by Matthew Gaetano

After a rich conversation with a good friend, I decided to post something about a remarkable passage in Cardinal Cajetan’s defense of the sacrifice of the Mass. Cajetan (d. 1534), a major Thomist theologian, was one of the earliest opponents of Luther, though, as Jared Wicks argues quite effectively in his introduction to Cajetan Responds, Cajetan handled the controversy with quite a bit more care and insight than many of his peers. Unfortunately, we haven’t engaged Cajetan much since the very earliest days of the site.

One of the most fundamental differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics is over the sacrifice of the Mass. All early Protestants also rejected the medieval account of transubstantiation as binding on the faithful, but, at least in 1520, Luther did not think that transubstantiation itself was a grave error. On the issue of transubstantiation vs. the teaching associated with Wyclif and others that the real bread and wine remain present on the altar, Luther says, “I permit every man to hold either of these opinions as he chooses” (145 in this edition). Luther’s “one concern at represent is to remove all scruples of conscience, so that no one may fear being called a heretic if he believes that real bread and real wine are present on the altar,and that every one may feel at liberty to ponder, hold, and believe either one view or the other without endangering his salvation.” He goes on to oppose transubstantiation, but he concludes his discussion of the “second captivity” (143) of the “sacrament of the bread” (132) by saying once again that that he permits “other men to follow the other opinion” on the way in which Christ is present (or the way in which the bread is present) as long as they do “not press us to accept their opinions as articles of faith” (152).

But the sacrifice of the Mass was a different matter. This is the “third captivity” of the Eucharist and is, Luther says, “by far the most wicked of all.” So many in the church today firmly believe that “the mass is a good work and a sacrifice.” In contrast with that conception, Luther argues that the mass or sacrament of the altar is “Christ’s testament, which he left behind him at his death to be distributed among his believers” (154). This testament is “a promise made by one about to die, in which he designates his bequest and appoints his heirs” (155). The Mass is a promise made by Christ of the forgiveness of sins, to which access is gained by faith alone, not works. The “memorial sign of such a great promise” is his own body and his own blood in the bread and wine” (162).

The key issue, though, seems to be that Luther saw his notion of the Mass as a promise of forgiveness received by faith and “signed” by Christ’s real body and blood as being in conflict with any talk of sacrifice. This is because a sacrifice is something that we offer or give, while a promise is something that we receive (172). Indeed, Luther argues that on Holy Thursday Christ “did not offer himself to God the Father nor did he perform a good work on behalf of others, but sitting at the table, he set the same testament before each one and proffered to him the sign.”

The other Protestant communities also reject the sacrifice of the Mass. In the Thirty-Nine Articles, Anglicanism does so in the following way in Article XXXI:

The Offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin, but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said, that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits.

The Westminster Confession’s Chapter XXIX :

In this sacrament, Christ is not offered up to his Father; nor any real sacrifice made at all, for remission of sins of the quick or dead;[2] but only a commemoration of that one offering up of Himself, by Himself, upon the cross, once for all: and a spiritual oblation of all possible praise unto God, for the same:[ so that the popish sacrifice of the mass (as they call it) is most abominably injurious to Christ’s one, only sacrifice, the alone propitiation for all the sins of his elect.

Of course, Lutheranism has the same concern, but what we see in the Church of England and the English Presbyterians is a clear statement that the sacrifice of the Mass indicates that there is satisfaction for sins. The sacrifice of the Mass erroneously sets forth a propitiation of divine justice beyond the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

I’ll conclude this review of the condemnation of the Roman Catholic position on the sacrifice of the Mass with the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), which emerged out of the Palatinate and has become one of the Reformed “forms of unity.” The language here comes from the “third edition,” which appears to have been approved in April 1563:

Q. 80: What difference is there between the Lord’s supper and the papal mass?

A. The Lord’s supper testifies to us, first, that we have complete forgiveness of all our sins through the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which he himself accomplished on the cross once for all; and, second, that through the Holy Spirit we are grafted into Christ, who with his true body is now in heaven at the right hand of the Father, and this is where he wants to be worshipped.

But the mass teaches, first, that the living and the dead do not have forgiveness of sins through the suffering of Christ unless he is still offered for them daily by the priests; and, second, that Christ is bodily present in the form of bread and wine, and there is to be worshipped. Therefore the mass is basically nothing but a denial of the one sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ, and an accursed idolatry. (Lord’s Day 30)

Understanding this controversy is key to understanding a point which divides Rome from all Protestant communities and unites them with one another. It is well known that Protestants had serious disagreements with one another about how to think about the Real Presence, but they were unified in their rejection of the Mass as a sacrifice.

