[2] 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.
[3] 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.
[7]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.
[8] 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.
"[10] 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 Tradition attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, from the 3rd or 4th century, and therefore contemporary with Cyril in the east:[11] Those who are to be baptized should … be gathered in one place.
[19] Most of these variations persist in one branch or another of the hybrid Romano-Germanic 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.
[25] 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,[26] as does the mid-10th-century Ordo Romanus L,[27] the basis of the later Roman pontifical.
[31] 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,[32] 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.
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.
[38] 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 English Ordo Romanus (BL Cotton MS Vitellius E.12) contains a triple exsufflation of baptizands.
Martin Luther'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 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.
[44] 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.
For though it be a gay thing for the Priest to be thought to have so much power over the Stygian 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.
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.
"[50]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...
"[51]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."[52]Though liturgical sufflation is almost gone, at least from the Western churches, its revival is not inconceivable.
Perhaps even more likely is a revival in the context of the growth of the Roman Catholic Church in Africa 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,[53] 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.
[56] And finally, in John 20:22, Christ is represented as conveying the Paraclete to his disciples, and so initiating the commissioned church, by breathing on them, here too, very possibly, with implicit reference to the original creation.
[61] 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).
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.
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].
"[85] And his remarks to his wife about the dangers of mixed marriage suggest that exsufflation was a distinctively Christian practice:[citation needed] "[If you marry again, to a non-Christian,] shall you escape notice when you sign your bed or your body?
[98] 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,"[99] 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.
"[106] If it was either originally Christian [citation needed], Catholic or from the pagan practices, almost similar methods of healing have been reported, continuing until 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.
Some stillblow three times over a strange spoon before using it, and in Alaska the medicineman blows into the nose and mouth of a patient to drive out the daemon of disease.