Aquinas, the One Cross, and the Mark of the Mysteries
Part 4
Part 4 turns from Aquinas’s own sacramental claims to something far more unsettling: the ancient religious world in which similar ideas of initiation, sacred marks, priestly hierarchy and spiritual belonging were already present. The question is not yet where those similarities lead, but whether they are too striking to ignore.
There is a point at which an appeal to antiquity, custom or ecclesiastical tradition is no longer sufficient, because the claim being made has ceased to concern ceremony and has become a claim about supernatural power. Thomas Aquinas does not merely say that Christian ministers have different responsibilities from other believers, that bishops govern churches, that teachers teach, that elders are appointed, or that hands are laid upon ministers; he goes considerably further and argues that certain sacraments impress upon the soul an indelible character, that this character is a “certain spiritual power,” that it is “a spiritual power coming from without,” that through it the faithful participate in Christ’s priesthood, and that Holy Orders deputes particular men to perform sacramental acts for others.
Once such a claim is made, the question is no longer whether later Christians believed it, whether councils affirmed it, or whether the practice can be called ancient, but where God instituted this specific power, because Aquinas himself insists that “God alone can institute a sacrament,” and that what is essential to a sacrament was instituted by Christ Himself.
That question becomes considerably more serious when Aquinas’s own scriptural proofs are examined alongside Romans, Ephesians and Hebrews, because Scripture already tells us what divine power looks like, already tells us how believers are sealed, already tells us why baptism is one, already tells us what sacrifice Christ offered, already tells believers what sacrifices they now offer, and already tells us how genuinely God-ordained authorities are identified. The issue is therefore not that Scripture contains no concepts of power, ministry, ordination, sacrifice or sealing; the danger is almost the opposite, because those words can be taken out of their biblical settings and assembled into a sacramental system which the passages themselves never describe. Before examining Aquinas further, therefore, one distinction has to be made absolutely clear.
Romans 12 and Romans 13 Do Not Describe Aquinas’s Sacramental Power
Romans 13 begins:
“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”
— Romans 13:1, KJV
Someone reading Aquinas alongside this verse might see the words power, ordained, minister, rule and God, and conclude that Romans 13 supplies precisely the sort of divine authority from which an ordained priesthood could be inferred. It does nothing of the kind, because Paul identifies these “higher powers” by their functions before the passage has finished. They are rulers who punish evil, they “bear the sword,” they execute wrath upon the evildoer, Christians pay them tribute, and Paul commands, “Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom.” The “minister of God” in Romans 13:4 is therefore the civil magistrate.
That fact is immensely useful because it demonstrates why isolated ecclesiastical vocabulary proves nothing. Romans 13 actually calls a governmental ruler “the minister of God”, yet nobody would reasonably conclude that the magistrate therefore possesses Holy Orders, can consecrate the Eucharist, or has received an indelible priestly character. Likewise, the statement that the powers are “ordained of God” means that God has ordered or established these authorities; it is not an institution of the sacrament of Order. The sword, tribute, punishment and governmental context make the meaning unmistakable.
Romans 12 concerns something different again. Paul says:
“Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us…”
— Romans 12:6
and proceeds to speak of prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, ruling and mercy. Christian believers plainly possess different functions and gifts, but Paul describes those differences as gifts according to grace, not as different indelible characters impressed upon different souls. He can say “he that ruleth, with diligence,” yet he does not thereby describe sacramental Orders; he can speak of “ministry,” yet he does not thereby establish a sacrificing priesthood.
There is then a third kind of language concerning power which is even more significant. Christ told His disciples:
“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me…”
— Acts 1:8
and Luke 24:49 similarly speaks of being “endued with power from on high.” Here supernatural empowerment is explicitly connected with the coming of the Holy Ghost. Aquinas himself appeals to Luke 24:49 when explaining Confirmation in Question 65, reasoning that Confirmation corresponds to spiritual growth and strengthening because the already baptized disciples were commanded to wait until they were “endued with power from on high.” Yet the verse itself says nothing about a sacrament called Confirmation, nothing about an indelible Confirmation character, and nothing about another ontological power being placed in the soul by a sacramental minister; its immediate subject is the promised divine empowerment associated with the coming of the Holy Ghost. Aquinas’s broader seven-sacrament reasoning and this use of Luke 24:49 are part of the material identified in our source study.
We must therefore keep four propositions completely separate. Romans 12 describes graces and gifts within Christ’s body. Romans 13 describes civil authority ordained by God. Acts 1 and Luke 24 describe power associated with the coming Holy Ghost. Aquinas describes something else: an indelible sacramental character which is itself a spiritual power residing in the soul and ordered to divine worship. The existence of the first three does not prove the fourth. Indeed, their very explicitness strengthens the demand that the fourth be demonstrated just as explicitly.
This distinction is crucial because otherwise the words power, minister, rule and ordained can create the illusion of scriptural support simply by appearing on both sides of the argument. What must be proved is not that God gives power, because Scripture unquestionably says that He does; what must be proved is that God instituted this particular sacramental power, placed it permanently in certain souls through particular rites, and gave an ordained class through that power authority concerning Christ’s body and sacrifice.
That is a dramatically larger proposition.
