod sumatur ut cibus tantum, non intellecto significato; et per hoc non tollitur mors
spiritualis, seu corporalis. Vel quod sumatur quantum ad utrumque, idest quod ita sumatur cibus visibilis ut intelligatur cibus spiritualis, et
spiritualiter gustetur, ut spiritualiter satiet: et hoc modo illi qui spiritualiter manducaverunt manna, mortui non sunt spiritualiter. Sed et qui
Eucharistiam spiritualiter manducant, et absque peccato spiritualiter vivunt nunc, et corporaliter vivent in aeternum. Habet ergo plus cibus
noster cibo illorum, quia in se continet quod figurat.”
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distinction on the basis of causality or even of efficacy. Thomas does not say that the Old
sacraments were signs and the New are both signs and causes. He does not say that the Old
sacraments were ineffective and that the new are efficacious. To the contrary, Thomas even here
points out that both the Old and New sacraments were effective for producing spiritual life if
properly received. Instead, Thomas distinguishes between the two types of sacraments on the
basis of what each contains. The Old sacraments are thus figures. The New sacraments are
figures “that contain that of which they are the figure.”
For this reason, Thomas says the food of Christians is “more” (plus) than the food of the
Jews. In saying this, one need not read him, as some translations would imply,25 as constructing a
dichotomy or as making a valuation of greater versus lesser. Instead, this ‘more’ refers to the fact
that the bread of Christians has an additional characteristic compared to manna. This
characteristic, the fact that the Christian food contains and brings with it that to which it points,
distinguishes Old and New while each remains essentially the same thing, namely, signs.
Third, in this passage, Thomas clearly imagines that the Old and New sacraments are
both are essentially solely signs. More than this, however, both the food of the Jews and the food
of the Christians have the same root signification. Thomas thus says, “They are alike in the fact
that each signifies the same thing: for both signify Christ.”26 In this attribution, one sees another
illustration of Thomas’s emphasis on signification and the Christological dimension of the
sacraments. At this point in his career, he is thinking of the sacraments solely in terms of signs,
signs meant to lead persons to Christ.
Fourth and finally, a point arises when Thomas specifies that both the bread of the Jews
and the bread of Christians can be received in the same two ways. Based on his previous texts,
25
Larcher and Weisheipl translate this plus as “greater.”
26
Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 954, p. 40. “Conveniunt quidem quantum ad hoc quod uterque idem significat:
nam et ille et iste Christum signat.”
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one might expect Thomas here to speak of Peter Lombard’s two ways of eating the Eucharist,
sacramentally and spiritually. Thomas, though, chooses not to invoke these terms, even in spite
of the fact that the concepts he employs are similar. Thomas says that both breads may be taken
either “as a sign alone” or “in both ways.” Judging from the first term, one might suspect
Thomas here is about to downplay signification or suggest that receiving the sacrament as a sign
alone is not as good as receiving it as a sign and a cause, as an efficacious sign, or, based on the
context, as a sign that contains what it signifies. However, this is not the track that Thomas takes.
By “sign alone,” Thomas really means “food alone.” He means receiving the sign without
recognizing it as a sign. Thus, he writes that one may take both breads, “First, as a sign only, i.e.,
so that each is taken as food only, and without understanding what is signified.”27 Why Thomas
employs this indirect terminology is unclear. What is clear, however, is the fact that Thomas in
no way devalues signification. This reading is confirmed when Thomas specifies what he means
by receiving the breads “in both ways.” He writes, “the visible food is taken in such a way that
spiritual food is understood and spiritually tasted, in order that it may satisfy spiritually.”28 Thus,
the two ways of eating here are not the same as Lombard’s two ways.
Rather, Thomas’s two ways of eating are essentially receiving the sacraments without
understanding their signification and with understanding their signification. Thus, Thomas
unmistakably subjects any efficacy of the sacraments not just to the sacraments’ signification in
general, but even to their perception as signs and to a recipients’ understanding of what is
signified. Unless a person first recognizes what they eat is a sign, and then understands what it is
that that sign is signifying, the sign will not “satisfy spiritually” or produce its intended effect.
27
Ibid. “vel quantum ad signum tantum, idest quod sumatur ut cibus tantum, non intellecto significato.”
28
Ibid. “Vel quod sumatur quantum ad utrumque, idest quod ita sumatur cibus visibilis ut intelligatur cibus spiritualis, et spiritualiter gustetur, ut
spiritualiter satiet.”
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Thomas is, therefore, clearer here than at any point previously examined about the value
of the role that signification plays in the sacraments. Thomas teaches that any effect the
sacraments have is entirely dependent upon the fact that the sacraments are essentially signs and
upon a recipient’s perception and acceptance of that sign. The sacraments of the New Law point
persons to Christ and by doing so communicate and deliver Christ himself. This is what grace is.
By this significatory process, God comes to indwell a person, work within that person, and bring
that person to eternal life. The sacraments’ capacity for sanctifying thus lies in the fact that they
are signs. If a sign is not perceived,29 one cannot receive that toward which the sign points. In the
case of the Eucharist, this means that one cannot receive that which is contained in the sign by
means of the sign’s pointing.
After reflecting thusly on the bread of the Jews and the bread of heaven, Thomas turns to
say more about the Eucharist. He considers, in particular, four things: the Eucharist’s 1) species,
2) institution, 3) truth, and 4) usefulness. The species of the Eucharist is bread and wine, but
Thomas is here concerned only with the bread. He writes: “this is the sacrament of the body of
Christ; but the body of Christ is the Church, which arises out of many believers forming a bodily
unity: ‘We are one body.’ And so, because bread is formed from many grains, it is a fitting
species for this sacrament. Hence [Christ] says, ‘And the bread which I will give is my flesh.’”30
Thomas here appeals to the thought of Augustine, who first spoke of the bread of the Eucharist
being formed out of many grains. Thomas also here continues his ecclesiological emphasis.
Finally, one sees Thomas here employ significatory concepts to reason through his
29
The question of whether a sign must be perceived individually for a sacrament to work is open for debate. It is possible that the perception of
the Church may suffice, just as in the case of infant Baptism, the faith of the Church suffices.
30
Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 960, p. 42. “Cuius ratio est, quia hoc est sacramentum corporis Christi; corpus
autem Christi est Ecclesia, quae consurgit in unitatem corporis ex multis fidelibus: unde istud est sacramentum unitatis Ecclesiae; Rom. XII, 5:
omnes unum corpus sumus. Quia ergo panis ex diversis granis conficitur, ideo est conveniens species sacramenti huius; ideo dicit et panis quem
ego dabo, caro mea est.”
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sacramentology. The reason bread is used in the Eucharist is because of the signification of many
grains being united into one.
Second, Thomas addresses the institution of the sacrament. He says that the author of the
Eucharist is Christ. Thomas also says that a priest’s work to consecrate the sacraments takes
place in persona Christi; and, he points out that only in the Eucharist does a priest use the exact
words of Christ as the form of the sacrament. In all of these remarks, Thomas maintains the
Christological emphasis of his sacramentology.
Third, Thomas addresses the truth of the sacrament. He insists that the true body of Christ
is present. Thomas writes, “The truth of this sacrament is indicated when he says, ‘is my flesh.’
He does not say, ‘This signifies my flesh,’ but it is my flesh, for in reality that which is taken is
truly the body of Christ.”31 One must be careful here not to regard this comment as a negative
remark about signification. Thomas is not speaking about the nature of the sacraments or the
value of signification itself. Rather, Thomas speaks of transubstantiation and what the Eucharist
contains. Though all the sacraments are essentially signs, the Eucharist is a sign that contains the
actual body of Christ in its substance through the bread and wine transubstantiated. This notion
fits exactly with Thomas’s previous concept that the New sacraments differ from the Old on the
basis of what they contain. Thomas ends by additionally pointing out that the Eucharist contains
the “whole Christ,” his body, soul, and divinity.
Fourth and finally, Thomas addresses the usefulness of the Eucharist. He says that the
Eucharist is great and universal, that it produces spiritual life within persons now, and that it will
produce eternal life within them later. He even states, “whatever is an effect of our Lord’s
passion is also an effect of this sacrament. For this sacrament is nothing other than the
31
Ibid., v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 962, p. 42. “Veritas autem huius sacramenti insinuatur cum dicit caro mea est. Non dicit autem carnem meam significat
sed caro mea est; quia secundum rei veritatem hoc quod sumitur, vere est corpus Christi.”
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application of our Lord’s passion to us.”32 The Christological orientation of Thomas’s
sacramentology is again striking in this text, as is Thomas’s full identification of the Eucharist
with the Passion.
In the remainder of Lecture Six, Thomas only mentions signification a few more times.
These instances, however, do little to flesh out Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental signification in
addition to what I have already highlighted. Thomas’s reflection on the Eucharist and the
sacraments picks up in his next lecture where this one left off. The two lectures flow seamlessly
together. Thus, I now move to this part of the text.
C) John Chapter Six, Lecture Seven
Thomas’s seventh lecture on John 6 covers verses 53 through 60.33 Thomas examines
these verses phrase by phrase. The first passage that has particular bearing upon Thomas’s
doctrine of sacramental signification comes when Thomas is discussing why and how it is
necessary to receive the Eucharist. Here, Thomas writes, “For just as material food is so
necessary for bodily life that without it you cannot exist... so spiritual food is necessary for the
spiritual life to such an extent that without it the spiritual life cannot be sustained: ‘Man does not
live by bread alone, but by every word which comes from the mouth of God’ (Deuteronomy
8:3).”34 In this text, one sees Thomas employ his analogy between the bodily and spiritual lives,
which provides a clear instance of consistency between this text and Thomas’s other mid-career
texts.
32
Ibid., v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 963, p. 43. “unde quidquid est effectus dominicae passionis, totum etiam est effectus huius sacramenti. Nihil enim aliud
est hoc sacramentum quam applicatio dominicae passionis ad nos.”
33
These verses include the incredibly rich Eucharistic verses where Christ states, “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his
blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.
For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. As the
living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me.” John 6:54-58 (DRA)
34
Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 968, p. 45. “Nam sicut cibus corporalis ita est necessarius ad vitam corporalem,
quod sine eo esse non possit...ita cibus spiritualis necessarius est ad vitam spiritualem, adeo quod sine ipso vita spiritualis sustentari non possit;
Deut. VIII, 3: non in solo pane vivit homo, sed in omni verbo quod egreditur de ore Dei.”
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Following this passage, Thomas addresses whether and how the Eucharist is necessary.
His answer is that, unlike the Eastern Church, which regards the Eucharist as strictly necessary,
the Catholic Church teaches that the Eucharist is necessary only for adults, “because receiving
the Eucharist should be done with reverence and devotion, and those who do not have the use of
reason, as infants and the insane, cannot have this.”35 Though Thomas does not explicitly
mention signification at this point, one would be entirely justified in seeing it at the root of this
reasoning. In order for a person to have reverence and devotion toward a sacrament, one must
understand its signification and, in the Eucharist, what is contained through this signification. In
the Eucharist, one must recognize the bread and wine as no ordinary food, as Thomas said in
Lecture Six, but additionally one must understand what the bread and wine are pointing toward,
namely the Passion of Christ and the reality that Christ is still truly present with the Church.
Thus, a person must have the use of reason to receive the Eucharist, because reason is required to
understand a sign and show reverence to what is signified.36
Thomas next examines the usefulness of the Eucharist. Thomas understands Christ to be
saying that the Eucharist has use for the soul, in giving it eternal life, and for the body, in
resurrecting it. In explaining the first, Thomas writes:
This spiritual food is similar to material food in the fact that without it there can be no
spiritual life, just as there cannot be bodily life without bodily food...but this food has more
than the other, because it produces in the one who receives it an unending life, which
material food does not do: for not all who eat material food continue to live. ... and for this
reason it is compared to the tree of life: ‘She is the tree of life for those who take her’
(Proverbs 3:18); and so it is called the bread of life: ‘He fed him with the bread of life and
understanding’ (Sirach 15:3). Accordingly, [Christ] says, eternal life, because one who eats
this bread has within himself Christ, who is ‘the true God and eternal life,’ as John says (1
John 5:20).37
35
Ibid., v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 969, p. 45. “cum in sumente Eucharistiam exigatur actualis reverentia et devotio, quam illi qui non habent usum liberi
arbitrii, sicut sunt pueri et amentes, habere non possunt”.
36
In speaking of the necessity of the Eucharist, Thomas appeals to Peter Lombard’s ideas of sacramental and spiritual eating. One should note
that this usage does not conflict with Thomas’s previous distinction between eating the Eucharist as food alone or by understanding the sign. One
sees Thomas employ both of these concepts as needed in order to meet the task at hand.
37
Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 972, p. 46. “Nam cibus iste spiritualis est similis quidem corporali in hoc quod
sine ipso vita spiritualis esse non potest, sicut nec sine corporali cibo vita corporalis, ut dictum est supra. Sed amplius habet ab eo, quia causat
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This passage illustrates three points about the doctrine of sacramental signification. First,
Thomas, for the second time in close succession, employs his bodily and spiritual analogy to
make a point about the Eucharist. This demonstrates that this analogy is still Thomas’s
overarching notion for conceiving the sacraments, an analogy which, incidentally, relies upon the
idea that the sacraments are visible signs pointing to invisible grace. Second, in this passage,
Thomas highlights two of the prefigurations of the Eucharist, the tree of life and the bread of life.
Both of these images show Thomas’s concern to highlight the signification of the Eucharist for
his readers. Third, one hears in this passage an echo of Thomas’s emphasis on deification.
Thomas here speaks both of Christ indwelling a person and of the true God being within a
person, both of which Thomas connects to a person receiving eternal life. At this point, this
deificatory echo might be faint, but Thomas will soon amplify it in the passages to come.
In the next paragraph, Thomas continues his reflection about the spiritual use of the
Eucharist. He brings up once again Peter Lombard’s distinction between sacramental and
spiritual eating. This time, however, Thomas weaves this distinction together with Peter’s notion
of the res tantum. Thomas says that in order for the Eucharist to produce eternal life within a
person, that person has to not only eat of the sacrament sacramentally, but also eat of it
spiritually. What this means, Thomas says, is that a person attains the res of the sacrament (the
rem sacramenti). Already at this point, even without yet explicitly mentioning it, Thomas’s
teaching is thoroughly based on the logic of sacramental signification and the role of the
sacraments as signs. As with above, where Thomas said that a person has to eat the Eucharist not
as food only, but also has to understand its signification, here Thomas teaches that a person has
indeficientem vitam in sumente, quam cibus corporalis non efficit: non enim qui eum sumpserit, vivet. ...et ideo comparatur ligno vitae; Prov. III,
8: lignum vitae est his qui apprehenderint eam; unde dicitur panis vitae; Eccli. XV, 3: cibavit illum pane vitae et intellectus. Et ideo dicit vitam
aeternam: et hoc, quia qui manducat hunc panem, habet in se Christum, qui est verus Deus, et vita aeterna: ut dicitur I Io. ult., 20.”
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to do more than just receive the sacrament qua sacrament. One has to eat not just sacramentally,
but spiritually, which means none other than recognizing that a sacrament points beyond itself
and leads recipients to a reality greater than what is materially evident.
Thomas confirms this reading and this significatory understanding of the sacraments in
the following sentences. He writes that the res of the sacrament is twofold, “one is contained and
signified, and this is the whole Christ, who is contained under the species of bread and wine. The
other reality is signified but not contained, and this is the mystical body of Christ, which is in the
predestined, the called, and the justified.”38 Thomas then, in a strikingly beautiful passage, which
is worth quoting in full, expounds upon the res that is signified and contained. He says:
Thus, in reference to Christ as contained and signified, one eats his flesh and drinks his blood
in a spiritual way if he is united to him through faith and love, so that one is transformed into
him and becomes his member: for this food is not changed into the one who eats it, but it
turns the one who takes it into itself, as we see in Augustine, when he says: ‘I am the food of
the robust. Grow and you will eat me. Yet you will not change me into yourself, but you will
be transformed into me.’ And so this is a food capable of making man divine and inebriating
him with divinity. The same is true in reference to the mystical body of Christ, which is only
signified [and not contained], if one shares in the unity of the Church. Therefore, one who
eats in these ways has eternal life. That this is true of the first way, in reference to Christ, is
clear enough. In the same way, in reference to the mystical body of Christ, one will
necessarily have eternal life if he perseveres: for the unity of the Church is brought about by
the Holy Spirit.39
In this singular section, therefore, Thomas unites many, if not most, of the emphases of
his sacramental theology that he has been building up throughout his mid-career texts. I have six
points about this passage. First, one sees above all that the concept of signification is at the heart
of the sacramentology expressed here. The sacraments are essentially signs and they function by
38
Ibid., v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 972, p. 47. “una contenta et signata, quae est Christus integer, qui continetur sub speciebus panis et vini; alia res est
signata et non contenta, et hoc est corpus Christi mysticum, quod est in praedestinatis, vocatis et iustificatis”.
39
Ibid. “Sic ergo spiritualiter manducat carnem et bibit sanguinem per comparationem ad Christum contentum et signatum, qui coniungitur ei
per fidem et caritatem, ita quod transformatur in ipsum, et efficitur eius membrum: non enim cibus iste convertitur in eum qui sumit, sed
manducantem convertit in se, secundum Augustinum, cum dicit: cibus sum grandium: cresce, et manducabis me; nec tu me mutabis in te, sed tu
mutaberis in me. Et ideo est cibus hominem divinum facere valens, et divinitate inebrians. Item per comparationem ad corpus mysticum signatum
tantum, si fiat particeps unitatis ecclesiasticae. Qui ergo sic manducat, habet vitam aeternam. Et de primo per comparationem ad Christum iam
satis patet. Similiter per comparationem ad corpus mysticum de necessitate habebit vitam aeternam, si perseveret. Nam unitas Ecclesiae fit per
spiritum sanctum”.
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pointing to a reality that they contain, which itself is a sign that points to a greater reality that is
not contained. One will note here as well, that Thomas now does not use Lombard’s notion of
the res et sacramentum and the res tantum in the same way as he did in the Scriptum. In this
earlier text, Thomas spoke of the res et sacramentum as an ornament or character of the soul and
the res tantum as grace. Now, however, Thomas uses the notions to refer to a significatory, rather
than a causal, process. The bread and wine of the Eucharist are a sign that points toward Christ’s
body and blood, which is, in turn, a sign that points toward Christ’s mystical body. In this, one
sees how deeply the concept of signification pervades Thomas’s sacramentology. It does so to
the point that Thomas completely revises his earlier understanding of Peter Lombard.
By envisioning the sacraments in terms of signification, one sees, secondly, Thomas also
connect to the distinction that he constructed earlier between the sacraments of the Old and New
Laws. Thomas again does not distinguish the Old from the New not on the basis of the latter
being causes, while the former are mere signs. Rather, now, Thomas makes this distinction on
the basis of what is contained by the latter. Both the Old and the New sacraments are signs, but
the New contain within them, in the mode of signs, what they signify.
Third, one sees the profoundly Christological orientation of the sacraments. Christ is the
one contained and signified by the Eucharist, and, tying back to what Thomas has said
previously in his John Commentary, both the Eucharist and the other sacraments function only
because of the power of Christ. More precisely, all of the sacraments function only based on and
only by pointing to Christ’s Passion and the merit earned therein. In these sentences, Thomas
makes Christ’s place in the sacraments second to none.
Fourth, Thomas also makes clear in this passage the Ecclesiological emphasis of his
sacramentology. The ultimate signification of the Eucharist is to Christ, but within this, to
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Christ’s body, and specifically his mystical body. Thomas thus twice mentions the unity of the
Church in this passage where he is speaking about the usefulness of the Eucharist. Thomas
makes it clear that the unity of the Church is both a prerequisite and an end of the Eucharist. In
order to participate in the Eucharist, and indeed for the Eucharist to realize its usefulness of
giving a person eternal life, a person first has to be a member of Christ’s mystical body. Thus,
Thomas says, “The same is true...if one shares in the unity of the Church.”40 At the same time,
though, the unity of the Church is also the result of the Eucharist, and of course of the other
sacraments insofar as they are ordered to the Eucharist. Thus, Thomas writes, “the unity of the
Church is brought about by the Holy Spirit.”41
This last remark raises a fifth point worth observing in this passage. In his
sacramentology, Thomas does not neglect the role played by the Holy Spirit. This fact is clear
from Thomas’s plentiful talk about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. One also sees this point
illustrated when Thomas speaks of the Spirit’s relationship to grace. In this passage, Thomas
recalls these roles of the Spirit and adds another, which incorporates his Ecclesiological
emphasis. The Spirit not only indwells an individual and through this indwelling gives grace, the
Spirit also works through the sacraments in the Church as a whole, to bring about the Church’s
unity. The Eucharist thus signifies both the Spirit’s work and the unity of the Church.
Sixth and finally, this passage is one of the clearest expressions of deification in
Thomas’s entire corpus,42 and he here relates it to signification and identifies it as the chief end
of the sacraments. Thus, Thomas says that whoever eats Christ’s flesh and drinks Christ’s blood
in a spiritual way “is united to him through faith and love.”43 More than just being united to
Christ, however, this union is such “that one is transformed into him and becomes his
40
Ibid. “Item per comparationem ad corpus mysticum signatum tantum, si fiat particeps unitatis ecclesiasticae.”
41
Ibid. “Nam unitas Ecclesiae fit per spiritum sanctum”.
42
Cf. Townsend, "Deification in Aquinas: A Supplementum to The Ground of Union ".
43
Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 972, p. 47. “qui coniungitur ei per fidem et caritatem.”
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member.”44 Thomas ultimately concludes, “And so this is a food capable of making man divine
and inebriating him with divinity.”45 This then, for Thomas, is what it means to have eternal life;
it means to become transformed into Christ and to become divine.
This deification is that toward which the Eucharist and the other sacraments are ordered.
The sacraments point persons to Christ, who comes with the Holy Spirit to indwell a person,
which works to transform a person into Christ. The Eucharist is the highest sign and instance of
this divine work. Herein, a person is given a sign of Christ’s Passion, which they then proceed to
take inside of themselves and transform into their own being. This act is then itself a sign of the
person’s being transformed into Christ and thus of being incorporated into the body of Christ. By
means of enacting this sign and being caught up into its signification, by the power of God
working through the Holy Spirit in the Church, what is signified becomes a reality and is what
actually happens. By receiving the Eucharist, God works to deify a human being and bring him
or her to eternal life. In this way, the doctrine of sacramental signification allows Thomas to
weave together his sacramentology seamlessly with his Ecclesiology, his Christology, his
Pneumatology, his Eschatology, and his doctrine of deification. Signification could thus scarcely
be a more central or more valuable concept in this work or in Thomas’s theology as a whole.
Thomas continues weaving together these themes in the following paragraph, where he
turns to consider the use of the Eucharist for one’s physical body. In doing this, Thomas
amplifies even further the role that the Holy Spirit plays. He writes:
And therefore [Christ] adds, and I will raise him up on the last day. For as was said, one who
eats and drinks in a spiritual way shares in the Holy Spirit, through whom we are united to
Christ by a union of faith and love, and through him we become members of the Church. But
the Holy Spirit also merits the resurrection: ‘He who raised Jesus Christ our Lord form the
dead, will raise our mortal bodies because of his Spirit, who dwells in us’ (Romans 8:11).46
44
Ibid. “transformatur in ipsum, et efficitur eius membrum”.
45
Ibid. “Et ideo est cibus hominem divinum facere valens, et divinitate inebrians.”
46
Ibid., v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 973, p. 47. “Et ideo subdit et ego resuscitabo eum in novissimo die. Sicut enim dictum est, ille qui spiritualiter manducat
et bibit, fit particeps spiritus sancti, per quem unimur Christo unione fidei et caritatis, et per quem efficimur membra Ecclesiae. Resurrectionem
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Thus, again, one sees the same emphases woven together. Signification is emphasized, for one
must eat in a spiritual way, which means understanding the sacramental signs. Christ is
emphasized, for persons are united to him. Deification is emphasized, for persons are united to
Christ and transformed into him, such that they become his members. The Church is emphasized,
for through the Eucharist and through Christ persons become members of the Church.
Eschatology is emphasized, for Thomas speaks of persons being raised up on the last day; and
finally, the Holy Spirit is emphasized, for eating and drinking the Eucharist grants persons a
share in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit furthermore is responsible for uniting persons to Christ,
for the unity of the Church, and even, here, for the resurrection of human’s mortal bodies. Thus
again, one sees both that Thomas’s sacramentology, as presented in his Commentary on John,
contains these key emphases and that Thomas unites them by means of the concept of
signification.
The same themes are present once again a few paragraphs later when Thomas comments
upon verse 57.47 Thomas says that one can understand this verse in a mystical way. He writes:
For, as was said, that person eats in a spiritual way, in reference to what is signified only,
who is incorporated into the mystical body through a union of faith and love. Through love,
God is in man, and man is in God: ‘He who abides in love, abides in God, and God in him’ (1
John 4:16). And this is what the Holy Spirit does; so it is also said, ‘We know that we abide
in God and God in us, because he has given us his Spirit’ (1 John 4:13).48
Once again, Thomas concisely unites the themes of mutual indwelling, union with Christ, the
unity of the Church, the Holy Spirit, an uncreated understanding of grace, deification, and
signification.
autem facit mereri spiritus sanctus; Rom. IV, 24: qui suscitavit Iesum Christum dominum nostrum a mortuis, resuscitabit et mortalia corpora
nostra propter inhabitantem spiritum eius in nobis.”
47
This verse states, “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him.” John 6:57 (DRA)
48
Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 976, p. 49. “Nam, sicut dictum est, ille manducat spiritualiter per
comparationem ad rem signatam tantum, qui corpori mystico incorporatur per unionem fidei et caritatis: caritas autem facit Deum esse in
homine, et e converso; I Io. IV, 16: qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, et Deus in eo. Et hoc est quod facit spiritus sanctus; unde ibid. 13: in hoc
cognoscimus quoniam in Deo manemus, et Deus in nobis, quia de spiritu suo dedit nobis.”
268
Thomas adds something new to these understandings, however, in the following section,
where he considers whether these verses can be applied to sacramental reception. Thomas says
that they cannot, that is, that one who receives the Eucharist only sacramentally and not
spiritually is not united to Christ. This can happen, Thomas teaches, when one approaches the
Eucharist with an insincere heart, “for this sacrament has no effect in one who is insincere.”49
Thomas next specifies what it means to have an insincere heart. He writes:
There is insincerity when the interior state does not agree with what is outwardly signified. In the
sacrament of the Eucharist, what is outwardly signified is that Christ is united to the one who
receives it, and such a one to Christ. Thus, one who does not desire this union in his heart, or
does not try to remove every obstacle to it, is insincere. Consequently, Christ does not abide in
him nor he in Christ.50
Here, Thomas specifies another way in which the effect or usefulness of the sacraments is
dependent entirely upon their signification. Not only does one have to perceive the sacramental
sign by using one’s reason, as established above, but one also has to consent to the sign, or desire
what is being signified.51 Anything less than a person willing to be caught up in this significatory
process impedes where this process leads and thus the effect of whatever sacrament is being
received. Thus, a person either not fully perceiving the signification of a sacrament, not
participating in this signification, or not fully desiring to receive what God is trying to do
through that signification, actively refuses what God would and desires to do through the
sacrament. That Thomas understands these aspects to apply to all the sacraments and not just the
Eucharist is evident from the fact that he first states this requirement generally, and then specifies
in particular the outward signification of the Eucharist. Thus, again, one sees the dominance of
signification in Thomas’s sacramentology.
49
Ibid. “nullum enim effectum habet sacramentum in ficto”.
50
Ibid. “Fictus enim est, cum non respondet interius quod signatur exterius. In sacramento autem Eucharistiae exterius quidem signatur quod
Christus incorporetur in eo qui percipit illud, et ipse in Christo. Qui ergo non habet in corde desiderium huius unionis, nec conatur ad
removendum omne impedimentum ad hoc, est fictus. Et ideo Christus in eo non manet, nec ipse in Christo.”
51
The sacrament of Baptism is something of a special case with respect to these requirements, for infants can neither perceive the sacramental
sign nor desire what is being signified. Nonetheless, these requirements must still be met for baptism to be effective. The only difference is that
here, the faith of the Church suffices to meet these criteria, rather than the individual meeting them.
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Following this point, Thomas examines verses 58 through 60. His discussion of these
verses adds little more to an understanding of the doctrine of sacramental signification than do
the passages already been examined. Much the same can be said for the rest of Thomas’s John
Commentary. Most of the places where he later brings up the sacraments illustrate the same
points that I have already been made. Two exceptions, however, exist, and to these, I now turn.
D) Thomas’s Comments on John 11:44 and 15:4-9
Both of the final two places in the John Commentary that I wish to mention occur without
mention of a sacrament by the Gospel text. Rather, Thomas brings up the sacraments
unprompted and in passing. The first occurs in a discussion of the raising of Lazarus. He first
writes, “Some who consider this mystery say that just as Christ by himself vivified Lazarus, and
once he was vivified he was ordered to be loosed by the disciples, so God vivifies a soul from
within by grace by remitting its guilt and absolving it from the debt of eternal punishment; but
priests, by the power of the keys, absolve in regard to the temporal punishment.”52 Thomas,
however, finds this understanding inadequate because it attributes too little power to the keys of
the Church. He reasons as follows:
It is proper to the sacraments of the New Law that in them grace is conferred. But the
sacraments exist in the administration of the ministers. Thus, in the sacrament of penance,
contrition and confession behave materially on the part of the one receiving the sacrament;
but the causative power of the sacrament lies in the absolution of the priest, by the power of
the keys, through which he somehow applies the effect of our Lord’s passion to the one he
absolves so that he obtains remission. Therefore, if the priest only absolved the punishment,
the sacrament of penance would not confer a grace by which guilt is remitted; and
consequently it would not be a sacrament of the New Law.53
52
Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John v. 2, c. 11, l. 6, n. 1561, p. 249. “Dicunt autem quidam hoc mysterium prosequentes, quod sicut
Christus Lazarum per seipsum vivificavit, vivificatum a discipulis absolvendum mandavit; ita Deus interius vivificat animam per gratiam,
remittendo culpam, et absolvendo a reatu poenae aeternae, sed sacerdotes virtute clavium absolvunt a parte poenae temporalis.”
53
Ibid., v. 2, c. 11, l. 6, n. 1561, p. 250. “Hoc est enim proprium sacramentorum novae legis quod in eis gratia conferatur. Sacramenta autem in
dispensatione ministrorum consistunt, unde in sacramento poenitentiae contritio et confessio se tenent materialiter, ex parte suscipientis
sacramentum; vis autem causativa sacramenti est in absolutione sacerdotis, ex virtute clavium, per quas effectum dominicae passionis
quodammodo applicat ad eum quem absolvit, ut remissionem consequatur. Si ergo sacerdos non absolveret nisi solum a poena, sacramentum
poenitentiae non esset gratiae collativum, per quam culpa remittitur; et per consequens non esset sacramentum novae legis.”
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This passage could seem as though Thomas espouses notions similar to the
sacramentology of his earliest texts. In particular, he uses the word causative, and he seems to
distinguish between the sacraments of the Old and New Laws based on the latter’s capacity to
confer grace. I suggest, however, that both of these aspects are consistent with the
sacramentology of Thomas’s mid-career texts, and in no way represent a return to his former
understandings. First, Thomas refers only to the “causative power” of the sacraments and does
not say that the sacraments are themselves essentially causes. The fact that a person has the
power to pick up a glass of water does not mean that a human being essentially is that which has
the power to pick up a glass of water. Thus, even though Thomas uses the language of causality,
which has proven rare after his De articulis, he in no way says that the sacraments have a dual
nature or that the sacraments are causes. Second, in spite of speaking of the sacraments having a
“causative power,” Thomas is still careful not to say that the sacraments cause grace. As has
become usual, Thomas says that the sacraments confer or give grace. Third, the fact that Thomas
uses this quality as a means of distinguishing between the sacraments of the Old and New Law
poses no problems either. For, this is similar to saying that the New sacraments contain what
they signify. It in no way disparages the sacraments of the Old Law.
Thomas brings up the sacraments again in his comments upon John 15:4 and 15:9. In
both of these verses, Thomas considers what it means to abide in Christ. When the phrase, “abide
in me” first appears, Thomas names two ways in which persons may abide in Christ, by charity,
and by the sacraments. Thomas connects the latter back to John 6:56, which states, “He who eats
my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me.”54 In the sections that follow, Thomas reflects on
what this abiding means. In so doing, he again discusses deification. Thomas writes:
54
Ibid., v. 3, c. 15, l. 1, n. 1988, p. 100.
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But the Son did not love the disciples in either of these ways. For he did not love them to the
point of their being gods by nature, nor to the point that they would be united to God so as to
form one person with him. But he did love them up to a similar point: he loved them to the
extent that they would be gods by their participation in grace ‑ ‘I say, ‘You are gods’’ (Psalm
82:6); ‘He has granted to us precious and very great promises, that through these you may
become partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1:4) ‑ and he loved them to the extent that
they would be united to God in affection: ‘He who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit
with him’ (1 Corinthians 6:17); ‘For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be
conformed to the image of his Son’ (Romans 8:29). Thus the Father communicated to the
Son a greater good, with respect to each nature of the Son, than the Son did to his disciples;
yet there is a similarity, as was said.55
This is another one of the most deificatory passages in Thomas’s corpus. It serves to
illustrate beyond any doubt both that Thomas’s commentary on the Gospel of John contains an
explicit doctrine of deification and that Thomas connects deification to his doctrine of the
sacraments. Persons can abide in Christ by continuing to love him, by keeping his
commandments, as the text specifies shortly after this verse, and by receiving the sacraments, as
Thomas specifies in his remarks on verse 4. Therefore, the sacraments play a primary role in
God’s plan to deify human beings. One can even view deification as the ultimate goal of the
sacraments. Proximately, the sacraments confer grace, which is an indwelling of the Holy Spirit,
whereby God comes ever more fully to indwell the human person, which in turn ever more fully
unites persons with God and ever more fully conforms persons to the image of Christ. The end of
this process is none other than for human beings to become gods, not by nature, but by grace.
55
Ibid., v. 3, c. 15, l. 2, n. 1999, p. 107. “Et ad nihil horum filius dilexit discipulos, nam neque ad hoc dilexit eos ut essent Deus per naturam,
neque essent uniti Deo in persona; sed ad quamdam horum similitudinem eos dilexit, ut scilicet essent dii per participationem gratiae; Ps.
LXXXI, 6: ego dixi: dii estis; II Petr. I, 4: per quem magna nobis et pretiosa promissa donavit, ut divinae per hoc efficiamur consortes naturae.
Item ut assumerentur in unitatem affectus: quia qui adhaeret Deo, unus spiritus est; I Cor. VI, 17. Rom. VIII, 29: quos praescivit, conformes fieri
imaginis filii sui, ut sit ipse primogenitus in multis fratribus. Sic ergo maius bonum Deus pater posuit filio secundum utramque naturam, quam
filius discipulis, sed tamen simile, ut dictum est.”
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II. Synthesis and Analysis of Sacramental Signification in Super Evangelium S. Ioannis
As in the previous chapters, I now turn from an explication of Thomas’s John
Commentary to synthesize and analyze what has been observed. I begin with by inquiring into
the essence of the sacraments. In this regard, one can conclude that Thomas’s teaching is
consistent with his other texts following and including the Corpus Christi Liturgy. In his
maturity, Thomas undoubtedly understands a sacrament to have the singular nature of being a
sign. Unlike Thomas’s Corpus Christi Liturgy and his ScG, the John Commentary does not
contain a complete absence of causal language. Thomas only once refers to the sacraments as
having a causative power.56 As was shown, however, this passing reference in no way implies
that the sacraments are causes or that they have a dual nature. Thomas never refers to the
sacraments as “signs and causes.” Thus, the John Commentary, Thomas understands the
sacraments to have the singular essence of being signs.
The passages I selected above had little to say about the sacraments constitutive elements
or how they come to exist. These dimensions of Thomas’s doctrine are necessary to understand
in order to grasp the entirety of Thomas’s sacramentology, but they do not seem to have
undergone much development throughout the course of Thomas’s career. In the John
Commentary, the sacraments still consist of formal words united to visible material elements.
Neither the forms of the words nor the material elements used in the sacraments have undergone
any alteration in Thomas’s teaching. One should not, in fact, expect these to vary, since they
were well established by Thomas’s time.
56
Ibid., v. 2, c. 11, l. 6, n. 1561, p. 250.
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As for how sacraments come about, Thomas again consistently imagines the primary
efficient cause to be God and the secondary efficient cause of the sacraments to be the
consecration of the proper elements with the proper words by a priest. One other dimension of
the efficient causality of the sacraments, though, is present in the John Commentary. This
dimension was by no means absent from previous texts, but it is perhaps even more pronounced
here than in other places, namely the efficient role played by Christ, which is evident in
Thomas’s Christological emphasis. In his previous texts, Thomas has assigned Christ a causal
role both in instituting the sacraments and in imbuing them with power through his Passion.
Where Thomas takes a step beyond this is best seen where he specifies, “the sacraments have
their power from the merit of Christ’s passion”57 Thus, God is still the efficient cause in the
sacraments, Thomas has just gotten more precise about how this is the case. God in Christ
institutes the sacraments and then merits their power by the Passion.
C) What is the purpose and function of sacraments?
Thomas’s understanding of the end and their purpose of the sacraments has undergone a
much more noticeable development. Above all, by the time Thomas writes his commentary on
the Gospel of John, he envisions the ultimate end of the sacraments to be deification. This
concept, as I have shown, is undoubtedly present in both the Corpus Christi Liturgy and in the
ScG; but, it becomes far more pronounced in the John Commentary.
As signs, the sacraments lead persons from the material realities that one can see and
know, into spiritual realities that one cannot see and do not yet know. By communicating with
humans in terms natural and immediately present to them, God leads persons to ever more fully
know, participate in, and be transformed into Christ. All the sacraments point to the Eucharist,
57
Ibid., v. 1, c. 1, l. 14, n. 276, p. 112. “nam ex merito passionis Christi sacramenta virtutem habent”
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which points to Christ’s Passion. The Passion is the font of sanctifying grace, which is the
indwelling of God within a person, because the Passion is the full gift of God’s self to humanity.
God dwelling in persons knits them into the body of Christ, which is to sanctify them, which is to
conform them to Christ, which is to deify them. In this way, the sacraments work to make a
person divine and inebriate him or her with divinity.58
In the John Commentary, Thomas in no way imagines that the sacraments are causes. He
does, however, still mention that the sacraments have a causative power. From this, at most one
can conclude that Thomas has not completely rejected the concept of causality for speaking
about the sacraments, even as he refuses to say that the sacraments are essentially causes.
Thomas gives no indication that his understanding of what constitutes a sign has changed.
He provides no definition of signification. He does, however, advance an anthropology that
coheres with the anthropology of the ScG, and which suggests that sign-making is at the root of
how humans experience and interact with their world. He writes, “all our knowledge begins in
sense knowledge.”59 From this sensible knowledge, humans then progress by means of an
analogical significatory process into knowledge of intellectual, immaterial, and/or spiritual
things. Signs lead persons from the sensible to the intelligible, from the visible to the invisible,
from the material to the immaterial, and from the known to the unknown. This is as close as
Thomas comes to defining signs, and it is consistent with his prior understandings.
58
Ibid., v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 972, p. 47.
59
Ibid., v. 1, c. 3, l. 1, n. 443, p. 168. “cum omnis nostra cognitio a sensu incipiat”.
275
As for the way in which the sacraments are signs, this appears to have remained
consistent as well. The sacraments are signs because they lead a person from material realities
into spiritual ones. They present a meaning to persons beyond that which they impress upon a
person’s senses. The sacraments are thus signs because God uses them to communicate to human
beings and to lead them along the journey of sanctification, which is a journey of deification.
The role that signification has to play in the sacraments is much the same as it was in the
ScG. Due to the fact that the sacraments are solely signs, signification in the sacraments is
equivalent to the function of the sacraments. For example, signification leads a person from the
material and sensory experience of water in Baptism to perceive that God, because of the merit
of Christ, desires and actually is, through the very signification being perceived, cleansing a
person from their sins and refreshing them along their journey. Similarly in the Eucharist,
signification leads a person from sensing bread and wine into thinking about Christ’s Passion,
about Christ’s broken body, about receiving that body within themselves and thus into a
knowledge that God wants to unite persons with Christ and transform them into Christ, by which
significatory process God actually works to make it so. Thus, the role of signification in the
sacraments is the same as the function of the sacraments. God uses signification to connect
humans throughout history to the salvation that Christ earned in history.
Given the answers to the above questions, specifically the fact that Thomas, at this point
in his career, thinks that the sole essence of the sacraments is that they are signs, Thomas’s
276
attitude toward signification is entirely positive. One sees this above all in the way he privileges
the concept of signification by speaking of it frequently, by using it to answer theological
questions, and by using it to connect his sacramentology to the other areas of his thought, thereby
further deeply his theological system. Given that Thomas does all of these, he obviously must
think that signification is of the utmost theological value.
The relationship of signification to causality in Thomas’s John Commentary, much as it
was in the ScG, is difficult to specify for the simple reason that Thomas has very little to say
about causality in these texts. He only mentions the causality of the sacraments in passing, and
he never comes close to explicating how he relates the causal dimension of the sacraments to
their nature as signs. As mentioned above, the fact that Thomas speaks of causality at all shows
at most that he has not completely rejected the notion and imagines the sacraments as having
some kind of accidental characteristic of efficiency or “causative power.”
Along with this, though, one must also say that Thomas vastly prefers to speak of this
characteristic or power in terms of efficacy, giving, or conferring, than he does in terms of
causality. Moreover, one must say that Thomas has greatly limited even this effective dimension
of the sacraments and subjected it fully to the significatory nature and role of the sacraments. In
this texts, Thomas does not say the sacraments cause anything, and whatever it is that the
sacraments do, or work, or bring about, or give, or contain, or whatever it is that God does
through the sacraments, is only done through signification and insofar as the sacraments are
signs. The sacraments effect only what they signify (efficiunt quod figurant) and only by
signifying (significando efficiunt).
277
Hence, one should conclude that the relationship between signification and causality in
Thomas’s John Commentary is the same as it is in the ScG and the Corpus Christi Liturgy and
not at all the same as it was in Thomas’s earliest texts. Especially in the Scriptum and the De
veritate, but also in the De articulis, Thomas related signification to causality by admitting both
but by subjecting signification to causality in its role, its value, and its theological usefulness. In
these early texts, at some basic level the sacraments were signs, but what mattered most about
the sacraments, what was the most important to teach, and what was the sacraments most central
concept was that they were causes. As previous chapters have shown, in the middle of Thomas’s
career, around the time when he went to Orvieto, around the time when he began teaching the
common Dominican brothers, and around the time when he was engaged in the work of
reflecting on the Eucharist and composing liturgy, Thomas’s sacramentology underwent a
significatory turn. Following this point, signification became the most central and most valuable
concept of Thomas’s sacramental theology. Concurrently, Thomas’s use of causal notions
declined sharply, and in many cases disappeared entirely.
Above all, therefore, what the John Commentary demonstrates is that Thomas maintains
his significatory turn across a wide variety of works and for a period of at least a decade.
Thomas’s exaltation of signification and his thoroughgoing reticence to speak of sacramental
causality is not a fluke in one or two texts. One cannot explain it as being a function of any one
genre, audience, or context. The exaltation of signification and the subjection of causality in
Thomas’s sacramentology persists across time and across a wide variety of texts and contexts.
278
In the John Commentary, Thomas does not teach directly about the role that faith and the
Church play in the sacraments. Nonetheless, one may infer both of these roles from his teaching
on other matters. Thomas comes the closest to discussing the role that faith has to play when he
speaks of things that can impede the work of the sacraments. With the sacrament of the
Eucharist, for example, Thomas says that a person must possess a certain level of reverence and
devotion toward the sacrament in order for it to function. This devotion requires that a person be
free from worldly distraction, that a person have the use of reason,60 that a person recognize a
sacrament for what it is and what it signifies,61 and that a person desire that which is signified by
the sacrament.62 These four things are necessary both in order not to impede the working of the
sacraments and to receive the sacraments spiritually instead of just sacramentally.
These four things furthermore share two common features. First, they all pertain to faith.
In order to have reverence and devotion, in order to focus, in order to recognize a sacrament for
what it is, and in order to desire what the sacrament offers, a person must have faith that a
sacrament is no ordinary material object. Second, these four things all pertain to signification.
Being free from distraction means paying attention to the significance of the sacramental event.
Recognizing a sacrament and desiring what God does through it requires equally the use of
reason, an act of faith, and the perception of a sacramental sign. Thus, faith has a key role to play
in the sacraments and that role is intertwined with the sacraments’ role as signs.
The role that the Church has to play in the sacraments is best seen in Thomas’s consistent
ecclesiological emphasis, which I have highlighted throughout the texts examined. The Church is
responsible for administering the sacraments. More than this, however, Thomas presents the
60
Ibid., v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 969, p. 45.
61
Ibid., v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 954, p. 40.
62
Ibid., v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 976, p. 49.
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Church as the body of Christ into which the sacraments incorporate people in order to unite them
to Christ and the merits of Christ’s Passion, thereby infusing them with grace, transforming them
into Christ, and working to deify them. The Church’s role in this process is seen as well in
Thomas’s repeated mention of the unity of the Church and the unity of Christ’s mystical body,
which is signified and brought about most fully by the Eucharist. As with faith, one furthermore
sees here that the Church’s role in the sacraments is intertwined with signification.
As seen throughout this chapter, Thomas’ John Commentary had much to say about
grace, and this almost always pertained to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. As in the ScG,
Thomas’s idea of grace is an uncreated notion. Grace at root is not some created ornament or gift
of the soul that God gives people in order to make them worthy of eternal life. Rather, grace is
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Grace is God’s own giving of God’s own very self to a person,
through which a person then receives further created gifts of grace, which flow forth from their
uncreated source. Thus, Thomas imagines that the sacraments give the Holy Spirit. He also
writes, “the grace of the Holy Spirit is correctly called living water, because the grace of the
Holy Spirit is given to man in such a way that the source itself of the grace is also given, that is,
the Holy Spirit. Indeed, grace is given by the Holy Spirit...For the Holy Spirit is the unfailing
fountain from whom all gifts of grace flow.”63 Shortly after this Thomas again states, “Through
love, God is in man, and man is in God: ‘He who abides in love, abides in God, and God in him’
(1 John 4:16). And this is what the Holy Spirit does; so it is also said, ‘We know that we abide in
63
Ibid., v. 1, c. 4, l. 2, n. 577, p. 215. “ ergo gratia spiritus sancti recte dicitur aqua viva, quia ita ipsa gratia spiritus sancti datur homini quod
tamen ipse fons gratiae datur, scilicet spiritus sanctus. Immo per ipsum datur gratia; Rom. V, 5: caritas Dei diffusa est in cordibus nostris per
spiritum sanctum, qui datus est nobis. Nam ipse spiritus sanctus est fons indeficiens, a quo omnia dona gratiarum effluunt.”
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God and God in us, because he has given us his Spirit’ (1 John 4:13).”64 Thus, one can readily
see that Thomas understands the grace given in the sacraments to be uncreated and to be none
other than the indwelling of God within a person by the Holy Spirit.
Thomas’s shift to a doctrine of uncreated grace, as has been seen, occurs concurrently
with the significatory shift of his sacramentology. It may very well not be possible to determine
which of these shifts came first, or whether they are causally related. Trying to make such a
determination seems likely to result in a chicken and egg conundrum. It is entirely reasonable,
however, to conclude that these two shifts are correlated, and this is not without value.
For instance, Thomas’s uncreated doctrine of grace may help to explain why Thomas
drastically limits causal language about the sacraments. It is reasonable to speak of causality if,
for instance, by saying that the sacraments cause grace one means that the sacraments cause
some created quality in a person’s the soul. A quality can be caused. If, however, on the other
hand, one understands that the sacraments instead are the means whereby God comes to indwell
a human person and that the sacraments, therefore, increase a person’s participation in God, then
causal language seems much less appropriate. Nothing created, strictly speaking, can cause
something uncreated, nor can anything cause God to do something. Through the sacraments,
though, God can bring about the effect that a creature has a greater share of participation in
God’s self. Thus, avoiding causal language avoids the implication that the sacraments have a
power that they do not have, namely the power to influence or in any way limit God.
64
Ibid., v. 2, c. 6, l. 6, n. 976, p. 49. “caritas autem facit Deum esse in homine, et e converso; I Io. IV, 16: qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, et
Deus in eo. Et hoc est quod facit spiritus sanctus; unde ibid. 13: in hoc cognoscimus quoniam in Deo manemus, et Deus in nobis, quia de spiritu
suo dedit nobis.”
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As has been the case for some previous questions, Thomas’s major influences appear
consistent with his other mid-career texts and inconsistent with his earliest texts. Among the
passages examined, one will note the presence of three authority figures, Augustine, Peter
Lombard, and Pseudo-Dionysius. Augustine is ever present in Thomas’s writings and is by far
the person that Thomas cites the most. In addition to a consistent frequency, though, the way
Thomas uses Augustine appears to be relatively consistent to this point. Thomas does not seem
to interpret Augustine differently than he did at the outset of his career. Thomas also, for the
most part, uses the same passages from Augustine. For instance, Thomas often uses Augustine’s
idea that a sacrament is a sign of a sacred thing, his notion that the Eucharist is the sacrament of
unity and charity, his image that the Eucharist signifies unity because it is made up of many
grapes and many grains, and his claim that a person who eats the Eucharist does not transform
Christ into his or herself, but rather is transformed into Christ. A sole exception to this general
consistency may lie in this last point. Though Thomas often refers to these words of Augustine,
in his Commentary on John, Thomas appears to see in these words more of a deificatory thrust
than he did previously. Thus, he immediately adds that the Eucharist is a sacrament capable of
making humans divine. Otherwise, though, and in general, Thomas is consistent across his
sacramental texts in his reliance upon and interpretation of Augustine.
Another consistently present authority for Thomas’s sacramentology is Peter Lombard.
As seen in the previous chapters, Peter’s influence seems to be somewhat more variable than is
Augustine’s. Surely due in part to the fact that Thomas’s commentary in this chapter is on
Scripture rather than the Sentences, Peter’s role is not as large as it once was. Nonetheless,
Thomas still often employs the Lombard’s notions, including the distinction between
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sacramental and spiritual eating and the concepts of the sacramentum tantum, the res et
sacramentum, and the res tantum. Again unlike Augustine, though, Thomas’s understanding of
these concepts is not always the same. Perhaps the biggest difference in the John commentary is
Thomas’s notion that the sacramentum tantum, the res et sacramentum, and the res tantum are
part of a significatory process rather than, as he taught in the Scriptum, a causative one.
Lastly, Pseudo-Dionysius is also clearly an influence for Thomas at this point. This was
also the case in the ScG, but was decidedly not the case in Thomas’s earliest writings. Along
with the shift toward signification and the shift toward a doctrine of uncreated grace, one also
observes Thomas making a shift away from the thought of Hugh of St. Victor and toward the
thought of Pseudo-Dionysius. This shift is most evident in Thomas’s move away from a
medicinal metaphor to describe the sacrament into analogical notions about the bodily and
spiritual lives, which Thomas maintains in his John Commentary. As with the shift in Thomas’s
doctrine of grace, it is likely not possible to say which of these three shifts came first or whether
any one is causing the others. All the same, though, they are clearly related and provide a fuller
picture of the development of Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental signification.
In light of the answers to the questions posed above, it is beyond dispute that Thomas’s
sacramental theology has changed throughout the course of his career. Moreover, the findings of
my study of Thomas’s Commentary on the Gospel of John confirm that these changes are
positive at lasting developments that represent maturation and growth. The changes in Thomas’s
sacramentology are not mere alterations due to occasion. This chapter establishes this fact by
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demonstrating that the shifts in Thomas’s sacramental theology, which begin most noticeably in
the Corpus Christi Liturgy, persist over time and across a wide variety of texts, genres of writing,
audiences, and purposes of writing. When taken together with the fact that Thomas’s sacramental
theology has become more positive, more integrated with itself and other theological loci, and
increasingly beautiful, one cannot conclude anything other than the fact that Thomas’s
sacramentology and his doctrine of sacramental signification have developed.
While development is clearly the case in general, it is more difficult to determine whether
Thomas’s sacramentology developed substantially in between his writing of the ScG and his
Commentary on the Gospel of John. As this chapter has shown, much of Thomas’s
sacramentology has remained consistent with his other mid-career texts. Certainly, no
monumental shifts have taken place. Nonetheless, I suggest that it is possible to perceive
development in the fact that Thomas’s ideas are becoming more established and more mature.
This is most evident in Thomas’s doctrine of deification and his doctrine of grace, specifically in
the way that these two areas relate to the sacraments and to a sacrament’s signification. In his
Corpus Christi Liturgy, certainly, and to a lesser degree also in the ScG, Thomas’s ideas of
deification and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit were newly burgeoning and somewhat
amorphous. By the time he writes the commentary on John, however, these two notions are more
prevalent, more defined, and more closely connected to the notion of signification. Thus,
although the changes between the ScG and Thomas’s later biblical commentaries are smaller
than the overall shifts that have already taken place, they nevertheless represent fuller
development. This development is now merely along a consistent trajectory rather than in a new
direction.
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Chapter 6 - Sacramental Signification in the Summa theologiae
Introduction
The Summa theologiae1 is the capstone of Thomas’s career. With it, the developmental
journey taken by Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental signification comes to its fulfillment. The
present chapter proceeds in the same manner as previous chapters. I first examine three relevant
sacramental portions of the Summa (in Section I). These portions are as follows. First, in Section
I.A, I consider Thomas’s doctrine of grace as presented in the Prima secundae, questions 110
and 112. Second, in Section I.B, I discuss the Tertia pars, questions 60 through 65, which covers
the sacraments in general and is, by far, the portion of the Summa that merits the most attention
when studying the doctrine of sacramental signification. Third, in Section I.C, I look at a few
passages from questions 66 through 90 of the Tertia pars, which contain Thomas’s doctrine of
the sacraments in particular. I conclude with a synthesis and analysis (Section II) of the doctrine
of sacramental signification presented in these three portions of the Summa.
I. Sacramental Signification in the Summa theologiae (c. 1273) – Text Seven of Seven
A) Thomas’s Doctrine of Grace in the Summa – Prima secundae, Questions 110 through 112
1) I-II, Question 110 – The Essence of Grace
a) I-II, q. 110, Article One – Does grace imply anything in the soul?
Question 110 of the Prima secundae is about the essence of grace. This question has four
articles, of which I discuss the first three. The first article asks whether grace implies anything in
the soul. In this earlier De veritate, Thomas begins similarly but instead asks whether grace is
1
Henceforth, I will refer to the Summa theologiae, simply as “the Summa.” Thus, anytime “Summa” is unqualified, it refers to the Summa
theologiae and not to the Summa contra Gentiles, which I will always refer to either by its full title or the abbreviation ScG.
something created positively in the soul. One ought not to overlook the wording of these two
questions from the beginning and end of Thomas’s career, respectively. In the Summa, Thomas
carefully avoids calling grace created, because, as has been shown, throughout the course of his
career he has developed an uncreated notion of grace.
In this first article, Thomas distinguishes many senses in which one may use the term
grace. In the highest, most simple, and proper sense, Thomas teaches that grace is when a
rational creature is loved by God in such a way that God wills and actually gives God’s self to
that creature. Thomas writes, “[God] draws the rational creature above the condition of its nature
to a participation of the Divine good; and according to this love He is said to love anyone simply,
since it is by this love that God simply wishes the eternal good, which is Himself, for the
creature.”2 This divine self-gift causes in the rational creature a good that is co-eternal with the
eternal love and “a participation of the Divine good”. Thomas thus in no uncertain terms
espouses an uncreated doctrine of grace informed by a doctrine of deification. Thomas’s doctrine
of grace in the Summa is, therefore, in sharp contrast to his earlier De veritate. In this earlier text,
Thomas taught that grace was a created “effect of God in the soul,”3 which makes a person
worthy of eternal life. Now, Thomas teaches that grace is co-eternal with God and is the result of
God desiring, not just eternal life, but God’s very self for the creature.
b) I-II, q. 110, Article Two – Is grace a quality of the soul?
In Article Two of Question 110, Thomas considers whether grace is a quality of the soul.
In the De veritate, one will recall, Thomas taught that grace was in the species of quality, but
was neither a habit nor a disposition. Here, Thomas still says that grace is a quality. This may
2
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 110, a. 1, res. “Alia autem est dilectio specialis, secundum quam trahit creaturam rationalem supra
conditionem naturae, ad participationem divini boni. Et secundum hanc dilectionem dicitur aliquem diligere simpliciter, quia secundum hanc
dilectionem vult Deus simpliciter creaturae bonum aeternum, quod est ipse.”
3
Aquinas, Truth, 3, q. 27, a. 1, s.c., 309. “Ergo gratia est aliquis effectus Dei in anima.”
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initially seem to raise a problem for understanding Thomas’s doctrine of grace as uncreated. If
the essence of grace is the divine indwelling, one could not say that it is in any one category, for
God transcends the ten categories. Thomas, however, avoids this difficulty in the opening
sentence of his respondeo. He writes, “As stated above, there is understood to be an effect of
God’s gratuitous will in whoever is said to have God’s grace.”4 Thus, Thomas is not here
speaking about grace in the essential sense and from God’s perspective, but rather he is speaking
about grace in the sense of the effects of God’s grace for the creature. When a person has God’s
grace, understood as God’s favor and indwelling, that person also has effects of God’s gratuitous
will in their soul, which can also be called grace. Thus, while grace in the proper sense is
uncreated, one can speak of grace in another sense, namely, as the effects of grace proper, which
are created. Grace, understood as the effects of grace, is in the species of quality. Thomas did not
make this distinction earlier in his De veritate. Thus, what he means when he says, “grace is a
quality” in these two texts, is not the same.
After his opening sentence, Thomas states that a human is “aided by God’s gratuitous
will in two ways.”5 The fact that Thomas continues speaking about God’s gratuitous will, instead
of merely saying that humans are benefited by grace in two ways, is another indication that he is
here speaking of grace only in the limited sense of the effects of grace. The first way of
assistance is that a human’s soul can be moved by God to know or will certain things. In this
sense, Thomas says, still carefully qualifying of what sense of grace he is speaking, “the
gratuitous effect in man is not a quality, but a movement of the soul.”6 The second way of
assistance is that “man is helped by God’s gratuitous will, inasmuch as a habitual gift is infused
4
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 110, a. 2, res. “sicut iam dictum est, in eo qui dicitur gratiam Dei habere, significatur esse quidam effectus
gratuitae Dei voluntatis.”
5
Ibid. “Dictum est autem supra quod dupliciter ex gratuita Dei voluntate homo adiuvatur.”
6
Ibid. “Et hoc modo ipse gratuitus effectus in homine non est qualitas, sed motus quidam animae”.
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by God into the soul.”7 Thomas is unclear whether by this habitual gift he means the gift of grace
proper, and thus the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or the gift of the effects of this indwelling. I
am inclined to understand here the former since Thomas is so careful to distinguish these two
senses in this article. In either case, Thomas is clear that only the second of these two
possibilities, the effects of grace, is in the species of quality. Thus, Thomas continues:
It is not fitting that God should provide less for those He loves, that they may acquire
supernatural good, than for creatures, whom He loves that they may acquire natural good.
Now He so provides for natural creatures, that not merely does He move them to their natural
acts, but He bestows upon them certain forms and powers, which are the principles of acts, in
order that they may of themselves be inclined to these movements... Much more therefore
does [God] infuse into such as He moves towards the acquisition of supernatural good,
certain forms or supernatural qualities, whereby they may be moved by Him sweetly and
promptly to acquire eternal good; and thus the gift of grace is a quality.8
I wish to highlight three points about this passage. First, what Thomas imagines as
existing in the species of quality is not grace in the proper sense of the divine indwelling, but
grace in the sense of the effects of grace. Thus, Thomas carefully states that what is in the
species of quality are, “certain forms or supernatural qualities,” which God infuses in a person in
order to move him or her “sweetly and promptly to acquire eternal good.”9 These forms and
effects can be called grace in a certain sense, but are not to be confused with grace proper.
Hence, Thomas concludes, “and thus the gift of grace is a quality,”10 by which he means, in the
sense of these supernatural forms and effects, one can speak of grace as a quality.
Second, one sees Thomas in this passage playing with the two senses in which God loves
creatures. This parallels the way in which Thomas also plays with two senses of grace in this
7
Ibid. “Alio modo adiuvatur homo ex gratuita Dei voluntate, secundum quod aliquod habituale donum a Deo animae infunditur.”
8
Ibid. “Et hoc ideo, quia non est conveniens quod Deus minus provideat his quos diligit ad supernaturale bonum habendum, quam creaturis quas
diligit ad bonum naturale habendum. Creaturis autem naturalibus sic providet ut non solum moveat eas ad actus naturales, sed etiam largiatur
eis formas et virtutes quasdam, quae sunt principia actuum, ut secundum seipsas inclinentur ad huiusmodi motus. Et sic motus quibus a Deo
moventur, fiunt creaturis connaturales et faciles; secundum illud Sap. VIII, et disponit omnia suaviter. Multo igitur magis illis quos movet ad
consequendum bonum supernaturale aeternum, infundit aliquas formas seu qualitates supernaturales, secundum quas suaviter et prompte ab ipso
moveantur ad bonum aeternum consequendum. Et sic donum gratiae qualitas quaedam est.”
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.
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article. God loves all natural creatures and God loves those creatures he moves toward a
supernatural end. However, God does not love them in exactly the same sense. In the same way,
grace is uncreated and grace is created, but not in the same sense. Essentially and properly grace
is, as Thomas said, “co-eternal with the divine love,” “a participation of the divine Good,” and
God giving God’s self to a creature.11 Yet, in another sense, grace is the effects of grace proper,
which are “certain supernatural forms”12 that are qualities of the soul.
Third, one should note that Thomas establishes an analogy between the natural and the
supernatural, and proceeds from knowledge of the one to knowledge of the other. Hence,
Thomas starts with the idea that God orders all natural creatures to their natural end by infusing
certain forms within them that allow them to act for this end. From this basis, Thomas then
reasons that God must, therefore, act the same way toward those particular rational creatures for
whom he desires a supernatural end. For those whom God loves in the second sense, God must
also infuse “certain forms” within those persons’ souls, which will allow them to attain a
supernatural end. From the natural realm, Thomas observes the principle that God always
enables a creature to act toward its end. By analogical reasoning, Thomas applies this logic to the
supernatural realm, of which humans do not have immediate knowledge.
This kind of analogical logic pervades the Summa entirely, and as I have said previously,
is thoroughly significatory. The idea that humans learn about God, and thus do theology, by
means of analogy is predicated on the anthropology that humans are sign making creatures,
whose intellects abstract from sensible realities and sensible signs in order to understand
intelligible realities. Humans learn by means of reasoning from the basis of the known into the
knowledge of the previously unknown. This process is significatory because signs precisely are
11
Ibid., I-II, q. 110, a. 1, res.
12
Ibid., I-II, q. 110, a. 2, res.
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things that lead people from the known to the unknown, from the sensed to the understood, from
the material to the spiritual. When one adds the fact that Thomas understands the sacraments as
signs, one can see the way in which the use of analogy is sacramental. Thus, one would not be
remiss to claim that the whole of the Summa, from the picture of reality it presents, to its
theology, to the way it teaches, is thoroughly sacramental. This passage perfectly illustrates as
much by showing how Thomas uses sacramental and significatory logic to teach about grace.
c) I-II, q. 110, Article Three – Is grace the same as virtue?
In Article Three of Question 110, Thomas considers whether grace is the same as virtue.
He argues that it is not, again by means of analogy. For humans, the natural, or acquired, virtues
are not the same as a person’s reason. Reason is that which makes possible the exercise of the
acquired virtues and is not itself the same as the virtues. The same, Thomas says, can be said for
the supernatural, or infused, virtues. Grace is that which makes possible a person’s exercising
supernatural virtues and acting in such a way as to be moved toward the supernatural end of
union with God. Grace thus cannot be the same thing as the virtues.
Aside from making this analogical, and thus indirectly significatory and sacramental,
argument, Thomas provides a fuller definition of grace. He says that grace is “a participation of
the Divine nature.”13 This definition confirms that grace proper is uncreated. Grace is
participating in God’s very nature, which results in created effects in a person’s soul.
Additionally, however, one here sees Thomas further intertwining his doctrine of
deification with his doctrine of grace. In so doing, he further connects deification to the
sacraments. Thomas does not stop at saying that grace is a participation in God’s very nature. He
13
Ibid., I-II, q. 110, a. 3, res. “participatio divinae naturae”.
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also says that the infused virtues, which grace makes possible, work to lead one toward the end
of participation in the Divine nature. He writes:
Infused virtues dispose man in a higher manner and towards a higher end, and consequently
in relation to some higher nature, i.e. in relation to a participation of the Divine Nature,
according to 2 Peter 1:4: ‘He hath given us most great and most precious promises; that by
these you may be made partakers of the Divine Nature.’ And it is in respect of receiving this
nature that we are said to be born again sons of God.14
This passage is thoroughly deificatory, from its mention of becoming sons of God, which is to
say equally sons with God’s natural son, to its mention of 2 Peter 1:4, which is one of the
principle scriptural verses from which the tradition derives a doctrine deification, to the idea that
we can become gods by participation, which is the result of participating in the divine nature.
Thus, Thomas, in the Summa, is clearly staying faithful to the trajectory and the themes that he
has established in his other mid-career texts on the sacraments. He emphasizes an uncreated
doctrine of grace and a doctrine of deification.
2) I-II, Question 112 – God Alone is the Cause of Grace
In Question 112, Thomas addresses the causes of grace. Of the five articles in this
question, the first alone merits mention. Article One asks whether God alone is the cause of
grace. Thomas’s reply to this question is succinct. He writes:
Nothing can act beyond its species, since the cause must always be more powerful than its
effect. Now the gift of grace surpasses every capability of created nature, since it is nothing
short of a partaking of the Divine Nature, which exceeds every other nature. And thus it is
impossible that any creature should cause grace. For it is as necessary that God alone should
deify, bestowing a partaking of the Divine Nature by a participated likeness, as it is
impossible that anything save fire should enkindle.15
14
Ibid. “Virtutes autem infusae disponunt hominem altiori modo, et ad altiorem finem, unde etiam oportet quod in ordine ad aliquam altiorem
naturam. Hoc autem est in ordine ad naturam divinam participatam; secundum quod dicitur II Petr. I, maxima et pretiosa nobis promissa
donavit, ut per haec efficiamini divinae consortes naturae. Et secundum acceptionem huius naturae, dicimur regenerari in filios Dei.”
15
Ibid., I-II, q. 112, a. 1, res. “Respondeo dicendum quod nulla res agere potest ultra suam speciem, quia semper oportet quod causa potior sit
effectu. Donum autem gratiae excedit omnem facultatem naturae creatae, cum nihil aliud sit quam quaedam participatio divinae naturae, quae
excedit omnem aliam naturam. Et ideo impossibile est quod aliqua creatura gratiam causet. Sic enim necesse est quod solus Deus deificet,
communicando consortium divinae naturae per quandam similitudinis participationem, sicut impossibile est quod aliquid igniat nisi solus ignis.”
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From this beautiful passage, I raise three points. First, Thomas again defines the essence
of grace to be “nothing short of a partaking of the Divine Nature.”16 Thus, he again teaches that
grace in its essence is entirely uncreated. Grace is being united to God’s own nature and coming
to participate in that nature. Second, one sees Thomas explicitly and fully join his doctrine of
grace to a doctrine of deification. Grace is none other than God giving God’s self to a human in
order to move that person toward becoming a god by participation. Thus, Thomas says that God
alone can deify and bestow “a partaking of the Divine Nature by a participated likeness.”17
Third, Thomas establishes that nothing created can cause grace proper. God alone can cause
grace, because God alone can deify. Hence, in the simplest sense of the terms, the sacraments
cannot cause grace.
In Question 112, therefore, one can see the distance that Thomas’s sacramental theology
has traveled between the Scriptum and the Summa. Thomas goes from saying that the sacraments
are both efficient and dispositive causes of grace, in the Scriptum, to saying that nothing can
cause grace, in the Summa. Later in the Summa, as will be seen below, Thomas does say that the
sacraments work like instrumental causes. He also, of course, used this concept in the Scriptum.
Thus, the sacraments can still take part in God’s causing of grace within a person. Nonetheless,
on the question of whether the sacraments themselves can cause grace, Thomas clearly changes
his position. In the Scriptum, Thomas says that the sacraments can cause grace, and he makes the
qualification that they do so in some respects efficiently and in some respects dispositively. In
the Summa, Thomas has moved to saying that nothing created at all can cause grace, and he
makes the qualification that God can still use the sacraments to cause grace. This shift occurs
along with the shift in Thomas’s doctrine of grace from created to uncreated. This concurrency is
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.
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fitting given that created things can be caused by other created things, whereas uncreated things
cannot.
B) The Sacraments in General - Summa theologiae III, q. 60-65
1) Overview of Thomas’s Treatment of the Sacraments in General in the Summa
From Thomas’s doctrine of grace, I turn now to his doctrine of the sacraments in general.
The Summa’s six questions about the sacraments in general are by far the most central for
Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental signification. Thus, I cover them in great detail. Thomas lays
out his plan for discussing the sacraments in the prooemium to this section. First, Thomas divides
between the sacraments in general and in the sacraments in particular. For the sacraments in
general, he makes five divisions that correspond to five different questions. He considers: first,
what a sacrament is (q. 60); second, the necessity of the sacraments (q. 61); third, the effects of
the sacraments, which are twofold, namely grace (q. 62) and a character (q. 63); fourth, the
causes of the sacraments (q. 64); and, fifth, the number of the sacraments (q. 65). I treat each of
these questions in order in Sections I.B.2 through I.B.8, below.
2) III, Question 60 - What is a sacrament?
Thomas’s devotion to the concept of signification in the Summa is immediately apparent,
even upon reading the subjects of the articles of this opening question. Thomas here defines
sacraments as signs and nothing but signs. Thus, the eight articles of this question, all of which I
treat below in Sections I.B.2.a-h, ask the following: 1) whether a sacrament is a kind of sign; 2)
whether every sign of a sacred thing is a sacrament; 3) whether a sign is of one thing only or of
many things; 4) whether a sacrament is a sign that is a sensible thing; 5) whether a certain
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sensible thing is required for a sacrament; 6) whether signification by words are required for a
sacrament; 7) whether certain words are required; and, 8) whether it is possible to add or subtract
anything from these words. From the outset, based on the questions he asks, Thomas makes it
clear that signification is his overarching concept.
a) III, q. 60, Article One – Is a sacrament a kind of sign?
The first article even more explicitly establishes that a sacrament is a kind of sign.
Thomas here argues that a sacrament is in the genre of signs. In his respondeo, Thomas writes:
a thing may be called a ‘sacrament,’ either from having a certain hidden sanctity, and in this
sense a sacrament is a ‘sacred secret’; or from having some relationship to this sanctity,
which relationship may be that of a cause, or of a sign or of any other relation. But now we
are speaking of sacraments in a special sense, as implying the habitude of sign: and in this
way a sacrament is a kind of sign.18
Thomas thus begins by saying that there are several senses in which one can understand the word
sacrament. In the proper sense of the seven sacraments of the New Law, which Thomas clearly
has in mind in this Question, however, a sacrament is undoubtedly and simply “in genere signi.”
In the passage cited above, one sees Thomas mention causality in association with the
sacraments, which as shown in previous chapters has been extremely rare in texts following De
articulis. Thomas does not avoid the concept of causality in quite the same way in the Summa.
His approach instead is to qualify carefully the way in which causality can apply to the
sacraments. Thus, in this respondeo, he acknowledges that in a certain sense, one can speak of
the sacraments as having a causal relationship to sanctity. He does not yet specify what this sense
is, but he does establish that this is not how he is currently speaking of the sacraments. At
present, and properly, Thomas says, the sacraments are signs and signs alone.
18
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 1, res. “Sic igitur sacramentum potest aliquid dici vel quia in se habet aliquam sanctitatem occultam, et secundum hoc
sacramentum idem est quod sacrum secretum, vel quia habet aliquem ordinem ad hanc sanctitatem, vel causae vel signi vel secundum
quamcumque aliam habitudinem. Specialiter autem nunc loquimur de sacramentis secundum quod important habitudinem signi. Et secundum hoc
sacramentum ponitur in genere signi.”
294
This reading is confirmed by the first objection that Thomas entertains and his reply to it.
With this objection, from the outset of his sacramentology, Thomas addresses the question of
whether the sacraments are both signs and causes. In so doing, he precludes anyone from
maintaining this idea. The objection states, “It seems that a sacrament is not a kind of sign. For
sacrament appears to be derived from sacrando (making sacred) just as medicament, from
medicando (healing). But this seems to be of the nature of a cause rather than of a sign.
Therefore a sacrament is a kind of cause rather than a kind of sign.”19 To this objection, Thomas
replies:
Because medicine is an efficient cause of health, consequently whatever things are

