.

only a death, a washing away of sin, a preparation. The gift of the Holy Spirit by the chrism completed the baptism, and made it the birth "of water and of the Spirit," without which no one could enter the kingdom of God. The Greek Church, the minor churches of Western Asia, the Coptic Church, attach the same importance to the use of chrism, and follow closely the usage of the early churches.1

Before submitting the testimony of numerous leaders of these early churches to the importance of chrism as the most essential part of baptism, it is well also to see that they acknowledged that exorcism and trine immersion and chrism were not taught in the New Testament, but were matters of tradition only.

TERTULLIAN († A.D. 220):

"When we are going to enter the water, but a little before, in the presence of the congregation and under the hand of the president, we solemnly profess that we disown the devil, his pomp and his angels. Hereupon we are thrice immersed, making a somewhat ampler pledge than the Lord has appointed in the gospel." "For these and similar rules, if thou requirest a law in the Scriptures, thou shalt find none. Tradition will be pleaded to thee as originating them, custom as confirming them, and faith as observing them."-Crown, & 3, 4.

BASIL († A.D. 379):

"We bless the water of baptism and the oil of unction, him also who receives baptism. By what Scripture? Is it not by a silent and secret tradition? The unction with oil, what text has taught it? Now a man is immersed thrice, whence is it taken? The other things done in baptism, as the renunciation of Satan and his angels, where do we have it in Scripture? Is it not from this private and secret doctrine which our fathers preserved in a discreet and incurious silence?"—On the Holy Spirit, Chap. xxvii.

The following authors are placed in their chronological order, to show the very early and continued universal teaching in these Christian churches. Their works are

1 Asseman, Bibliotheca Orientalis, 5 vols. Rome, 1753; Renaudot, Liturgiarum Orientalium, Collectio, 2 vols., Frankfurt, 1847. Catechism of the Coptic Church, London, 1892.

most easily found in Migne's "Patrologia Græca et Latina."

THEOPHILUS of Antioch († A.D. 181):

"We are called Christians on this account, because we are anointed with the oil of God."-To Autolycus, Bk. i. 12.

TERTULLIAN († 220), Africa and Rome:

"When we have come out from the bath [i.e. baptism] we are thoroughly anointed with a blessed unction; [a practice derived] from the old discipline, wherein, on entering the priesthood men were wont to be anointed with oil from a horn, ever since Aaron was anointed by Moses; whence Aaron is called 'Christ' [anointed] from the chrism which is the unction. . . . Thus, too, in our case the unction runs down our flesh carnally, but profits spiritually."-Baptism, Chap. vii.

HIPPOLYTUS († 239), Rome:

"What was the oil but the power of the Holy Spirit, with which believers are anointed, as with ointment, after the laver of washing.”—On Susannah, iii. 18.

ORIGEN († 254), Palestine:

"The gift of the grace of the Spirit is signified by the figure of oil, so that he who is turned away from sin may obtain not only cleansing, but also be filled with the Spirit."-On Leviticus, Hom. viii. 11.

CYPRIAN of Carthage († 258):

"Water alone is not able to cleanse away sins and to sanctify a man, unless he have also the Holy Spirit. . . . There cannot be baptism without the Spirit."-Letter 1xxiii, or lxxiv.

"It is necessary that he who is baptized should be anointed; so that, having received the chrism, that is, the anointing, he may be anointed of God, and have in him the grace of Christ."—Letter 1xix.

Apostolic Constitutions (A.D. 350-400) Syria?

"This baptism is given into the death of Jesus; the water is instead of the burial, and the oil instead of the Holy Spirit; the seal instead of the cross; the chrism is the confirmation of the confession."-Bk. iii, 17.

Synod of Laodicea (A.D. 343?–381?):

"The baptized shall, after baptism, be anointed with the heavenly chrism, and be partakers of the kingdom of Christ.”—Canon xlviii.1 ATHANASIUS († 373):

"If then for our sake Jesus sanctifies himself, and does this when he becomes man, it is very plain that the Spirit's descent on him in Jordan 1 See Hefele, History of Councils, Vol. ii. 320.

was a descent on us, because of his bearing our body. . . . For when the Lord was washed in Jordan it was we who were washed in him and by him. And when he received the Spirit, we it was who by him were made recipients of it. . . . From him then we have begun to receive the unction and the seal.”—Against Arians, i. 12, § 2.

EPHRAEM SYRUS († 373), Mesopotamia:

"Oil stands for the sweet ointment whereby the baptized are sealed and clothed with the armor of the Holy Spirit.”—On Joel, ii.

CYRIL of Jerusalem († 386):

"The water cleanses his body; the Spirit seals his soul."-Catech. Lect. iii. 4. "Perfected by water and the Spirit."-Ibid., 16.

"The water envelopes only outwardly, but the Spirit baptizes also the soul within and that perfectly."-Ibid., Lect. xvii. 14.

"When you are counted worthy of this holy chrism, you are called Christians, verifying also the name by your new birth. For before you were vouchsafed this grace, you had properly no right to this title, but were advancing on your way towards being Christians."—Ibid., Lect. xxi. 5.

"You should know that this chrism has its symbol in the old Scripture. For when Moses imparted to his brother the command of God, and made him high priest, after bathing in water, he anointed him; and Aaron was called Christ or Anointed, from the emblematical chrism.' Ibid., 6.

