Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/The Decretals/The Epistles of Pope Fabian/To All the Bishops of the East/Chapter 1

I.

That new chrism should be made every year, and the old be burnt.

Now, among other matters, in your letter we find it stated that certain bishops of your district adopt a different practice from yours and ours, and do not prepare the chrism at the Lord&#8217;s supper every year, but keep it in use for two or three, making such a supply of the holy chrism once for all.&#160; For they say, as we find in the letter referred to, that balsam cannot be got every year; and besides that, even though it were got, there would be no necessity for preparing chrism every year, but that, so long as the one preparation of chrism is sufficiently large, they have no need to make another.&#160; They are in error, however, who think so; and in making such statements they speak like madmen rather than men in their right senses.&#160; For on that day the Lord Jesus, after supping with His disciples, and washing their feet, according to the tradition which our predecessors received from the holy apostles and left to us, taught them to prepare the chrism.&#160; That washing of their feet signifies our baptism, as it is completed and confirmed by the unction of the holy chrism.&#160; For as the solemn observance of that day is to be kept every year, so the preparing of that holy chrism is to be attended to every year, and it is to be renewed from year to year and given to the faithful.&#160; For the material of this new sacrament is to be made anew every year, and on the day already named; and the old supply is to be burned in the holy churches.&#160; These things we have received from the holy apostles and their successors, and we commit them to your keeping.&#160; The holy church of Rome and that of Antioch have been guardians of these things from the times of the apostles:&#160; these things also the churches of Jerusalem and Ephesus maintain.&#160; Presiding over these churches, the apostles taught these things, and ordained that the old chrism should be burnt, and permitted them to use it no longer than one year, and commanded them thereafter to use the new, and not the old material.&#160; If any one, therefore, ventures to go against these things, let him understand that the door of indulgence is barred against him on your part and on that of all right-minded men:&#160; for the perverse doctrine of most depraved minds, while it uses the reins too indulgently, slips into the sin of presumption; and it can by no means be cast out, unless it is cleared of all support and correction on the part of the intelligent.&#160; And those usages which the holy Church throughout the whole world uniformly observes with respect to the divine mysteries, and towards the subjects of baptism, are not to be regarded with indifferent concern, lest we make way for purposeless efforts and superstitions.&#160; We ought not, therefore, to bring over the untaught minds of the faithful to such practices as we have named, because they should be instructed rather than played upon.&#160; For good deeds make for our happiness, and evil deeds prick us with the stings of sorrow.&#160; But here, however we are situated, we are among the hands of robbers and the teeth of raging wolves, and the contumacious are put in the place of the true sheep.&#160; And it is by the barking of the dogs and the staff of the shepherd that the fury of the wolves is checked.&#160; Those wounds, moreover, which cannot be healed by remedies, must be cut out with the knife.&#160; Neither can we keep silence, for, in seeking here to call back some from things unlawful, we are impelled by the instinct of our office, having been set on the watch-towers by the Lord with this object, that we should prove the diligence of our watchfulness by checking things that should be prohibited, and deciding for things that should be observed.