Scripture Already Tells Us What the Divine Seal Is
The problem deepens when we turn from power to the mark or character itself, because Aquinas begins Question 63 by appealing to a passage in which Scripture already identifies God's sealing:
“Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God;
Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.”
— 2 Corinthians 1:21–22
Aquinas takes this passage as his sed contra and reasons that “a character means nothing else than a kind of sealing,” therefore concluding that God impresses His character through the sacraments. He then immediately introduces an analogy which will become extraordinarily important:
“thus in olden times soldiers who enlisted in the ranks used to be marked with certain characters on the body…”
and from this argues that those deputed to spiritual service receive a corresponding spiritual character. This is not something being read directly from Paul. Paul has spoken of God sealing believers and giving them the Spirit; Aquinas moves from that explicit divine sealing to the concept of an additional sacramental character and illustrates the transition by the bodily mark of an enlisted soldier. The source study of Question 63 confirms how central the military-mark analogy becomes to Aquinas’s construction.
Ephesians is more explicit still:
“after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise”
— Ephesians 1:13
and again:
“grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
— Ephesians 4:30
Nothing obscure remains about that seal. God seals, the Holy Spirit is the seal connected with the believer, those who have believed receive it, and it endures unto redemption.
Aquinas then creates a remarkable difficulty for his own initial appeal to sealing, because in Question 63, Article 3, he explicitly addresses Ephesians 4:30 and distinguishes the Pauline sealing from sacramental character. He explains that Paul is speaking there of the sealing by which a man is assigned to future glory, “which is effected by grace,” and associates this grace with the Holy Ghost; Aquinas’s sacramental character, by contrast, concerns deputation to worship and “certain participations of Christ’s Priesthood.”
That distinction may protect the internal architecture of Aquinas’s theology, but it weakens his original biblical proof. If Paul’s sealing is the sealing effected by grace and associated with the Holy Ghost, while Aquinas’s sacramental character is a second and different thing, then Paul’s verse about the Holy Ghost cannot by itself prove the existence of the second thing. The theology must now produce independent evidence that Christ established another permanent marking, distinct from the seal Scripture has actually identified.
The problem is therefore not “heart versus soul,” because biblical heart can plainly refer to the inward person and nothing important should depend upon artificial anatomical distinctions. The real difference is far more substantial:
Scripture: believers are sealed with the Holy Ghost.
Aquinas: sacramental rites additionally impress an indelible character which functions as a spiritual power ordered to divine worship and as a participation in Christ’s priesthood.
The second proposition requires evidence of its own.
Aquinas Does Not Merely Mean Authority or a Gift: He Means Another Power in the Soul
This is where the wording of Question 63 has to be allowed its full force. Aquinas asks in Article 2, “Whether a character is a spiritual power?” and concludes:
“a character signifies a certain spiritual power ordained unto things pertaining to the Divine worship.”
He distinguishes active power, through which divine things are bestowed upon others, from passive power through which they are received, and calls this character an instrumental power. In Article 4 he goes further still, describing the character as:
“a spiritual power coming from without.”
That wording must not be blurred together with Romans 13, because Aquinas is not talking about governmental authority. Nor should it be blurred with Romans 12, because he is not merely talking about different gifts. Nor is he simply repeating Acts 1:8, because Aquinas has already distinguished sacramental character from the Holy-Ghost/grace sealing.
He means an enduring spiritual power in the soul.
That is why Holy Orders becomes such an enormous claim. Aquinas eventually says that Order concerns the sacramental agents, “for it is by this sacrament that men are deputed to confer sacraments on others,” whereas Baptism gives the recipient “power to receive the other sacraments of the Church.” He says specifically that Baptism, Confirmation and Order imprint character, while the Eucharist does not imprint one because it contains Christ Himself and is the consummation toward which the others are ordered.
This is not merely church organization. If Paul tells Timothy to “stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands,” then Scripture clearly knows how to speak about something received in connection with laying on of hands. If Romans 12 can discuss ministers, teachers and rulers in the body and describe their capacities as gifts received according to grace, then Scripture also knows how to distinguish Christian functions. What it never says in those passages is that laying on of hands impresses an irreversible spiritual power upon the soul through which the recipient becomes sacramentally capable of acts that other believers cannot perform.
The question therefore remains brutally simple: where did Christ institute this additional power?
Romans 6 Gives a Better Reason for One Baptism Than the Military Mark
The argument becomes far more revealing when Aquinas explains why sacramental character is indelible. Again he turns to the soldier.
In Question 63, Article 5, he reasons from Augustine that the mark of military service does not have to be bestowed again when the offending soldier is pardoned; the existing military character is instead “recognized and approved.” He then applies this to sacramental character and says of apostates:
“when they repent and return to the fold they do not receive it again; whence we conclude that it cannot be lost.”
Article 6 then reasons in the other direction: the sacraments which imprint a character are not reiterated because the character is indelible. Our earlier examination therefore noticed a logical loop which deserves far more attention than it normally receives. Non-repetition is first used as evidence for an indelible character, while indelibility is subsequently used to explain non-repetition.
Yet Romans 6 supplies a reason for the singularity of baptism that requires no military ontology at all:
“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?”
