2. About the Cause of Necessity

a. Opinion of Others

α. First and Second Opinion and the Weighing of Them

41. But when asking about the cause of necessity, why this man is necessarily excluded from Orders, there is a threefold opinion:

One that by baptism sin is destroyed and its consequences, and this properly [Gratian, Decretum with Glosses, p.1 d.26 ch.3]; but bigamy is not a sin nor a consequence of sin properly.

42. And hereby is response made to the case of homicide committed before baptism [n.30], that the case is not similar; for homicide is a consequence of sin or a sin, especially if he commit sin in killing. But what if he kill justly, as a judge does? This homicide, therefore, is not destroyed as concerns the irregularity. One glossator concedes this [Gratian, Decretum with Glosses, p.1 d.50 ch.8], but irrationally, because then the condition of the sinner would be better in a like act than the condition of the non-sinner.

43. Therefore others say [Gratian, Decretum with Glosses, p.1 d.26 ch.3; supra n.30] that this homicide is a sin in this way, that it would be a sin unless it were excused by other circumstances, and so it does not of itself depart from the genus of an act of sin.

44. But why then does baptism not take away the penalties of this mortality [sc. judicial killing], penalties that follow original sin?

I reply because they are not consequences of sin properly.

45. The whole argument stands, therefore, on this, that baptism destroys every sin and what would be a sin by the nature of the act (unless circumstances were to prevent it), and the consequences of it; but it does not taken away that which is in neither way a sin proper,a or a consequence. And of such sort is bigamy.

a.a [Note by Scotus] By ‘sin proper’ I mean what is either a sin in its kind or is a proper act [sc. of sin] formally.

46. On the contrary: let it be that the bigamist sin in bigamy, as by contracting illicitly (for example with his sister), it follows that this contract, since it is a sin or a consequence of sin or annexed to a sin, will be destroyed.

47. Again, in that chapter [n.31], Augustine says that “if a woman catechumen is corrupted, she cannot after baptism be consecrated among the virgins of God;” and yet it is possible that the corruption was a sin before baptism; therefore the sin is destroyed as to the proper penalties corresponding to it.

48. Again, if irregularity were necessarily in bigamy for this reason (that it is not a sin nor a consequence of sin), the Church could not take this irregularity away, because it cannot bestow on bigamy what is of itself a sin or a consequence of sin.

β. Third Opinion

49. There is a third opinion, that just as some ill repute is consequent to an act from the nature of the act, and another precisely consequent to an act by statute of the Church, and just as the Church cannot take the first away, nor can a sacrament of the Church (as baptism), but can take away the second, so also in the case of irregularity.

Bigamy, not by statue of the Church but by defect of signification, introduces irregularity, because a bigamist does not represent the Christ as he is spouse of the Church in the way a priest should represent Christ or, at any rate, should not have anything repugnant to that representation. But homicide does not introduce irregularity save by statute of the Church; therefore, it is taken away by the first sacrament of the Church, and the other is not.

50. And that the ill repute follows bigamy by the genus of the act they prove [Glossator on Gregory IX, Decretals with Glosses I tit.21 ch.3] by the fact that someone ordained in the Church is constituted in a preeminence and in a rank preeminent over others, and this sacrament of matrimony, as they say and say well [n.49], signifies Christ the spouse of the Church, and Christ is one spouse of one spouse only. Therefore he who has what is contrary to this signification is unsuited in the Church for having any preeminent rank, because he ought to signify the union of Christ and the Church, which union is one of one only.

51. Hence that is the reason why the canonists [Raymond of Penafort, Henry of Segusia] make the denial, that a bigamist cannot be ordained nor moved into Holy Orders because, on account of defect of sacrament, he is, by nature of the act of bigamy, unsuited.

52. But this does not seem to be sufficient, because if by the nature of the act the bigamist suffers ill repute, and therefore the Church cannot make dispensation for him as to the irregularity, then, by similarity, since no Church can ordain a murderer when he is notorious without him being of ill report, the Church would not be able to make dispensation as to the irregularity perpetrated by or consequent to homicide - just as neither can it, for that reason, make dispensation as to bigamy.

53. On the contrary: if the irregularity were from something prior to a statute of the Church, the Church could not then make dispensation - the opposite of which is stated in Gratian, Decretum, p.1 d.34 ch.18, where Martin concedes that a Lector, who had married a widow, can be ordained a sub-deacon but no higher. And the gloss says there [Gratian, Decretum with Glosses, p.1 d.34 ch.18 ch.1] that “the Pope makes dispensation against the Apostle (namely Paul in I Timothy 3.2, ‘a husband of one wife etc.’),” and Innocent is said to hold the opposite, that “it is not licit to make dispensation for a bigamist” [Gregory IX, Decretals I tit.21 ch.4], and Martin says the same [Decretum, p.1 d.50 ch.8]; yet Pope Lucius made dispensation for Archbishop Panormitanus, who was a bigamist [Gratian, Decretum with Glosses, p.1 d.24 ch.18; reported by several doctors, Albert, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Marston].

54. But a certain gloss [Gratian, Decretum with Glosses, p.1 d.34 ch.17] agrees in this way, namely that in the primitive Church the Order of sub-deacon was not a sacred Order; and therefore did Martin concede that a bigamist can be made a sub-deacon but did not make dispensation higher up.

55. This gloss of someone called Nicholas Furiosus is opposed in some books [Gratian, Decretum with Glosses, p.1 d.50 ch.16].

56. At any rate the Church finally holds this, that dispensation should not be made for a bigamist for either the diaconate or the priesthood.

57. Nor is the deed of Lucius concerning Archbishop Panormitanus disapproved of on this account, as if he did what he could not do, but that he did what was not fitting save for great cause.

b. Scotus’ own Response

58. I say therefore that the cause is only the institution of the Church. Nor is there here any other foundation than Paul; and the Church has it here only from Paul, who was one prelate only in the Church. Hence I say that the cause for irregularity in homicide and bigamy comes from a merely positive statute of the Church, and I take ‘Church’ here for the statutes of the Apostles and letters. For no man is so unsuited by any act of his own that he not be able to be restored to a worthy rank through penance, because any man is capable of this rank and of preeminence in the Church, and capable of the character, even a child, as was said above [Ord. IV d.6 n.200, d.7 n.68].

59. But why is the penalty for perpetrating a homicide regularly remitted in baptism, but the penalty that by statute of the Church follows bigamy not remitted? The cause is only the statute of the Church wanting this penalty to be so remitted and that one not. But this ordination by the Church is reasonable by the fact that a murderer is unsuitable for Orders only because of the horror of shed blood, because of which horror David was forbidden to build a temple for the Lord, II Kings [II Samuel] 7.2-13. But this horror is taken away by baptism, because the supposition is that from a wolf is made a lamb, just as also Paul was a persecutor before baptism, afterwards was made sheep and pastor.

Therefore the cause of the unsuitability ceases in baptism; therefore ought the effect to cease.

60. And that this is the cause is plain, for homicide too (done deliberately or in self-defense, with the moderation of guiltless defense [Gregory IX, Decretals V tit.12 ch.18]) does not, after baptism, make anyone unworthy to receive Orders, because there is no presumption of cruelty.

61. But unsuitability for Orders in a bigamist does not cease in baptism, because always there remains the defect of sacrament, that is, of signification, that is required in a priest representing the person of Christ in the Church; therefore, the effect there is not taken away, save later by special dispensation.