Insufflation
Encyclopedia
In religious and magical practice, insufflation and exsufflation
are ritual acts of blowing, breathing, hissing, or puffing that signify variously expulsion or renunciation of evil or of the devil
(the Evil One), or infilling or blessing with good (especially, in religious use, with the Spirit
or grace of God
).
In historical Christian practice, such blowing appears most prominently in the liturgy
, and is connected almost exclusively with baptism
and other ceremonies of Christian
initiation
, achieving its greatest popularity during periods in which such ceremonies were given a prophylactic or exorcistic
significance, and were viewed as essential to the defeat of the devil or to the removal of the taint of original sin
.
Ritual blowing occurs in the liturgies of catechumenate and baptism
from a very early period
and survives into the modern Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Maronite, and Coptic rites. Catholic liturgy post-Vatican II
(the so-called novus ordo 1969) has largely done away with insufflation, except in a special rite for the consecration of chrism
on Maundy Thursday
. Protestant liturgies typically abandoned it very early on. Muslims include the practice to a certain degree, following the Biblical rites to a lesser extent. The Tridentine Catholic liturgy
retained both an insufflation of the baptismal water and (like the present-day Orthodox and Maronite rites) an exsufflation of the candidate for baptism, right up to the 1960s:
equivalents, but also the simplex sufflare ('blow'), halare ('breathe'), inspirare, exspirare, etc.
Typical is the 8th-century Libellus de mysterio baptismatis of Magnus of Sens, one of a number of responses to a questionnaire about baptism circulated by Charlemagne
. In discussing insufflation as a means of exorcising catechumens, Magnus combines a variety of mostly exsufflation-like functions:
This double role appears as early as Cyril of Jerusalem
's 4th-century Mystagogic Catacheses; as Edward Yarnold notes, "Cyril attributes both negative and positive effects [to insufflation]. … The rite of breathing on the [baptismal] candidate has the negative effect of blowing away the devil (exsufflation) and the positive effect of breathing in grace (insufflation)."
attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, from the 3rd or 4th century, and therefore contemporary with Cyril in the east:
, was absorbed into the rite of baptism. Both exsufflation and insufflation are well established by the time of Augustine and in later centuries are found widely. By the Western high Middle Ages
of the 12th century, sufflation was geographically widespread, and had been applied not only to sufflating catechumens and baptizands, but also to exorcism of readmitted heretics
; to admission of adult converts to the catechumenate; to renunciation of the devil on the part of catechumens; to consecration and/or exorcism of the baptismal font
and water; to consecration or exorcism of ashes
; and to the consecration of the chrism or holy oil.
rite that can be traced from 5th-century Rome through the western Middle Ages to the Council of Trent
, and beyond that into modern (Tridentine
) Roman Catholicism. As the 'national' rites such as the Ambrosian tradition
in northern Italy
and the Spanish Mozarabic rite
faded away or were absorbed into international practice, it was this hybrid Roman-Gallican standard that came to dominate western Christendom
, including Anglo-Saxon
and medieval England, from the time of Charlemagne, and partly through his doing, through the high and late Middle Ages and into the modern period. Roman practice around the year 500 is reflected in a letter by a somewhat mysterious John the Deacon
to a correspondent named Senarius. The letter discusses the exsufflation of catechumens at length. The Stowe Missal
, Irish in origin but largely Gallican
in form, contains a prebaptismal sufflation of unclear significance. The other Gallican rites are largely devoid of sufflation, though the so-called Missale Gothicum contains a triple exsufflation of baptismal water, and a prebaptismal insufflation of catechumens is found in the hybrid Bobbio Missal and the 10th-century Fulda
sacramentary
, alongside the more common baptismal exsufflation. The 11th-century North-Italian baptismal ritual in the Ambrosian Library MS. T.27.Sup. makes heavy use of the practice, requiring both insufflation and triple exsufflation of the baptismal candidates in modum crucis, and insufflation of the font as well. The "Hadrianum" version of the Gregorian Sacramentary, sent to Charlemagne from Rome and augmented probably by Benedict of Aniane
, contains an insufflation of the baptismal font, as does the mid-10th-century Ordo Romanus L, the basis of the later Roman pontifical. Ordo Romanus L also contains a triple exsufflation of the candidates for baptism, immediately preceding the baptism itself.
Most of the numerous Carolingian
expositions of baptism treat sufflation to some extent. One anonymous 9th-century catechism is unusual in distinguishing explicitly between the exsufflation of catechumens and the insufflation of baptismal water, but most of the tract
s and florilegia
, when they treat both, do so without referring one to the other; most confine themselves to exsufflation and are usually content to quote extracts from authorities, especially Isidore
and Alcuin
. Particularly popular was Isidore's lapidary remark in the Etymologies to the effect that it is not the human being ("God's creature") that is exsufflated, but the Prince of Sinners to whom that person is subjected by being born in sin, a remark that echoed Augustine
's arguments against the Pelagians to the effect that it was not the human infant (God's image) that was attacked in sufflation, but the infant's possessor, the devil. Particularly influential was Alcuin's brief treatment of the subject, the so-called Primo paganus, which in turn depended heavily on John the Deacon. The Primo paganus formed the basis of Charlemagne's famous circular questionnaire on baptism, part of his effort to harmonize liturgical practice across his empire; and many of the seventeen extant direct or indirect responses to the questionnaire echo Alcuin, making the process a little circular and the texts a little repetitious. The burden of Alcuin's remarks, in fact, appears above in the quotation from the Libellus of Magnus of Sens, one of the respondents. The questionnaire assumed that exsufflation of or on the part of the candidate for baptism was generally practiced — it merely asks what meaning is attached to the practice:
Most of the respondents answered that it was so that, with the devil sent fleeing, the entry of the Holy Spirit might be prepared for.
's collection of Carolingian baptismal expositions, the Incipit de baptisma, and in the two vernacular (Old English) homilies
based on it, the Quando volueris and the Sermo de baptismate. The Incipit de baptisma reads: "On his face let the sign of the cross be made by exsufflation, so that, the devil having been put to flight, entry for our Lord Christ might be prepared." Among English liturgical texts proper, the tenth-century Leofric Pontifical (and Sacramentary) dictates an insufflation of baptizands, a triple insufflation of the baptismal water, and an 'exhalation' of holy oil. In the 11th century, the Salisbury Pontifical (BL Cotton MS Tiberius C.1) and the Pontifical of Thomas of Canterbury require insufflation of the font; the Missal of Robert of Jumièges
(Canterbury) has an erased rubric
where it may have done likewise, as well as having an illegible rubric where it probably directed the exsufflation of catechumens, and retaining the old ordo ad caticuminum ex pagano faciendum, complete with its sufflation ceremony; and an Engish Ordo Romanus (BL Cotton MS Vitellius E.12) contains a triple exsufflation of baptizands. Various 12th-century texts include signing and triple exsufflation of the holy oil (Sarum), triple exsufflation of baptizands (the Ely, Magdalene, and Winton Pontificals), and insufflation of the font in modum crucis (Ely and Magdalene, followed by most later texts). Such are the origins of the late medieval sufflation rites, which were in turn retained in regularized form in post-Tridentine Catholicism.
's first attempt at a baptismal liturgy, the Tauffbuchlin (Taufbüchlein) of 1523 (reprinted 1524 and 1525) did retain many ceremonies from the late Medieval ritual as it was known in Germany, including a triple exsufflation of baptizands. But in an epilogue, Luther listed this ceremony among the adiaphora
— i.e., the inessential features that added nothing to the meaning of the sacrament:
The Lutheran Strasbourg Taufbüchlein of June 1524, composed by Diobald Schwartz, assistant to Cathedral preacher Martin Zell, on the basis of the medieval rite used in Strasbourg combined with elements of Luther's 1523 rite, also retains baptismal exsufflation; so does Andreas Osiander
in Nuremberg, in the same year.
