The Mark of the Priesthood: Does Aquinas’s “Sacramental Character” Exist in Scripture?

Michelle Hayman
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Part 1 Articles 1-3

Today we turn to Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, Third Part, Question 63, “Of the Other Effect of the Sacraments, Which Is a Character.” This section consists of six articles in which Aquinas develops his understanding of the sacramental “character”: whether such a character is impressed upon the soul, what kind of spiritual reality it is, its relationship to Christ, where it resides in the soul, whether it can ever be erased, and which of the sacraments are said to impart it. Although Question 63 is comparatively short, the ideas contained within it reach far beyond these few pages and touch some of the most important questions surrounding the nature of the sacraments, Christian ministry, priesthood and worship.

Because of that, this study may need to be presented in more than one part. Rather than selecting isolated sentences from Aquinas and arguing against them, we are going to work through his reasoning carefully and in its proper order, paying attention to the authorities he cites, the biblical passages he invokes, and the conclusions he draws from them. Some of his arguments depend upon propositions established in earlier articles and are then carried forward into later ones, so understanding the cumulative structure is essential if we are to assess his position fairly.

This question is particularly important because Aquinas is not merely discussing terminology. He is attempting to explain what happens to a person through certain sacraments and how that relates to Christ, His priesthood, the worship of the Church, and the authority to administer the sacraments. Those claims consequently deserve a careful examination alongside Scripture itself. Our purpose will therefore be neither to dismiss Aquinas because he is a medieval theologian nor to accept his conclusions because of his later authority, but to identify precisely what he teaches and then ask the central question that governs this entire study: does the biblical evidence actually establish the theological structure being built upon it?

Article I — Whether a Sacrament Imprints a Character on the Soul?

Aquinas begins Question 63 by asking whether a sacrament actually produces a “character” in the soul. This is the foundation of everything that follows, because unless such a character can first be established, later questions concerning its nature, its permanence and its relationship to Christ’s priesthood have nothing upon which to stand.

His principal scriptural argument appears in the On the contrary, where he cites 2 Corinthians 1:21–22:

“He that hath anointed us is God; Who also hath sealed us, and given the pledge of the spirit in our hearts.”

Aquinas immediately draws his conclusion:

“But a character means nothing else than a kind of sealing. Therefore it seems that by the sacraments God imprints His character on us.”

The difficulty is that Paul does not say that a sacrament has sealed them. The subject of Paul's sentence is God. God establishes them in Christ, God anoints them, God seals them, and God gives the Spirit in their hearts. Nothing in the passage identifies this sealing as a separate sacramental character impressed upon the soul.

Indeed, Paul elsewhere tells us much more explicitly what this sealing involves. Ephesians 1:13 states:

“In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.”

And Ephesians 4:30 likewise says:

“And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”

The apostolic language is therefore remarkably clear: believers are sealed with the Holy Spirit. Aquinas's proposition is different. He wishes to establish that the sacraments imprint a spiritual character upon the soul. Those propositions cannot simply be treated as interchangeable. Scripture explicitly gives us the first; Aquinas must still demonstrate the second.

From Biblical Sealing to a Sacramental Mark

What is particularly significant is what happens in Aquinas's I answer that. Having cited Paul's language of sealing, he does not produce another apostolic text stating that a sacrament impresses an invisible and enduring spiritual mark. Instead, he introduces an analogy from military enlistment:

“in elden times soldiers who enlisted in the ranks used to be marked with certain characters on the body, through being deputed to a bodily service.”

From this Aquinas reasons that, since Christians are similarly deputed through the sacraments to a spiritual service pertaining to divine worship:

“it follows that by their means the faithful receive a certain spiritual character.”

There is an intelligible analogy here, but an analogy is not itself revelation. A soldier bearing an enlistment mark demonstrates that human beings have historically used marks to identify those assigned to particular service. It does not demonstrate that God has instituted an invisible spiritual mark within the Christian soul.

