This volume contains the final volume of Lombard's major work,
described as "one of the least read of the world's great books",
which treats the sacraments of the Church.
Peter Lombard’s major work, the four books of the
Sentences, was written in the mid-twelfth century and, as
early as the 1160s, the text was glossed and commented on in the
schools. There is hardly a theologian of note throughout the rest
of the Middle Ages who did not write a commentary on the
Sentences. Yet in spite of its importance in Western
intellectual history and its capacity to excite generations of
students and teachers, the Sentences has received little
attention in recent times. Indeed, it has been called “one of
the least read of the world’s great books”.
Book 3 closed with a reflection on the relative inadequacy of
the Old Law, because what it commanded could not be done well or
easily in the absence of grace. While the sacraments of the Old Law
were only signs, the sacraments of the Church are also the
principal instruments of that grace now freely available to
Christians. These sacraments are the main subject of Book 4, taking
up forty-two of its fifty Distinctions: Baptism is treated in
Distinctions 2–6, confirmation in 7, the Eucharist in
8–13, penance in 14–22, extreme unction in 23, sacred
orders in 24 and 25, and marriage in 26–42. The Book
concludes with eight Distinctions on the last things – the
resurrection of the body, purgation, hell, the last judgement, and
eternity.