The Mark of the Priesthood, Part Two: Can Aquinas’s Sacramental Character Be Found in Scripture?

Welcome back to Part Two of our examination of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, Question 63. In Part One, we worked through Articles I–III, where Aquinas develops sacramental character from a “seal” into a spiritual power and then identifies it as a participation in Christ’s priesthood. We now turn to Articles IV–VI, where he explains where that character resides, why he believes it cannot be erased, and which sacraments are said to imprint it.

Article IV — Whether the Character Is Subjected in the Powers of the Soul?

By Article IV, Aquinas has moved well beyond the simple biblical language of believers being “sealed.” Article I proposed that the sacraments imprint a character; Article II defined that character as a spiritual power; Article III identified it as a participation in Christ’s priesthood. Aquinas must now explain where this supposed sacramental and priestly power actually exists within the human person.

His answer is remarkably specific. The character does not merely signify outward membership of the Church, nor is it simply a way of describing a Christian’s status before God. Aquinas understands it as a real spiritual power located within a faculty of the soul.

The clearest statement comes in his Reply to Objection 2:

“a character is not a power of this kind; but a spiritual power coming from without.”

He continues:

“the natural power of the soul is perfected by a spiritual power, which is a character.”

This is an important development. Aquinas is claiming that something supernatural enters the person through the sacramental economy and perfects a natural faculty of the soul, enabling that person to act in matters pertaining to divine worship.

The question is therefore no longer merely whether Christians are marked as belonging to Christ. It is whether Christ or His apostles taught that a sacrament implants this kind of spiritual power within a faculty of the soul.

From Sacramental Character to a Faculty of the Soul

Aquinas’s reasoning proceeds from the conclusions of the previous articles. He writes:

“a character is a kind of seal by which the soul is marked, so that it may receive, or bestow on others, things pertaining to Divine worship.”

Since divine worship consists in actions, and actions proceed from the powers or faculties of the soul, Aquinas concludes:

“Therefore a character is subjected not in the essence of the soul, but in its power.”

He then goes further in Reply to Objection 3 and identifies the particular faculty in which the character resides:

“a character needs to be in the soul’s cognitive power, where also is faith.”

The theory has therefore developed into something quite precise:

a sacrament gives a character; the character is a spiritual power; that power participates in Christ’s priesthood; and that power is located within a particular faculty of the human soul so that sacred acts may be performed.

That is a substantial theological and metaphysical structure.

Yet Article IV provides no apostolic statement describing such a mechanism.

The “Image of the Trinity” Does Not Establish Sacramental Character

Aquinas’s On the contrary states:

“A character, according to its definition given above, is imprinted in the rational soul by way of an image. But the image of the Trinity in the soul is seen in the powers. Therefore a character is in the powers of the soul.”

The argument depends upon a developed theological understanding of the human soul and the image of the Trinity within its faculties.

Scripture certainly teaches that humanity was created in the image of God:

Genesis 1:27

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

But Genesis does not proceed to divide that image among particular faculties of the soul and then use those faculties to establish the location of an additional sacramental character.

That belongs to a later theological psychology.

This distinction is important because even if Aquinas’s account of the soul were accepted philosophically, it could answer only the question:

If sacramental character exists, where should it be located?

It cannot establish the prior proposition:

Christ instituted such a character in the first place.

A metaphysical explanation of where something would reside is not evidence that the thing itself was revealed.

John 4:24 and the Nature of Christian Worship

Aquinas then brings in John 4:24 while explaining why grace assists those who possess this character:

“they that adore God must adore Him in spirit and in truth.”

The KJV reads:

“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

The context is especially important.

The Samaritan woman had raised the dispute concerning the proper place of worship:

John 4:20

“Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”

Christ responds:

John 4:21

“Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.”

He then says:

John 4:23

“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”

And finally:

John 4:24

“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

Christ is describing a profound transition in worship. The dispute about the sacred location — Gerizim or Jerusalem — is being overtaken by worship of the Father “in spirit and in truth.”

Nothing in this passage states that Christian worship now requires an implanted sacramental faculty within the soul.

Nothing says that certain worshippers receive an ontological character allowing them to perform sacramental actions.

Aquinas is entitled to use John 4:24 to support the general proposition that true worship is spiritual. But the text does not establish the additional sacramental mechanism he attaches to that worship.

There is an interesting contrast here. Christ expressly identifies the defining quality of new-covenant worship as worship “in spirit and in truth.” Aquinas, meanwhile, describes a spiritual capacity:

“a spiritual power coming from without”

which he identifies as sacramental character.

