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;. OLAUS PKTRI AND HIS WORK. 211
sort in a sermon preached in 1523.
"
We need not care
for confirmation as the bishops desire it, but every pastor
might examine children as to their faith, and, if it were
good and genuine, should lay on hands and confirm.
1
21
Nothing, however, was prescribed in early Lutheran
books, except that when people came to communion they
should show that they had the requisite knowledge.
Evangelical confirmation in Germany appears to owe its
practical introduction to Martin Bucer, especially in his
struggles against the Anabaptists in Hesse in 1538, where
he found it a valuable protection of the custom of infant
baptism. It is generally said that it was dropped in
Sweden in order to maintain the supremacy of the two
sacraments ordained by Christ himself. But this explana
tion does not quite suit the previous and recent attitude of
Olaus, who, in his Little Book about the Sacraments, pub
lished in 1528, wrote that, as the sacrament of confirma
tion, considered as an act of unction, is not found in Holy
Scripture, it cannot be considered as necessary, "but it
can well remain as useful, when it is performed with the
intention which has just been mentioned, the intention
being to explain that the unction does not confer grace,
but is a reminder of the grace of baptism." I have already
quoted the similar resolution on oil and unction passed by
the Council of Orebro, held in the next year (1529). I
conclude, therefore, that Olaus, not being very clear or
keen on the subject, may have excused himself from not
naming it in his hand-book, because it was an episcopal
act, like ordination, and one performed by bishops at their
visitations, and for that reason was properly part of the
pontifical, not of the manual. It does not occur in the
Linkoping, Skara and Abo Latin services, which Freisen
has reprinted, and, of course, for this reason. We must
21 "
Confirmatio ut volunt episcopi non curanda, sed tamen
quisque pastor posset scrutari a pueris fidem, quae si bona et
germana esset, ut imponeret manus et confirmaret," quoted by
G. Rietschel : Lehrbuch der Liturgik, II., 24. On Bucer,
see the same section further on.
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