Before turning to Cajetan, it is worth seeing how the Heidelberg Catechism can associate the Lord’s Supper and the sacrifice of Christ in a positive way in Lord’s Day 28:

Q. 75: How does the Lord’s supper signify and seal to you that you share in Christ’s one sacrifice on the cross and in all his gifts?

A. In this way: Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat of this broken bread and drink of this cup in remembrance of him. With this command he gave these promises: First, as surely as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup given to me, so surely was his body offered for me and his blood poured out for me on the cross.

Second, as surely as I receive from the hand of the minister and taste with my mouth the bread and the cup of the Lord as sure signs of Christ’s body and blood, so surely does he himself nourish and refresh my soul to everlasting life with his crucified body and shed blood.

So, how does a theologian like Cajetan, a follower of Aquinas and a cardinal, articulate the doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass in reply to early Protestantism.

In 1525, Cajetan wrote an instruction to a papal nuncio who was dealing with the Zwinglians. The eighth point addressed is the Zwinglian rejection of the idea that “this sacrament destroys sins” because “Christ’s death alone destroys sins” (167). In reply, Cajetan wants to argue that there is an error in theological reasoning here: “From the fact that Christ’s death alone destroys sins, it does not follow that the application to us of Christ’s death does not destroy sins.” This is a key notion throughout Cajetan’s responses to early Protestants on a range of issues: that the different ways in which Christ’s death is applied to us does not undermine the uniqueness of Christ’s work. He provides the analogy of a craftsman who “alone makes a sphere” but in a way that “does not rule out the craftsman’s tools” being used in making the sphere. Baptism is another “instrumental cause” employed by God in our salvation. So, Cajetan asks whether Protestants want to rule out baptism’s role in justification (168).

Cajetan comes to the issue of the sacrifice in an even more focused way in the next point. He seems to lay out the Protestant position well when he characterizes it as holding that “the sacrifice of Christ offered once on the cross suffices for eternity,” quoting Hebrews 9:12, 9:25ff., and 10:14.

His reply begins with the claim that the Protestant rejection of the sacrifice of the Mass depends on thinking of them as different sacrifices. Cajetan sees this as a mistake: “In matter of fact, it is the same sacrifice, just as it is the same body of Christ and the same blood of Christ–on the altar, on the cross and now in heaven” (168). There is no difference in the sacrifice but in the “manner of offering”–the sacrifice on the cross was a corporeal offering while the sacrifice of the altar is a spiritual offering. There is no actual death in the sacrifice of the altar. Furthermore, the spiritual offering in the sacrifice of the altar “does not therefore render the sacrifice of Christ insufficient but in it as in a holy mystery Christ and his sacrifice are constantly recalled.”

The corporeal offering of Christ is all-sufficient for eternity, Cajetan says. Indeed, Cajetan wants to clarify further that “we are not saying that a spiritual body of Christ is offered in the sacrifice of the altar” (169). In other words, there is not a new, spiritual body being offered in the eucharistic sacrifice. “When one refers the sacrifice of the altar to the death of Christ,” Cajetan says, “a sign is involved and not the reality, since neither the death of Christ nor Christ in death is present in itself. Since Christ lives and reigns in heaven, his death is consequently not contained in this sacrifice but is rather signified” (169).

Cajetan wants to clarify that, while Roman Catholics insist in response to the Zwinglians, that Christ’s body, blood, soul, and divinity are really present in the Eucharist, he denies that Christ’s death is really present in that way. Christ’s death is “only signified.” The death is especially signified by the fact that “the blood is consecrated in separation from the body,” which points to “the real separation of his blood from his body in his death.” But this is in the domain of signification, not of the reality. Although “there is no need … that Christ die each time this sacrifice is offered,” it is the case that “he [must] be present in the sacrifice, be contained in it, and be offered as what is contained and offered” (169).

So, Cajetan tries to clarify that anything pertaining to death is a matter of signification. But how does he explain the reality of the offering? In 1531, he develops this point in reply to the Lutherans and the controversies surrounding and following the Augsburg Confession (1530). While he concludes his treatise to the nuncio in reference to the Zwinglians with a discussion of the continuous Tradition in the Church (171), he wants to follow Jesus in only using authorities actually acknowledged by his opponents (190).

Some Protestants spoke about the Lord’s Supper signifying and sealing that one is sharing in Christ’s one sacrifice on the cross. The Lutherans–Cajetan says–agreed with Catholics that there is a “commemorative sacrifice” in the Eucharist. There is an agreement that “the true body and blood of Christ” are “received in commemoration of the sacrifice offered on the cross” (190).

But there are two denials:

1. As we saw above in Luther’s Babylonian Captivity, there is a rejection of the idea that the body and blood of Christ are offered to God.
2. The Lutherans deny that “there is on the altar a victim or sacrifice for the expiation of the sins of either the living or the dead.”

