cannot consecrate. What, then, of the analogy with baptism? The answer is that this is a quite different case. Baptism is a sacramentum necessitatis, and thus, although the office of baptizing is given spiritually to priests, it is conceded to everyone in time of need. The Alexandri summa is unequivocal in its affirmation that the power of consecrating belongs to priests alone, because it is related to sacerdotal orders. This is the teaching of the church, as transmitted by the Apostles who were instructed by Christ Himself, and anyone who asserts otherwise is deviating from the truth of the faith.
In similar vein, Bonaventure claims that this is a matter of faith, as received from the Apostles and from the Lord Himself. The sacrament of the altar is held in great reverence and hence only specially commissioned persons may legally dispense it. Such a commission rests on one of two possible bases, sanctity or authority. Heretics (obviously Bonaventure has Donatists in mind here) say it depends on sanctity. But that raises a major difficulty: in the case of a bad priest’s mass one could not be sure if the Eucharist was certainly made, and our salvation would be dependent on the goodness of another. However, if the commission rests on authority, and of course Bonaventure believes that this is the case, it is evident that authority can be granted to the bad as well as the good—auctoritas potest tam bonis quam malis concedi. Both bad and good priests possess the authority of holy orders, and hence both can confect the Eucharist.
But if a lay person can baptize, why can’t he confect? Bonaventure’s predictable answer is that unlike things are being compared here, because baptism is the primary sacrament, and necessary for salvation, and not held in such veneration as is the sacrament of the altar. He had given space to the contrary opinion that “The good layman is more worthy to be a minister of God than the impious priest”: magis dignus est ministrare Deo bonus laicus quam impius sacerdos. If at the invocation of a bad priest God converts bread into body, surely this is done far more securely on the word of a good layman? This argument is rejected on the grounds that individual goodness is not crucial for the power of consecrating, whereas authority is—and priests possess such authority by reason of the character (an imprint, mark, or stamp) which they receive at ordination.
At least some of Wyclif’s followers were not willing to accept that the argument from character resolved all the problems attendant on conceding authority to good and bad alike, suspecting that what was at stake was indeed a matter of personal sanctity. Some went so far as to claim that the virtue of the Eucharist was in some way related to the virtue of the priest who had confected it, a potentially Donatist viewpoint which some of Wyclif’s own (rather more subtle) remarks in De Eucharistia could easily have been taken as supporting.114 A related Lollard view was that the works of a righteous layman are worth a lot more than those of the bad priest; indeed, just men are ipso facto a chosen race, members of the royal priesthood (to adopt the idiom of I Peter 2:9). In such arguments, the fact that baptism can be conferred by a lay person, whether male or female (albeit in necessitate), is seen as a weak link in the orthodox theologians’ case, insofar as it opens up the possibility of people other than officially ordained priests having sacramental power and authority.115 Clearly, the comparison between the sacrament of the altar and baptism was troubling inasmuch as it raised the specter of the legality of lay ministry of all the sacraments. But the theologians had two powerful weapons in their armory, namely, the doctrines of the priestly character and the power of the keys.
What exactly made a priest so special? At ordination he received an imprint or character which indicated that he was marked off to perform certain spiritual functions. “It has been customary,” Aquinas explains, “that whenever anyone is deputed to some definite function he is marked off for it by means of some sign.” Thus “in ancient times” soldiers on enlistment for military service were “marked with some form of physical ‘character’ in recognition of the fact that they were deputed for some function in the physical sphere. In the same way, therefore, when in the sacraments men are deputed for some function in the spiritual sphere pertaining to the worship of God, it naturally follows that as believers they are marked off by some form of spiritual character.”116 Thus the sacrament of ordination—which was instituted by Christ himself—leaves a particular imprint on the soul, which indicates that those in holy orders are marked off to perform certain spiritual functions. It is not in itself a sanctifying gift, being of a legal and official nature rather than a moral one. Empowered by the character a man can enjoy all the privileges and carry out all the duties of priesthood, including preaching and the ministry of the sacraments.
Once a priest, always a priest; having been conferred, the character is there to stay. This is made abundantly clear in the many quaestiones which defend the validity of that supreme sacrament, the Eucharist, as confected by the priest who has become either a heretic, schismatic, or excommunicate. The Alexandri summa canvasses the various opinions in some detail.117 Some say the consecration of a heretic is not valid. Others believe that a notorious heretic who has been damned by the Church cannot consecrate, whereas a man who is secretly a heretic can do so. Others say that heretics can consecrate because, although they are separated from the Church, they retain their priestly orders, which give them the necessary power. The last of these views is affirmed by the Alexandri summa, which enlists the support of Augustine, who argued that just as baptism remains in such men, so too their holy orders remain entire.118 A comparison is offered with the situation of a married couple who separate. Their marriage is not dissolved, even though they are cut off from conjugal works. Aquinas draws on the same passage from Augustine, adding the saint’s statement that when those separated from the church return to it they are not reordained, indicating that they had not lost the power to consecrate. Of course, during their period of separation they did not act rightly, and sinned, if they consecrated: but that does not mean that their sacrament was invalid. Discussing the situation of the canonically degraded priest, Aquinas affirms the indelible nature of the character or sacramental imprint which the priest receives at his ordination.119 This is “perpetual, and cannot either be lost or repeated”; more specifically, it cannot be taken away by a bishop, just as “neither can he who baptizes take away the baptismal character.”
To sum up: the position generally held was that a lay person can (in extremis, to be sure) confer the sacrament of baptism, imposing its distinctive, and permanent, character; however, since he lacks the character of ordination, that same layman is unable to consecrate the sacrament of the altar. On the other hand, the sacraments—including the confection of the Eucharist—which an ordained priest administers, are equally genuine whether they are administered by an evil priest or one who lives a holy life and is in good legal standing. Anyone can baptize if need be; even an old woman—that extreme test-case—could do it. Vetula baptizat, et baptizatum est.120 But only a priest should do it. The ecclesiastical hierarchy is duly affirmed, its power maintained through that most exclusive of sacraments, the sacrament of holy orders.
Authority and Agency in the Tribunal of Penance
With the bestowal of the character came the gift of the power of the keys,121 as bequeathed by Christ to St. Peter and his successors in perpetuity: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19). This awesome legacy constituted the very basis of Christian priesthood, and legions of schoolmen sought to comprehend its grave responsibilities and celebrate its high prestige. “We have no doubt that we must entertain the most magnificent and lofty sentiments about the keys of the Church, their power and their priestly office,” says William of Auvergne (d. 1249), who taught first arts and then theology at the University of Paris and became Bishop of Paris in 1228. “For the keys have been given to the Church and their office and power to priests for the purpose of dispensing the riches of God’s mercy,” that they might make them open to those who knock, and lead in those who wish to enter.122 Pope John XXII succinctly defined the keys as “a special power of binding and loosing by which the ecclesiastical judge should receive the worthy into the kingdom of heaven and exclude the