— Romans 6:3
Paul continues:
“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
— Romans 6:4
and then:
“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him…”
— Romans 6:6
before finally stating:
“Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.”
— Romans 6:9
This gives baptism a completely Christological structure. The believer is baptized into Christ’s death, buried with Him, raised into newness of life and described as crucified with Him. The death into which baptism identifies the believer is not an event capable of being repeated, because Christ “dieth no more.”
Ephesians then says:
“One Lord, one faith, one baptism.”
— Ephesians 4:5
Paul never says in Romans 6, “Baptism happens only once because an invisible sacramental character modelled upon the permanent enlistment mark of a soldier has been placed in the soul.”
Instead the entire logic is anchored to Christ Himself.
The believer does not require another Calvary because Christ does not die again. The believer does not require another incorporation into another death because there is no second death of Christ into which he can be baptized. There is one Christ, one death, one resurrection and one baptism into that death.
This makes Aquinas’s reliance upon the military mark look increasingly unnecessary. Scripture already supplies the theological foundation for one baptism, and it supplies it at the Cross.
The Same Romans 6 Argument Now Raises a Much Larger Question About the Mass
At this point the argument becomes significantly stronger than a dispute about rebaptism, because if baptism places the believer into Christ’s death, if the old man is crucified with Christ, if Christ “dieth no more,” and if the believer is subsequently identified as sealed with the Holy Ghost, then the question must be asked what additional sacrificial relationship to Calvary remains to be produced by the ordained priest.
This has to be stated accurately. Aquinas does not teach that Christ undergoes another physical crucifixion at every Mass. Catholic theology expressly denies that the bloody death of Calvary is repeated. The stronger dispute therefore does not attack that position. It asks instead whether Scripture institutes the additional category which Aquinas introduces: Christ sacrificed daily sacramentally through an image or representation of the one Passion.
Question 83, Article 1 of the uploaded Summa asks directly:
“Whether Christ is sacrificed in this sacrament?”
Significantly, Aquinas’s own first objection cites Hebrews 10:14:
“by one oblation hath he perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”
The second objection observes that Christ’s sacrifice was made upon the cross and that Christ is not crucified in the celebration of the sacrament. Aquinas’s answer is extremely revealing. Quoting Augustine, he says:
“Christ was sacrificed once in Himself, and yet He is sacrificed daily in the Sacrament.”
He then explains why he calls the celebration a sacrifice. First, he says, images can be called by the names of the things whose images they are, so that:
“the celebration of this sacrament is an image representing Christ’s Passion”
and because Christ’s Passion is His true sacrifice, the sacramental celebration is consequently called Christ’s sacrifice. He then gives a second reason, namely the effect of the Passion communicated through the sacrament, and concludes that Christ may be spoken of as sacrificed in its celebration. In replying to the objection concerning the one sacrifice, Aquinas insists that there is only one victim and ultimately one sacrifice because the sacramental sacrifice is patterned upon the one offering of Christ. This wording appears directly in Question 83, Article 1, pp. 433–435 of the uploaded edition.
Now we can finally frame the dispute correctly.
The choice is not between a caricature saying Catholics crucify Jesus afresh and an Aquinian answer saying they do not. The real question lies one level deeper:
Where did Christ institute a priestly sacramental act by which His once-finished sacrifice is subsequently offered as an “image representing Christ’s Passion” and therefore called His sacrifice?
That is precisely the category that must be demonstrated.
Paul records the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11 and says:
“this do in remembrance of me.”
— 1 Corinthians 11:24
and:
“For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.”
— 1 Corinthians 11:26
There is unquestionably a commanded Christian meal. Rejecting a sacrificial re-presentation does not require rejecting the Lord’s Supper. What must be shown is the extra proposition that the commanded remembrance and proclamation is also an act in which an ontologically empowered priest sacramentally offers the sacrifice of Calvary.
Paul had every opportunity in 1 Corinthians 11 to say that the ordained celebrant makes the sacrifice present, offers Christ sacramentally, or exercises a distinctive priestly character received through Orders. Instead he tells the congregation that by eating the bread and drinking the cup they proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
That is exactly what one would expect after Romans 6. The Cross is not absent and therefore needing to be produced again; believers already stand in relation to that death. They have been baptized into it, buried with Christ in it, raised in relation to it, and their old man has been crucified with Him.
Hebrews Makes “Sacramentally Offering the Same Sacrifice” Carry an Enormous Burden of Proof
Hebrews does not merely say that Christ died once. It repeatedly prevents the reader from imagining another offering of Himself:
“Nor yet that he should offer himself often…”
— Hebrews 9:25
“but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”
— Hebrews 9:26
“So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many…”
— Hebrews 9:28
“we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
— Hebrews 10:10
“this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.”
— Hebrews 10:12
“For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”
— Hebrews 10:14
and finally:
“Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.”
— Hebrews 10:18
The usual reply is that the Mass is not another sacrifice but the same sacrifice sacramentally represented. That answer may describe the later theological system accurately, but it cannot be used as the proof of its own scriptural legitimacy. Hebrews is precisely concerned with the question of repeated offering and says Christ does not offer Himself often; consequently, if there exists a special sacramental mode by which the Church can genuinely say that Christ “is sacrificed daily in the Sacrament” without this constituting another offering, where does Scripture institute and explain that extraordinary exception?