denominated from medicine are to be referred to some first active cause: so that a
medicament implies a certain causality. But sanctity from which a sacrament is denominated,
is not there taken as an efficient cause, but rather as a formal or a final cause. Therefore it
does not follow that a sacrament need always imply causality.20
Herein, Thomas distinguishes sacraments from medicines and says that the same logic
does not apply to both. He also establishes that the sacraments are not efficient causes of
sanctity, as medicines are efficient causes of health. Therefore, Thomas concludes, the notion of
causality ought not to be used to define the essence of a sacrament. Thomas thus only mentions
causality in order to rule it out as part of a sacrament’s essence. The rest of this question, Thomas
speaks only of the sacraments as signs. Accordingly, one may conclude that at this point in the
Summa, Thomas clearly follows the trajectory of his other mid-career texts. He understands the
sacraments as having the singular nature of signs, and he overwhelmingly prefers to use the
concept of signification rather than the concept of causality to explicate his sacramentology.
19
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 1, obj. 1. “Videtur quod sacramentum non sit in genere signi. Videtur enim sacramentum dici a sacrando, sicut
medicamentum a medicando. Sed hoc magis videtur pertinere ad rationem causae quam ad rationem signi. Ergo sacramentum magis est in
genere causae quam in genere signi.”
20
Ibid. “quia medicina se habet ut causa effectiva sanitatis, inde est quod omnia denominata a medicina dicuntur per ordinem ad unum primum
agens, et per hoc, medicamentum importat causalitatem quandam. Sed sanctitas, a qua denominatur sacramentum, non significatur per modum
causae efficientis, sed magis per modum causae formalis vel finalis. Et ideo non oportet quod sacramentum semper importet causalitatem.”
295
Article One, on whether a sacrament is a kind of sign, has three objections. The first
objection establishes that a sacrament is not a cause. The second and third objections establish
that the sacraments are not secrets and are not oaths, though some senses ‘sacrament’ have this
meaning. With the second and third objections, Thomas rules out other misunderstandings about
the nature of the sacraments.
The second objection of q. 60, a. 1, states that a sacrament is something hidden and thus
cannot be a sign because the purpose of a sign is to make something known. This objection even
quotes Augustine’s definition that a sign is “that which conveys something else to the mind,
besides the species which it impresses on the senses.”21 To reply to this objection, Thomas
merely points out that “this argument considers sacrament in the sense of a ‘sacred secret,’”22
and thus does not apply to the sacraments in the proper sense of the sacraments of the Church.
The third objection of q. 60, a. 1, is similar. It states, “an oath is sometimes called a
sacrament...But an oath is not a kind of sign, therefore it seems that a sacrament is not a kind of
sign.”23 Thomas’s reply, again, is that sacraments in the sense of oaths are not “the sense in
which we speak of sacraments now.”24 Thus, Thomas precisely defines the sense of sacraments
of which he wishes to speak. A sacrament in the proper sense is not an oath, not a secret, and not
a cause. Rather, a sacrament is a “sacred sign.”25
b) III, q. 60, Article Two – Is every sign of a sacred thing a sacrament?
From here, Thomas systematically moves on to refine this definition in Article Two.
Given that a sacrament is a sacred sign, the next logical question is whether every sign of the
21
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 1, obj. 2. “signum est quod, praeter speciem quam sensibus ingerit, facit aliquid aliud in cognitionem venire”
22
Ibid. “quod ratio illa procedit secundum quod sacramentum idem est quod sacrum secretum.”
23
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 1, obj. 3. “iuramentum quandoque sacramentum nominatur...Sed iuramentum non pertinet ad rationem signi. Ergo videtur
quod sacramentum non sit in genere signi.”
24
Ibid. “non eadem ratione qua nunc loquimur de sacramentis”.
25
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 1, s.c.
296
sacred is a sacrament. Thomas’s answer is to the point. He writes, “Signs are given to men, to
whom it is proper to discover the unknown by means of the known. Consequently a sacrament
properly so called is that which is the sign of some sacred thing pertaining to man; so that
properly speaking a sacrament, as considered by us now, is defined as being the ‘sign of a holy
thing so far as it makes men holy.’”26 This passage illustrates two points.
First, Thomas here appeals to the anthropology that he has established earlier, both earlier
in the Summa and in his previous texts, especially the ScG. As seen earlier in his sections on
grace, Thomas envisions human beings as sensible creatures, composites of body and soul,
matter and spirit. As sensible creatures, human beings have intellects. They can reason and
understand things. They do so by means of signs. Humans abstract from sense data and are thus
led from the sensible to the intelligible. Thus, Thomas here reminds the reader that it is proper to
humans “to discover the unknown by means of the known,”27 which is to say that signs are
proper to human beings. Hence, sacraments are signs, not just in general, but signs to humans.
The sacraments are God’s means of communicating to humans in the most befitting way. Here,
therefore, one sees Thomas place signification at the heart of both his anthropology and his
sacramentology. In so doing, he demonstrates how central signification is to his thought.
Second, one sees in this passage Thomas compose and advance a definition of the
sacraments that he has not put forth in his previous works. Not only are the sacraments per
Augustine, signs of sacred things, but they are also “sign[s] of a holy thing so far as it makes
men holy.”28 It is possible to understand in this definition in light of the dual nature of the
sacraments that Thomas taught in his previous works. Hence, one could understand there to be a
sign dimension to the sacraments, whereby the sacraments are signs of a sacred thing, and to be
26
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 2, res. “quod est signum rei sacrae inquantum est sanctificans homines”.
27
Ibid. “quorum est per nota ad ignota pervenire”.
28
Ibid. “quod est signum rei sacrae inquantum est sanctificans homines”.
297
an effective, or causative, dimension to the sacraments, whereby the sacraments make humans
sacred. I suggest, however, that this reading is unjustified for three reasons.
First, Thomas has just explicitly stated in the previous article both that a sacrament is
solely in the genus of signs and that a sacrament is not essentially in the genus of cause. Second,
Thomas carefully avoids not just causative but also effective language in this definition. The
most widely used English translation, cited above, obfuscates this point. Rather than saying that
the sacraments are signs of holy things so far as they make humans holy, a better translation is
that a sacrament “is a sign of a sacred thing insofar as it sanctifies men.”29 More than just not
calling the sacraments causes, therefore, Thomas even avoids saying that the sacraments
essentially effect something, give something, confer something, or make something happen.
Rather, he says that the sacraments are sanctifying signs. This establishes the sacraments as
specific kinds of signs rather than as signs and anything else.
The third reason why Thomas, in this new definition, is not teaching that the sacraments
have any kind of dual nature is because of the sacramentological trajectory of Thomas’s mid and
late career texts. With only a couple of exceptions, Thomas has consistently avoided using the
language of causality to speak about the sacraments since his earliest works on the subject. Thus,
it makes more sense to read Thomas in line with this consistent trajectory than it does to read
Thomas’s earliest works back into his most mature work. Reading this definition in light of the
development of his sacramentology, rather than reading it as though Thomas’s thoughts had
always remained the same, one sees that Thomas is elevating and emphasizing the concept of
signification in his sacramentology and carefully qualifying and restricting speech about the way
in which the sacraments make something happen. In the proper contextual trajectory, one sees
29
Ibid. “est signum rei sacrae inquantum est sanctificans homines.”
298
Thomas teaching that the sacraments are most accurately understood to be sanctifying signs, not
signs and causes of sanctity, and not even signs that cause sanctity.
After the response of Article Two, Thomas replies to three objections. The first maintains
that not every sign of a sacred thing is a sacrament because “all sensible creatures are signs of
sacred things...and yet all sensible things cannot be called sacraments.”30 To this, Thomas
replies, “Sensible creatures signify something holy, viz. Divine wisdom and goodness inasmuch
as these are holy in themselves; but not inasmuch as we are made holy by them. Therefore, they
cannot be called sacraments as we understand sacraments now.”31 Thus, Thomas’s answer to the
objection is on some level a concession. In the most general sense, a sacrament is any sign of a
sacred thing, and by this understanding, everything is, in fact, a sacrament because everything
can be understood as a sign of God’s wisdom and goodness. Not everything is a sacrament
though in the specific sense of one of the seven sacraments of the New Law. This is the case,
Thomas says, because not every sign of the sacred is a sanctifying sign of the sacred. Thomas
here articulates a clear sacramental worldview, or, one would even be justified in saying, a
sacramental and significatory ontology. Everything that exists, properly so read, is in fact
nothing other than a sign communicating God’s goodness and expressing God’s glory. The
sacraments of the New Law, however, are a particular subset; they are signs given to humans that
sanctify them.
The second objection of Article Two pertains to the sacraments of the Old Law. It states
that everything done under the Old Law was a figure of Christ, but that only certain of these
things were called sacraments. “Therefore it seems that not every sign of a sacred thing is a
30
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 2, obj. 1. “Videtur quod non omne signum rei sacrae sit sacramentum. Omnes enim creaturae sensibiles sunt signa rerum
sacrarum...Nec tamen omnes res sensibiles possunt dici sacramenta. Non ergo omne signum rei sacrae est sacramentum.”
31
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 2, ad obj. 1. “creaturae sensibiles significant aliquid sacrum, scilicet sapientiam et bonitatem divinam, inquantum sunt in
seipsis sacra, non autem inquantum nos per ea sanctificamur. Et ideo non possunt dici sacramenta secundum quod nunc loquimur de
sacramentis.”
299
sacrament.”32 Thomas responds, “Some things pertaining to the Old Testament signified the
holiness of Christ considered as holy in Himself. Others signified His holiness considered as the
cause of our holiness; thus the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb signified Christ’s Sacrifice whereby
we are made holy: and such like are properly styled sacraments of the Old Law.”33
Thomas thus appeals to the same distinction between the general sense ‘sacrament,’
whereby everything is a sacrament, and the particular sense ‘sacrament,’ whereby only
sanctifying signs are sacraments. Thomas also here does not hesitate to use causal language to
speak of Christ, even as he restricts it with respect to the sacraments. This reflects a
Christological emphasis. The sacraments are not causes of sanctity. Christ is the cause of
sanctity, and the sacraments individually lead persons to and appropriate that sanctity.
What is unclear about this passage, though, is exactly the way that Thomas distinguishes
between the sacraments of the Old and New Laws. By applying the distinction between the
sacraments in a general sense and a particular sense to the Old sacraments, Thomas appears to
imply that the sacraments of the Old Law could sanctify persons of that age and thus that the
definition of a sacrament as “a sign of a holy thing so far as it makes men holy”34 applies equally
to the sacraments of the Old and New Law. I do not think that this is what Thomas has in mind,
as it would be inconsistent with what he teaches in other places, including those shortly to follow
in III, q. 62. It is thus likely that Thomas has in mind here the distinction between the sacraments
of the Old Law signifying Christ as yet to come and the sacraments of the New Law as
signifying Christ as already come and presently realized. Thus, the statement, “whereby we are
made holy” would refer to persons in the age of the New Law, not the Old. In this reading, the
32
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 2, obj. 2. “Ergo videtur quod non omne signum sacrae rei sit sacramentum.”
33
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 2, ad obj. 2. “quod quaedam ad vetus testamentum pertinentia significabant sanctitatem Christi secundum quod in se sanctus
est. Quaedam vero significabant sanctitatem eius inquantum per eam nos sanctificamur, sicut immolatio agni paschalis significabat
immolationem Christi, qua sanctificati sumus. Et talia dicuntur proprie veteris legis sacramenta.”
34
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 2, res.
300
distinction is not between signs of sacred things (Old Law) and signs of sacred things that
sanctify humans (New Law), but between signs of sacred things (Old and New Laws), signs of
sacred things that will sanctify humans (Old Law), and signs of sacred things that presently
sanctify humans (New Law). In any case, Thomas clearly has a very positive attitude toward the
sacraments of the Old Law in this passage. He does not distinguish between the Old and New
sacraments based on efficacy or causality, and he does not devalue signs or the Old sacraments.
Finally, Objection Three brings up things done in the Church, which are also not called
sacraments. The objector names things like consecrating an altar and sprinkling things with holy
water. These acts are not called sacraments. Yet, they are clearly signs of sacred things and even
seem to make things holy. In response, Thomas writes:
Names are given to things considered in reference to their end and state of completeness.
Now a disposition is not an end, whereas perfection is. Consequently things that signify
disposition to holiness are not called sacraments, and with regard to these the objection is
verified: only those are called sacraments which signify the perfection of holiness in man.35
Thomas thus insists that sacraments, specifically and properly so called, apply only to those
things that sanctify humans, not in part, or in disposition, but in fullness and perfection. Of
particular interest, here, is the fact that Thomas does not appeal to the sacraments as causes of
grace, or even say that the sacraments give or confer grace. This answer would have been much
more straightforward than the one Thomas chose. He could have simply said that consecration
and holy water alone do not confer grace, whereas the seven sacraments of the New Law do. The
fact that he does not make recourse to this notion is another point in favor of the interpretation
that Thomas is intentionally and carefully avoiding the language of causality or efficaciousness.
His doing so serves to emphasize and make abundantly clear that the sacraments are first,
foremost, and solely signs.
35
Ibid. “res denominantur a fine et complemento. Dispositio autem non est finis, sed perfectio. Et ideo ea quae significant dispositionem ad
sanctitatem, non dicuntur sacramenta, de quibus procedit obiectio; sed solum ea quae significant perfectionem sanctitatis humanae.”
301
c) III, q. 60, Article Three – Is a sacrament a sign of one thing only?
Thomas next moves on to his third article, which considers whether a sacrament is a sign
of only one thing. Thomas answers that it is not, and begins his argument by appealing to the
definition he has already established. Thomas writes:
A sacrament properly speaking is that which is ordained to signify our sanctification. In

