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the material ointment, when he says, (Lib. i. ad Autolyc.) "We are called Christians, because we are anointed with the oil of God;" for, that it is a spiritual unction also, an unction of light and of the Spirit of God, is but what is affirmed by all the like writers, and belonged to it, as a part of Baptism. And thus we come so near to the time, when St. John wrote his Epistle, that it seems far the most probable, on this ground alone, that in the words (1 Ep. ii. 20. 27.) he alluded to this rite. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in discoursing on this portion of Baptism, preaches on this passage of St. John, as being the Lectionary or Lesson appointed by the Church. It were needless to mention later authors, but for the uniformity of the distinction, whereby regeneration is attributed to the washing of the water, the gifts of the Spirit, (as in this passage of St. John,) to the anointing, as a part of Baptism;—an agreement, which, in so many different churches, implies a common source of tradition: although it need not be said that in other places they speak of the Holy Spirit as God's gift in Baptism as a whole. Thus Cyprian, Ep. 70. or rather the thirty-one African Bishops, (on the baptizing of heretics,) "It is necessary that he who is baptized should also be anointed, that having received the chrism, i.e. the anointing, he may be the anointed of God, and have in him the grace of Christ." And Ambrose de Sacram. L. iii. c. 1. "Yesterday we spoke of the fountain, whose form is a sort of sepulchre, into which, believing in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we are received, and buried, and rise, i.e. are raised again. But thou receivest the μύρον, i.e. the ointment upon the head, and why? because the wisdom of the wise is in his head, as Solomon saith; for wisdom without grace is but a lifeless thing; but when it hath received grace, then its work beginneth to be perfected. This is called regeneration." And S. Cyril, in his discourse on the Chrism, (Catech. Mystag. iii. init.) begins thus: "Having been baptized into Christ, and having put on Christ, ye have been conformed to the Son of God; for God, having predestinated us to the adoption of sons, conformed us to the body of the glory of Christ. Having then been partakers of Christ, ye are rightly called Christs (anointed); and of you has God said, 'touch not my Christs.' But ye became Christs, having received the representation of the Holy Spirit, and all things have, as in an image, taken place in you, since ye are images of Christ. For as when He ascended from the water, the essential descent of the Holy Spirit upon Him took place, the Like resting upon the Like, so when ye ascended from the pool of the holy streams, the chrism was given you, the emblem of that wherewith Christ was anointed, and this is the Holy Spirit. He was anointed with the spiritual oil of gladness, (i.e. with the Holy Spirit, so called because He is the author of spiritual gladness,) and ye were anointed with oint-