Extreme unction, sacrament of the Catholic Church, instituted for the spiritual and physical help of the sick, to whom it is administered by anointing them on various parts of the body with holy oil blessed by the bishop, accompanied by various prayers which express the purpose and meaning of these anointings. The matter of the sacrament is the oil and its form the prayers. See Sacrament [Sacrament (Theology), Sacraments (Ecclesiastical History)], Unction, Form, Matter, etc.

Protestants removed extreme unction from the list of sacraments, contrary to the formal witness of the Scriptures and the enduring practice of the Church through sixteen centuries.

It is called extreme unction , because it is the last of the sacraments a Christian receives, or which is administered only to those who are in extremis or at least dangerously ill. In the thirteenth century it was called the anointing of the sick, unctio infirmorum , and it was administered before the viaticum (communion given the dying); a custom which, according to Father Mabillon, was changed only in the thirteenth century, but which has been preserved or re-established since then in certain churches, like those in Paris.

The reasons this learned Benedictine gives for this change, is that at that time there arose several erroneous opinions, which were condemned by several councils in England. They believed, for example, that those who had received this sacrament once, if they regained their health, ought no longer have relations with their wives, nor take any food, nor go about barefoot: although all these ideas were false and without foundation, in order not to scandalize the simple folk, they preferred to wait until one was near death to administer this sacrament; and this custom prevailed. One can consult on this question the councils of Worcester and of Exeter of 1287 ; the council of Winchester of 1308 ; and Father Mabillon, act. SS. bened. soc. iii. page 1 .

In the past, the form of extreme unction was precise and certain; as seems clear from the form in the Ambrosian rite, cited by Saint Thomas, Saint Bonaventure, Richard of Saint Victor, etc. Arcudius, book V, on extreme unction chapter v ., reports on similar forms used among the Greeks: however generally among them it was deprecative, or in prayer form; the one which we read in the euchologue, page 417 , begins with these words, Pater sancte, animarum et corporum medice [Holy father, doctor of souls and bodies [1]], etc. The form in the Latin church has also been depreciative for more than 600 years; one finds it in an ancient ritual manuscript from Jumiège, which is at least that old; Per istam unctionem et suam piissimam misericordiam indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid peccasti per visum , etc. [Through this holy anointing and His most tender mercy the Lord pardon thee whatever sins or faults thou hast committed by sight, etc.], which has been found in all the rituals composed since then; and also other prayers, related to the anointing of different parts of the body of the sick person.

This sacrament is employed in the Greek church and throughout the East, under the name holy oil . Those in the East administer it, in some circumstances different from those in the Latin church; for taking literally these words of the apostle James in his epistle, chapter v, verse 4, Infirmatur quis in vobis? Inducat presbyteros ecclesiae, et orent super eum ungentes eum oleo in nomine Domini [Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord [2]], etc., they do not wait for the sick person to be in danger of death nor even to be in danger; but the sick themselves go to the church, where this sacrament is administered to them each time they are ill; which is what Arcudius, book v on extreme unction, final chapter , criticizes them about. However, Father Goar, recognizing the fact of this practice in the eastern churches, says that this anointing is not sacramental, but ceremonial, and that it is given to the sick with the intention of restoring their health; as one has sometimes seen in the Latin church, where bishops and saintly people use holy oil for the same reason, as appears in a letter from Innocent I to Decentius, recorded in tome II of the councils, page 1248 . Besides that, the Greeks assemble several priests and as many as seven, for mystical and allegorical reasons, as one can see in Arcudius and in Simeon of Thessalonica. It seems from the sacramentary of Saint Gregory, in the edition of Father Menard, page 253 , that in the Latin church they also used several priests; but the current custom is that only one priest validly confers this sacrament.

Father Dandini, in his voyage to Mount Lebanon, distinguishes between two sorts of anointing among the Maronites; one that they call the unction with oil of the lamp : but this anointing, he says, is not the anointing of the sacrament which ordinarily is administered only to the sick who are in extremis; because this oil is consecrated by a priest only, and it is given to all those who come forward, whether healthy or sick, even to the officiating priest. The other type of anointing, according to this author, is only for the sick; it is performed with oil which the bishop alone consecrates on Holy Thursday, and this is what appears to be their sacramental anointing.

But this anointing with oil of the lamp is observed not only among the Maronites, but in the entire eastern church, which uses it with great respect. It does not even appear that they distinguish it from the sacrament of extreme unction ; does not Father Goar observe that they consider it a simple ceremony for those who are healthy and a sacrament for the sick? They have in large churches a lamp in which they keep oil for the sick, and they call this lamp the lamp of oil joined to prayer .

Notes

1. [Translation courtesy of Ruth Scodel.]

2. [James 5:14, Authorized (King James) Version.]