The Origin of the Word “Sacrament”

The word “sacrament” comes from the Latin word sacramentum. It was used in two ways at the time. First, it described the oath taken by soldiers in the Roman army. It was a sacred pledge of allegiance. Second, if you were suing someone in Roman civil law, then both parties deposited the contested amount into a common fund. At the end of the case, it was winner takes all. But until that moment, the deposited money was sacramentum or, as we might say today, “sacrosanct.” In this sense sacramentum implied that the water, bread, and wine were set apart from their ordinary use to represent God’s…