The existence of that additional power must still be established independently.

Where Does the New Testament Locate Spiritual Power?

When the New Testament explicitly speaks about supernatural empowerment, it repeatedly points to the Holy Ghost.

Christ tells His disciples:

Acts 1:8

“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me…”

Paul likewise writes:

1 Corinthians 12:4

“Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.”

And later:

1 Corinthians 12:11

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

This does not prove that sacramental character is impossible. A Catholic theologian can answer that the Holy Spirit Himself operates through the sacraments and therefore ultimately remains the source of any sacramental power.

That possibility should be acknowledged.

But it does not remove the burden of proof.

The New Testament expressly gives us:

Holy Ghost → spiritual gifts, ministry and power.

Aquinas adds another mechanism:

sacrament → sacramental character → spiritual power within the soul → capacity for sacred action.

The issue is not whether the second scheme can be made compatible with the first. The question is where Scripture reveals the second scheme at all.

What About the Laying on of Hands?

There are passages that could reasonably be brought against our argument, and they should not be ignored.

Paul tells Timothy:

2 Timothy 1:6

“Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.”

Likewise:

1 Timothy 4:14

“Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.”

These passages matter because Scripture plainly associates ministerial commissioning, laying on of hands and a spiritual gift.

It would therefore be inaccurate to claim that the New Testament knows nothing of spiritual empowerment connected with appointment to ministry.

But we must allow Paul to describe the phenomenon in his own terms.

He calls it:

“the gift of God.”

He does not call it an indelible sacramental character. He does not describe it as an ontological participation in Christ’s priesthood. He does not locate it within the cognitive faculty of Timothy’s soul. Nor does he say that Timothy has thereby received a permanent sacramental power enabling him to effect sacraments.

Indeed, Paul tells Timothy to:

“stir up the gift of God”

and:

“Neglect not the gift that is in thee.”

Whatever conclusions may ultimately be drawn from those passages, their actual language must not simply be replaced by the much later metaphysical terminology of sacramental character.

The texts establish divine gifting connected with ministry.

They do not, without further argument, establish Aquinas’s theory of an indelibly implanted priestly faculty.

Article IV Depends Upon the Earlier Articles

Another important feature of Article IV is that Aquinas does not begin again from Scripture. He begins:

“As stated above (A. 3), a character is a kind of seal by which the soul is marked…”

In other words, the existence and purpose of sacramental character have already been assumed from the preceding articles.

The reasoning now becomes:

divine worship involves actions; actions proceed from faculties; therefore the sacramental power established earlier must reside in a faculty.

That may be a perfectly intelligible philosophical question after sacramental character has been established.

But it is not fresh evidence for its existence.

Article IV therefore principally answers:

If this sacramental character exists, where within the soul must it exist?

It does not answer the more fundamental question:

Where has God revealed that such a sacramental character exists?

That distinction becomes increasingly important as Question 63 progresses.

Faith, Exterior Signs and the Cognitive Faculty

Aquinas eventually settles upon the cognitive faculty because:

“Divine worship… is a protestation of faith expressed by exterior signs.”

There is certainly a biblical truth within that observation. Christian worship expresses faith, and outward acts can manifest inward belief.

But from this Aquinas concludes:

“Consequently, a character needs to be in the soul’s cognitive power, where also is faith.”

This conclusion belongs to his philosophical anthropology. Scripture does not reason that because worship expresses faith, an invisible sacramental power must therefore reside in the same psychological faculty as faith.

Again, we must distinguish between two very different questions.

The first is biblical:

What is faith? How does faith express itself in worship and obedience?

The second is scholastic:

Within which faculty of the soul should an allegedly implanted sacramental power be classified?

The second question may be interesting philosophically, but answering it does not establish the existence of the power being classified.

What Article IV Actually Adds

Article IV therefore contributes something important to our study, even though it is not as directly concerned with priesthood as Article III.

It shows just how concrete Aquinas’s doctrine has become.

The sacramental character is not merely ecclesiastical terminology. According to Aquinas it is a real spiritual power “coming from without,” introduced into and perfecting a natural faculty of the soul, enabling the recipient to perform or receive acts pertaining to divine worship.

That is a much stronger claim than simply saying that Christians are marked as belonging to Christ.

Yet the scriptural evidence has not developed correspondingly.