It is not enough to answer that the sacrifice is unbloody. Hebrews does not say, “No more bloody offering, though the same sacrifice shall henceforth be offered sacramentally by ordained priests.” It says “no more offering for sin.”
It is not enough to say that it is the same victim. Hebrews already knows there is one victim.
It is not enough to say the Mass represents Calvary. Paul already commands a remembrance and proclamation of Calvary.
What must be established is the sacrificial power of that representation, because that is what turns remembrance into priestly offering.
This distinction is vital. A picture may represent the Crucifixion without crucifying Christ; a sermon may proclaim the Crucifixion without offering Christ; the Lord’s Supper may “shew the Lord’s death” without requiring another sacrificial act. Aquinas therefore has to demonstrate why the representation instituted by Christ is not simply remembrance and proclamation but sacramental sacrifice entrusted to a specially characterized priesthood.
That proof cannot be supplied merely by defining the Eucharistic celebration as an “image representing Christ’s Passion” and then reasoning that an image may bear the name of what it represents, because the philosophical validity of naming an image after its object does not itself establish divine authorization to offer the object represented.
Aquinas’s Use of Hebrews 7:27 Makes the Problem Even More Visible
Question 65 contains a passage which ought to be read beside the KJV rather than merely accepted through Aquinas’s summary. While explaining why the seven sacraments correspond to different needs of human life, Aquinas says that in relation to society man requires power to rule the community and perform public acts, corresponding spiritually to the sacrament of Order, and he appeals to Hebrews 7:27 on the basis that priests offer sacrifices “not for themselves only, but also for the people.” Our previous source study identified this passage because the context of Hebrews says almost exactly the opposite of what a reader could infer from Aquinas’s truncated use.
The full KJV verse is:
“Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.”
— Hebrews 7:27
The priests who offer first for themselves and then for the people are the contrasting old high priests. Christ “needeth not daily” to do what they did, because “this he did once.”
To use the first half of that comparison in constructing a Christian sacrament of Order without allowing the second half to control the interpretation risks reversing the argument of Hebrews. The verse does not announce that New-Covenant priests will offer Christ for the people; it declares why Christ is unlike the daily sacrificing high priests.
Hebrews then says of Christ:
“this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.”
— Hebrews 7:24
Again the burden falls upon the additional priesthood. Where does Hebrews, while explaining priesthood in extraordinary detail, introduce another order of Christian men whose souls receive a permanent participation in this priesthood and whose supernatural character enables them to offer Christ sacramentally?
It never does.
Romans 12 Tells Christians What Their Sacrifice Is
Romans 12 becomes extraordinarily important at this stage because Paul does not leave Christian sacrifice undefined:
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
— Romans 12:1
This agrees perfectly with Peter:
“Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”
— 1 Peter 2:5
and again:
“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood…”
— 1 Peter 2:9
The New Testament therefore gives us an extraordinarily coherent sacrificial pattern. Christ offers Himself once as the sacrifice for sin; believers, made His people, offer themselves and their spiritual sacrifices to God through Him.
Paul does not describe a third category in Romans 12 consisting of a specially marked Christian caste whose members uniquely offer Christ.
Immediately after telling the brethren to present their own bodies, Paul discusses the many members of the one body:
“For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:
So we, being many, are one body in Christ…”
— Romans 12:4–5
Then:
“Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us…”
— Romans 12:6
Different office therefore exists without needing a sacramental ontology. A believer may teach while another rules; one may minister while another exhorts. This does not turn all offices into one office, but neither does difference of function establish an indelible spiritual character.
That distinction is devastatingly important. The argument is not that there are no Christian ministers. It is that Christian ministry does not prove Aquinas’s sacramental priesthood.
A bishop proves there is a bishop.
An elder proves there is an elder.
A teacher proves there is a teacher.
Laying on hands proves hands were laid.
A gift proves a gift was given.
None of those statements establishes, without an additional divine declaration, that an invisible and ineradicable priestly power has entered a man’s soul enabling him to consecrate and offer Christ.
Aquinas Himself Says Only God Can Institute This System
The most difficult problem for another appeal to Tradition is created by Aquinas himself. In Question 64 he writes:
“God alone can institute a sacrament.”
He then says:
“those things that are essential to the sacrament, are instituted by Christ Himself”
before making the crucial qualification:
“though they are not all handed down by the Scriptures, yet the Church holds them from the intimate tradition of the apostles”
and cites:
“The rest I will set in order when I come.”
— 1 Corinthians 11:34
This passage does not rescue the sacramental system from the burden of proof; it defines that burden with extraordinary precision.
1 Corinthians 11:34 proves that Paul intended to arrange additional matters when he came.
It does not tell us what every one of those matters was.
It does not say Paul taught that Orders imprints an indelible character.
It does not say Christ instituted exactly seven sacraments.
It does not say the priest receives “a spiritual power coming from without.”
It does not say the Eucharistic minister offers Christ sacramentally.
It does not say apostolic successors possess an ineradicable participation in Christ’s priesthood through which they can consecrate.
