Augustine’s Visible Words

The Reformers picked up the definition of sacraments as “visible words” from Augustine’s Contra Faustum , Book 19. It’s not clear that they got the force of Augustine’s phrase.

Bucer uses the phrase several times, but he generally conflates the “visible word” description with the scholastic definition of sacraments as signa of rerum invisibilium . He also, not surprisingly, draws a parallel between the working of the verbum audibil e and the sacrament as visible word. In one passage, he emphasizes that the sacraments pertain ad sensum oculorum as the word addressed man ad sensum aurium . He quotes a large section of Contra Faustum in one treatise, but doesn’t seem to catch the drift of Augustine’s point. Bullinger cites the formula to similar effect, emphasizing the visibility of the sacrament, as does Vermigli.

What did Augustine mean?

He uses the formula in the context of discussing the relation of Old and New sacraments, and specifically in the context of comparing the change of rites from Israel to the church to the changes of endings and words in the conjugation of a verb. At one time, we say “this will take place” but once it happens we say “It has taken place.” If we conjugate verbs this way, “why is it surprising if the suffering and resurrection of Christ was promised as coming by one set of signs for those mysteries and is now announced to have taken place by another set?” Old sacraments are in the future tense; New sacraments are sacraments of completion, carried out in the perfect.

This analogy holds because “what else are certain bodily sacraments but certain visible words – sacred, of course, but still changeable and temporal” (Quid enim sunt aliud quaeque corporalia sacramenta, nisi quaedam quasi verba visibilia, sacrosancta quidem, verumtamen mutabilia et temporalia?) God is eternal, and so the same power is at work whether we ritualize in past or future tense, but thje visible words change to correspond to the time, so that they are “congruent” with the fulfillment of what was promised.

Thus, Augustine doesn’t use “visible words” to stress the visibility of the sacrament, nor does he exactly draw a parallel between the gospel preached and the sacraments that confirm or seal the promise. Sacraments are visible words because they change with the times, because God conjugates the rites.