Note N57 — St. PETER (continued 8)

The Ceremony of anointing with Oil the Forehead, and likewise the Organs of the Five Senses, in those who had been baptized, is undoubtedly very antient. Tertullian, who lived in the Latter-end of the Second Century, speaks of it as a Ceremony universally practised and established[1]. St. Cyprian[2], who flourished Fifty Years after, St. Ambrose[3], St. Austin[4], St. Jerom[5], and the other Fathers, describe it as a Ceremony, by which the Holy Ghost was given to those who had been baptized, and consequently which none but Bishops could administer, they being the Successors of the Apostles, to whom alone that Power was granted. For the Fathers, generally speaking, and other antient Writers, suppose this, and the Imposition of Hands, by which the Holy Ghost was given by the Apostles to those who were baptized[6], to be one and the same Ceremony. The Oil employed on this Occasion was, as early as the Third Century, solemnly consecrated, kept in the Churches or Places where the Faithful met, and held by them in great Veneration[7]. This gave Rise, in the following Century, to many superstitious Practices, and Miracles were said to have been wrought by the holy Oil, to warrant such Practices, and confound those who thought it unlawful to comply with them. A very remarkable Miracle of this Nature is gravely related by Optatus Milevitanus[8], who writ about the middle of the Fourth Century. But, in the Time of the Apostles, the Whole of this Ceremony consisted in the Imposition of Hands: Then laid they their Hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. Not a Word of Oil, of Chrism, of Unction, of signing with Oil on the Forehead in the Form of a Cross, and much less of a Blow given by the Bishop on the Cheek to the Person that is confirmed, though these are now all deemed, in the Church of Rome, material Parts of this Ceremony. As such Rites were unknown to, and unpractised by, the Apostles, it matters little how early they were introduced after their Time. And here I cannot help observing, that the Roman Catholics themselves have not thought fit to adopt all the Ceremonies used on this Occasion, and recommended by the Fathers. For, in Innocent’s Time, the Person confirmed was not only anointed on the Forehead, but on other Parts; on the Forehead by the Bishop, on other Parts by the Priests. The other Parts were, as we gather from Cyril Bishop of Jerusalem[9], the Eyes, Ears, Nose, Mouth, Hands, and Feet. The anointing of these Parts was, in the Opinion of that Father, no less fraught with Mysteries than the anointing of the Forehead; and yet the former Unction, notwithstanding its Antiquity, and all the Mysteries it symbolized, has been long since omitted, as altogether unnecessary. They might in like manner have omitted all the rest, and contented themselves, as the Apostles did, with the bare Imposition of Hands.