II. To the Initial Arguments

274. As to the first initial reason [n.187], the same Thomas [Aquinas, Sent. IV d1 q.2 a.4] concedes that circumcision did not impress a character, and then against him is the argument in that question about the efficacy of the sacrament with respect to grace [supra, d.1 nn.278-282The editors of the Quarrachi edition add: “What Scotus says there about the sacraments of the New Law he now applies also to circumcision.” ⁵²]; for he posits that it only has efficacy with respect to grace because it is an instrument with respect to a certain disposition for grace. I say therefore that it can be conceded about circumcision that some character was impressed there just as in baptism; for it was thus the first door of salvation in the Mosaic Law as baptism is in the New Law.

275. And when it is argued [n.187] that then someone circumcised would not need to be baptized, I deny the consequence.

276. As to the proof [ibid.] I say that it can be conceded that either the character would be of the same idea as the character of baptism or of another idea. But if it is of the same idea, either the character was not impressed by the baptism received by someone circumcised - just as on a subject, who possesses some sort of form, that sort of form is not impressed again, even by a cause that would be of a nature otherwise to impress such a form; and this for the reason that the subject is not in potency but already in act with respect to this form. Or if another character of the same idea were impressed in baptism, nothing unacceptable follows, at least if character be posited to be a relation, as was said about relations in Ord. III d.8 n.24. Or it could be said that the character of circumcision differs from that of baptism as the imperfect from the perfect, in the way that the grace of this [person] differs from the grace of that one, and then in the receiving of baptism a new character would not be impressed on someone previously circumcised, but his first one would be perfected.

277. To the second [n.188] I say that not every perfection in the soul has such a perpetual commemorative sign; but such a sign has that by which he who has the perfection is constituted in some determinate rank in the Church; of this sort are not the virtues (because they are common to all members in any rank) but the sacraments, both the one through which entrance is made into the Church and the others (as the sacraments of confirmation and of ordination), as will be stated in the following question [nn.328-332].

278. To the third [n.189] the answer is plain from the solution of the fifth reason for the preceding opinion [nn.232, 272].