John 4 teaches worship “in spirit and in truth.” Acts attributes spiritual power to the Holy Ghost. Paul describes spiritual gifts as distributed by the Spirit and speaks of a “gift of God” connected with Timothy’s ministry. None of those texts describes a sacrament implanting a separate spiritual faculty within the soul.

Article IV can therefore be summarized carefully:

Assuming the conclusions of the preceding articles, Aquinas attempts to locate sacramental character metaphysically within the human soul. He describes it explicitly as “a spiritual power coming from without” which perfects a natural faculty and enables actions pertaining to divine worship. Yet John 4:24 does not say that worship in spirit and in truth depends upon such an implanted power, while the New Testament expressly attributes spiritual gifts and ministerial empowerment to the Holy Ghost. Article IV therefore explains where sacramental character must reside within Aquinas’s system, but it does not provide new apostolic evidence that Christ instituted such a character.

The progression through Question 63 is consequently becoming increasingly significant:

Article I: the sacraments imprint a character.Article II: that character is a spiritual power.Article III: that spiritual power is a participation in Christ’s priesthood.Article IV: that priestly-sacramental power is located within a faculty of the soul and comes into it “from without.”

Yet after four articles, the decisive proposition still awaits an explicit apostolic foundation:

Where does Scripture teach that a sacrament imprints within the soul a spiritual power constituting a participation in Christ’s priesthood?

That question becomes still more important in Article V, because Aquinas now has to establish something he has already relied upon earlier in the argument: that this sacramental character, once received, can never be erased.

Article V — Whether a Character Can Be Blotted Out from the Soul?

Article V brings us to one of the most important claims in the entire doctrine of sacramental character: once this character has been received, Aquinas says it can never be erased. This matters because indelibility has already been assumed earlier in Question 63. In Article II, Aquinas partly distinguished character from other things in the soul on the ground that character is permanent. Only now does he attempt to explain why it must be permanent.

His central argument rests upon the eternity of Christ’s priesthood:

“Now Christ’s Priesthood is eternal… Consequently, every sanctification wrought by His Priesthood, is perpetual…” [Yet the sabbath was likewise called “a perpetual covenant” (Exodus 31:16). If the word perpetual is sufficient to prove that every institution or effect connected with it must continue unchanged, why does Roman Catholic theology not apply the same reasoning to the sabbath?]

He supports the first proposition with Psalm 110:4:

“Thou art a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisedech.”

The first proposition is unquestionably biblical: Christ’s priesthood is eternal. The difficulty lies in what Aquinas places after the word “Consequently.” Psalm 110 does not say that every effect attributed to Christ’s priesthood therefore creates an indelible spiritual character in another person. That is the inference which Article V must establish.

Hebrews Explains Why Christ’s Priesthood Is Permanent

Hebrews is particularly important because it takes Psalm 110:4 and explains the permanence of Christ’s priesthood directly.

Hebrews 7:23–25 says:

“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.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.”

The reasoning of Hebrews is exceptionally clear. Under the former order there were many priests because those priests died. Christ, by contrast, continues for ever. Because He continues, His priesthood continues, and because His priesthood continues, He Himself continues to intercede.

The biblical chain is therefore:

Christ continues for ever → Christ possesses an enduring priesthood → Christ continually intercedes.

Aquinas requires an additional chain:

Christ’s priesthood is eternal → sacramental participation in His priesthood is therefore permanently implanted in others.

Those are not the same proposition. Hebrews explicitly gives us the first; it does not make the second transition.

This matters especially because Aquinas begins Article V by repeating the conclusion of Article III:

“in a sacramental character Christ’s faithful have a share in His Priesthood.”

The doctrine of indelibility therefore depends not merely upon Christ’s eternal priesthood, but upon the prior claim that sacramental character actually constitutes a participation in that priesthood. Yet that was precisely the proposition which Article III had not established by an explicit apostolic text.

Does the Permanence of Christ’s Priesthood Transfer to the Character?

Aquinas reasons:

“Consequently, every sanctification wrought by His Priesthood, is perpetual, enduring as long as the thing sanctified endures.”

This is perhaps the most important logical transition in Article V.

A property belonging to a source does not necessarily belong in the same manner to every effect produced by that source. Christ is eternal; it does not follow that everything He gives or produces must itself be eternal. Christ’s priesthood is perfect and permanent; it does not automatically follow that every sacramental effect theologians attribute to that priesthood must remain indelibly within its recipient.

