CONFIRMATION. This is the term commonly used in Italy to denote the sacrament of Confirmation.
SUMMARY: I. Dogmatic theology of Confirmation — II. Moral theology and canon law of Confirmation — III. Ascetical theology of Confirmation
I. DOGMATIC THEOLOGY OF CONFIRMATION
SUMMARY: I. Notions — II. History — III. Dogma
I. Notions
The word Confirmation derives from the Greek χρῆμα, a term used to express both the act of anointing and the matter with which the anointing is performed. It is precisely this rite that has been applied to the name of Confirmation, since it is the most visible and significant of those required for the administration of this sacrament. However, this denomination is not universally used nor does it date back to antiquity. The same can be said of the term Confirmation, which rather expresses the effect of the sacrament. The term consignatio (consecration), which is older and was used for a long time in the Latin liturgy, better and more accurately expresses the sacramental act. It referred to the series of ceremonies following the actual Baptism, by which the bishop completed and, in a certain sense, definitively ratified the admission of the baptized into the flock of Christ, marking them with the sign of the Cross. The sacrament thus described is today entirely distinct in the Latin Church from that of Baptism. In the Greek Church the distinction is less visible, because the anointing that constitutes this sacrament is performed immediately after Baptism and is not reserved to the bishop; it is habitually administered by the same priest who performs the Baptism.II. History
This diversity of names and usages, however, does not prevent the corresponding sacramental reality from dating back to the beginnings of the Church. This reality essentially consists in a specific sign intended both to signify and to confer a special communication of the Holy Spirit. Now, the existence of a rite intended to produce this effect is found in the early Church. The Apostles were still in Jerusalem when they heard that the Gospel had been preached in Samaria and that Baptism had been administered, yet the baptized had not received the Holy Spirit. This clearly indicates that the deacon Philip, who had preached the Gospel to them, did not possess the power to confer II. Therefore Peter and John were sent to perfect the entry of those Christians into the Church. They went, laid their hands on the new Christians, and they received the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14–18). From another passage it is clear that this was the customary practice: none of those who administered Baptism had the faculty to give the Holy Spirit. The baptized therefore had to wait to receive it until an apostle could come. For this reason St Paul, upon arriving in Ephesus and meeting some believers whom he thought were already baptized, asked them whether they had received the Holy Spirit. Surprised to learn that they did not even know that the Holy Spirit existed, he understood that they had not received the Baptism of Christ. He therefore immediately arranged for them to be baptized, and through the laying on of hands they received the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:1–7).The gift of the Holy Spirit was then followed in many cases by extraordinary graces that in some way bore witness to His presence. These were called “charisms” or special gifts of “tongues,” “prophecy,” or “miracles.” Such exceptional favors, however, were not the essence of the gift of the Holy Spirit, which the Apostles intended to confer. The great benefit was the “infusion into souls” of the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5). This, and not the “charisms,” made Christians “temples of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 3:16) and granted to all the benefit of divine filiation (Gal 4:6; Rom 8:14).
For this reason, later on, when the “charisms” ceased, the successors of the Apostles continued to confer the Holy Spirit through a special rite distinct from that of Baptism. This is evident from the oldest literary testimonies of Christian initiation. Tertullian, at the beginning of the 3rd century, clearly notes, after the strictly baptismal rite, the laying on of hands invoking the descent of the Holy Spirit: “Dehinc manus imponitur, per benedictionem advocans et invitans Spiritum Sanctum” (De Baptismo, 8: PL 1, 1207). At the same time, the Apostolic Tradition of St Hippolytus, the oldest liturgical description we possess, shows the baptized, after having received Baptism by immersion, putting on their clothes again and re-entering the church to receive from the bishop the laying on of hands. From then on, the use of this special conferral of the Holy Spirit is found in all Churches, in Milan and Rome, in Jerusalem and Carthage, in Gaul and Africa. The Catecheses of St Cyril of Jerusalem (Cat. 21, mystag. 3: PG 33, 1088–94) and those of St Ambrose (De mysteriis, 7, 34–42; De Sacramentis, 3, 2, 8–10: PL 16, 399–403; 434–436) explain its meaning to the neophytes; the Sacramentaries contain a detailed description of the related ceremonies, and the abundant documents from the early centuries lead to the conclusion that in the Latin Church it was then common practice to go to the bishop to receive the Holy Spirit.