But thereafter the practice vanished from Lutheranism
, and indeed from Protestantism generally. Luther's revised edition of 1526 and its successors omit exsufflation altogether, as do the Luther-influenced early reformed rites of England (Thomas Cranmer
's Prayer Book of 1549) and Sweden (the Manual of Olavus Petri), despite the former's conservative basis in the medieval Sarum ritual and the latter's strong interest in exorcism as an essential part of the baptismal ritual.
Similarly in the Swiss Reformation (the Zwinglian/Reformed tradition), only the very earliest rites retain sufflation, namely the ceremony published by Leo Jud, pastor of St. Peter's in Zurich, in the same year (1523) as Luther's first baptismal manual.
, where it is usually treated as an un-Scriptural and superstitious (i.e., in the Protestant view, a typically Roman Catholic) practice, and even one reeking of enchantment or witchcraft. It appears as such, for example in the work of Henry More
(the 'Cambridge Platonist') on evil. His argument essentially reverses that of Augustine. Augustine had said to the Pelagians (to paraphrase): "you see that we exorcize and exsufflate infants before baptising them; therefore they must be tainted with sin and possessed by the devil since birth." More replies, in effect, "Infants cannot be devil-possessed sinners; therefore, ceremonial exorcism and exsufflation is presumptuous, frightening, and ridiculous," in a word "the most gross and fundamental Superstitions, that look like Magick or Sorcery":
Sufflation appears in Roman Catholic anti-Protestant polemic, as well. The relative antiquity of the practice, and its strong endorsement by the Protestants' favorite Father, Augustine, made it a natural element in Catholic arguments that contrasted the Protestant with the ancient and Apostolic church. A true church, according to Roman Catholic apologists, would be:
This was argued on the grounds that some of these ceremonies were demonstrably ancient, and all of them might be.
To which a Protestant reply was that sufflation was not ancient enough, and could not be proved to be apostolic:
Sufflation was judged by Protestant critics to be irrational, mysterious, and obscure, an increasingly important factor by the close of the 17th century and the dawn of the Enlightenment:
It was said to be a human invention, imposed by the arbitrary whim of a tyrannical prelate against the primitive Gospel freedom of the church:
To all of which, Roman Catholic apologists replied that insufflation was not only ancient and Apostolic, but had been practiced by Christ himself:
and in Asia, where locally and culturally meaningful ceremonies have often revolutionized practice, and where the exorcistic function of baptism has taken on a new vitality. For example, a pure insufflation is apparently practiced in the Philippine Independent Church
, and Spinks mentions a pre-baptismal ceremony used by the Christian Workers' Fellowship of Sri Lanka
, in which the candidates are struck with a cane and their faces are breathed upon. It is not clear whether the latter represents a revival of historical sufflation, or a wholly new ceremony derived from local custom.
to his disciples, and so initiating the commissioned church, by breathing on them, here too, very possibly, with implicit reference to the original creation. The two passages were connected explicitly in later Christian exegesis: the same breath that created man re-created him.
The associations with creation, rebirth, initiation, and revivification created by these passages of Scripture suited insufflation for a role in baptism as it has been most commonly regarded: as figuring the waters of creation (over which the Spirit brooded); as figuring the womb of rebirth; and as figuring (in Saint Paul's metaphor) the tomb, into which the Christian joins Christ in descending, and from which the Christian likewise joins Christ in ascending, dead to the old life but made alive again in Christ.
There are also Biblical antecedents for exsufflation, properly speaking, that is, exorcistic blowing, especially the numerous Old Testament
passages in which "the breath of God" is the vehicle or symbol not of life but of death and destruction — an expression of the wrath of God
: "by the breath of God they perish / and by the blast of his anger they are consumed" (Job 4:9, RSV). The same power is attributed metaphorically to Christ: "The lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord Jesus
will slay him with the breath of his mouth" (2 Thessalonians 2:8, RSV). Even less obvious passages could be associated with liturgical exsufflation. Jesse of Amiens, for example, interprets Psalm 34 (Vulg. 35):5 as descriptive of the fate of exsufflated devils: ""Let them be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the Lord driving them on!" And the apocrypha
l Acts of Thomas
describes a baptismal ceremony which, though it does not explicitly contain a breathing ceremony, may imply one, "Let the gift come by which, breathing upon thine enemies, thou didst make them draw back and fall headlong, and let it dwell in this oil, over which we name thy holy name."
God's breath can be fiery, consuming all it touches: "I will blow upon you with the fire of my wrath" (Ezekiel 21:31, RSV). Some of the interpretations of exsufflation may reflect this. Cyril of Jerusalem, for example, when he discusses exsufflation in his catechetical sermons, interprets the liturgical practice in terms of fire:
Fire remains a theme in later liturgical exorcisms, for devils, as Nicetas
is reported to have said, "are purged by exorcisms as by fire": "we come against you, devil, with spiritual words and fiery speech; we ignite the hiding places in which you are concealed."
and the Lumen Christi
. The intimate connection between divine breath and divine fire appears in its most visually arresting form during the benediction
of the font, in which, according to most orders, the candle is dipped in the font while the priest declares the power of the Holy Spirit to have descended into the water: the sufflation of the font in most cases directly precedes or accompanies the immersion of the candle. Their close association can again be illustrated from Wulfstan's baptismal homilies:
Similar considerations bind sufflation closely to imagery of light and darkness, specifically of the movement of the baptizand from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light (a very common theme), and to the sign of the cross (a very common action), among others that could be mentioned. John the Deacon uses light-dark imagery to explain exsufflation in exorcism as a transition:
So also Augustine ("The church exsufflates and exorcises [infants] that the power of darkness might be cast out from them"), and Isidore ("The power of the devil is ... exsufflated in them, so that ... being delivered from the power of darkness, [they] might be translated unto the kingdom of their Lord").
And as regards signation (the sign of the cross), in Western texts from as early as the Gelasian Sacramentary
, the one gesture almost always precedes (or precedes and follows) the other, and their significance is often complementary if not identical. In Raban Maur's discussion of the baptismal liturgy, for example, the exsufflation is said to expel the devil, the signing to keep him from coming back. The two signs are frequently combined, the blowing done in the form of a cross, e.g. in the Syrian rite described by James of Edessa, in the modern Coptic rite, in the late 9th-century Ordo Romanus XXXI, in Wulfstan's Anglo-Saxon homilies and their Continental
sources, in the 10th-century Ambrosian rites for catechumen and font, in the 11th-century North Italian catechumenal rites, in the 12th- through 15th-century English pontificals, in the Sarum Missal, and in the 13th-century Roman pontifical.
is perhaps the best witness. He seems to be talking about an extra-liturgical casting out of demons by means of exsufflation and signing when he declares that gods rejected by Christians are driven from the bodies of men "by our touch and by our breath," and are thus "carried away by the thought and vision of the fire [of judgment]." He is talking about an ordinary gesture of aversion when he asks a Christian incense-dealer (regarded as hypocritical because he sells incense for polytheistic
altars), "with what mouth, I ask, will he spit and blow before the fuming altars for which he himself provided? with what constancy will he [thus] exorcise his foster children?" And his remarks to his wife about the dangers of mixed marriage suggest that exsufflation was a distinctively Christian practice: "[If you marry again, to a non-Christian,] shall you escape notice when you sign your bed or your body? when you blow away some impurity? When even by night you rise to pray?"
