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Doors to the Sacred
By Joseph Martos
Garden City, Doubleday, 1981. 531 pp. $15.95.

An attempt at a history of Christian sacraments is a difficult task, with the obvious problem of correlating a great amount of historical data about the externals of sacramental activity-sacraments tended to touch just about everything that happened in the church for two millennia. Much more challenging is the discernment of patterns and processes of sacramental evolution, so that well-justified interpretations could be suggested. And we are not even certain any more where to draw the line between what in Christian life is "sacrament" and what is not.

To some extent this book escapes these problems by setting a more limited goal: a non-technical preliminary overview to guide rather well-informed Catholics in understanding and liturgically implementing their tradition. And within these perimeters, it succeeds. Any Catholic (and in varying degrees, any Christian) who reads this book carefully will, by seeing the historical genesis and evolution of sacraments, understand better the ritual forms now employed in the church. Specifically in Roman Catholicism, there is still a basic need to create historical consciousness and historical perspective. Here the author has performed

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a real service: if nothing else, those who read his book will know that sacraments do have a history.

Still, even within this limited circle of Catholic sacramental understanding, Martos might have pushed further in applying recent reconsideration of "sacrament" to his historical overview. Though he clearly appreciates the shifts in present-day sacramental theology, much in his selection of historical data is governed by the manual theology treatment of sacraments. He sometimes focuses on issues (e.g., Catholic prohibition of divorce) not really germane to sacramental understanding.

While Catholic readers will find this context quite familiar, most non-Catholics, I suspect, will feel a bit like aliens. This is especially true in the treatment of sacramental areas like orders and reconciliation. For such non-Catholic readers, the principal insight here may be the knowledge of what a well-informed Catholic thinks of sacraments.

Mentioning these limitations is not to criticize, but to suggest the complex agenda facing theologians of whatever tradition who study sacramental symbols. The emerging new understanding must be interiorized to the point where it changes the basic approach to research, to explanation, and consequently, to practice. Moreover, theological interchange among representatives of various traditions must be intrinsic to theological reflection within any given tradition. So, too, a theologian within a tradition must seriously consider the liturgical/sacramental history of other Christian churches and utilize this history as a source for theological analysis.

This work is a long step in the desired direction. As a first major effort of a young scholar and teacher (Martos is on the faculty of Briarcliff College in Sioux City, Iowa), it promises continuing contribution to our understanding of Christian symbols. And for now, the book helps fill a gaping hole in our historical knowledge.

Bernard Cooke
Holy Cross College
Worcester, Massachusetts