To take Paul’s unspecified “rest” and use it as an open container into which later doctrines may be placed is not historical demonstration.
Tradition can preserve something Christ instituted, but before it can be called apostolic tradition, its connection with the apostles must itself be established. Otherwise the argument becomes circular: the institution says the doctrine is apostolic because its Tradition preserves it, and when asked how its Tradition can be known to preserve apostolic teaching, the answer is that the institution possesses authority derived through the same sacramental system whose origin is under examination.
That is precisely the point already established in the earlier argument: Tradition may transmit an institution, but repetition cannot create divine institution.
The Seven Sacraments Are Argued From Fittingness Before They Are Demonstrated From Institution
Question 65 makes this problem more obvious still. Aquinas asks, “Whether there should be seven sacraments?” and his first objection is remarkably powerful:
“the Divine power is one, and Christ’s Passion is one; since by one oblation He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”
That is Hebrews 10:14.
What follows is not a list of seven occasions upon which Christ demonstrably instituted seven sacraments. Aquinas instead argues that seven are fitting because spiritual life corresponds to corporeal and social life. Birth corresponds to Baptism, growth to Confirmation, nourishment to Eucharist, healing to Penance, restoration after sickness to Extreme Unction, public government to Order, and propagation to Matrimony. He then supplies additional sevenfold arrangements according to sin and virtue.
This may be elegant scholastic reasoning.
It may demonstrate internal coherence.
It may demonstrate why if God wished to institute seven sacraments, these seven could be arranged into a meaningful system.
It does not demonstrate the historical proposition Christ instituted exactly seven.
The difference between fittingness and institution cannot be blurred, particularly after Aquinas has insisted that sacramental power comes only from the institutor and that God alone can institute sacraments.
The question must therefore be asked of each one individually: where is the institution, what did Christ say it does, who did He authorize to administer it, and where did He say that it creates the supernatural effect Aquinas attributes to it?
This becomes particularly striking with Confirmation because Aquinas takes Christ’s promise of “power from on high” to the disciples and fits it into his analogy of spiritual growth. Yet Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:8 already identify what that power is associated with: the coming Holy Ghost. The text does not explain an additional indelible sacramental character. This is precisely why biblical words such as power must not be allowed to migrate silently from one category into another.
Aquinas Himself Says Children Can Be Saved by Baptism Alone
Question 65, Article 4 creates another important control upon the argument because Aquinas asks whether all seven sacraments are necessary for salvation and answers in the negative:
“Children are saved by Baptism alone without the other sacraments.”
He then says Baptism is necessary “simply and absolutely” to the individual, Penance is necessary in the case of mortal sin committed after Baptism, and Order is necessary to the Church, while the remaining sacraments have secondary forms of necessity or perfection. My source study (see below) already identified this point because it prevents us from arguing carelessly that every baptized child must undergo every sacrament in order to be saved.
It also sharpens the question about Penance. According to Aquinas’s own system, Baptism has already dealt with original sin; therefore later confession is not supposed to cleanse inherited guilt a second time but actual sin committed afterward. We should not weaken the argument by claiming otherwise.
The stronger question is why forgiveness of the baptized believer’s later sin requires the judicial sacramental act of a man bearing another indelible spiritual character, because Scripture gives direct language concerning confession and forgiveness:
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
— 1 John 1:9
James can also command:
“Confess your faults one to another…”
— James 5:16
without there describing a specially characterized sacerdotal caste. The Catholic appeal to John 20:23 deserves its own detailed examination and should not simply be ignored, but even that passage would have to establish the full proposition being claimed: not merely apostolic authority in a particular setting, but a permanent sacramental priesthood whose members receive an indelible spiritual power transmissible through Orders.
Again the additional mechanism must be demonstrated.
Then the Mithraic Evidence Becomes Far More Serious
If the entire argument rested on saying that Mithraism had seven grades while Catholicism has seven sacraments, it would be weak, because the recurrence of the number seven cannot prove historical borrowing. If it rested merely on both religions having sacred meals, it would also be insufficient. What makes the Mithraic evidence genuinely disturbing is that the specific military-mark analogy Aquinas repeatedly uses to explain sacramental character occurs within an ancient mystery-initiation system in which religious initiation actually involved oaths, marks, branding, a Father, soldiers, forehead signs and graded sacred status.
This is not speculation about what Mithraism might have contained. Vermaseren’s Mithras, the Secret God expressly states that before initiation the candidate took:
“a solemn oath, a sacramentum”
and explains that initiation was conducted by dignitaries called Father and Herald, after which the initiate became a brother of the other initiates and a son of the Father. He then says that, to be recognized by the Father, the candidate “has to be tattooed, in other words branded on both hands,” while comparable marks appear on the forehead.
That is already far closer to Aquinas’s character theory than a vague comparison between two ancient religions.
The candidate undergoes initiation.
There is a sacramentum.
There is a Father.
There is incorporation into a religious fraternity.
There is an identifying mark.
There is branding upon the initiate.
There are marks upon hands or forehead.
Yet the parallel becomes even more precise when we reach the Mithraic Soldier.
Vermaseren writes that although every Mithraist was enrolled in the god’s militia, “the special initiation and the taking of the military oath set the seal on entrance into his ranks.”
