Insufflation

Two directions of breath

The gesture carries two meanings, and old writers did not always keep them apart. Blowing out, called exsufflation, is a rejection of the devil, a way of sending him away. Blowing in, insufflation, is a blessing, a filling with the Holy Spirit. Latin had separate verbs for the two, insufflare and exsufflare, but texts also used plainer words such as sufflare for blowing, or halare for breathing. Ancient and medieval authors, and the scholars who study them, often used the terms loosely. In practice a single breath over a person could be read as both a driving out and a giving in.

Baptism and the catechumenate

The earliest uses belong to the catechumenate, the long preparation that people went through before baptism, which was at its strongest in the 4th and 5th centuries. One of the oldest texts we have is the church order known as the Apostolic Tradition, linked with Hippolytus of Rome. There a bishop lays hands on the candidates, orders every foreign spirit to leave them, then breathes on their faces and marks their foreheads, ears and noses before raising them. Cyril of Jerusalem, writing in the 4th century, says the breath does two jobs at once: it drives the devil out and brings grace in. Magnus of Sens wrote much the same four centuries later.

Across the medieval West

Once baptism was normally given to babies, the catechumenate shrank and the blowing moved into the baptism service itself. By the time of Augustine the practice was settled, and in the following centuries it widened. By the 12th century clergy used it when they readmitted people declared heretical, when they received adult converts, when candidates renounced the devil, and when they blessed or cleansed the font, the water, the ashes and the holy oil. Most of these uses survived in the mixed Roman and Gallican rite that ran from 5th-century Rome through the Middle Ages to the Council of Trent. Older regional rites, such as the Ambrosian in northern Italy and the Mozarabic in Spain, faded or were absorbed.

Reform and survival

Martin Luther's first baptismal order, printed in 1523, still carried the old ceremonies, among them a threefold blowing on those to be baptised. In an afterword he put such things among the adiaphora, matters he judged neither needed nor harmful to the sacrament, and they were dropped. Other Protestant churches set the practice aside early. The Catholic Church kept it much longer. The Tridentine liturgy had both a blowing over the baptismal water and a blowing on the candidate, and these were still in use in the 1960s. The reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council removed most of them. One place is left: the blessing of chrism, which happens on the Thursday before Easter.

What the breath means

Teachers in the medieval church were careful about one point. In the Etymologies Isidore of Seville wrote that the person, who is God's creature, is not what gets blown at. The devil is, the one who holds that person because they were born in sin. Augustine had argued the same way against the Pelagians: in this rite it is not the infant, made in God's image, who is attacked, but the infant's owner. Alcuin took the idea up in a short tract that fed into Charlemagne's questionnaire on baptism. Asked why a candidate was breathed upon, most who replied said it was so the devil would flee and room be made for the Holy Spirit.

How Insufflation is kept

The people taking part are the priest or bishop and the person being brought into the church, or, in the case of a baby, the child with the family. In the older order the bishop first lays hands on the candidates and orders any alien spirit out of them. He then breathes on their faces and signs their forehead, ears and nose. Water is blessed with a breath in the shape of a cross. In the fuller Western use the priest turns to the candidate and breathes three times, telling the unclean spirit to leave and make way for the Holy Spirit. Today the gesture is rare.

When and where

Insufflation is not fixed to a single date. It belongs to baptism and the other ceremonies of Christian initiation, which can happen at any time of year. The one firm date in current Catholic practice is Maundy Thursday, the Thursday before Easter, when chrism, the oil used in anointing, is blessed; the breath is part of that blessing. Historically it accompanied the preparation of candidates.

It is a Western and Eastern Christian practice, strongest historically in Rome and in the liturgy that spread from Rome across western Europe. Anglo-Saxon and later English books record it in detail, and medieval Germany and northern Italy used it too. Today it is found in Catholic, Orthodox, Maronite and Coptic churches, though far less often than before.

What Insufflation means

For those who keep it, breath is a sign of life and of God's presence, so blowing carries weight. A breath outward seems to push away what is harmful, above all the devil. A breath inward seems to fill a person with grace and the Holy Spirit. The two are one act with two sides. The rite marks a person as claimed by God and set free from an old allegiance. Medieval teachers insisted that what was driven off was not the person, who belongs to God, but the power over them.

Questions people ask about Insufflation

See also

HamadshaA Moroccan possession rite kept by Muslim fraternities to cure affliction and restore social balance through music and dLustratioAn ancient Greek and Roman cleansing rite using processions and animal sacrifice.IncubationThe sacred practice of sleeping in holy shrines to seek divine healing and dreamsTorah readingThe public reading of the Torah scroll in synagogue, chanted to a special tune

Good reading and sources

• Insufflation on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-11.