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Bonaventure uses “sacrament” to refer to all signs of faith in the Redeemer, even those that are not explicitly focused on Jesus of Nazareth. He refers to this as the “diversity” of the sacraments. “Sacraments” in this sense were instituted from the very beginning, but they have enjoyed diversity through three different ages and their concomitant laws: the law of nature, the law of scripture, and the law of grace.

This chapter considers the present mediation of salvation to the Church through the Holy Spirit, the living bridge between the past events of salvation and the present experience of salvation. The Spirit creates fellowship, beauty, and life. The role of the Holy Spirit and that of the risen Christ, while distinct and different, are profoundly connected.

This chapter first reiterates the argument of Chapter III under the form that proving God's existence via the distinction of essence and existence is ultimately experiential, coming down to a psychological conviction that death, as endangering my existence, is poetically unjust. A better argument for God's existence would begin below the level of conceptual language, starting from animality and movement. It then describes Etienne Gilson's re-statement of Thomas' Five Ways (moves, causes, necessity/contingency, perfections, design), in order to give a satisfactory argument for God's existence, that is, Hans Urs von Balthasar's ‘four distinctions’. Based on the ‘Five Ways’ and building on their empirical character, the ‘four distinctions’ give an argument to God which is primarily objective and realistic, but which takes the subject and his experience into account, by beginning from the dialogue between mother and child which first ‘moves’ the child into reality.

This chapter explores the discrepancy between sound eucharistic theology and the eucharistic theology of several official documents of the Roman Catholic magisterium. Historical research suggests that Robert Bellarmine is one of the “messengers”, if indeed not one of the “villains”, of this story. It is argued that the embarrassing dichotomy between the teaching of the contemporary official Roman magisterium and that of most contemporary liturgical theologians is due to the magisterium's continued acceptance of some of the shortcomings of post-Tridentine Catholic eucharistic theology. If there is to be progress towards a more broadly shared Catholic understanding of the Eucharist, the Roman magisterium must become less attached to explanations of the Mystery of Faith that are less than satisfactory.

Where God's invitation to eat his flesh raises unexpected problems. What do we do with spiders and mice and where in the digestive system does the Eucharist turn back into flour and wine before things get really nasty.

This chapter draws four conclusions from an attentive reading of the Letter to the Hebrews. First, even if many people are unable to reach explicit faith in Christ, all are offered salvation through the sacrifice of Christ. Second, while Hebrews understands Christ's death and exaltation to be the defining moment of his priesthood, the priestly language that this text uses in describing Christian existence also applies to his public ministry. From the beginning to the end, Christ led a priestly existence. Third, Hebrews understands Jesus to accept freely his role as priest and victim. But that does not mean that his death was an act of suicide; it was directly intended and perpetrated by others. Fourth, Hebrews speaks equivalently of the common priesthood of all the baptized; it also seems to allude to their celebration of the Eucharist. The chapter ends by summarizing under fourteen headings the New Testament witness to the priesthood of Christ.

This chapter examines the scattered references to Christ's priesthood made by the fathers of the Church from Clement of Rome down to Gregory the Great, with particular attention paid to major contributions coming from Origen, John Chrysostom, and Augustine of Hippo. Both then and later, reflection on Christ's priesthood was prompted both by issues concerning the exercise of the ordained ministry in the Church and by serious attention to Hebrews. Clement of Alexandria applied the story of Melchizedek further by understanding the offering of bread and wine to prefigure the Eucharist. Augustine developed the narrative of Christ's priesthood in the light of his being the head of the body that is the Church. At the Eucharist Christ is truly, if invisibly, present and makes the offering ‘on our behalf’. Augustine also reflected significantly on the nature of ‘true sacrifices’ as ‘works of mercy done to ourselves or our neighbour and directed to God’.

In his version of Christ's redeeming priesthood, Aquinas adopted and modified Anselm's theory of redemption as ‘satisfaction’. Unlike Anselm, Aquinas saw Christ's function as mediator between God and human beings being exercised as priest, prophet, and king. The meritorious sacrifice of Christ was accepted by God as being inspired by love. Like Origen, Chrysostom, Luther, and Calvin, Aquinas wrote a work on the Letter to the Hebrews; in that commentary he remarked: ‘only Christ is the true priest, the others being only his ministers’ (8. 4). In his Summa Theologiae Aquinas dedicates one ‘question’ of six ‘articles’ to ‘the principal act of priestly office’, the sacrifice in which Christ was both priest and victim and efficaciously expiated human sin. Aquinas's account of Christ's priesthood is filled out by what he wrote about Christ as mediator (one question of two articles), about the sacraments, and about the ascension, as well as in the liturgical texts that he composed for the Feast of Corpus Christi (instituted in 1264). For Aquinas the sacramental life of believers derives from Christ's priesthood and passion. In the celebration of the Eucharist and administration of the other sacraments, Christ the priest is always the principal, albeit invisible, agent.