Aquinas strengthens the comparison by citing Augustine, who asks whether the Christian sacraments could possibly be less lasting than the bodily mark carried by a soldier even after desertion and subsequent pardon. Yet the same problem remains. A permanent military mark may illustrate the idea of permanence; it cannot prove the existence of a permanent supernatural character.

Put simply, a military mark on the body does not establish an indelible sacramental mark upon the soul.

Two Different “Seals”

Aquinas's Reply to Objection 1 introduces another distinction. The objection had quoted 2 Timothy 2:19:

“Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.”

Aquinas answers that the faithful are destined to future glory by what he calls:

“the seal of Divine Predestination,”

whereas they are deputed to acts belonging to the present Church by:

“a certain spiritual seal that is set on them, and is called a character.”

But 2 Timothy 2:19 itself does not describe these two different supernatural seals. Paul says:

“The Lord knoweth them that are his.”

The distinction between a seal of predestination and another ecclesiastical seal called sacramental character therefore comes from Aquinas's theological system; it is not a distinction established by the verse he is discussing.

That does not automatically make the distinction false. It does mean that it still requires proof.

Hebrews 1:3 and the Meaning of Character

Aquinas also appeals to Hebrews 1:3, observing that Christ is called the Greek χαρακτήρ — charaktēr:

“Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person…”

This is linguistically relevant. The Greek word charaktēr could describe an impression, representation or exact image, and Aquinas is entitled to use the passage when explaining how the term can function.

But Hebrews 1:3 is speaking about Christ's relationship to God. Christ is the charaktēr of God's substance or person. The verse says nothing about a sacrament imprinting a character upon Christians.

This distinction is important. Aquinas is not necessarily pretending that Hebrews 1:3 directly teaches sacramental character; rather, he uses it to demonstrate that the word can signify an impressed likeness. But a biblical occurrence of the word does not establish the later sacramental doctrine attached to that word.

The vocabulary may be biblical while the theological proposition still requires independent demonstration.

What Has Actually Been Established?

By the end of Article I, Aquinas has certainly presented a coherent theological model. Christians are assigned to divine worship; soldiers assigned to earthly service historically received identifying marks; Augustine had already used that analogy in discussing the permanence of Christian sacramental identity; therefore Aquinas concludes that the sacraments impress a corresponding spiritual character.

What has not yet been demonstrated is that Christ or His apostles taught that this occurs.

The distinction is fundamental:

Scripture says that God seals believers with the Holy Spirit.

Aquinas says that the sacraments impress upon the soul a distinct spiritual character.

The first proposition is explicit. The second is a theological inference which still requires scriptural establishment.

That leaves Article I with a question that cannot simply be bypassed, because every subsequent article depends upon its answer:

Where does Scripture move from “God has sealed believers with the Holy Spirit” to “a sacrament imprints a distinct spiritual character upon the soul”?

At the close of the first article, Aquinas has asserted and philosophically explained that transition, but the biblical passages he cites have not yet demonstrated it.

Article II — Whether a Character Is a Spiritual Power?

Having argued in Article I that the sacraments imprint a “character” upon the soul, Aquinas now asks what that character actually is. His answer takes the doctrine considerably further. The character is no longer simply a mark or seal; it becomes a spiritual power connected with divine worship and, particularly, with those who minister within that worship.

Aquinas eventually concludes:

“a character signifies a certain spiritual power ordained unto things pertaining to the Divine worship.”

He then makes the ministerial implication explicit:

“to have a sacramental character belongs to God’s ministers: and a minister is a kind of instrument…”

Thus Article II develops the proposition established in Article I. The argument has moved from a sacrament imprints a character to that character constitutes a spiritual power enabling a person to receive or bestow things pertaining to divine worship.

The question is whether this further proposition is actually demonstrated from Scripture.

The Principal Proof Is Philosophical, Not Apostolic

The On the contrary is striking because Aquinas does not cite Christ, Paul, Peter or another biblical writer. He cites Aristotle:

“There are three things in the soul, power, habit, and passion.”