Tertullian’s account is then quoted:
“Mithras makes a sign on his soldiers’ forehead.”
Vermaseren adds that the branding applied particularly to the Soldier grade, unless Tertullian was using milites more widely for initiates generally. In Tertullian’s description of the Soldier’s initiation, after the candidate rejects the wreath, “after that he is never garlanded again,” and he possesses the sign as evidence when tested with the military oath, through which he is recognized as a soldier of Mithras.
Now place this beside Aquinas.
Aquinas says ancient soldiers were marked with characters on their bodies.
Mithraism had an initiatory grade literally called Soldier.
Aquinas uses the soldier’s enduring military mark to explain Christian sacramental character.
The Mithraic Soldier undergoes special religious initiation and a military oath.
Vermaseren says this military oath and initiation “set the seal” upon entrance.
Aquinas argues that a soldier’s character is not repeated but remains and is recognized.
The Mithraic Soldier retains a sign by which he is subsequently recognized and does not repeat the associated ritual of the wreath.
Aquinas uses precisely the persistence of military character as his analogy for why a returning Christian is not re-characterized.
The Mithraic evidence includes bodily marks and forehead marking.
Aquinas constructs a corresponding invisible spiritual character marked upon the soul.
That parallel is not superficial.
It still does not prove that Aquinas consciously copied Mithraism, and it would weaken the article to claim a genealogy we cannot demonstrate. What it proves is something sufficiently serious on its own: the model of sacred initiation expressed through the permanent mark of a religious soldier was demonstrably present in pagan mystery religion and therefore cannot itself function as evidence that Aquinas’s sacramental character came from Christ.
The military analogy must be tested against Scripture, not authenticated by antiquity.
Mithraism Did Not Merely Have a Mark: It Had a Structured Initiatory Priesthood
The structure becomes still more striking at the highest Mithraic grade. Vermaseren calls Pater, the Father, the highest grade and describes him as:
“the deputy on earth of the god himself”
before identifying him as magister sacrorum, Magus and the high-priest or summus pontifex. He is responsible for dispensing initiation into the different grades and receiving new members; the sources include titles such as pater sacrorum, pater patrum, and “Father of Fathers,” while Vermaseren even describes the Father of Fathers as the great shepherd.
Again, the argument should not be childish: Mithraism has a Father, Rome has fathers, therefore they are identical. That proves nothing.
The serious point is methodological. If an ancient pagan mystery could possess fathers, high priests, a Father of Fathers, a great shepherd, initiatory authority, permanent grades, sacred signs and religious marks, then none of those structures can prove apostolic origin merely by their existence or antiquity.
The only decisive question remains divine institution.
The Seven Mithraic Grades Were Explicitly Planetary, and Sol Was Not Peripheral
Vermaseren identifies seven Mithraic grades through which an initiate could advance: Raven, Bride, Soldier, Lion, Persian, Courier of the Sun and Father. He says these seven grades existed across the Roman Empire and could ultimately lead to Father of Fathers.
Their planetary associations were Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, the Moon, Sol and Saturn. The presence of seven grades cannot prove the origin of seven sacraments, but it becomes interesting in combination with the rest of the initiatory structure rather than standing alone.
Most importantly for our wider study, Sol is everywhere.
The sixth grade, Heliodromus or Courier of the Sun, is described by Vermaseren as:
“the deputy on earth of Helios-Sol”
and bears solar attributes including the radiate halo, torch, globe and nimbus. Vermaseren describes the sacred narrative in which Sol enters a pact with Mithras and shares the sacred meal, and suggests that such events were imitated ceremonially in Mithraic ritual.
The initiate himself imitates Mithras’s pact with the Sun-god through the right-hand clasp and oath, and Vermaseren says the vows were understood as extending beyond earthly life.
Sol therefore cannot be dismissed as a decorative planet in the Mithraic system.
This matters to the separate study concerning Irenaeus, Teitan and Lateinos, but that prophetic/numerical question should remain a separate layer of evidence. The existence of Sol in Mithraism is demonstrable; an identification between Sol, Teitan and the number 666 requires additional proof and should not be smuggled into this argument merely because the themes are suggestive. Keeping those evidentiary levels separate actually makes the main argument harder to dismiss.
Venus and Isis Are Also Explicitly Present
The second Mithraic grade, the Nymphus or Bride, is shown at Santa Prisca wearing a bridal veil and, Vermaseren says, is placed under the protection of Venus. The male Bride is then:
“joined to Mithras in a mystical marriage by the Father.”
On the following page Vermaseren compares part of the unveiling ritual with a similar ceremony in the cult of Isis, identifies the Nymphus’s diadem as “a clear allusion to Venus,” and speaks of the “new light” arising from a closer relationship with the Sun-god Mithras.
The Isis connection is not limited to that comparison. The Lion’s symbols include a sistrum, which Vermaseren explicitly calls:
“the sacred rattle, adopted from the Isis cult.”
Elsewhere he says the Egyptian Sarapis, frequently associated with Isis, was adopted by Mithraic worshippers.
