Question One. Whether the Unity of Baptism Necessarily Requires that it be Conferred by one Minister

26. To the first question argument is made that it is not so required.

Because the same person can baptize several people at the same time;     therefore , several people can baptize the same person. The consequence is plain from the likeness. The proof of the antecedent is, first, that it is possible to pour water on two people at the same time, saying “I baptize you (plural) etc     .;” nor does it seem that anything is lacking there to prevent both being baptized; second, because if the baptizer were monstrous having two heads, he could baptize at the same time and yet it is probable that there are there two persons, because two principal parts; and third by likeness, because the same priest can at the same time consecrate several hosts.

27. When for some effect several things run together, those things can be made equally from one and from many (this is plain about a house: one stone can equally be positioned by one person and another by another and at length the house will be completed just as it would be if all the stones, up to the introducing of the form [of the house], were put in place by the same person; it is plain also in another example, where there is greater unity of effect, for a ship can equally be dragged in one pull by several people as by one person who has with them an equal virtue). But in baptism many things come together, as washing and speaking of words; therefore baptism can be conferred equally by two, one of whom washes and the other speaks the words, as by the same person washing and speaking.

28. To the contrary:

The minister there represents Christ, who is mediator of God and man, and Christ is one [I Timothy 2.5].

I. To the Question

29. I reply: ‘many baptizing’ can be understood either as baptizing ‘the same recipient’ or baptizing ‘many recipients’.

30. And each of these can further be sub-distinguished:

Because if they baptize ‘the same recipient’, either each does the whole or one washes and the other speaks the words.a

a.a [Interpolation] or each does part and neither does the whole, as that one washes and the other speaks the words.

31. The second division is also sub-distinguished, because if one baptizes ‘many’, either many who are clearly distinct or many who are unclearly distinct (as in a monstrous birth, where there is doubt if it is one person or two).We today would likely speak of ‘conjoined twins’ here. ³³

32. About these four divisions in turn:

A. About Baptism Administered by Two Ministers who Together do the Whole

33. About the first [n.30] I say that that person is baptized, because it is not likely that one doer would annul the deed of the other; but if only one of them were to do what both do, it would be done; therefore, no less is it done when the other does the like.

34. About this there are two doubts:

The first is that the same thing cannot be from two total causes; but when one washes and speaks the words he is the total cause in baptizing, and does it with the causality that belongs to a minister; therefore, the same baptism cannot be from someone else who is a causer in the same place in the same order. The major is proved through this proposition, that nothing is a cause when, on its non-existence, the effect none the less exists [cf. Ord. I d.3 n.522].

35. Again, if the agent and the form by which he acts are different things, the form induced is different (this is taken from the Commentator [Averroes] on Physics 5, comm.2 48-49); but here there is this agent and that agent (in the way being an agent belongs to a minister), and a different form by which each acts, because there is one intention in this agent and another in that; therefore the act of baptizing is simply different. But to each action belongs its own action undergone; so there are several undergoings of baptism there, and consequently several baptisms.

36. As to the first [n.34] I concede the major about the cause that does effectively induce the form.

37. And if it is objected that at least the form of baptism, as it is a sacrament, is induced by the minister, and thus there are two causes and each is total - I respond: if each washes, neither is total cause in washing, and this whether the washing is done by immersion - (for then both move the body of the one immersed by one motion that is caused by the motive power of both; and although another could cause the motion, nevertheless when they move together neither uses his whole motive power to the extent he could use it - it is plain when two carry one weight which either could carry) - or whether it be done by pouring or sprinkling; albeit each make [the recipient] wet with the per se poured water, yet neither makes him wet with the whole wetting that comes from the sprinkling done by both.

38. But a difficulty still seems to stand, because each is total cause with respect to the speaking of the words; therefore, as to one part of the exterior effect (which is the sacrament) there will be two total causes, and this is as impossible about a part of the effect as about the whole of it.

39. I reply: it is difficult for the words of one of them not to be superfluous in this way, that they are not per se part of one sacrament; because it is to set down two things of the same idea as parts of one thing that is simply perfect in having one of them; the other seems to be superfluous.

40. But which words are superfluous, and whose as speaker, is difficult to assign, because the reason by which it is this one is a reason by which it is that one - and so each or neither is superfluous, because each speaks the words equally completely and with like intention.

Look for the response.b

b.b [Interpolation] It can be said that the act of baptizing by this one or that other one is valid, namely his whose act of baptizing God accepts. But whose he accepts determinately is altogether uncertain to us; only God knows, and he to whom he wishes to reveal it.

41. To the second argument, about action [n.35], there is doubt whether it be placed in the undergoer or the doer. And if in the undergoer, the action is not a ‘many’ in reality if the undergoings are not many; nor are the undergoings many when the form received in the undergoer is one; and, by holding this view, the major proposition that is taken from the Commentator [n.35] must be denied. But if action be placed in the agent, whether action is something absolute or a relation to the undergoer, then the major can be conceded; but then the proposition that ‘to diverse actions respond diverse undergoings’ [n.35] is false. In whichever way, then, that action is spoken about, several baptizings are not posited but one is.