Aquinas reasons by elimination. Character cannot be a passion because passions pass away; it cannot be a habit because a habit inclines one toward acting well or badly, whereas sacramental character may supposedly be used either well or badly. Therefore:

“It remains, therefore, that a character is a power.”

This is an Aristotelian classification of something whose sacramental existence has already been assumed. It may show where Aquinas believes sacramental character belongs within his philosophical understanding of the soul, but it does not establish from revelation that such a supernatural power has actually been implanted there.

There is also an important dependency hidden within the reasoning. Aquinas rejects the possibility that character is a passion partly because:

“a character is indelible, as will be made clear further on (A. 5).”

In other words, Article II is already using the future conclusion of Article V; that sacramental character cannot be erased; in order to classify what character is. We should not immediately call the entire argument circular, because Article V must first be examined on its own terms. Nevertheless, the dependency is important: the doctrine is being constructed cumulatively, with later propositions already being assumed before they have been demonstrated.

Hebrews 1:3 Supplies the Word, Not the Doctrine

Hebrews 1:3 again appears in the discussion because the Greek text describes Christ using χαρακτήρ — charaktēr:

“Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power…”

The word is genuine. Aquinas is therefore justified in discussing charaktēr when considering what “character” can mean.

But the verse is describing the Son in relation to God. It says nothing about baptism, confirmation, ordination, an invisible mark in the Christian soul, ministerial power, or an indelible sacramental faculty.

We should therefore be precise. Aquinas is not necessarily misquoting Hebrews 1:3. He is using the biblical word as part of his analysis of the concept. The stronger criticism is much simpler:

Hebrews supplies the word χαρακτήρ; it does not supply Aquinas’s doctrine of sacramental character.

The theological content attached to that word must therefore be established elsewhere.

Aquinas also invokes the authority he knew as Dionysius the Areopagite:

“The Divine Beatitude admits him that seeks happiness to a share in Itself, and grants this share to him by conferring on him Its light as a kind of seal.”

Later he draws upon the same source for the language of men being made:

“Godlike and communicators of Divine gifts.”

This deserves particular attention because the writer Aquinas knew as Dionysius the Areopagite is now conventionally called Pseudo-Dionysius. The writings attributed to Dionysius were produced centuries after the Dionysius converted through Paul's preaching in Acts 17:34, although medieval theologians commonly regarded them as the work of that apostolic-era figure. Aquinas was therefore reading the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy with an antiquity and apostolic proximity that modern historical scholarship does not assign to it.

This does not, by itself, make every theological proposition in Pseudo-Dionysius false. But it matters enormously when questions of apostolic origin are involved. If an elaborate theology of hierarchy, sacred rites and mediated divine gifts appeared to Aquinas to come from someone directly connected with Paul, that apparent historical authority disappears once the work is recognised as belonging to a much later period.

More importantly for Article II, even Pseudo-Dionysius's language of a “seal,” divine light and participation in divine gifts still does not establish Aquinas's conclusion that a sacrament implants an ontological spiritual power within the soul. Aquinas has reasoned from that imagery toward his own conception of sacramental character.

The Crucial “Consequently”

The most important transition occurs in Aquinas's I answer that:

“Now the worship of God consists either in receiving Divine gifts, or in bestowing them on others. And for both these purposes some power is needed…”

So far this is understandable. If someone acts, that person requires the ability to act.

But Aquinas then concludes:

“Consequently, a character signifies a certain spiritual power ordained unto things pertaining to the Divine worship.”

The word “Consequently” carries a considerable theological burden.

Even if Scripture teaches that Christians receive spiritual gifts and minister those gifts to others, it does not automatically follow that a sacrament has implanted a distinct ontological power in the soul.

Indeed, Scripture already provides an explicit explanation for the distribution of spiritual powers and gifts.

Paul writes:

1 Corinthians 12:4–7

“Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.”

He continues:

1 Corinthians 12:11

“But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.”

