Question Two. Whether the Unity of Baptism Requires the Washing and the Speaking of the Words to be Simultaneous

62. To the second proceeding thus:

It seems that the washing and the speaking of the words do not need to be simultaneous, because the Eucharist is one sacrament and yet between the words of consecration over the bread and the words of consecration over the wine there is a long interval, from the place ‘In like manner’ up to here ‘This is the cup’.

63. To the contrary:

Augustine On John’s Gospel tr.80 n.3 [Gratian, Decretum p.2 cause 1 q.1 ch.54], “The word reaches the element and it becomes the sacrament.”

I. To the Question

64. As to this question, it is plain that simultaneity is required, and the principal reason is the institution of Christ, who institutes these two as one complete sign for signifying the effect, such that neither would be a sign without the other. But what sort of simultaneity?

A. The Opinion of the Glossator

65. One opinion touches on the chapter Detrahe“Others say that the water begins and ceases to be the sacrament in the same instant, namely in the final moment of speaking the form, ‘I baptize you’.” “‘Take away [detrahe] the word from the water’, that is, take away the form, and it will not be the sacrament of baptism. And note that Gandulphus Bononiensis said that the water itself is the sacrament, namely the element itself..; hence if an ass drink the water it drinks the sacrament. Others say it is impossible that an ass drink the sacrament.” ³⁷ [Gratian, Decretum, p.2 cause 1 a.1 ch.54], that “the water per se is not the sacrament but when it is conjoined with the word, namely in the last moment of speaking the form.”

66. “And this is true,” says the Glossator, “according to them, to the extent that if in the instant in which the form is ended, and the water becomes the sacrament, the boy were not in the water, namely because before [the minister] said ‘and of the Holy Spirit’ he had raised him from the water, the boy would not be baptized.”

67. Nor yet does it follow that an ass could drink the sacrament, because the gloss touches there on the argument against Gandulphus, who says that the water alone is the sacrament; but for this reason does this not follow against them, because they say the water is the sacrament only in that ultimate instant [n.65].

68. “Nor is it strange,” according to the glossator, “if it begin and cease to be in the same instanta, since it is possible to find this in other cases according to the law.”

a.a [Interpolated text] And if you say that then too an ass, on drinking the water, would drink the sacrament in that ultimate instant [n.67] - I reply that, according to him, it simultaneously begins and ceases to be in the same instant.

69. And he sets down a case from the Digest [Corpus Iuris Civilis] XLVI ch.4 n.21], and he criticizes the example.“For if something is owed to me under a condition and I receive what is owed, I have taken it before the existence of the condition; if the condition exist afterwards, it begins and ceases to be owed in the same instant.” The glossator criticizes the case because what the law says is false: the debtor was freed long ago, and the debt was not later owed even for an instant. ³⁸

70. But he sets down another, “in the case of a slave given by a man to his wife so that he may free him, for in the same instant he begins and ceases to have lordship,”The Latin here, because of its vagueness, could also be translated to mean “in the case of a slave given by a man to his wife so that she free him, for she begins and ceases to have lordship in the same instant.” But Scotus does not take it this way in his response later [n.76]. ³⁹ Digest, XXIV ch.1 n.7 sect.9.

71. Another example can be set down, when someone begins and ceases to be a debtor, Digest XVI ch.1 n.24.

B. Rejection of the Opinion

72. The above [nn.66-71] can well be ‘Bernardican’ objections and subtleties,‘Bernardican’ because Bernard of Pavia [d.1213], a noted glossator, came up with this and many like glosses on the law; see below n.184. ⁴⁰ and asinine enough indeed in their fear lest an ass drink the sacrament; for neither in the water before the speaking of the words, nor in the speaking of them, nor in the last instant, nor in brief is the sacrament ever, without words or with, in the water; but the washing is in the water, and no ass can come along to drink that.

73. Neither is the simultaneity of the last instant in speaking the words and of the washing [n.65] necessary, for when the Apostles baptized 3,000 men in one day, Acts 2.41, they did not sprinkle [the water] always with the last syllable of the form such that the water then touched the one baptized.

74. Also, as to what the glossator himself adduces [n.67], that some virtue is in the last instant in the water and at the same time ceases to be, it is nothing if one understands the words properly; because when a permanent thing ceases to be it is not; and when it begins to be it is, for it has the first moment of its being and not the last; therefore if it begins and ceases at the same time, it is and is not at the same time.

75. Nor is it necessary that, because of this, virtue remain in the water after the act of baptizing [n.74], because neither is there any virtue in the water when the baptizer is actually using it, as was touched on in d.1 n.323.

76. Nor do the legal concordances [nn.69-71] prove that the same thing begins and ceases simultaneously; but they get their meaning in the way a lord begins to have lordship over a slave (who has been given to his wife) in a way other than he had lordship before, and ceases to have it in the way he had it before; for he had the slave before immediately and now he has him mediately, because now he is the slave of his wife [n.70].

C. Scotus’ own Opinion

77. I say therefore that the sort of simultaneity required is the sort that is required in human acts; for Christ refused to bind us to so subtle a simultaneity that scarcely could a man perceive or keep it.

78. Now simultaneity between a man’s deed and his word is when one of them begins before the other has totally finished, and this indifferently, whether the one will have finished before the other or the reverse. For example: if someone say this sentence ‘do this’ and he stroke his beard at the same time, whether he begin his act [of stroking] before the speaking of the words or vice versa (provided however that one of them not be finished before the beginning of the other), it will be said ‘he said this and did this at the same time’.

79. Thus I say that whether the priest immerse first with one immersion (where it belongs to the custom of the country to immerse more than once), and afterwards with a second immersion begin the words, or whether he begin the words and at the saying ‘I baptize you’ he immerse along with the words that follow, the simultaneity is sufficient -provided, in brief, the speaking not finish before the beginning of the washing, nor the washing finish before the beginning of the speaking.

II. To the Initial Arguments

80. As to the argument, about the Eucharist [n.62]: there is not the sort of unity between the species of bread and of wine as there is in the sacrament of baptism; for the species are not parts of the sort that neither of them signifies without the other; for the species of bread truly contains the body of Christ before the consecration of the blood. But the words here [in baptism] are not anything of baptism without the washing, nor conversely.