which three things may be considered; viz. the very cause of our sanctification, which is
Christ’s passion; the form of our sanctification, which is grace and the virtues; and the
ultimate end of our sanctification, which is eternal life. All these are signified by the
sacraments. Consequently a sacrament is a sign that is both a reminder of the past, i.e. the
passion of Christ; and an indication of that which is effected in us by Christ’s passion, i.e.
grace; and a prognostic, that is, a foretelling of future glory.36
Concerning this passage of Article Three, I have five points.
First, one sees here how consistently and thoroughly Christological Thomas’s
sacramentology is. The sacraments remind persons of Christ’s work. The sacraments also
function completely on the basis of this work, specifically the Passion. Finally, the sacraments
point toward a person’s future glorification, presumably of being with Christ throughout eternity.
Thomas thus imagines Christ’s involvement in the sacraments at every conceivable level, past,
present, and future.
Second, this passage is of interest because in it Thomas specifies not just that the
sacraments are signs, but both the precise way they are signs and what they signify. The
sacraments are threefold signs. They point to the past, thus recalling things in the memory; they
point to the present, thus demonstrating how God is working within persons; and, they point to
the future, thus revealing that to which God’s work leads. This is how the sacraments signify, by
36
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 3, res. “Sacramentum proprie dicitur quod ordinatur ad significandam nostram sanctificationem. In qua tria possunt
considerari, videlicet ipsa causa sanctificationis nostrae, quae est passio Christi; et forma nostrae sanctificationis, quae consistit in gratia et
virtutibus; et ultimus finis nostrae sanctificationis, qui est vita aeterna. Et haec omnia per sacramenta significantur. Unde sacramentum est et
signum rememorativum eius quod praecessit, scilicet passionis Christi; et demonstrativum eius quod in nobis efficitur per Christi passionem,
scilicet gratiae; et prognosticum, idest praenuntiativum, futurae gloriae.”
302
simultaneously communicating and leading persons to know God’s work in the past, the present,
and the future. What the sacraments signify follows closely upon how they signify and upon the
first point I made. The sacraments, and one should note that Thomas here means all of the
sacraments, signify Christ and, perhaps more precisely, Christ’s work to sanctify human persons.
This work has been accomplished, is ongoing, and will lead to full sanctification, eternal life, and
eternal glory. The sacraments are thus God’s signs to human beings that point to God’s
sanctifying work in Christ throughout all time. The sacraments lead persons to Christ, and, in so
doing, to God’s sanctification.
Third, one should note how closely Thomas’s understanding of the sign nature of the
sacraments resembles his earliest teaching in the Scriptum. In both of these texts, one will recall,
Thomas understands the sacraments to be rememorative, demonstrative, and prognostic signs.
Thus, Thomas’s understanding of how the sacraments are signs and what they signify has
remained more or less consistent throughout his career. The same cannot be said, as has been
shown, for the role that signification plays in the sacraments. The value of signification, the
emphasis that Thomas places upon signification, and the centrality of signification in Thomas’s
sacramentology has varied considerably. These aspects are where development happens in
Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental signification. Development does not take place in his thoughts
on the way in which the sacraments are signs or in his thoughts on what the sacraments signify.
The fourth point, on the other hand, is a slight difference from the parallel passage in the
Scriptum. In the Summa, Thomas very carefully avoids calling the sacraments causes and saying
that they effect or make anything. In the Scriptum, for example, Thomas says that the sacraments
are rememorative signs insofar as they are the “first sanctifying cause.”37 Thus, in his early
career, Thomas cannot even speak of how the sacraments are signs without simultaneously
37
Aquinatis, Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, qc. 1, ad 4. “causam primam sanctificantem”.
303
meaning that the sacraments are causes. Shortly after this, Thomas says that the sacraments are
demonstrative signs insofar as they “signify the effect of signification which they make.”38
Again, one sees Thomas’s chief concern is with the effective or causal nature of the sacraments.
In his earliest work, Thomas acknowledges that the sacraments are signs, but more importantly,
he thinks they are causes that make sanctification. The sacraments’ principle signification39 is to
point out what that they cause. In the Summa, however, causality receives none of this emphasis.
Thomas here does not say that the sacraments are causes. Thus, again, one can see the way in
which Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental signification has developed. While his understanding of
how and what the sacraments signify remains relatively consistent, the place that Thomas assigns
to signification and his attitude toward it have changed completely. Thomas goes from entirely
subjecting signification to the causal nature of the sacraments, to speaking entirely of the
sacraments as signs and avoiding the language of causality.
Fifth and finally, Thomas’s careful choice to not call the sacraments causes is thrown into
even sharper relief by his decision, once again, to speak freely of Christ and Christ’s Passion as
the cause of humans’ sanctification. For example, Thomas says that Christ’s Passion is “the very
cause of our sanctification.”40 He then later says that grace “is effected in us by Christ’s
passion.”41 Thus, Thomas here teaches that the Passion is the cause of human sanctification.
Simply speaking, the sacraments are not causes. They are only signs pointing to the ultimate
cause.
38
Ibid. “significant effectum sanctificationis quam faciunt”.
39
Ibid. “et haec significatio est eis principalis”.
40
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q. 60, a. 3, res. “ipsa causa sanctificationis nostrae”.
41
Ibid. “quod in nobis efficitur per Christi passionem”.
304
d) III, q. 60, Article Four – Is a sacrament always something sensible?
Article Four of Question 60 addresses whether a sacrament is always something sensible.
Thomas begins his answer by asserting that, “Divine wisdom provides for each thing according
to its mode.”42 He then supports this with two Bible verses, Wisdom 8:1 and Matthew 25:15, and
continues:
Now it is part of man’s nature to acquire knowledge of the intelligible from the sensible. But
a sign is that by means of which one attains to the knowledge of something else.
Consequently, since the sacred things which are signified by the sacraments, are the spiritual
and intelligible goods by means of which man is sanctified, it follows that the sacramental
signs consist in sensible things.43
Thomas points out as well that this is the same way as Scripture works, by presenting spiritual
things in the “guise of things sensible.” He then concludes, “And hence it is that sensible things
are required for the sacraments; as Dionysius also proves in his book on the heavenly
hierarchy.”44
Thomas’s reply illustrates three aspects of his doctrine of sacramental signification that I
have been working to establish and that are consistent with the trajectory established in his texts
after De articulis. First, one here again sees Thomas appeal to a significatory anthropology.
Human beings are sensory creatures, composites of matter and spirit, and thus “it is part of man’s
nature to acquire knowledge of the intelligible from the sensible.”45 This is to say, human
knowledge works by means of signs, since “a sign is that by means of which one attains to the
knowledge of something else.”46 Hence, once again one sees Thomas make signification central
to his sacramentology and use this concept to connect his sacramentology to the other areas of
his theology. The sacraments are signs, and they are so because humans are essentially sign-
42
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 4, res. “divina sapientia unicuique rei providet secundum suum modum”.
43
Ibid. “Est autem homini connaturale ut per sensibilia perveniat in cognitionem intelligibilium. Signum autem est per quod aliquis devenit in
cognitionem alterius. Unde, cum res sacrae quae per sacramenta significantur, sint quaedam spiritualia et intelligibilia bona quibus homo
sanctificatur, consequens est ut per aliquas res sensibiles significatio sacramenti impleatur”.
44
Ibid. “Et inde est quod ad sacramenta requiruntur res sensibiles, ut etiam Dionysius probat, in I cap. caelestis hierarchiae.”
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid.
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making creatures. Thomas thus uses signification to understand human beings, to understand the
sacraments, and to connect these two doctrines organically.
Second, one sees Thomas provide a slightly different definition of a sign than he has
employed previously. For the most part, and indeed earlier in this same question, Thomas simply
follows Augustine’s definition that a sign is “that which conveys something else to the mind,
besides the species which it impresses on the senses.”47 Here, though Thomas says that a sign is,
“that by means of which one attains to the knowledge of something else.”48 These two
definitions are certainly not at odds. Thomas does not reject Augustine’s definition or move
beyond it. Yet, Thomas does expand upon Augustine’s definition slightly.
Thomas’s expanded definition removes the idea of sensible species from the essence of a
sign. Thus, in the very act of insisting that a sacrament has to be a sensible sign, Thomas makes
the point as well that not all signs have to be sensible. An intelligible thing, presumably, can be
the sign of another. One thinks here of, though Thomas does not bring it up, the insensible, but
truly and substantially present, body of Christ, which the res et sacramentum of the Eucharist,
and how it is a sign of the res tantum of the Eucharist, namely the mystical body of Christ.
Whether Thomas had this particular instance in mind or not, Thomas clearly expands the
definition of a sign at the same time as he expands his use of the concept of signification.
Thomas will qualify this expansion carefully in his reply to the first objection, which I will
examine below. Nonetheless, the fact that Thomas makes the concept of a sign more widely
applicable is evidence of the fact that he wants to more widely apply it. Thomas has thus
undoubtedly expanded the role of signification throughout his career, not just in his doctrine of
the sacraments, but throughout his theology.
47
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 1, obj. 2.
48
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 4, res.
306
Third and finally, Thomas concludes his respondeo with an appeal to authority. He
invokes the thought of Pseudo-Dionysius. Thomas’s reliance upon Pseudo-Dionysius in his
sacramentology, as has been shown, expanded throughout his career. Thomas furthermore has
moved away from the thought of Hugh of St. Victor. This passage demonstrates that Thomas
maintains this trajectory in his Summa and that his Summa is consistent with his other texts
following the significatory shift he made in the Corpus Christi Liturgy.
In Article Four, Thomas considers three objections, of which the first alone requires
further comment. Objection One argues that not every sacrament has to be something sensible
because not every sign is something sensible. Hence, it would seem that a sacrament requires
only a thing be a sign of something sacred, not that it be a sensible sign. To this, Thomas
responds that sensible effects are the “primary and direct object” of human knowledge. By their
very nature, they lead to the knowledge of something else.49 Intelligible effects, on the other
hand, only lead persons to knowledge of something else insofar as some sensible thing manifests
them. Thus, Thomas says, “for this reason that the name sign is given primarily and principally
to things which are offered to the senses; hence Augustine says that a sign ‘is that which conveys
something else to the mind, besides the species which it impresses on the senses.’”50
Here, one sees Thomas maintain the expansion of the definition of a sign that he put forth
in his respondeo, but qualify this expansion and relate it back to Augustine’s definition. Thomas
maintains that intelligible things can still be signs. He thus removes this part of Augustine’s
definition. However, Thomas thinks intelligible things can only be signs in a certain way. Non-
sensible things are not signs directly or by their nature; they are signs indirectly and by
participation in sensible things. Thomas’s anthropology reveals why this understanding is
49
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 4, ad obj. 1.
50
Ibid.
307
needed. Humans are sensible creatures and all of their knowledge comes from sensible things.
This is why, Thomas says, Augustine put in the notion of sensibility in the very definition of a
sign. One can remove this concept and expand the notion of a sign, as Thomas does, provided
that one bears in mind the fact that intelligible things are signs only indirectly. In this way,
Thomas says, “certain things which are not sensible are termed sacraments.”51
e) III, q. 60, Article Five – Are determinate things required for a sacrament?
I move now to Article Five, wherein Thomas considers the question of whether
determinate things are required for the sacraments. Thomas answers in the affirmative, and he
begins establishing his position by pointing out that, “In the use of the sacraments two things
may be considered, namely, the worship of God, and the sanctification of man.”52 Here, one sees
Thomas add a new dimension to his sacramentology, namely that of worship.
In the first four articles of question 60, Thomas spoke as though the sacraments pertained
only to the sanctification of an individual human being. With this fifth article, however, Thomas
establishes that the sacraments have a social and laudatory role as well. Thomas has, of course,
hinted at these aspects in previous works. For example, one sees the social role in Thomas’s
insistence that a chief function of the Eucharist is to signify and bring about the unity of Christ’s
body by the communal act of a shared meal. Thomas has never, though, said so clearly that half
of the sacraments’ function is the worship of God.
With this new insistence, Thomas teaches that there is more to consider in the sacraments
than just what they are, signs, and what they do for an individual, sanctify. One must also
consider what the sacraments allow an individual to do and what the sacraments allow a
51
Ibid. “Et per hunc etiam modum quaedam quae non sunt sensibilia, dicuntur quodammodo sacramenta”.
52
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 5, res. “in usu sacramentorum duo possunt considerari, scilicet cultus divinus, et sanctificatio hominis”.
308
community to do, worship. The sacraments, therefore, are not merely about what is done to an
individual. They are also about what they allow an individual and a community to do. Thomas
will have more to say about these new dimensions in the text to come. For now, however, I note
two things. First, the new emphasis on the communal and worshiping aspects of the sacraments
fits very well with Thomas’s increased emphasis on signification. If one is thinking only of what
a sacrament does for an individual person, metaphors of causality or effectiveness may in some
degree be helpful. When, however, one begins to imagine the sacraments not only as ordered to
sanctifying individuals, but also as ordered to individual and communal worship, causal
metaphors become decidedly less important. It makes little sense to think of something
efficiently causing worship, or of a community worshiping through causes. On the other hand,
signification allows one to speak about all of these dimensions at the same time. Signs can lead
persons to sanctification; they are required for communication, for community, and for social
engagement; and, they can express and allow worship. This is all the more natural an association
given Thomas’s anthropology that humans are social sign-making creatures. Thus, in a
sacramentology, it makes perfect sense to see a growing emphasis on signification occur
simultaneously with a growing emphasis on worship and with a shift away from a strictly
individual focus.
Second, Thomas’s new insistence that the sacraments are for worship fits well with
another growing theme of his sacramentology. Although Thomas has not previously spoken so
clearly of the fact that the sacraments are for worship, the previous chapters have demonstrated a
distinctly ecclesiological emphasis in Thomas’s mid-to-late sacramentology. This emphasis was
not present in Thomas’s Scriptum and earliest writings, but is present in Thomas’s mid-career
texts, like the Corpus Christi Liturgy and the ScG. An appreciation for the role of the sacraments
309
in worship clearly goes along with an ecclesiological emphasis. Therefore, in spite of the fact
that Thomas’s ideas about the sacraments and worship are a new development of the Summa,
they are absolutely in accord with and in the same trajectory as Thomas’s mid-career texts. An
emphasis on the role of the sacraments in worship did not come out of nowhere. Rather, it is the
logical development of Thomas’s emphasis on the sacrament’s ecclesiological dimension.
After establishing that the sacraments are for worship and sanctification, Thomas speaks
about why their sanctifying dimension requires that the sacraments consist in determinate things
specified by God. Thomas writes, “it is not for anyone to determine that which is in the power of
another, but only that which is in his own power. Since, therefore, the sanctification of man is in
the power of God Who sanctifies, it is not for man to decide what things should be used for his
sanctification, but this should be determined by Divine institution.”53
Thomas makes a similar point in his reply to the first objection. This objection argues that
many different things can have the same signification. Thus, it would seem as though different
things, and not any particular predetermined things, would still be able to have the same
signification of sacred things. Thomas answers:
Though the same thing can be signified by diverse signs, yet to determine which sign must be
used belongs to the signifier. Now it is God Who signifies spiritual things to us by means of
the sensible things in the sacraments, and of similitudes in the Scriptures. And consequently,
just as the Holy Spirit decides by what similitudes spiritual things are to be signified in
certain passages of Scripture, so also must it be determined by Divine institution what things
are to be employed for the purpose of signification in this or that sacrament.54
Just as it is God who sanctifies persons in the sacraments, so is it God who signifies things in the
sacraments. God has chosen to sanctify humans by means of signs and God has also chosen what
53
Ibid. “Non autem pertinet ad aliquem determinare quod est in potestate alterius, sed solum illud quod est in sua potestate. Quia igitur
sanctificatio hominis est in potestate Dei sanctificantis, non pertinet ad hominem suo iudicio assumere res quibus sanctificetur, sed hoc debet
esse ex divina institutione determinatum.”
54
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 5, ad obj. 1. “si idem possit per diversa signa significari, determinare tamen quo signo sit utendum ad significandum,
pertinet ad significantem. Deus autem est qui nobis significat spiritualia per res sensibiles in sacramentis, et per verba similitudinaria in
Scripturis. Et ideo, sicut iudicio spiritus sancti determinatum est quibus similitudinibus in certis Scripturae locis res spirituales significentur, ita
etiam debet esse divina institutione determinatum quae res ad significandum assumantur in hoc vel in illo sacramento.”
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signs to use. Thus, God institutes the sacraments in determinate form, with determinate elements,
and determinate words. Humans only receive and hand on the sacraments as given to them.
Thomas’s analogy between Scripture and the sacraments is also of interest in this
passage. Thomas here holds that both Scripture and the sacraments have the same purpose,
namely to communicate to humans and to lead humans on the way of salvation, which is the path
of sanctification. One could thus conclude that Thomas has both a sacramental doctrine of
Scripture and a revelatory sacramentology. In any case, Thomas here again uses the concept of
signification to integrate his doctrine of the sacraments with the other areas of his theology. By
imagining Scripture and the sacraments, not to mention human beings and the nature of all
created reality, in terms of signs, Thomas makes the point that God works in all things in the
same way and for the same end. All things are God’s grace. God works in all things to sanctify.
God works in all things to deify. God does so by leading humans to Christ.
f) III, q. 60, Article Six – Are words required for the signification of the sacraments?
In Article Six of Question 60, Thomas argues that words are required for the sacraments.
In so doing, Thomas continues to refine his reader’s understanding of sacraments. Thus far,
Thomas has carefully crafted the understanding that the sacraments are sanctifying signs
whereby humans worship and which are composed of determined words and things. Article Six
thus answers the question of why words are required.
Thomas first states that one can think about the sacraments, which are “employed as
signs for man’s sanctification”55 in three ways. Thomas writes:
In the first place they can be considered in regard to the cause of sanctification, which is the
Word incarnate: to Whom the sacraments have a certain conformity, in that the word is
joined to the sensible sign, just as in the mystery of Incarnation the Word of God is united to
55
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 6, res. “adhibentur ad hominum sanctificationem sicut quaedam signa”.
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sensible flesh...Secondly, sacraments may be considered on the part of man who is sanctified,
and who is composed of soul and body: to whom the sacramental remedy is adjusted, since it
touches the body through the sensible element, and the soul through faith in the words.
Thirdly, a sacrament may be considered on the part of the sacramental signification. Now
Augustine says that ‘words are the principal signs used by men;’ because words can be
formed in various ways for the purpose of signifying various mental concepts, so that we are
able to express our thoughts with greater distinctness by means of words. And therefore in
order to insure the perfection of sacramental signification it was necessary to determine the
signification of the sensible things by means of certain words.56
In each of these three respects, Thomas says, it is fitting that the sacraments include words.
One should note five points about Thomas’s reply. First, in Thomas’s first way of
considering the sacraments, with respect to their source, one again sees the Christological
emphasis of Thomas’s sacramentology. Not only do the sacraments point persons to Christ, but
they even have “a certain conformity” to Christ and bear the image of Christ. Second, with this
Christological emphasis, one sees Thomas insist that Christ is the cause of sanctification. In so
doing, Thomas implies the sacraments are not themselves causes of sanctification.
Third, one again sees Thomas appeal to his significatory anthropology. Humans are
composed of souls and bodies. As such, they are both material and spiritual. They come to
knowledge of intelligible things through material things. Hence, God uses the sacraments to
speak to humans in the best possible way. As the sacraments bear the image of Christ, who is
Word made flesh, so do they also bear the image of humans, who are significatory creatures.
Fourth, Thomas’s final point shows the degree to which Thomas relies on the authority of
Augustine. Not only does Thomas derive his definition of a sign from and in conversation with
Augustine, Thomas also, in the passage cited above, takes from Augustine a definition of words
56
Ibid. “Primo enim possunt considerari ex parte causae sanctificantis, quae est verbum incarnatum, cui sacramentum quodammodo
conformatur in hoc quod rei sensibili verbum adhibetur, sicut in mysterio incarnationis carni sensibili est verbum Dei unitum. Secundo possunt
considerari sacramenta ex parte hominis qui sanctificatur, qui componitur ex anima et corpore, cui proportionatur sacramentalis medicina, quae
per rem visibilem corpus tangit, et per verbum ab anima creditur. Unde Augustinus dicit, super illud Ioan. XV, iam vos mundi estis propter
sermonem etc., unde ista est tanta virtus aquae ut corpus tangat et cor abluat, nisi faciente verbo, non quia dicitur, sed quia creditur? Tertio
potest considerari ex parte ipsius significationis sacramentalis. Dicit autem Augustinus, in II de Doct. Christ., quod verba inter homines
obtinuerunt principatum significandi, quia verba diversimode formari possunt ad significandos diversos conceptus mentis, et propter hoc per
verba magis distincte possumus exprimere quod mente concipimus. Et ideo ad perfectionem significationis sacramentalis necesse fuit ut
significatio rerum sensibilium per aliqua verba determinaretur.”
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as being the principle signs used by humans. Thomas thus makes it clear that his new
understandings of the way in which the sacraments are signs are well supported by authority and
the Tradition.
Fifth and finally, Thomas’s last point also reveals the degree to which signification now
pervades his doctrine of the sacraments. Not only are the sacraments essentially signs, but they
are also signs composed of things, which signify and words, which signify and determine
signification. The sacraments are signs on top of signs. Therefore, signification could not
possibly be a more central concept for Thomas’s sacramentology. Especially when compared to
his attitude toward signification in his earliest writings, it is evident how far Thomas’s doctrine
has developed.
In Article Six, Thomas considers three objections. About these objections and Thomas’s
replies to them, I have two points. First, one objection argues that the sacraments cannot be
comprised of both words and things because the sacraments are singular, because words and
things belong to different genres, and because one thing cannot be in two categories at the same
time. To this, Thomas says that the two things, words and things, combine into one thing, a sign,
because they signify together. Thomas writes, “in the sacraments, words and things, like form
and matter, combine in the formation of one thing, in so far as the signification of things is
completed by means of words.”57 Thomas has consistently taught that the sacraments are made
up of both words and things. Thomas has even used the metaphor of form and matter to speak of
how the sacraments are comprised of words and things. What he has not done previously,
however, is to use the concept of signification to unite the words and things of the sacraments.
57
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 6, ad obj. 2. “Et ideo ex verbis et rebus fit quodammodo unum in sacramentis sicut ex forma et materia, inquantum scilicet
per verba perficitur significatio rerum, ut dictum est.”
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Thomas here reaches a level of specificity to which he has not previously attained, and he is able
to do so because of the concept of signification.
The second point I wish to mention about the objections of Article Six occurs in
Thomas’s reply to the third objection. This objection argues that the sacraments of the New Law
do not need words because the sacraments of the Old Law did not require words. In so arguing,
this objection expresses somewhat of a negative attitude toward the sacraments of the Old Law
and assumes a fairly sharp disconnect between the two. The objection states that the New
sacraments succeed the Old and, quoting Augustine, says that the Old “were abolished.”58
Thomas’s reply, however, assumes more of a connection than a disconnect. He writes, “As
Augustine says, the sacraments of things present should be different from sacraments of things to
come. Now the sacraments of the Old Law foretold the coming of Christ. Consequently they did
not signify Christ so clearly as the sacraments of the New Law, which flow from Christ Himself,
and have a certain likeness to Him, as stated above.”59 Hence, instead of the New sacraments
succeeding or abolishing the Old sacraments, Thomas teaches that both the Old and the New
sacraments both pointed to Christ. The difference between them is only that the New sacraments
are clearer because they point to something present whereas the Old sacraments pointed to
something yet to come. This teaching accords well with the positive attitude Thomas adopts
toward the Old sacraments in his other mid-career texts. One thinks here of Thomas’s metaphor
of God as a wise homeowner, who governs the house differently in different seasons. Thus, at
this point, Thomas’s sacramentology again appears to be in the same trajectory that he
established in his Corpus Christi liturgy and has followed thereafter.
58
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 6, obj. 3. “illis ablatis”.
59
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 6, ad obj. 3. “sicut Augustinus dicit, contra Faustum, alia debent esse sacramenta rei praesentis, et alia rei futurae.
Sacramenta autem veteris legis praenuntia erant Christi venturi. Et ideo non ita expresse significabant Christum sicut sacramenta novae legis,
quae ab ipso Christo effluunt, et quandam similitudinem ipsius in se habent, ut dictum est.”
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g) III, q. 60, Article Seven – Are determinate words required in the sacraments?
Given that words are required for the sacraments, Thomas next considers whether
determinate words are required. He argues:
In all things composed of matter and form, the determining principle is on the part of the
form...Consequently for the being of a thing the need of a determinate form is prior to the
need of determinate matter...Since, therefore, in the sacraments determinate sensible things
are required, which are as the sacramental matter, much more is there need in them of a
determinate form of words.60
Not only, therefore, is the signification of words required for the sacraments, but the sacraments
require the signification of particular words just as they require the signification of particular
material things.
Of the three objections addressed in this article, the first and third are of the most interest
presently. The first objection raises the issue of different languages. Since people obviously
consecrate the sacraments using different languages, it seems as though there are no set words
for consecration. Thomas replies to this objection by appealing to the sign theory of St.
Augustine. Thomas writes:
As Augustine says, the word operates in the sacraments ‘not because it is spoken,’ i.e. not by
the outward sound of the voice, ‘but because it is believed’ in accordance with the sense of
the words which is held by faith. And this sense is indeed the same for all, though the same
words as to their sound be not used by all. Consequently no matter in what language this
sense is expressed, the sacrament is complete.61
Two points about this passage are of note. First, Thomas here clearly conveys that
understanding the signification of the sacraments is necessary. One must not only receive the
sacrament. One must perceive the sacrament. The completion and function of a sacrament
depends on the sense of the sacrament, both the sense that a minister expresses and that an
60
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 7, res. “In omnibus autem compositis ex materia et forma principium determinationis est ex parte formae, quae est
quodammodo finis et terminus materiae. Et ideo principalius requiritur ad esse rei determinata forma quam determinata materia, materia enim
determinata quaeritur ut sit proportionata determinatae formae. Cum igitur in sacramentis requirantur determinatae res sensibiles, quae se
habent in sacramentis sicut materia, multo magis requiritur in eis determinata forma verborum.”
61
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 7, ad obj. 1. “sicut Augustinus dicit, super Ioan., verbum operatur in sacramentis, non quia dicitur, idest, non secundum
exteriorem sonum vocis, sed quia creditur, secundum sensum verborum qui fide tenetur. Et hic quidem sensus est idem apud omnes, licet non
eaedem voces quantum ad sonum. Et ideo, cuiuscumque linguae verbis proferatur talis sensus, perficitur sacramentum.”
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individual understands.62 One sees here, therefore, another way in which Thomas has elevated
signification and shifted away from causality. If the sacraments were primarily causes their
function could not depend on expressed and understood meaning. Causes cause irrespective of
perception. Signs must be understood.
Second, Thomas here not only makes the sacrament entirely dependent upon properly
expressed and understood signification, but he also makes the sacrament entirely dependent upon
faith. The notion that faith has some role to play in the sacraments is not foreign to Thomas’s
sacramentology. As one will recall, Thomas even mentioned this notion in his earliest writing. In
the Scriptum, however, this notion occurs in the midst of causal language, and the precise way
Thomas imagines faith functioning is underdeveloped. At this earlier point, Thomas teaches that
God is the efficient cause of justification, Christ is the meritorious cause, the sacraments are the
instrumental cause, and that faith somehow connects an individual person to the sacraments.
In the Summa, however, Thomas’s teaching on the role of faith occurs in a significatory
context and the role that it has to play is clearer. The sacraments are signs that express meaning
by material elements and by words expressed by the consecrating priest. This meaning must be
properly expressed by the priest and properly understood by the recipients. Then, the recipients
must believe this meaning. Thus, rather than faith being something extrinsic to the sacramental
process that must be added on in order to connect an individual to a causal process, in the
Summa, faith is an intrinsic part of the significatory process by which God communicates to and
sanctifies human beings. It makes sense why a sign must be understood and believed if it is to
properly lead one to the ultimate cause of humans’ sanctification. It makes decidedly less sense
as to how faith is required for a cause to work, or to join persons to an instrumental cause, which
62
Thomas addresses the individual understanding of the sense of the sacraments here and addresses the expression of this sense by the minister in
his reply to Objection Three.
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is then joined to a meritorious cause, which is then joined to an efficient cause. Thus, both
Thomas’s sacramentology and his understanding of the role that faith plays in the sacraments
have become more developed over the course of his career. This development is made possible
by Thomas’s shift to emphasizing the role of signification and away from emphasizing causality.
Objection Three argues that determinate words cannot be required for the sacraments
because persons occasionally mispronounce words when speaking and it would make no sense to
say that these minor errors, should they occur during a sacramental act, render the sacraments
invalid. Thomas says that there are three possible cases, which ought to be considered. First, if a
minister intentionally mispronounces the words during a sacramental act, this does render the
sacrament invalid because the minister then no longer intends to do what the Church does. If the
minister mispronounces words unintentionally, however, two cases are possible. Either the
minister can make a speaking error that is minor and does not distort the meaning of the
sacrament, or the minister can make an error that is bigger does distort the meaning expressed by
the sacrament. If, Thomas says, “the sense of the words be not entirely lost by this
mispronunciation, the sacrament is complete.”63 On the other hand, “if [the minister] so far
mispronounces the words as to deprive them of sense, the sacrament seems to be defective.”64
Thus, Thomas concludes, “the principle point to observe is the extent of the corruption entailed
by mispronunciation: for in either case it may be so little that it does not alter the sense of the
words; or so great that it destroys it.”65
In this passage, one sees further how much the sacraments depend upon the
communication of meaning. Without the minister correctly communicating the proper sense of
63
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q. 60, a. 7, ad obj. 3. “Si vero non totaliter auferatur sensus locutionis per huiusmodi corruptelam,
nihilominus perficitur sacramentum.”
64
Ibid. “si sit tanta corruptio quae omnino auferat sensum locutionis, non videtur perfici sacramentum”.
65
Ibid. “Magis tamen videtur attendenda quantitas corruptionis ex parte dictionis. Quia ex utraque parte potest esse tam parva quod non aufert
sensum verborum, et tam magna, quod aufert.”
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the sacrament, the sacrament is invalid. From the reply to Objection One, one can likewise say
that without the sacramental recipient correctly understanding and believing in the proper sense
of the sacrament, the sacrament is invalid. Thus, without signification, a sacrament is nothing.
One sees in this teaching another instance of how deeply signification now pervades Thomas’s
sacramentology. Signification is on all sides and on all levels. In the sacraments, there is
signification of material elements; there is signification of particular words; there is signification
pointing to the past, to the present, and to the future; there is signification on God’s part, who is
trying to communicate to humans and who instituted the sacraments as signs; there is
signification on the part of the Church, which intends to communicate God’s message and which
worships through this signification; there is signification on the part of the minister, who must
intend to do what the Church does and who must employ the proper signification of the
sacramental forms over the sacramental elements; and, there is signification on the part of the
recipients, who must understand the sense signified, who must believe this sense, and who then
worship through signification. Signification, therefore, is undoubtedly the core concept of
Thomas’s sacramentology. He emphasizes it more than any other concept. He employs it to
explain the entire sacramental process, and he employs it to integrate his theology and connect
his sacramentology to almost all the other points of his doctrine.
h) III, q. 60, Article Eight – Is it lawful to add anything to the words of sacramental forms?
The final article of Question 60 considers whether it is lawful to add any words to
sacramental forms. Thomas’s response is much the same as his response to the third objection in
the previous article. He again names three possible cases. If the minister intends to change the
sacrament or does not intend to do what the Church does, then the sacrament is rendered invalid
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by either additions or omissions. If, though, the minister still intends to perform the sacrament of
the Church, whether the sacrament is valid depends on whether the addition or subtraction to the
sacramental form changes the essential meaning. As above, the only thing that matters in the
sacraments is whether the proper sense is communicated. This sense can be preserved in the case
of slight variances, but if it is lost or changed, then a sacrament is invalid. Aside from again
revealing just how vital Thomas thinks signification is to the sacraments, the remainder of this
article adds little to the present discussion. Thomas primarily considers various particular
instances of omissions or additions. Thus, I here end the discussion of Question 60.
3) III, Question 61 - The Necessity of the Sacraments
a) III, q. 61, Article One – Are the sacraments necessary for salvation?
Given what a sacrament is, Thomas’s next move is to explain exactly how and why the
sacraments are necessary. Question 61 has four articles, which I will deal with more quickly than
the articles of Question 60 because they do not pertain as directly to sacramental signification.
The first article is the broadest. Here, Thomas considers whether the sacraments are necessary
for salvation. Before he advances his own position, Thomas appeals to Augustine in his sed
contra. Thomas writes, “Augustine says: ‘It is impossible to keep men together in one religious
denomination, whether true or false, except they be united by means of visible signs or
sacraments.’ But it is necessary for salvation that men be united together in the name of the one
true religion. Therefore, sacraments are necessary for man’s salvation.”66 Thomas used this
quotation in his Scriptum.67 In the Summa, however, the weight that Thomas places upon the
quotation, and on the insistence that all religions require visible signs is greater due to the
66
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 1, s.c. “Augustinus dicit, XIX contra Faust., in nullum nomen religionis, seu verum seu falsum, coadunari homines possunt,
nisi aliquo signaculorum vel sacramentorum visibilium consortio colligentur. Sed necessarium est ad humanam salutem homines adunari in
unum verae religionis nomen. Ergo sacramenta sunt necessaria ad humanam salutem.”
67
Cf. Aquinatis, Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 2, qc. 1, s.c.
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context. Thomas has just spent eight articles talking about how important signification is. This
quotation, therefore, connects this question to the previous one and reemphasizes signification.
In this reply, Thomas maintains that the sacraments are necessary for salvation for three
reasons. Thomas writes:
Sacraments are necessary unto man's salvation for three reasons. The first is taken from the
condition of human nature which is such that it has to be led by things corporeal and sensible
to things spiritual and intelligible. Now it belongs to Divine providence to provide for each
one according as its condition requires. Divine wisdom, therefore, fittingly provides man
with means of salvation, in the shape of corporeal and sensible signs that are called
sacraments. The second reason is taken from the state of man who in sinning subjected
himself by his affections to corporeal things. Now the healing remedy should be given to a
man so as to reach the part affected by disease. Consequently it was fitting that God should
provide man with a spiritual medicine by means of certain corporeal signs; for if man were
offered spiritual things without a veil, his mind being taken up with the material world would
be unable to apply itself to them. The third reason is taken from the fact that man is prone to
direct his activity chiefly towards material things. Lest, therefore, it should be too hard for
man to be drawn away entirely from bodily actions, bodily exercise was offered to him in the
sacraments, by which he might be trained to avoid superstitious practices, consisting in the
worship of demons, and all manner of harmful action, consisting in sinful deeds.68
Concerning this passage, I have three points. First, one sees Thomas recall his theological
anthropology and his understanding of signs. Thus, Thomas says that the condition of human
nature is such that they are “led by things corporal and sensible to things spiritual and
intelligible.”69 Second, one sees Thomas return here to a teaching that he has not used since his
Scriptum. In his three reasons, Thomas follows Hugh of St. Victor in teaching that the
sacraments are for education, humiliation, and exercise. Third, in this passage, Thomas may
appear to be following Hugh of St. Victor’s medicinal metaphor again. Hence, Thomas calls the
68
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q. 61, a. 1, res. “Respondeo dicendum quod sacramenta sunt necessaria ad humanam salutem triplici ratione.
Quarum prima sumenda est ex conditione humanae naturae, cuius proprium est ut per corporalia et sensibilia in spiritualia et intelligibilia
deducatur. Pertinet autem ad divinam providentiam ut unicuique rei provideat secundum modum suae conditionis. Et ideo convenienter divina
sapientia homini auxilia salutis confert sub quibusdam corporalibus et sensibilibus signis, quae sacramenta dicuntur. Secunda ratio sumenda est
ex statu hominis, qui peccando se subdidit per affectum corporalibus rebus. Ibi autem debet medicinale remedium homini adhiberi ubi patitur
morbum. Et ideo conveniens fuit ut Deus per quaedam corporalia signa hominibus spiritualem medicinam adhiberet, nam, si spiritualia nuda ei
proponerentur, eius animus applicari non posset, corporalibus deditus. Tertia ratio sumenda est ex studio actionis humanae, quae praecipue
circa corporalia versatur. Ne igitur esset homini durum si totaliter a corporalibus actibus abstraheretur, proposita sunt ei corporalia exercitia in
sacramentis, quibus salubriter exerceretur, ad evitanda superstitiosa exercitia, quae consistunt in cultu Daemonum, vel qualitercumque noxia,
quae consistunt in actibus peccatorum.”
69
Ibid.
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sacraments a healing remedy and says that they are a spiritual medicine intended to “reach the
part affected by the disease.”70
