And anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them. It is hardly possible to separate this from the reference to the use of oil for the sick, in James 5:14. Unction was employed extensively in ancient times for medicinal purposes.
It is recorded of Herod the Great by Josephus ('Antiq.,' 17:6, 5) that in one of his sicknesses he was "immersed in a bath full of oil," from which he is said to have derived much benefit. The apostles used it, no doubt not only on account of its supposed remedial virtues, but also as an outward and visible sign that the healing was effected by their instrumentality in the name of Christ, and perhaps also because the oil itself was significant of God's mercy, of spiritual comfort and joy'' the oil of gladness."
Neither this passage nor that in St. James can properly be adduced to support the ceremony of "extreme unction;" for in both these cases the result was that the sick were restored to health. The so-called sacrament of" extreme unction "is administered immediately before death, when the sick person is in articulo morris.