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trom the life of an Eastern saint, Hypatius (d. about
446), is worthy of particular notice. While still a
young monk and before his elevation to the priest-
hood, he was appointed infirmarian in his monastery
(in Bithynia), and while occupj-ing this office he
showed a splendid example of charity in his care of the
sick, whom he sought out and brought to the monas-
tery. "But if the necessity arose", says his disciple
and biographer, " of anointing the sick person, he re-
ported to the abbot, who was a priest {^v yap wpecrpi-
repos), and had the unction with the blessed oil per-
formed by him. And it often happened that in a few
days, God co-operating with his efforts, he sent the
man home restored to health" (Acta SS., 17 June, p.
251). It appears from this testimony that the Jaco-
bean unction was administered only to those who were
seriously ill, that only a priest could administer it,
that consecrated oil was used, that it was distinct
from charismatic unction (which the saint himself
used to perform, while still a layman, using conse-
crated oil), and finally that bodily healing did not
always follow and was not apparently expected to fol-
low, and that when it did take place it was not re-
garded as miraculous. It is, therefore, implied that
other effects besides bodily healing were believed to be
produced by the Jacobean unction, and these must be
understood to be spiritual.
As evidence of the use of the unction by the Xes- torians we may refer to the nineteenth canon of the synod held at Seleucia in 554 under the presidency of the Patriarch Joseph, and which, speaking of those who have been addicted to various diabolical and su- perstitious practices, prescribes that any such person on being converted shall have applied to him, " as to one who is corporally sick, the oil of prayer blessed by the priests" (Chabot, Synodicon Orientale, 1902, p. 363). Here, besides the legitimate use of the Jaco- bean unction, we have an early instance of an abuse, which prevails in the modern Orthodox (schismatical) church, of permitting the euchelaion to be adminis- tered, on certain days of the year, to people who are in perfect health, as a complement of penance and a preparation for Holy Communion [see below VI, (3)]. That the Monophysites also retained the Jacobean unction after their separation from the Catholic Church (451) is clear from the fact that their liturgies (.\rmenian, SjTian, and Coptic) contain the rite for blessing the oil. There is reason to suppose that this portion of their liturgies in its present form has been borrowed from, or modelled upon, the Byzantine rite of a later period (see Brightman in "Journal of Theological Studies", I, p. 261), but this borrowing supposes that they already possessed the unction itself. It has nowadays fallen into disuse among the Xestor- ians and Armenians, though not among the Copts.
Many testimonies might be quoted in which the Jacobean unction is recommended specifically as a means of restoring bodily health, and the faithful are urged to receive it instead of recurring, as they were prone to do, to various superstitious remedies. This is the burden of certain passages in Procopius of Gaza [c. 465-525; " In Levit.", xix, 31, in P. G., LXXXVII (1), 762 sq.], Isaac of Antioch (b. about 350; Opp., ed. Bickell, Pt. I, pp. 1S7 sq.). St. C\Til of Alexandria (De Adorat. in Spiritu et Veritate, VI, in P. G., LXVIII, 470 sq.), St. Caesarius of Aries (Serm. cclxxLx, 5, "Ap- pend ad sermm. Augustini" in P. L.. XXXIX, 2273), and John Mandakuni (Montagouni), Catholicos of the .\rmenians from 4S0 to 4S7 (Schmid, Reden des Joannes Mandakuni, pp. 222 sq.). This particular effect of the prayer-unction is the one specially em- phasized in the form used to this day in the Orthodox Eastern Church (see above, I).
Mention of the remission of sins as an effect of the
Jacobean rite is also fairly frequent. It is coupled
■with bodily healing by St. Caesarius in the passage just
referred to: the sick "person will "receive both health
v.— 46
of body and remission of sins, for the Holy Ghost has
given this promise through James". We have men-
tioned the witness of John Cassian, and the witness of
his master, St. Chrysostom, may be given here. In his
work " On the Priesthood " (III, vi, in P. G., XLVIII,
644) St. Chrysostom proves the dignity of the priest-
hood by showing, among other arguments, that the
priests by their spiritual ministry do more for us than
our own parents can do. Whereas our parents only
beget our bodies, which they cannot save from death
and disease, the priests regenerate our souls in baptism
and have power, moreover, to remit post^baptismal
sins; a power which St. Chrysostom proves by quoting
the text of St. James. This passage, hke that of Ori-
gen discussed above, has given rise to no little con-
troversy, and it is claimed by Mr. Puller (op. cit., pp.
45 sqq.) as a proof that St. Chrysostom, like Origen,
understood St. James as he (Mr. Puller) does. But if
this were so it would still be true that only clinical
penance is referred to, for it is only of the sick that
St. James can be understood to speak; and the main
point of Mr. Puller's argument, viz., that it is incon-
ceivable that St. Chrj'sostom should pass over the
Sacrament of Penance in such a context, would have
lost hardly any of its force. We know very little,
except by way of inference and assumption, about the
practice of clinical penance in that age; but we are
weU acquainted with canonical penance as adminis-
tered to those in good health, and it is to this obviously
we should expect the saint to refer, if he were bound to
speak of that sacrament at all. Mr. Puller is probably
aware how very difficult it would be to prove that
St. Chrysostom anj^vhere in his voluminous -nTitings
teaches clearly and indisputably the necessity of con-
fessing to a priest: in other words, that he recognizes
the Sacrament of Penance as Mr. Puller recognizes it;
and in view of this general obscurity on a point of
fundamental importance it is not at all so strange that
penance should be passed over here. We do not pre-
tend to be able to enter into St. Chrysostom's mind,
but assuming that he recognized both penance and
unction to be efficacious for the remission of post^
baptismal sins — and the text before us plainly states
this in regard to the unction — we may perhaps find
in the greater affinity of unction with baptism, and in
the particular points of contrast he is developing, a
reason why unction rather than penance is appealed
to. Regeneration by water in baptism is opposed to
parental generation, and saving by oil from spiritual
disease and eternal death to the inabihty of parents to
save their children from bodily disease and death. St.
Chrysostom might have added several other points of
contrast, but he confines himself in this context to
these two; and supposing, as one ought in all candour
to suppose, that he understood the te.xt of St. James as
we do, in its ob\'ious and natural sense, it is evident
that the prayer-unction, so much more akin to bap-
tism in the simplicity of its ritual character and so
naturally suggested by the mention of sickness and
death, supplied a much apter illustration of the
priestly power of remitting post-baptismal sins than
the judicial process of penance. And a single illus-
trative example was all that the context required.
Victor of Antioch (fifth century) is one of the an- cient witnesses who, in the general terms they employ in speaking of the Jacobean unction, anticipate more or less clearly the definition of a sacrament in the ' strict sense. Commenting on St. Mark, vi, 13, Victor quotes the text of St. James and adds: "Oil both cures pains and is a source of light and refreshment. The oil, then, used in anointing signifies both the mercy of God, and the cure of the disease, and the enlighten- ing of the heart. For it is manifest to all that the prayer effected all this; but the oil, as I think, was the symbol of these things" (Cramer, Caten. Gra?c. Pa- trum, I, p. 324). Here we have the distinction, so well known in later theology, between the signification,
