I. To the Question

158. As to the question, all hold as certain that it is not licit to repeat baptism, and that, even if it be repeated in fact, it has no effect. And the authorities of the saints assert this.

A. Reasons of Others against the Repeatability of Baptism, and Rejection of Them

159. Now two reasons are set down for this:

One is [Thomas Aquinas ST IIIa q.66 a.9] that Christ baptized, suffered, and died once; and baptism gets its virtue from the passion of Christ, according to the Apostle’s remark, “We were baptized in his death” [Romans 6.3].

160. But this reason does not prove the conclusion, because penitential confession too has its virtue from the passion of Christ, and absolutely is the first grace only given to an enemy through the merit of a Mediator; and yet confession is repeated.

161. Again, another reason [Aquinas ibid., Bonaventure et al.] is set down, that in baptism a character is impressed that is indelible.

162. But this reason proves the proposed conclusion through something more obscure than the conclusion is. For from the beginning, when baptism was instituted, the fact that it was not licit to repeat it was manifest about it. But that a character is impressed was not known from the first institution of it, nor from the whole of Scripture, nor from many evident authorities of the saints, as will be touched on directly in the questions about character [infra. n.238]. And this chiefly seems to be so because, if there had been much treatment of this matter by the saints, the Master of the Sentences [Lombard] would have made some mention of it; but he is not found to have said any word about it in the sense in which we use it. For in his whole treatment of baptism [Sent. IV d.2 ch.2 - d.6] he names character only once, in the second chapter of this distinction at the end, saying, “Those who have been baptized by heretics, since Christ’s character has been preserved, are not to be rebaptized.” There baptism’s form is called Christ’s character, as is plain from the aforesaid authority of Augustine [n.156], from which the Master infers that statement.

B. Scotus’ own Reason

163. I say, therefore, that the reason for unrepeatability is divine institution, of which there is no other prior cause save the divine will.

164. However, this institution is reasonable.

164. First, from the sickness against which the remedy is principally instituted; for it is principally instituted against original sin, which is not but unique and cannot be repeated.

165. Second, from the principal end for which it exists, namely full remission of punishment and guilt. Now if a man could frequently have such full remission of both of these, there would be great incentive to delinquency; for that which is instituted as remedy for the relapsed, namely penitential confession, is not without a heavy penalty needing to be paid for sin.

166. Next third, because through this sacrament (since it is the beginning and the door through which entrance is made into the Christian law) one is ascribed to the family of Christ and becomes a member of the Church Militant. But although someone who has entered a college could, if he has committed offense after having entered, be reconciled both to the college and to the head of the college, yet he does not frequently enter the college or can frequently be received into it.