CHAPTER XXII

THE UNCTION OF THE SICK

The Teaching of St. James; Growth of the Mediaval View; Roman Catholic Teaching

The Teaching of St. James

THE last instance from the Apostolic teaching (No. L) is in some ways the most important, since it led to the establishment of a definite rite for the healing of the sick

Is any

"Is any among you suffering? let him pray. cheerful? let him sing praise. Is any among you sick? let him call for the elders of the Church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him. Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working." 1

This, with the passage in St. Mark (No. 43), "and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them," is the only reference in the New Testament to Unction, but a command so clear and practical from our Lord's brother and apostle 'naturally produced important results.

It is exceedingly important to observe that, ac1 Jas. 5 13-15

cording to St. James, Unction is for the healing of the body, and not for the remission of sins. The Apostle is describing two classes of people (a) the sick, and (b) those who are not only sick but also in grievous sin.

This is clearer in the Revised than in the Authorised Version: it may be made still clearer by a close translation, thus

(a) "Is any among you sick? let him call for the presbyters of the Church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith shall make the sick man whole, and the Lord shall raise him up;

(b) and if he have committed sins, remission shall be imparted to him: confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed."

(a) The sick man is thus to be anointed in order that "the prayer of faith shall save him," i.e., save him from sickness; for this is the normal meaning of σole and the word is often translated "to make whole" in the English New Testament.1 "And the Lord shall raise him up": again a word is used eyeipe which is constantly employed of the miracles of healing.2 Obvious as this is, it is worth mentioning, because, through a slip of medieval copyists, the Latin of the Vulgate has a word for eyepei which can bear the sense of "comfort " (alleviabit) and thus Roman Catholic writers have

1 e.g., Mt. 9 21-22, "If I do but touch his garment I shall be made whole thy faith hath made thee whole and the woman was made whole:" in each case

σώζειν is the word used.

2 e.g., Mt. 95, “Arise (eyeɩpe) and walk."

generally said that the meaning is "the Lord shall comfort the soul of the sick man." A good deal of the current Roman teaching about Unction is due to this mistake.

(b) St. James then goes on to describe a second class of sick persons those who have sins 1

upon their consciences. When a sick man is in this condition he is to confess his sins, in order that "forgiveness may be imparted to him,” ἀφεθήσεται αὐτῷ, in accordance with the Lord's commission "whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them," 2 where the same word is used for forgiveness or remission. It is not the Unction which conveys this remission, but Absolution following on confession of the sin. Two separate things are therefore described here- Unction for the body and Absolution for the soul.

It is most necessary to insist on this distinction, because by the Middle Ages men had come to think of Unction as conveying remission of sins; and thus it was that the idea of Unction as healing the body was bit by bit lost sight of. How all this came about can be studied in Father Puller's book on The Anointing of the Sick. This is not the place for a long technical discussion: in Father Puller's work the authorities will be found arranged with admirable clearness and erudition. None the less, a short statement may be useful here.

1 Sins of a serious character, duaprlas, not merely "faults," as in the A. V. which follows a later and less accurate text. 2 Jn. 20 23.

8 Church Historical Society, The Anointing of the Sick in Scripture and Tradition, by F. W. Puller; London, Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1904.

Growth of the Mediaval View

Father Puller says

"During the first seven centuries of our era, the custom of praying over sick people and anointing them with holy oil continued without any break.” 1

In the eighth century there is also evidence that healing was expected to follow, and in the tenth.2 And again

"I can find no trace in the first seven centuries of sick people being anointed for the remission of their sins, or for the removal of the reliquiæ of sin, or to impart to them grace enabling them to die happily or courageously."

"I find no evidence of persons in articulo mortis being anointed with the object of preparing them for death." 994

In the period which we can easily remember by connecting it with the famous date, A. D. 800, the year of Charlemagne's accession, a change began. Bishop Theodulph of Orleans issued, c. 800, a pastoral instruction on Unction, which "reads like a manifesto issued with the object of introducing a new observance," in which Unction is ordered to be administered as a preparation for death.5

In the Councils of Chalon-sur-Saône (813) and

1 Church Historical Society, The Anointing of the Sick in Scripture and Tradition, by F. W. Puller, p. 188. No certain instances, however, have been found in the records of the second century, till Tertullian's case, A.D. 193–211. See p. 252.

2 Puller, Ibid., p. 201, n. I.

8 Puller, Ibid., p. 191.

4 Puller, Ibid., p. 192.

5 Puller, Ibid., pp. 193-4.

of Pavia (850) the idea that Unction conveys remission of sins is recognised.1 It has grown up during the eighth and ninth centuries, and since the year 716, when it was still unknown.

The transition period, during which the primitive and the medieval ideas existed together, had closed by c. 1151, when Peter Lombard limited the Sacraments to the mystical number seven, Unction being included among them; and his great influence over subsequent writers till the sixteenth century led to this enumeration being generally accepted, first in the West and a century later in the East.2

Owing to that conservatism which is natural and constant in matters liturgical, the mediæval servicebooks represented, and the present Roman service still represents, the transitional view of the ninth century, prayers for bodily healing being retained. in a secondary place. The Council of Trent, however, in 1551 went a step further, established Peter Lombard's view as binding upon the Roman Church, and laid almost all the stress on the medieval view that Unction exists to prepare the sick man's soul for death.

What that medieval view was may be illustrated by two typical extracts. Archbishop Peckham's Manual, in his Constitutions of 1281, lays it down that

"There are Seven Sacraments of the Church, the power of administering which is committed to the clergy. Five of these Sacraments ought to be received by all Christians in general; that is, Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, the Holy Eucharist and Extreme Unction, which last is 1 The Anointing of the Sick, by F. W. Puller, pp. 72–8. 2 Puller, Ibid., pp. 251–264.