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baptismal sins, a necessity recognized in Catholic
teaching, Bede does not deny that the unction also may
be efficacious in remitting them, or at least in complet-
ing their remission, or in remitting the lighter daily
sins which need not be confessed. The bodily sickness
which the unction is intended to heal is regarded by
St. Bede as being, often at any rate, the effect of sin;
and it is interesting to notice that Amalarius of Metz,
writing a century later (De Eccles. Offic, I, xii, in P.
L., (J V, 1011 .s(|.) , with this passage of Betle before him,
expressly attributes to the unction not only the heal-
ing of sicliness due to the unworthy reception of the
Eucharist, but the remission of daily sins: "What
saves the sick is manifestly the prayer of faith, of
which the sign is the unction of oil. If those whom the
unction of oil, i. e. the grace of God through the prayer
of the priest, assists are sick for the reason that they
eat the Body of the Lord unworthily, it is right that
the consecration [of the oil] of which there is question
should be associated with the consecration of the Body
and Blood of the Lord, which takes place in commemo-
ration of the Passion of Christ, by Whom the author of
sin has been eternally vanquished. The Passion of
Christ destroyed the author of death; His grace,
which is signified by the unction of oil, has destroyed
his arms, which are daily sins."
The confusing way in which St. Bede introduces penance in connexion with the text of St. James is intelligible enough when we remember that the unc- tion was regarded and atlministered as a complement of the Sacrament of Penance, and that no formal ques- tion had yet been raised about their respective inde- pendent effects. In the circumstances of the age it was more important to insist on the necessity of confession than to discuss with critical minuteness the effects of the unction, and one had to be careful not to allow the text of St. James to be misunderstood as if it dispensed with this necessity for the sick sinner. The passage in St. Bede merely proves that he was preoccupied with some such idea in approaching the text of St. James. Paschasius Radbertus (writing about 831) says from the same standpoint that "according to the Apostle when anyone is sick, recourse is to be had in the first place to confession of sins, then to the prayer of many, then to the sanctification of the unction [or, the unc- tion of sanctification] " (De Corp. et Sang. Domini, c. viii, in P. L., CXX, 1292); and the same writer, in what he tells us of the death of his abbot, St. Adelliard of Corbie, testifies to the prevalence of an opinion that it was only those in sins who had need of the unction. The assembled monks, who regarded the holy abbot as " free from the burdens of sins ", doubted w'hether they should procure the Apostolic unction for him. But the saint, overhearing the debate, demanded that it should be given at once, and with his dying breath exclaimed: " Now dismiss thy servant in peace, because I have received all the sacraments of Thy mystery" (P. L., CXX, 1547).
As proving the uninterrupted universality during this period of the practice of the Jacobean rite, with a clear indication in some instances of its strictly sacra- mental efficacy, we shall add some further testimonies from writers, synods, and the precepts of particular bishops. As doubts may be raised regarding the age of any particular expression in the early medieval liturgies, we shall omit all reference to them. There is all the less need to be exhaustive as the adversaries of Catholic teaching are compelled to admit that from the eighth century onwards the strictly sacramental conception of the Jacobean rite emerges clearly in the writings and legislation of both the Eastern and the Western Churches. Havmo, Bishop of Halberstadt (841-S53), in his Homily on Luke, Lx, 6 (P. L., CXVIII, 573), and Amnio, Bishop of Lyons (about 841), in his letter to Theobald (P. L., CXVI, 82), speak of the unction of the sick as an Apostolic practice. Prudentius, Bishop of Treves (about 843-861), tells
how the holy virgin Maura asked to receive from his
own hands " the Sacraments of the Eucharist and of
Extreme Unction" (P. L., CXV, 1374; cf. Acta SS.,
21 Sept., p. 272); and Jonas, Bishop of Orleans, in liis
"Institutio Laicalis" (about 829), after reprobating
the popular practice of recurring in sickness to magical
remedies, says: "It is obligatory on anyone who is
sick to demand, not from wizards and witches, but
from the Church and her priests, the unction of sancti-
fied oil, a remedy which [as coming] from Our Lord
Jesus Christ will benefit him not only in body but in
soul" (III, xiv, in P. L., CVI, 122 sq.). Already the
Second Council of Chalon-sur-Saone (813), in its forty-
eighth canon, had prescribed as obligatory the unction
enjoined by St. James, "since a medicine of this kind
which heals the sicknesses of soul and of body is not to
be lightly esteemed" (Hardouin, IV, 1040). The
Council of Aachen in 836 warns the priest not to
neglect giving penance and unction to the sick person
(once his illness becomes serious), and when the end is
seen to be imminent the soul is to be commended to
God "more sacerdotali cum acceptione sacrte com-
munionis" (cap. ii, can. v, ibid., 1397). The First
Council of Mainz (847), held under the presidency of
Rhabanus Maurus (cap. xxvi), prescribed in the same
order the administration of penance, unction, and the
Viaticum (Hardouin, V, 13); while the Council of
Pavia (850), legislating, as seems clear from the word-
ing of the capitulary (viii), according to the tradi-
tional interpretation of Pope Innocent's letter to
Decentius (see above), directs preachers to be sedulous
in instructing the faithful regarding "that salutary
sacrament which James the Apostle commends . . .
a truly great and very much to be desired mystery, by
which, if asked for with faith, both sins are remitted
and as a consequence corporal health restored " (ibid.,
Ill, 27; Denzinger, Freiburg, 1908, no. 315).
The statutes attributed t;o St. Sonnatius, Arch- bishop of Reims (about 600-631), and which are cer- tainly anterior to the ninth century, direct (no. 15) that " extreme unction is to be brought to the sick person who asks for it", and " that the pastor himself IS to visit him often, animating and duly preparing him for future glory" (P. L., LXXX, 445; cf. Hefele, Concihengesch., Ill, 77). The fourth of the canons promulgated (about 745) by St. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany (see Hefele, III, 580 sq.), forbids priests to go on a journey " without the chrism, and the blessed oil, and the Eucharist ", so that in any emergency they may be ready to offer their ministrations; and the twentj'-ninth orders all priests to have the oil of the sick always with them and to warn the sick faithful to apply tor the unction (P. L., LXXXIX, 821 sq.). In the " Excerptiones " of Egbert, Archbishop of York (732-766), the unction is mentioned between penance and the Eucharist, and ordered to be diligently admin- istered (P. L., LXXXIX, 382). But no writer of this period treats of the unction so fully as, and none more undeniably regards it as a true sacrament in the strict sense than, Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans, and with him we will conclude our list of witnesses. A long section of his second Capitulare, published in 789, is taken up with the subject (P. L., CV, 220 sq.): " Priests are also to be admonished regarding the unction of the sick, and penance, and the Viaticum, lest anyone should die without the Viaticum." Penance is to be given first, and then, " if the sickness allow it, " the patient is to be carried to the church, where the unction and Holy Communion are to be given. Theodulf describes the unction in detail, ordering fifteen, or three times five, crosses to be made with the oil to symbolize the Trinity and the five senses, but noting at the same time that the practice varies as to the number of anointings and the parts anointed. He quotes with approval the form used by the Greeks while anointing, in which re- mission of sins is expressly mentioned; and so clearly is the unction in his view intended as a preparation for