Aquinas himself acknowledges immediately that grace may be lost through sin. His first objection makes precisely that point. Grace is more perfect than character, yet grace can be lost. Why, then, must character remain?

Aquinas answers by distinguishing their metaphysical modes of existence. Grace is a form which can be lost because of the changeability of the human will, whereas character is:

“an instrumental power”

which follows the permanence of its principal agent, Christ. Thus:

“a character exists in the soul in an indelible manner, not from any perfection of its own, but from the perfection of Christ’s Priesthood, from which the character flows like an instrumental power.”

This is a sophisticated answer, but notice what has happened. The permanence of character is now being explained through the metaphysical definition developed in the earlier articles: character is already assumed to be an instrumental spiritual power flowing from Christ’s priesthood.

Psalm 110 is therefore not independently proving an indelible sacramental character. Rather, Psalm 110 proves that Christ is priest for ever, while Aquinas’s preceding theological system supplies the additional premises necessary to transfer that permanence to sacramental character.

That distinction is crucial.

Psalm 110 says the Priest is eternal; Aquinas turns that into an argument that the priestly character of other men is indelible. Those are not the same claim.

The Earlier Articles Now Begin to Depend Upon One Another

At this point the cumulative nature of Question 63 becomes especially visible.

In Article II Aquinas had argued that character could not be a passion partly because:

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

Article II therefore anticipated Article V’s conclusion.

Now Article V explains permanence by saying:

“a character is an instrumental power, as stated above…”

which sends us back to Article II.

The reasoning is not best described as a simple circular fallacy, because Article V also invokes Christ’s eternal priesthood and the supposed permanence of the intellect. Nevertheless, the articles are plainly interdependent.

The structure now looks like this:

Article II: character is classified as a power partly because it is assumed to be indelible.

Article III: character is identified as a participation in Christ’s priesthood.

Article IV: character is located within an enduring faculty of the soul.

Article V: character is declared indelible because it is an instrumental power participating in Christ’s eternal priesthood and residing within that enduring faculty.

What is missing is a fresh apostolic statement declaring:

a sacrament permanently implants participation in Christ’s priesthood within the human soul.

Instead, conclusions established philosophically in the earlier articles are now being brought together to establish indelibility.

“The Intellect Being Perpetual and Incorruptible”

Aquinas adds another argument:

“the intellect being perpetual and incorruptible, a character cannot be blotted out from the soul.”

But the permanence of a subject does not by itself prove the permanence of everything existing within that subject.

A person may continue while particular knowledge changes. Beliefs may be abandoned. Memories may disappear. Aquinas himself concedes that grace can be lost while the soul remains.

Therefore:

the soul or intellect endures

does not automatically establish:

every supernatural quality placed within it must endure.

Aquinas still needs the additional premise that this particular quality possesses the permanence of Christ’s priesthood. That returns us to the very proposition under examination: why should the eternity belonging explicitly to Christ’s priesthood make an alleged sacramental participation in that priesthood indelible in somebody else?

Consecrated Churches and Altars

Aquinas then appeals to consecrated objects:

“the consecration of a church or an altar lasts for ever unless they be destroyed.”

This demonstrates how Aquinas understands Christian consecration, but it cannot establish the doctrine from Scripture.

In effect, an existing ecclesiastical conception of permanent consecration is being used as an analogy for permanent character. Yet the question we are investigating is precisely whether Christ established this kind of permanent sacramental ontology in the first place.

A later theological practice may illustrate Aquinas’s doctrine once accepted. It cannot serve as independent apostolic proof of the doctrine itself.

Augustine and the Military Mark Once Again

Aquinas’s On the contrary does not appeal to an apostolic text. It again appeals to Augustine:

“The Christian sacraments are not less lasting than the bodily mark of military service.”

The military analogy has now appeared repeatedly throughout Question 63. A soldier receives a permanent bodily mark. Even if he deserts, the mark remains. If he returns to the emperor’s service, the mark is recognised rather than reapplied. Augustine therefore asks why Christian sacramental identity should be less lasting.

As an illustration, the comparison is understandable.

But a permanent mark upon a soldier’s body cannot prove an invisible and incorruptible spiritual power in the Christian soul.

More importantly, the appeal to Augustine raises a historical question which should not be confused with a biblical one:

Is Augustine preserving an explicitly apostolic doctrine of indelible character, or providing a theological explanation for the already-existing practice of not repeating certain sacraments?

Those possibilities are not identical.

The fact that baptism was not repeated does not itself demonstrate the later scholastic explanation that baptism leaves an indelible spiritual power within the intellective faculty of the soul.

