Mark 6:13

Mark 6:13. Anointed with oil many sick. Peculiar to Mark. To suppose that the oil was used medicinally is contrary to the whole tenor of the narratives. It was ‘the vehicle of healing power committed to them' (Alford), an external sign such as our Lord sometimes used to connect Himself and the person cured. It was probably also a symbol of anointing by the Holy Spirit. A practice of this kind continued in the Apostolic Church (see James 5:14); but neither the fact nor the symbolical meaning justify the Roman sacrament of extreme unction (observed also in the Greek Church, with the difference that it may be repeated, while the Roman Church administers it only once, at the approach of death).