Mark 6:13

anointed with oil St Mark alone mentions this anointing as the method, whereby the healing of the sick was effected. Though not expressly ordered, it was doubtless implied in the injunction to "heal the sick" (Matthew 10:8). The prophet Isaiah (Mark 1:6) alludes to the use of oil for medicinal purposes, and we find this form of cure prescribed thirty years later than this Gospel, by St James in his general Epistle (Mark 5:14). It was much used by the Jews for curative purposes, and thus supplied at once a fitting symbol and an efficient means in these miraculous cures wrought by the Apostles. For the use of the symbolical media by our Lord Himself comp. Mark 8:23; John 9:6.