Apostasy and Baptism: Something Persists, but What?

Aquinas makes a stronger practical argument when discussing apostates:

“even apostates are not deprived of their baptism, for when they repent and return to the fold they do not receive it again; whence we conclude that it cannot be lost.”

The first difficulty is that the outward water of baptism is not itself a substance capable of washing or marking the soul. Peter expressly guards against confusing the outward washing with the inward spiritual reality when he writes:

“The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”— 1 Peter 3:21

Peter therefore does not locate baptism’s saving significance in the physical removal of uncleanness by water. The inward cleansing belongs to God. Paul writes:

“but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”— 1 Corinthians 6:11

Hebrews makes the distinction still sharper by contrasting outward ritual purification with the cleansing of the conscience:

“For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:How much more shall the blood of Christ… purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”— Hebrews 9:13–14

The New Testament therefore distinguishes the outward sign from the inward work of God. The fact that a person has once passed through the baptismal water does not by itself demonstrate that the water, or the sacramental act as such, impressed an indelible spiritual power into a faculty of the soul. If Aquinas wishes to move from the historical fact of a once-administered baptism to an invisible and permanently imprinted “character,” that additional proposition still requires scriptural proof.

This deserves more weight than the military comparison because there is a genuine theological observation here.

The reasoning is:

Apostates returning to Christianity are not baptised again → therefore something about their first baptism remains decisive.

But the question is what exactly follows from that fact.

It may establish:

Christian baptism is a once-for-all historical act and therefore is not to be repeated.

It does not necessarily establish the much stronger metaphysical proposition:

Baptism implanted an indelible ontological power into a faculty of the soul which remains even through apostasy.

Those are two different explanations for the same once-only practice. The first can be maintained without the second. Aquinas therefore still needs to demonstrate why indelible character, rather than simply the non-repeatability of the historical baptismal act, is the correct explanation.

Scripture Already Gives Us Permanent Sealing Language

There is an interesting contrast with the passages examined in the earlier articles.

Ephesians 4:30 says:

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

Likewise Ephesians 1:13–14:

“after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession…”

Scripture therefore does contain the idea of a divine seal continuing toward an eschatological end.

But Paul explicitly associates that seal with the Holy Spirit.

He does not identify it as baptismal character, confirmation character or the character of Holy Orders.

Indeed, Article III had to distinguish Paul’s Spirit-sealing from the sacramental character Aquinas wished to establish. This makes the contrast particularly significant: Scripture supplies a seal possessing continuing significance, but Aquinas cannot simply use that biblical seal as proof of sacramental character because his own system has already distinguished the two.

Has the Meaning of “Character” Shifted?

There is also a subtle tension between Articles III and V.

In Article III Aquinas quoted a definition referring to:

“the eternal Character”

and identified this with Christ through Hebrews 1:3.

Yet in Article V Aquinas says:

“it is unbecoming that Christ should have a character”

because Christ possesses the priesthood in its fullness, whereas sacramental character belongs to those who participate in it.

This is not necessarily a formal contradiction. Aquinas can distinguish between Christ being called charaktēr in Hebrews 1:3 and Christ possessing what scholastic theology calls a sacramental character.

But that distinction itself demonstrates how far the theological meaning of the term has moved.

In Hebrews 1:3:

χαρακτήρ describes Christ as the express image of God.

In Question 63:

sacramental character describes an invisible spiritual power impressed upon another person’s soul.

Those are radically different concepts. The fact that they share the word character does not establish that the sacramental doctrine is contained within Hebrews.

The Strongest Catholic Response

The strongest Catholic response should be stated fairly.

Aquinas is not claiming that ordained priests replace Christ or that there are independent priesthoods competing with His. His position is that Christ alone possesses the priesthood in its fullness. Sacramental character allows others to participate instrumentally in that one priesthood. Christ remains the principal priest; the sacramental minister acts through a power derived from Him.

On that understanding, the permanence of character is said to flow from the permanence of Christ’s priesthood itself.

That is internally coherent theology.

But internal coherence is not the same as apostolic demonstration.

The question remains:

Where did Christ or His apostles reveal this mechanism?

Psalm 110 establishes:

Christ is priest for ever.

Hebrews establishes:

Christ’s priesthood endures because Christ Himself continues for ever.

Neither text states:

Therefore Christ permanently implants a participation in His priesthood into other persons through a sacrament.