With the use of Hugh in this passage, Thomas seems to have reverted to earlier
emphases, which he made in his earliest works but abandoned following his De articulis.
Throughout Questions 61 and 62, Thomas appears to make a similar move on a number of
issues. Following a certain reading, one could think that Thomas has returned to an earlier stage
of his development, or even has not developed at all. One would be especially prone to make this
reading if one read only Thomas’s Scriptum and Summa and did not follow the trajectory
established by Thomas’s intervening texts. Regardless, these few apparent reversions are
puzzling given the fact that Question 60 and most of Thomas’s other doctrines in the Summa,
like his theological anthropology, his teaching on signification, and his doctrine of grace, fit so
well with the trajectory established in his mid-career texts. In order to address these apparent
reversions, I first highlight and briefly explain the reasons why each of these issues is not, in fact,
a reversion. Then, at the end of examining Questions 61 and 62, I include a section dedicated to
resolving the issue of how one might interpret these apparent reversions as a whole.
In the current instance, Thomas may appear to be reverting to using Hugh of St. Victor’s
thought in the same way that he did in the Scriptum. This is not the case. Thomas here uses
Hugh’s ideas of education, exercise, and humiliation, but he does so in a different way than he
did previously. Thomas here weaves this idea through with his new significatory anthropology
and with his refined understanding of a sign. Thus, Thomas says, “the condition of human
nature...is such that it has to be led by things corporeal and sensible to things spiritual and
70
Ibid.
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intelligible.”71 Hence, though he uses the same idea from Hugh in both the Scriptum and the
Summa, Thomas does so in two different ways and in two different contexts.
Likewise, Thomas’s attitude toward material and bodily things is entirely more positive
in the explanation of Hugh’s teaching in the Summa than it was in the Scriptum. In the Summa,
Thomas does not see humans as trapped in the material realm. Rather, materiality is a part of the
human creature. Humans can be distracted by this nature from their true purpose, but materiality
is not bad per se. Thus, Thomas has not gone back to the understandings that he espoused in the
Scriptum. To the contrary, he has discovered a new way to incorporate both his previous
teachings and the teachings of the tradition into his most developed positions. Thomas is not here
going back to his previous teachings. He is rather bringing them forward in a new way.
A similar thing can be said for Thomas’s use of Hugh’s medicinal metaphor. Thomas has
in fact, never entirely abandoned ideas that the sacraments are healing, remedies, or even
medicines. These notions are too deeply a part of the sacramental tradition for Thomas to do so.
However, as I have shown, Thomas’s use of and emphasis on these notions have varied widely.
In the Scriptum, the medicinal metaphor was Thomas’s overarching and central theme for
discussing the sacraments. In the middle of his career, though, Thomas scarcely talked about the
sacraments as medicines at all. In the Summa, it is evident that this metaphor is not Thomas’s
primary way of approaching the sacraments. In fact, this article is one of the few times he
mentions medicines at all. Thus, this text is still very much in line with the trajectory of
Thomas’s mid-career texts. Thomas has in no way reverted to his previous teaching, nor is this
evidence that Thomas’s views have not developed. To the contrary, Thomas’s use of medicinal
language is again an instance of Thomas bringing forward his old views and the teaching of the
tradition, and synthetically incorporating these views into his most mature doctrine without
71
Ibid.
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emphasizing them or using them as he once did. The sacraments are truly remedies for sin, and
Thomas here acknowledges this. In the Summa, though, Thomas is far more interested in talking
about the sacraments as signs.
Thomas next refutes three objections. The first objection is one that Thomas addressed in
the Scriptum, namely that if the sacraments are for exercise, they seem unnecessary because Paul
says that bodily exercise profits little. To this, Thomas writes, “Bodily exercise, as such, is not
very profitable: but exercise taken in the use of the sacraments is not merely bodily, but to a
certain extent spiritual, viz. in its signification and causality.”72 The reference to signification and
causality here might cause one to suspect that Thomas has reverted to speaking of the sacraments
as having two natures. However, this is not one of the issues where Thomas seems to return to an
earlier teaching. Here, to the contrary, Thomas does not say that the sacraments are signs and
causes. Nor does he even say that the sacraments have signification and causality. Rather, he
says that taking the sacraments is a spiritual exercise and that the exercise is spiritual insofar as it
consists in signification and causality. Exercise is the object of this phrase, not the sacraments.
The second objection argues, again based on Paul, that God’s grace is sufficient for
salvation, and if this is the case then the sacraments cannot be strictly necessary. Thomas replies,
“God’s grace is a sufficient cause of man’s salvation. But God gives grace to man in a way
which is suitable to him. Hence it is that man needs the sacraments that he may obtain grace.”73
Thomas here uses causal language in close proximity to speaking about the sacraments.
However, Thomas is again very careful not to say that the sacraments are causes. God’s grace is
a cause. The sacraments only give this grace and help humans obtain it, neither of which is the
same thing as saying that the sacraments cause grace.
72
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 1, ad obj. 1. “corporalis exercitatio, inquantum est corporalis, non multum utilis est. Sed exercitatio per usum
sacramentorum non est pure corporalis, sed quodammodo est spiritualis, scilicet per significationem et causalitatem.”
73
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 1, ad obj. 2. “gratia Dei est sufficiens causa humanae salutis. Sed Deus dat hominibus gratiam secundum modum eis
convenientem. Et ideo necessaria sunt hominibus sacramenta ad gratiam consequendam.”
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Finally, Thomas again uses causal language in his reply to the third objection. This
objection claims not that God’s grace is the sufficient cause of salvation, but that Christ’s
Passion is. Thus, if Christ’s work were sufficient, it would seem the sacraments are not
necessary. Thomas replies, “Christ’s Passion is a sufficient cause of man’s salvation. But it does
not follow that the sacraments are not also necessary for that purpose: because they obtain their
effect through the power of Christ’s Passion; and Christ’s Passion is, so to say, applied to man
through the sacraments.”74 Again, one sees Thomas say that Christ and Christ’s Passion are
causes of salvation while he avoids saying that the sacraments are causes of anything.
b) III, q. 61, Article Two – Were the sacraments necessary before sin?
Article Two addresses the more specific question of whether the sacraments were
necessary before sin. Thomas first, in his sed contra appeals to the fact that the sacraments are
remedies. He writes, “None but the sick need remedies, according to Matthew 9:12: ‘They that
are in health need not a physician.’ Now the sacraments are spiritual remedies for the healing of
wounds inflicted by sin. Therefore they were not necessary before sin.”75 As in the previous
article, Thomas again reverts to calling the sacraments medicines.
Thomas’s position in his reply, however, does not build off the idea that the sacraments
are medicines. He instead appeals here to the “rectitude” of the state of innocence, “in which the
higher (parts of man) ruled the lower, and nowise depended on them: for just as the mind was
subject to God, so were the lower powers of the soul subject to the mind, and the body to the
74
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 1, ad obj. 3. “passio Christi est causa sufficiens humanae salutis. Nec propter hoc sequitur quod sacramenta non sint
necessaria ad humanam salutem, quia operantur in virtute passionis Christi, et passio Christi quodammodo applicatur hominibus per
sacramenta”.
75
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 2, s.c. “medicina non est necessaria nisi aegroto, secundum illud Matth. IX, non est opus sanis medicus. Sed sacramenta sunt
quaedam spirituales medicinae, quae adhibentur contra vulnera peccati. Ergo non fuerunt necessaria ante peccatum.”
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soul.”76 In this state, it would be unfitting “if the soul were perfected either in knowledge or in
grace, by anything corporeal.”77 Thus, he writes, the sacraments were not needed before sin
either “as remedies against sin or as means of perfecting the soul.”78
It is possible for one to interpret Thomas in this article as saying that humans only need
signs because of sin. Thus, one could regard Thomas here as reverting to a negative attitude
toward corporeal things and toward signification. I do not, however, agree with this
interpretation or understand Thomas to have reverted to his earlier teaching. Thomas does not
here devalue the sensible world or say that humans would not have used signs in the state of
innocence. To say these things would be to contradict the cosmology and the anthropology that
he has so firmly established in the rest of the Summa. It is not that material things are bad or that
humans would not have made or used signs before there was sin. It is, rather, that humans
wouldn’t have needed the sensible realm in exactly the same way.
Thus, in his reply to the first objection, Thomas states, “In the state of innocence man
needed grace: not so that he needed to obtain grace by means of sensible signs, but in a spiritual
and invisible manner.”79 Before sin, humans still used and needed signs and they still needed
grace. They just would not have obtained grace through sensible signs. They would not need to
be led back to God or to spiritual realities as things unknown because they would never have lost
knowledge of them in the first place.
Similarly, in his reply to the second objection, Thomas writes, “Man’s nature is the same
before and after sin, but the state of his nature is not the same. Because after sin, the soul, even in
76
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 2, res. “in quo superiora inferioribus dominabantur, et nullo modo dependebant ab eis, sicut enim mens suberat Deo, ita
menti suberant inferiores animae vires, et ipsi animae corpus.”
77
Ibid. “Contra hunc autem ordinem esset si anima perficeretur, vel quantum ad scientiam vel quantum ad gratiam, per aliquid corporale, quod
fit in sacramentis.”
78
Ibid. “Et ideo in statu innocentiae homo sacramentis non indigebat, non solum inquantum sacramenta ordinantur in remedium peccati, sed
etiam inquantum ordinantur ad animae perfectionem.”
79
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 2, ad obj. 1. “homo in statu innocentiae gratia indigebat, non tamen ut consequeretur gratiam per aliqua sensibilia signa,
sed spiritualiter et invisibiliter.”
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its higher part, needs to receive something from corporeal things in order that it may be
perfected: whereas man had no need of this in that state.”80 Thus, humans are sign making
creature who are composites of matter and spirit both before and after the Fall. Sin does not
change human nature, the nature of material creation, or the nature of signs. All of these things
are good and Thomas still has a positive attitude toward them in this article. Sin instead subjects
humans to material reality, to ignorance of spiritual things, and to reliance upon signs in order to
rediscover what they once knew. The subjection is bad. Signs and the material creation are not
bad. Thomas’s earliest writings came closer to negatively characterizing signs and materiality
than Thomas does in the Summa. Thus, no reversion has occurred.
c) III, q. 61, Article Three – Were Sacraments necessary after sin, but before Christ?
Thomas next moves to Article Three, which considers whether sacraments were
necessary after sin but before Christ. Thomas, of course, says that they were. He first recalls the
definition of a sacrament, stating that sacraments are “sensible signs of invisible things whereby
man is made holy.”81 This serves as his major premise. His minor premise is then that no one is
made holy except by Christ. Given these facts, Thomas concludes, “Therefore before Christ’s
coming there was need for some visible signs whereby man might testify to his faith in the future
coming of a Savior. And these signs are called sacraments. It is therefore clear that some
sacraments were necessary before Christ’s coming.”82 Neither this position nor Thomas’s
argument for it is particularly revelatory for his doctrine of sacramental signification. His replies
80
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 2, ad obj. 2. “eadem est natura hominis ante peccatum et post peccatum, non tamen est idem naturae status. Nam post
peccatum anima, etiam quantum ad superiorem partem, indiget accipere aliquid a corporalibus rebus ad sui perfectionem quod in illo statu
homini necesse non erat.”
81
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 3, res. “sunt quaedam sensibilia signa invisibilium rerum quibus homo sanctificatur”.
82
Ibid. “Et ideo oportebat ante Christi adventum esse quaedam signa visibilia quibus homo fidem suam protestaretur de futuro salvatoris
adventu. Et huiusmodi signa sacramenta dicuntur. Et sic patet quod ante Christi adventum necesse fuit quaedam sacramenta institui.”
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to this article’s objections, particularly the reply to Objection Two, however, speak well to
Thomas’s attitude toward the sacraments of the Old Law.
Objection Two contends that the sacraments of the Old Law should not have changed
between the time of the Natural Law and the time of the Law of Moses because human’s sinful
state did not change. Thus, it would seem that the sacraments of the Law of Moses were not
necessary. To this, Thomas replies that one can view the state of humankind after sin from two
perspectives. First, from the perspective of faith, and in this way humans’ state has always been
“one and the same”83 because persons have always been made righteous by faith in Christ.
Second, one may consider humans’ state, “according as sin was more or less intense, and
knowledge concerning Christ more or less explicit.”84 As history marched forward, Thomas
thinks, sin gained more and more of a hold on humans and humans’ knowledge of Christ
diminished. In response to this, God chose to communicate to humans more and more explicitly,
“for the clearer signification of faith.”85 Thus, as time went on, the sacraments became clearer
and clearer, from the sacraments of the Natural Law, to the sacraments of the Mosaic Law,
ultimately to the sacraments of the Age of Grace.
In this reply, Thomas presents a contiguous account of the sacraments of the Old and
New Laws. In both perspectives Thomas names, the Old and New sacraments are united in the
single purpose of leading persons to Christ. If one considers the sacraments with respect to faith,
the sacraments of the Natural Law, the sacraments of the Mosaic Law, and the sacraments of the
New Law all inspire and attest to faith in Christ. If on the other hand, one considers the
sacraments with respect to human sin and knowledge of Christ, both the sacraments of the Old
and New Laws again do the same thing. They signify Christ and lead persons to Christ. The
83
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 3, ad obj. 2. “unus et idem”.
84
Ibid. “Alio modo potest considerari secundum intensionem et remissionem peccati, et expressae cognitionis de Christo.”
85
Ibid. “ut esset determinatior fidei significatio.”
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sacraments just do this in different ways throughout time as humans’ situation and needs change.
This teaching is in line with Thomas’s other mid-career texts. Thomas clearly has a positive
attitude toward the sacraments of the Old law. He here imagines no disconnect between the
sacraments of the various ages, and he does not degrade the sacraments of the Old Law as a
means of boosting the value of the sacraments of the New Law. At this point in the Summa,
Thomas clearly teaches that all sacraments are signs and that the distinction between the Old and
the New sacraments is a matter of the clarity or explicitness of these signs.
d) III, q. 61, Article Four – Are sacraments needed after Christ has come?
Finally in q. 61 a. 4, Thomas entertains the question of whether there was any need for
sacraments after Christ came. Thomas begins again from the definition of a sacrament, which he
this time formulates as, “the sacraments are signs in protestation of the faith whereby man is
justified; and signs should vary according as they signify the future, the past, or the present.”86
“Therefore,” Thomas concludes, “the sacraments of the New Law, that signify Christ in relation
to the past, must needs differ from those of the Old Law, that foreshadowed the future,”87 but the
sacraments of the New Law are no less needed.
In this response, one again sees how thoroughly signification has penetrated Thomas’s
sacramentology. His fundamental instinct is to answer theological questions about the
sacraments by appealing to the fact that the sacraments are signs. The sacraments’ nature as signs
here allows Thomas to explain why the sacraments are necessary for every age, yet why they
look different in every age. One also sees Thomas’s positive attitude toward the Old sacraments
and much more of a connection between the Old and New than a disconnect. Both the
86
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 4, res. “Sunt autem sacramenta quaedam signa protestantia fidem qua homo iustificatur. Oportet autem aliis signis
significari futura, praeterita seu praesentia”.
87
Ibid. “Et ideo oportet quaedam alia sacramenta in nova lege esse, quibus significentur ea quae praecesserunt in Christo, praeter sacramenta
veteris legis, quibus praenuntiabantur futura.”
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sacraments of the Old and New Law protested faith in Christ whereby humans are justified. The
Old did this by pointing to the future. The New do it by pointing to the past.
Each of the three objections in this article merits analysis. The first objection claims that
no sacraments are needed in the Age of Grace because “the figure should cease with the advent
of the truth,”88 and Christ is clearly the truth. Thus, signs or figures of this truth are no longer
needed. To this, Thomas appeals to Dionysius and says that sacraments do not cease now, but
instead will cease in the state of glory, “in which all truth will be openly and perfectly
revealed.”89 “But now,” Thomas writes, “so long as we know ‘through a glass in a dark manner,’
(1 Corinthians 13:12) we need sensible signs in order to reach spiritual things: and this is the
province of the sacraments.”90 One sees in this response the essence of what Thomas thinks
sacraments are and do. Sacraments are sensible signs that lead persons to spiritual things.
Thomas could not be clearer in the Summa that this is the core of his sacramentology.
The second objection appeals to Galatians and makes the point that persons in the Age of
Grace are no longer like children and thus no longer need to serve God under corporeal elements
or material sacraments because the fullness of time has already come. To this, Thomas replies:
The Apostle calls the sacraments of the Old Law ‘weak and needy elements’ (Galatians 4:9)
because they neither contained nor caused grace. Hence the Apostle says that those who used
these sacraments served God ‘under the elements of this world’: for the very reason that
these sacraments were nothing else than the elements of this world. But our sacraments both
contain and cause grace: consequently the comparison does not hold.91
In this reply, Thomas appears to make two reversions to his early teaching that are inconsistent,
both with his mid-career writings and with the other places in the Summa. Thomas speaks of the
88
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 4, obj. 1. “Veniente enim veritate, debet cessare figura.”
89
Ibid. “et inter statum gloriae, in qua omnis nude et perfecte manifestabitur veritas.”
90
Ibid. “Nunc autem, quandiu per speculum in aenigmate cognoscimus, ut dicitur I Cor. XIII, oportet nos per aliqua sensibilia signa in
spiritualia devenire. Quod pertinet ad rationem sacramentorum.”
91
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 4, ad obj. 1. “sacramenta veteris legis apostolus vocat egena et infirma elementa, quia gratiam nec continebant, nec
causabant. Et ideo utentes illis sacramentis dicit apostolus sub elementis mundi Deo servisse, quia scilicet nihil erant aliud quam elementa huius
mundi. Nostra autem sacramenta gratiam continent et causant. Et ideo non est de eis similis ratio.”
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sacraments as “weak and needy elements” for the first time since the De articulis, and Thomas
says that the sacraments cause grace, which he has also not done since the De articulis.
The first of these apparent reversions can be easily shown to be no reversion at all.
Thomas does not himself call the sacraments weak and needy elements. He merely says, “The
Apostle calls the sacraments of the Old Law ‘weak and needy elements.’”92 This may seem to be
something of a hair-splitting distinction. However, making or failing to make this distinction
greatly affects the way one interprets Thomas’s attitude toward the sacraments of the Old Law,
and thus the way one interprets Thomas’s attitude toward signs and the development of his
doctrine of sacramental signification. If one reads this reference on its own, one may be prone to
see here a sharp distinction between the Old and New Sacraments and a negative attitude toward
the sacraments of the Old Law. However, read in context, one will recognize that it is not
possible to regard Thomas as having a negative attitude here, because Thomas just, in the
previous article, evinced an entirely positive attitude toward the sacraments of the Old Law. A
negative reading here is even less likely given the trajectory of Thomas’s other mid-career texts.
Since the De articulis, which is a likely period of over a decade, Thomas has refused to refer to
the Old sacraments in this manner. It thus makes little sense that he inexplicably changed his
attitude of over a decade in the course of a single article.
Therefore, one should not read this reference to “weak and needy elements” as a
reversion to the doctrine of Thomas’s earliest writings. Instead, one should see Thomas here as
merely acknowledging what is written in Scripture. Unlike his earliest writings, Thomas does not
use this verse to disparage or devalue the sacraments of the Old Law in order to make the
sacraments of the New Law seem more important. He merely explains what Paul meant. Taken
with the previous article, one can thus understand Thomas here to mean not that the sacraments
92
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 4, ad obj. 2.
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of the Old Law are weak and needy in the sense of being deficient or worthless absolutely, but
are weak and needy in the sense of being less clear and less explicit from the perspective of, and
thus of little help for, persons in the Age of Grace. The sacraments of the Old Law were not
weak and needy in and of themselves, but are may now be seen as weak and needy for
contemporary persons due to the more dire, sinful, and ignorant state of contemporary humans.
Given this interpretation, one should conclude that Thomas has not reverted to his earliest
teaching, but has instead, creatively and with careful qualification, discovered a way to
incorporate the whole of the tradition, even the parts he has chosen to deemphasize, into his
theology. This reading also explains why Thomas here only brings this verse up in an objection,
rather than using it directly and positively to support own position, as he has done before.
The second point at which Thomas appears to have reverted to his earlier teaching is in
the fact that he here says that the sacraments cause grace. Thomas has much more to say on this
issue in Question 62, which is devoted explicitly to the sacraments’ relationship to grace. I will
thus wait to address whether or not one might consider this a point of doctrinal reversion, or even
as evidence against doctrinal development, until after I have examined all that Thomas has to say
on the matter. For now, one might merely regard this reference to causality as Thomas’s means
of transitioning into the following question, since this is the last article of the current question.
Finally, Thomas’s reply to Objection Three serves to confirm the reading that no
reversion in his teaching on the sacraments of the Old and New Laws has occurred. Objection
Three argues that God cannot change, and therefore it would be inconsistent if there were
different sacraments under the different ages of humankind. “Therefore,” the objection
concludes, “it seems that other sacraments should not have been instituted after Christ.”93 To
answer this, Thomas appeals to his metaphor about the wise householder who governs differently
93
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 4, obj. 3. “Ergo videtur quod post Christum non debuerunt institui alia sacramenta.”
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in different seasons. This metaphor occurs in Thomas’s mid-career texts, as seen above, and is
consistent with a connected view of the Old and New sacraments and a positive attitude toward
the Old sacraments. Thomas writes:
Just as the head of the house is not proved to have a changeable mind, through issuing
various commands to his household at various seasons, ordering things differently in winter
and summer; so it does not follow that there is any change in God, because He instituted
sacraments of one kind after Christ’s coming, and of another kind at the time of the Law,
because the latter were suitable as foreshadowing grace; the former as signifying the
presence of grace.94
Thus, it is evident that one cannot here regard Thomas as having reverted to his earliest teaching.
Thomas does not have a negative attitude toward the Old sacraments; he does not exalt the New
sacraments at the expense of the Old; and, he, therefore, does not devalue the significatory role
of the sacraments. Instead, as he makes clear in the concluding sentence, Thomas views all
sacraments as signs pointing toward the grace that is available in Christ and through faith in
Christ. The Old sacraments pointed forward to this grace, whereas the New sacraments point to
the grace as both present and having already arrived. On this clearly significatory note, Thomas
concludes Question 61.
4) III, Question 62 - The Principle Effect of the Sacraments, Which is Grace
After having firmly established that the sacraments are signs and after addressing the
necessity of the sacraments, Thomas turns, in Question 62, to discuss grace as an effect of the
sacraments. In so doing, he addresses whether and in what manner one can speak of the
sacraments as causes. A misreading of Question 62 is the biggest reason why the majority of
interpreters conceive that causality is the central notion of Thomas’s sacramentology.
94
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 4, ad obj. 3. “sicut paterfamilias non ex hoc habere monstratur mutabilem voluntatem quod diversa praecepta familiae suae
proponit pro temporum varietate, non eadem praecipiens hieme et aestate; ita non ostenditur aliqua mutatio esse circa Deum ex hoc quod alia
sacramenta instituit post Christi adventum, et alia tempore legis; quia illa fuerunt congrua gratiae praefigurandae, haec autem sunt congrua
gratiae praesentialiter demonstrandae.”
332
Additionally, from the perspective of the developmental narrative traced in the previous chapters,
this question can seem as though Thomas reverts to several of the positions that he held in his
Scriptum and De veritate. Thus, I examine this question with great care. In so doing, I argue that
if one reads questions 61 and 62 both in their context in the Summa and especially in the context
of the developmental trajectory of Thomas’s thought, one should not understand either that
Thomas is reverting to his earlier positions or that causality is the key notion of his
sacramentology. To the contrary, I argue that Thomas, even in here discussing causality, still
entirely subjugates the causality of the sacraments to the signification of the sacraments, just as
he has done consistently in his other mid-career texts. Thomas acknowledges that one can use the
language of causality to express certain things about the sacraments, but he drastically limits the
applicability of this language.
a) III, q. 62, Article One – Are the sacraments of the New Law the cause of grace?
The first article of Question 62 asks whether the sacraments are the cause of grace.
Thomas begins his response to this question by stating, “We must needs say that in some way the
sacraments of the New Law cause grace.”95 One should not overlook the tone of this opening
statement. Thomas seems reluctant to bring up this topic, but he feels that it must be done. Thus,
he says it is necessary to say (necesse est dicere) that the sacraments in some way (per aliquem
modum) cause grace. This hesitancy is consistent with Thomas’s mid-career texts, where he
obviously was not enthused to speak of the sacraments in terms of causality because he chose not
to do this at all.
In this opening phrase, one should place a good deal of interpretive weight upon the
phrase “in some way.” The sacraments are only causes of grace “in some way.” Thomas does not
95
Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 1, res. “Respondeo dicendum quod necesse est dicere sacramenta novae legis per aliquem modum gratiam causare.”
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simply say that the sacraments are the cause of grace, as he did in his earliest writings. He also
does not just begin speaking of the sacraments as the causes of grace, as though it were
immediately evident how this is the case. Thomas instead here makes the point that the
sacraments can only be spoken of in terms of causality “in some way, which is to say, in a
tentative and narrow sense. This reading will receive further support below.
Thomas’s next move is to consider precisely how one can properly speak of the
sacraments as causing grace. First, as he did in the Scriptum, Thomas rules out understanding the
sacraments as the causes of grace in the sense that God causes grace simultaneously with their
use. This is the pact theory of causality that understands the sacraments are sine qua non causes
of grace. Thomas does not use the term ‘pact theory’ or the term ‘sine qua non causes,’ but he
does, as in the Scriptum, use the example of a lead coin that a king honors not because of any
operation of the coin, but solely because the king wills it.
A simple reading of the standard English translation of Thomas’s discussion about the
lead coin sounds very similar to Thomas’s discussion in the Scriptum. Thomas again seems to
imagine the sacraments have a dual nature and to minimalize the sacraments nature as signs.
After explaining the example of the lead coin, the English translation reads:
But if we examine the question properly, we shall see that according to the above mode the
sacraments are mere signs. For the leaden coin is nothing but a sign of the king’s command
that this man should receive money...Hence, according to this opinion the sacraments of the
New Law would be mere signs of grace; whereas we have it on the authority of many saints
that the sacraments of the New Law not only signify, but also cause grace.96
Following this translation, it seems as though Thomas is again adopting a negative attitude
toward signification. Phrases like, “nothing but a sign” and “mere signs,” leads one to the
96
Ibid. “Sed si quis recte consideret, iste modus non transcendit rationem signi. Nam denarius plumbeus non est nisi quoddam signum regiae
ordinationis de hoc quod pecunia recipiatur ab isto. Similiter liber est quoddam signum quo designatur traditio canonicatus. Secundum hoc
igitur sacramenta novae legis nihil plus essent quam signa gratiae, cum tamen ex multis sanctorum auctoritatibus habeatur quod sacramenta
novae legis non solum significant, sed causant gratiam.”
334
conclusion that signification is somehow deficient, and that causality must come along to save
the day and render the sacraments valuable.
The Latin, however, is much more nuanced about causality than Thomas’s earliest
position. Thus, the English translation reveals, illustrates, and perpetuates the bias toward
overemphasizing causality in Thomas’s sacramentology. The following is a more accurate
rendering of the Latin. The passage should read:
But, if anyone considers rightly, this mode [of causality] does not transcend the logic of a
sign. For, the lead coin is nothing except a certain sign of the king’s order that this person
should receive money...According to this, therefore, the sacraments of the New Law would
be no more than signs of grace, yet from the authority of many saints, it is held that the
sacraments of the New Law not only signify, but cause grace.97
This translation changes the tone of this passage entirely. Thomas is not at all saying that signs
are deficient, as the standard English translation leads one to believe. His point is only that the
lead coin example of causality is inadequate because a lead coin is a sign and not a cause in any
sense. Following both the Latin and my translation, causality does appear to be something that
rectifies the inadequacy of “mere signs.” Rather, causality appears as something extrinsic added
to the essence of the sacraments as signs. Thomas’s point is that the sacraments of the New Law
are essentially signs, but that they are “more” than this as well because they are effective signs.
One reading holds that the sacraments are not mere signs, but are signs and causes. The other,
however, holds that the sacraments are signs that also cause grace. The difference between these
two understandings makes a tremendous difference in understanding the development of
Thomas’s sacramentology. The former assumes that Thomas is saying the same thing at the end
of his career as at the beginning, whereas the latter recognizes that a shift toward signification
and away from causality has occurred.
97
Ibid.
335
Before moving on to the next part of Thomas’s respondeo, one would again do well to
note the tone of the final sentence just cited. Thomas expresses the sentiment that he is
constrained to speak of the sacraments as, in some sense, causing grace. “The authority of many
of the saints” compels him to speak of the sacraments as causing grace. This is the reason why he
cannot simply say that the sacraments are signs of grace. The sacraments are in fact signs, and
essentially so, but they have efficacy, which is attested to by the saints and the Tradition.
Thus, Thomas moves on in the next section of his respondeo to discuss the exact sense in
which the sacrament might be understood to cause grace. He first distinguishes between two
types of efficient causality, principal and instrumental. A principal cause works by its own power
and nature. “In this way,” Thomas says, “none but God can cause grace: since grace is nothing
else than a participated likeness of the Divine Nature, according to 2 Peter 1:4: ‘He hath given us
most great and precious promises; that we may be partakers of the Divine Nature.’”98 One sees
already that Thomas is far from his earliest teaching on this subject. Thomas’s notion of grace
and his emphasis on deification, which is brought about by grace, clearly follow the trajectory of
his mid-career texts. In his earliest texts, Thomas did not have an uncreated notion of grace and
he oriented both his sacramentology and doctrine of grace around healing and restoration rather
than deification. This is certain evidence that Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental causality is not
the same in his most mature writing as it was in his earliest writings.
Thomas next describes how an instrumental cause works. Rather than working by its own
power and based on its own nature, an instrumental cause only causes based on the movement
imparted to it by a principal agent. Thus, Thomas writes:
The instrumental cause works not by the power of its form, but only by the motion whereby
it is moved by the principal agent: so that the effect is not likened to the instrument but to the
98
Ibid. “Et hoc modo non potest causare gratiam nisi Deus, quia gratia nihil est aliud quam quaedam participata similitudo divinae naturae,
secundum illud II Pet. I, magna nobis et pretiosa promissa donavit, ut divinae simus consortes naturae.”
336
principal agent: for instance, the couch is not like the axe, but like the art which is in the
craftsman’s mind. And it is thus that the sacraments of the New Law cause grace: for they are
instituted by God to be employed for the purpose of conferring grace.99
In this passage, one sees exactly what Thomas means when he speaks of the sacraments as
causing grace. About this passage, I have three points.
First, I suggest that what Thomas means when he speaks of causality of grace now means
exactly what he meant when he spoke in his mid-career texts of the sacraments conferring or
giving grace. Thus, he writes, “for [the sacraments] are instituted by God to be employed for the
purpose of conferring grace.”100 Throughout the middle part of his career, Thomas hesitated to
say that the sacraments caused grace at all. Instead, he preferred to speak of the sacraments’
efficacy by saying that they conferred or gave grace. Thomas here feels, perhaps for the sake of
being thorough or for the sake of summarizing the whole of theology, that he “must” at least
mention the language of causality, because of the “authority of many saints.”101 What he means
by this causality, though is none other than what he meant earlier by saying that the sacraments
confer grace, namely that God gives grace through the sacraments.
This understanding leads, second, to a clearer understanding of what Thomas means
when he says in the Summa that the sacraments cause grace. He does not mean that the
sacraments are essentially causes; he does not mean that the sacraments are simply causes; and,
he does not mean that the sacraments cause anything by their own power, nature, or form.
Rather, when Thomas says in the Summa that the sacraments are causes of grace, he means only
that God uses them to cause grace, as a worker would use a tool or an instrument. One must keep
this very specific meaning in mind in order to avoid any misunderstandings about Thomas’s
99
Ibid. ‘Causa vero instrumentalis non agit per virtutem suae formae, sed solum per motum quo movetur a principali agente. Unde effectus non
assimilatur instrumento, sed principali agenti, sicut lectus non assimilatur securi, sed arti quae est in mente artificis. Et hoc modo sacramenta
novae legis gratiam causant, adhibentur enim ex divina ordinatione ad gratiam in eis causandam.”
100
Ibid.
101
Ibid. “ex multis sanctorum auctoritatibus”. Who exactly these authorities are, Thomas does not say.
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sacramentology. Thomas now does not mean that the sacraments cause grace in the same sense
in which he meant these words in his earliest writings. Before, when Thomas spoke of the
sacraments as causes, he meant that the sacraments were essentially causes because they
efficiently caused, by the power of their own nature, a character or ornament of the soul and
dispositively caused created grace. Now, however, when Thomas says that the sacraments “in
some way” are causes of grace, he means only that God uses the sacraments to confer or give
grace to persons. Hence, the sacraments are essentially signs. They are not essentially causes and
not even causes at all unless by this one means precisely that God uses them to give grace.
This leads me to my third point. Thomas cannot be teaching the same thing about
sacramental signification and causality in the Summa as he did in his earliest writings because he
has entirely dropped his hybrid efficient/dispositive theory of causality. In the Scriptum, Thomas
spoke of the sacraments as efficient, dispositive, and instrumental causes. Now, he speaks only
of the sacraments as instrumental causes. He has thus narrowed the sense in which he is willing
to speak about the sacraments being causes. This understanding is consistent with his hesitancy
to speak of the sacraments as causes both throughout his mid-career texts and within this very
article. The sacraments are essentially signs, but Thomas reluctantly admits that one can also
speak of them with the language of causality if by this one means precisely that the sacraments
are signs that God uses to give grace. Thus, in speaking of the sacraments as causes in the
Summa, Thomas has not reverted to the emphases of his earliest teaching on the subject. He has
instead discovered a way to accommodate the language of the tradition and the language of his
earlier writings within his more mature understanding of the sacraments as signs.
Given an understanding of the way in which it is acceptable to say that the sacraments
are causes, Thomas proceeds to consider and respond to three objections. Of these, only the first
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requires close consideration. The first objection states, “It seems that the sacraments are not the
cause of grace. For it seems that the same thing is not both sign and cause: since the nature of
sign appears to be more in keeping with an effect. But a sacrament is a sign of grace. Therefore,
it is not its cause.”102 Thomas’s reply to this objection is frankly the greatest challenge to the
interpretation I am advancing. Thomas writes:
The principal cause cannot properly be called a sign of its effect, even though the latter be
hidden and the cause itself sensible and manifest. But an instrumental cause, if manifest, can
be called a sign of a hidden effect, for this reason, that it is not merely a cause but also in a
measure an effect in so far as it is moved by the principal agent. And in this sense the
sacraments of the New Law are both causes and signs. Hence, too, is it that, to use the
common expression, ‘they effect what they signify.’ From this, it is clear that they perfectly
fulfill the conditions of a sacrament; being ordained to something sacred, not only as a sign,
but also as a cause.103
This passage upon first reading could easily be understood either a reversion to Thomas’s
teaching in the Scriptum, or as evidence that Thomas’s sacramentology has not undergone
development. It thus seems to oppose the reading of Thomas’s sacramentology that I am
proposing for two reasons. First, Thomas seems to say, as he did in his earliest writings, that the
sacraments have a dual nature as both signs and causes. He even says word for word that, “the
sacraments of the New Law are both causes and signs.”104 Second, and perhaps even more
threatening to my reading, Thomas seems to, again as he did in his earliest writings, subject
sacramental signification to causality. He seems to do so when he says, “an instrumental cause, if
manifest, can be called a sign of a hidden effect.”105 Thomas could be taken to be implying here
that the sacraments actually are and are first instrumental causes, and that they can merely be
102
Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 1, obj. 1. “Videtur quod sacramenta non sint causa gratiae. Non enim idem videtur esse signum et causa, eo quod ratio signi
videtur magis effectui competere. Sed sacramentum est signum gratiae. Non igitur est causa eius.”
103
Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 1, ad obj. 1. “causa principalis non proprie potest dici signum effectus, licet occulti, etiam si ipsa sit sensibilis et manifesta.
Sed causa instrumentalis, si sit manifesta, potest dici signum effectus occulti, eo quod non solum est causa, sed quodammodo effectus, inquantum
movetur a principali agente. Et secundum hoc, sacramenta novae legis simul sunt causa et signa. Et inde est quod, sicut communiter dicitur,
efficiunt quod figurant. Ex quo etiam patet quod habent perfecte rationem sacramenti, inquantum ordinantur ad aliquid sacrum non solum per
modum signi, sed etiam per modum causae.”
104
Ibid.
105
Ibid.
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called signs. However, upon closer examination, neither of these two readings is viable. Thus,
the conclusion that Thomas’s sacramentology has either remained the same or reverted does not
follow.
To the first reason, Thomas is in no way saying that the sacraments have a dual nature for
two reasons. First, this is apparent from the fact that Thomas accepts the premises of the initial
objection. The objection points out that something cannot be both a sign and a cause. It then says
that a sacrament is a sign, and uses this to conclude that it is not a cause. If Thomas thought that
the sacraments had a dual nature as both signs and causes, he would have said that a sacrament is
not just a sign, but is both a sign and a cause. The argument of the reply would then have needed
to address the way in which something can be essentially both a sign and a cause. However,
Thomas does not do this, nor could he have because in the previous articles he has so thoroughly
established that a sacrament is solely a sign. Instead, Thomas accepts both of the premises of the
objection without qualification and focuses on the premise that, “the nature of sign appears to be
more in keeping with an effect,” in order to disagree with the conclusion. The entire argument of