Paul unquestionably knows about spiritual gifts, ministries, operations and supernatural ability, but he attributes their distribution to the Holy Spirit.

This does not logically exclude the possibility that the Holy Spirit might also operate through a sacramental character. But if such an additional mechanism exists, it must be demonstrated. It cannot simply be inferred from the fact that Christians possess spiritual gifts.

Ministers as “Instruments”

Aquinas then makes another significant development:

“to have a sacramental character belongs to God’s ministers: and a minister is a kind of instrument, as the Philosopher says.”

Again, the supporting authority at this point is Aristotle.

Within Aquinas's system this becomes extremely important. God is the principal agent; the sacramental minister functions instrumentally. The spiritual power imparted through sacramental character equips the minister to function within that system.

But the New Testament certainly knows of ministers without describing them this way. It speaks of apostles, prophets, teachers, elders, bishops or overseers, deacons and other ministries. What still has to be demonstrated is that these ministers possessed an ontologically imprinted sacramental power through which they acted as instruments of sacramental causality.

There is a substantial difference between saying:

God appoints and empowers ministers

and saying:

a sacrament implants a permanent spiritual power in the minister's soul by which he becomes an instrument capable of performing sacramental acts.

The first is unquestionably biblical. The second is the proposition under examination.

Christ’s Own Promise of Power

Acts gives us an especially useful comparison. Christ tells His disciples:

Acts 1:8

“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you…”

Here Scripture explicitly describes supernatural empowerment.

The stated source is the Holy Ghost.

Thus we can place the two formulations beside one another:

Acts: the Holy Ghost comes upon them, and they receive power.

Aquinas: sacramental character constitutes a spiritual power implanted for divine worship.

Again, these propositions are not logically incapable of coexisting. But Scripture explicitly teaches the first. Article II still has to establish the second.

What Article II Has Actually Demonstrated

Article II therefore does something rather different from proving sacramental character from Scripture. It gives a philosophical account of what sacramental character must be if the existence assumed in Article I is accepted.

Aquinas draws upon Aristotle to classify it as a power, upon Pseudo-Dionysius for language of divine participation and hierarchy, upon Article I for the prior existence of sacramental character, and upon the yet-to-be-established Article V for its indelibility.

The distinction is decisive. Aquinas has constructed an intelligible metaphysical explanation, but an internally coherent explanation is not the same thing as an apostolic institution.

We can therefore state the problem plainly:

In Question 63, Article II, Aquinas does not discover sacramental character in an apostolic description of Christian ministry. He defines an already-assumed character through Aristotelian categories, supplements that construction with the hierarchical language of Pseudo-Dionysius, and concludes that it constitutes a spiritual power belonging to God’s ministers. Yet the central biblical question remains unanswered: where did Christ or His apostles teach that a sacrament implants such a power in the soul?

Article II has therefore taken us substantially further into the theological system, but not yet closer to an explicit biblical foundation for the sacramental character itself. The New Testament clearly teaches divine calling, spiritual gifts, ministries and supernatural power. What Article II adds is a separate mechanism; an impressed sacramental power in the soul; and that additional mechanism still awaits demonstration.

Article III — Whether the Sacramental Character Is the Character of Christ?

Article III marks a decisive stage in Aquinas’s argument. In Article I, he argued that the sacraments imprint a character upon the soul; in Article II, that character became a spiritual power connected with divine worship. Now Aquinas gives that power a specifically priestly identity. His conclusion is striking:

“the sacramental characters… are nothing else than certain participations of Christ’s Priesthood, flowing from Christ Himself.”

This is no minor development in terminology. If the argument stands, the sacramental character is not merely a sign of Christian belonging. It constitutes a participation in the priesthood of Christ Himself. We must therefore ask whether the biblical passages Aquinas invokes actually establish that conclusion.

The Holy Spirit’s Seal

The first objection immediately raises an important biblical difficulty. Aquinas quotes Ephesians 4:30:

“Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed.”

