Note 152 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
No doubt oil specially pure, and vegetable; we may safely say olive oil, for purposes of chrism. Theodore of Canterbury informs us (Theodore and Wilfrith, S.P.C.K. p. 180) that “according to the Greeks a presbyter can ... make the oil for exorcism and the chrism for the sick, if necessary; but according to the Romans only a bishop can do so”. Hence the mention of bishops in the letter of Alcuin. See also page 245, note 2.