St. Cyprian, speaking of the Christians baptized in Samaria, says: “Because they had received the legitimate baptism, ... what was wanting, that was done by Peter and John, that prayer being made for them and hands imposed, the Holy Ghost should be invoked and poured forth upon them. Which now also is done amongst us, so that they who are baptized in the Church are presented to the Bishops of the Church, and by our prayer and imposition of hands they receive the Holy Ghost and are perfected with the seal of the Lord.”[360]
St. Cyril of Jerusalem compares the sacred Chrism in Confirmation to the Eucharist: “You were anointed with oil, being made sharers and partners of Christ. And see well that you regard it not as mere ointment; for, as the bread of the Eucharist, after the invocation of the Holy Ghost, is no longer mere bread but the body of Christ, so likewise this holy ointment is no longer common ointment after the invocation, but the gift of Christ and of the Holy Ghost, being rendered efficient by His Divinity. You were anointed on the forehead, that you might be delivered from the [pg 284] shame which the first transgressor always experienced, and that you might contemplate the glory of God with an unveiled countenance.... As Christ, after His baptism and the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Him, going forth overcame the adversary, so you likewise, after holy baptism and the mysterious unction, clothed with the panoply of the Holy Ghost, stand against the adverse power and subdue it, saying: ‘I can do all things in Christ, who strengtheneth me.’ ”[361]
St. Ambrose, commenting on these words of the Apostle, “God ... hath given us the pledge of the Spirit,” (II. Cor. i. 22) expressly applies the text to the seal of Confirmation. “Remember,” he says, “that you have received the spiritual seal, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and piety, the spirit of holy fear. God the Father hath sealed you; Christ the Lord hath confirmed you, and hath given the pledge of the Spirit in your hearts, as you have learned from the lesson read from the Apostle.”[362]
St. Ambrose here speaks of the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Ghost which are received in Confirmation, and every Bishop in our day invokes these same gifts on those whom he is about to confirm.
“Do you know,” writes St. Jerome against the sect of Luciferians of his time, “that it is the practice of the churches that the imposition of hands should be performed over baptized persons and the Holy Ghost thus invoked? Do you ask where it is written? In the Acts of the Apostles; but were there no Scriptural authority at hand the consent of the whole world in this regard would have the force of law.”[363]
“You willingly understand,” says St. Augustine, “by this ointment the Sacrament of Chrism, which, indeed, in the class of visible seals is as sacred as Baptism itself.”[364]
The Oriental schismatic churches recognize Confirmation as a Sacrament, and administer the rite as we do, by the imposition of hands and the application of chrism. Now, some of these churches have been separated from the Catholic Church since the fourth and fifth centuries. This fact is an eloquent vindication of the Apostolic antiquity of Confirmation, and is an ample refutation of those who would ascribe to it a more recent origin.
Protestantism, which made such havoc of the other Sacraments, did not fail to abolish Confirmation in its sweeping revolution.
The Episcopal church retains, indeed, the name of Confirmation in its ritual, and even borrows a portion of our prayers and ceremonial. But, in opposition to the uniform teaching of the Catholic, as well as of all the Oriental churches, both orthodox and schismatic, it declares Confirmation to be a mere rite and not a Sacrament.
In violation of the practice of all antiquity it mutilates the rite by omitting the sacred unction. It retains the shadow without the substance.