Question Three. Whether the Unity of Baptism Requires the Baptizer to be Distinct in Person from the Baptized

81. To the third [n.25] proceeding thus: that the baptizer does not need to be distinguished in person from the baptized:

Because the priest can give himself the Eucharist (it is plain in the mass); therefore, just as he can receive that sacrament from himself, so this sacrament too.

82. To the contrary:

Decretals III tit.42 ch.4, Gregory IX, “Just as, therefore, in carnal generation he who generates carnally is one and he who is carnally generated is another, so too in sacramental generation, whereby offspring are reborn from water and the Holy Spirit, he who spiritually generates should be one and he who is spiritually generated should be another.” “Certainly, when the body exteriorly or the heart interiorly is baptized, it is necessary that on both sides a paternity and a filiation are able to be found, whereby baptizer and baptized may be referred to each other.”

I. To the Question

83. This question is expressly solved in Decretals [n.82] for the affirmative side.

84. For this is adduced a figure there and an authority and a fitting reason.

A figure because “to designate it Christ himself wished to be baptized, not by himself, but by John the Baptist” [Matthew 3.13.-17].

85. The authority is gathered from the words of the Lord saying to the Apostles: “Go, baptize all peoples in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” [Matthew 28.19], where he expresses the disciples in one person and the baptized in another.

86. The reason is because it is insinuated there that in baptism a certain spiritual kinship is contracted between generating and generated, “about which the Truth says, “You must be born again” [John 3.7].

87. “Just as then in carnal generation, he who generates carnally is one and he who is carnally generated is another, so too in sacramental generation.. .he who spiritually generates should be one and he who is spiritually generated should be another” [n.82].

II. To the Initial Argument

88. To the argument [n.81] I say that receiving the Eucharist is not a sacrament, but is sacramental eating or perceiving; but baptism itself is a sacrament.

89. And if you argue that at least the priest administers the sacrament of the Eucharist to himself, therefore by parity of reasoning he can administer also the other [baptism to himself] - I reply: to administer the former sacrament is not a sacrament because that former sacrament does not consist in the using; but ‘the sacrament of baptism being administered’ is the sacrament of baptism. And the reason for the diversity is that the sacrament of baptism consists essentially in the using and not in the water (as was said in the preceding question [n.72]); but the Eucharist is something permanent, distinct from the using of the sacrament. So, although someone could be minister in the using of a permanent sacrament and minister of him who receives that use, yet this cannot be in a sacrament that essentially consists in the using.This difference between baptism and the Eucharist is real enough, but one might wonder why it entails that one cannot administer baptism to oneself, for one can certainly wash oneself and speak words at the same time. Perhaps the answer is that Scotus does not intend this difference to show that it is altogether impossible to administer baptism to oneself, but rather to show why Christ could reasonably choose not to allow self-baptism but could reasonably choose to allow self-giving of the Eucharist. For the real reason self-baptizing is ruled out is Christ’s decision to rule it out, but this decision is well grounded in the reasons given in nn.84-87. Likewise, Christ could have decided to rule out self-giving of the Eucharist, but the difference of it from baptism as explained in nn.88-89 gave him good reason not to do so. ⁴¹ Hereby is plain the answer to the argument, because the case is not alike.