Once again, we should resist the temptation to make a simplistic accusation that every later Christian symbol came directly from Venus or Isis. The much harder and more defensible point is that the ancient religious world already possessed elaborate systems of initiation, mystical marriage, sacred Fathers, planetary patrons, purification, sacred signs and permanent status, so later claims to divine institution cannot be authenticated merely by saying they are ancient or symbolic.
The Sacred Meal Comparison Is Not Something We Invented: Vermaseren Himself Makes It
There is another piece of evidence that deserves much stronger treatment than we gave it previously. At Santa Prisca, Vermaseren describes the destruction of the Mithraeum by Christians and specifically refers to:
“the sacred meal of Mithras and Sol with its affinities to the Eucharist.”
Elsewhere in the same discussion he says that in the sacred-meal scene:
“bread and wine replace the flesh and blood of the bull.”
Again, this does not mean the Mithraic meal and Christian Eucharist were doctrinally identical, and it would be irresponsible to say so. What makes this evidence important is that the comparison is coming from the historian of Mithraism himself, not being invented by somebody looking desperately for superficial parallels.
We now have, within a single mystery religion, a sacred meal which a major Mithraic scholar says has affinities to the Eucharist, a solemn initiation oath called sacramentum, a Father administering initiations, brethren and sons of the Father, bodily branding, forehead marks, an actual Soldier grade, a military oath that “set the seal” on entrance, a retained sign by which the Soldier was recognized, seven graded initiations, Venus, Sol, Isis-derived ritual elements, a high priest called summus pontifex and a Father of Fathers.
To say that none of this matters because “Christian Tradition is ancient” is therefore exactly backwards.
Its antiquity is why divine institution has to be demonstrated.
Ancient Rome was full of ancient religious traditions.
Age cannot tell us which one God instituted.
Children, Initiation, and Vermaseren’s Roman Catholic Comparison
The Mithraic evidence becomes particularly interesting when Vermaseren turns to the younger members of the cult. He describes the Chryfii, or “Hidden Ones,” as youths who had not yet been fully received into the public life of the community, and notes that inscriptions show some of them were of “extreme youth,” with “even small children being initiated in the mysteries.” He then discusses the distinction between the lower grades, described as attendants, and the higher grades regarded as fuller participants in the sacred rites and meal.
What is especially striking is that, while explaining this graded participation, Vermaseren himself introduces a comparison with the Roman Catholic Church, writing that “This procedure is paralleled in the Roman Catholic church,” before referring immediately to those baptized “from the age of seven onward.” The age of seven therefore belongs to Vermaseren’s Roman Catholic comparison rather than to a statement that Mithraic initiation itself began at precisely seven; nevertheless, the sequence is significant. He first establishes that small children were initiated into the Mithraic mysteries, and then, in explaining the relationship between initiation, grades and fuller participation, turns directly to a Roman Catholic parallel involving baptism and the age of seven.
That is actually more compelling than trying to make the two systems numerically identical, because the comparison is not being imposed upon the evidence by a modern critic. It is made by Vermaseren himself while describing the Mithraic initiatory structure.
And This Returns Us to the Baptized Child
Now the theological question can be framed without misstating Catholic doctrine. If an infant is baptized, Aquinas’s own system says that Baptism removes the alleged inherited problem which it was instituted to remedy; indeed, he explicitly says children may be saved by Baptism alone. Later Penance is supposed to address actual mortal sin committed after Baptism, not original guilt left unwashed.
Therefore the argument should not be, “Why is a completely sinless seven-year-old confessing original sin again?” because that is not Aquinas’s position.
The much stronger question is: if the baptized child belongs to Christ, has received the sacrament Aquinas says is sufficient for a child, and according to Scripture believers are sealed by the Holy Ghost, where did Christ establish that subsequent forgiveness must be sacramentally mediated through an adult man possessing an additional indelible spiritual power in his soul?
That returns us precisely to the same missing institution.
This distinction is so important that it should control the whole article. None of the Mithraic parallels proves that Aquinas sat down with a Mithraic ritual manual and copied his sacramental system. We do not possess evidence for that claim, and making it would allow critics to dismiss everything else as conspiracy.
What the evidence does establish is much more useful.
When Aquinas explains sacramental character through the permanent mark of a soldier, we now know that a pagan mystery religion actually possessed a marked religious Soldier initiated through a military oath.
When Aquinas describes sacramental character as a seal deputing men to divine worship, we know that Mithraic special initiation and military oath are described as setting the seal upon entrance into the god’s ranks.
When Aquinas repeatedly invokes the military mark to explain why the character is not repeated, we know the Mithraic Soldier possessed an identifying sign connected with his oath and an initiation distinction not repeated thereafter.
When later theology invokes ancient Fathers, priesthood, sacred initiation and Tradition as marks of authenticity, we know that Mithraism already possessed a Father, a high priest, a Father of Fathers, an initiatory hierarchy and an ancient sacred tradition; its Pater was even represented with the distinctive attributes of a staff and a ring, symbols of his authority and wisdom.
When seven sacraments are defended partly by fittingness, we know a major pagan mystery system already organized its initiatory life through seven grades under seven planetary patrons.
When solar, bridal and mystery imagery appears, we know Sol, Venus and Isis-related elements are explicitly present in the Mithraic evidence.
