Indian Antiquary Vol 25

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 88

82
And Herrick
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
"When the rose reigns and locks with ointments shine, Let rigid Cato read these lines of mine.""
Vitizilonitti, king of Mexico, was anointed with the same divine ointment as the statues of the gods.25 The Greeks offered oil to Pluto instead of wine. In consecrating statues, the Greeks anointed them.27 The Greeks made great use of oil as a medicine. Oiling after a hot bath prevented a chill.23 Rabbing and oiling was the basis of the School of Physic which was founded by Prodicus.20 Oiling was a remedy for strains, swellings and women's diseases.30 The Greeks bathed and anointed before a meal and after a long journey. In their games the Greeks had their joints rubbed, fomented and suppled with oil, whereby all strains were prevented.32 Greek feasters oiled the breast, as the heart, like the brain, was refreshed by oil.33 Greek drinkers anointed their heads: oil kept the brain cool and prevented fever.34 When the Roman bride entered the bridegroom's house, she struck the door cheek with swine's grease.35 The ancient Greeks had probably a similar practice, since, in modern Greece, the bridegroom's door is anointed with swine and wolf's fat.36 Both the Romans and Greeks anointed their dead. And the Greeks washed the bones of the dead and anointed them with oil.97
Even more than Jews, Greeks or Egyptians, the early Christians gave oil the position of a holy and miraculous healer. The use of oil as a miraculous healer had the support both of the example and of the direction of the Apostles.38 As late as A. D. 742, Pope Boniface advised his people to keep off fevers and other diseases, not by binding charms, but by unction.30 Besides by the example of the Apostles, the early Christians, as worshippers of the Anointed, naturally believed in the special sanctity of oil. The sanctity of the Chrism, or holy unguent of oil and myrrh, was increased by the sameness of its monogram that is the Greek Ch and R, with the monogram of the name Christ, the famous finial added to the Roman standard about A. D. 320 by Constantine the Great.40 The rapture of Christian enthusiasm is described as an unction. The face of the martyr shone as with oil. This general worship of oil gave rise to several varieties of sacred unguent. At first the Oil of the Cross was supposed to be oil from a vessel that had lain on the cross. Later (A. D. 679) Cross Oil was held to be a special oil which, like resin, oosed from the wood of the cross. This Cross Oil had notable power over evil spirits. It cared the sick, it scared all the evil spirits from a devil-haunted hill, it prevented miscarriage, it healed a demoniac. These miraculous powers were (A. D. 641) equally inherent in oil set in vessels in the places hallowed by the birth, death, burial and resurrection of the Anointed. Oil taken from lamps that burned in holy places was also healing. The martyrs yielded healing oil from their relics, their tombs, their images, and the lamps at their shrines. The spirit power of the oil from the seat where St. Peter first sat was famous.43 In A. D. 423, an evil spirit was prevented shooting Theoderet of Cyprus because he saw that the Lamb was guarded by bands of martyrs. These martyr bands were rows of vessels containing martyrs' oil.43 Among its other miraculous powers, sacred oil had apparently the virtue of preventing excess in drinking causing drunkenness. Oil in a lamp at the tomb of Nicetius in Lyons restored sight and withered limbs, and drove out devils: oil burnt at St. Servias' tomb cured epilepsy: St. Genevieve's oil cured blindness. According to St. Chrysostom (A. D. 398) oil
[MARCH, 1896.
24 Horne's Hesperides, p. 3.
26 Potter's Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 251.
28 Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 368.
Op. cit. Book xviii. Chap. 4.
25 Jones' Crowns, p. 534; Descriptive Sociology," Mexicans." 27 Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 232: Vol. II. p. 213.
29 Pliny's Natural History, Book xxix. Chap. 1. Potter's Antiquities, Vol. II. pp. 364-366.
32 Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 499. The refining Ruskin (Queen of the Air, 51) says: The olive has a triple significance in symbolism from the use of oil in anointing, in strife, and
in light. The prize of the Panathenaic games is a vial of oil. Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 381.
85 Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 384.
85 Pliny's Natural History, Book xxviii. Chap. 9. Potter's Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 183.
38 Story's Castle of Saint Angelo, p. 232.
38 St. Mark's Gospel, vi. 13; The Epistle of St. James, v. 14.
40 Compare Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. I. p. 671. 42 Smith's Christian Antiquities, pp. 611, 1455. Op. cit. p. 1455.
39 Smith's Christian Antiquities, p. 992.
41 Eusebius in Smith's Christian Antiquities, p. 1214. 43 Op. cit. p. 1454.