The Oil of Gladness: The King Anointed Above His Fellows and Christ Anointed With the Holy Ghost
Old Testament: Psalms 44:7-8
Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a sceptre of uprightness. Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
Old Testament, also: Isaias 61:1
The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me: he hath sent me to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of heart, and to preach a release to the captives, and deliverance to them that are shut up.
New Testament: Hebrews 1:8-9; Acts 10:38; Luke 4:18, 21
But to the Son: Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of justice is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. ... Jesus of Nazareth: how God anointed him with the Holy Ghost, and with power, who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. ... The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Wherefore he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the contrite of heart, ... And he began to say to them: This day is fulfilled this scripture in your ears.
The connection
Psalm 44 is a wedding song for a king. In the middle of it the singer turns to the king and says something no court poet would say to a man: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever", and then, "God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows" (Psalms 44:7-8). The king is called God, and yet God anoints Him. Israel's kings were anointed with oil poured from a horn or a vial; this one is anointed with gladness, and above all the rest. The Epistle to the Hebrews quotes the lines word for word and says to whom they were spoken: "But to the Son" (Hebrews 1:8-9). Peter says what the oil was: "God anointed him with the Holy Ghost, and with power" (Acts 10:38). The anointing happened at the Jordan, when the Spirit came down on Him, and He announced it Himself in the synagogue at Nazareth, reading Isaias, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Wherefore he hath anointed me", and saying, "This day is fulfilled this scripture in your ears" (Luke 4:18, 21). The title He bears is the anointing itself: Christ is the Greek for Messiah, the Anointed One. The Fathers set these verses side by side. St Athanasius says He was anointed "not as Aaron or David or the rest", but "with the oil of gladness, which He Himself interprets to be the Spirit, saying by the Prophet, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord hath anointed Me; as also the Apostle has said, How God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost." Origen: "to be anointed with the oil of gladness means nothing else than to be filled with the Holy Spirit." The Catechism: "Christ (in Hebrew messiah) means the one anointed by God's Spirit" (CCC 695).
Moral sense
"Above thy fellows" means He has fellows. The oil was poured on the Head to run down on the body, and St Cyril of Jerusalem tells the newly baptised that they now share it: as Christ "was anointed with an ideal oil of gladness, that is, with the Holy Ghost", so they are anointed with chrism and become partakers of Christ. That is what the word Christian means, one of the anointed, and the Catechism says it of Confirmation: those anointed "share more completely in the mission of Jesus Christ" (CCC 1294). The psalm gives the reason for the anointing: "thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity". The oil and the life go together. And the oil is of gladness. A Christian who carries the Spirit and carries it sourly has misunderstood what he was anointed with. Joy is not an extra to the faith; it is the fruit of the anointing.
Anagogical sense
Kings were anointed for a reign that ended. The Son is anointed for a throne that is "for ever and ever", and His anointing is not a flask emptied once but the Spirit given without measure. The psalm is a wedding song, and the wedding it sings of is the marriage of the Lamb, where the King goes out to meet His Bride. Those who share His anointing now and overcome will share His throne then, and the oil of gladness poured at the Jordan becomes the gladness of the feast that has no end.
The Fathers
St Athanasius, Against the Arians I: "not as Aaron or David or the rest, was He anointed with oil, but in another way above all His fellows, with the oil of gladness, which He Himself interprets to be the Spirit, saying by the Prophet, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord hath anointed Me; as also the Apostle has said, How God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost." Origen, De Principiis: "to be anointed with the oil of gladness means nothing else than to be filled with the Holy Spirit." St Cyril of Jerusalem, On the Mysteries III: "As He was anointed with an ideal oil of gladness, that is, with the Holy Ghost, called oil of gladness".
Warrant
Scriptural because Hebrews 1:8-9 quotes Psalms 44:7-8 of the Son, and Christ reads Isaias 61:1 of Himself at Nazareth (Luke 4:18-21). The Greek is the same: the Septuagint of Psalms 44:8 has echrisen se ho theos, ho theos sou, elaion agalliaseos, and Hebrews 1:9 repeats it exactly; Acts 10:38 uses the same verb, echrisen, of the anointing with the Holy Ghost, and that verb gives the name Christos. The identification of the oil with the Spirit is Peter's in Acts 10:38 and is drawn out by St Athanasius (Against the Arians I), Origen (De Principiis) and St Cyril of Jerusalem (On the Mysteries III). Hebrews 1:8 has "a sceptre of justice" where the Douay psalm has "a sceptre of uprightness", both from the Latin; the Greek of both is rhabdos euthytetos.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 695.
The verses
Psalms 44:7 · Psalms 44:8 · Isaias 61:1 · Hebrews 1:8 · Hebrews 1:9 · Acts 10:38 · Luke 4:18 · Luke 4:21
