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we are certainly justified in including in that verse a
reference to the saving of the soul. Moreover, the
Apostle could not, surely, have meant to teach or imply
that every sick Christian who was anointed would be
cured of his sickness and saved from bodily death; yet
the unction is clearly enjoined as a permanent institu-
tion in the Chui'ch for all the sick faithful, and the sav-
ing and raising up are represented absolutely as being
the normal, if not infallible, effect of its use. We know
from experience (and the same has been known and
noted in the Church from the beginning) that restora-
tion of bodily health does not as a matter of fact norm-
ally result from the unction, though it does result with
sufficient frequency and without being counted mirac-
ulous to justify us in regarding it as one of the Divinely
(but conditionally) intended effects of the rite. Are
we to suppose, therefore, that St. James thus solemnly
recommends universal recourse to a rite which, after
all, will be efficacious for the purpose intended only by
way of a comparatively rare exception? Yet this is
what would follow if it be held that there is reference
exclusively to bodily healing in the clauses which
speak of the sick man being saved and raised up, and if
further it be denied that the remission of sins spoken of
in the following clause, and which is undeniably a spir-
itual effect, is attributed to the unction by St. James.
This is the position taken by Mr. Puller; but, apart
from the arbitrary and violent breaking up of the
Jacobean text which it postulates, such a view utterly
fails to furnish an adequate rationale for the universal
and permanent character of the .\postolic prescription.
Mr. Puller vainly seeks an analogy (op. cit., pp. 2S9
sqq.) in the absolute and universal expressions in
which Christ assures us that our prayers will be heard.
We admit that our rightly disposed prayers are always
and infallibly efficacious for our ultimate spiritual
good, but not by any means necessarily so for the
specific temporal objects or even the proximate spirit-
ual ends which we ourselves intend. Christ's promises
regarding the efficacy of prayer are fully justified on
this ground; but would they be justified if we were
compelled to verify them by reference merely to the
particular temporal boons we ask for? Yet this is
how, on his own hj'pothesis, Mr. Puller is obliged to
justify St. James's assurance that the prayer-unction
shall be efficacious. But in the Catholic view, which
considers the temporal boon of bodily healing as being
only a conditional and subordinate end of the unction,
while its paramount spiritual purpose — to confer on
the sick and dj-ing graces which they specially need —
may be, and is normally, obtained, not only is an ade-
quate rationale of the Jacobean injunction provided,
but a true instead of a false analogy with the efficacy
of prayer is estabhshed.
But in defence of his thesis Mr. Puller is further obliged to maintain that all reference to the effects of the unction ceases with the words, "the Lord shall raise him up", and that in the clause immediately fol- lowing, "and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him", St. James passes on to a totallj^ different sub- ject, namely, the Sacrament of Penance. But unless we agree to disregard the rules of grammar and the logical sequence of thought, it is impossible to allow this separation of the clauses and this sudden transi- tion in the third clause to a new and altogether unex- pected subject-matter. All three clauses are con- nected in the very same way with the unction, " and the prayer of faith . . . and the Lord . . . and if he be in sins . . . ", so that the remission of sins is just as clearly stated to be an effect of the unction as the sav- ing and raising up. Had St. James meant to speak of the effect of priestly absolution in the third clause he could not have wTitten in such a way as inevitably to mislead the reader into believing that he was still deal- ing with an effect of the priestly unction. In the nature of things there is no reason w-hy unction as well as absolution by a priest might not be Divinely ordained
for the sacramental remission of sin, and that it was so
ordained is what every reader naturally concludes
from St. James. Xor is there anj'thing in the context
to suggest a reference to the Sacrament of Penance in
this third clause. The admonition in the following
verse (16), "Confess, therefore, your sins one to an-
other", may refer to a mere liturgical confession like
that expressed in the " Confiteor " ; but even if we take
the reference to be to sacramental confession and ad-
mit the genuineness of the connecting " therefore" (its
genuineness is not beyond doubt), there is no compel-
ling reason for connecting this admonition closely with
the clause which immediately precedes. The " there-
fore " may very well be taken as referring vaguely to
the whole preceding Epistle and introducing a sort of
epilogue.
Mr. Puller's is the latest and most elaborate attempt to evade the plain meaning of the Jacobean text that we have met with ; hence our reason for dealing with it so fully. It would be an endless task to notice the manj' other similarly arbitrary devices of interpreta- tion to which Protestant theologians and commenta- tors have recurred in attempting to justify their denial of the Tridentine teaching so clearly supported by St. James (see examples in Kern, "De Sacramento Ex- treme Unctionis", Ratisbon, 1907, pp. 60 sq.). It is enough to remark that the number of mutually con- tradictory interpretations they have offered is a strong confirmation of the Catholic interpretation, which is indeed the only plain and natural one, but which they are bound to reject at the outset. In contrast witL their disregard of St. James's injunction and their hopeless disagreement as to what the Apostle really meant, we have the practice of the whole Christian world down to the time of the Reformation in main- taining the use of the Jacobean rite, and the agreement of East and West in holding this rite to be a sacrament in the strict sense, an agreement which became explicit and formal as soon as the definition of a sacrament in the strict sense was formulated, but which was already implicitly and informally contained in the common practice and belief of preceding ages. We proceed, therefore, to study the witness of Tradition.
(C) Proof from Tradition. — (1) State of the Argu- ment. — Owing to the comparative paucity of extant testimonies from the early centuries relating to this sacrament, Catholic theologians habitually recur to the general argument from prescription, which in this case may be stated briefly thus: The uninterrupted use of the Jacobean rite and its recognition as a sacrament in the Eastern and Western Churches, notwithstand- ing their separation since 869, proves that both must have been in possession of a common tradition on the subject prior to the schism. Further, the fact that the Xestorian and Monophysite bodies, who separated from the Church in the fifth century, retained the use of the unction of the sick, carries back the undivided tradition to the beginning of that cenfurj'. while no evidence from that or any earlier period can be ad- duced to weaken the legitimate presumption that the tradition is Apostolic, having its origin in St. James's injunction. Both of these broad facts will be estab- lished by the evidence to be given below, while the presumption referred to will be confirmed by the wit- ness of the first four centuries.
As to the actual paucity of early testimonies, various explanations have been offered. It is not sufficient to appeal with Binterim (Die Vorziiglichsten Denkwiir- digkeiten der christkathol. Kirche, vol. VI, pt. Ill, p. 241) to the Discipline of the Secret, which, so far as it existed, applied equally to other sacraments, yet did not prevent frequent reference to them by writers and preachers of those ages. Nor is Launoi's contention (Opera, vol. I, pt. I, pp. 544 sq.) well founded, that recourse to this sacrament was much rarer in early ages than later. It is more to the point in the first place to recall the loss, except for a few fragments, of