This crowning of Christian initiation was not, however, considered indispensable. The sick baptized in danger of death, for example, did not receive it at all, and St Cyprian absolutely refuses to allow any doubt about the efficacy of Baptism thus administered (Epist., 69, 14–16). Nevertheless, as Cyprian himself says, every effort was made to ensure that the baptized did not lack what Peter and John had done for the Christians of Samaria: “Those who have been baptized are presented to the leaders of the Church and, through our prayer and the laying on of our hands, receive the Holy Spirit and the seal of the Lord that crowns their initiation” (Epist., 73, 9). Cyprian himself, moreover, draws a very clear distinction between this gift of the Holy Spirit and the regeneration of Baptism: “One is not born when one receives the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands; birth occurs in Baptism, but the Holy Spirit is received when one is already born” (Epist., 74, 7). Thus the separation of the two rites becomes ever more pronounced, at least in the Latin Church. While in early times the bishop, when present, also performed the actual baptismal rite, gradually the custom prevailed that the bishop reserved for himself only the rite of conferring the Holy Spirit. This is attested at the beginning of the 5th century by a letter of Pope Innocent I, who, referring to that passage in the Acts where the baptized of Samaria are mentioned, expressly states that only the bishop has the power for what he calls the consignatio of children: “De consignandis infantibus manifestum est non ab alio quam ab episcopo fieri licere” (PL 20, 554). From the same period comes the testimony of St Jerome, according to whom bishops used to go to distant places to give the Holy Spirit to those who had already been baptized by priests or deacons (Dial. cont. Lucif., 9: PL 23, 164). The Council of Orange (441) confirms the same custom (can. 2). It decrees that when someone goes to the bishop to be confirmed, the bishop must be informed if at the time of Baptism the chrismation, which normally should have taken place, was omitted (Mansi, VI, 435).
Actually, too soon the ceremony of Christian initiation was overloaded with unctions intended to symbolize the various effects of grace, which were expected from II. Whatever these effects might be, they had been presented in biblical language as a whole as a spiritual unction and as the work of the Holy Spirit. "Spiritus Domini super me, propterea unxit me" (Is. 61, 1): Christ had applied these words to Himself (Lk. 4, 18). "Unxit eum Deus Spiritu Sancto," St. Peter had said of Him (Acts 10, 18), and the Epistle to the Hebrews had likewise referred to Christ the verse of Ps. 44, 8: "Unxit te Deus, Deus tuus, oleo exultationis." In this *oleum exultationis* all antiquity recognized the Holy Spirit, for, in the explicit words of St. Augustine (Contra Maximinum, II, 16, 3: PL 42, 782), it is a figurative expression to indicate the Holy Spirit. He is also called the author of the unction, of grace. St. Ambrose speaks of the Holy Spirit who "anointed" John the Baptist in his mother's womb (In Lk., II, 25 and 29: PL 15, 1561 and 1562). He habitually designates Him with the appellative of *unguentum spirituale*, of *signaculum spirituale* (De Spiritu S., I, 9, 103; I, 6, 79: PL 16, 729). The Holy Spirit is the *signaculum spirituale*, received in Baptism, lost through sin, and regained through Penance (De Paenit., II, 3, 8: PL 16, 500D).
Thanks to this conception, the Christian, like Christ, is, according to the language of the Church, an "anointed" of the Spirit. In Baptism he is the object of a twofold intervention of the Holy Spirit, who snatches him from the devil and consecrates him to God. It is to symbolize these two actions that two unctions have been introduced into the rite of regeneration, one before and the other after Baptism. Above all, the second, because of the prayer that follows it and which recalls the memory of the unction once received by priests and kings, has attracted the attention of theologians. It has been seen as symbolizing in it the insertion of the baptized into the *genus electum*, into the *regale sacerdotium*, into the *gens sancta* of which St. Peter speaks (1 Pt. 2, 9). For the same reason, in the Greek Church it has been considered constitutive of the sacrament of Confirmation: very soon it would have replaced the apostolic rite of the laying on of hands.
Likewise in the Latin Church, from the time when it was desired to distinguish with precision the proper rites of the two sacraments, some theologians have thought and still think to connect different elements to that of Confirmation. They have been struck or allow themselves to be struck by the forms and texts that attribute to the Holy Spirit the effect symbolized by this unction, without noting that such an intervention of the Holy Spirit is universal and is expressed in the unction and in the various rites that precede the baptismal ablution. "Accipe Spiritum Sanctum et in corde tenens," says the Bobbio Missal concerning the insufflation (PL 74, 500). For further details cf. P. Galtier, *La Consignation dans les Eglises d’Occident*, in *Rev. d’hist. eccl.*, 13 [1912], pp. 265-70; id., *Imposition des mains*, in *DTHC*, VII, cols. 1369-74). Therefore, the question does not concern the importance attached to the post-baptismal unction nor even whether it might have sufficed to constitute a true sacramental rite: there is no doubt about that. The question is another: namely, whether such an unction with its spiritual symbolism was considered from the beginning, or ever, as corresponding to the sacrament of Confirmation. Now, it is precisely on this point that this theological conception clashes with an undeniable fact, namely that in distributing the rites of initiation between the priest and the bishop (cf. the table in *DTHC*, VII, cols. 1351-54) the post-baptismal chrismation is regularly connected to those that pertain to the simple priest and distinctly separated from the laying on of hands, reserved from ancient times to bishops. It therefore seems that in the Churches of the West the gift of the Holy Spirit, corresponding to that which the Acts of the Apostles show us as reserved to bishops, has been considered from time immemorial as communicable through the laying on of hands.
