>To talk of the institution of a sacrament is to make a theological claim,
>which the historian, unless a "historical theologian" or "historian of
>theology", cannot do; historians can speak of (a) when it began to be
>called a sacrament (which is part of a larger discussion of the evolution
>of the word "sacrament," a very complex history);
It may be of interest to quote Heloise's words in her first letter to Abelard:
Cui quidem tanto te maiore debito noveris obligatum, quanto te amplius
nuptialis foedere sacramentum constat esse astrictum et eo te magis mihi
obnoxium, quo te semper ut omnibus patet immoderato amore complexa sum.
(J.T. Muckle, "The Personal Letters between Abelard and Heloise", Medieval
Studies 15 (1953) p. 70).
Cf. Betty Radice's Penguin translation, p. 112-3:
Yet you must know that you are bound to me by an obligation which is all the
greater for the further close tie of the marriage sacrament uniting us, and
are the deeper in my debt because of the love I have always borne you, as
everyone knows, a love which is beyond all bounds.
Heloise clearly believes that the "close tie of the sacrament" continues to
unite them despite Abelard's castration, their long separation and their
entry into the religious life.
Oriens.
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