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The End of a Single World: The Sacrament of Extreme Unction in Scholastic Thought

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The End of the World in Medieval Thought and Spirituality

Part of the book series: The New Middle Ages ((TNMA))

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Abstract

At the end of an individual life came the sacrament of extreme unction—the anointing of the sick. This essay considers its development from the mid-twelfth century to the mid-thirteenth, a key period in the history of both sacramental theology and pastoral care in the Middle Ages. Unction is an example in miniature of how sacramental theory as a whole was changing; and it gives us glimpses of other contemporary preoccupations, such as the idea of purgatory and the theory of sin. Anointing had a long history, with diverse rites in the East and West, along with differing views about precisely what the practice was thought to achieve. Although unction was a minor sacrament in comparison to baptism or the eucharist, it nonetheless posed difficult problems. Indeed, its position as something of an outlier raised questions that were not always easy to fit into the solutions offered by broader sacramental theory, and the solutions offered by Aquinas and Albert the Great, while theologically sophisticated, left behind the more pastoral approach of earlier theologians.

I offer this essay to Ann Matter in gratitude for our many years of friendship, and in admiration for her leadership in the community of the medieval Bible.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Placid Murray, “The Liturgical History of Extreme Unction,” in Studies in Pastoral Liturgy 2, ed. Vincent Ryan (Dublin: The Furrow Trust, 1963), 18–38; see also three linked articles on the origin and development of rites for anointing by H. B. Porter in Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 7 (1956): 211–25 and 10 (1959): 43–62, 299–307. The greatest developments in liturgy occur in the Carolingian period.

  2. 2.

    Mark 6:13; James 5:14–15.

  3. 3.

    Anointing of Aaron and objects: Exodus 29:7, 36; 40:9–10, 13, 15; Leviticus 8; Psalm 132 [133]: 2. Anointing of kings: 1 Kings 10; 16:13; 3 Kings 1:34, 39, for example.

  4. 4.

    Leviticus 14.

  5. 5.

    “Infirmatur quis in vobis? Inducat presbyteros Ecclesiae, et orent super eum, ungentes eum oleo in nomine Domini: et oratio fidei salvabit infirmum…” (Vulgate; my translation).

  6. 6.

    Bede, In epistolas VII catholicas, ed. M. L. W. Laistner, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 121 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1983), 221, on James 5:14–15.

  7. 7.

    For overviews of the history of unction see L. Godefroy, “Extrême Onction,” in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, 5, ed. A. Vacant and E. Mangenot (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1912), cols. 1897–2022; Heinrich Weisweiler, “Das Sakrament der Letzen Ölung in den systematischen Werken der ersten Frühscholastik,” Scholastik 7 (1932): 321–53, 524–60; linked articles on extreme unction by A. Verhamme, in Collationes Brugenses 45 (1949): 39–47, 114–19, 119–22, 199–205, 280–86, 364–71; 46 (1950): 15–23, 100–7, 186–94, 267–75, 339–44, 457–60, 460–63; 47 (1951): 65–69, 69–72; Henry S. Kryger, The Doctrine of the Effects of Extreme Unction in Its Historical Development: A Dissertation (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1949); and Bernhard Poschmann, trans. and rev. Francis Courtney, Penance and the Anointing of the Sick (Freiburg: Herder/Burns and Oates, 1964).

  8. 8.

    Poschmann, Penance, 246. Verhamme notes that, prior to Peter Lombard, in ecclesiastical documents the common terms for the action are unctio infirmorum, unctio sancti olei, sacra unctio, and unctio olei sanctificati: Collationes Brugenses 45: 40.

  9. 9.

    See for instance, Augustine, De civitate Dei, 10.5; Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, 3.84: D. Van den Eynde, “Les définitions des sacraments pendant la première période de la théologie scolastique,” Antonianum 24 (1949): 183–228; 25 (1950): 3–78.

  10. 10.

    Alan of Lille, Postquam consummati sunt dies octo, in MS Paris, BnF, lat. 3818, fol. 18v, quoted in Jean Longère, Oeuvres Oratoires de maîtres parisiens au XIIe siècle, 2 vols. (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1975), 1:275.

  11. 11.

    Hugh of St. Victor, Hugonis de Sancto Victore: De sacramentis christianae fidei, Corpus Victorinum. Textus historici 1, ed. Rainer Berndt (Aschendorff: Corpus Victorinum, 2008); De sacramentis christianae fidei, ed. and trans. Roy J. Deferrari (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy, 1951), whose translation is quoted here.

  12. 12.

    De sacramentis , 1.9.7 (Deferrari, 164).

  13. 13.

    De sacramentis, 2.15.3 (Deferrari, 432).

  14. 14.

    Magistri Petri Lombardi …Sententiae in IV Libris Distinctae, 3 vols., ed. I. C. Brady (Grottaferrata: Coll. S. Bonaventura, 1971); trans. Giulio Silano, The Sentences , 4 vols. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2007–2010).

  15. 15.

