Verse 14 Anointing him with oil. Whether the anointing here prescribed was intended as a rite, or as a remedy, does not appear. The oil obtained from the olive was much in use among the ancient Jews, both as an article of food, and as a medical remedy; and was also employed in many civil and religious ceremonies. The good Samaritan Is represented as employing it in the case of the wounded traveller, and the twelve, when sent out upon their original mission, anointed with oil the sick whom they were called upon to cure. (Mark 6:13.) The ceremony of extreme unction, as practised by the Catholic church, rests upon the authority of this passage. That ceremony, however, is performed as the last act of preparation for death, when all hope of recovery is gone; but, in the directions here given, the anointing, whether prescribed as a medical remedy or as a religious rite, is plainly employed as a means of restoration to health, as appears from the James 5:15.