II. To the Initial Arguments

25. To the first argument [n.3], whether Jacob could be excused of sin if he knew Lean on the first night or not, is no great concern, for he was not confirmed [sc. about her identity]; but I say that after he apprehended she was Leah he consented to her with a new consent, perhaps because of the words of Laban [Genesis 29.26], “It is not the custom in this place that the younger are handed over to marriage first;” and from then was she his wife; otherwise I concede that he could well have repudiated her as not his own.

26. To the second [n.4] I say that after the departure of Jacob and the entry of Esau, it is added there [Genesis 27.33] that Isaac trembled violently and wondering beyond what can be believed he says, “Who was it etc.;” and about the blessing of Jacob he added, “And I have blessed him, and he will be blessed,” where, consequentially and in accordance with the text, Isaac is understood to have been rapt in that ecstasy wherein he saw that Jacob justly and according to the will of God had to be blessed, and therefore the first blessing - although extorted by man and human precaution, yet afterwards, because in that ecstasy and wonder Isaac saw it approved - he pronounced as firm, adding “and he will be blessed.”

27. As to the third [n.5], there is no similarity with a baptism unknowingly conferred, because there is no mutual contract there.

28. If however, for the solution of this question, someone were to take an argument from the idea of a sacrament, that it could not be conferred by someone in error, it seems probable that he who errs about the person would not, in baptizing, baptize him, just as neither in the case of matrimony.

29. But this argument is not set down for solution of the question, nor does such error about the person (that it is a or b, provided however he intend to confer this sacrament on this person who is present) seem to prevent conferring of baptism, or of the other sacraments. But here such error is an impediment, not because it impedes first the sacrament, but because it impedes the contract of making gift to him to whom one does not want to give that which is here given.

30. I say that there can be error in baptism about the person, but not in joint giving, because servitude does nothing there [sc. nothing for contracting matrimony, n.11]; for if he were to intend to baptize some determinate person and he does not baptize that person, then it is nothing.

31. To the last argument, about moral malice [n.6], I say that moral goodness is not something per se required for a contract of matrimony, and this neither when preceding nor concomitant nor following; nor similarly the opposed malice. And so error in this condition does not prevent the contract. But it is otherwise about the condition of servitude, on account of the reason stated in the solution of the question [n.11].