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 EXTREME

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EXTREME

Luther denied the sacramentality of extreme unction and classed it among rites that are of human or eccle- siastical institution (De Captivit. Babylonica, cap. de extr. unct.). Calvin had nothing but contempt and ridicule for this sacrament, which he described as a piece of "histrionic hypocrisy" (Instit., IV, xLx, 18). He did not deny that the Jacobean rite may have been a sacrament in the Early Church, but held that it was a mere temporary institution which had lost all its efficacy since the charisma of healing had ceased (Comm. in Ep. Jacobi, v, 14, 15). The same position is taken up in the confessions of the Lutheran and Calvinistic bodies. In the first edition (1551) of the Edwardine Prayer Book for the reformed Anglican Church the rite of unction for the sick, with prayers that are clearly Catholic in tone, was retained; but in the second edition (1552) this rite was omitted, and the general teaching on the sacraments shows clearly enough the intention of denying that extreme unction is a sacrament. The same is to be said of the other Protestant bodies, and down to our day the denial of the Tridentine doctrine on extreme unction has been one of the facts that go to make up the negative unan- imity of Protestantism. At the present time, how- ever, there has been a revival more or less among Anglicans of Catholic teaching and practice. " Some of our clergy", writes Mr. Puller (Anointing of the Sick in Scripture and Tradition, London, 1904), "see- ing the plain injunction about L^nction in the pages of the New Testament, jump hastily to the conclusion that the Roman teaching and practice in regard to Unction is right, and seek to revive the use of tJnction as a channel of sanctifying grace, believing that grace is imparted sacramentally through the oil as a prepar- ation for death" (p. 307). Mr. Puller himself is not prepared to go so far, though he pleatls for the revival of the Jacobean unction, which he regards as a mere sacramental instituted for the supernatural healing of botlily sickness only. His more advanced friends can appeal to the authority of one of their classical WTiters, Bishop Forbes of Brechin, who admits (Ex- position of the XXXIX Articles, vol. II, p. 463) that " the unction of the sick is the Lost Pleiad of the An- glican firmament. . . . There has been practically lost an apostolic practice, whereby, in case of grievous sickness, the faithful were anointed and prayed over, for the forgiveness of their sins, and to restore them, if God so willed, or to give them spiritual support in their maladies".

Previous to the Reformation there appears to have been no definite heresy relating to this sacrament in particular. The Albigenses are said to have rejected it, the meaning probably being that its rejection, like that of other sacraments, was logically implied in their principles. The abuses connected with its administra- tion which prevailed in the twelfth and thirteenth cen- turies and which tended to make it accessible only to the rich, gave the Waldenses a pretext for denoun- cing it as the ultima supcrbia (cf. Preger, Beitrage zur Gesch. der Waldenser im M. A., pp. 66 sqq.). That the Wycliffites and Hussites were suspected of contemn- ing extreme unction is clear from the interrogatory already referred to, but the present writer has failed to discover any evidence of its specific rejection by these heretics.

(B) Pronf of CaOwlic Doctrine jrom Holij Scripture. — In this connexion there are only two texts to be dis- cussed — Mark, vi, 13, and James, v, 14, 1.5 — and the first of these may be disposed of briefly. Some ancient writers (Victor of Antioch, Theophylactus, Euthym- ius, St. Bedo, and other.s) and not a few Schola.stics saw a reference to this sacrament in this text of St. Mark, and some of them took it to be a record of its institution by Christ or at least a proof of His promise or intention to institute it. Some post-Tridentine theologians also (Maldonatus, de Sainte-Beuve, Berti, Mariana, and among recent writers, but in a modified

form, Schell) have maintained that the unction here mentioned was sacramental. But the great majority of theologians and commentators have denied the sac- ramentahty of this unction on the grounds: (1) that there is mention only of bodily healing as its effect (cf. Matt., X, 1; Luke, ix, 1, 2); (2) that many of those anointed had probably not received Christian baptism ; (3) that the Apostles had not yet been ordained priests; and (4) that penance, of which extreme unc- tion is the complement, had not yet been instituted as a sacrament. Hence the guarded statement of the Council of Trent that extreme unction as a sacrament is merely " insinuated " in St. Mark, i. e. hinted at or prefigured in the miraculous unction which the Apos- tles employed, just as Christian baptism had been pre- figured by the baptism of John.

The text of St. James reads: " Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests 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 [<rw<rei] the sick man: and the Lord shall raise him up [iyepel]: and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him." It is not seriously disputed that there is question here of those who are physically ill, and of them alone; and that the sickness is sup- posed to be grave is conveyed by the word KafimpTa and by the injunction to have the priests called in; presumably the sick person cannot go to them. That by " the priests of the church " are meant the hierarchical clergy, and not merely elders in the sense of those of mature age, is also abundantly clear. The expression Tovs wpea^vT^povs, even if used alone, would naturally admit no other meaning, in accordance with the usage of the Acts, Pastoral E])istles, antl I Peter (v) ; but the addition of t^s iKKXrjalas excludes the possibility of doubt (cf. Acts, XX, 17). The priests are to pray over the sick man, anointing him with oil. Here we have the physical elements necessary to constitute a sacra- ment in the strict sense: oil as remote matter, like water in baptism; the anointing as proximate matter, like immersion or infusion in baptism; and the accom- panying prayer as form. This rite will therefore be a true sacrament if it has the sanction of Christ's au- thority, and is intended by its own operation to confer grace on the sick person, to work for his spiritual bene- fit. But the words " in the name of the Lonl " here mean " by the power and authority of Christ ", which is the same as to say that St. James clearly implies the Divine institution of the rite he enjoins. To take these words as referring to a mere invocation of Christ's name — which is the only alternative interpretation — would be to see in them a needless and confusing repe- tition of the injunction "let them pray over him". But is this rite recommended by St. James as an opera- tive sign of grace? It may be admitted that the words " the prayer of faith shall save the sick man; and the Lord shall raise him up", taken by themselves and apart from the context, might possibly be applied to mere bodily healing; but the words that follow, "and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him ", speak ex- pressly of a spiritual effect involving the bestowal of grace. This being so, and it being further assumed that the remission of sins is given by St. James as an effect of the prayer-unction, nothing is more reason- able than to hold that St. James is thinking of spiritual as well as of bodily effects when he speaks of the sick man being "saved" and "raised up".

It cannot be denied that in accordance with New- Testament usage the words in question (esijecially the first) are capable of conveying this twofold meaning, and it is much more natural in the present context to suppose that they do convey it. A few verses further on the predominating spiritual and eschatological con- notation of "saving" in St. James's mind emerges clearly in the expression, "shall save his soul from death" (v, 20), and without necessarily excluding a reference to deliverance from bodily death in verse 15,