    Many of these often-fragmentary collections are edited and printed by Odo Lottin in Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, vol. 5: L’Ėcole d’Anselme de Laon et de Guillaume de Champeaux (Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1959). See also, Cédric Giraud, ‘Per verba magistri’: Anselme de Laon et son école au XIIe siècle (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010).

  16. 16.

    V. F. Hopper, Medieval Number Symbolism: Its Sources, Meaning and Influence on Thought and Expression (New York: Cooper Square, 1938); Nigel Hiscock, The Symbol at Your Door: Number and Geometry in Religious Architecture of the Greek and Latin Middle Ages (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007).

  17. 17.

    Godefroy, “Extrême Onction,” col. 1988; Poschmann, Penance, 249.

  18. 18.

    Nikolaus M. Häring, ed. “Die Sententiae Magistri Gisleberti Pictavensis episcopi I,” Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire au Moyen Age 45 (1978): 83–180 at 154–55, n. 61.

  19. 19.

    Verhamme, Collationes Brugenses, 45: 40 n. 6, notes a seventh-century bishop of Reims using the term extreme unction (see PL 80: 444), although a more recent edition places the text in the ninth century: MGH Capit. episc. 3:375ff.

  20. 20.

    Lombard, Sententiae, IV, d. 23, c. 3; Hugh, De sacramentis , 2.15.1 (trans. Deferrari, 430–31).

  21. 21.

    Lombard, Sententiae, IV, d. 23, c. 3 (trans. Silano, Sentences , 4:137).

  22. 22.

    Ibid.

  23. 23.

    Lombard, Sententiae, IV, d. 23, c. 4 (trans. Silano, Sentences , 4:137), quoting Augustine, Contra epistolam Parmeniani, 2.13.28.

  24. 24.

    Nikolaus M. Häring, “The Augustinian Axiom: Nulli Sacramento Iniuria Facienda Est,” Mediaeval Studies 16 (1954): 87–117.

  25. 25.

    Lombard, Sententiae, IV, d. 23, c. 4 (trans. Silano, Sentences , 4:138).

  26. 26.

    Summa sententiarum, tr. 6, c. 15 (PL 176: 153B–54C); Hugh, De sacramentis , 2.15.

  27. 27.

    Heinrich Weisweiler, Maître Simon et son groupe De sacramentis (Louvain: Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense, 1937). For Rolandus and Omnebene see Weisweiler, “Das Sakrament,” 527–31. In denying repeatability they are following contemporary Bolognese legal teaching.

  28. 28.

    Petrus Cantor: Summa de sacramentis et animae consiliis , ed. Jean-Albert Dugaquier, Analecta Mediaevalia Namurcensia 4 (Louvain: Nauwelaerts, 1954), part 1, §§41–51; and John W. Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and His Circle, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 1:13–14.

  29. 29.

    Summa, §41.

  30. 30.

    Summa, §42.

  31. 31.

    Summa, §43.

  32. 32.

    Summa, §44.

  33. 33.

    This casual note that the eucharist can be received every week puts in perspective canon 21 of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, which mandated the reception of the eucharist once a year, for all those who were to be considered Christians. Peter’s aside, and a similar remark by his pupil Robert Courçon, who refers to daily eucharist and weekly penance, show that the Lateran decree was an absolute minimum, and that much more frequent reception was not at all uncommon. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner, 2 vols. (London and Washington, DC: Sheed and Ward/Georgetown University Press, 1990), 1:245. Cf. V. L. Kennedy, “The Handbook of Master Peter Chancellor of Chartres,” Mediaeval Studies 5 (1943): 1–38, at 19, n. 103, cols. 1–2.

  34. 34.

    Summa, §45.

  35. 35.

    Note that Peter is not quoting the usual Vulgate text, where the verb is “inducat,” but a variation of the Vetus Latina text.

  36. 36.

    Summa, §46.

  37. 37.

    Summa, §47.

  38. 38.

    Summa, §48.

  39. 39.

    Summa, §49.

  40. 40.

    Summa, §50.

  41. 41.

    Summa, §51.

  42. 42.

    Robert Courçon, Summa: section on extreme unction transcribed from Bruges, Stadsbibliotheek, Ms. 247 in Kennedy, “The Handbook of Master Peter,” 18 n. 103, col. 1, among several other similar remarks.

  43. 43.

    Fourth Lateran Council, c. 22 (ed. Tanner, Decrees, 245–46). Indeed, the canon instructs the doctor to tell the patient to summon a priest before the doctor can act, so that the presence of a priest will become normal, and not cause the invalid to despair of his life.

  44. 44.

    Thomae de Chobham Summa confessorum, ed. F. Broomfield, Analecta Mediaevalia Namurcensia 25 (Louvain; Paris: Nauwelaerts, 1968), art. 4, d. 2, q. 9a.

  45. 45.

    Guidonis de Orchellis, Tractatus de sacramentis, ed. D. Van den Eynde and O. Van den Eynde (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 1953), c. 7, §§170–180. William of Auxerre: Magistri Guillelmi Altissiodorensis. Summa Aurea, ed. Jean Ribaillier, Spicilegium Bonaventurianum 19 (Grottaferrata; Paris: Coll. S. Bonaventura; CNRS, 1985), bk 4, tr. 15.