his Reply to Objection One is devoted to showing why an instrumental cause can, in fact, be a
sign of a principle effect, namely because it is itself an effect. Thus, he clearly agrees with the
fact that the sacraments are signs and that they cannot essentially be both signs and causes.
Second, one should attend carefully to the sentence where Thomas says that the
sacraments are both signs and causes. He does not say this unreservedly in the same way that he
frequently says that the sacraments are signs unreservedly. Thomas says precisely, “And in this
sense, the sacraments of the New Law are both cause and signs.”106 One must understand the
qualification, “in this sense,” together with what Thomas has just said in the respondeo of this
article. Here, as shown above, Thomas has reluctantly given a very specific sense in which one
106
Ibid.
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can speak of the sacraments as causes, namely if by causes one understands that God uses certain
signs to communicate to humans in an appropriate mode and through these signs leads them to
and gives them grace. In this very specific sense, which is what Thomas means when he speaks
of instrumental causes, one can say that the sacraments are both signs and causes. One can say
this because this sense precisely does not mean that the sacraments have a dual nature. A dual
nature is unacceptable, and Thomas has admitted this by accepting the premise of the objection.
Instead, one can say that the sacraments are signs and causes only if one means exactly that the
sacraments are signs that God uses to cause things. Here again, therefore, one sees the way in
which Thomas is able to use his new understanding of sacramental signification to incorporate
both the whole of the Tradition and his previous teaching, which he has since abandoned.
The second reason why q. 62, ad obj. 1 may seem to be a reversion is that one can read it
as an instance of Thomas subjecting signification to causality. He says that “an instrumental
cause, if manifest, can be called a sign,” which could imply that the sacraments are really causes
that can only be called signs, as opposed to being really signs that can be called causes. This
reading, however, is not viable for four reasons.
First, Thomas is not here subjecting signification to causality because of the reason just
given for why the sacraments do not have a dual nature. Thomas accepts the premise that the
sacraments are signs and he does so unreservedly. Thus, the sacraments just simply are signs, as
Thomas has said consistently throughout the Summa, but in a very specific limited sense, it is
also permissible to speak of them as causes. This in no way allows one to understand a
subjection of signification to causality. The concept of causality is limited and only useful to
express a single precise meaning. The concept of signification, on the other hand, applies widely
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and Thomas uses it frequently to speak of all aspects of the sacraments. It is thus the case that
causality is subjected to signification rather than vice versa.
A second reason why this passage does not imply that signification is subjected to
causality is its context. Thomas is not here speaking about causality in general or of its overall
relationship to signification. Rather, Thomas is attempting to avoid the implications of the third
premise of the objection, that causes cannot be signs. His response to this is that causes can, in
fact, be signs. This in no way means that causes are superior to signs or that the sacraments are
first causes and only then signs.
Third, Thomas does not subject signification to causality because even in explaining his
position, he makes signification the overriding notion. He initially appears to make causality
primary by saying that instrumental causes can be called signs. However, Thomas then explains
instrumental causality by means of a significatory process. Effects are signs of an instrumental
cause, which are both an effect and a sign of a principal cause. This significatory logic resembles
closely the significatory relationship that Thomas imagines between the sacramentum tantum,
the res et sacramentum, and the res tantum of the sacraments. Thus, even to explain how primary
and instrumental causality works, Thomas appeals to the logic of signification.
Fourth and finally, Thomas’s last sentence of this reply leads one to the understanding
both that the sacraments do not have a dual nature and that Thomas in no way subjects causality
to signification. The standard English translation renders this sentence as follows: “From this it is
clear that [the sacraments of the New Law] perfectly fulfill the conditions of a sacrament; being
ordained to something sacred, not only as a sign, but also as a cause.”107 This again could lead
persons to think that Thomas somehow equally imagines the sacrament as signs and causes.
107
Ibid. “Ex quo etiam patet quod habent perfecte rationem sacramenti, inquantum ordinantur ad aliquid sacrum non solum per modum signi,
sed etiam per modum causae.”
342
However, the Latin is better translated as, the sacraments are ordained to something sacred, “not
only by the mode of signs, but even by the mode of causes.”108 In this alternative translation, one
first notices that Thomas is not, in fact, saying that the sacraments are signs and causes. He is not
speaking to the essence of the sacraments at all. Instead, he is saying how the sacraments
function. The sacraments function in the mode of signs and also in the mode of causes. Second,
however, one here notices that Thomas does not present signs and causes as equals. The phrase
“even by the mode of causes,” to the contrary, implies that causality is something added on and
secondary to the sacraments working in the mode of signs. Of course, the sacraments work in the
mode of signs, because they are signs, but the sacraments can even be said to work as causes
because God uses sacramental signs to give grace.
Therefore, although upon first reading q. 62, ad obj. 1 Thomas may appear to revert to his
earlier teaching, I argue that he does not, in fact, do so. Though Thomas says that the sacraments
are both causes and signs, this phrase does not mean the same thing as it did in the Scriptum.
Thomas does not mean that the sacraments have a dual nature, and he does not subject
signification to causality. He only means here the same thing he said in the respondeo to this
question. The sacraments are signs, but one can speak of sacramental causality if by this one
means only that God uses certain signs as a means to give grace. In this sense, and only this
sense, the sacraments function as, but are in no way essentially, causes. With this point out of the
way in Article One, Thomas goes on to discuss the true subject of this Question, grace.
108
Ibid. “...non solum per modum signi, sed etiam per modum causae.”
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b) III, q. 62, Article Two – Does sacramental grace confer anything more than the grace of the
gifts and the virtues?
Article Two of Question 62 considers whether sacramental grace confers anything more
than the grace of the gifts and virtues. Thomas argues, “the sacraments are ordained unto certain
special effects which are necessary in the Christian life.”109 Thus, over and above the “certain
special perfection” of the soul’s powers that the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit
provide, the sacraments give “a certain Divine assistance in obtaining the end of the sacrament.”
Thomas here gives the example of Baptism, whereby a person is spiritually regenerated, dies to
vice, and becomes a member of the body of Christ. None of these things are a perfection of the
soul’s powers, so this grace cannot be considered a gift or a virtue. Instead, each of these results,
which Baptism signifies, is a special gift of God. Therefore, the grace of the sacraments is not the
same as the grace of the gifts and virtues.
c) III, q. 62, Article Three – Do the sacraments of the New Law contain grace?
The finer points of Thomas’s argument in Article Two need not be examined for the
current purposes. Thus, I move on to Article Three, which asks whether the sacraments of the
New Law contain grace. Thomas says that they do, but not as the subject of grace, or as a vessel
contains something, or as something in contained in a place. Rather, Thomas says, the
sacraments contain grace in two ways, as something is contained in a sign and as something is
contained in a cause. He writes, “A thing is said to be in another in various ways; in two of
which grace is said to be in the sacraments. First, as in its sign; for a sacrament is a sign of grace.
Secondly, as in its cause; for, as stated above, a sacrament of the New Law is an instrumental
109
Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 2, res. “Ordinantur autem sacramenta ad quosdam speciales effectus necessarios in vita Christiana”.
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cause of grace.”110 Here, one sees another instance where Thomas subjects notions of causality to
notions of signification. The sacraments just are signs, but they can only be called causes in the
very particular sense of meaning that God uses the sacraments to give grace. This qualification
becomes more evident in the following sentences. Thomas cannot unreservedly say that grace is
in the sacraments as in a cause, as he does for signs. Instead, he further specifies that grace is not
in the sacraments as “an effect is in a univocal cause,” or “as effects in non-univocal causes.”
Grace can only be said to be in the sacraments, “as to a certain instrumental power transient and
incomplete in its natural being.”111 Thus, Thomas again reveals himself to be very hesitant and
careful about the way in which he uses the language of causality to speak about the sacraments.
This language is only acceptable in certain very specific and highly restricted senses.
d) III, q. 62, Article Four – Is there a power for causing grace in the sacraments?
Thomas has more to say about the incomplete and transient power of the sacraments to
cause grace in the next article. Here, he considers whether there is a power for causing grace in
the sacraments. Once again, Thomas uses the language of causality, but he does so reluctantly
and in a greatly limited fashion. Thomas first says that persons who hold a pact theory of
sacramental causality do not need to say that the sacraments have any power of themselves to
cause grace. “But,” Thomas writes, “if we hold that a sacrament is an instrumental cause of
grace, we must needs allow that there is in the sacraments a certain instrumental power of
bringing about the sacramental effects.”112 Again, one gets the sense that Thomas is less than
enthused to hold this position. He must in some way speak of the sacraments causing grace, but
110
Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 3, res. “quod multipliciter dicitur aliquid esse in alio, inter quos duplici modo gratia est in sacramentis. Uno modo, sicut in
signis, nam sacramentum est signum gratiae. Alio modo, sicut in causa. Nam, sicut dictum est, sacramentum novae legis est instrumentalis
gratiae causa.”
111
Ibid. “sed secundum quandam instrumentalem virtutem, quae est fluens et incompleta in esse naturae, ut infra dicetur.”
112
Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 4, res. “Sed ponendo quod sacramentum est instrumentalis causa gratiae, necesse est simul ponere quod in sacramento sit
quaedam virtus instrumentalis ad inducendum sacramentalem effectum.”
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he cannot agree with a pact theory of causality. His solution is to say that the sacraments are
God’s instruments of giving grace and that of themselves they only have the power of being
instruments. Thomas has thus gone from having a positive attitude toward causality and a clearly
negative attitude toward signification in the Scriptum to having a positive attitude toward
signification and a negative attitude toward causality in the Summa.
This negative attitude toward causality is revealed even further in the following
sentences. Thomas writes:
For an instrument, as stated above, does not work save as moved by the principal agent,
which works of itself. And therefore the power of the principal agent exists in nature
completely and perfectly: whereas the instrumental power has a being that passes from one
thing into another, and is incomplete; just as motion is an imperfect act passing from agent to
patient.113
In the Summa, for practically first time in over a decade, Thomas admits that one can use the
language of causality to speak about the sacraments. Nonetheless, he manifestly thinks that this
language is not ideal. The sacraments are not causes simply or essentially. They are only causes
instrumentally, which Thomas here says is only a cause in the slightest sense. Unlike the, one
may call it, coincidental causality imagined by pact theorists, which is really not causality at all,
the sacraments do in fact have some real causality, but just enough for it to be legitimately called
causality. Thomas thinks this causality “does not work” unless it is moved by the true cause. He
thus thinks that instrumental causality is “incomplete,” “transient,” and ultimately “imperfect.”114
Principal causality is the real causality. Instrumental causality is only a capacity to be used by the
principal cause. Thus, any language of sacramental causality that Thomas uses in the Summa
serves only as a way of saying that God uses the sacraments. Saying the sacraments are
instrumental causes of grace is thus really not saying very much about the sacraments at all. To
113
Ibid. ‘Instrumentum enim, ut dictum est, non operatur nisi inquantum est motum a principali agente, quod per se operatur. Et ideo virtus
principalis agentis habet permanens et completum esse in natura, virtus autem instrumentalis habet esse transiens ex uno in aliud, et
incompletum; sicut et motus est actus imperfectus ab agente in patiens.”
114
Ibid.
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the contrary, the concept of instrumental causality really only serves to point persons toward the
true cause of grace. One might even say in this regard that instrumental causality is ultimately, in
fact, a sign itself. Saying that the sacraments are instrumental causes is thus only a different
mode of saying that the sacraments are signs used by God and pointing to God.
e) III, q. 62, Article Five – Do the sacraments derive their power from Christ’s Passion?
Thomas even further limits the causality of the sacraments in q. 62, a. 5. This article asks
whether the sacraments of the New Law derive their power from Christ’s Passion. Thomas
argues that they do, and to do so he distinguishes two types of instrumental causality. He writes:
As stated above a sacrament in causing grace works after the manner of an instrument. Now
an instrument is twofold. The one is separate, as a stick, for instance; the other is united, as a
hand. Moreover, the separate instrument is moved by means of the united instrument, as a
stick by the hand. Now the principal efficient cause of grace is God Himself, in comparison
with Whom Christ’s humanity is as a united instrument, whereas the sacrament is as a
separate instrument.115
For this reason, Thomas says, the saving power that is accessible through the sacraments comes
from God, through Christ’s humanity, through the Passion, and to humans through the
sacraments. Four things are of note in these words.
First, one sees in this whole article the Christological emphasis of Thomas’s
sacramentology. He teaches in no uncertain terms that the sacraments work by leading persons to
God, through Christ, and through Christ’s Passion. Second, in this passage, one should note that
Thomas says that the sacraments work “after the manner of an instrument,” rather than saying
that the sacraments are instruments or even are instrumental causes. This further illustrates that
115
Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 5, res. “sicut dictum est, sacramentum operatur ad gratiam causandam per modum instrumenti. Est autem duplex
instrumentum, unum quidem separatum, ut baculus; aliud autem coniunctum, ut manus. Per instrumentum autem coniunctum movetur
instrumentum separatum, sicut baculus per manum. Principalis autem causa efficiens gratiae est ipse Deus, ad quem comparatur humanitas
Christi sicut instrumentum coniunctum, sacramentum autem sicut instrumentum separatum.”
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Thomas does not think of the sacraments as essentially causes. He is only speaking of the way in
which the sacraments function, and he even does this analogically.
Third, one sees in these sentences a further limitation and subjection of sacramental
causality. Not only are the sacraments only causes insofar as God uses them as tools, but even
within this category, they are limited to being causes in the least possible way. The sacraments
are not united instrumental causes, but are separate instrumental causes. The sacraments are only
causes in the way that a stick lying in a field is a cause. The stick is not essentially a cause, and it
has no causal power on its own, it merely has the capacity to be used by something incomparably
greater. In the same way, the sacraments are not essentially causes. They are essentially signs in
the same way that a stick is essentially wood. Sacramental signs merely have the capacity to be
used by God to help bring about God’s saving work. This is all Thomas means when he says that
the sacraments work like instrumental causes.
Fourth and finally, this passage further illustrates the way in which Thomas imagines
instrumental causality to work after the fashion of a significatory process. The sacraments lead
persons from what they can sense and touch and know, namely material elements, to Christ’s
Passion, which is the font of forgiveness and grace for humankind. Christ’s Passion then leads
persons to Christ himself, who in turn leads persons to God. Understanding the sacraments to
work as instrumental causes, therefore, has the same result as understanding the sacraments to be
signs. By both ideas, Thomas here means that the sacraments lead persons to God through Christ.
In his Reply to Objection Two, Thomas adds another link into this significatory chain. He
here speaks of faith, and specifically faith in Christ’s Passion, as that which allows persons to be
joined to Christ through the sacraments. God thus leads persons to grace through Christ, through
Christ’s Passion, through the Church, through the sacraments, and through faith. Persons are lead
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along this process to God’s grace through the significatory process of the known leading to the
unknown. Thus, even when Thomas is speaking of instrumental causality in the Summa,
signification and significatory logic undergird his thought.
Having delineated, albeit reluctantly, the very specific and limited way in which the
sacraments of the New Law might be said to work to cause grace, the final article of q. 62 asks if
the sacraments of the Old Law worked to bring about grace in this same sense. Thomas says that
they did not. To begin his case, he first cites, in the sed contra, Galatians 4:9, which is where
Paul calls the sacraments of the Old Law weak and needy elements. This instance of this phrase,
as in the previous question, does not represent a reversion to Thomas’s earlier teaching and
negative attitude toward the sacraments of the Old law. As in the previous question, Thomas
himself does not say that the sacraments are weak and needy. He merely acknowledges that Paul
says this, and he uses it as a reason why one must say that the sacraments of the Old Law did not
cause grace in the same sense as do the New.
Thomas then argues that the sacraments of the Old Law could not have conferred
sanctifying grace by their own power. This kind of power is not, as has been seen above, even
the case for the sacraments of the New Law. If either of these were the case, Thomas says,
Christ’s Passion would not have been needed. Next, Thomas contends that the sacraments of the
Old Law also cannot be said to derive the ability to instrumentally cause sanctifying grace from
Christ’s Passion, as the New sacraments do. This is the case, Thomas says, because “the power
of Christ’s Passion is united to us by faith and the sacraments.”116 For faith, the Passion of Christ
is a final cause, and persons can have the same faith whether they are looking forward to the
final cause as something yet to come or whether they are looking back at it as something that has
been realized. For this reason, one can say that the Patriarchs and Holy Persons of the Old
116
Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 6, res. “virtus passionis Christi copulatur nobis per fidem et sacramenta”.
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Testament were justified by their faith in Christ, just as persons today are justified by their faith
in Christ. For the sacraments, though, the Passion of Christ is an efficient cause. The sacraments
derive any capacity they have for giving grace from Christ and Christ’s Passion, just like a stick
derives any motion it has from a person and that person’s hand. In this regard, the sacraments of
the Old Law could not have been instrumental causes of grace because they preceded the
efficient cause of grace, Christ’s Passion. This would be like a stick whacking something before
a hand touches it. Thomas thus concludes that in this way it is clear “that the sacraments of the
New Law do reasonably derive the power of justification from Christ’s Passion, which is the
cause of man’s righteousness; whereas the sacraments of the Old Law did not.”117
Before moving on to answer the objections, however, Thomas tries to make sure that the
reader understands that the sacraments of the Old Law cannot be thought to be without value. He
writes:
Nevertheless the Fathers of old were justified by faith in Christ’s Passion, just as we are. And
the sacraments of the Old Law were a kind of protestation of that faith, inasmuch as they
signified Christ’s Passion and its effects. It is therefore manifest that the sacraments of the
Old Law were not endowed with any power by which they conduced to the bestowal of
justifying grace: and they only signified faith by which men were justified.118
Thomas is not saying that the sacraments of the Old Law were only signs of grace and that the
sacraments of the New Law are both signs and causes of grace. Instead, he says the Old and New
sacraments are both oriented toward Christ’s Passion, but that they work in different ways. The
Old Sacraments expressed faith in Christ’s Passion. The New sacraments are moved by Christ’s
Passion.
Thomas, therefore, does not devalue the sacraments of the Old Law as a means of
exalting the New. He does not have a negative attitude toward the Old sacraments and he
117
Ibid. “Sic igitur manifestum est quod a passione Christi, quae est causa humanae iustificationis, convenienter derivatur virtus iustificativa ad
sacramenta novae legis, non autem ad sacramenta veteris legis.”
118
Ibid. “Et tamen per fidem passionis Christi iustificabantur antiqui patres, sicut et nos. Sacramenta autem veteris legis erant quaedam illius
fidei protestationes, inquantum significabant passionem Christi et effectus eius. Sic ergo patet quod sacramenta veteris legis non habebant in se
aliquam virtutem qua operarentur ad conferendam gratiam iustificantem, sed solum significabant fidem, per quam iustificabantur.”
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especially does not have a negative attitude toward signification. Thus, Thomas is no way
reverting to the teachings of his earliest writings. Rather, once again, Thomas brings forward the
tradition and synthesizes it into the significatory trajectory he has established in his mid-career
texts. Thomas acknowledges that the tradition calls the sacraments of the Old Law weak and
needy, and he acknowledges that there is a clear difference between the Old and New
sacraments, which has to do with the way in which God uses them to justify persons. However,
in the Summa, Thomas is able to do these things and still maintain continuity between the Old
and the New. The New no longer appears to supersede the Old, and the New no longer appears to
be related to the Old as better is to worse. Rather, the Old and New sacraments are God’s way of
leading persons to Christ and the grace won by Christ’s Passion in different ways at different
times, just like a wise homeowner looks after his or her household in different ways in different
seasons.
After delineating his position, Thomas replies to three objections, of which only the third
is of note. This objection argues that circumcision conferred grace and that therefore the
sacraments of the Old Law could confer grace. Thomas begins his answer to this objection by
first admitting, “There have been many opinions about Circumcision.”119 He then gives four
positions. Some say that circumcision remits sin but gives no grace. Some say that circumcision
does give grace, but only gives the negative effects of grace, like removing sin, and not the
positive effects. Thomas regards these positions as untenable and dispenses with them quickly.
The third position, though, is that some say circumcision gives grace, and gives both the positive
and negative effects, but does not completely repress concupiscence, which makes persons prone
to sin. About this, Thomas says, “And so at one time it seemed to me. But if the matter be
considered carefully, this too appears to be untrue; because the very least grace is sufficient to
119
Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 6, ad obj. 3. “de circumcisione multiplex fuit opinio.”
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resist any degree of concupiscence, and to merit eternal life.”120 Thus, Thomas advances a fourth
position. He writes, “And therefore it seems better to say that Circumcision was a sign of
justifying faith: wherefore the Apostle says (Romans 4:11) that Abraham ‘received the sign of
Circumcision, a seal of the justice of faith.’ Consequently grace was conferred in Circumcision
in so far as it was a sign of Christ’s future Passion.”121 About this objection, I have three points.
First, Thomas himself admits that his doctrine has developed since his earliest teaching.
The third position he traces is the position that he put forth on circumcision in the Scriptum.
Since this writing, Thomas’s thought has matured and he has changed his position. Thus, he
says, “And so at one time it seemed to me. But if the matter be considered carefully, this too
appears to be untrue.”122 This admission does not conclusively demonstrate that Thomas has
changed his mind on other positions, or that his sacramentology as a whole has developed. It
does, however, establish a clear precedence of development. It also conclusively demonstrates
that even Thomas himself admits his doctrine has developed.
Second, one should not overlook the way in which and the means by which this
development on the doctrine of circumcision has occurred. The position Thomas now holds is
that it is “better to say that Circumcision was a sign of justifying faith,” and that “grace was
conferred in Circumcision in so far as it was a sign of Christ’s future Passion.”123 Thus,
Thomas’s doctrine has clearly developed in the direction of signification. By employing the
notion of signification and by more thoroughly conceiving the sacraments as essentially signs,
Thomas is able to more satisfactorily answer a key theological question than he was previously
120
Ibid. ‘Quod aliquando mihi visum est. Sed diligentius consideranti apparet hoc etiam non esse verum, quia minima gratia potest resistere
cuilibet concupiscentiae et mereri vitam aeternam.”
121
Ibid. “Et ideo melius dicendum videtur quod circumcisio erat signum fidei iustificantis, unde apostolus dicit, Rom. IV, quod Abraham accepit
signum circumcisionis, signaculum iustitiae fidei. Et ideo in circumcisione conferebatur gratia inquantum erat signum passionis Christi futurae”.
122
Ibid.
123
Ibid.
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when he was thinking of the sacraments as both signs and causes. This, therefore, is another
instance in which signification better allows Thomas to express and integrate his theology.
Third and finally, Thomas admits that one can say that the sacraments of the Old Law
conferred grace. He says exactly that, “grace was conferred in Circumcision in so far as it was a
sign of Christ’s future Passion.”124 It is thus true to say that the sacraments of the Old Law
conferred grace if by this one means that they conferred grace insofar as they were signs of a
person’s justifying faith. In this, Thomas makes a move that is analogous to the argument he has
made about the sacraments being instrumental causes. One can say both that the sacraments are
causes and that the sacraments of the Old Law caused grace. One just has to mean and
understand both of these statements in very specific ways. In general and in a simple manner of
speaking, neither the sacraments of the Old Law nor the sacraments of the New are causes of
grace. Rather, the sacraments of the Old Law are signs of justifying faith in Christ’s Passion and
the sacraments of the New Law are signs of the grace available from Christ’s Passion that God
uses as instruments of justification. In certain restricted senses, one can use the language of
causality to speak both about the sacraments Old and New, but such language is not ideal.
5) The Apparent Reversions of Questions 61 and 62
As mentioned at several points above, Questions 61 and 62 contain a number of points
upon which Thomas may seem to revert to the sacramentology of his earliest writings. Four of
these issues exist. First, Thomas at several points speaks of the sacraments as medicines or
remedies. In his mid-career texts, Thomas moved away from using this metaphor. The
frequency, however, with which Thomas mentions the healing dimension of the sacraments in
the Summa may make it seem as though he has reverted to using this as the overarching
124
Ibid.
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metaphor for talking about the sacraments. Second, along with this medicinal language, Thomas
increases his reference to Hugh of St. Victor, which he again moved away from in his mid-career
texts. Thus, for example, Thomas speaks of the sacraments as being for exercise, humiliation,
and education. Third, Thomas, primarily in q. 62, speaks of the sacraments using the language of
causality. He almost entirely avoided this language throughout the middle part of his career.
Hence, his application of the concept of causality to the sacraments may seem to be a return to
his earlier emphasis. Fourth, Thomas again mentions Paul’s view that the sacraments of the Old
Law are “weak and needy elements.” Thomas has generally avoided this language in the middle
of his career as well. Thus, seeing him using this language in the Summa, may lead persons to
think that he has returned to having a negative attitude toward the sacraments of the Old Law and
therefore, perhaps, even a negative attitude toward signification.
In light of these four points, one could conclude that Thomas’s sacramentology did not
change throughout the course of his career. If one were to read only the Scriptum and the
Summa, this reading would make a good deal of sense. However, given the survey of Thomas’s
mid-career texts presented in this study, this reading is not possible. Thomas’s sacramentology
has varied a great deal, especially on these four issues.
Thus, with one interpretive avenue closed, two more paths present themselves. First, one
may regard Thomas as having genuinely reverted to his earlier teachings. One may imagine
Thomas trying out some new positions during the middle of his career, but think that, when it
came down to giving his final and definitive position, Thomas decided to return to his roots. This
position, however, as I have shown, is also untenable. This view ignores the fact that the Summa
as a whole aligns with Thomas’s mid-career emphases far more than it does with his early-career
emphases. This is evident, for instance, in the way Thomas foregrounds signification, in his
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uncreated doctrine of grace, in his significatory anthropology, in his more positive attitude
toward material reality, in his greatly increased attention to the Church and the communal
dimension of the sacraments, in his increased attention on the use of the sacraments for worship,
and in his orientation of his sacramentology toward deification. Additionally, this interpretation
fails to recognize that on the four issues named above, Thomas does not, in fact, revert to his
earlier position at all. For example, Thomas uses other metaphors besides a medicinal one, thus
revealing that this is not his overall preferred means of speaking of the sacraments. Thomas,
while he uses Hugh of St. Victor, does so only on a few occasions and appeals to Pseudo-
Dionysius more often. Thomas, while he uses the language of causality, does so in a highly
restricted sense. He no longer speaks of the sacraments as efficient or dispositive causes of grace,
but only as instrumental causes, by which he means only that God uses the sacraments like tools
for giving grace; and, finally, Thomas, while he mentions that Paul calls the sacraments of the
Old Law weak and needy, only comments upon this verse and does not himself say that the
sacraments of the Old Law are weak and needy. In his comments on this verse, furthermore,
Thomas maintains a positive attitude toward both signification and the Old sacraments, and he
does not downplay the Old to more highly value the New. Thus, this interpretive avenue is
closed as well. Reading these four issues in a developmental context and even in their context in
the Summa precludes one from regarding Thomas as having returned to previous thought.
Therefore, one must make an alternative interpretations of these apparent reversions,
namely that they only appear to be reversions upon a surface level reading and are not in fact
reversions at all. Instead, as I have argued above, each of these issues is an instance of Thomas
acknowledging, bringing forward, and incorporating into his current thought either what he has
taught previously, what his contemporaries taught, or what the Tradition has taught. Each of
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these four issues is an instance of Thomas’s systematic and synthetic genius. He is able to
articulate his current views so fully that they are able to encompass views that he no longer
holds. He is able to acknowledge the truth in these views by defining them in very particular and
limited ways and by situating them precisely in the midst of his most mature perspectives and
emphases. Raising these previously abandoned issues and using language that he has clearly
demonstrated is not his preferred means of speaking is thus not a change of position, but a sign
of how advanced Thomas’s thought has become. This reading of these four issues makes sense
of why there are a few isolated apparent reversions to earlier emphases in the midst of the vast
majority of other sacramental teachings in the Summa that fit so well with the trajectory Thomas
has established in his mid-career texts. It also makes sense of why these apparent reversions are
isolated only to these two questions in the midst of all of the other questions dealing with the
sacraments in the Summa. This isolation will become increasingly apparent below.
6) III, Question 63 - The Other Effect of the Sacraments, Which is Character
a) III, q. 63, Article One – Is a character produced in the soul by the sacraments?
I move now to Question 63, which contains six articles devoted to describing the
character that some sacraments convey. The first article asks whether the sacraments imprint a
character on the soul. Thomas says that they do, and establishes this position by first recalling the
purpose of the sacraments. He writes, “the sacraments of the New Law are ordained for a
twofold purpose; namely, for a remedy against sins; and for the perfecting of the soul in things
pertaining to the Divine worship according to the rite of the Christian life.”125 Here, one sees
Thomas incorporate a medicinal metaphor into his sacramentology. This again demonstrates that
125
Ibid., III, q. 63, a. 1, res. “sacramenta novae legis ad duo ordinantur, videlicet ad remedium contra peccata; et ad perficiendum animam in his
quae pertinent ad cultum Dei secundum ritum Christianae vitae.”
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Thomas is able to include his previous teaching in his most mature expression of the faith, but it
simultaneously demonstrates that a medicinal metaphor is not the overarching or all-controlling
theme of Thomas’s sacramentology because it is only a part of what Thomas thinks is the
purpose of the sacraments.
The other part of the sacrament’s purpose is that the sacraments are for worship. Worship
is a newly added emphasis in Thomas’s sacramental thought, and this reference demonstrates
once again how deeply Thomas incorporates it in the Summa. Thomas does not just passingly
mention that the sacraments are for worship. Rather, he repeatedly and consistently identifies
worship as a full half of what God institutes the sacraments to do. Thus, here again, one sees
Thomas wedding the individual and communal dimensions of the sacraments in a way that he
has not fully managed to do previously. Earlier in his development, Thomas was almost entirely
preoccupied with the workings of the sacraments for individuals, but now he balances that with
their working for the Church community.
Immediately after the sentence just cited, one sees the way in which Thomas is able to
achieve a new balance. He writes:
Now whenever anyone is deputed to some definite purpose he is wont to receive some
outward sign thereof; thus in olden times soldiers who enlisted in the ranks used to be
marked with certain characters on the body, through being deputed to a bodily service. Since,
therefore, by the sacraments men are deputed to a spiritual service pertaining to the worship
of God, it follows that by their means the faithful receive a certain spiritual character.126
Thomas thus combines the individual and communal dimension of the sacraments by conceiving
the sacraments as signs. Here, the concept of signification allows him to pivot to the communal
dimension of the sacraments by thinking of the sacraments as imputing a certain spiritual sign
akin to the mark a soldier would receive, which would mark him as a member of a certain
126
Ibid. “Quicumque autem ad aliquid certum deputatur, consuevit ad illud consignari, sicut milites qui adscribebantur ad militiam antiquitus
solebant aliquibus characteribus corporalibus insigniri, eo quod deputabantur ad aliquid corporale. Et ideo, cum homines per sacramenta
deputentur ad aliquid spirituale pertinens ad cultum Dei, consequens est quod per ea fideles aliquo spirituali charactere insigniantur.”
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community. In his earliest writings, as one will recall, the concept of a character was entirely
individual and Thomas spoke of it as an ornament of an individual’s soul. Now, however,
Thomas understands character as a kind of sign, and more precisely as a kind of sign that
incorporates one into a community. Thus, once again, Thomas’s use of signification appears as
central to his doctrinal development. By expanding his notion of the sacraments as signs,
Thomas expands what the sacraments do from the individual to the communal level.
In this usage, one should also note that after addressing sacramental causality in q. 62,
Thomas has immediately returned to speaking of sacramental signification in q. 63. Thus,
Thomas defines a character as, “a kind of sign,”127 and a “distinctive sign.”128 From a literary
structural perspective, therefore, Thomas limits his discussion of sacramental causality almost
entirely to q. 62. He then surrounds this question with thoroughgoing discussions of sacramental
signification. He starts his discussion of the sacraments in the Summa by insisting at every turn
that the sacraments are solely signs, in q. 60 and 61. He then notes a single very restricted and
particular sense in which one can speak of the function of the sacraments, not their essence, as a
certain kind of causality, in q. 62. Thomas then immediately returns to speaking of the
sacraments as signs that sign recipients with a sign of communal membership, in q. 63. This
structure undoubtedly conveys the place of both sacramental signification and causality in
Thomas’s sacramentology. Signification is by far the central concept of Thomas’s
sacramentology. Within the Summa, causality is a momentary digression; it is a footnote to the
way in which signification pervades the sacraments at all levels. The structure of Thomas’s
questions, in addition to their content, demonstrates nothing less.
127
Ibid., III, q. 63, a. 1, ad obj. 2. “rationem signi”
128
Ibid., III, q. 63, a. 1, obj. 2. “character signum est distinctivum”
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In case the complete subjection of causality to signification was not clear enough, though,
one should also note the way in which Thomas has altered the role that character has to play in
the sacraments. In the Scriptum, the sacraments were both signs and causes; they had the power
of efficiently causing a character or ornament of the soul; and, they had the power to
dispositively cause grace for an individual. In the Summa, however, the sacraments are signs that
have a twofold result, grace and another sign. The signs, which are the sacraments, are God’s
way of giving grace to individuals, of deputing them for Christian service, of signing them as
members of the body of Christ, and the way the Church worships. Thomas never says that the
sacraments cause a character in any way. Thus, again, Thomas has drastically limited his use of
the concept of causality with respect to the sacraments. He goes from saying that the sacraments
efficiently cause a character, to saying that character is a sign by which a person is signed by the
sacraments, which are signs. Causality at most can be used to say that the sacraments are signs
that God uses to give grace, whereas signification can be used to express the fullness of what the
sacraments are, how they work, and how they fit into God’s salvific plan.
b) III, q. 62, Article Two – Is sacramental character a spiritual power?
Thomas next moves, in Article 2, to narrow his readers’ understanding of what a
character is and how it works. He teaches that while character is, first of all, a sign, one can also
speak of it as an actual thing given to a person, which serves as the sign. Thomas does not use
this example, but this is similar to the way in which a stop sign can be essentially a sign, but can
materially be made out of wood or metal.129 In this case, the sign of character is in a sense ‘made
out of’ a power of the soul. This is to say, the character that the sacraments give is “materially”
(not, of course physically) a certain kind of spiritual ability or aptitude, but is essentially a sign.
129
Cf. Ibid., III, q. 63, a. 2, ad obj. 4.
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In support of this, Thomas evokes the authority of Pseudo-Dionysius, who says, “that
God ‘by a kind of sign grants a share of Himself to those that approach Him,’” and then “adds
‘by making them Godlike and communicators of Divine gifts.’”130 In this quote, one sees a
number of Thomas’s sacramental emphases converge. One observes an uncreated doctrine of
grace because God gives a share of God’s very self. One observes that God works to give grace
by means of signs, because God gives a share of God’s self, “by a kind of sign;” and, finally,
perhaps above all, one sees the doctrine of deification, because God works to make persons
“Godlike and communicators of the Divine gifts.” Thus, in addition to saying more about
sacramental character, this article also illustrates both the key emphases of Thomas’s
sacramentology and where he gets them. Thomas’s sacramentology in the Summa is far more
significatory, far more deificatory, and far more Pseudo-Dionysian than earlier in his career.
c) III, q. 62, Articles Three through Six
The remaining articles in this question continue to refine and clarify the understanding of
sacramental character that Thomas wishes to convey to his readers. These articles reinforce the
points already made but do not illustrate any additional points about Thomas’s doctrine of
sacramental signification that I wish to make. Thus, they need not be examined in detail at this
time. In general, Articles 3 through 6 establish that the character conveyed by the sacraments is
the character of Christ, is indelible, and is not given by every sacrament of the New Law.
Following these points, Thomas proceeds to the next question.
130
Ibid., III, q. 63, a. 2, res. “Unde Dionysius, in II cap. Eccles. Hier., cum dixisset quod Deus quodam signo tradit sui participationem accedenti,
subiungit, perficiens eum divinum et communicatorem divinorum.”
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7) III, Question 64 - The Causes of the Sacraments
In Question 64, Thomas discusses how the sacraments come about, by which he means
both on God’s part and on the part of the ministers of the Church. This question contains ten
articles that cover much about the practical administration of the sacraments. For example,
Thomas here considers whether a wicked priest can confer the sacraments, whether the right
intention and faith of the minister are required, whether unbelievers can administer the
sacraments, and even whether angels can administer the sacraments. Additionally, Thomas
considers questions like whether God alone instituted the sacraments, what power Christ had
over the sacraments, and how Christ could have communicated that power to others. These are
important questions for any sacramentology to answer. However, to answer them, Thomas
applies and develops the principles he has already established in his first four questions on the
