If you would like to know about Confirmation–where it comes from, what it means, its future–this book is for you. In this reissue of his classic study of the sacramental rite of Confirmation, Fisher examines what the early rite of Confirmation consisted of and what grace it was believed to confer in the period when there is undisputed evidence of the rite’s existence. The text moves from early non-biblical evidence through a survey of African, European, and near-Eastern regions in the third and fourth centuries, before exploring the emergence of the ritual called “Confirmation” in fourth and fifth century Gaul. Fisher then moves across the ages to the more recent discussions in the Anglican communion about the confirmation liturgy. In an effort to better serve scholars and students, pages vii through 173 have been reproduced exactly as they appeared in the 1978 edition. No changes whatsoever have been made to the original folios, therefore the pagination and endnotes from the original edition have been preserved.

This title is part of the Hillenbrand Books imprint, classics series.

J.D.C. Fisher was born in 1909. He spent his whole life working as a parish priest as the vicar of St. John the Baptist in Hove, Sussex, England, while pursuing scholarly research and writing in his spare time. He is the author of one other Hillenbrand edition: Christian Initiation: Baptism in the Medieval West. He contributed to The Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship (Macmillan, 1972) and The Study of Liturgy (Oxford University Press, 1978). Canon Fisher died in 1996.

Paperback, 6 x 9, 215 pages.