Question Two. Whether Someone Baptized with the Baptism of John was Necessarily Required to be Baptized with the Baptism of Christ

43. “Now about the sacrament of baptism” [Master Lombard Sent. IV d.2 ch.2 n.1].

Here the Master deals with the sacraments of the New Law one by one.

44. And first about baptism, which is the first sacrament and the door to the others. It is divided into two parts. First he deals with a certain preamble to true baptism, namely the baptism of John; second he deals with Christ’s baptism, at the beginning of d.3.

45. About this part of the question I ask whether someone baptized with the baptism of John was necessarily required to be baptized with the baptism of Christ.

46. It seems that he was not:

Because the Master in the text, the last chapter, says that “he who did not put his hope in the baptism of John and believed the Father and Son and Holy Spirit was not afterwards [to be] baptized.”

47. Again, in the reception of the sacraments, what is given “is not to be repeated, but if something is omitted it is to be supplied with caution” [Decretals V tit.29, and I tit.16 ch.1]; but in the baptism of John exterior cleansing was given; therefore if interior cleansing was lacking it was to be supplied, but the exterior cleansing was not to be repeated.

48. On the contrary:

Gratian Decretum p.3 d.4 ch.39, and it is taken from Augustine On John’s Gospel tr.5 n.18, “If John baptized any, are they again to be baptized? Plainly again, but not with a repeated baptism. For whom Judas baptized, Christ also baptized; but whom John baptized, only John baptized.”

49. Again Augustine On Baptism against the Donatists 5.8 n.11 says, “Christ cleanses the world with the sort of baptism that, once received, another is not necessary; but John reached the sort of baptism that, once received, the baptism of the Lord was still necessary.”

I. To the Question

50. I reply that John’s baptism can be understood in two ways:

In one way in form of the baptism of Christ, which he could have known from Christ’s disciples or from others who heard them baptizing. And then it is not properly called ‘the baptism of John’, just as now we do not say ‘the baptism of Peter or of Paul’. For the Apostle rebukes this error in I Corinthians 1.12-16, 3.4-9. If it was in this way that John baptized anyone, then it is plain that such a one was not to be baptized again.

51. In another way John can be understood to have baptized not in form of Christ’s baptism, but in some other form proper to him, as “in the name of him who is to come” [Lombard], or without any form. And for someone baptized in this way it appears sufficiently manifest that he had to be baptized with the baptism of Christ. First because of the general precept about Christ’s baptism, which obliges everyone, and those baptized by John did not fulfill this precept (and this general precept was reasonable because it was reasonable for everyone to be obliged to becoming members of the Church and to taking up the sign common to all who enter the Church). Second because it was fitting, after the preparative medicine has been received, to receive the curative medicine (when a disposition has been introduced, it is still fitting for the principal form to be introduced).

But the baptism of John was like a disposition and preparative medicine for Christ’s baptism, so that through John’s cleansing men might be more easily inclined to receive the cleansing that saves; nor would this be irksome for those who had already been exercised in something similar.

52. This reasoning [n.51] is hinted at by John the Baptist, John 1.26, 33; 4.23: “I baptize you with water (understand: “with water only”), but there stands one among you whom you know not, who baptizes you (understand: “not in water only but”) in the Spirit and in truth.”

53. If it be said that the Master [Lombard] is speaking [n.46] of those baptized by John in the first way, namely by using Christ’s form in the baptism [n.50], then what the Master says can in this way stand, because unbelief in a receiver of baptism is not a sufficient reason for him to need to be baptized another time, provided however he intends to receive what the Church intends to confer. So if someone baptized by John does not have the faith of the Trinity, while he does, however, intend to receive the baptism which John intended to give (which, with this intention, could have been a true baptism of Christ), he was not to be baptized afterwards - the opposite of which is asserted by the Master about those who are to be baptized afterwards.

II. To the Initial Arguments

54. To the first argument [n.46] I say that the Master’s view is not adopted, nor does his argument (which is taken from Acts 19.2) prove it. For it is true that those who did not have faith were to be baptized with the baptism of Christ, but the inference ‘therefore those who did have faith were not afterwards to be baptized’ does not follow; for this way of arguing only holds in precise cases [Ord. I d.43 n.10, II d.34-37 n.94], and it does not hold in the matter at issue, for infidelity was not there [Acts 19.2] the precise reason for rebaptism with the baptism of Christ, but rather that they had not previously received the grace of baptism.

55. To the second [n.47 I say that the major is true when something of the sacrament is conferred; but in the baptism of John nothing of the sacrament was conferred; for exterior cleansing, without definite words spoken with a definite intention, is no part at all of the sacrament of baptism, just as neither is any other sort of bathing.

56. And if you ask, ‘When therefore is the maxim true, “where something is omitted, it is to supplied with caution” [n.47]? I say:

Either this has no place in a sacrament truly one, because when two things come together for the same sacrament, one without the other is nothing of the sacrament, because one without the other neither signifies nor effects grace. And then the maxim is to be expounded of ordered diverse sacraments, of which sort are ordination to the diaconate, subdiaconate, and the like; of such things is the discussion there.

Or if it is possible in the case of a sacrament truly one that one part is something of the sacrament without the other (as in the Eucharist when speaking of the species of bread and wine), then the statement ‘what is omitted is to be cautiously supplied’ does have place. But in the matter at issue it does not hold, for the reason that John’s cleansing was nothing of the sacrament.