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.