Cajetan provides a detailed reading of Christ’s command to “do this” in memory of me. What is being done? There is an action directed towards recalling the Lord Jesus. And this is not simply making the body of Christ present but “making that body present which was broken (or given) for our sake” (192). And the broken body was given for us by being crucified and offered for us. Cajetan is trying to link the action commanded by Christ in commemoration of Him with the offering of His body and blood.

And the offering is for the forgiveness of sins, which relates to the second denial of the Lutherans. If “this is this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:27), then “there is a parallel between the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins by the bloody victim … and making present the cup of his blood shed for the forgiveness of sins” (195).

In Cajetan’s view, most of the Lutheran objections to this account come from Hebrews 7, 9, and 10, chapters which contrast the sacrifice of Christ with the repeated sacrifices of the Old Covenant. Christ’s sacrifice is completely sufficient. All sins have been destroyed by the grace of the new covenant ratified by the death of Christ; there is no need for another offering in this sense.

Cajetan once again returns to the issue of the unity of the sacrifice on the cross and on the altar. The one sacrifice is “offered simply, absolutely, and once and for all on the cross by Christ himself alone.” It is offered “derivatively each day by the same Christ through ministers in his Church” (197). These are “not two offerings but one and the same.” The original sacrifice on the cross was bloody; Christ’s body was broken. In the sacrifice of the altar, it is unbloody. The sacrifice of the altar is daily, representative, and derived; “Christ once offered on the cross is present again in the mode of an offering” (197). “The unbloody manner of offering,” he continues, “was not in itself instituted to be a disparate way of offering, but solely to refer to the bloody offering on the cross” (emphasis added).

Along with Cajetan’s insistence that there is one sacrifice, he says that there is one priest. This is why the priest says, “this is my body” rather than “this is the body of Christ” (198). There are not even many offerings but one offering that continues as a “unique sacrifice offered once and for all.” There is no need for new victims as in the Old Covenant; rather, there is the one sacrifice which requires such continuity in the offering and a succession of ministers so that “the one victim offered once and for all might continually exercise influence” (198).

On the basis of these claims and perhaps these clarifications, Cajetan is wiling to concede that “it is wrong to assert that the new covenant includes a sacrifice for sins that must be repeated,” if this is understood in the strict sense seen above. The sacrifice is not repeated but the one offering continues in the manner of an offering and is “recalled in each Mass” (199).

Furthermore, the faithful, Cajetan says, should never consider “for a moment” that “Mass is celebrated in order to supplement the effectiveness of the sacrifice offered on the cross.” Christ’s sacrifice on the cross needs no supplement; the sacrifice of the altar is “a vehicle of the forgiveness of sins brought about by Christ on the cross.”

Cajetan makes an interesting argument towards the end of the piece. He asks the Lutherans whether Christ is still interceding for us in heaven. Hebrews 9:12 and 9:24 say: “He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” and “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.” Hebrews 7:24-25 says, “He holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” Why is this continued intercession different from the one offering being re-presented, continually exercising influence in the sacrifice of the altar?

Indeed, while Cajetan thinks that neither take away from the uniqueness and all-sufficiency and superabundance of Christ’s work on the cross, he thinks that the continued intercession of Christ in heaven would be more of a concern for Protestants because he is under his “own form” in heaven instead of the “alien form” in the Eucharist. In the intercession in heaven, there appears to be a “supplementary intercession,” while the Eucharist is simply a “liturgical manner of intercession” that is appropriate to the situation of the Church that is extended in time and space.

Cajetan does not want to think of the sacrifice of Christ as supplementing the work of Christ on the cross. Cajetan says that Christ’s death forgives our sins but that this forgiveness is “applied to us from Christ’s death through the sacraments he instituted” (200). The sacrifice of the Eucharist will “profit them toward the forgiveness of sins” through this application. So, for the baptized this sacrifice is certainly efficacious in this way.

I plan to look at responses to this account in Catholic and Protestant theology in the future. I hope to look at his more detailed comments on these matters here. But it is important to grasp that, despite disagreements between Protestants on the Real Presence, they agreed in their rejection of the sacrifice of the Mass. Cajetan did believe that some of the arguments against the Mass suggested something that he rejected–a multiplication of sacrifices. Nonetheless, he defended the notion that the Mass was profitable for those baptized Christians seeking the forgiveness of sins (though the distinction between venial sin and mortal sin and the importance of confession before reception of the Eucharist should not be forgotten). The Mass was a true sacrifice–the sacrifice offered on the cross which continues in the manner of an offering and is recalled in each celebration.