In the West, however, to this primitive rite an unction was added. It appears for the first time at the beginning of the 3rd century in the *Apostolic Tradition* of St. Hippolytus; St. Cyprian does not mention it at all, nor does St. Ambrose; at least they do not insist upon II. The laying on of hands concludes, according to them, with a sign of the cross on the forehead of the new Christian, and this is called the *consignatio*. This sign of the cross, however, soon begins to be made with the thumb dipped in the *chrism*, and thus a chrismation is added to the laying on of hands. Unlike the one that follows Baptism, which is done on the head, this one is done on the forehead. Pope Innocent I, in emphasizing this difference, reserves the latter exclusively to bishops. After Pope Innocent, it is found everywhere: the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries mention it; yet it appears with its original character of a concluding sign of the cross of the ceremony of Confirmation. "Signum Christi in vitam aeternam," says the bishop in making II. One must note the proper meaning and purpose of the gesture, not those, that is, of completing Christian initiation. The rubric of one of the Roman Ordines edited by Mabillon, precisely the 7th, suggests such an observation.
For it reads indeed that, as soon as the prayer of the laying on of hands invoking the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is finished, the bishop, with his thumb dipped in the *chrism*, makes a sign of the cross on the forehead of each of the confirmed, saying: "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, peace be with you," to which is answered "Amen," because that is the sign of Christianity which places the seal on every legitimate Baptism: "quia tunc omne baptisma legitimum christianitatis nomine confirmatur" (PL 78, 500).
It was, therefore, a simple sign of greeting this sign of the cross, accompanied by the *Pax tibi*. But the unction that is added to it slowly makes it acquire a greater importance. Despite the traditional persistence of the laying on of hands with the invocation of the Holy Spirit and despite the fact that ecclesiastical writers, faithful to the thought and language of the Fathers, persist in seeing in it the rite with which the Apostles had conferred the Holy Spirit, the chrismation that follows it is also placed in relation with the gift of the Spirit. Rather than considering it as a simple sign of the cross, emphasis is placed on the unction made with the chrism and it is considered as the proper rite of Confirmation: "Signo te signo Crucis et confirmo te chrismate salutis in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti." This is the form used and prescribed even today in the Latin Church, a form whose origins would be difficult to discover. And thus, even without having done so on purpose, this form is very similar to the form of the Greek Church: "Signaculum doni Spiritus Sancti," which accompanies the chrismation that has come to replace the laying on of hands.
BIBL.:
Galtier, P., *La Consignation dans les Eglises d’Occident*, in *Rev. d’hist. eccl.*, 13 [1912], pp. 265-70; id., *Imposition des mains*, in *DTHC*, VII, coll. 1369-74.
Here, one might say, is how the evolution of the ceremonies of Confirmation comes to an end. The additions and alterations made have left the primitive elements intact. Never in the Church has there been any doubt that the essential elements of what the Apostles intended in conferring the Holy Spirit upon the baptized have been perpetuated. When, in the fourteenth century, an attempt was made to classify the rites of the Church having a true sacramental value, Confirmation was considered by all as a Sacrament distinct from Baptism and capable of conferring by itself a special grace. The Council of Florence officially consecrated this doctrine: it placed Confirmation among the seven Sacraments of the New Law, declaring it to be of apostolic origin (Denz-U, 697). A new occasion to reaffirm this teaching was given to the Church by the Protestant denial of the sixteenth century. While Luther, with his doctrine of external justification, excluded any idea of an interior transformation of the soul through Grace, the Council of Trent defined the existence of seven Sacraments ordained to confer Grace, and among them was Confirmation (Denz-U, 84). With three special canons, the same Council excluded any Protestant interpretation of Confirmation. It does not wish Confirmation received by the baptized to be seen as a superfluous ceremony (otiosa), but rather as a Sacrament in the technical sense of the word. Nor does it wish it to be regarded merely as a catechesis, during which adolescents would, so to speak, give an account of their faith before the Church. Finally, it condemns those who offend the Holy Spirit by excluding any efficacy from the anointing and those who do not consider the bishop alone as the ordinary minister of Confirmation, but would have any priest be the minister (Denz-U, 871-73).
Since the Council of Trent, the Church has had no other occasion to return to the subject, except for proposition 44a of the decree Lamentabili (Denz-U, 2044). However, the new Code of Canon Law has made a clarification regarding the manner of administering Confirmation. While the Council of Florence had limited itself to stating that the "matter" is sacred chrism and the "form" the words already cited, canon 780 expressly declares (though there is a mention in the letter of Leo XIII of September 13, Apostolicae cruce [Denz-U, 1963]) that Confirmation must be conferred "by the imposition of the hand" with the anointing of chrism on the forehead and with the words prescribed by the approved Pontificals of the Church. On the one hand, therefore, it formally approves the "form" used by the United Greek Churches, and on the other, it manifests the intention not to depart from the usage.