The word “sacrament” is used in many senses, both in profane and in sacred literature. Originally it was a legal technical term, meaning the money staked as a wager by the parties to a suit, so called because the money when forfeited was used for the bronze of the vessels employed in sacred rites, or, according to others, was deposited in a sacred place. Then it came to be applied to the military oath of allegiance, and so to any solemn oath or engagement. The early Latin Fathers frequently use it in these latter meanings, e.g. Tertullian (Lib. ad Martyr., c. iii.). But, like so many other words, it gradually came to have a technical ecclesiastical meaning, viz. any sign or external rite by which man was initiated into the sacred mysteries; and thus it became the equivalent of μυστήριον. In the course of time it became restricted to mean the sacred signs by which man was sanctified, whether in the Old Law or in the New. Lastly, it was still further narrowed in its meaning to denote those efficacious signs of grace by which man is sanctified under the New Law.