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.