sacraments in general. Examining these ten articles in detail would add little to what has already
been presented. In an effort to be as concise as possible, therefore, I proceed to Question 65.
8) III, Question 65 - The Number of the Sacraments
a) III, q. 65, Article One – Are there seven sacraments?
Question 65 is the final question of Thomas’s treatment of the sacraments in general.
This question contains only four articles, which pose questions pertaining to the number and
order of the sacraments. The first article is by far the longest, as Thomas entertains and replies to
eight objections. In this article, Thomas considers whether there are seven sacraments. He begins
by again recalling that “the sacraments of the Church were instituted for a twofold purpose:
namely, in order to perfect man in things pertaining to the worship of God according to the
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religion of Christian life, and to be a remedy against the defects caused by sin.”131 He then gives
three ways in which it is fitting that there are seven sacraments.
The first reason Thomas gives is his bodily and spiritual analogy, which he has used often
in his mid-career texts. Thomas writes, “spiritual life has a certain conformity with the life of the
body: just as other corporeal things have a certain likeness to things spiritual.”132 In the bodily
life, Thomas says, a person attains perfection in two ways, “first, in regard to his own person;
secondly, in regard to the whole community of the society in which he lives, for man is by nature
a social animal.”133 In these words, one sees two emphases of the Summa’s sacramentology
illustrated. One sees the wedding together of an individual and communal perspective, which
Thomas has consistently developed in this text by insisting that the sacraments are both for an
individual’s sanctification and for corporate worship. One sees also in these words Thomas’s
anthropology, wherein humans are bodily animals but are animals who are social, who live and
work in communities, and who communicate by means of signs.
From this point, Thomas develops his bodily and spiritual analogy much as he did
previously. He says the spiritual life requires generation, growth, and nourishment, just like the
bodily life. Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist correspond to these needs respectively. The
spiritual life also requires occasional healing and the restoration of vigor, just like the bodily life.
To these needs, Penance and Extreme Unction correspond. Finally, since humans are social
animals, their corporate life requires an ordered community with proper rulers and communal
propagation. The sacraments of Orders and Matrimony correspond to these needs.
131
Ibid., III, q. 65, a. 1, res. ‘ordinantur sacramenta Ecclesiae ad duo, scilicet, ad perficiendum hominem in his quae pertinent ad cultum Dei
secundum religionem Christianae vitae; et etiam in remedium contra defectum peccati.”
132
Ibid. “Vita enim spiritualis conformitatem aliquam habet ad vitam corporalem, sicut et cetera corporalia similitudinem quandam spiritualium
habent.”
133
Ibid. “uno modo, quantum ad personam propriam; alio modo, per respectum ad totam communitatem societatis in qua vivit, quia homo
naturaliter est animal sociale.”
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The second way that Thomas gives, in which it is fitting that there are seven sacraments,
is if the sacraments are considered as a remedy against the defect of sin. Thomas says:
Baptism is intended as a remedy against the absence of spiritual life; Confirmation, against
the infirmity of soul found in those of recent birth; the Eucharist, against the soul’s proneness
to sin; Penance, against actual sin committed after Baptism; Extreme Unction, against the
remainders of sins...; order, against divisions in the community; Matrimony, as a remedy
against concupiscence in the individual, and against the decrease in numbers from death.134
Finally, Thomas teaches that it is fitting that there are seven sacraments because each
corresponds to one of the seven virtues. He writes:
Baptism corresponds to Faith, and is ordained as a remedy against original sin; Extreme
Unction, to Hope, being ordained against venial sin; the Eucharist, to Charity, being ordained
against the penal effect which is malice. Order, to Prudence, being ordained against
ignorance; Penance to Justice, being ordained against mortal sin; Matrimony, to Temperance,
being ordained against concupiscence; Confirmation, to Fortitude, being ordained against
infirmity.135
Thus, Thomas clearly establishes for all three of these reasons that seven sacraments are fitting.
In these three reasons, one sees Thomas gathering together and uniting the metaphors and
analogies that he has used to approach the sacraments. From the Scriptum, Thomas includes his
remedial metaphor. From a number of his mid-career texts, Thomas includes his bodily and
spiritual analogy. Thomas even includes a metaphor here that has not been an emphasis of his
previous texts, but which represents an emphasis of the Secunda pars of the Summa. Thomas’s
point about the sacraments corresponding to each of the virtues allows him to relate his
sacramentology especially well to the extended treatise on the virtues, which is the Secunda pars.
One sees additionally here, though, the fact that Thomas does not pick between any of these
methods for conceiving the sacraments. He simply ends his respondeo by listing all three of
134
Ibid. “Nam Baptismus ordinatur contra carentiam vitae spiritualis; confirmatio contra infirmitatem animi quae in nuper natis invenitur;
Eucharistia contra labilitatem animi ad peccandum; poenitentia contra actuale peccatum post Baptismum commissum; extrema unctio contra
reliquias peccatorum, quae scilicet non sunt sufficienter per poenitentiam sublatae, aut ex negligentia aut ex ignorantia; ordo contra
dissolutionem multitudinis; matrimonium in remedium contra concupiscentiam personalem, et contra defectum multitudinis qui per mortem
accidit.”
135
Ibid. “Baptismus, et ordinatur contra culpam originalem; spei extrema unctio, et ordinatur contra culpam venialem; caritati Eucharistia, et
ordinatur contra poenalitatem malitiae; prudentiae ordo, et ordinatur contra ignorantiam; iustitiae poenitentia, et ordinatur contra peccatum
mortale; temperantiae matrimonium, et ordinatur contra concupiscentiam; fortitudini confirmatio, et ordinatur contra infirmitatem.”
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them. Thus, it is clear that for the Summa, none of these metaphors occupies an overarching
place. None of them are Thomas’s main way of organizing his doctrine of the sacraments in
general. The reason for this, I suggest, is that Thomas no longer needs to make use of these
metaphors because the overarching way he has for approaching the sacraments in the Summa is
the concept of signification. Thus, he begins his discussion of the sacraments in the Summa by
speaking of the sacraments as signs from his first words of the treatise, much as he, from his first
words in the Prooemium to Book IV of the Scriptum, began by speaking of the sacraments as
remedies. As in his other texts, either the metaphor of the sacraments as remedies or the analogy
between the bodily and spiritual lives was pervasive throughout the text, so in the Summa is the
concept that the sacraments are signs pervasive. This concept is so all-encompassing that
Thomas can incorporate all of his previous metaphors and analogies, and even a new one, within
it.
b) III, q. 62, Articles Two through Four
The next three articles of Question 65 address various other questions about the number
and order of the sacraments. Article Two asks what order the sacraments ought to be listed;
Article Three asks whether the Eucharist is the greatest sacrament; and, Article Four asks
whether all the sacraments are necessary for salvation. In these articles, Thomas remains
consistent in his teaching and emphases with what has already been examined in the rest of the
Summa. Therefore, no need exists to examine them in detail presently. Thus, I here conclude my
explication of Thomas’s treatise on the sacraments in general in the Summa.
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C) The Sacraments in Particular in the Summa - III, q. 66-90
The remainder of the Summa is devoted to examining each of the sacraments in
particular. Thomas was able to write about Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist in their
entirety. He only got part of the way through writing about Penance, and he did not get to any of
the other sacraments before he stopped writing. In these questions, Thomas is predominantly
concerned to either apply the principles he has developed previously, or to address specific
questions arising in regard to each sacrament, like its administration and other practical matters.
Having now traversed the entire course of Thomas’s sacramental development, nothing
contained in these questions is all that surprising. All of it is consistent with what has been
highlighted above regarding Thomas’s key sacramental themes. Hence, in this section, I wish
only to make a general observation.
This observation has to do with Thomas’s continued emphasis on signification in the
Summa and his continued downplaying of the notion that the sacraments can be spoken of as
instrumental causes of grace. In the remaining 15 questions of the Summa (q. 66-90), Thomas
mentions signs or signification 272 times. In discussing Baptism, he mentions signification 77
times; in discussing Confirmation, he mentions signification 46 times; in discussing the
Eucharist, he mentions signification 126 times; and, in his incomplete article on Penance, he
mentions signification 23 times. These references are entirely too numerous to examine
individually, but they serve to demonstrate the frequency with which Thomas appeals to the
concept of signification in unfolding his sacramental vision.
By comparison, in the same span of text, Thomas only mentions causality with respect to
a sacrament three times, and these are mentioned in passing. These references occur in III.78.4,
III.79.2, and III.89.1. The first occurs in a question that asks whether in the form of the Eucharist
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there is any power of causing transubstantiation. Thomas’s position here is that there is such a
power. He writes, “there is in the words of the form of this sacrament a created power which
causes the change to be wrought in it: instrumental, however, as in the other sacraments, as
stated above.”136 In this reference to causality, therefore, Thomas is not calling the Eucharist an
instrumental cause. Instead, he says only that the form of the Eucharist has an instrumental
power to cause a change. This is entirely consistent with what Thomas has said previously.
The second reference to causality is in q. 79, a. 2, which asks whether attaining glory is
an effect of the Eucharist. Thomas says that it is, and argues that the Eucharist may be
considered from two perspectives, the perspective of Christ contained in the Eucharist and the
perspective of Christ’s Passion represented by the Eucharist. He then writes, “Now as to both of
these it belongs to this sacrament to cause the attaining of eternal life. Because it was by His
Passion that Christ opened to us the approach to eternal life.”137 Thus, Thomas mentions the
Eucharist causing something. However, it is clear that this happens only instrumentally, by the
Power of Christ, and only insofar as the sacrament is first a sign, i.e. by representing Christ’s
Passion. Thus, again, Thomas is saying nothing other than what he has previously said. He
mentions sacramental causality only in passing and only in response to a direct question.
Finally, Thomas again mentions sacramental causality in q. 89, a.1. This article asks
whether Penance restores the virtues, which were lost because of sin. Thomas says that Penance
does restore the virtues and in ad obj. 1, he briefly mentions the causality of grace. Objection 1
argues that Penance does not restore the virtues because Penance is itself a virtue and thus cannot
cause the restoration of other virtues. Thomas clears this up by distinguishing between Penance
as a virtue and Penance as a sacrament. In so doing, he states, “Penance restores the virtues in the
136
Ibid., III, q. 78, a. 4, res. “consequens est quod in verbis formalibus huius sacramenti sit quaedam virtus creata ad conversionem huius
sacramenti faciendam, instrumentalis tamen, sicut et in aliis sacramentis, sicut supra dictum est.”
137
Ibid., III, q. 79, a. 2, res. “Et quantum ad utrumque competit huic sacramento quod causet adeptionem vitae aeternae.”
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same way as it causes grace.”138 Thomas does not expand further on how this works, but, based
on the context and Thomas’s respondeo, one can conclude that he means that Penance restores
virtues because God uses Penance as an instrument to give grace, and “all the gratuitous virtues
flow from grace.”139 Thus, again, one can see that Thomas’s reference to sacramental causality is
only in passing and is in keeping with what he has said elsewhere in the Summa.
From reading Thomas’s treatise on the sacraments in particular, therefore, one can only
conclude that Thomas overwhelmingly prefers to speak of sacramental signification rather than
sacramental causality. He mentions signification and calls the sacraments signs almost 100 times
as much in these 15 questions as he says anything at all about the sacraments causing something
or being like instrumental causes. The unfinished treatise on the sacraments in particular in the
Summa, therefore confirms what one can conclude from Thomas’s writing in the Summa on the
sacraments in general. Namely, Thomas conceives of the sacraments solely as signs; he uses the
concept of signification to organize, integrate, and connect his sacramentology to the rest of his
theology; and, he entirely subjugates any notion of the sacraments as instrumental causes to their
role and essence as signs. Thomas admits in the Summa for practically the first time in over a
decade that one can use the language of causality to speak of the sacraments. However, he
severely limits what this language means and precisely restricts the way in which it can be
applied. Reading the sacramentology of the Summa in the context of the development of
Thomas’s thought throughout his career, therefore, leads one unquestionably to the conclusion
that both for the bulk of his career and for his most mature thought, signification is the most
important and central notion of Thomas’s sacramentology, whereas the concept of causality is a
fringe issue that Thomas only occasionally addresses.
138
Ibid., III, q. 89, a. 1, res. “eodem modo poenitentia restituit virtutes per quem modum est causa gratiae”.
139
Ibid. “Ex gratia autem consequuntur omnes virtutes gratuitae”
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II. Synthesis and Analysis of Sacramental Signification in the Summa theologiae
In the Summa, Thomas undoubtedly teaches that sacraments, both of the Old and New
Laws, are essentially signs and signs alone. Thomas establishes this from the very outset of his
discussion of the sacraments by first asking whether a sacrament is a sign. Thomas answers this
question in the affirmative and concludes, “A sacrament is put in the genre of sign.”140 Thomas
continues to speak consistently of the sacraments as signs alone. This is the case even in light of
the fact that, primarily in q. 62, Thomas admits that one can speak of the sacraments using the
language of causality. Thomas makes it clear that the sacraments are in no way essentially
causes. Rather, they are signs that can be said to have a very particular kind of causality, which is
nothing more than the capacity to be used by God in God’s work of giving a person grace. Thus,
just as plainly as in his other mid-career texts, in the Summa, the sacraments are signs.
As seen throughout Thomas’s other texts, his ideas about of what sacraments are made
and how they come to exist have remained fairly consistent. In the Summa, a sacrament is
materially a sensible sign, like washing in Baptism or a shared meal in the Eucharist. A
sacrament is comprised of a union between material elements with natural signification, like
water, bread, or wine, which signify cleansing, refreshment, or nourishment, and words with
instituted significations, like the Baptismal formula or the Words of Institution, which signify
incorporation into the body of Christ, Christ’s Passion, and/or Christ’s presence. Thus, Thomas
140
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 1, res. “sacramentum ponitur in genere signi”
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says, “in the sacraments, words and things, like form and matter, combine in the formation of
one thing, in so far as the signification of things is completed by means of words.”141
As for the efficient cause of the sacraments, God is, as Thomas insists consistently, the
primary agent in the sacraments. God instituted the sacraments and it is God who is at work in
them. God works in them through Christ. Thus, Thomas imagines all of the sacraments as
flowing from Christ’s side on the cross, of ultimately pointing back to Christ’s Passion, and of
deriving their power from God, through Christ’s humanity, and through the Passion.142 The final
link in this chain is the ministers of the Church, who God uses as instruments to bring about the
sacraments. In this way, ministers are causes in the same sense that the sacraments are causes.
The ministers are essentially people, but they are people that God uses to bring about the
sacraments. They thus are causes of the sacraments insofar as they participate as instruments in
God’s efficient causality of the sacraments. In the same way, the sacraments are essentially
signs, but they are signs that God uses to bring about grace, and signs that thus can be said to
have a capacity to participate instrumentally in God’s causing of grace.
C) What is the purpose and function of the sacraments?
Thomas’s notions about the purpose and function of the sacraments clearly developed,
both across the course of his career and even since the last texts examined. Though Thomas does
not use these terms, it is helpful here to distinguish between the ultimate purpose of the
sacraments and the proximate purpose. The ultimate purpose of the sacraments, according to
Thomas’s most recent texts, is deification. Thus, Thomas understands the sacraments to be signs
of grace that God uses to actually give grace, and he understands grace to be “nothing short of a
141
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 6, ad obj. 2. “Et ideo ex verbis et rebus fit quodammodo unum in sacramentis sicut ex forma et materia, inquantum scilicet
per verba perficitur significatio rerum, ut dictum est.”
142
Cf. Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 5, res.
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partaking of the Divine Nature.”143 Since this is what grace is, Thomas says, “It is impossible
that any creature should cause grace. For it is as necessary that God alone should deify.”144 This
text reveals that Thomas regards it as impossible for the sacraments, which are created things, to
cause grace simply speaking. The text also reveals the ultimate purpose of the sacraments. They
exist solely to be used by God to bring about human deification. This dimension of Thomas’s
sacramentology, one will recall, first showed up in his Corpus Christi Liturgy. Since then, the
idea of deification steadily increased in prominence in Thomas’s sacramentology, becoming ever
more deeply entwined in his doctrine of grace and his understanding of the sacraments.
In the Summa too, however, Thomas also speaks of a proximate purpose of the
sacraments, which he identifies as twofold. Thomas says repeatedly that the sacraments are for
both the healing and sanctification of individuals and for the identity and worship of the Church
community. This additional perspective upon the ecclesial and liturgical purposes of the
sacraments is a new emphasis. This is not, of course, to say that Thomas never mentioned the
Church or worship in his other texts. The Corpus Christi Liturgy, for instance, reveals that this is
not the case and that Thomas has always been aware of these dimensions. In the Summa,
however, one sees these dimensions elevated to a systemic level in a way not done previously.
The new emphasis on worship and the Church is thrown into sharper relief by directly
comparing the Scriptum to the Summa. For example, in the distinctions of the Scriptum that
address the sacraments in general, Thomas speaks almost entirely of the sacrament’s role in
individual sanctification. He only mentions worship three times. On the other hand, in III, q. 60
through 65 of the Summa, which cover roughly the same material in roughly the same amount of
space and detail, Thomas mentions worship over 40 times. Similarly, in the sections of the
143
Ibid., I-II, q. 112, a. 1, res. “cum nihil aliud sit quam quaedam participatio divinae naturae”
144
Ibid. “Sic enim necesse est quod solus Deus deificet, communicando consortium divinae naturae per quandam similitudinis participationem”.
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Scriptum on the sacraments in general, Thomas mentions the Church 12 times. In III, q. 60
through 65 of the Summa, however, Thomas mentions the church almost 80 times.
Hence, Thomas’s thought on the purpose of the sacraments has clearly developed over
the course of his career. In his earlier writings, Thomas was concerned only with the purpose of
the sacraments for individuals. By his most mature writing, however, Thomas combines an
individual perspective with an ecclesial perspective, which views the sacraments not only as
signs to individuals, but as communal signs from God to the Church, and as communal signs of
the Church for the purposes of worship and group identity.
Thus, Thomas’s thoughts about the end of the sacraments have developed throughout his
career. By his final writing, Thomas came to teach that the sacraments are ultimately for
deification, but that they work toward this on both an individual and communal level by
sanctifying the individual, incorporating him or her into the body of Christ, and taking the person
up into the communal worship of God. In each of these purposes, signification is paramount.
Making use of sensible signs is the way God communicates to individuals. Making use of
sensible signs is how the Church expresses itself, within itself, to the world, and to God.
Unlike Thomas’s other sacramental texts following his De articulis, in the Summa,
Thomas does speak of the sacraments using the language of causality. Yet, he does not do so in
any simple sense. The sacraments only participate in God’s causality. Thus, they are not causes,
but in a very particular sense, they have their own kind of real causality. This causality is
instrumental causality, which means that the sacraments have the capacity to be used by God to
give grace. To be even more precise, Thomas says that the sacraments can only be said to have
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separated instrumental causality. Thus, the sacraments have the same kind of causality as a stick.
A stick is not essentially a cause, nor does it cause anything on its own. Still, a stick, if employed
by a person to cause something, can be thought of as having a kind of derived causality, namely
the capacity to be used to cause something by a principle agent. This causality is separated
insofar as it is not inherently united to a principle agent, like, a hand would be for a human. In
this very particular sense, it is permissible to speak of the sacraments as having a kind of
causality. Thomas is clear, however, that the sacraments, of themselves, do not have any kind of
efficient or dispositive causality. He also makes it clear that using the language of causality to
speak about the sacraments is not his preference and is certainly not at the heart of sacramental
theology. Thus, Thomas constrains his discussion of sacramental causality to a single question,
Question 62. He also makes it a point to encapsulate this brief discussion within a thoroughgoing
treatment of sacramental signification.
In the Summa, Thomas remains close to the definition of a sign that he has used
throughout his career, namely Augustine’s definition wherein a sign is “that which conveys
something else to the mind, besides the species which it impresses on the senses.”145 In this text,
however, one sees Thomas expand this definition slightly and make it his own. Thomas
ultimately regards a sign to be, “that by means of which one attains to the knowledge of
something else.”146 Thus, a sign is something that leads persons from the known to the unknown.
This definition fits perfectly with Thomas’s understanding of the way in which the
sacraments are signs. Thomas envisions, first of all, human beings as essentially social, sign-
145
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 1, obj. 2. “nam signum est quod, praeter speciem quam sensibus ingerit, facit aliquid aliud in cognitionem venire”.
146
Ibid., III, q. 60, a. 4, res. “Signum autem est per quod aliquis devenit in cognitionem alterius.”
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making, animals, who are composites of matter and spirit, bodies and souls. Furthermore, human
knowledge of the material world, Thomas thinks, is derived from sense data by means of a
significatory process. The process of human understanding is one of receiving sense data,
analogically abstracting from it, and coming to understand what is presented to the senses on a
deeper level than it was first received. Human nature, therefore, is such that humans are led from
the sensible to the intellectual by means of analogically understanding signs.
Since this what humans are and how they learn, God has most fittingly chosen to lead
humans on the path of salvation by means of communicating to them in signs and sensible
realities. God institutes and thus presents humans with sensible realities, whereby the human
person is lead from what they know to what they do not know. Humans learn things about
spiritual realities analogically from material realities. Thus, the sacraments are signs because
God has instituted them to communicate with humans and to lead them to spiritual truths by
means of material signs. Humans are sign-making creatures who learn analogically. Thus, it is
most appropriate for God to lead them on the path of salvation by signs.
Since in the Summa, the sacraments are essentially signs, the role that signification has to
play in the sacraments is the same as the function of the sacraments. The role of signification is
ultimately to allow God to lead human beings through the sacraments from their fallen state unto
deification. Signification allows the sacraments to do this because it allows God to communicate
to humans in a means befitting their nature. God’s signification is so full and so perfect,
however, that God does not just communicate information to humans by means of signs, as
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natural signs do. Rather, God’s signs, because God is actus purus, communicate both
information and grace to persons. God’s signs, as Thomas says, efficiunt quod figurant.
In addition to the essential function of the sacraments, though, signification also has other
roles to play in the sacraments, of which I wish to highlight three. First, signification allows
Thomas to answer theological questions about the sacraments. As seen plentifully both in his
mid-career texts and in the Summa, Thomas makes a habit of responding to theological
objections and questions by appealing to the sacraments’ nature as signs. One of the chief
examples of this in the Summa is when Thomas addresses the issue of whether circumcision gave
grace, an issue which had troubled him before and about which he admits that he was earlier in
error. The way in which Thomas is ultimately able to resolve this question is by appealing to
signification. Thus, he says, “And therefore it seems better to say that Circumcision was a sign of
justifying faith: wherefore the Apostle says (Romans 4:11) that Abraham ‘received the sign of
Circumcision, a seal of the justice of faith.’ Consequently grace was conferred in Circumcision
in so far as it was a sign of Christ’s future Passion.”147 Therefore, signification plays the role in
Thomas’s sacramentology of being a conceptual tool to help resolve theological difficulties.
Second, in the Summa, signification takes on a new role that Thomas has not assigned it
previously. Thomas uses signification in order to express the ecclesial, liturgical, and communal
dimensions of the sacraments. Previously, and within the Summa, Thomas presents the
sacraments as signs from God to individual human beings, by means of which God
communicates salvation to a person. Also in the Summa, however, Thomas presents sacraments
as signs of the Church and signs of worship. The sacraments are signs of the Church first because
they allow the Church to communicate the truths of the faith to persons. In addition, they also
147
Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 6, ad obj. 3. “Et ideo melius dicendum videtur quod circumcisio erat signum fidei iustificantis, unde apostolus dicit, Rom.
IV, quod Abraham accepit signum circumcisionis, signaculum iustitiae fidei. Et ideo in circumcisione conferebatur gratia inquantum erat signum
passionis Christi futurae”.
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allow the Church to sign and mark its members. Thus, in both of these regards, Thomas appeals
to Augustine who says, “It is impossible to keep men together in one religious denomination,
whether true or false, except they be united by means of visible signs or sacraments.”148 Thomas
also presents the sacraments as signs of worship. Thus he says that the sacraments are signs just
like a Roman military sacramentum, whereby persons “are deputed to the worship of God
according to the rite of the Christian religion.”149 The sacraments thus signify persons who are
part of the Church and they are a means of expressing the Church’s worship of God.
Understanding the sacraments as signs allows Thomas to better express these dimensions.
Third, signification plays the role of allowing Thomas to connect his sacramental
teachings to the other areas of his theology. He uses signification to connect his sacramentology
to his anthropology, because humans are sign-making material and spiritual creatures. He uses
signification to connect his sacramentology to his doctrine of grace, because the sacraments
communicate to persons in sensible form how God is working to save them spiritually. Thomas
thus also uses signification to connect his sacramentology to his soteriology. Furthermore, he
uses signification to connect his sacramentology to his Christology, because all the sacraments
point toward and derive their power from Christ’s Passion and work to incorporate persons into
Christ. Thomas uses signification to connect his sacramentology to his Pneumatology, because
what God is signifying and doing in the sacraments is to give God’s self to human beings by the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Thomas thus also uses signification to connect this eschatology
and doctrine of deification, because the sacraments signify the work that God is doing to bring
humans into deifying participation of the divine life, which is eternal life and eternal glory.
Finally, as just seen above, the sacraments allow Thomas to connect his sacramentology to his
148
Ibid., III, q. 61, a. 1, s.c. “in nullum nomen religionis, seu verum seu falsum, coadunari homines possunt, nisi aliquo signaculorum vel
sacramentorum visibilium consortio colligentur.”
149
Ibid., III, q. 63, a. 2, res. “inquantum per ea deputamur ad cultum Dei secundum ritum Christianae religionis.”
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ecclesiology, because the sacraments are signs of the Church that incorporate persons into the
body of Christ and allow them to worship. Thus, through the concept of signification, Thomas is
able to more tightly integrate his systematic theology. This is a primary role that signification
plays in the sacraments.
One cannot recognize the tremendous role that signification plays in the sacramentology
of the Summa and think that Thomas values signification anything less than in the highest
degree. His attitude toward signification is thus entirely positive. One can say as much as well
for his attitude toward the sacraments of the Old Law. In prior texts, Thomas has regarded the
sacraments of the Old Law as mere signs and the sacraments of the New Law as both signs and
causes. Thus, earlier, his negative attitude toward the sacraments of the Old Law was coupled
with a negative attitude toward signification. In the Summa, however, Thomas’s positive
attitudes toward each of these notions are coupled. Thomas regards the sacraments of the Old
Law as signs that express one’s justifying faith, and he regards the sacraments of the New Law
as signs that God uses to give sanctifying grace. His attitude toward both signification and the
sacraments of the Old Law is thus positive, and he does not use either concept as a foil to exalt
either the sacraments of the New Law or the sacraments’ own power.
With the Summa, I have now covered the full course of development of Thomas’s
sacramentology. Along this course, one of the biggest changes has been in the relationship that
Thomas imagines between signification and causality. In the Scriptum, Thomas imagined the
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sacraments to be essentially both signs and causes, but he clearly privileged the concept of
causality and clearly devalued the notion of signification. Signs were what the sacraments of the
Old Law were, and this was precisely the reason why these sacraments were deficient. In the
Scriptum, Thomas reluctantly admitted that the sacraments of the New Law were still in a sense
signs, but he also made it clear that what was distinctive and valuable about them was the fact
that they were primarily causes of grace.
By the time Thomas writes the Summa, however, the relationship between signification
and causality has completely reversed. He here entirely subjects causality to the sacraments’ role
as signs. Thomas reluctantly still admits that one can speak of the sacraments as causes of grace,
but he so limits and so qualifies the sense in which this is true, that it merits only brief mention in
one question. Whereas before, Thomas used causality as the central concept of his
sacramentology, in the Summa, signification is predominant. The sacraments simply are signs,
and Thomas speaks of them as such pervasively. Thus, in the Summa, the relationship between
signification and causality is one of complete dominance, a dominance that has inverted over the
course of Thomas’s career.
Unlike many of Thomas’s previous texts, in the Summa, Thomas has a great deal to say
about the role of the Church with respect to the sacraments. Of course, the Church confects and
administers the sacraments. However, in the Summa, the Church also uses the sacraments for
identity and worship. Moreover, though, along with faith, the Church’s role in the sacraments is
caught up in the great sanctifying and deifying work that God is bringing about in the world. God
became human in Christ and merited grace and the redemption of all humans in the Passion.
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Humans then appropriate this grace by means of the signs, which are the sacraments, to which
they are joined by faith and through the work of the Church. The sacraments work to incorporate
persons into the body of Christ, mark them as members of this body, and depute them to worship
of God, through all of which God works to give them grace, increase their participation in the
divine nature, and deify them. Thus, in the Summa, faith and the Church have vital roles to play
in the purpose, working, and signifying nature of the sacraments.
Another major shift in Thomas’s sacramentology over the course of his career is in his
doctrine of grace. Early in his thought, Thomas imagined grace as something created, as a
particular ornament or quality of the soul that rendered a person worthy for eternal life. By the
end of his career, however, Thomas no longer imagines the gift of grace proper as something
created. Rather, grace is God’s giving of God’s own self. Grace is God coming to dwell with
God’s creatures in a new way. Thus, “grace is nothing else than a participated likeness of the
Divine Nature,”150 through which humans are deified. This shift in understanding grace occurred
alongside the shift to a more significatory sacramentology, both of which reach their fully
developed state in the Summa.
Above all, the biggest influence on Thomas’s sacramentology in the Summa is St.
Augustine. Thomas references Augustine 235 times in the 30 questions pertaining to the
sacraments. Augustine’s influence has been consistent and pervasive throughout Thomas’s
career. Thomas’s secondary authority of choice, however, has shifted from Hugh of St. Victor to
150
Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 1, res. “gratia nihil est aliud quam quaedam participata similitudo divinae naturae”.
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Pseudo-Dionysius. In many of his mid-career texts, Thomas does not mention Hugh at all. This
is not the case for the Summa, where Thomas recovers and reinterprets some of Hugh’s ideas.
However, it is still the case that Thomas places more emphasis on the thought of Pseudo-
Dionysius. Hence, in the questions on the sacraments in the Summa, Thomas mentions Hugh by
name only 9 times, whereas he mentions Pseudo-Dionysius by name 55 times. In addition to
more frequent mention, though, one also sees the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius clearly in the
emphases the Thomas chooses to highlight in his sacramentology of the Summa. Concepts of
participation, deification, and analogy, which pervade the Summa, bear far more resemblance to
Pseudo-Dionysius than to Hugh of St. Victor.
In light of the foregoing, there can be no question that Thomas’s sacramentology and his
doctrine of sacramental signification have changed over the course of his career and that these
changes do in fact represent genuine development rather than mere alteration. As just shown, the
biggest areas of change have been in Thomas’s doctrine of grace, in his attitude toward
signification, in his use of the concept of signification and the role that it has played in his
sacramentology, in his understanding of the relationship between sacramental signification and
sacramental causality, in his anthropology, in his doctrine of deification, in his attitude toward
the sacraments of the Old Law, in his use of Hugh of St. Victor and Pseudo-Dionysius, and in his
understanding of the way in which the sacraments may be referred to with the language of
causes. Each of these changes represents development because they have allowed Thomas’s
sacramentology to become more integrated with itself, more integrated with the rest of Thomas’s
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theology, and more encompassing of a variety of perspectives, like an individual and communal
perspective and a variety of perspectives from throughout the Christian Tradition.
As for how the Summa has changed with respect to more proximate texts, one first of all
recognizes that the sacramentology of the Summa is firmly in line with the trajectory of
Thomas’s thought that he establishes in the Corpus Christi Liturgy and the texts following it.
Thomas’s Summa thus shares with his other mid-career texts an emphasis on signification, an
emphasis on deification, an orientation of the sacraments around Christology, and a hesitancy to
speak of the sacraments in terms of causality. Amidst this consistency, however, it is still
possible to discern changes, which represent development. For instance, in the Summa, Thomas
increases his emphasis on the Church and on worship. One also sees Thomas recover and
reintegrate some of his earlier teachings and some of the notions of the tradition that he has since
abandoned or elected to deemphasize. Thus, in the Summa, Thomas is able to interpret Paul’s
idea that the sacraments are weak and needy elements, Hugh’s idea that the sacraments are
remedies, and the idea that the sacraments are in some way causes, in such that they fit into his
most mature significatory sacramentology without contradiction and without emphasizing these
notions. The sacramentology of the Summa is, therefore, a substantial change from Thomas’s
earliest positions. At the same time, sacraments in the Summa are consistent with the positions of
Thomas’s mid-career texts and the further, final, development of them.
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Conclusion
Introduction
The six chapters of this work have studied the development of Thomas Aquinas’s
sacramental thought, especially as that thought pertains to the concept of signification. The study
has spanned seven of Thomas’s sacramental texts from across Thomas’s academic career. This
conclusion harvests the fruit of this labor by completing the course of my main arguments.
Above all, I have argued that Thomas expands the theological role of signification in his
sacramentology throughout his career, to the point that signification becomes the centerpiece of
his sacramental thought. In tracing this development, I made ten secondary arguments that either
support or develop this primary thesis. These arguments are: 1) that development occurred in
Thomas’s sacramentology; 2) that signification was the subjugated part of the sacraments’ dual
nature at the beginning of Thomas’s career; 3) that Thomas’s sacramentology took a
significatory turn; 4) that signification was the sacraments’ sole essence and Thomas’s
sacramental organizing principle at the end of his career; 5) that Thomas diminished the
sacramental role played by causality throughout his career; 6) that the standard understanding of
Thomas’s sacramental emphasis is incorrect; 7) that the shift toward signification took place
together with a number of extra-sacramentological shifts; 8) that the shift toward signification
took place together with a number of intra-sacramentological shifts; 9) that the shift toward
signification made Thomas’s sacramentology better than it was before; and, 10) that the Summa
theologiae, and indeed all of Thomas’s works, ought to be read developmentally.
In this conclusion, I address each of these ten central arguments in light of the findings of
the texts examined in this study (Section I). I then enumerate some implications of this study. I
divide these into scholarly implications (Section II), which are primarily intended for
theologians, Thomists, historians, and the academic community, and practical implications
(Section III), which are intended for the Church, priests, laypersons, and anyone interested in
living the Christian life. I end with a brief recapitulation of my findings. Here, I give my final
answer to the driving question of this study, namely: What is the role of signification in
Thomas’s sacramental theology and how does this role change throughout his career?
I. The Ten Central Arguments of this Study
1) Development Happened
The first component of my interpretation is that Thomas’s sacramentology developed
throughout his career. Establishing this fact was the goal of each conclusion of Chapters Three
though Six. I define development as substantial positive growth, maturation, or improvement in
doctrine over time. Development assumes change, but it is distinct from mere change because it
includes improvement and an element of intentionality. Deciding whether changes in thought
represent development unavoidably requires subjective judgment. Nonetheless, in viewing
Thomas’s sacramental writings as a whole, persuasive evidence exists in favor of development.
Large changes undoubtedly took place across the course of Thomas’s sacramental
writings. These changes include: a change of dominant metaphor; a change in preferred sources;
a change from understanding the sacraments as having a dual nature; a change in various
doctrinal attitudes, and, a change in the frequency of using notions of signification and causality,
among many others. In light of these changes, one cannot understand Thomas’s sacramentology
to be static.
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Furthermore, the nature of these changes is such that one cannot regard them as formal
changes rather than substantial changes. Thomas does not just change how he explains the same
consistent concepts. Rather, he changes his mind about what the sacraments are and how the
sacraments function. After Thomas changes his mind, he persists in his teaching across a wide
variety of textual genres, audiences, situations, and across a large period of time. Substantial
changes in Thomas’s doctrine therefore absolutely took place.
What remains to be established is whether these substantial changes represent growth,
maturation, intentional refinement, or overall improvement. For thought to develop, substantial
changes must occur in a positive direction. I argue more fully that Thomas’s sacramentology
improved below in my ninth argument. Even without this discussion, however, in light of the
evidence of this study, growth is evident. Thomas’s thought over time became more integrated
and more internally coherent. Thomas resolved ambiguous issues, like how the sacraments could
have a dual essence. Thomas also moved toward more positive attitudes on several key issues,
like the material world, the human person, and the sacraments of the Old Law. Therefore, one
must conclude that Thomas’s sacramentology did not merely change over the course of his
career, but that it grew and matured. Thus, true development happened.
The biggest potential challenge to my claim of development exists in the Summa. As
discussed in Chapter Six, Thomas seems to revert on a few issues to attitudes that he expressed at