In the same

"Ye are made Christ's by receiving the antitype of the Holy Spirit; and all things are in a figure wrought in you, because ye are figures of Christ. He also bathed himself in the river Jordan . . and the Holy Spirit in substance lighted on him, like resting on like. manner to you also, after you had come up from the pool of the sacred stream, was given the unction, the antitype of that wherewith Christ was anointed, and this is the Holy Spirit. . . . But beware of supposing this to be bare chrism. For as the bread of the Eucharist, after the invocation of the Holy Spirit, is mere bread no longer, but the body of Christ, so also this holy chrism is no more bare nor (so to say) common, after the invocation, but the gift of Christ and the active efficient of the Holy Spirit through the presence of his deity."-Ibid., Lect. xxi. 1, 3.

OPTATUS MILEVITANUS († 386), Africa:

"Jesus went down into the water. . . . Heaven is opened, God the Father anoints, the spiritual oil immediately descends in the form of a dove and rests upon his head and pours upon him oil, whence he is called Christ, since he was anointed by his Father."-Schism of Donatists, Bk. iv. 7.

GREGORY NAZIANZEN († 390), Asia Minor:

"Signing soul and body with chrism and the Spirit . . . what can happen to thee?" "Satan would denude you of the chrism that he might the more easily overcome you, unarmed and without guard."— Oration, xl. 15, 16.

AMBROSE († 397), Milan:

"The Holy Spirit descended in the likeness of a dove, that it might bring the testimony of wisdom, and might complete the sacrament of the spiritual bath, and show himself of one work with the Father and the Son."-On the Holy Spirit, Bk. ii. 14, 96.

PRUDENTIUS (c. 400), Spain:

Worshiper of God, remember that thou didst pass under the sacred wave of fount and bath; wast stamped with chrism."-Cathem. vi. line 125.

CHRYSOSTOM († A.D. 407), Antioch and Constantinople: "The Spirit is what is chiefly intended in the unction, and that for which the oil is used."-On Romans, i. 1.

AUGUSTINE († 430), Africa:

"We are the body of Christ in that we all are anointed. . . . This anointing will perfect us spiritually in that life which is promised us." "We are anointed now in the sacrament."-On Psalm xxvii., Expos. ii. 12.

"In the Acts of the Apostles it is more plainly written of him [Jesus Christ], 'Because God anointed him with the Holy Spirit.' Certainly not with visible oil, but with the gift of grace, which is signified by the visible ointment wherewith the church anoints the baptized."—On the Trinity, Bk. xv. 26, ? 46.

"We call people Christians because they are anointed with the sacred chrism."-Civitate Dei, xx. 10.

"Christ himself derives his name from the chrism, that is, from the anointing."-To Petilian, Bk. ii. § 239.

"Spiritual unction is the Holy Spirit himself, whose sacrament is in the visible unction."-On 1 John ii. 20.

CYRIL of Alexandria († 444):

"Ointment excellently sets forth as a sign the unction of the Holy Spirit. . . . Therefore we are anointed especially at the time of holy baptism, making the anointing the symbol of receiving the Holy Spirit."On Isa. xxv. 6, 7.

PETRUS CHRYSOLOGUS, Archbishop of Ravenna while the orthodox baptistery was being built and decorated (A.D. 433-452):

ters.

“To-day the Holy Spirit hovers in the form of a dove over the waBut this dove does not, like the first, bear a mere twig of the old olive-tree, but pours the whole fatness of the new unction upon the head of its author, that it may fulfill what the prophet foretold: 'Wherefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.'"-Sermon clx.

THEODORET († 457), Syria:

"Remember the holy mystery in which those who are perfected, after renunciation of the tyrant and confession of the King, received the anointing of the spiritual chrism as a sign and royal seal; as in a type by the chrism receiving the invisible grace of the most Holy Spirit.”—On Canticles i. 2.

MAXIMUS of Turin († 465):

"When the baptism was accomplished we poured upon your head chrism, that is the holy oil, by which is signified that regal and sacerdotal dignity is conferred by God upon the baptized."—Migne, Patr. Lat., Vol. lvii. 778.

DIONYSIUS AREOP.

"The tradition of the sacred symbols"

the perfecting service of every sacred thing."

"" uses the divine chrism for

"The perfecting service, gift and grace of the divine regeneration is completed by the most divine final use of the chrism."

"Never will the priest effect the divine regeneration apart from the most divine chrism."-Eccl. Hier., Chap. iv. 3, 10.

The remaining part of this mosaic to be explained is the plate in the hand of John. To one familiar with the representations in Garucci, Storia della Arte Crist., vol. iii., 1873-81; Birch, Hist. Ancient Pottery, 1873; Goar, Euchologion, 1647; Martigny, Dict. d. Antiq. Chrét., 1877; Kraus, Real-Encyclopädie d. christl. Alterthümer, 188286; Reusens, Éléments d'Archéologie chrétienne, 1885; Pératé, L'Archéologie chrétienne, 1892, the plate is at once recognized as the diskos of the Greeks, the patina or paten of the Latins. Of its use and names before Christianity, Birch says: "The diskos appears to have been a flat circular plate or dish, similar to the Latin patina" (p. 384); "The patina was flat and held soup, and was a generic name for a dish" (p. 539); Martigny: "In ancient