Research Paper on:
Joseph Martos' Doors to the Sacred

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
maintained by the Catholic church today. In Martos book the author takes us through history, illustrating how sacraments have changed, and how the Catholic church is perhaps the only institution  which keeps the ideal of the sacraments alive. In the following paper we examine Martos book, illustrating how he presents the history as well as focuses on the Catholic church  as the savior and redeemer of the sacraments. Doors to the Sacred In the very first section of Martos work we are given a look at how there  are sacraments in all religions. He states, "Surprising as it may seem to Roman Catholics, every religion in the world makes use of sacraments. No other religion calls them sacraments,  but this is because no other religion has borrowed its theological words from classical and medieval Latin" (Martos 3). He then moves on to illustrate how the word sacrament evolved  in the first few centuries and how, "the term has not been the exclusive property of the Christian churches. Sacrament has been used in fiction and poetry, meaning a sign  or symbol, and sacramental has been used with the meaning of symbolic or sacred" (Martos 4). In essence, this section defines sacrament in terms of its use in relationship to  things which are sacred and/or divine. The word relates to things which are precious and symbolic and powerful. Martos work then moves on to illustrate how the sacraments first  began in Israel and the Roman empire. He then moves on to how early Christian development began to truly take the idea of sacraments, understanding or believing that such sacraments  were the only way to truly connect with God. It is at about this point that Protestant divergences caused some change in the idea of sacraments, and at this point