When the Eucharistic question arises, Vermaseren himself remarks upon the “affinities to the Eucharist” of the Mithras-Sol sacred meal.
Therefore antiquity cannot settle the question.
Similarity cannot settle the question.
Tradition cannot settle the question.
Hierarchy cannot settle the question.
A mark cannot settle the question.
A priest cannot settle the question.
A sacred meal cannot settle the question.
Only divine institution can settle the question, because Aquinas himself says that the power of a sacrament comes from its institutor and therefore “God alone can institute a sacrament.”
The Entire Argument Finally Comes Together
Romans now gives us an extraordinarily coherent test which cannot be obscured by ecclesiastical vocabulary. Romans 13 does speak of “higher powers,” but they are civil magistrates identified by the sword, punishment and tribute; therefore “power,” “ordained” and “minister” cannot simply be converted into evidence for Holy Orders. Romans 12 does speak of different ministries and rulers inside the Christian body, but Paul calls them gifts given according to grace; therefore different Christian offices do not by themselves establish an indelible priestly character. Acts and Luke do speak of supernatural power, but that power is explicitly connected with the Holy Ghost; therefore biblical supernatural power cannot simply be relabelled sacramental character.
Ephesians and Corinthians then explicitly identify the divine seal: believers are sealed with the Holy Ghost. Aquinas initially appeals to this sealing to establish character but subsequently admits that the Pauline Holy-Ghost/grace sealing is different from his sacramental character, meaning the latter still requires independent institution.
Romans 6 then explains baptism through union with the one death of Christ. The believer is baptized into His death, buried with Him, raised with Him and crucified with Him; Christ “dieth no more,” and Ephesians declares “one baptism.” The military mark is therefore not required to explain why baptism is one.
Romans 12 then explains the Christian sacrifice after salvation: believers present their own bodies as living sacrifices, while Peter calls them a holy and royal priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices.
Hebrews explains Christ’s sacrifice with relentless finality: He offers Himself once, is offered once, sanctifies by one offering, perfects forever by one offering, sits down after one sacrifice for sins forever, and where remission exists there is “no more offering for sin.”
First Corinthians explains the Christian meal: “this do in remembrance of me,” and by eating and drinking believers “shew the Lord’s death till he come.”
Aquinas then adds another proposition: Christ, although sacrificed once in Himself, is “sacrificed daily in the Sacrament,” because the celebration is an “image representing Christ’s Passion.” The problem is not that Aquinas believes another physical crucifixion occurs; the problem is that the scriptural institution of this additional sacrificial category has still not been produced.
And finally Aquinas adds the ordained agent who can perform that sacramental sacrifice because his soul bears a character which constitutes a special spiritual power participating in Christ’s priesthood.
That is the claim which can no longer be allowed to hide behind the generic words minister, power, ordination, tradition or priest.
The precise proposition requiring proof is:
Where did Jesus Christ institute a Christian sacrificing priesthood whose members receive through ordination an indelible spiritual character in their souls which is distinct from the Holy-Ghost sealing of believers, gives them a unique sacramental participation in Christ’s priesthood, and empowers them to offer sacramentally the one sacrifice which Scripture says Christ offered once for all?
Aaron can produce his institution.
Christ can produce His oath.
The civil powers of Romans 13 can produce their divine appointment and defined jurisdiction.
The ministries of Romans 12 can produce their gifts.
The believer can produce the Holy Ghost as his seal.
The Christian can produce his baptism into Christ’s death.
The royal priesthood can produce its spiritual sacrifices.
The Lord’s Supper can produce Christ’s command of remembrance.
Christ’s sacrifice can produce the repeated testimony that it occurred once.
The alleged additional sacrificing priesthood therefore cannot be permitted to be the one enormous supernatural institution for which the answer is simply:
Tradition says so.
Aquinas himself will not allow that escape, because Aquinas says:
God alone can institute the sacrament.
If Christ instituted it, then the question remains where that institution can be demonstrated. Tradition may faithfully carry something Christ gave, but it cannot be used as a theological curtain behind which the act of institution itself disappears, especially when the ancient religious world surrounding Christianity already contained sacred initiations, permanent marks, military oaths, fathers, high priests, sacred meals, planetary grades, Sol, Venus, Isis, religious branding and a marked Soldier whose oath “set the seal” upon his entrance.
That is why the final standard cannot be Rome, Aquinas, antiquity, Mithras, councils or our own suspicions. It has to remain the standard Christ Himself gave:
“He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.”
— John 12:48
And under that standard, the question has become harder, not easier, to evade:
Where did Christ institute the mark, where did He institute the power, where did He institute the sacrificing priesthood, and where did He command that the sacrifice into which believers have already been baptized, the sacrifice by which they have already been perfected, the sacrifice offered once by the High Priest who “dieth no more,” must subsequently be sacramentally offered through men bearing an additional indelible character?
Until those things are demonstrated, their antiquity cannot prove them, their repetition cannot prove them, and the institution that depends upon them cannot be permitted to authenticate them by appealing to its own Tradition.
In AD 321 Constantine used imperial law to give the “venerable Day of the Sun” a privileged empire-wide civil status, ordering judges, city populations and craftsmen to cease ordinary work on that day.
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