That final proposition belongs to the theological construction Aquinas is defending.

Does Hebrews Point in a Different Direction?

Hebrews makes an especially striking contrast between the former priesthood and Christ:

Hebrews 7:23

“And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death”

followed immediately by:

Hebrews 7:24

“But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.”

The old system required many successive priests precisely because its priests died.

The New Testament contrast is that Christ does not die.

Consequently, His priesthood continues.

That raises a serious question for the later sacramental system:

If Christ’s endless life is precisely why His High priesthood does not require replacement, where does Hebrews introduce another continuing succession of sacramental priests possessing a derived priestly power?

The Catholic answer is that these ministers do not replace Christ; they participate in Him.

That answer deserves to be heard.

But once again, it is precisely the doctrine which needs scriptural establishment. Saying that priests “participate” in Christ avoids the charge that they replace Him, but it does not by itself prove that Christ instituted such a sacramental participation.

Article V does not provide that missing apostolic text.

Article VI — Whether a Character Is Imprinted by Each Sacrament of the New Law?

Article VI brings Question 63 to its conclusion. Having argued that sacramental character is a spiritual power, that it constitutes participation in Christ’s priesthood, that it resides within a faculty of the soul, and that it can never be erased, Aquinas must now determine which sacraments actually imprint this character.

His answer brings the whole structure into view. Baptism, Confirmation and Order imprint character. The Eucharist does not imprint one, but Aquinas assigns it an even more central place:

“In regard to the thing done, the Eucharist belongs to the Divine worship, for the Divine worship consists principally therein, so far as it is the sacrifice of the Church.”

He then turns directly to Holy Orders:

“it is the sacrament of Order that pertains to the sacramental agents: for it is by this sacrament that men are deputed to confer sacraments on others.”

These two statements are enormously important, because by this point Aquinas has constructed far more than a doctrine of Christian “sealing.” He has constructed an entire sacramental-priestly system.

What Has Now Been Built?

By the end of Question 63, Aquinas’s reasoning has reached the following position. Christ possesses the fullness of priesthood. Sacramental character is participation in that priesthood. That character is a spiritual power implanted in the soul and is indelible. Baptism gives a person capacity to receive the other sacraments. Confirmation gives another sacramental character. Holy Orders gives certain men sacramental agency. The Eucharist stands at the centre of divine worship because Aquinas calls it “the sacrifice of the Church.”

The fundamental question is therefore unavoidable:

Which parts of this structure are actually stated by Christ or His apostles?

Article VI itself provides remarkably little scriptural evidence for the architecture it now assumes.

“The Sacrifice of the Church”

The most consequential sentence in Article VI may be Aquinas’s description of the Eucharist:

“the Divine worship consists principally therein, so far as it is the sacrifice of the Church.”

Notice what is happening. Aquinas does not merely describe the Eucharist as a memorial of Christ’s sacrifice, a proclamation of His death, or the communion of believers in His body and blood. Here it is simply identified as the Church’s sacrifice.

Yet in this article Aquinas gives no biblical passage establishing that proposition.

We should be fair: Aquinas discusses Eucharistic sacrifice elsewhere in the Summa. Article VI is not intended to contain his entire defence of the Mass. Nevertheless, that fact itself matters. Within Question 63, the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist is not being demonstrated; it is already functioning as a premise.

Once that premise is accepted, the rest of the structure begins to follow naturally:

The Eucharist is a sacrifice → sacrifice belongs to priestly worship → sacramental agents are required → Order deputes those agents → sacramental character makes them

participants in Christ’s priesthood.

But the very first proposition still requires biblical demonstration.

Where does the New Testament establish that the Eucharist is a sacrifice offered by an ordained Christian priesthood?

Question 63 has not answered that question.

Hebrews and the One Offering

The language of Hebrews concerning Christ’s sacrifice is exceptionally strong.

Hebrews 9:26

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

Hebrews 9:28

“So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many…”

Hebrews 10:10

“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

Hebrews 10:12

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

And:

Hebrews 10:14

“For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”

The Catholic answer must be represented accurately. Catholic theology does not ordinarily claim that each Mass is another Calvary or another independent sacrifice added to Christ’s death. The claim is that the one sacrifice of Calvary is made sacramentally present and offered sacramentally.

That is the strongest form of the argument.

But it leaves precisely the question before us:

Where does Hebrews, or another apostolic text, teach that Christ’s once-for-all offering is subsequently made sacramentally present as “the sacrifice of the Church” through men possessing an indelible participation in His priesthood?

