B. About the Form of Baptism Needed on the Part of the Minister

48. The second thing that needs to be considered is what words are the form of baptism in the above stated way [n.29].

49. Here one needs to know that there is in sacraments something necessary simply, that is, on the part of the sacrament (something namely which when it does not exist there is altogether no sacrament), and also something necessary in a certain way, that is, on the part of the minister (without which the minister, when dispensing the sacrament, cannot avoid sin).

50. But if one asks about the necessary form in this second way [n.49], that is, about the form that must necessarily be observed by the minister, I say that in the whole Roman Church the form that the question is about [n.29] is necessary, namely necessary for the minister whose office it is to baptize. Who this minister is will be stated later (in d.5 nn.30, 70-73), for ignorance cannot excuse him since he is bound to know the matters of the office he is deputed to. The proof of the conclusion is that any minister in the Roman Church is bound necessarily to keep the form that the same Church has imposed on its ministers. Of this sort is the form that the question is about, as is plain from Gregory IX Decretals III t.42 ch1, ‘about baptism and its effect’.

51. But if one asks about the necessary form that a minister among the Greeks must observe, one can say that, as far as concerns certain non-principal words in the form, namely those that express the receiver and the act or the minister, the Greek Church has sometimes not wanted to keep that form [n.34], the reason for which is touched on by the Apostle I Corinthians 1.11-3, 3.3-6, “But this I say, that each of you says, ‘I am of Paul etc.’;” because they were glorying in the ministers who baptized them, as if baptism were attributed or ascribed to those ministers; and Paul rebukes them, and indicates their dispute when he says, “Is Christ divided?”

52. For this reason it was ordained among the Greeks (in order to take away the schism) that the minister would not be expressed, nor the act in the indicative mood but in the optative mood, because then the minister is signified not to be the author of baptism, but only the minister desiring and praying for the effect of baptism to be conferred by God; the receiver too would not be expressed in the second person but in the third person, as if he were precisely not receiving what he receives from someone directly speaking to him. However, it would have been possible for the receiver to have been expressed better than by the phrase ‘servant of Christ’, namely by his own name; for baptism is not of someone who is already a servant of Christ but so that he may be a servant of Christ - speaking of the spiritual servitude by which a Christian is a servant of Christ.

53. About this Greek form [n.34] one can say that, as long as it was tolerated by the Roman Church, it was permitted to the Greeks, and also permitted for the time which it was instituted for during the aforesaid cause [n.51]. But when the cause ceased, the common form [n.29] could reasonably have been imposed on them.

54. Either, then, the Roman Church has prohibited that form as far as the Greeks are concerned, and then they sin by keeping it (because it is not found in any chapter [of canon law] making special mention of them); or if the Roman Church has permitted or conceded it, then it seems licit for them to continue the form. And if, while such permission or license continues to stand, they have ordained in their particular Councils that such form is first to be kept among them, it seems that their ministers are bound to keep it. The case is just as when permission by the Roman Church continues to stand that in some places a triple immersion [in baptism] should be done and in others a single immersion; for then in a Church that has determined on a triple immersion a triple immersion should be done, and it is a necessity in the minister to keep the precept and the manner of his own Church.

So much about the necessary form on the part of the minister.