If such a custom did exist, it would clarify certain remarks by other Fathers, which might otherwise seem merely metaphorical. Eusebius, for example, says of the saints that they were men "who though they only breathed and spoke, were able to scatter the counsels of evil demons." Irenaeus
describes the right response to Gnostic doctrine as "reviling" (καταφυσησαντας; literally exsufflantes). Cyril of Jerusalem
, speaking of resisting temptation, not of baptism, says that "the mere breathing of the exorcist becomes as a fire to that unseen foe." And Augustine's remarks about blowing on images of the emperor
suggest that the significance of the gesture was well enough established to be actionable: "Of the great crime of lese majesty
... is he held guilty, according to the laws of this world, who blows upon an image ... of the emperor." Even as late as Bede
, we may suspect that "exsufflate" in the sense of "revile" or "cast off" may be a living metaphor.
by Sulpicius Severus
seems to have set in motion a hagiographic
tradition in which saints cast out demons or repel tempting devils by blowing at them. Of Saint Pachomius
, for example, it is said that "defending his brow with the sign of the cross, he blew upon [the demon] and immediately he fled … ; blowing upon him, he said, 'depart from me, devil.'" And of Saint Goswin
that "a demon stood before Saint Goswin saying 'surely you see that I am Christ …' and … therefore Saint Goswin exsufflated vigorously, saying 'depart foe …,' and immediately … the devil vanished." Saint Justina is reported to have similarly unmasked a series of increasingly subtle and powerful demons, finally melting the prince of demons himself: "blowing upon the devil, she immediately melted him like wax and … felt herself freed from all temptation." And Saint Felix
is said to have destroyed idols
and uprooted sacred trees by like means.
The breath of the saints was credited with healing, as well as exorcistic, powers from an early period. Gregory of Nyssa
says of Gregory Thaumaturgus
('Gregory the magician') that he needed to resort to "no finicking and laborious" magic, but "there sufficed, for both the casting out of demons and the healing of bodily ailments, the breath of his mouth." Similar powers are attributed to the Irish saints: kindling lamps, curing dumbness. This theme, too, persists in later hagiographic and quasi-hagiographic texts, appearing, for example in the Estoire del saint graal as the agency by which a madman is miraculously restored. Among English texts, Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac
relates that in order to give relief to a boy afflicted by madness, he "washed him in the water of the sacred font and, breathing into his face the breath of healing [or 'spirit of salvation'], drove away from him all the power of the evil spirit," illustrating the difficulty of distinguishing healing from exorcism in an era in which madness was attributed to demonic possession. The miracle that Bishop John performed, according to Bede
, on behalf of Herebald, is another example, since it involved a sufflation that was seemingly exorcistic, catechetical, and curative simultaneously.
remarked to his wife about Christian practices: "will you not seem to be doing magic?" in the eyes of a non-believer.
Celsus
(according to Origen
) reports the use of exufflation by Egyptian magicians. Plotinus
seems to attack its use by Roman ones. One of Lucian
's tall tales mentions a Chaldean pest-control sorcerer who causes toads and snakes to vanish by blowing on them.
But it is possible to regard Jesus himself as a magician in at least one popular event in the apocryphal infancy gospels, in which he is portrayed as using sufflation in order simultaneously to heal his brother of a snakebite and kill the snake; also in a rarer episode in which Jesus raises a boy from the dead by breathing on him. Christianized healing magic, if that is what it is, appears also in Syria, where ceremonial breathing became formalized as part of the rite of visitation of the sick. Ephraem Syrus advises that "if medicine fails you when you are sick, the 'visitors' will help, will pray for health, and one of them will breathe in your mouth, the other will sign you [with the sign of the cross]."
Whether it be originally Christian or originally pagan, similar methods of healing have been reported persisting till modern times: in Westphalia, the healing of a wound by triple signing and triple cruciform sufflation, or by exsufflation accompanied by a rhyming charm; and in Holland the alleviation of toothache by similar means. According to Drechsler, "Illnesses were blown away by the breath. If a child had bumped himself, one would blow three times on the place and it would 'fly away.'" Burns, and conditions that in some fashion resemble burns, such as fevers, boils, sore throats and rashes, are naturally the most common objects of blowing among modern folk-remedies, for example the Shetland cure that requires blowing on a burn three times while reciting the charm "Here come I to cure a burnt sore. / If the dead knew what the living endure, / The burnt sore would burn no more." But everything from jaundice, convulsions, and colic to bad luck and evil spells can apparently be alleviated by a bit of blowing. Wolters points out that exorcistic blowing was still (in 1935) found in the custom of blowing over bread that is about to be eaten. Moreover,
Finally, in one American example of superstition clearly derived from liturgical use, it is said that if at the baptism of a baby one turns at the door and blows three times, one can successfully prevent the devil from ever coming between the baby and the altar.
Exsufflation
Exsufflation is a strongly forced expiration of air from the lungs. Airway secretions can be cleared with manual and mechanical exsufflation. Mechanical insufflation-exsufflation devices alternate positive and negative airway pressure to stimulate cough...
are ritual acts of blowing, breathing, hissing, or puffing that signify variously expulsion or renunciation of evil or of the devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
(the Evil One), or infilling or blessing with good (especially, in religious use, with the Spirit
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
or grace of God
Divine grace
In Christian theology, grace is God’s gift of God’s self to humankind. It is understood by Christians to be a spontaneous gift from God to man - "generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved" - that takes the form of divine favour, love and clemency. It is an attribute of God that is most...
).
In historical Christian practice, such blowing appears most prominently in the liturgy
Liturgy
Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...
, and is connected almost exclusively with baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
and other ceremonies of Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
initiation
Initiation
Initiation is a rite of passage ceremony marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society. It could also be a formal admission to adulthood in a community or one of its formal components...
, achieving its greatest popularity during periods in which such ceremonies were given a prophylactic or exorcistic
Exorcism
Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...
significance, and were viewed as essential to the defeat of the devil or to the removal of the taint of original sin
Original sin
Original sin is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred...
.
Ritual blowing occurs in the liturgies of catechumenate and baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
from a very early period
Early Christianity
Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....
and survives into the modern Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Maronite, and Coptic rites. Catholic liturgy post-Vatican II
Second Vatican Council
The Second Vatican Council addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It opened under Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed...
(the so-called novus ordo 1969) has largely done away with insufflation, except in a special rite for the consecration of chrism
Chrism
Chrism , also called "Myrrh" , Holy anointing oil, or "Consecrated Oil", is a consecrated oil used in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Rite Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, in the Assyrian Church of the East, and in Old-Catholic churches, as well as Anglican churches in the administration...
on Maundy Thursday
Maundy Thursday
Maundy Thursday, also known as Holy Thursday, Covenant Thursday, Great & Holy Thursday, and Thursday of Mysteries, is the Christian feast or holy day falling on the Thursday before Easter that commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles as described in the Canonical gospels...
. Protestant liturgies typically abandoned it very early on. Muslims include the practice to a certain degree, following the Biblical rites to a lesser extent. The Tridentine Catholic liturgy
Tridentine Mass
The Tridentine Mass is the form of the Roman Rite Mass contained in the typical editions of the Roman Missal that were published from 1570 to 1962. It was the most widely celebrated Mass liturgy in the world until the introduction of the Mass of Paul VI in December 1969...
retained both an insufflation of the baptismal water and (like the present-day Orthodox and Maronite rites) an exsufflation of the candidate for baptism, right up to the 1960s:
[THE INSUFFLATION] He breathes thrice upon the waters in the form of a cross, saying: Do You with Your mouth bless these pure waters: that besides their natural virtue of cleansing the body, they may also be effectual for purifying the soul.
THE EXSUFFLATION. The priest breathes three times on the child in the form of a cross, saying: Go out of him...you unclean spiritUnclean spiritIn English translations of the Bible, unclean spirit is a common rendering of Greek pneuma akatharton , which in its single occurrence in the Septuagint translates Hebrew ....
and give place to the Holy Spirit, the ParacleteParacleteParaclete means advocate or helper. In Christianity, the term most commonly refers to the Holy Spirit.-Etymology:...
.
Insufflation vs. exsufflation
From an early period, the act had two distinct but not always distinguishable meanings: it signified on the one hand the derisive repudiation or exorcism of the devil; and, on the other, purification and consecration by and inspiration with the Holy Spirit. The former is technically "exsufflation" ("blowing out") and the latter "insufflation" ("blowing in"), but ancient and medieval texts (followed by modern scholarship) make no consistent distinction in usage. For example, the texts use not only Latin insufflare ('blow in') and exsufflare ('blow out'), or their Greek or vernacularVernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
equivalents, but also the simplex sufflare ('blow'), halare ('breathe'), inspirare, exspirare, etc.
Typical is the 8th-century Libellus de mysterio baptismatis of Magnus of Sens, one of a number of responses to a questionnaire about baptism circulated by Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
. In discussing insufflation as a means of exorcising catechumens, Magnus combines a variety of mostly exsufflation-like functions:
"Those who are to be baptised are insufflated by the priest of God, so that the Prince of Sinners [i.e. the devil] may be put to flight from out of them, and that entry for the Lord ChristChristChrist is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
might be prepared, and that by his insufflation they might be made worthy to receive the Holy Spirit."
This double role appears as early as Cyril of Jerusalem
Cyril of Jerusalem
Cyril of Jerusalem was a distinguished theologian of the early Church . He is venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. In 1883, Cyril was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII...
's 4th-century Mystagogic Catacheses; as Edward Yarnold notes, "Cyril attributes both negative and positive effects [to insufflation]. … The rite of breathing on the [baptismal] candidate has the negative effect of blowing away the devil (exsufflation) and the positive effect of breathing in grace (insufflation)."
Early period
What might neutrally be called "sufflation" is found in some of the earliest liturgies dealing with the protracted process of initiation known as the "catechumenate," which saw its heyday in the 4th and 5th centuries. The earliest extant liturgical use is possibly that of the Apostolic TraditionApostolic Tradition
The Apostolic Tradition is an early Christian treatise which belongs to genre of the Church Orders. It has been described as of "incomparable importance as a source of information about church life and liturgy in the third century".Re-discovered in the 19th century, it was given the name of...
attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, from the 3rd or 4th century, and therefore contemporary with Cyril in the east:
Those who are to be baptized should … be gathered in one place. … And [the bishop] should lay his hands on them and exorcize all alien spirits, that they may flee out of them and ever return into them. And when he has finished exorcizing them, he shall breathe on their faces; and when he has signed their foreheads, ears, and noses, he shall raise them up.
Distribution, geographical and functional
The practice entered the baptismal liturgy proper only as the catechumenate, rendered vestigial by the growth of routine infant baptismInfant baptism
Infant baptism is the practice of baptising infants or young children. In theological discussions, the practice is sometimes referred to as paedobaptism or pedobaptism from the Greek pais meaning "child." The practice is sometimes contrasted with what is called "believer's baptism", or...
, was absorbed into the rite of baptism. Both exsufflation and insufflation are well established by the time of Augustine and in later centuries are found widely. By the Western high Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
of the 12th century, sufflation was geographically widespread, and had been applied not only to sufflating catechumens and baptizands, but also to exorcism of readmitted heretics
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
; to admission of adult converts to the catechumenate; to renunciation of the devil on the part of catechumens; to consecration and/or exorcism of the baptismal font
Baptismal font
A baptismal font is an article of church furniture or a fixture used for the baptism of children and adults.-Aspersion and affusion fonts:...
and water; to consecration or exorcism of ashes
Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday, in the calendar of Western Christianity, is the first day of Lent and occurs 46 days before Easter. It is a moveable fast, falling on a different date each year because it is dependent on the date of Easter...
; and to the consecration of the chrism or holy oil.
Medieval period
Most of these variations persist in one branch or another of the hybrid Romano-GermanicRomano-German Pontifical
The Romano-German Pontifical is a set of Latin documents of Roman Catholic liturgical practice compiled in St...
rite that can be traced from 5th-century Rome through the western Middle Ages to the Council of Trent
Council of Trent
The Council of Trent was the 16th-century Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. It is considered to be one of the Church's most important councils. It convened in Trent between December 13, 1545, and December 4, 1563 in twenty-five sessions for three periods...
, and beyond that into modern (Tridentine
Tridentine Mass
The Tridentine Mass is the form of the Roman Rite Mass contained in the typical editions of the Roman Missal that were published from 1570 to 1962. It was the most widely celebrated Mass liturgy in the world until the introduction of the Mass of Paul VI in December 1969...
) Roman Catholicism. As the 'national' rites such as the Ambrosian tradition
Ambrosian Rite
Ambrosian Rite, also called the Milanese Rite, is a Catholic liturgical Western Rite. The rite is named after Saint Ambrose, a bishop of Milan in the fourth century...
in northern Italy
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
and the Spanish Mozarabic rite
Mozarabic Rite
The Mozarabic, Visigothic, or Hispanic Rite is a form of Catholic worship within the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, and in the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church . Its beginning dates to the 7th century, and is localized in the Iberian Peninsula...
faded away or were absorbed into international practice, it was this hybrid Roman-Gallican standard that came to dominate western Christendom
Christendom
Christendom, or the Christian world, has several meanings. In a cultural sense it refers to the worldwide community of Christians, adherents of Christianity...
, including Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...
and medieval England, from the time of Charlemagne, and partly through his doing, through the high and late Middle Ages and into the modern period. Roman practice around the year 500 is reflected in a letter by a somewhat mysterious John the Deacon
John the Deacon (Church of Rome)
John the Deacon was a deacon in the Church of Rome during the pontificate of Pope Symmachus . He is known only from an epistle he wrote to a Senarius, a vir illustris who had asked him to explain aspects of Christian initiatory practice...
to a correspondent named Senarius. The letter discusses the exsufflation of catechumens at length. The Stowe Missal
Stowe Missal
The Stowe Missal, which is strictly speaking a sacramentary rather than a missal, is an Irish illuminated manuscript written mainly in Latin with some Gaelic in about 750. In the mid-11th century it was annotated and some pages rewritten at Lorrha Monastery in County Tipperary, Ireland...
, Irish in origin but largely Gallican
Gallican rite
The Gallican Rite is a historical sub-grouping of the Roman Catholic liturgy in western Europe; it is not a single rite but actually a family of rites within the Western Rite which comprised the majority use of most of Christianity in western Europe for the greater part of the 1st millennium AD...
in form, contains a prebaptismal sufflation of unclear significance. The other Gallican rites are largely devoid of sufflation, though the so-called Missale Gothicum contains a triple exsufflation of baptismal water, and a prebaptismal insufflation of catechumens is found in the hybrid Bobbio Missal and the 10th-century Fulda
Fulda
Fulda is a city in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district .- Early Middle Ages :...
sacramentary
Sacramentary
The Sacramentary is a book of the Middle Ages containing the words spoken by the priest celebrating a Mass and other liturgies of the Church. The books were usually in fact written for bishops or other higher clegy such as abbots, and many lavishly decorated illuminated manuscript sacramentaries...
, alongside the more common baptismal exsufflation. The 11th-century North-Italian baptismal ritual in the Ambrosian Library MS. T.27.Sup. makes heavy use of the practice, requiring both insufflation and triple exsufflation of the baptismal candidates in modum crucis, and insufflation of the font as well. The "Hadrianum" version of the Gregorian Sacramentary, sent to Charlemagne from Rome and augmented probably by Benedict of Aniane
Benedict of Aniane
Saint Benedict of Aniane , born Witiza and called the Second Benedict, was a Benedictine monk and monastic reformer, who left a large imprint on the religious practice of the Carolingian Empire...
, contains an insufflation of the baptismal font, as does the mid-10th-century Ordo Romanus L, the basis of the later Roman pontifical. Ordo Romanus L also contains a triple exsufflation of the candidates for baptism, immediately preceding the baptism itself.
Most of the numerous Carolingian
Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Empire is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany, and its beginning date is based on the crowning of Charlemagne, or Charles the...
expositions of baptism treat sufflation to some extent. One anonymous 9th-century catechism is unusual in distinguishing explicitly between the exsufflation of catechumens and the insufflation of baptismal water, but most of the tract
Tract (literature)
A tract is a literary work, and in current usage, usually religious in nature. The notion of what constitutes a tract has changed over time. By the early part of the 21st century, these meant small pamphlets used for religious and political purposes, though far more often the former. They are...
s and florilegia
Florilegium
In medieval Latin a florilegium was a compilation of excerpts from other writings. The word is formed the Latin flos and legere : literally a gathering of flowers, or collection of fine extracts from the body of a larger work. It was adapted from the Greek anthologia "anthology", with the same...
, when they treat both, do so without referring one to the other; most confine themselves to exsufflation and are usually content to quote extracts from authorities, especially Isidore
Isidore
Isidore is a male name of Greek origin, derived from the Greek name Ἰσίδωρος, a combination of Ἶσις δώρον meaning "gift of Isis". The name survived the suppression of the worship of the goddess Isis in the newly Christianized Roman Empire, and is, among others, the name of several Christian saints...
and Alcuin
Alcuin
Alcuin of York or Ealhwine, nicknamed Albinus or Flaccus was an English scholar, ecclesiastic, poet and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York...
. Particularly popular was Isidore's lapidary remark in the Etymologies to the effect that it is not the human being ("God's creature") that is exsufflated, but the Prince of Sinners to whom that person is subjected by being born in sin, a remark that echoed Augustine
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
's arguments against the Pelagians to the effect that it was not the human infant (God's image) that was attacked in sufflation, but the infant's possessor, the devil. Particularly influential was Alcuin's brief treatment of the subject, the so-called Primo paganus, which in turn depended heavily on John the Deacon. The Primo paganus formed the basis of Charlemagne's famous circular questionnaire on baptism, part of his effort to harmonize liturgical practice across his empire; and many of the seventeen extant direct or indirect responses to the questionnaire echo Alcuin, making the process a little circular and the texts a little repetitious. The burden of Alcuin's remarks, in fact, appears above in the quotation from the Libellus of Magnus of Sens, one of the respondents. The questionnaire assumed that exsufflation of or on the part of the candidate for baptism was generally practiced — it merely asks what meaning is attached to the practice:
"Concerning the renunciation of Satan and all his works and pomps, what is the renunciation? and what are the works of the devil and his pomps? why is he breathed upon? (cur exsufflatur?) why is he exorcised?"
Most of the respondents answered that it was so that, with the devil sent fleeing, the entry of the Holy Spirit might be prepared for.
In England
On the other side of the Channel, in Anglo-Saxon England, sufflation is mentioned in Bishop WulfstanWulfstan
Wulfstan may refer to:*Wulfstan, ealdorman of Wiltshire , died 802*Wulfstan of Hedeby, 9th century merchantman and traveller*Wulfstan , Archbishop of York...
's collection of Carolingian baptismal expositions, the Incipit de baptisma, and in the two vernacular (Old English) homilies
Homily
A homily is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture. In Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Eastern Orthodox Churches, a homily is usually given during Mass at the end of the Liturgy of the Word...
based on it, the Quando volueris and the Sermo de baptismate. The Incipit de baptisma reads: "On his face let the sign of the cross be made by exsufflation, so that, the devil having been put to flight, entry for our Lord Christ might be prepared." Among English liturgical texts proper, the tenth-century Leofric Pontifical (and Sacramentary) dictates an insufflation of baptizands, a triple insufflation of the baptismal water, and an 'exhalation' of holy oil. In the 11th century, the Salisbury Pontifical (BL Cotton MS Tiberius C.1) and the Pontifical of Thomas of Canterbury require insufflation of the font; the Missal of Robert of Jumièges
Robert of Jumièges
Robert of Jumièges was the first Norman Archbishop of Canterbury. He had previously served as prior of the Abbey of St Ouen at Rouen in France, before becoming abbot of Jumièges Abbey, near Rouen, in 1037...
(Canterbury) has an erased rubric
Rubric
A rubric is a word or section of text which is traditionally written or printed in red ink to highlight it. The word derives from the , meaning red ochre or red chalk, and originates in Medieval illuminated manuscripts from the 13th century or earlier...
where it may have done likewise, as well as having an illegible rubric where it probably directed the exsufflation of catechumens, and retaining the old ordo ad caticuminum ex pagano faciendum, complete with its sufflation ceremony; and an Engish Ordo Romanus (BL Cotton MS Vitellius E.12) contains a triple exsufflation of baptizands. Various 12th-century texts include signing and triple exsufflation of the holy oil (Sarum), triple exsufflation of baptizands (the Ely, Magdalene, and Winton Pontificals), and insufflation of the font in modum crucis (Ely and Magdalene, followed by most later texts). Such are the origins of the late medieval sufflation rites, which were in turn retained in regularized form in post-Tridentine Catholicism.
Sufflation in Protestantism
Sufflation did not last long in any of the churches arising from the magisterial or radical reformations. Martin LutherMartin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...
's first attempt at a baptismal liturgy, the Tauffbuchlin (Taufbüchlein) of 1523 (reprinted 1524 and 1525) did retain many ceremonies from the late Medieval ritual as it was known in Germany, including a triple exsufflation of baptizands. But in an epilogue, Luther listed this ceremony among the adiaphora
Adiaphora
Adiaphoron is a concept of Stoic philosophy that indicates things outside of moral law—that is, actions that morality neither mandates nor forbids....
— i.e., the inessential features that added nothing to the meaning of the sacrament:
"The least importance attaches to these external things, namely breathing under the eyes, signing with the cross, placing salt in the mouth, putting spittle and clay on the ears and nose, anointing with oil the breast and shoulders, and signing the top of the head with chrism, vesting in the christening robe, and giving a burning candle into the hand, and whatever else … men have added to embellish baptism. For … they are not the kind of devices that the devil shuns."
The Lutheran Strasbourg Taufbüchlein of June 1524, composed by Diobald Schwartz, assistant to Cathedral preacher Martin Zell, on the basis of the medieval rite used in Strasbourg combined with elements of Luther's 1523 rite, also retains baptismal exsufflation; so does Andreas Osiander
Andreas Osiander
Andreas Osiander was a German Lutheran theologian.- Career :Born at Gunzenhausen in Franconia, Osiander studied at the University of Ingolstadt before being ordained as a priest in 1520. In the same year he began work at an Augustinian convent in Nuremberg as a Hebrew tutor. In 1522, he was...
in Nuremberg, in the same year.
But thereafter the practice vanished from Lutheranism
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
, and indeed from Protestantism generally. Luther's revised edition of 1526 and its successors omit exsufflation altogether, as do the Luther-influenced early reformed rites of England (Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from...
's Prayer Book of 1549) and Sweden (the Manual of Olavus Petri), despite the former's conservative basis in the medieval Sarum ritual and the latter's strong interest in exorcism as an essential part of the baptismal ritual.
Similarly in the Swiss Reformation (the Zwinglian/Reformed tradition), only the very earliest rites retain sufflation, namely the ceremony published by Leo Jud, pastor of St. Peter's in Zurich, in the same year (1523) as Luther's first baptismal manual.
Sufflation in Protestant-Roman Catholic debate
Though sufflation does not appear in Protestant practice, it definitely appears in Protestant polemicPolemic
A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...
, where it is usually treated as an un-Scriptural and superstitious (i.e., in the Protestant view, a typically Roman Catholic) practice, and even one reeking of enchantment or witchcraft. It appears as such, for example in the work of Henry More
Henry More
Henry More FRS was an English philosopher of the Cambridge Platonist school.-Biography:Henry was born at Grantham and was schooled at The King's School, Grantham and at Eton College...
(the 'Cambridge Platonist') on evil. His argument essentially reverses that of Augustine. Augustine had said to the Pelagians (to paraphrase): "you see that we exorcize and exsufflate infants before baptising them; therefore they must be tainted with sin and possessed by the devil since birth." More replies, in effect, "Infants cannot be devil-possessed sinners; therefore, ceremonial exorcism and exsufflation is presumptuous, frightening, and ridiculous," in a word "the most gross and fundamental Superstitions, that look like Magick or Sorcery":
"The conjuring the Devil also out of the Infant that is to be baptized would seem a frightful thing to the Infant himself, if he understood in what an ill plight the Priest supposes him, while he makes three Exsufflations upon his face, and uses an Exorcistical form for the ejecting of the foul Fiend. … And it is much if something might not appear affrightful to the Women in this approaching darkness. For though it be a gay thing for the Priest to be thought to have so much power over the StygianStyxIn Greek mythology the Styx is the river that forms the boundary between the underworld and the world of the living, as well as a goddess and a nymph that represents the river.Styx may also refer to:-Popular culture:...
Fiend, as to Exorcize him out of the Infant; yet it may be a sad consideration with some melancholick women laden with Superstition, to think they are never brought to bed, but they are delivered of a Devil and Child at once."
Sufflation appears in Roman Catholic anti-Protestant polemic, as well. The relative antiquity of the practice, and its strong endorsement by the Protestants' favorite Father, Augustine, made it a natural element in Catholic arguments that contrasted the Protestant with the ancient and Apostolic church. A true church, according to Roman Catholic apologists, would be:
"A Church that held the exorcismes exsufflations and renunciations, which are made in baptisme, for sacred Ceremonies, and of Apostolicall tradition.... A Church which in the Ceremonies of baptisme, vsed oyle, salte, waxe, lights, exorcismes, the signe of the Crose, the word Epheta and other thinges that accompanie it; to testifie ... by exorcismes, that baptisme puts vs out of the Diuells possession.
This was argued on the grounds that some of these ceremonies were demonstrably ancient, and all of them might be.
"Sundry Ceremonies vsed in baptisme, and other Sacraments, as Exorcismes, Exsufflations, Christening, and the like mentioned by S. Augustine and by diuers other ancient Fathers ..., these being practised by the Primitiue Church (which is graunted to be the true Church) and compared to the customes of Protestants, and vs, in our Churches, will easily disclose, which of the two, they or we, do more imitate, or impugne the true Church of antiquity."
To which a Protestant reply was that sufflation was not ancient enough, and could not be proved to be apostolic:
"It was plain then there was no clear Tradition in the Question, possibly there might be a custome in some Churches postnate to the times of the Apostles, but nothing that was obligatory, no Tradition Apostolicall. But this was a suppletory device ready at hand when ever they needed it; and S. Austin confuted the Pelagians, in the Question of Original sinne, by the custome of exorcisme and insufflation, which S. Austin said came from the Apostles by Tradition, which yet was then, and is now so impossible to be prov'd, that he that shall affirm it, shall gaine only the reputation of a bold man and a confident."
Sufflation was judged by Protestant critics to be irrational, mysterious, and obscure, an increasingly important factor by the close of the 17th century and the dawn of the Enlightenment:
"Mystery prevail'd very little in the first Hundred or Century of Years after Christ; but in the second and third, it began to establish it self by Ceremonies. To Baptism were then added the tasting of Milk and Honey, Anointing, the Sign of the Cross, a white Garment, &c. ... But in later times there was no end of Lights, Exorcisms, Exsufflations, and many other Extravagancies of Jewish, or Heathen Original ... for there is nothing like these in the Writings of the Apostles, but they are all plainly contain'd in the Books of the Gentiles, and was the Substance of their Worship."
It was said to be a human invention, imposed by the arbitrary whim of a tyrannical prelate against the primitive Gospel freedom of the church:
"[Some bishop] ... taking it into his head that there ought to be a trine-immersion in baptism; another the signation of the cross; another an unction with oil; another milk and honey, and imposition of hands immediately after it; another insufflation or breathing upon the person's face to exorcise the Devil... Thus, I say, that inundation of abominable corruptions, which at present overwhelms both the Greek and Romish Churches, gradually came in at this very breech which you are now zealously maintaining, namely, the Bishop's Power to decree rites and ceremonies in the Church."
To all of which, Roman Catholic apologists replied that insufflation was not only ancient and Apostolic, but had been practiced by Christ himself:
"When he [Christ] had said this he breathed upon them, and said to them, Receive the Holy Ghost...." When the Pastors of our Church use the Insufflation or Breathing upon any, for the like mystical Signification, you cry aloud, Superstition, Superstition, an apish mimical action, &c."
Prospects
Though liturgical sufflation is almost gone, at least from the Western churches, its revival is not inconceivable. Liturgical renewal movements always seem to look to the 'classic' catechumenate of the 4th and 5th centuries for inspiration. Insufflation has indeed been re-introduced into the Catholic "new catechumenate." But many ceremonies dating from that or the medieval period have been re-imported even into Protestant rites during the last couple of decades. Perhaps even more likely is a revival in the context of the growth of the Roman Catholic Church in AfricaRoman Catholicism in Africa
Roman Catholicism in Africa is the part of the Catholic Church in the various countries of Africa. Christian activity in Africa began in the 1st century when the Patriarchate of Alexandria was formed as one of the four original Patriarchs of the East...
and in Asia, where locally and culturally meaningful ceremonies have often revolutionized practice, and where the exorcistic function of baptism has taken on a new vitality. For example, a pure insufflation is apparently practiced in the Philippine Independent Church
Philippine Independent Church
The Philippine Independent Church, The Philippine Independent Church, The Philippine Independent Church, (officially the or the IFI, also known as the Philippine Independent Catholic Church or in Ilocano: Siwawayawaya nga Simbaan ti Filipinas (in in Kinaray-a/Hiligaynon: Simbahan Hilway nga...
, and Spinks mentions a pre-baptismal ceremony used by the Christian Workers' Fellowship of Sri Lanka
Roman Catholicism in Sri Lanka
The Roman Catholic Church in Sri Lanka is part of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and curia in Rome.The country comes under the province of Colombo and is divided into 11 dioceses including one archdiocese.There are approximately 1.4 million Catholics...
, in which the candidates are struck with a cane and their faces are breathed upon. It is not clear whether the latter represents a revival of historical sufflation, or a wholly new ceremony derived from local custom.
Significance and associations
There were at least three kinds of association that particularly influenced how liturgical sufflation came to be understood: Biblical antecedents; liturgical setting; and extra-liturgical (cultural) analogs.Biblical antecedents
Three Biblical passages recur repeatedly with reference to insufflation narrowly defined, all of them referring to some kind of life-giving divine breath. The first and most commonly cited is (echoed by and ), in which God first creates man and then breathes into him the breath of life, in order to give him (as the passage was later interpreted) a human soul. The second passage, , reinterprets the Genesis passage prophetically, in foreseeing God resurrecting the dead bones of exiled Israel by means of his life-giving breath. And finally, in , Christ is represented as conveying the ParacleteParaclete
Paraclete means advocate or helper. In Christianity, the term most commonly refers to the Holy Spirit.-Etymology:...
to his disciples, and so initiating the commissioned church, by breathing on them, here too, very possibly, with implicit reference to the original creation. The two passages were connected explicitly in later Christian exegesis: the same breath that created man re-created him.
"[Insufflation] signifies, To blow into, Gen. 2. 7. This sheweth mans soul not to be of the earth, as his body was, but of nothing, by the insufflation of God, and so differing from the spirit of beasts, Eccl. 3. 21. This word is used also, when Christ to make men new creatures, inspired his Apostles with the holy Ghost, Joh. 20. 21."
"The Lord God, saith the Text, formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his Nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living Soul. His Body made of Earth, but his Soul the Breath of God. … We must not understand it grosly; for so Breath is not attributable unto God, who is a simple and perfect Spirit; but … as a figurative expression of God's communicating unto Man that inward Principle, whereby he lives and acts, not only in common with, but in a degree above other Animals. … The Learned P. Fagius takes notice of three things in the Text of Moses, which do conclude the Immortality of the Soul of Man. I. Insufflatio illa Dei: This Inspiration from God spoken of: For he that breaths into another, contributes unto him aliquid de suo somewhat of his own: And therefore, saith he, when our B. Saviour would communicate his Spirit to his Disciples, he did it with Insufflation, breathing on them, thereby to signifie, se Divinum & de suo quiddam illis contribuere [i.e., that he was himself divine and was infusing something of his own into them]."
The associations with creation, rebirth, initiation, and revivification created by these passages of Scripture suited insufflation for a role in baptism as it has been most commonly regarded: as figuring the waters of creation (over which the Spirit brooded); as figuring the womb of rebirth; and as figuring (in Saint Paul's metaphor) the tomb, into which the Christian joins Christ in descending, and from which the Christian likewise joins Christ in ascending, dead to the old life but made alive again in Christ.
There are also Biblical antecedents for exsufflation, properly speaking, that is, exorcistic blowing, especially the numerous Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
passages in which "the breath of God" is the vehicle or symbol not of life but of death and destruction — an expression of the wrath of God
Divine retribution
Divine retribution is supernatural punishment of a person, a group of people, or all humanity by a deity in response to some human action.Many cultures have a story about how a deity exacted punishment on previous inhabitants of their land, causing their doom.An example of divine retribution is the...
: "by the breath of God they perish / and by the blast of his anger they are consumed" (Job 4:9, RSV). The same power is attributed metaphorically to Christ: "The lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
will slay him with the breath of his mouth" (2 Thessalonians 2:8, RSV). Even less obvious passages could be associated with liturgical exsufflation. Jesse of Amiens, for example, interprets Psalm 34 (Vulg. 35):5 as descriptive of the fate of exsufflated devils: ""Let them be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the Lord driving them on!" And the apocrypha
Apocrypha
The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....
l Acts of Thomas
Acts of Thomas
The early 3rd century text called Acts of Thomas is one of the New Testament apocrypha, portraying Christ as the "Heavenly Redeemer", independent of and beyond creation, who can free souls from the darkness of the world. References to the work by Epiphanius of Salamis show that it was in...
describes a baptismal ceremony which, though it does not explicitly contain a breathing ceremony, may imply one, "Let the gift come by which, breathing upon thine enemies, thou didst make them draw back and fall headlong, and let it dwell in this oil, over which we name thy holy name."
God's breath can be fiery, consuming all it touches: "I will blow upon you with the fire of my wrath" (Ezekiel 21:31, RSV). Some of the interpretations of exsufflation may reflect this. Cyril of Jerusalem, for example, when he discusses exsufflation in his catechetical sermons, interprets the liturgical practice in terms of fire:
"The breathing of the saints and the invocation of the name of God, like fiercest flame, scorch and drive out evil spirits."
Fire remains a theme in later liturgical exorcisms, for devils, as Nicetas
Nicetas
Nicetas or Niketas is the name of several people, including:* Nicetas of Remesiana, 4th century bishop of the Dacians, now the patron saint of Romania* Nicetas the Goth , 4th century martyr* Patriarch Nicetas I of Constantinople, 766 to 780...
is reported to have said, "are purged by exorcisms as by fire": "we come against you, devil, with spiritual words and fiery speech; we ignite the hiding places in which you are concealed."
Liturgical context
More importantly, perhaps, fire is physically and symbolically associated with sufflation because of the traditional placement of baptism within the Paschal vigil — a setting heavy with symbolism of light and fire: the blessing of the Paschal candle, the lighting of the "new fire," and the singing of the ExultetExultet
The Exsultet or Easter Proclamation, in Latin Praeconium Paschale, is the hymn of praise sung, ideally by the deacon, before the paschal candle during the Easter Vigil in the Roman Rite of Mass. In the absence of a deacon, it may be sung by a priest, or by a cantor...
and the Lumen Christi
Lumen Christi
Lumen Christi is a Versicle sung in Catholics and Lutheran churches as part of the Easter Vigil. In Lutheran services, it is sung in the local language. It is chanted by the deacon on Holy Saturday as he lights the triple candle....
. The intimate connection between divine breath and divine fire appears in its most visually arresting form during the benediction
Benediction
A benediction is a short invocation for divine help, blessing and guidance, usually at the end of worship service.-Judaism:...
of the font, in which, according to most orders, the candle is dipped in the font while the priest declares the power of the Holy Spirit to have descended into the water: the sufflation of the font in most cases directly precedes or accompanies the immersion of the candle. Their close association can again be illustrated from Wulfstan's baptismal homilies:
"By the breath that the priest breathes into the font when he blesses it, the devil is straightway driven out from it. And when the priest dips the consecrated candle in the water, then that water forthwith becomes imbued with the Holy Ghost."
Similar considerations bind sufflation closely to imagery of light and darkness, specifically of the movement of the baptizand from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light (a very common theme), and to the sign of the cross (a very common action), among others that could be mentioned. John the Deacon uses light-dark imagery to explain exsufflation in exorcism as a transition:
The exsufflated person is exorcised so that ... having been delivered from the power of darkness, he might be translated into the kingdom ... of God.
So also Augustine ("The church exsufflates and exorcises [infants] that the power of darkness might be cast out from them"), and Isidore ("The power of the devil is ... exsufflated in them, so that ... being delivered from the power of darkness, [they] might be translated unto the kingdom of their Lord").
And as regards signation (the sign of the cross), in Western texts from as early as the Gelasian Sacramentary
Gelasian Sacramentary
The so-called "Gelasian Sacramentary" is a book of Christian liturgy. A sacramentary contains the priest's texts for celebrating the Eucharist throughout the year...
, the one gesture almost always precedes (or precedes and follows) the other, and their significance is often complementary if not identical. In Raban Maur's discussion of the baptismal liturgy, for example, the exsufflation is said to expel the devil, the signing to keep him from coming back. The two signs are frequently combined, the blowing done in the form of a cross, e.g. in the Syrian rite described by James of Edessa, in the modern Coptic rite, in the late 9th-century Ordo Romanus XXXI, in Wulfstan's Anglo-Saxon homilies and their Continental
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
sources, in the 10th-century Ambrosian rites for catechumen and font, in the 11th-century North Italian catechumenal rites, in the 12th- through 15th-century English pontificals, in the Sarum Missal, and in the 13th-century Roman pontifical.
Patristic period
There are hints in some of the Church Fathers that Christians had a habit of breathing (or hissing) at evil spirits as a recognized act of revulsion or repulsion, even apart from the ceremonies of the church. TertullianTertullian
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian , was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and...
is perhaps the best witness. He seems to be talking about an extra-liturgical casting out of demons by means of exsufflation and signing when he declares that gods rejected by Christians are driven from the bodies of men "by our touch and by our breath," and are thus "carried away by the thought and vision of the fire [of judgment]." He is talking about an ordinary gesture of aversion when he asks a Christian incense-dealer (regarded as hypocritical because he sells incense for polytheistic
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....
altars), "with what mouth, I ask, will he spit and blow before the fuming altars for which he himself provided? with what constancy will he [thus] exorcise his foster children?" And his remarks to his wife about the dangers of mixed marriage suggest that exsufflation was a distinctively Christian practice: "[If you marry again, to a non-Christian,] shall you escape notice when you sign your bed or your body? when you blow away some impurity? When even by night you rise to pray?"