The mechanism may be theologically asserted, but it still requires apostolic demonstration.

Holy Orders and “Sacramental Agents”

Aquinas next says:

“it is by this sacrament that men are deputed to confer sacraments on others.”

Thus Holy Orders creates within his system a particular category of sacramental agents.

The New Testament undoubtedly teaches ordered Christian ministry. Paul gives qualifications for bishops or overseers and deacons in 1 Timothy 3. Titus is instructed:

Titus 1:5

“ordain elders in every city”

and Scripture certainly speaks of laying on of hands.

Paul tells Timothy:

1 Timothy 4:14

“Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.”

And:

2 Timothy 1:6

“Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.”

Those passages establish real things: appointment, ministry, laying on of hands and divine gifting.

What they do not themselves say is that Timothy received an indelible sacramental character, a metaphysical participation in Christ’s priesthood, a sacramental power enabling him to effect sacraments, or a sacrificial priesthood empowering him to offer Christ.

That distinction should remain very clear:

Commissioning and gifting are biblical. Aquinas’s metaphysical explanation of them requires additional proof.

Acts Shows Us Apostolic Commissioning

Acts 13 gives an excellent example.

The Holy Ghost says:

“Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.”

Then:

“when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.”— Acts 13:2–3

We have divine calling, prayer, fasting, laying on of hands and commissioning.

What Luke does not tell us is that an indelible sacramental character was thereby impressed upon a faculty of their souls, causing them to participate ontologically in Christ’s priesthood.

Again, absence of that terminology alone cannot prove that no deeper theology existed. But it demonstrates something important: the apostolic description and the later scholastic explanation are not identical.

Baptism as “The Door of the Sacraments”

Aquinas then says baptism:

“confers on man the power to receive the other sacraments of the Church; whence it is called the door of the sacraments.”

This too is a substantial theological claim.

Scripture certainly teaches baptism. It records Christ’s command concerning it and repeatedly describes believers being baptised.

Acts 2:38 says:

“Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ…”

Romans 6:4 says:

“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death…”

But where does Scripture say that baptism implants an ontological power to receive the remaining sacraments?

That proposition belongs to the sacramental system being described. It should not be confused with the biblical fact that Christians were baptised.

This is especially important in light of what we have already established concerning water itself. The New Testament distinguishes the outward sign from the inward work of God. Peter explicitly says:

1 Peter 3:21

“not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God”

while Paul says:

1 Corinthians 6:11

“ye are washed… by the Spirit of our God.”

Thus the biblical importance of baptism cannot simply be converted into proof that the sacramental act implants an invisible faculty granting access to a wider sacramental system.

That additional claim must still be demonstrated.

Confirmation and the Same Problem

Aquinas finally concludes:

“these three sacraments imprint a character, namely, Baptism, Confirmation, and Order.”

Catholic theology connects Confirmation particularly with passages such as Acts 8 and Acts 19, where the Holy Ghost is received in connection with the laying on of hands. Those biblical events are real. Yet laying on of hands is not presented in the New Testament as a single fixed sacramental mechanism for receiving the Spirit: elsewhere believers are already filled with the Holy Ghost before any laying on of hands connected with ministry or commissioning. The texts themselves do not call this:

“the sacrament of Confirmation”

nor do they say:

“an indelible sacramental character is impressed upon the soul.”

Again we must distinguish the biblical event from the later sacramental classification and metaphysical explanation of that event.

One cannot establish the latter merely by pointing to the former.

Non-Repetition Does Not Prove Indelible Character

Aquinas’s On the contrary reasons from sacramental practice. Sacraments which imprint character are not repeated because character is indelible, whereas Penance and Matrimony may be repeated. Therefore, not every sacrament imprints character.

But this argument depends upon Article V:

character is indelible.

Article VI does not independently demonstrate which sacraments imprint character; instead, existing sacramental practice is interpreted through the doctrine already constructed.

This is the same distinction we encountered with baptism and apostasy:

a rite being once-only does not necessarily prove that it implanted an incorruptible spiritual power in the soul.

The non-repetition of an event and the metaphysical explanation for its non-repetition are not the same proposition.

Two Kinds of Participation in Christ’s Priesthood?

Objection 1 contains another revealing statement:

“each sacrament of the New Law makes man a participator in Christ’s Priesthood.”

Aquinas does not reject that premise. Instead he answers:

“Every sacrament makes man a participator in Christ’s Priesthood, from the fact that it confers on him some effect thereof.”

