Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/419

 immediately adds: Is any sick among you? 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 the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him (James v. 14, 15). From these words there are disclosed to us at once the divine origin and its efficacy, as a sacrament. (1) The divine origin: for on the one hand it is evident from the context that the apostle does not speak of unction with oil, as of something new, which the Christians did not know before, but points out to them this means of healing, as something which has existed before and which was universally known to them, and which he commands them to use in case of sickness. On the other hand, it is evident that the apostles never preached anything of themselves (Gal. i. 11, 12), but taught only what they had been commanded by our Lord Jesus (Matt. xxviii. 20), and what the Divine Spirit inspired them with (John xvi. 13); and it is known that they called themselves the servants of Christ, and stewards, and not establishers, of divine sacraments (1 Cor. iv. 1). Consequently unction with oil, which is commanded to the Christians by St. James, as a sacramental healing of diseases, both bodily and spiritual, was commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ himself and by the Divine Spirit. We do not find any statement in Scripture at what particular time our Lord established this sacrament, for many things which he taught and did on earth are not transmitted in writing (John xxi. 25). But it is most natural to think that this sacrament, like two others (baptism and repentance), through which remission of sins is granted, was established by our Lord after his resurrection, when all power was given unto him in heaven and in earth (Matt. xxviii. 18), and when he showed himself to the apostles for forty days and spoke to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God (Acts i. 3), that