The KJV reads:

“And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”

The objection is powerful because Scripture explicitly identifies the Holy Spirit with the believer’s sealing. If a “character” essentially involves a seal, why should this character be attributed particularly to Christ rather than to the Holy Ghost?

Aquinas responds by distinguishing two different kinds of sealing. He says that Ephesians refers to:

“that sealing by which a man is assigned to future glory, and which is effected by grace.”

The sacramental character, however, concerns the Christian’s present deputation to divine worship.

The difficulty is not that such a distinction is logically impossible. The difficulty is that Paul does not make it.

Ephesians 1:13 gives us Paul's own description:

“In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.”

Ephesians 4:30 repeats the same language:

“whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”

Paul does not tell the believer that there is one seal of the Holy Spirit connected with redemption and another sacramental seal connected with ecclesiastical worship. That distinction belongs to Aquinas's theological explanation rather than to the Pauline text.

This becomes especially significant because Article I had already appealed to biblical “sealing” as evidence for sacramental character. Yet when Scripture identifies that seal specifically with the Holy Spirit, Aquinas must distinguish it from the sacramental character he is constructing.

The issue therefore remains:

Where does Scripture itself introduce the second seal?

Ezekiel and Revelation: Real Sealing, but Is It Sacramental?

Aquinas then appeals to biblical passages in which God's people receive visible marks or seals. He cites Ezekiel 9:4:

“Mark Thou upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and mourn…”

and Revelation 7:3:

“Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”

These texts unquestionably contain the language of divine marking and sealing. But they do not identify that mark as an ontological sacramental power residing in the soul. Neither passage says that the mark is produced by Baptism, Confirmation or Order; neither connects it with the ability to administer sacraments; and neither describes it as participation in Christ's priesthood.

Indeed, Aquinas himself places these passages under what he calls the believer's first end; being marked for future glory; rather than under his second category of sacramental character.

The verses therefore establish something important, but something different: God marks His own.

They do not establish Aquinas's further proposition that certain sacraments imprint a distinct priestly character.

The Crucial Transition: From Christ’s Priesthood to Our Participation

The central argument comes in Aquinas's I answer that:

“Now the whole rite of the Christian religion is derived from Christ’s priesthood.”

Broadly understood, there is little difficulty with that statement. The worship and salvation of the New Testament are founded upon Christ and His priestly work.

But Aquinas immediately continues:

“Consequently, it is clear that the sacramental character is specially the character of Christ…”

and then reaches the defining claim:

“the sacramental characters… are nothing else than certain participations of Christ’s Priesthood, flowing from Christ Himself.”

The word “Consequently” deserves careful attention.

It does not necessarily follow that because Christian worship derives from Christ's priesthood, a sacramental minister must therefore possess an ontological participation in that priesthood.

The conclusion contains an additional premise.

All Christian forgiveness derives from Christ's sacrifice, but it does not follow merely from that fact that everyone who proclaims forgiveness participates ontologically in Christ's atoning office. All Christian teaching derives ultimately from Christ, but that fact alone does not establish a permanent “teaching character” impressed upon the soul.

Likewise, Aquinas must demonstrate the bridge between these two propositions:

Christ possesses the eternal priesthood.

and:

Sacramental character gives other persons a participation in that priesthood.

Article III states that bridge. The question is whether Scripture supplies it.

Hebrews and the Priesthood of Christ

This is where Hebrews becomes indispensable, because Hebrews does not merely call Christ a priest. It explains in considerable detail what distinguishes His priesthood.

Hebrews 7:20–21 says:

“And inasmuch as not without an oath he was made priest:(For those priests were made without an oath; but this with an oath by him that said unto him, The Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec: )”

The divine oath is given to Christ.

Then Hebrews contrasts Christ directly with the many priests of the former order:

“And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death:But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.”— Hebrews 7:23–24

And the consequence supplied by Hebrews itself is:

“Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”— Hebrews 7:25

This is extremely important because we can compare the biblical chain of reasoning with Aquinas's.