But he then distinguishes this general participation from those sacraments which:

“depute a man to do or receive something pertaining to the worship of the priesthood of Christ”

and therefore imprint character.

This creates another theological distinction:

all sacraments communicate some effect of Christ’s priesthood

while:

certain sacraments confer a character-producing participation specifically ordered to priestly worship.

It is sophisticated theology.

But where do Christ, Peter or Paul make this distinction?

Where do the apostolic writings divide participation in Christ’s priesthood into ordinary sacramental effects and character-producing deputation to priestly worship?

Article VI does not provide such a passage.

Pseudo-Dionysius Returns

Aquinas also says that the Eucharist:

“is the end and consummation of all the sacraments, as Dionysius says.”

Once again the source is the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy attributed in Aquinas’s world to Dionysius the Areopagite.

As we noted earlier, this is historically significant. Aquinas believed he was drawing upon a figure associated with Paul’s preaching in Acts 17, whereas the writings now attributed to Pseudo-Dionysius belong centuries later.

That does not make every claim in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy false. But it means that one of Aquinas’s important authorities for hierarchical sacramental theology did not possess the apostolic antiquity medieval readers believed it did.

That fact becomes especially relevant when the question before us is precisely whether this sacramental hierarchy can be traced back to Christ and the apostles.

What Priesthood Does Peter Actually Describe?

The New Testament is not silent concerning Christian priesthood.

Peter says:

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…”

The priesthood expressly identified in the apostolic text belongs to the people of God.

Peter does not add here that within this holy and royal priesthood there exists another sacerdotal class possessing an indelible sacramental participation in Christ’s priesthood and empowered thereby to offer the Eucharist as the Church’s sacrifice.

Catholic theology responds by distinguishing the common priesthood from the ministerial priesthood.

Again, that distinction must be tested rather than merely dismissed.

But Article VI leaves the same question before us:

Where does the New Testament establish that second priesthood as an indelible sacramental participation in Christ’s own priesthood?

Question 63 has now ended without producing that text.

Hebrews Gives the Brethren Access to the Sanctuary

Hebrews makes the problem sharper still:

Hebrews 10:19–22

“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And having an high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near…”

The structure is striking.

The brethren have boldness to enter because of the blood of Jesus.

They have a new and living way through His flesh.

And they have an high priest over the house of God.

That High Priest is Christ.

No sacramental priest is inserted into this passage between the believer and the heavenly sanctuary.

This does not eliminate Christian ministers, elders, teachers or overseers. The New Testament plainly contains all of them.

But it places substantial pressure upon the claim that access to Christ’s sacrifice requires a continuing sacrificial priesthood possessing an indelible priestly character.

What Article VI Finally Reveals

By Article VI, the full cumulative structure of Question 63 is visible.

Article I introduced a sacramental character.

Article II transformed that character into a spiritual power.

Article III defined that power as participation in Christ’s priesthood.

Article IV located it within a faculty of the soul.

Article V made it indelible by appealing ultimately to the eternity of Christ’s priesthood.

Article VI now applies it to Baptism, Confirmation and Order, makes Order the sacrament by which men become sacramental agents, and refers to the Eucharist as “the sacrifice of the Church.”

This cumulative structure is more significant than any isolated sentence.

The doctrine grows article by article. What never appears in Question 63, however, is a clear apostolic statement saying:

Christ instituted a sacrament which permanently implants within certain men a spiritual power constituting participation in His eternal priesthood, thereby empowering them to act as sacramental agents and to offer the Eucharist as the sacrifice of the Church.

The biblical evidence for baptism is real. The biblical evidence for laying on of hands is real. The biblical evidence for elders, bishops, deacons and ministerial commissioning is real. The biblical doctrine of the Holy Ghost giving gifts and power is real. The biblical doctrine of Christians as a holy and royal priesthood is explicit.

What remains unproved is the additional sacramental-priestly mechanism Aquinas places over those realities.

And that gives us the central conclusion of the whole of Question 63:

Aquinas has constructed a coherent sacramental theology in which an indelible character allows participation in Christ’s priesthood and creates sacramental agents. But coherence within the system does not establish apostolic origin. The decisive question remains the one with which we began: where did Christ or His apostles teach that such a sacramental character exists?

After six articles, Question 63 has defined it, classified it, located it, made it permanent and applied it to Holy Orders — but it has not produced the apostolic text that establishes it.

2 Peter 2:3 (KJV):

“And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.”