Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary: James
have now a power to remit sins, which he proves from those words in St. James, Is any man sick among you? &c. This shews, as do also Origen's words, that this custom was then continued in the East, in the Greek Church, and that it was believed a sacrament, of which the priests only were the ministers. Innocent I[6] in his answers to Decentius, bishop of Eugenium, in Italy, at the beginning of the fifth age[century], in the year 416, calls this anointing and prayer over the sick, set down in St. James' epistle, a sacrament in the same sense as other sacraments in the new law. See Labbe's Councils, tom. ii, p. 1248. And as to what Innocent I and Ven. Bede relate of a custom by which lay persons, when a priest could not be had, anointed and prayed over a person in danger, it was only to testify their desire of having the sacrament: as it was likewise a pious custom in some places for sinners to make a confession to a layman, not that they then looked upon it as a sacrament, but only that they hoped God would accept of their private devotions and humiliation, when they could not have a priest to administer the sacraments to them. It is needless to mention authors in the following ages[centuries]. St. Gregory (Sacramentarium. fer. 5. in Cœna Dni.) describes the ceremony of blessing oil to be used in the anointing of the sick. Theodore, made archbishop of Canterbury, in the year 668, among other decrees, ordains that sick persons receive the holy unction, set down by St. James. The Capitularia of Charles the great, say that no one, when about to depart out of this world, ought to want the anointing of the sacrament of oil. The same is ordained in a council of Chalons, the year 813, canon 48; by a council at Aix la Chapelle, the year 830, canon 5; by the council of Mayence, in the year 847, canon 26, &c. Now since we find this anointing made use of as a sacrament at least from the fourth age[century], let our adversaries tell us when this anointing prescribed by St. James was left off, and when and how it came to be taken up again. They have no manner of proofs for either; and yet we have a right, as the authors of the annotations on the Rheims Testament observe, to demand clear and convincing proofs in this case, when the Scripture seems so clear for us and against them. Dr. Fulk affirms boldly, that this anointing was never to this day received in the Greek Church as a sacrament.
This only shews how little credit is to be given to him. He might have found great reason to doubt of his bold assertion, since neither Photius, in the ninth age[century], nor Michael Cerularius, in the eleventh, ever objected this difference betwixt their Greek and the Latin Church, at a time when they reckoned up even the most minute differences either in doctrine or discipline, so as to find fault with the Latins for shaving their beards. He might have found it by what happened at the time of the council of Lyons, in the thirteenth age[century], when the pope, in his letter to the emperor of Constantinople, wrote that the Latin Church, and all in communion with him, acknowledged seven sacraments, which the Greeks never blamed. He might have observed the same when the Greeks and Armenians came to an union in the council of Florence, in the fifteenth age[century]. The same Dr. Fulk, who wrote about the year 1600, could scarce be ignorant of the ill success the Augsbourg confession met with among the Greeks, to whom, when the Lutherans had sent copies of their faith and of their reformation, Jeremy, the patriarch of Constantinople, with a synod of the Greeks, condemned their articles, and among other points, declared that they held "in the orthodox Catholic Church seven divine sacraments," the same as in the Latin Church, baptism....and the holy oil. Had Dr. Fulk lived a little longer, he must have been more and more ashamed to find other Greek synods condemning him and all the said reformers. For when Cyrillus Lucaris, advanced to the see of Constantinople by the interest of the French Calvinists, began to favour and support the doctrine of the Calvinists, the Greeks in several synods under their patriarchs, (in the years 1639, 1642, 1671, and 1672) condemned Cyril and the new doctrine of the said reformers, and expressly declared that they held seven sacraments. See M. Arnauld, tom. iii. Perpetuitè de la Foy; and the dissertations of M. Le Brun, tom. iii. p. 34, and 572, disert. 12, where he shews that all the churches of the East, and all the Christian churches of the world, though separated from the communion and subordination to the Pope, agree with the Latin Church, as to the sacrifice of the Mass, as to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and as to the seven sacraments. (Witham) --- If, with holy Scripture, we must allow that charitable persons on earth may prove instrumental, under God, to their neighbour's salvation, why are we to deny this to the saints in heaven, whose charity for man is much greater?
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[1] Ver. 7. Temporaneum et Serotinum. In most Greek manuscripts ueton proimon kai opsimon, pluviam priorem et posteriorem.
[2] Ver. 10. Exemplum accipite, exitus mali, et laboris, et patientiæ, kakopatheias kai makrothumias. There is nothing in the Greek for laboris, which the Latin interpreter may have added to express the full sense.
[3] Ver. 14-15. Infirmatur, asthenei tis; infirmum, kamnonta, laborantem; alleviabit, egerei, suscitabit.
[4] Ver. 20. Origen, in hom. ii, in Levit. (p. 68. Ed. Par. in the year 1574) where he numbers the different ways by which sins are remitted in the new law, and speaking of penance, says, In quo impletur et illud quod Apostolus dicit, Si quis autem infirmatur, vocet presbyteros ecclesiæ.
[5] Ver. 20. St. Chrysostom, iereis....echousin exousian, habent potestatem.
[6] Ver. 20. Innocent I. Pœnitentibus istud infundi non potest, quia genus est Sacramenti, nam quibus reliqua Sacramenta negantur, quomodo unum genus putatur concedi? By charisma, Innocent I understands, oleum ad ungendum.
Bible Text & Cross-references:
A woe to the rich that oppress the poor. Exhortations to patience, and to avoid swearing. Of the anointing the sick, confession of sins, and fervour in prayer.
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries, that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten.
3 Your gold and silver is rusted: and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. You have stored up to yourselves wrath against the last days.
4 Behold the hire of the labourers, who have reaped your fields, of which you have defrauded them, crieth out: and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
5 You have feasted upon earth, and in luxuries you have nourished your hearts in the day of slaughter.
6 You have condemned and put to death the just one, and he resisted you not.
7 Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, patiently bearing till he receive the early and the latter rain.
8 Be you, therefore, also patient, and strengthen your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth near.
9 Murmur not, brethren, one against another, that you may not be judged. Behold the judge standeth before the door.
10 Take, brethren, for an example of suffering evil, of labour and patience, the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord.
11 Behold we account them blessed, who have endured. You have heard of the patience of Job, and you have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is merciful and compassionate.
12 But above all things, my brethren, *swear not, neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath. But let your speech be; yea, yea: no, no; that you fall not under judgment.
13 Is any of you sad? Let him pray. Is he cheerful in mind? Let him sing.
14 Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil, in the name of the Lord:
15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man: and the Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him.
16 Confess, therefore, your sins one to another; and pray one for another, that you may be saved: for the continual prayer of a just man availeth much.
17 *Elias was a man passible like unto us: and with prayer he prayed that it might not rain upon the earth, and it rained not for three years and six months.
18 And he prayed again: and the heaven gave rain, and the earth yielded her fruit.
19 My brethren, if any of you err from the truth, and any one convert him.
20 He must know, that he who causeth a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, shall save his soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.
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*
12: Matthew v. 34.
17: 3 Kings xvii. 1.; Luke iv. 25.