Hebrews reasons:

Christ continues for ever → His priesthood continues → He continually intercedes.

Aquinas's sacramental argument requires another proposition:

Christ's priesthood is eternal → other persons can receive permanent sacramental participations in that priesthood.

Hebrews does not make that second move.

An “Unchangeable Priesthood”

The Greek of Hebrews 7:24 describes Christ as possessing an ἀπαράβατον ἱερωσύνην — aparabaton hierōsynēn, rendered by the KJV:

“an unchangeable priesthood.”

The expression emphasizes the permanence and inviolability of Christ's priesthood. It should not be made to prove more than the text can bear. Catholic theology can reasonably respond that ordained priests are not intended to replace Christ; rather, their ministry is understood as participation in His one priesthood.

That is a much stronger Catholic answer than suggesting that Christ's priesthood somehow ceased or required replacement.

But it leaves our central question untouched:

Where does Hebrews teach that Christ's unique priesthood is communicated to other men through sacramental character?

Hebrews plainly teaches that Christ remains priest. It plainly teaches that He continues His intercession. It plainly teaches that His priesthood differs fundamentally from the succession of mortal priests which preceded Him.

What it does not plainly teach is Aquinas's formula of:

“certain participations of Christ’s Priesthood.”

That proposition requires its own biblical foundation.

The Once-for-All Sacrifice Makes the Question More Serious

The issue becomes still more important because the priesthood described by Hebrews is inseparable from Christ's sacrifice.

Hebrews 7:27 says:

“Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice… for this he did once, when he offered up himself.”

Hebrews 9:12 says:

“Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.”

Hebrews 9:26 states:

“but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

And Hebrews 10:12 concludes:

“But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.”

Article III itself has not yet said that ordained men sacramentally offer Christ, so we should not attribute that particular claim to this article. Aquinas's immediate claim is narrower: sacramental character is a participation in Christ's priesthood.

Nevertheless, that proposition will become enormously important once sacramental Order and Eucharistic sacrifice enter the argument. If a later system claims that a sacrament creates priests capable of acting sacrificially because they participate in Christ's priesthood, Article III supplies part of the theological foundation for that system.

We therefore need to establish the scriptural legitimacy of the priestly participation before moving further.

Hebrews 1:3 Again Supplies Vocabulary Rather Than Doctrine

Aquinas again invokes Hebrews 1:3:

“Who being the brightness of His glory and the figure, or character, of His substance.”

The Greek word χαρακτήρ — charaktēr genuinely occurs there. The KJV renders it:

“the express image of his person.”

But the subject of Hebrews 1:3 is Christ Himself. Christ is the charaktēr of God's person or substance. Nothing in the passage concerns Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders or a spiritual character impressed upon another person's soul.

Aquinas is not necessarily claiming that Hebrews 1:3 directly proves the complete doctrine. He uses it because the definition he quotes speaks of Christ as the “eternal Character.”

The distinction nevertheless remains vital:

Hebrews 1:3 gives Aquinas the biblical vocabulary of “character”; it does not give him the doctrine of sacramental character.

A word found in Scripture does not automatically authenticate every later theological meaning attached to that word.

“Some Define Character Thus”

There is another detail in Aquinas's On the contrary which should not be overlooked:

“Some define character thus: A character is a distinctive mark printed in a man's rational soul…”

That definition already contains an enormous amount of the doctrine under examination. The “character” is assumed to be a mark actually printed into the rational soul, and Aquinas then uses that definition in determining whose character it is.

This raises an important historical question: who are the “some” whose definition Aquinas is adopting, and how early can that precise conception be traced?

The existence of an earlier theological definition does not prove it false. Nor, however, does repetition of an earlier definition prove that it originated with Christ or the apostles.

Its historical pedigree therefore deserves separate investigation.

The Military Analogy Returns

Aquinas again compares sacramental character with military service. Soldiers assigned to a leader bear the leader's sign, and through that sign they are identified with him. In the same way, Aquinas argues that those deputed to Christian worship receive a character by which they are likened to Christ.

