ment, having become partakers and communicants of Christ. And the body indeed is anointed with visible oil, but the soul sanctified with the Holy and life-giving Spirit. Having had this holy chrism vouchsafed to you, ye are called Christians, verifying the name by your new-birth. For, before this, ye deserved not this title, but were on your way towards becoming Christians." The language of St. Gregory of Nazianzum has been already noticed. Theodoret, in Cant. c. 1., says in like manner, "They who are received into Baptism after the renunciation of Satan and the confession of faith, being anointed with the Chrism of the spiritual ointment, as with a royal mark, under this visible form of ointment receive the invisible grace of the most Holy Spirit." And Johannes Damascenus de fide L iv. c. 10. "Oil is added to Baptism, signifying anointing and making us Christs, and announcing to us the mercy of God through the Holy Spirit." More to this purpose may be seen ap. Bingham Christian Antiq. B. x. c. 9. B. xii. c. 1 and 3. and Bellarmine de controvv. t. ii. p. 411. sqq. (from whom several of the above quotations are taken, but whose quotations, like those of all Romanist writers, require sifting,) and Suicer art. Βάπτισμα, p. 633. Ἕλαιον, p. 1077. and Χρίσμα. I have put these together only to show how universal the practice of anointing, as a part of Baptism, was in the early Church, and consequently how probable it is that St. John alluded to some actual rite of Baptism. Besides the Lectionary prefixed to Cyril's homily, the text is directly applied to Baptism by a Scholiast ap. Matthaei N. T. ad loc. p. 220.
Note (H), on page 44.
This reference to the rite of interrogating candidates for Baptism, as to their faith and their purpose in coming to Holy Baptism, appears to have been recognized by the Fathers generally, as St. Peter's meaning (1 Ep. iii. 21), as also to be the only exposition which gives an adequate sense to ἐπερώτημα; for had St. Peter meant simply to insist on the necessity of having a good conscience, it had seemed sufficient had καλὴ ξυνείδησις alone stood, whereas, the addition of ἐπερώτημα "questioning," appears to imply some more formal interrogatory as to the faith of the individual, such as that implied in Philip's words, "If thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest." (Acts viii. 37.) The words of Tertullian, de resur. Carnis, c. 48, "The soul is sanctified, not by the washing, but by the answering" (Anima non lavatione sed respoiisione sancitur), are not only a comment on St. Peter's words, (as Beza says, ad loc), but almost an authoritative one. The Syriac Version, "confessing God with a pure conscience," gives us the tradition of the Eastern Church at an early period; at least, it again