The Council of Trent (1545–63) promulgated four decrees that concerned priesthood, but explicitly mentioned the priesthood of Christ himself only in the 1562 decree on ‘the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass’. It did not expound in any document: (1) the triple office of Christ as priest, prophet, and king; (2) the priesthood of Christ as exercised during his public ministry; and (3) the common priesthood (and prophetic kingship) of all the baptized—a theme developed four centuries later by the Second Vatican Council. Disputes with the Reformers had moved the Eucharist, the cultic function of the ordained priesthood, and its connection with Christ's priesthood to the forefront. This resulted in a stress on the priesthood as cultic and hierarchical, with the preaching of the Word as a priestly function left out of the picture. The seventeenth‐century ‘French School’, led by Bérulle, Condren, Eudes, Olier, and Vincent de Paul, dedicated themselves to the reform of the clergy. In doing so, they had much to say about the priesthood of Christ. As well as respecting the common priesthood of all the faithful and the ministry of preaching, they showed a keen interest in the self‐sacrificing nature of Christ's own priesthood, which made him victim as well as priest—a self‐sacrificing dedication to be followed by those who share his priesthood.

Chapter 4 combines a discussion of the developments of non-Chalcedonian church life with an account of how the imperial government tried to reintegrate the centrifugal elements in the eastern provinces. After a few years in exile the non-Chalcedonian bishops started to ordain a separate hierarchy that challenged the sacramental authority of the Chalcedonians—most visible by taking a non-Chalcedonian Eucharist. Prominent among the non-Chalcedonians appears John of Tella whose mass ordinations made him one of Justinian's dangerous opponents (and perhaps also an advocate of a different (eucharistic) ecclesiology). The problems which the religious controversy caused for the average layperson are addressed as well as the development of the different Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian liturgies (especially the case of the Trisagion). If read in context, the sources show that Justinian responded with a genuine attempt of rapprochement towards the non-Chalcedonians in the early 530s.

This chapter draws conclusions from the material set out in the first nine chapters. Some of these theses are relatively uncontroversial: e.g. that ‘the Jewish matrix and some New Testament books other than Hebrews are indispensable sources for those who explore the priesthood of Christ’ (Thesis 1); that ‘the Son of God became a priest, or rather the High Priest, when he took on the human condition’ (Thesis 2); that ‘the three offices of Christ are distinguishable but inseparable’ (Thesis 5); that the priesthood of Christ is eternal (Thesis10) and essentially Trinitarian (Thesis 11). Other theses point to areas of reflection on Christ's priesthood that have often been ignored: e.g. that ‘in his public ministry Jesus exercised a priestly ministry’ (Thesis 4); and ‘the priesthood of Christ involved him in becoming vulnerable to lethal persecution’ (Thesis 6). Some theses are more controversial: e.g. ‘that at the Last Supper, when instituting the Eucharist as a sacrificial meal, Jesus committed himself through a cultic, priestly act to his self‐sacrificing death’. Among other things, this thesis entails arguing that ‘sacrifice’, if understood appropriately, is still a viable term for Christians to use and that the Last Supper was a sacrificial meal.

This closing chapter is also built around twelve theses: four opening theses on the priesthood of all the baptized and then eight (sometimes more controversial) theses on the ordained ministry. As regards the priesthood of all the faithful, the chapter argues that ‘the triple office of all the baptized and, in particular, their priesthood, possesses a certain priority over the participation in Christ's triple office by those in the ordained ministry’. No one can receive the ministry of the ordained without being previously baptized. In line with what was said about Christ's own priesthood, the chapter states that the priesthood of all the faithful involves them in becoming ‘vulnerable to persecution and lethal hostility’. The institution of ministerial priesthood did not coincide totally with the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, but also involved an earlier call by Jesus and a post‐resurrection commissioning. The chapter then suggests how a structured, threefold leadership of bishops, presbyters or priests, and deacons emerged in the second century. Through the Holy Spirit, Christ continues to call ordained ministers; they do not derive their ministry merely through delegation from the community of the baptized (Thesis 7). The final thesis builds on a tradition that goes back to Augustine: ‘in the celebration of the Eucharist ordained priests are visible signs of the invisible Christ, Priest and Victim or Offerer and Offering, whose unique and sufficient sacrifice, accomplished once and for all in his life, death, and resurrection, continues to be present and operative on behalf of the whole human race’ (Thesis 12).

Chapter 6 provides a short synthesis of the book. Balthasar's program challenges us to first “see the form” in the world, but also to see the Beautiful, the Good, and the True at work in a broad variety of narrative art. The book finds that, while Balthasar presents us with some practical directives that aid in elucidating the presence and veracity of such a vision, the Catholic imagination proposed does not have a monopoly on such tendencies. At minimum, the examination of the Catholic imagination helps recover the legitimate place of a “theological imagination” in the critical study of literary and narrative art. One conclusion posited is that the careful restoration of the theological imagination to discourses in meaning will aid in reestablishing “a theology of criticism,” that is, the kind of criticism that cultivates a more inclusive array of epistemologies. Another conclusion is that many aspects of postmodern critical thought are helping develop a more grounded—and interdisciplinary—theology of language.