The analogy works perfectly well as an illustration of belonging.

But it does not establish participation in office.

A soldier may bear the King's insignia because he serves the King. It does not follow that he therefore participates in the King's kingship.

Likewise, even if Christians bear a sign demonstrating that they belong to Christ, something further must establish the conclusion that this sign constitutes:

“certain participations of Christ’s Priesthood.”

The analogy can illustrate the doctrine once the doctrine has been established. It cannot establish the doctrine by itself.

Scripture Does Give Christians a Priesthood

This becomes particularly significant because Scripture is not silent about Christians and priesthood.

Peter writes:

1 Peter 2:5

“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.”

And:

1 Peter 2:9

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people…”

Here Scripture openly gives priestly language to believers.

It also tells us what kinds of sacrifices Christians offer. Hebrews 13:15 says:

“By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.”

The following verse continues:

“But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”

Romans 12:1 similarly exhorts believers:

“present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

The New Testament therefore already possesses an explicit doctrine of Christian priesthood and Christian sacrifice. It describes the people of God collectively as a holy and royal priesthood and identifies their sacrifices as spiritual sacrifices, praise, doing good and the offering of their own lives to God.

That makes Aquinas's additional claim especially important.

If some Christians receive another participation in Christ's priesthood by means of sacramental character, where is that second priestly category distinguished from the priesthood Scripture expressly gives to the whole body of believers?

Catholic theology later distinguishes between the common priesthood of believers and the ministerial priesthood. Our task is not simply to deny that distinction because later theology makes it. Our task is to ask whether Christ and His apostles establish it in the particular sacramental sense Aquinas requires.

Article III has not yet supplied that text.

The Mark of the Beast Does Not Establish the Opposite Character

Aquinas also discusses Revelation's “character of the beast,” explaining that it may signify:

“the profession of an unlawful form of worship.”

There is certainly biblical support for connecting the mark of the beast with false worship.

Revelation itself repeatedly associates the mark with allegiance to and worship of the beast.

But the existence of an identifying mark associated with unlawful worship does not establish, by opposition, an ontological sacramental character possessed by Christians.

Revelation contrasts those who belong to God with those who belong to the beast. It does not teach that because one group bears the beast's mark, the Church must possess sacramental characters corresponding to Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders.

Again, the imagery may illustrate belonging. It does not establish Aquinas's sacramental mechanism.

What Article III Has Actually Established

Article III is perhaps the most consequential article so far because Aquinas now reveals what sacramental character ultimately means within his system. It is not merely an identifying seal. It is a participation in the priesthood of Christ.

Yet the biblical texts cited in the article establish several propositions that must not be confused with that conclusion. Scripture teaches that believers are sealed by the Holy Spirit. Scripture describes God's servants as marked or sealed. Scripture calls Christ the charaktēr of God's person. Scripture unquestionably teaches that Christ possesses an eternal priesthood.

What none of these passages states is that a sacrament implants a spiritual character in the soul which constitutes participation in Christ's priesthood.

That final proposition arises from Aquinas's preceding doctrine of character and from his inference that because Christian worship derives from Christ's priesthood, those sacramentally deputed to that worship must possess a participation in the priesthood from which it derives.

The crucial step therefore remains to be demonstrated.

Question 63, Article III marks the decisive transition in Aquinas's doctrine of sacramental character. The biblical texts he cites establish that believers are sealed by God, that the Holy Spirit seals them unto redemption, and that Christ is the χαρακτήρ of the Father's substance. None, however, states that a sacrament imprints a spiritual power upon the soul or that such characters constitute “participations of Christ's Priesthood.” Scripture plainly teaches Christ's eternal priesthood and plainly calls believers a royal priesthood; what remains to be shown is where it teaches a further sacramental participation in Christ's priesthood communicated through an indelible character.

Three sentences from Aquinas should therefore remain firmly before us as we move into the following articles: