Cyril of Jerusalem-Washing and Anointing Ceremony

Cyril of Jerusalem (ca. 313 – 386) writes of the washing and anointing ceremony thusly...

You were true imitators of Adam, the first man to be created, who was naked in the Garden and was not ashamed.

Then, when you were stripped, you were anointed with exorcised oil , from the very hairs of your head to your feet, and were made partakers of the good olive-tree, Jesus Christ. (New Advent)


Having therefore become partakers of Christ, you are properly called Christs, and of you God said, Touch not My Christs, or anointed. Now you have been made Christs, by receiving the antitype of the Holy Ghost; and all things have been wrought in you by imitation, because you are images of Christ. He washed in the river Jordan, and having imparted of the fragrance of His Godhead to the waters, He came up from them; and the Holy Ghost in the fulness of His being lighted on Him, like resting upon like. And to you in like manner, after you had come up from the pool of the sacred streams, there was given an Unction [anointing], the anti-type of that wherewith Christ was anointed; and this is the Holy Ghost; of whom also the blessed Esaias, in his prophecy respecting Him, said in the person of the Lord, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me: He has sent Me to preach glad tidings to the poor… (New Advent)

He was anointed with … what is called the olive oil of exaltation (agalliaseos elaio—a coronation figure) … while you were anointed with myrrh (scented oil), making you companions and copartners (koinonoi kai metochoi) with Christ.

You were anointed on your brow and your other sense-organs, and so while the body is anointed in outward appearance with myrrh, the soul (psyche) is sanctified by the life-bestowing Holy Spirit. First of all you were anointed on the brow (metopon, forehead and eyes, lit. “space between the eyes”) to free you from the shame which completely involved the First Man when he fell, and that you might clearly perceive (or reflect, katoptrizisthe), the glory of the Lord with wide-open mind (lit. with uncovered face). Then your ears that you might receive the hearing ears of the mysteries of God…. Next come the nostrils, that upon receiving the holy ordinance you may say: “We are the sweet odor of Christ to God among the saved.” After that (you were anointed) on the breast (tastethe, “the seat of feeling, passion and thought,” Liddell and Scott), that, clothed with the breastplate of righteousness, you may stand against the wiles of the Devil—(countering his evil thoughts with good ones).


As Christ after his baptism … went forth to confront the Adversary, so you after your holy baptism and mystic anointing, were clothed in the armor of the Holy Ghost to stand against the opposing … power.

It is because you are worthy of this holy anointing (chrism) that you are called Christians…. it is by following this road that you have advanced to the point of earning that title.

When Moses received the order to make his brother a High Priest, after washing him with water he anointed him, and he was called a Christ, because of the anointing which was the type. Thus also Solomon, being called to the Kingship, was anointed after a bath in Gihon by the High Priest. For them it was a type (making them kings and priests), but for us it is not symbolical but real, since you really have been anointed by the Holy Ghost. The King (arche) of your salvation is Christ, for he is the true first-fruits and you are the unleavened bread. If the first-fruits (i.e., the priestly office) is holy, that holiness will be transferred to the unleavened bread (i.e., you too will become kings and priests)

Having put off the old man’s garment of sorrow, you now celebrate as you put on the garment of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Lecture 1)

Having been baptized in Christ and having put on Christ like a garment, you come to resemble (symmorphoi gegonate) the Son of God. (Lecture 3)

After you put off the old garments and put on those of spiritual white, you should keep them always thus spotless white. That is not to say that you must always go around in white clothes, but rather that you should be always clothed in what is really white and glorious, that you may say with the blessed Isaiah (61:10), “Let my soul exult in the Lord, for he hath clothed me in a robe of salvation and clothing of rejoicing.” (The word here used for “clothe” is endy, to place a garment on one, and is the ultimate source of our word “endowment,” derived in the Oxford English Dictionary from both induere, to invest with a garment, and inducere, to lead into or initiate.) (Lecture 4)