Post-Baptismal Chrismation in Second-Century Syria: A Reconsideration of the Evidence
Marquette University
Correspondence: joseph.mueller{at}marquette.edu
Alastair Logan has argued for the existence of a post-baptismal anointing with ointment in parts of the ‘great church’ of second-century Syria and Asia Minor. He has proposed that this rite fell into desuetude but found new life in the fourth century. Logan's arguments depend especially on Ignatius’ Letter to the Ephesians 17.1, the blessing at the end of the Coptic Didache 10.7, and the version of this prayer in Apostolic Constitutions 7.27. However, Logan's evidence lacks convincing completeness for three reasons. First, Ignatius’ Letter to the Ephesians says too little about the anointing practised in communities he judged orthodox to serve as a witness for a post-baptismal ointment rite in these churches. Second, Logan's argument that the prayer at the end of the Coptic Didache 10.7 refers to ointment and is an original part of this document fails to answer sufficiently too many questions and counter-arguments found in the literature. Third, his argument for supposing that Apostolic Constitutions 7.27 proposes a ritual innovation considered essential by the redactor depends on the misreading of some passages and on the assertion of divergent interpretations of the baptismal ointment in this work which comparison with other Antiochene sources shows to be unjustified.