Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/796

 EXTREME

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EXTREME

edition of the "Corpus Juris Canonici". This ex- plains the favour they enjoyed among canonists. For a critical text of these collections see Friedberg, "Corpus Juris Canonici" (Leipzig, 1879-1881), 11. (See Corpus Juris Canonici; Decretals, Papal.)

General introductions to tiie Corpus Juritt Canonici, by L.^u- RIN, Schneider, Schui/te, etc.; tlie manuals of canon law, es- pecially thope of VON SCHERER, WeRNZ. S.X.GMULLER, etc.; BicKELL, I't'ber die Enistehung und den heutigen Gcbrauch diT beidcn Extravagantensammlungen des Corpus juris canonici (Marburg, 1S25).

A. Van Hove.

Extreme Unction is a sacrament of the New Law instituted by Christ to give spiritual aid and comfort and perfect spiritual health, including, if need be, the remission of sins, and also, conditionally, to restore bodily health, to Christians who are seriously ill; it consists essentially in the unction by a priest of the body of the sick person, accompanied by a suitable form of words. The several points embodied in tliis descriptive definition will be more fully explained in the following sections into which this article is divided: I. Actual Rite of Administration; II. Name; III. Sacramental Efficacy of the Rite; IV. Matter and Form; V. Minister; VI. Subject; VII. Effects; VIII. Necessity; IX. Repetition; X. Reviviscence of the Sacrament.

I. Actual Rite op Administr.^tion. — As adminis- tered in the Western Church to-day accortling to the rite of the Roman Ritual, the sacrament consists (apart from certain non-essential prayers) in the unc- tion with oil, specially blessed by the bishop, of the organs of the five external senses (eyes, ears, nos- trils, lips, hands), of the feet, and, for men (where the custom exists and the condition of the patient per- mits of his being moved), of the loins or reins; and in the following form repeated at each unction with men- tion of the corresponding sense or faculiy: "Through this holy unction and His own most tender mercy may the Lord pardon thee whatever sins or faults thou hast committed [quklquid deliquistt] by sight [by hearing, smell, taste, touch, walking, carnal delectation]". The unction of the loins is generally, if not universally, omitted in English-speaking countries, and it is of course everywhere forbidden in case of women. To perform this rite fully takes an appreciable time, but in cases of urgent necessity, when death is likely to occur before it can be completed, it is sufficient to employ a single imction (on the forehead, for instance) with the general form: "Through this holy unction may the Lord pardon thee whatever sins or faults thou hast committed." By the decree of 25 April, 1906, the Holy Office has expressly approved of this form for cases of urgent necessity.

In the Eastern Orthodox (schismatical) Church this sacrament is normally administered by a number of priests (seven, five, three; but in case of necessity even one is enough) ; and it is the priests themselves who bless the oil on each occasion before use. The parts usually anointed are the forehead, chin, cheeks, hands, nostrils, and breast, and the form used is the follow- ing: " Holy Father, physician of souls and of bodies. Who didst send Thy Only-Begotten Son as the healer of every disease and our deliverer from death, heal also Thy servant N. from the bodily infirmity that holds liim, and make him live through the grace of Christ, by the intercessions of [certain saints who are named], and of all the saints." (Goar, Euchologion, p. 417.) Each of the priests who are present repeats the whole rite.

II. Name. — The name Extreme Unction did not be- come technical in the West till towards the end of the twelfth century, and has never become current in the East. Some theologians would explain its origin on the ground that this unction was regarded as the last in order of the sacramental or quasi-sacramental unctions, being preceded by those of baptism, con- firmation, and Holy orders; bvil, having regard to the

conditions prevailing at the time when the name was introduced (see below, VI), it is much more probable that it was intended originally to mean " the unction of those in extremis", i. e. of the dying, especially as the corresponding name, sacraiticntum exeuntium, came into common use during the same period. In previous ages the sacrament was known by a variety of names, e. g., the holy oil, or unction, of the sick; the unction or blessing of consecrated oil ; the unction of God; the office of the unction; etc. In the Eastern Church the later technical name is ei5xAaio>' (i. e. prayer-oil) ; but other names have been and still are in use, e. g. (\aiov aywv (holy), or iyyia-fiivov (consecrated), cXaioi', iXatov Xpiais, xP'tJ^M", etc.

III. Sacramental Efficacy op the Rite. — (A) Catholic Doctrine. — The Council of Trent (Sess. XIV, cap. i, De Extr. Unct.) teaches that "this sacred unc- tion of the sick was instituted by Christ Our Lord as a sacrament of the New Testament, truly and properly so called, being insinuated indeed in Mark [vi, 13] but com- mended to the faithful and promulgated " by James [Ep., v, 14, 15]; and the corresponding canon (can. i, De Extr. Unct.) anathematizes anyone who would say " that extreme unction is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ Our Lord, and promul- gated by the blessed Apostle James, but merely a rite received from the fathers, or a human invention". Already at the Council of Florence, in the Instruction of Eugene IV for the Armenians (Bull " Exultate Deo", 22 Nov., 1439), extreme unction is named as the fifth of the Seven Sacraments, and its matter and form, subject, minister, and effects described (Den- zinger, "Enchiridion", 10th ed., Freiburg, 190S, no. 700— old no. 595). Again, it was one of the three sacraments (the others being confirmation and matri- mony) which Wycliffites and Hussites were under sus- picion of contemning, and about which they were to be specially interrogated at the Council of Constance by order of Martin V (Bull "Inter cunctas", 22 Feb., 141S. — Denzinger, op. cit., no. 669 — old no. 563). Going back farther we find extreme unction enumer- ated among the sacraments in the profession of faith subscribed for the Greeks by Michael Palaeologus at the Council of Lyons in 1274 (Denzinger, no. 465 — old no. 3SS), and in tlie still earlier profession prescribed for converted Waldenses by Innocent III in 1208 (Denzinger, no. 424 — old no. 370). Thus, long before Trent — in fact from the time when the definition of a sacrament in the strict sense had been elaborated by the early Scholastics — extreme unction had been recognized and authoritatively proclaimed as a sacra- ment; but in Trent for the first time its institution by Christ Himself was defined. Among the older School- men there had been a difference of opinion on this point, some — as Hugh of St. Victor (De Sacram., Bk. II, pt. XV, c. ii), Peter Lombard (Sent., IV, dist. xxiii), St. Bonaventure (Comm. in Sent., loc. cit., art. i, Q. ii), and others — holding against the more com- mon view that this sacrament had been instituted by the Apostles after the Descent of the Holy Ghost and under His inspiration. But since Trent it must be held as a doctrine of Catholic faith that Christ is at least the mediate author of ex- treme unction, i. e., that it is by His proper author- ity as Ciod-Man that the prayer-unction has become an efficacious sign of grace; and theologians almost unan- imously maintain that we must hold it to be at least certain that Christ was in some sense the immediate author of this sacrament, i.e., that He Himself while on earth commissioned the Apostles to employ some such sign for conferring special graces, without, however, necessarily specifying the matter and form to be used. In other words, immediate institution by Christ is compatible with a mere generic determination by Him of the pliysioal elements of the sacrament.

The toacliiTig of the Coinicil of Trent is directed chiefly against the Reformers of the sixteenth century.