SACRAMENT. The Latin word sacramentum, meaning “an oath,” is most commonly used by classical writers to denote the military oath of allegiance; for its technical application in legal phraseology see Roman Law, vol. xx. p. 682. In the earliest ecclesiastical Latin traces of the old military meaning are still present; thus Tertullian (Ad Mart., 3) writes, “We were called to the warfare of the living God in our very response to the sacramental words [in baptism] ”; but the main import of the word has entirely changed, it being used simply as the equivalent of the Greek μυστήριον . Thus even in the Vulgate we still have the “sacrament of godliness” (1 Tim. iii. 16), “of the seven stars” (Rev. i. 20), “of the woman and the beast” (Rev. xvii. 7); but in earlier Latin versions the word also occurred in numerous other places where “mysterium” is now found (e.g., Rom. xvi. 25; 1 Cor. xiii. 2). In addition to its general sense the word μυστηριον not unnaturally soon came to have for Christians a more special meaning as denoting those external rites of their religion, solemn, instructive, and more or less secret, which had most analogy with the MYSTERIES (q.v.) of paganism. No attempt, however, was at first made to enumerate or to define these. Tertullian speaks of the sacrament of baptism and the Eucharist, Cyprian of “either sacrament,” meaning baptism and confirmation, and many others, following Eph. v. 22 (see Vulgate), of the sacrament of marriage, but all with the utmost vagueness. Augustine’s definition of the word was little more explicit, but for centuries it was all the Western Church had, and for even a longer period it continued to be a sufficiently adequate expression of the Oriental view also. According to him a ...

There is no word in the Bible which corresponds to the word sacrament. It is a Latin word; and, agreeably to its derivation, it was applied by the early writers of the western church to any ceremony of our holy religion, especially if it were figurative or mystical. But a more confined signification of this word by degrees prevailed, and in that stricter sense it has been always used by the divines of modern times. Sacraments, says Dr. Hill, are conceived in the church of Rome to consist of matter, deriving, from the action of the priest in pronouncing certain words, a divine virtue, by which grace is conveyed to the soul of every person who receives them. It is supposed to be necessary that the priest, in pronouncing the words, has the intention of giving to the matter that divine virtue; otherwise it remains in its original state. On the part of those who receive the sacrament, it is required that they be free from any of those sins, called in the church of Rome mortal; but it is not required of them to exercise any good disposition, to possess faith, or to resolve that they shall amend their lives; for such is conceived to be the physical virtue of a sacrament administered by a priest with a good intention, that, unless when it is opposed by the obstacle of a mortal sin, the very act of receiving it is sufficient. This act was called, in the language of the schools, _opus operatum_, the work done independently of any disposition of mind attending the deed; and the superiority of the sacraments of the New Testament over the sacraments of the Old was thus expressed, that the sacraments of the Old Testament were effectual _ex opere operantis_, from the piety and faith of the persons to whom they were administered; while the sacraments of the New Testament convey grace, ...

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 steamboats. The site is only 15 feet above low water of the 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 buildings in the business quarter by 5 feet, and to the construction 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 generally 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 tho 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...