# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1858_S193
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Lehre und Wehre.

Volume IV.    July 1858.    No. 7.

Martin Chemnitz on Extreme Unction.

(Conclusion.)

"But since the description in Mark is somewhat obscure (for he narrates
only the fact, but does not mention the command of Christ according to
which they did this), it is said that the fuller exposition of it must
be taken from James (5:14-15); for there is no doubt that he, as an
apostle and indeed as the Lord's brother, knew best what Christ had
instituted concerning the anointing, what the apostles did, and how and
to what end they did it. Let us, then, hear whether James confirms that
Christ instituted such an anointing as was meant to be a general
sacrament of this kind for the dying, as the description of the papists
would have it.

The ancient interpreters say, and even the Tridentine decree concedes,
that James speaks of no other anointing than that very one described at
Mark 6:13. But that this belongs to the gift of healing the evangelists
show clearly and plainly; and grammar proves that the papist
interpretation is false. For James makes use of two words, which
without dispute refer to bodily health. The first is ἐγείρειν, which
Christ uses when the bedridden and those confined to the sickbed are so
restored that they can rise up and walk about, Matt. 9:5, Mark 1:31 [sic
"81" as printed], 9:27, John 5:8. The other word is ἰᾶσθαι, which is
very often used of healings; and indeed the gift of healing that
existed in the early church is given with this very word, 1 Cor. 12:9.
From which it may also be seen that the third word, σώζεσθαι, as it is
often used, is to be understood of bodily healings, Matt. 9:22, Mark
5:34, 6:56, Luke 8:48. James, then, speaks, just as Mark does, of the
gift of healing, which is also described at 1 Cor. 12:9, and indeed
with the same word that James himself uses.

Nor was it open to James, as an apostle, to make that anointing into a
different anointing, with a different purpose, use, and effect, than it
had been appointed by Christ at Mark 6:13 and applied by the apostles.