the beginning of his career. These issues include his attitude toward the sacraments of the Old
Law and his thoughts on using the language of causality. If reversion took place, one could argue
that Thomas’s sacramentology did not really develop. His thought could have shifted briefly and
then returned to its original state.
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I demonstrated, however, that Thomas’s doctrine does not in fact revert. Thomas instead
carries forward theological attitudes that are prevalent within the tradition, some of which he
himself once held. Thomas incorporates these attitudes into his theology, downplays them, and
precisely limits their applicability. These apparent reversions are thus not reversions, but a
further indication of maturity. Thomas’s thought has so developed that he can accommodate and
incorporate ever more of the tradition, even those ideas he does not find, or no longer finds,
helpful. In these apparent reversions, Thomas not only admits that his thought has changed, but
he also finds a way to incorporate the old in the new.
2) Role of Signification at the Beginning of Thomas’s Career
My second argument pertains to the state of Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental
signification at the beginning of his career. I establish this state chiefly in Chapter Two, with my
discussion of Thomas’s Scriptum, but also in Chapter Three, with my discussion of Thomas’s De
veritate. In both of these Chapters, I showed that at the beginning of his career, Thomas
understood the sacraments to have a dual nature. He understood the sacraments to be essentially
both signs and causes wedded together for a singular purpose.
In this initial state, signification played an essential role in the sacraments. However, this
role was overshadowed by the sacraments’ causal nature at every turn. In his early writings,
Thomas spoke much more about causality than about signification. Causality was also more
central to his thought. Thomas employed causality to distinguishing between the sacraments of
the Old Law and the New Law, to establish the dignity of the sacraments of the New Law, to
relate the sacraments to grace, to explain how the sacraments function, to explain the goal of the
sacraments, and to relate the sacraments to his primary sacramental metaphor of medicine.
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Moreover, Thomas freely admitted that “the dignity which is in causing prevails over that which
is in signifying.”1
Signification was always a part of Thomas’s sacramentology, but at the beginning of his
career, it was not his preferred notion. Thomas identified the sacraments as signs in concert with
the theological authorities with which he was working, but he used the concept of causality to
accomplish more theological work. Thomas even actively evinced a negative attitude toward
signification and used it as a means of devaluing the sacraments of the Old law in order to exalt
the sacraments of the New Law. In Thomas’s earliest writings, therefore, signification’s ultimate
role, even in being half of the sacrament’s dual nature, was to be a foil for the causality of grace.
3) Significatory Turn
Third, I argue that during the early-middle stages of his career, Thomas’s sacramentology
shifted from being oriented around causality toward being oriented around signification. This
significatory turn took place after Thomas moved to Orvieto, where he taught common
Dominican brothers. The turn is first noticeable in Thomas’s Corpus Christi Liturgy. After
contemplating extensively on the Eucharist, Thomas teaches much on the signification of the
sacraments, and not at all on the sacraments in terms of causality. I have not argued that either
Thomas’s experience in Orvieto or his contemplation of the Eucharist caused his significatory
shift, but I find it reasonable to conclude that these factors were related.
The significatory turn is evident as well in Thomas’s Summa contra Gentiles, where he
again has much to say about the signification of the sacraments and very little to say about
sacramental causality. Thomas, in fact, maintains this significatory trajectory throughout the rest
1
“Dignitas autem quae est in efficiendo, praevalet ei quae est in significando”. Aquinatis, Scriptum super Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV,
d. 7, q. 1, a. 1, ad qc. 3, p. 266-7.
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of his career and across a wide variety of texts and contexts, including liturgical works,
systematic works, and biblical commentaries written from Orvieto, to Rome, to Paris. For over a
decade, Thomas never says that the sacraments are causes. At the same time, during this period,
he always delineates the sacraments’ signification, and he always uses the concept of
signification to answer theological questions. From the fact alone that Thomas ceases saying that
the sacraments are both signs and causes, as he so frequently did in his early writings, one must
conclude that Thomas no longer imagines the sacraments to have a dual nature. From the fact
that Thomas very rarely speaks about the sacraments’ causality, one must conclude that he has
pivoted to conceiving the sacraments solely as signs.
4) Role of Signification at the End of Thomas’s Career
Fourth, at the end of his career, I argue that signification is the central notion of Thomas’s
sacramentology. This role is evident in the Summa theologiae in at least four ways. First, in the
Summa, Thomas explicitly says that the sacraments have the singular nature of signs. Thus, in his
opening question on the sacraments in general, he writes, “sacramentum ponitur in genere
signi.”2 Second, Thomas employs the notion of signification more frequently than any other
concept when speaking about the sacraments. Third, Thomas uses the notion of signification
extensively to integrate his sacramentology with the rest of his theology. For instance, he
understands humans to be sign making sensory creatures, who are led by signs, by God, into
deification. Fourth, to answer theological questions, Thomas almost always appeals to the
sacraments’ nature as signs. Thus, at the end of his career, signification plays the chief and
central role in Thomas’s sacramentology. Signification has everything to do with, and is
2
Aquinatis, Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita, t. 4-12: Summae theologiae, III, q. 60, a. 1, res.
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practically Thomas’s singular answer to, what the sacraments are, how they function, and what
their purpose is.
5) Limitation of the Notion of Causality
Fifth, I argue that the converse of the significatory turn is that Thomas sharply limits
applying the notion of causality to the sacraments. More than just reversing the one-sided
relationship of signification to causality, Thomas completely removes causality from the essence
of the sacraments. He no longer describes the sacraments as having a dual nature. The limitation
of causality is most evident in the Summa from the fact that Thomas confines his discussion of
sacramental causality to a single question (III.62), in the midst of several questions about
sacramental signification. The move away from seeing the sacraments as having a dual nature is
also evident in the fact that throughout much of the middle of his career, Thomas stops speaking
of the sacraments with the language of causality.
In the Summa, Thomas revives the concept of causality somewhat, but in doing so he
carefully narrows its applicability. The sacraments are not causes and cannot be referred to as
such in any simple sense. Thomas teaches only that one can use the concept of causality to
express the fact that God uses the sacraments to give the gift of God’s self. Thomas thus moves
from privileging the concept of causality as the centermost notion of his sacramentology to
teaching that causality can only be used to express a single particular aspect of what the
sacraments do.
My reading of the development of Thomas’s sacramental thought accords well with the
position advanced by Philip Lyndon Reynolds in his article, “Efficient Causality and
Instrumentality in Thomas Aquinas’s Theology of the Sacraments”. Reynolds advances a
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“minimal interpretation”3 of Thomas’s sacramentology in the Summa. Reynolds claims that
Thomas only reticently discusses sacramental causality due to an apophatic attitude. I agree with
Reynolds that such a shift away from speaking about causality is present in the Summa. I suggest
additionally, however, that this shift stems from more than just apophaticism. Rather, Thomas
limits the role of causality in his sacramentology because this role has been entirely absorbed by
the role that signification plays. The concept of signification allows Thomas to accomplish his
theological and pedagogical goals better than does causality. Thus, he needs only to mention
causality in passing, as a concept that is in the tradition but should only be of limited use.
6) The Standard Reading is Incorrect
Sixth, I argue that the standard reading of Thomas’s sacramental theology is mistaken. As
established in the Introduction, most scholars who treat Thomas’s sacramentology do so with
either the implicit or the explicit understanding that Thomas conceives the sacraments as causes
of grace above all else. The works of de la Soujeole, Gallagher, Ordeig, Walsh, and Weinandy
are key exemplars of this reading. As I mention in the notes of the Introduction, Bernard
Blankenhorn, David Burger, Louis-Marie Chauvet, Peter Garland, Dominic Holtz, and John
Yocum, among many others, also advance a causality-focused reading of Thomas’s
sacramentology. The fact that there are so many studies available of Thomas’s doctrine of
sacramental causality, and so few studies of his doctrine of sacramental signification,
additionally attests to the dominance of a causality-focused understanding. The findings of my
research, however, conclusively demonstrate that causality is not the central concept of
Thomas’s final sacramentology. The scholarly consensus on this issue is thus incorrect.
3
Reynolds, "Efficient Causality and Instrumentality in Thomas Aquinas’s Theology of the Sacraments," 79.
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7) Extra-Sacramentological Shifts
Seventh, I have shown that several shifts took place along with Thomas’s significatory
turn. I divide these into extra and intra-sacramentological shifts. The former take place in
doctrines outside of Thomas’s sacramentology proper. The latter take place within Thomas’s
sacramentology. For most of these shifts, I found insufficient evidence to establish causal
relationships. For instance, I do not feel it possible to state that changes in Thomas’s doctrine of
grace caused him to privilege the signification of the sacraments or vice versa. Nonetheless, I
have shown that these shifts are correlated with Thomas’s sacramental turn.
With his significatory shift, Thomas makes five extra-sacramentological shifts throughout
his career These extra-sacramentological shifts occur in 1) his doctrine of grace, 2) his
anthropology, 3) his doctrine of creation, 4) his understanding of the Old Covenant, and 5) his
preferred sources. Thomas’s doctrine of grace is first. In his earliest writings, Thomas understood
grace to be some created ornament of the soul. Following his significatory shift, however,
Thomas speaks of grace as uncreated, as the gift of God’s very self to the human creature
through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Thomas maintains an uncreated doctrine of grace
through the end of his career. Thus, by the time he writes the Summa, Thomas writes that grace
is, “co-eternal with the divine love,” “a participation of the divine Good,” and God wishing and
actually giving God’s self to a creature.4
Understanding the sacraments in terms of signs accords especially well with an uncreated
doctrine of grace. If grace is understood as the gift of God’s very self to a creature, no created
thing could ever be said to cause this to happen. The most one could say about the causality of
the sacraments is exactly what Thomas does say, namely that God can use the sacraments as a
means of bringing about God’s self-giving. In this sense, the sacraments might be thought of as
4
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 110, a. 1, res.
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causes in a very particular sense. Overall, though, one must conclude that created things can of
themselves only lead persons to God. The role of the sacraments, therefore, is to signify what
God is doing, to make God’s work manifest and accessible, and to be used by God to deify
humans, rather than to cause anything in any simple sense.
The second and third extra-sacramentological shifts are in Thomas’s anthropology and
his doctrine of creation, respectively. I name these two shifts together because they are deeply
intertwined. In his Scriptum, Thomas advanced a negative anthropology where humans are
trapped in the sensory realm as a result of sin. He also advances a negative doctrine of creation
where the material sensory realm is a prison.5
With these notions of human beings and the world, it is no surprise that Thomas also had
a negative attitude toward signification, as signification is a process deeply embedded in the
material realm. Signification, per Augustine’s definition, works by some sensible thing being
presented to a person and a person understanding something in addition to the material thing. If
the sensible realm is part of the problem, one can see why Thomas would not highly value
sensible signs. At best, and incidentally the exact way Thomas presents signification, God might
condescend to use sensible signs because these are the only way to communicate to humans after
the fall. Under this narrative, the use of signs is far from ideal and is not part of God’s original
plan.6
As I have shown throughout this study, however, Thomas’s anthropology and his
doctrine of creation do not remain the same over the course of his career. With his significatory
shift, Thomas’s attitudes change. For instance, in the ScG, Thomas no longer views the material
5
Thus, for instance, Thomas writes: “The human mind had known only to be occupied concerning sensible things, in so much as certain persons
believed nothing outside the sensible realm; and if anyone might be coming to the cognition of intelligible things, they were judging them
according to the mode of sensible things.” “humana mens circa sensibilia tantum occupari noverat, intantum ut quidam nihil extra sensibilia
crederent; et si qui ad cognitionem intelligibilium pervenirent, ea secundum modum rerum sensibilium judicabant.” Aquinatis, Scriptum super
Sententiis Magistri Petri Lomardi, IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 2, res, p. 20.
6
This is, of course, not to say that God works by trial and error, or that God’s desires are somehow thwarted by human acts. I mean only that, in
Thomas’s earlier narrative, signs are a result of God’s consequent will rather than God’s antecedent will.
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realm as predominantly negative.7 In the Summa, Thomas teaches, “It is part of man’s nature to
acquire knowledge of the intelligible from the sensible.”8 Thus, Thomas acknowledges that
humans are sensible creatures and that signs are an essential part of what it means to be human.
Thomas abandons a negative attitude toward sensible things and a negative anthropology that
imagines humans as enslaved by materiality.
Like a doctrine of uncreated grace, a more positive anthropology and doctrine of creation
fit well with Thomas’s sacramentological shift to the significatory. A more positive
understanding of sensible reality fits with a more positive attitude toward sensible signs.
Similarly, if one comes to understand materiality as a part of God’s plan for humans all along,
one might also come to understand signs as more of an essential part of God’s plan as well.
These shifts in Thomas’s thought are interrelated. Throughout his career, Thomas came to more
deeply appreciate that material reality is itself good, that human sensing and knowing through
signs is good, and that signification is the most important aspect of the sacraments.
The fourth extra-sacramentological shift is Thomas’s change in his attitude toward the
Old Covenant. Thomas initially had a negative attitude toward the age of the natural and written
laws, as opposed to the age of grace. He used this negative portrayal for the positive purpose of
exalting the age of grace and along with it the sacraments of the New Law. Immediately after his
significatory shift, though, Thomas abandons this oppositional strategy and begins to speak about
the Old and New Laws more harmoniously.9
7
Thus, Thomas writes, “visible things are good of their nature—as created by God—but they become damaging to men so far as one clings to
them in a disordered way, and saving so far as one uses them in an ordered way.” Aquinas, On the truth of the Catholic faith: Summa contra
Gentiles, b. 4, ch. 56. “ut sic appareret ipsa visibilia ex sui natura bona esse, velut a Deo creata, sed hominibus noxia fieri secundum quod eis
inordinate inhaerent, salutifera vero secundum quod ordinate eis utuntur.”
8
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q. 60, a. 4, res. “Est autem homini connaturale ut per sensibilia perveniat in cognitionem intelligibilium.”
9
For example, in the ScG, Thomas writes, “without change or regret one who disposes things may dispose things differently in harmony with a
difference of times; thus, the father of a family gives one set of orders to a small child and another to one already grown. Thus, God also
harmoniously gave one set of sacraments and commandments before the Incarnation to point to the future, and another set after the Incarnation to
present things present and bring to mind things past.” Aquinas, On the truth of the Catholic faith: Summa contra Gentiles, b. 4, c. 57. For the
most part, this translation is Pegis’s. I have changed the way he translated exhibendum, in order to remain consistent with my translation above.
“Fit autem absque mutatione disponentis vel poenitentia, quod diversa disponat secundum congruentiam temporum diversorum: sicut
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As with the other extra-sacramentological shifts I have named, a shift in attitude toward
the Old Law coheres completely with a sacramentological shift toward signification. Thomas
always understood the sacraments of the Old Law as signs. When he thought that the sacraments
of the Old Law were inherently deficient, one can see why he thought that signification was not
the most important aspect of the sacraments of the New Law. However, with an understanding
that God harmoniously operates in the same way and for the same ultimate purpose under both
the Old and New Laws, one might also understand that God works the same way in both the Old
and New Sacraments. Thomas’s understanding that God works through signs for human
salvation in all ages is therefore correlated to his understanding that the Old and New Laws are
not opposed but in harmony.
The fifth and final extra-sacramentological shift is a shift in Thomas’s sources. The most
noticeable aspect of this shift is Thomas’s move away from Hugh of St. Victor. Hugh features
prominently in the Scriptum, but Thomas’s use of him, especially his medicinal metaphor,
diminishes in subsequent texts. After the significatory turn, Thomas instead emphasizes
Augustine’s significatory ideas and Pseudo-Dionysius’s analogical, participatory, and deificatory
ideas. Whether or not Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius inspired Thomas’s significatory shift,
one can understand why Thomas might emphasize different sources when he changes the
emphasis of his sacramentology. Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius help Thomas articulate a
significatory sacramentology better than does Hugh and a medicinal metaphor.
paterfamilias alia praecepta tradit filio parvulo, et alia iam adulto. Sic et Deus congruenter alia sacramenta et praecepta ante incarnationem
tradidit, ad significandum futura: alia post incarnationem, ad exhibendum praesentia et rememorandum praeterita.”
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8) Intra-Sacramentological Shifts
Eighth, with a significatory turn, I have also argued that Thomas’s sacramentology
changed internally in at least five respects: it became more Christological, more ecclesiological,
more deificatory, more positive, and less academic. First, over the course of his career, Thomas’s
sacramentology became increasingly Christological. This is not to say that Thomas’s early
sacramentology had nothing to do with Christ. Instead, I mean only that, for Thomas, the
sacraments’ connection to Christ deepened over time. One can observe this deepening as early as
De veritate, where Thomas explains sacramental causality in a more Christological fashion. By
the end of his career, Thomas sees all the sacraments as existing to lead persons to Christ,
incorporate them into Christ, and transform them into Christ.
The second shift is that Thomas’s sacramentology became increasingly ecclesiological.
One can see the ecclesiological shift when Thomas moves away from a medicinal metaphor to an
analogy between the bodily and spiritual life. Medicine is simply concerned with individual
salvation, but the spiritual life analogy makes room to see sacraments as existing for the common
good of the Church. One sees Thomas’s increased ecclesiological emphasis as well in the
Summa, where he states, “In the use of the sacraments two things may be considered, namely, the
worship of God, and the sanctification of man.”10
Third, Thomas increasingly emphasizes deification after his significatory shift. The
Corpus Christi Liturgy references deification numerous times, as does the ScG, the Commentary
on John, and the Summa. In the Summa, especially, Thomas interweaves his sacramentology, his
doctrine of grace, and his doctrine of deification. He defines grace as “a participated likeness of
10
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q. 60, a. 5, res. “in usu sacramentorum duo possunt considerari, scilicet cultus divinus, et sanctificatio
hominis”.
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the Divine Nature;”11 he says that God alone can deify and bestow this participation;12 and, he
teaches that God is precisely deifying persons through the Church and the sacraments.
All three of the intra-sacramentological shifts named thus far are deeply entangled with
Thomas’s significatory turn. Insofar as the sacraments are signs, they lead persons to Christ.
Leading persons to Christ works to incorporate persons in the Church, which is the body of
Christ. Incorporating persons in the body of Christ, then, inebriates persons with the divine
nature, which sanctifies them to the point where they become gods by participation.
The fourth intra-sacramentological shift for which I have argued is that Thomas’s
sacramentology became more positive over the course of his career. Thus, Thomas moved from a
negative attitude toward the sacraments of the Old Law. He moved away from a negative
anthropology and a negative doctrine of creation. He also moved away from having a negative
attitude toward signification. Thus, throughout the course of his career, Thomas’s
sacramentology became more positive. He stopped diminishing one aspect of his theology or one
period in history in order to build up another. He began to appreciate aspects of God’s plan on
their own terms and for the role they had to play in God’s redemptive work.
Fifth, with a significatory shift, Thomas’s sacramentology became less academically
focused. By this, I mean that his attitudes toward the sacraments became more pastoral,
pedagogical, mystical, and contemplative, while becoming less coldly intellectual, objective, and
philosophical. This shift is more gradual than the other shifts named. One notices this shift most
in the Summa. Here, Thomas’s sacramentology is devoted entirely to leading persons from the
known to the unknown. He seeks to lead his readers from their material everyday lives into
contemplation of God’s work in the past, present, and future. Thomas’s mystical concern is
11
Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 1, res. “gratia nihil est aliud quam quaedam participata similitudo divinae naturae”.
12
Ibid., I-II, q. 112, a. 1, res.
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evident in his urging of persons toward contemplation of the meaning, figures, prefigurations,
and signification of the sacraments. His mystical concern is also evident in the pervasive
orientation of the Summa toward the beatific vision, and in the fact that Thomas’s own career
culminated in a mystical vision. Thomas’s pastoral concern is evident in the increased
ecclesiological emphasis of his sacramentology. Thomas’s pedagogical concern is evident in his
stated purpose in writing the Summa. Thus, one must conclude that along with his turn to a
significatory sacramentology, Thomas’s theology also became more pastoral, mystical,
contemplative, and focused on teaching.
9) Signification Allows for A Better Sacramentology
My ninth argument is that Thomas’s use of signification as the central concept of his
sacramentology makes for a better sacramentology than does his prior emphasis on the concept
of causality. Of the arguments of this study, this argument is the most open for debate because
“better” is a relative and subjective term. Nonetheless, I find Thomas’s later sacramentology,
which is oriented around signification, to be a demonstrable improvement over his early
sacramentology, which was oriented around causality. For this conclusion, I have three reasons.
First, many of the shifts named above are clear instances of improvement, which render
Thomas’s sacramentology better. For example, a more positive sacramentology and more
positive attitudes toward the Old Covenant are preferable to a sacramentology that unnecessarily
devalues an entire period of human history. A less pessimistic doctrine of creation, which does
not understand material reality to be a prison, is better than the converse. Similarly, a
sacramentology that is more focused on Christ, is less individualistic, and is more pastoral, is an
improvement as well. All of these positive attributes are closely related with Thomas’s transition
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to a significatory sacramentology. Thus, one may reasonably conclude that Thomas’s turn
toward signification rendered his theology better than it was before.
Second, Thomas’s later significatory sacramentology is better because it allowed him to
teach the Christian faith better. Teaching was both Thomas’s expressed purpose and his job as a
magister. Hence, improvement in teaching is to be preferred. One can see how Thomas’s
significatory sacramentology allows him to teach better in the way Thomas asks and resolves
theological questions. Thomas’s early sacramentology left several looming questions
unanswered. Thomas was unable to specify how sacraments could have a dual nature as both
signs and causes. Thomas’s oppositional reading of history and his negative attitude toward
material reality also left some big questions unanswered, like why God would allow an entire era
of human history to have sacraments that were inherently insufficient, or why God would create
the material world at all if it was only going to serve as a prison.
These questions and problems disappear, however, when Thomas shifts to a significatory
sacramentology. He no longer has to answer how sacraments can exist in two genera at once
because he now identifies sacraments as belonging solely to the genre of signs. Thomas also
subsequently avoids the aforementioned questions about material reality and the sacraments of
the Old Law. At the end of his career, Thomas could answer these questions simply by saying
that God created the material world and used the sacraments of the Old Law because both are
inherently good and both suited God’s purposes and human nature at different times. Thus, a
significatory sacramentology allows Thomas to teach the faith better by allowing him to answer
theological questions better.
Along similar lines, signification allows Thomas to answer theological questions better.
Later in his career, Thomas constantly appeals to the sacraments’ nature as signs when he is
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confronted with an objection. I demonstrated this fact throughout Thomas’s texts following his
significatory turn, but one can see this point especially in the Summa. Earlier in his career, the
question of whether circumcision gave grace was a point of difficulty for Thomas. In the Summa,
however, Thomas is able to appeal to the sacraments’ nature as signs to answer this challenge.13
Thus, Thomas’s understanding of the sacraments as signs allows him to answer theological
questions better, even those that he was not able to answer when his sacramentology was
oriented around causality. In this regard, one must conclude that a significatory sacramentology
is better than a causality-focused sacramentology.
Third, I contend that the concept of signification rendered Thomas’s sacramentology
better because it allowed him to integrate his theology more fully with itself. By the time he
writes the Summa, Thomas uses signification to connect his sacramentology to his anthropology,
by viewing humans as sign-making creatures. He connects his sacramentology to his
Christology, by understanding the purpose of all the sacraments as being to point persons toward
Christ. He connects his sacramentology to his Eschatology because he understands the ultimate
purpose of the sacraments to be deification, unto which God wishes to lead humans. Thomas
connects his sacramentology to his ecclesiology because he comes to understand that
communities communicate and form their identities by using signs; and, finally, Thomas
connects his sacramentology to his doctrine of grace because he comes to understand grace as
God’s gift of God’s very self to a human person, which God gives through signs. Since a
theology that is more tightly integrated, more tightly synthesized, more tightly connected, and
more tightly oriented toward a singular purpose is conclusively better, one must conclude that,
13
He writes, “And therefore it seems better to say that Circumcision was a sign of justifying faith: wherefore the Apostle says (Romans 4:11) that
Abraham ‘received the sign of Circumcision, a seal of the justice of faith.’ Consequently grace was conferred in Circumcision in so far as it was a
sign of Christ’s future Passion.” Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 6, ad obj. 3. “Et ideo melius dicendum videtur quod circumcisio erat signum fidei iustificantis,
unde apostolus dicit, Rom. IV, quod Abraham accepit signum circumcisionis, signaculum iustitiae fidei. Et ideo in circumcisione conferebatur
gratia inquantum erat signum passionis Christi futurae”.
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insofar as signification allows Thomas to integrate his theology, signification makes for a better
key concept than causality.
10) Proper Reading of the Summa theologiae
The tenth and final sub-argument of this study is that the Summa theologiae, and, in fact,
all of Thomas’s works, cannot be read on their own, acontextually, or ahistorically. One cannot
go to any one of Thomas’s works and simply glean a definitive expression of what he thought on
any given issue. Instead, Thomas’s works must be read within their historical and developmental
contexts. In order to minimize the potential for misinterpretation, like the misinterpretation made
by the standard reading of Thomas’s sacramentology, one must take into account all available
data to the degree that is possible. Scholars should strive to examine all of what Thomas said on
a particular issue as thoroughly as possible. Doing so requires one to take account of what
Thomas says: 1) in its full connectedness within his broader theology; 2) across his entire corpus;
3) with an understanding of what genres Thomas was writing in, to whom he was writing, and
his purposes of writing; and 4) with the understanding that all thought develops throughout time
as persons learn, grow, mature, continue to think, and as situations change. None of Thomas
works, not even the Summa for all its brilliance, can be read as encyclopedias or manuals where
easy answers may be easily looked up. Thomas must be read developmentally.
II. Scholarly Implications of this Study
The arguments of this study have a number of implications both for the academic study
of Thomas and for the Church. I begin with five scholarly implications. First, with the standard
causality-centered reading of Thomas’s sacramentology dethroned, the results of this study call
398
for much more scholarly work to be done on Thomas’s doctrine of the sacraments. The present
study has by no means been exhaustive, even of Thomas’s doctrine of sacramental signification.
Thus, the scholarly understanding of Thomas’s sacramentology will benefit from continued
theological and interdisciplinary work, which is necessary in light of the deficiency of some
areas of the dominant scholarly understanding.
Second, the results of this study call for continued developmental readings of Thomas’s
theology in areas other than his sacramentology. The capacity of the developmental method to
provide a fuller picture of Thomas’s thought begs for further application. The developmental
method can yield further insights into practically all topics of Thomas’s thought and certainly all
of his writings. In particular, the scholarly community needs to conduct further developmental
study of works other than the Summa, especially Thomas’s biblical commentaries, liturgical
works, and nonacademic works. In using the developmental method to overturn the standard
reading of Thomas’s sacramentology, this study stands as a witness to the inadequacy of
studying the Summa, or any single work of Thomas’s, alone or acontextually.
Third, a more concerted scholarly effort to translate Thomas’s lesser-studied works into
English and other modern languages needs to be made. Many of Thomas’s texts, including most
of the Scriptum, are not available in English. Other works are not available in recent translations
or in other languages. These facts render the whole of Thomas’s corpus difficult to teach and
nearly impossible for non-specialists to study. The work of the present study has demonstrated
the benefits to be gained from studying all of Thomas’s texts. The scholarly community would
thus do well to make these texts easily available to teachers, to seminary and master’s students,
to undergraduates, and to laypersons.
399
Fourth, my findings should lead scholars to hold an increased wariness of too easily
interpreting Thomas as an Aristotelian or as a pure philosopher. These two characterizations are
undoubtedly behind the standard causality-focused interpretation of Thomas’s sacramentology,
and in this case, these assumptions lead to faulty conclusions. Aristotle is a major dialogue
partner for Thomas, and Thomas makes frequent use of his ideas. However, Aristotle is not
Thomas’s only source, and Thomas is not beholden to his philosophical system. To the contrary,
I have shown that Thomas’s sacramentology draws heavily from Neo-Platonic sources,
specifically Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius. Thus, scholars should hesitate to over-characterize
Thomas as an Aristotelian. Reevaluations of the Aristotelianism of other areas of Thomas’s
thought are even in order. Thomas’s ability to reconcile and synthesize diverse traditions is too
great for overly simple understandings of his influences to persist.
Fifth and finally, this study demands a reevaluation of the sign and cause debate
surrounding Thomas’s sacramentology. My findings not only suggest that the majority position
in this debate is mistaken, but they also call into question the terms of this debate, as well as its
very existence. Thomas is unclear about the relationship between signification and causality only
at the very beginning of his career. Only in his earliest writings does he maintain that the
sacraments have a dual nature, and only given this dual nature does the question ever arise as to
how anything can belong essentially in the genre of signs and the genre of causes at the same
time. By the end of his career, Thomas’s theology no longer poses this question. Thomas instead
makes it clear that the sacraments are solely signs, even if one can use the notion of instrumental
causality as an example to speak about how these specific signs work.
By the end of Thomas’s career, therefore, there is no need to debate how Thomas
reconciles signification and causality in the sacraments, or to debate which concept Thomas
400
prefers. Thomas’s sacramentology is entirely ordered around the concept of signification. Thus,
while much more work can be done to study Thomas’s doctrine of signification, and while
further studies of Thomas’s doctrine of causality are legitimate, the implications of the present
study are such that no more scholarly effort needs to be spent understanding how Thomas
reconciles signification and causality. There is no need for further debate. Thomas himself
resolves this issue in the course of his career.
III. Practical Implications of this Study
In addition to the implications of my research for the scholarly community, my findings
have a number of practical implications for the Church and the individual Christian life. First, the
present study reveals the vast pedagogical benefits of thinking of the sacraments foremost in
terms of signification rather than in terms of causality. No one would fail to admit that Thomas
was a master teacher of the Christian faith, in addition to being one of the best systematic
thinkers in history. If in texts with explicit pedagogical goals, Thomas ultimately decides to
orient his sacramentology around signification, the Church and teachers of theology today ought
to take note.
Conceiving of the sacraments in terms of signification, as I have shown above, allows
one to show the sacraments to be deeply rooted in God’s loving plan for all of creation, deeply
integrated with other areas of theology, and deeply situated in salvation history. By
understanding the sacraments as signs, the Church can show that all of sacred doctrine is
organically connected and that all of God’s working in the world throughout history is
consistent. The sacraments are not a last minute divine stopgap; they instead participate and most
clearly manifest God’s plan for and way of working in creation. The sacraments are likewise not
401
God’s way of rending open the created order in order to inject divine effects. The sacraments
instead work within material reality and within humans’ natural capacities to communicate
participation in the divine by means appropriate to humans, much as did the Incarnation.
The pedagogical benefits of conceiving the sacraments as signs thus ought not to be
passed over. If the sacraments are God’s way of communicating spiritual truths, spiritual
realities, and even the divine self-gift to humans, the Church has no better means of teaching the
truths of the faith than by means of drawing persons’ attention to what the sacraments
themselves are signifying. The Church thus needs to focus much more than it does currently on
teaching persons to read God’s signs.
To accomplish this work, the Church should first begin to emphasize the signification of
the sacraments over their causality of grace. This move would require a number of practical
adjustments. Priests, catechists, and teachers should devote more time to speaking about what the
sacraments signify, as Thomas came to do in and following his Corpus Christi Liturgy.
Theological educators should spend more time speaking about what the sacraments mean.
Teachers should not speak solely about what the sacraments do.
Laypersons need to be instructed about the plethora of sacramental figures and
prefigurations in Scripture and the Tradition. Thomas made it clear with his doctrine of
sacramental institution that in order to properly read the sacraments as signs, one must know
salvation history and the place that each sacrament has in that history. The sacraments signify the
past, present, and future. Thus, all sacramental recipients need to be historically literate.
Laypersons thus must be instructed about what God has done in the Tradition, is doing in the
Church and the sacraments in the present, and has promised to do in the future.
402
Sacramental recipients especially need to be fostered in developing a sacramental
worldview. Not only do all Christians need to know how to read the signs that are the
sacraments, but they also need to read the less clear signs of all created things. Created things
nonetheless point to the same truths as the sacraments. All things are signs from God that
communicate the depth of God’s love and the depth of God’s desire for persons to enter into
deifying communion with the Holy Trinity. God can and does use all things to lead persons into
this communion. God simply uses the sacraments to draw persons to God’s self in a special,
clear, and particularly reliable manner. Thus, Christians need to be taught how God speaks in all
things, especially the sacraments.
Next, the findings of this study should lead the Church to attempt to communicate better
how the sacraments fit in with and point toward other areas of sacred doctrine, like Christology,
Anthropology, Ecclesiology, and Eschatology. Sacramental recipients also need to be taught a
positive view of materiality, of the human body, and of the different ages of salvation history.
Without a systematic and accurate view of the whole of the Christian faith and the integrated
beauty of God’s revealed plan for created reality, persons miss out on the fullness of what is
being signified by the sacraments. Part of the beauty of understanding the sacraments as signs
exists in recognizing that the sacraments are inexhaustible signs. Because the sacraments point to
God and God is infinite, sacramental reception can always lead persons to deeper insights,
deeper knowledge, and deeper participation in God’s plan, God’s work, and God’s self. The
Church can thus always do more to continue teaching theology and the faith. This work is both
requisite for and facilitated by understanding the sacraments as signs.
A significatory sacramentology, furthermore, ought to lead the Church to insist upon a
non-commoditized and uncreated view of grace. The Church should carefully distinguish
403
between, on the one hand, the created gifts of grace given by God, and, on the other hand, grace
itself, which is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the gift of God’s self. Grace is easily
misrepresented as something that can be dispensed by the sacraments, as by a vending machine.
Grace is also easily misrepresented as something that can be accumulated, or as something that
can be used up and needs to be refilled. From Thomas, the Church can learn that grace is instead
a participation in the divine nature. From Thomas, the Church can learn that the sacraments do
not just communicate information about this participation, but communicate the participation
itself. The sacraments take persons into the divine life and into salvation history in the mode that
is most appropriate for human beings. Humans are material and spiritual creatures, and signs
mediate between these two realms. Thus, it is through material signs that humans come to
participate in God, who is pure spirit.
Finally, in light of understanding the sacraments as signs, the Church ought also to teach
persons not just to receive the sacraments, but to perceive the sacraments. The Church should
teach persons not just to take the sacraments, but to meditate and contemplate on all of their
meanings. This teaching might, for instance, take the form of warning persons against distraction
during sacramental liturgies. One cannot understand and participate in a sign when one is not
paying attention to the sign, or not paying attention to it as a sign. This teaching might take the
form of encouraging persons to commune in both kinds since both food and drink are a necessary
part of the Eucharistic sign of a communal meal. This teaching might also take the form of
composing new prayers, liturgies, and devotional practices oriented around the sacraments, much
as Thomas did for the feast of Corpus Christi. The findings of this study should thus call the
Church to a renewed spirit of teaching about and worshiping through the sacraments as signs.
404
Conclusion
Though initially subjected to causality, by the end of his career, signification could hardly
have played a larger or more central in Thomas’s sacramentology. Thomas uses signification to
specify what the sacraments are, how they function, and what they mean. He uses signification to
situate the sacraments in God’s plan for creation and in salvation history; and, he uses
signification as a systematic tool for integrating his theology. Signification allows Thomas to
orient all parts of his theology toward Christ and, through Christ, toward the deification that
Christ merited. In his final formulation, therefore, signification is the core of Thomas’s
sacramentology. One can put this no more simply or elegantly than by insisting that the
sacraments are in genere signi.
405
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411
Vita Auctoris
Luke Davis Townsend was born in Hickory, North Carolina in 1986. He attended
Appalachian State University, where he received a B.S. in Business Administration with a major
in Accounting. Luke next enrolled in Vanderbilt University Divinity School. He received his
M.Div. from Vanderbilt in 2012. That same year, Luke began his doctoral studies at Saint Louis
University. He expects to receive his Ph.D. in Historical Theology in 2017. Luke’s major
publications include, “Deification in Aquinas: A Supplementum to The Ground of Union,”
published in The Journal of Theological Studies in 2015, and Commentary on the Sentences:
Sacraments, a co-authored anotated translation published by the Franciscan Institute in 2016.

