EXTREME UNCTION. In the fifth chapter of the General Epistle of James (q.v.) it is said (vss. 14, 15): " Is any among you sick? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him (or, having anointed him) with oil in the name of the Lord : and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him." James Adderley points out (The Epistle of St. James) that the Church of England has not made any special provision for the Unction, though it has done so for the Prayers. He thinks that a revival of the primitive and Catholic practice of anointing the sick should be prayed for. Since he wrote the practice has to some extent been revived. Originally, it would seem, the anointing with oil had a medicinal and therapeutic value. In Mark (vi. 13) it is said that the Apostles " cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them "; and there are references to the practice in the Old Testament (e.g., Ezekiel xvi. 9). A rule is given by Egbert, Archbishop of York (732-766), " That according to the enactment of the holy fathers, if any is sick he be diligently anointed with sanctified oil together with prayers." Extreme Unction is first spoken of as a sacrament by Hugo of St. Victor (d. 1141). Peter Lom
bard (d. 1164) distinguishes three kinds of consecrated oil—(1) that used for priests and kings and candidates for Confirmation; (2) that used for catechumens and newly baptized persons; (3) that used for the sick. Adderley suggests that probably at first Extreme Unction simply meant " the last of the unctions in a Christian's life." Then in course of time it came to mean the unction of a person dying or in extremis. But it did not become this in the Eastern Church. There, where the sacrament is called Prayer-oil, it is not confined to those who are dying. It is defined as "holy oil, a sacred rite and type of divine pity, supplied to those who turn from sin for redemption and sanctification, affording absolution of sins, and raising up from sicknesses, and filling with sanctification." In the Roman Catholic Church extreme unction is reserved for those who are in danger of death. It can only be given by a priest, and with a set form of words. In former times it preceded the Viaticum (q.v.); now it follows. The oil is applied in the form of a cross. See James Adderley, The Epistle of St. James; K. R. Hagenbach; Prot. Diet.; Oath. Diet.