simple practical exhortation, and took the background of the eucharistic sacrifice. Hence it was a frequent thing there for the people to leave the church at the beginning of the sermon ; so that many bishops, who had no idea of the free nature of religion and of worship, compelled the people to hear by closing the doors. The sermon was in general freely delivered from the bishop's chair or fi'om the railing of the choir (the cancelli), sometimes from the reading-desk. The duty of preaching devolved upon the bishops ; and even popes, like Leo I. and Gregory I., fre- quently preached before the Roman congregation. Preaching was also performed by the presbyters and deacons. Leo I. restricts the right of preaching and teaching to the ordained clergy ; "^ yet monks and hermits preached not rarely in the streets, from j)illars (like St. Symeon), roofs, or trees ; and even ' KpoTos, acclamatio, applausus. Chrysostom and Augustine often denounced this theatrical disorder, but in vain. ^ Ep. 62 ad Maxim. : " Praeter eos qui sunt Domini sacerdotes nullus sibi jus doeendi et praedicandi audeat vindicare, sive sit ille monachus, sive sit laicus, qui alicujus scientiae nomine glorietur." 474 THIRD PERIOD. A.D, 311-590. laymen, like the emperor Constantine and some of his succes- sors, wrote and delivered (though not in church) religious dis- courses to the faithful people.' § 91. The Sacraments in General. G. L. Haiix : Die Lehre von den Sacramenten in ilirer geschichtliclien Entwicklung innerlialb der abendlandischen Kirche bis zura Concil von Trient. Breslan, 1S64 ( 47 pp.)' Comp. also the article Sacror mente by G. E. Steitz in Herzog's Real-Encyklopadie, vol. xiii. pp. 226-286; and Coxst. von Sohatzlee: Die Lehre von der Wirksam- keit der Sacramente ex opere operato. Munich, 1860. Tlie use of the word sacranientum in the church still con- tinued for a long time very indefinite. It embraced every mystical and sacred thing (omne mysticum sacrumque signum). Tertullian, Ambrose, Hilary, Leo, Chrysostom, and other fathers, apply it even to mysterious doctrines and facts, like the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the incarnation, the cruci- fixion, and the resurrection. But after the fifth century it de- notes chiefly sacred fonns of worship, which "were instituted by Christ and by which divine blessings are mystically represented, sealed, and applied to men. This catholic theological concep- tion has substantially passed into the evangelical churches, though with important changes as to the number and opera- tion of the sacraments.* Augustine was the first to substitute a clear doctrine of the nature of the sacraments for a vague notion and rhetorical exag- ^ Euseb. Vita Const, iv. 29, 32, 55, and Constantine's Oratio ad Sanctos, in the appendix. ■ The word saa'ameMiim bears among the fathers the following senses : (1) The oath in general, as in the Roman profane writers ; and particularly the soldier''s oath. (2) The baptismal vmo, by which the candidate bound himself to the perpetual ser- vice of Christ, as miles