. CONFIRMATIO N ■firmation, or the laying-on of hands (Heb. vi. 2), followed close upon baptism, and in the majority of cases the two were combined in a single service. But only the highest •order of ministers could confirm (see Acts viii. 14-17); whereas priests and deacons, and in an emergency lay men and even women, could baptize. There was therefore no absolute certainty that a believer who had been baptized had also received confirmation (Acts xix. 2). But two circumstances tended to prevent the occurrence •of such irregularities. In the first place, there were in early days far more bishops in proportion to the number of believers than is the custom now; and secondly, it was the rule (except in cases of emergency) to baptize only in the season from Easter to Pentecost, and the bishop was always present and laid his hands on the newly baptized. Moreover, in the third and fourth centuries the infants of Christian parents were frequently left unbaptized for years, e.g., Augustine of Hippo. Later, when the Church had come to be tolerated and patronized by the State, her numbers increased, the rule that fixed certain days for baptism broke down, and it was impossible for bishops to attend every baptismal service. Thereupon East and West adopted difierent methods of meeting the difficulty. In the East greater emphasis was laid on the anointing with oil, which had long been an adjunct of the laying-on of hands: the oil was consecrated by the bishop, and the child anointed or “ sealed ” with it by the parish priest, and this was reckoned as its confirmation. With its baptism thus completed, the infant was held to be capable of receiving Holy Communion. And to this day in the Eastern Church the infant is baptized, anointed, and communicated by the parish priest in the course of a single service; and thus the bishop and the laying-on of hands have disappeared from the ordinary service of confirmation. The West, on the other hand, deferred confirmation, not at first till the child had reached years of . discretion, though that afterwards became the theory, but from the necessities of the case. The child was baptized at once, that it might be admitted to the Church, while the completion of its baptism was put off till it could be brought to a bishop. Western Canons insist on both points at once; baptism is not to be deferred beyond a week, nor confirmation beyond seven years. And to give an historical example, Henry VIII. had his daughter, afterwards Queen Elizabeth, both baptized and confirmed when she was only a few days old. And still the rubrics of the English Prayer-Book direct that the person who is baptized as an adult is to “be confirmed by the bishop so soon after his baptism as conveniently may be.” But theologians in the West had elaborated a theory of the grace of confirmation, which made its severance from baptism seem natural; and at the time of the Reformation, while neither side favoured the Eastern practice, the Reformers, with their strong sense of the crucial importance of faith, emphasized the action of the individual in the service, and therefore laid it down as a rule that confirmation should be deferred till the child could learn a catechism on the fundamentals of the Christian faith, which Calvin thought he might do by the time he was ten. Many of the Protestant bodies have abandoned the rite, but it remains among the Lutherans (whether Episcopal or not), and in the group of churches in communion with the Church of England. At the last revision of the Book of Common Prayer an •addition was made to the service by prefixing to it a solemn renewal of their baptismal vows by the candidates in their own persons; and in the teeth of history and of th6 wording of the service, this has often been taken to be the essential feature of confirmation. Practically, the preparation of candidates for confirmation is the most
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important and exacting duty of the parish priest, as the administration of the rite is the most arduous of a bishop’s tasks; and after a long period of slovenly neglect, these duties are now generally discharged with great care: classes are formed and instruction is given for several weeks before the coming of the bishop to lay on hands “ after the example of the Holy Apostles ” (prayer in the Confirmation Service). Of late years there has been a controversy among Anglican theologians as to the exact nature of the gift conveyed through confirmation, or in other words whether the Holy Spirit can be said to have come to dwell in those who have been baptized but not confirmed. The view that identifies confirmation rather than baptism with the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit on the Church has had to contend against a longestablished tradition, but appeals to Scripture (Acts viii. 16) and to Patristic teaching. Authorities.—Hooker. Ecclesiastical Polity, Book v. ch. Ixvi. —Jeremy Taylor. A Discourse of Confirmation.—A. J. Mason, The Relation of Confirmation to Baptism. London, 1891 (where see list of other writers).—L. Duchesne. Origines du Culte Chretien, chap. ix. Paris, 1898. (w. o. B.) Confirmation of Bishops. —In canon law, confirmation is the process by which the election of a new bishop receives the assent of the episcopate. This can be traced back to the 3rd century, and indeed may be said to be involved, in principle, in the fact of consecration. From the 4th century it has been regarded as the definite ratification of the election by the bishops of the province {Cone. Nic. can. iv.); and by degrees it has come to be made, as a rule, through the metropolitan, and very often at the will of the civil power. In the East it has to a large extent thrown the actual election into the shade. In the churches of the Roman communion the right of confirmation, like many other episcopal rights, has gradually been appropriated by the papacy. For a time indeed, from the 14th century onwards, the popes reserved to themselves the whole appointment of bishops. This is no longer the case, but the confirmation of bishops is still in their hands, however they may have been chosen. In England various attempts were made before the Reformation to resist this tendency. One of the demands of the English Embassy sent to Bruges in 1373 was that confirmation should remain in the hands of the metropolitan; and in 1415 an ordinance was passed, having the force of law, directing that during the voidance of the papal see bishops-elect should be confirmed by their metropolitan, according to ancient custom and the practice of foreign churches. In accordance with this, Chichele confirmed John Wakering, elect of Norwich, in 1416. At the Reformation the share of the papacy in appointing bishops was abolished, but the confirmation became almost formal in character. By 25 Hen. VIII. c. 20, s. 4, it is provided that after an episcopal election a royal mandate shall issue to the archbishop of the province “requiring him to confirm the said election,” or, in case of an archbishop-elect, to one archbishop and two bishops, or to four bishops, “ requiring and commanding ” them “ with all speed and celerity to confirm ” it. This practice still prevails, in the case of dioceses which have chapters to elect. The confirmation has usually been performed by the archbishop’s vicar-general, and, in the southern province, at the church of St Mary-le-Bow, London; but since 1901 it has been performed, in part, at the Church House, Westminster, in consequence of the disorder in the proceedings at Bow Church on the confirmation there of Dr Winnington Ingram as Bishop of London. All objectors are cited to appear on pain of contumacy after the old form ; but although the knowledge that opposition might be offered
