Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/150

Rh 132 S A C S A C Victor (d. 1141), no fewer than thirty sacraments are enumerated, divided into three classes, baptism and the Lord's Supper occupying a first place. What proved to be an important new departure was taken by Peter Lombard (d. 1164), in the 4th book of his Sentences, which treats "of sacraments and sacramental signs." There for the first time are enumerated the seven sacraments (baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, order, matrimony), which were afterwards formally recognized by the Church of Rome at the councils of Florence (1439) and of Trent ; and there also for the first time it was expressly recognized that not all signs of sacred things can be regarded as sacraments, but only those which are the form of invisible grace in such a sense as to represent it and bring it about ("ut ipsius imaginem gerat et causa existat "). This " differentia " of the sacra- ment, properly so called, became the basis of all subse- quent scholastic discussion and authoritative decree in the Western church, and even, though of course indirectly, in the Eastern also. The main points in the Tridentine doctrine are these : the sacraments have the power of con- ferring grace ex opere operate on the recipients who do not resist it ("non ponentibus obicem"); for their validity, however, there must be in the minister the intention of doing that which the church does. Though all are in a sense necessary, they are not so with equal directness for each individual, nor are they alike in dignity. The two principal sacraments are baptism and the Lord's Supper. All were instituted by Christ. Three of them (baptism, confirmation, order) impart an indelible " character," and therefore cannot be repeated. For the teaching of the Greek Church compare vol. xi. pp. 158, 159. The churches of the Reformation, while retaining the current doctrine that sacraments were " effectual signs of grace and God's good will " " ordained by Christ," reduced their number to two, the remaining five being excluded partly because direct evidence of their institution by Christ was wanting, and partly because "they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God." For further details on the individual sacraments the reader is referred to the separate articles (BAPTISM, EUCHARIST, &c.). SACRAMENTO, a city of the United States, the capital of California and the county seat of Sacramento county, 135 miles by rail north-east of San Francisco on the east bank of the Sacramento river, which at this point receives the American river and becomes navigable for large steam- boats. The site is only 15 feet above low water of lihe river, or 30 above sea-level, and as the river sometimes rises 20 feet the city was originally subject to destructive floods. Those of 1850, 1852, and 1853, however, led to the raising of the level of the principal streets and build- ings in the business quarter by 5 feet, and to the construc- tion of strong levees or embankments, from 4 to 20 feet high for 2 miles along the Sacramento and 3 along the American river. Further measures of the same kind were adopted after the disaster of 1861, which almost rendered the city bankrupt ; and the level of the principal districts is now 8 feet above the river. The shops and stores in the city are mostly of brick, but the dwelling-houses gener- ally only of wood. The State capitol, commenced in 1861 and completed at a cost of $2,500,000, is one of the finest buildings of its kind in the States ; it stands in the heart of the city in the midst of a park of 50 acres. The other public buildings the State printing-office and armoury, the agricultural hall, the Oddfellows' hall, the hospital, the grammar-school, &c. are comparatively unimportant. Besides the State library (36,000 volumes) there are two other public libraries in the city. The number of industrial establishments has recently been rapidly increasing ; they comprise the extensive workshops of the Central Pacific Railroad, a woollen-mill, carriage-factories, plough-factories, marble-works, breweries, potteries, glue-work^, itc. The population was 6820 in 1850, 13,785 in 1860, lC,i's:> in 1870 (6202 foreigners, 1370 Chinese), and 21,420 in 1880 (7048 foreigners, 1781 Chinese). In 1841 John Augustus Sutter (b. 1803), a Swiss military officer, obtained a grant of land at the junction of the Sarranu'iito and American rivers, and made a settlement which he called New Hel- vetia, The discovery of gold on his property in 1848 changed the whole history of California. Sutter's Fort, as the spot was popu- larly called, became the site of a mining town, which was made the capital of the State in 1854, and obtained a city charter in 1863. The name of Sacramento was first applied to the place in the adver- tisement for the sale of ground-lots in 1848. SACRIFICE. The Latin word sacrifi.ci'um, from which we have the English " sacrifice," properly means an action within the sphere of things sacred to the gods, so that "sacrificial" and "hierurgic" are synonymous, and, strictly speaking, cover the whole field of sacred ritual. By the Romans, as by all. ancient or primitive nations, the gods were habitually approached with gifts, and the presentation of the gift, being the central feature in every ordinary act of worship, is regarded as the sacrifice proper. In all parts of the world, moreover, for reasons which will appear by and by, the stated gifts by which the gods are honoured in private worship or public feasts are drawn from the stores on which human life is supported, fruits, grain, wine, oil, the flesh of animals, and the like. All gifts of this kind, which are not merely presented to the god but consumed in his service, fall under the notion of sacrifice, while permanent votive offerings of treasure, lands, temples, images, or the like, not forming part of any stated ritual, are excluded. But again, where we find a practice of sacrificing honorific gifts to the gods, we usually find also certain other sacrifices which resemble those already char- acterized inasmuch as something is given up by the wor- shippers to be consumed in sacred ceremony, but differ from them inasmuch as the sacrifice usually a living victim is not regarded as a tribute of honour to the god, but has a special atoning or mystic significance. The most familiar case of this second species of sacrifice is that which the Romans distinguished from the fiostia honoraria by the name of hostia piaculari*. In the former case the deity accepts a gift ; in the latter he demands a life. The former kind of sacrifice is offered by the worshipper on the basis of an established relation of friendly dependence on his divine lord ; the latter is directed to appease the divine anger, or to conciliate the favour of a deity on whom the worshipper has no right to count. The precise scope of sacrifices not merely honorific will appear more clearly in the sequel ; for the history of religion this second kind of sacrifice has a very peculiar importance, as may be judged from the fact that the ordinary metaphorical use of " sacri- fice " in English answers not to the notion of a " gift " but to that of " reluctant surrender." l Honorific Sacrifices naturally hold the chief place in all natural (as opposed to positive) religions that have reached the stage in which orthodox ritual is differentiated from sorcery (comp. PRIEST, vol. xix. p. 724), and in which the relations between the gods and their worshippers are con- ceived as being of a fixed and habitually friendly character, so that the acts by which a continuance of divine favour can be secured are known by well-established tradition and regularly practised with full confidence in their efficacy. Religions of this type unite the god to a definite circle of 1 Apart from this metaphorical use the word " sacrifice " in English is often taken as synonymous with " victim," bloodless oblations being called rather by the vague word " offering." This usage corresponds to the practice of the Authorised Version, which commonly renders nroOl !"OT) i.e., "victim and cereal oblation," by the words "sacrifice ami ottVriiifr," and uses the verb "to sacrifice" for the Hebrew D3T, "to slaughter a victim."