If such a custom did exist, it would clarify certain remarks by other Fathers, which might otherwise seem merely metaphorical. Eusebius, for example, says of the saints that they were men "who though they only breathed and spoke, were able to scatter the counsels of evil demons." Irenaeus
Irenaeus
Saint Irenaeus , was Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, then a part of the Roman Empire . He was an early church father and apologist, and his writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology...
describes the right response to Gnostic doctrine as "reviling" (καταφυσησαντας; literally exsufflantes). Cyril of Jerusalem
Cyril of Jerusalem
Cyril of Jerusalem was a distinguished theologian of the early Church . He is venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. In 1883, Cyril was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII...
, speaking of resisting temptation, not of baptism, says that "the mere breathing of the exorcist becomes as a fire to that unseen foe." And Augustine's remarks about blowing on images of the emperor
Imperial cult (ancient Rome)
The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority of the Roman State...
suggest that the significance of the gesture was well enough established to be actionable: "Of the great crime of lese majesty
Law of majestas
The Law of Majestas, or lex maiestas, refers to any one of several ancient Roman laws throughout the republican and Imperial periods dealing with crimes against the Roman people, state, or Emperor....
... is he held guilty, according to the laws of this world, who blows upon an image ... of the emperor." Even as late as Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
, we may suspect that "exsufflate" in the sense of "revile" or "cast off" may be a living metaphor.
Hagiography
The extremely influential Life of Saint MartinMartin of Tours
Martin of Tours was a Bishop of Tours whose shrine became a famous stopping-point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela. Around his name much legendary material accrued, and he has become one of the most familiar and recognizable Christian saints...
by Sulpicius Severus
Sulpicius Severus
Sulpicius Severus was a Christian writer and native of Aquitania. He is known for his chronicle of sacred history, as well as his biography of Saint Martin of Tours.-Life:...
seems to have set in motion a hagiographic
Hagiography
Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...
tradition in which saints cast out demons or repel tempting devils by blowing at them. Of Saint Pachomius
Pachomius
Saint Pakhom , also known as Pachome and Pakhomius , is generally recognized as the founder of Christian cenobitic monasticism. In the Coptic churches his feast day is celebrated on May 9...
, for example, it is said that "defending his brow with the sign of the cross, he blew upon [the demon] and immediately he fled … ; blowing upon him, he said, 'depart from me, devil.'" And of Saint Goswin
Goswin
Goswin was a Benedictine abbot. Born in Douai, France, he went on to study in Paris, France. Once these were complete Goswin returned to Douai to teach theology. He then entered Anchin Abbey in 1113, and became a Benedictine monk. In 1130 he was made abbot, of Anchin.-References:...
that "a demon stood before Saint Goswin saying 'surely you see that I am Christ …' and … therefore Saint Goswin exsufflated vigorously, saying 'depart foe …,' and immediately … the devil vanished." Saint Justina is reported to have similarly unmasked a series of increasingly subtle and powerful demons, finally melting the prince of demons himself: "blowing upon the devil, she immediately melted him like wax and … felt herself freed from all temptation." And Saint Felix
Saint Félix
Saint Felix the Hermit was a 9th century fisherman and hermit, who is venerated as a saint in Portugal.-Legend:Felix was from Villa Mendo, an ancient Roman villa that was rediscovered in the 20th century, having been buried under sand dunes in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal. Felix could catch no fish,...
is said to have destroyed idols
Cult image
In the practice of religion, a cult image is a human-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents...
and uprooted sacred trees by like means.
The breath of the saints was credited with healing, as well as exorcistic, powers from an early period. Gregory of Nyssa
Gregory of Nyssa
St. Gregory of Nyssa was a Christian bishop and saint. He was a younger brother of Basil the Great and a good friend of Gregory of Nazianzus. His significance has long been recognized in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Catholic and Roman Catholic branches of Christianity...
says of Gregory Thaumaturgus
Gregory Thaumaturgus
Gregory Thaumaturgus, also known as Gregory of Neocaesarea or Gregory the Wonderworker, was a Christian bishop of the 3rd century.-Biography:Gregory was born at Neo-Caesarea around 213 A.D...
('Gregory the magician') that he needed to resort to "no finicking and laborious" magic, but "there sufficed, for both the casting out of demons and the healing of bodily ailments, the breath of his mouth." Similar powers are attributed to the Irish saints: kindling lamps, curing dumbness. This theme, too, persists in later hagiographic and quasi-hagiographic texts, appearing, for example in the Estoire del saint graal as the agency by which a madman is miraculously restored. Among English texts, Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac
Saint Guthlac
Saint Guthlac of Crowland was a Christian saint from Lincolnshire in England. He is particularly venerated in the Fens of eastern England.-Life:...
relates that in order to give relief to a boy afflicted by madness, he "washed him in the water of the sacred font and, breathing into his face the breath of healing [or 'spirit of salvation'], drove away from him all the power of the evil spirit," illustrating the difficulty of distinguishing healing from exorcism in an era in which madness was attributed to demonic possession. The miracle that Bishop John performed, according to Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
, on behalf of Herebald, is another example, since it involved a sufflation that was seemingly exorcistic, catechetical, and curative simultaneously.
Magic and folk medicine
TertullianTertullian
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian , was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and...
remarked to his wife about Christian practices: "will you not seem to be doing magic?" in the eyes of a non-believer.
Celsus
Celsus
Celsus was a 2nd century Greek philosopher and opponent of Early Christianity. He is known for his literary work, The True Word , written about by Origen. This work, c. 177 is the earliest known comprehensive attack on Christianity.According to Origen, Celsus was the author of an...
(according to Origen
Origen
Origen , or Origen Adamantius, 184/5–253/4, was an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. As early as the fourth century, his orthodoxy was suspect, in part because he believed in the pre-existence of souls...
) reports the use of exufflation by Egyptian magicians. Plotinus
Plotinus
Plotinus was a major philosopher of the ancient world. In his system of theory there are the three principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. His teacher was Ammonius Saccas and he is of the Platonic tradition...
seems to attack its use by Roman ones. One of Lucian
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....
's tall tales mentions a Chaldean pest-control sorcerer who causes toads and snakes to vanish by blowing on them.
But it is possible to regard Jesus himself as a magician in at least one popular event in the apocryphal infancy gospels, in which he is portrayed as using sufflation in order simultaneously to heal his brother of a snakebite and kill the snake; also in a rarer episode in which Jesus raises a boy from the dead by breathing on him. Christianized healing magic, if that is what it is, appears also in Syria, where ceremonial breathing became formalized as part of the rite of visitation of the sick. Ephraem Syrus advises that "if medicine fails you when you are sick, the 'visitors' will help, will pray for health, and one of them will breathe in your mouth, the other will sign you [with the sign of the cross]."
Whether it be originally Christian or originally pagan, similar methods of healing have been reported persisting till modern times: in Westphalia, the healing of a wound by triple signing and triple cruciform sufflation, or by exsufflation accompanied by a rhyming charm; and in Holland the alleviation of toothache by similar means. According to Drechsler, "Illnesses were blown away by the breath. If a child had bumped himself, one would blow three times on the place and it would 'fly away.'" Burns, and conditions that in some fashion resemble burns, such as fevers, boils, sore throats and rashes, are naturally the most common objects of blowing among modern folk-remedies, for example the Shetland cure that requires blowing on a burn three times while reciting the charm "Here come I to cure a burnt sore. / If the dead knew what the living endure, / The burnt sore would burn no more." But everything from jaundice, convulsions, and colic to bad luck and evil spells can apparently be alleviated by a bit of blowing. Wolters points out that exorcistic blowing was still (in 1935) found in the custom of blowing over bread that is about to be eaten. Moreover,
A Syrian blows over his child to avert the evil eye. Some still
blow three times over a strange spoon before using it, and in Alaska the medicine
man blows into the nose and mouth of a patient to drive out the daemon of disease.
Finally, in one American example of superstition clearly derived from liturgical use, it is said that if at the baptism of a baby one turns at the door and blows three times, one can successfully prevent the devil from ever coming between the baby and the altar.