The Development of Thomas Aquinas Doctrine of Sacramental Signification

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The Development of Thomas Aquinas Doctrine of Sacramental Signification

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IN GENERE SIGNI: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THOMAS AQUINAS’S

DOCTRINE OF SACRAMENTAL SIGNIFICATION

Luke Davis Townsend, B.A., M.Div.

A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Faculty of

Professor J.A. Wayne Hellmann, O.F.M. Conv.,

Professor Eleonore Stump

Professor Joseph P. Wawrykow

In Loving Memory of Marvin R. Hollar

Chapter 1 - Texts and Contexts ................................................................................ 38

Chapter 2 - Sacramental Signification in the Scriptum super Sententiis .............. 88

Chapter 3 - Sacramental Signification in Intervening Texts, pt. 1 – De Veritate,

Chapter 5 - Sacramental Signification in Intervening Texts, pt. 3 – Super

Chapter 6 - Sacramental Signification in the Summa theologiae ........................ 285

Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 381

Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 406

Vita Auctoris ............................................................................................................ 412

I. The Present Study in General – Subject, Methods, Questions, Answers

recent secondary literature.

A historical theological hermeneutic and a developmental method, therefore, guides both

signification to accomplish theological work.

sacraments’ nature as causes of grace, to considering signification to be the sacrament's sole

II. Overview of Introduction

is not intended to be exhaustive, as the amount of literature on Thomas is immense. Rather, I

demonstrate that a standard reading of Thomas’s sacramentology exists in the collective

In Section V of the Introduction, I detail the methods by which I arrive at my positions. I

A) Broad Categories and Subcategories of Secondary Literature

B) Studies of Sacramental Causality

Unfortunately, scholarly writing on Thomas’s sacramentology, which fits only in the

subcategory of signification, is extremely scarce. In fact, I was unable to locate a single

that signification is a Protestant emphasis whereas sacramental efficiency is more distinctively a

philosopher. Accordingly, in Thomas’s doctrine of the sacraments, Neo-Scholastics made more

and philosophical Thomas for which the Neo-Scholastics sought.

Thomas’s sacramentology contains an inherent ambiguity. At various points in his writings,

Thomas’s sacramentology, questions which have occasioned much scholarly debate.

article that is both representative of Neo-Scholasticism and of Neo-Scholastic approaches to the

Aquino" by Manuel J. Ordeig.

is Benoît-Dominique de la Soujeole’s article “The Importance of the Definition of Sacraments as

primacy of causality. De la Soujeole discusses sacramental signification and comes closer to

Soujeole understands sacraments to be properly signs of the effect of grace. He writes,

is the sign of an efficaciousness.”8 In taking this position, de la Soujeole clearly subjects

causing of grace, which is their most important aspect.9

One of the best studies of Thomas's sacramentology is John F. Gallagher’s Significando

Causant: A Study of Sacramental Efficiency. Gallagher's text is admirable because it is able to

signification. However, his treatment of signification is an afterthought. Gallagher only speaks of

development throughout Thomas's career, as he does with Thomas's notions of causality.

signification is addressed, it is almost always done so briefly, in passing, and as a means to

understanding some other topic, like causality.

exposition of Thomas's own notions of signification and causality than he is to develop an

illustrates another common shortcoming of the secondary literature.

Thomas’s Theology of the Sacraments.”13 Like Weinandy, Walsh posits a plausible

common and does not provide a full picture of Thomas's doctrine.

theologiae, as adequate for expressing Thomas's thought as a whole; toward an acontextual

reading of Thomas; and especially toward reading Thomas's sacramentology as ultimately or

overwhelmingly concerned with sacramental causality and as unconcerned with sacramental

signification. These aspects are characteristic of the standard reading of Thomas’s

E) Sign and Cause: Sign

Thomas relates signification and causality in the sacraments by subjecting causality to

signification, or that Thomas ultimately values signification as a concept to explain the

the Recipient and Sacramental Signification.”15

Soujeole, Ordeig, and others would have it.

Understanding the sacraments’ signification as only a signification of the sacrament's

sacrament to be efficacious. On this final component, O’Neill writes:

against the subjection of sacramental signification to sacramental causality. O'Neill's study of