  46. 46.

    Summa aurea, bk 4, tr. 15, c. 1, q. 2. Guidonis de Orchellis, §§171–173.

  47. 47.

    Summa aurea, bk 4, tr. 15, c. 1, q. 2.

  48. 48.

    Guidonis de Orchellis, §171.

  49. 49.

    Guidonis de Orchellis, §173.

  50. 50.

    Summa aurea, bk 4, tr. 15, c. 1, q. 3. The link of unction with penance is shown in the need for a priest to anoint, since only a priest has the power to forgive sins.

  51. 51.

    Guidonis de Orchellis, §176.

  52. 52.

    Bede, In epistolas VII catholicas, on James 5:15: “Et si in peccatis sit” (ed. Laistner, 221).

  53. 53.

    Alexander: Glossa in IV Libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, Bibliotheca Franciscana Scholastica Medii Aevii 15 (Quaracchi: Coll. S. Bonaventura, 1957); Bonaventure: Commentarius in IV Libros Sententiarum, in Opera omnia 4 (Quaracchi: Coll. S. Bonaventura, 1889); Albert: Commentarius in Librum IV Sententiarum, in Opera omnia 30 (Paris: Vivès, 1894); Thomas: In quattuor libros sententiarum, in Opera Omnia 1 (Stuttgart/Bad Connstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1980), all at bk IV, d. 23. In addition: Alexander, Quaestiones disputatae “Antequam esset frater,” Bibliotheca Franciscana Medii Aevi 20–21 (Quaracchi: Coll. S. Bonaventura, 1960), q. 48 and Appendix 3, q. 2 (1–49); Thomas, Supplement, qq. 29–33, in Summa theologica 3a pars et Supplementum, in Opera Omnia 12 (Rome: Sac. Coll. de Propaganda Fide, 1906): the supplement was put together by confrères from the earlier “Scriptum,” Sentences Commentary; trans. (s.n.), The “Summa Theologica” of St Thomas Aquinas , Third Part, Second Revised Edition (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1928).

  54. 54.

    Alexander, Glossa, IV, d. 23, no. 1; cf. Quaestiones, App. 3, q. 2, no. 8.

  55. 55.

    Albert, Commentarius, IV, d. 23, art. 2.

  56. 56.

    Bonaventure, Commentarius, IV, d. 23, art. 1, q. 1.

  57. 57.

    Alexander, Quaestiones, q. 48.

  58. 58.

    Thomas, Supplement, q. 30, arts 1–2; Albert, Commentarius, IV, d. 23, art. 14.

  59. 59.

    Thomas, Supplement, q. 32, art. 1; Albert, Commentarius, IV, d. 23, art. 9.

  60. 60.

    Thomas, Supplement, q. 32, art. 2.

  61. 61.

    See, for instance, Alexander, Glossa, IV, d. 23, no. 6; Quaestiones, App. 3, q. 2, nos. 31–38; Bonaventure, Commentarius, IV, d. 23, art. 2, q. 2; Albert, Commentarius, IV, d. 23, arts. 9–12, Thomas, Supplement, q. 32, arts. 3–4.

  62. 62.

    Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory , trans. Arthur Goldhammer (London: Scolar, 1984).

  63. 63.

    Le Goff, Birth, 165–66; Peter, Summa (ed. Dugaquier), pt 2, 103–4, 125–26.

  64. 64.

    Alexander, Glossa, IV, dist. 18, 20, 21; Le Goff, Birth, 247–48.

  65. 65.

    Bonaventure, Commentarius, IV, d. 23, art. 2, q. 3.

  66. 66.

    Albert, Commentarius, IV, d. 23, art. 16.

  67. 67.

    Bonaventure, Commentarius, IV, d. 23, art. 2, q. 1.

  68. 68.

    Alexander, Quaestiones, App. 3, q. 2, nos. 8–9, 16.

  69. 69.

    Thomas, Supplement, q. 29, art. 2.

  70. 70.

    Albert, Commentarius, IV, d. 23, art. 4.

  71. 71.

    “Per istam suavissimam unctionem et suam piissimam misericordiam remittat tibi Dominus quidquid peccasti [per visum/auditum, etc.]”.

  72. 72.

    Albert, Commentarius, IV, d. 23, art. 4.

  73. 73.

    Thomas, Supplement, q. 29, art. 8.

  74. 74.

    Alexander, Glossa, IV, d. 23, no. 1.

  75. 75.

    Alexander, Quaestiones, Appendix 3, q. 2, nos. 16–21, here 20.

  76. 76.

    Bonaventure, Commentarius, IV, d. 23, art. 1, q. 1.

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  1. Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Lesley Smith

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  1. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Munich, Germany

    Eric Knibbs

  2. University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Jessica A. Boon

  3. Wellesley, MA, USA

    Erica Gelser

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Smith, L. (2019). The End of a Single World: The Sacrament of Extreme Unction in Scholastic Thought. In: Knibbs, E., Boon, J., Gelser, E. (eds) The End of the World in Medieval Thought and Spirituality. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14965-9_11

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