# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1858_S198
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

198 Martin Chemnitz on Extreme Unction.

worthy of note that the practice of the apostolic anointing without the
gift of making well was first transferred by the heretics to the dying, in
the belief that the dying, at their departure, are redeemed by this
anointing. This, however, was already reckoned among the heresies in the
time of Irenaeus. Dionysius, in chapter 7 of his Hierarchy, pours oil
over the dead man who is about to be buried, which was taken directly
from heathen custom, as Virgil says: "They wash and anoint the stiffened
body"*). And well known is Ennius's verse: "The good wife washed and
anointed Tarquinius's body"**). Apuleius calls this the last bath. This
piece of history is worth noting so that one may see how early all manner
of superstition concerning the anointing of the dying and the dead crept
into the Church. But in the time of Irenaeus such anointings were
condemned as heresies.

It is useful also to observe how the last anointing of the papists for
the departing finally came about. As long as the Church possessed the
gift of making well, the practice of anointing with plain oil remained as
well. Afterward some performed miraculous healings by means of
consecrated oil, as Rufinus writes in his Church History, Book 11,
Chapter 4, concerning the disciples of Antony: when a man was brought to
them who had long been paralyzed in all his limbs, and especially in his
feet, they anointed him with oil in the name of the Lord, and at once his
feet were made firm. Sulpicius Severus writes, Chapter 16, that Saint
Martin restored to health, by consecrated oil, a girl who had been so
paralyzed by a stroke that she was unfit for all bodily functions.
Socrates writes in the Tripartite History, Book 8, Chapter 1, that the
monk Benjamin had the gift of healing sicknesses by the mere touch of
his hand or with oil. But when miraculous healings no longer followed
the use of consecrated oil, Felix IV, about the year of the Lord 528,
in order that it might not fall out of use, instituted that the sick
should be anointed with oil before their departure. Afterward, in the
course of time, one thing and another was continually added, until at
last that papal sacrament was made of it with all its apparatus, which is
now put forward — as intimated by Christ and made known by the apostle
James — as so great and important a thing that it is claimed it cannot be
despised without grievous crime and grievous offense against the Holy
Spirit."
(Exam. Decretor. Concil. Tridentini, Part II, Loc. 12, fol. 561–571.)

*) "Corpusque lavant frigentis et ungunt." Aen. 6, 219.
**) "Tarquini corpus bona femina lavit et unxit."