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opcrato theory of the efficiency of the sacrament, (see OPUS OPERANTIs, OPUS OPERATUM) and by reducing the prominence given by Augustine to the operation of grace. The number was fixed at seven, and thus the uncertainty which had been inherited from the fathers and had been felt by the earlier Schoolmen was removed, especially through the influence of Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas. Dionysius the Areopagite had given six sacraments -baptism, the Eucharist, unction, the ordination of priests, the ordination of monks, and burial rites. Bernard of Clairvaux spoke of many sacraments and enumerated ten, including foot-washing; Abelard named five-baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, marriage, and extreme unction; and Robert Pulleyn (q.v.) gave the same number. Hugo of St. Victor likewise seems to recognize five in his Summa-baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, and extreme unction-but in his De sacramenti3 christiance fidei he enumerates thirty, taking the word sacrament in the wide sense of religious rite. In this latter work he divided the sacraments into three classes, among which, for instance, holy water and the use of ashes on Ash Wednesday belong to the second class and are distinctly called sacraments, Thomas Aquinas himself ascribing a quasi-sacramental character to such rites. Councils were equally undecided as to the number of the sacraments and the definition of the term. Thus the Third Lateran Council (1179) included the investiture of bishops and the rites of burial among the sacraments, and the Roman Catholic Church to-day makes a distinction between certain sacred rites called Sacramentals (q.v.) and the seven sacraments. Peter Lombard was not the first to give the number seven. About his time it had been given by Roland Bandinelli (afterwards Alexander III.) in his Sen tentice, and by Otto of Bamberg in a sermon of 1158, as reported by his biographer, Herbord. The seven sacraments are baptism, the Eucharist, confirmation, extreme unction, penance, ordination, and marriage. The number seven corresponds with the seven virtues and the seven deadly sins, and also unites the number of the deity (three) and of creation (four), thus illustrating the union of God and man. This correspondence was called the "congruity" of the sacraments, that is, their correlation to the spiritual maladies and needs of man. The sacraments were not needed in man's estate of innocence. With Augustine the Schoolmen represent the sacraments of the Old Testament as prefiguring the grace to come, and the sacraments of the New as conferring grace.

In defining a sacrament, the Schoolmen started with Augustine's definition that it is a visible symbol of an invisible grace, but went beyond him in the degree of efficiency they ascribed to it. They assert

that the sacraments "contain and con3. Nature fer grace" and that they have a virtue

of Sacra- inherent in themselves. The favorite meats. figure used to describe their operation

is medicine, so that Hugo of St. Victor (De sacramentie, I., ix. 4; MPL. clxxvi. 325) could term God the physician, man the invalid, the priest the minister, grace the antidote, and the sacrament the vessel. The physician gives, the minis-

ter dispenses, and the vessel contains the spiritual medicine which cures the soul. The sacraments are, however, more than channels of grace. They do more than signify. They sanctify, and they are the efficient causes of the operations of grace in the recipient. The mode of this efficacy is ex opere operato, the expression used by such writers as William of Auxerre and Alexander of Hales. Thomas Aquinas adopted the expression, and again and again says that the sacraments make righteous and confer grace ex opere operato, that is, by a virtue inherent in themselves. By this he did not mean that the religious condition of the recipient is a matter of indifference, but that the sacraments impart virtue, if need be, without the operation of active faith. The sacraments are efficacious only to those who are of a religious disposition, but they are always efficacious when properly administered.

The relation the priest sustains to the sacraments is vital to their efficacy, and, except in extraordinary cases (as sometimes in baptism), his ministration is essential. The priest's personal character does not affect the efficacy of the sacraments, so that an unworthy priest confers grace, provided he administers the sacrament according to the prescribed rite of the Church. To use 4. Intention. the medieval illustration, water is conveyed through a leaden pipe as well as through a silver one. The priest acts in the name of the Church, and in uttering the words of sacramental appointment he is giving voice to the intention of the Church. This intention is sufficient for the perfect work of the sacrament and ultimately, as Augustine had said, it is Christ and not the priest who gives effect to the sacrament. [But intention is far more than merely sufficient for the validity of a sacrament; it is absolutely essential in all Roman Catholic teaching; and this intention must invariably be present on the part of the minister of the sacrament, and generally on the part of the recipient. It is possible, however, for infants and idiots to receive the sacraments validly (though such sacraments as orders would scarcely ever be given them); those who subsequently lose their reason, either permanently or temporarily (as in unconsciousness), may validly receive extreme unction. All in possession of reason, however, must have intention if they are to receive a sacrament validly. This intention again may be either "actual" or "virtual," the former being a conscious intention, and the latter an intention which influences an act, even though this act be not recognized as sacramental, as when a baptized Protestant contracts marriage and thus unwittingly receives the sacrament of marriage. If there is no intention, there is no reception of a sacrament, so that if one eats consecrated bosts to satisfy hunger, he does not receive the Eucharist.

Intention on the part of the minister is invariably required by Roman Catholic teaching, whether this minister be lay (as in the case of a midwife who baptizes a new-born infant in immediate danger of death) or clerical (as in the mass, ordination, etc.). The intention must, moreover, be in accord with the teaching of the Church, though even a heretic,