42. And from this seems to follow a corollary, that the sacrament of baptism is more the baptism undergone than the baptism done, because baptism is not multiplied when the doing of baptism is multiplied, for the undergoing of baptism is one. This inference also seems probable, because the one baptized properly receives the sacrament; for he properly receives the washing undergone, and not the washing done, unless the washings be said to be the same really.

B. About Baptism Administered by Two Ministers who do Something Separately

43. About the second member of the distinction [n.30], I say that when each does something separately, and neither does the whole in thus washing and speaking at the same time, nothing is done.

44. Nor is there a reason save the institution of God who, as he wished there to be one principal agent, so he wished to have one minister in the integral conferring of the sacrament.

45. This is also plain by taking up the form that we use for, from our words, he who speaks them signifies that he is washing; and his speaking, which is the form of our sacraments, should not be false. The like must also be understood of the words of the Greeks, who say ‘let him be baptized etc.’, because this is not merely an invocation but as it were a certain efficacious willing, so that the sense is, ‘Through this my act over him, let him be baptized’.

C. About the Baptizing of Many Carried out by One Minister all at Once

46. About the third member of the distinction [n.31], it is conceded that when someone sprinkles or pours [water] on several at once and at the same time prounounces the form in the plural saying “I baptize you [plural]”, he does baptize them all at once but sins mortally, because he does not keep the form imposed on him by the Church - and this unless perhaps there were so great a necessity that the death of all were imminent at once, and that if he were to baptize individuals singly some one of them would be dead before he had baptized the others.

47. But here there is a doubt whether there be then one baptism.

It seems that there is not because several are baptized and consequently there are several undergoings of baptism, and thus several baptisms.

48. But the opposite also seems to be the case, because there is only a single form, for the same words are spoken once.

49. It could be more conceded perhaps that there are several baptisms, by holding to what was stated, that the sacrament of baptism is the undergoing of baptism [n.42].

50. And then in response to the argument [n.48]: either there is no need, for the pluralizing of something, that all things in it are pluralized, but it is enough that some of them are pluralized for the whole to be pluralized; or the form is not simply one , because the plural ‘you’ includes in itself the singular ‘you’ several times doubled.Priscian, Institutiones Grammaticae V ch.9, “It is well said that the singular too, when doubled and multiplied, makes all numbers, and that all numbers are composed of it and dissolve into it.” ³⁴

51. But would the case of necessity that is posited about several who are going to die at once [n.46] excuse from mortal sin a minister who uses the form ‘I baptize you [plural]’? It seems this is reasonable, because from the fact it was in the power of the Church to determine, as to some of the words, the form, ‘I baptize you [singular]’ (as was said above, d.3 nn.48-76), it does not seem that the Church wanted to restrict anyone so precisely to this form that the way of salvation would thereby be closed off to anyone. But now salvation would be closed off for some one of those in a case of necessity if one could not, without mortal sin, use the form ‘I baptize you [plural]’, for if it were in any case a sin, no one ought thus to baptize them; for no one should procure the salvation of another by sinning in himself mortally.

D. About the Baptism of a Receiver whose Unicity is in Doubt

52. About the fourth member of the distinction [n.31] I say that if time can be had for discerning whether the monstrous birth is simply one person or two, diligent investigation should first be made about this before it is baptized. And investigation can be made either from the parts of the body (for example if there be two heads or two spines in the back), or there is the more principal indication of hearts.

53. But this [indication of hearts] cannot easily be clear while it is alive.

54. But neither can the sign about two heads be altogether certain, because it would be possible for some chamber of the womb to be divided through the whole of it, besides at the top, and then the parts of the seed, falling through the womb’s diverse openings, would come together in the whole lower part and be distinct in the top part; and two heads would be formed there although, however, the rest of the matter would only be sufficient for the formation of one person.Scotus seems to be following an example discussed more fully by Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet VI q. 14. ³⁵

55. Briefly, the clearest sign for discrimination is through act of intellect and will: for, if there are two souls, it is not necessary that one know whatever the other knows, nor that one wants what the other wants; yet rarely or never does it happen that there are two souls without two heads or two principal parts of the head, though not conversely.

56. And if in any way a diversity of intellects in understanding can be detected (for example, that by some sign it were detected that the same thing was known and not known), or if a diversity of wills could be detected (for example, that there was a willing there and a refusing of the same thing), without doubt should one hold that there were two souls there.

57. But this can only be judged about an adult monstrous birth, of the sort posited to have existed in France, possessing two heads, one of which expressed a refusal of that for which the other expressed a willingness; for one wanted to be continent and live soberly and the other to be lascivious and to feast; and when one would go to extremes in eating through its mouth, the other would exclaim it was bloated.The story is in Henry of Ghent, ibid. ³⁶

58. About this monstrous case I say that if certitude can be had, and if there are parts about which it is plain that they belong to distinct persons, each part should have water poured on it separately, with repetition of the form [of baptism] in the singular on each of them. If certitude cannot be had, it is to be baptized, at least on those parts that belong principally to one of them, with the form in the singular; and second those parts are to be washed that do not seem principally to belong to that first one, and this with the form to be observed in those cases where there is doubt, which is set down in Decretals III tit.42 ch.2, Gregory IX [“Where there is doubt if they have been baptized, let them be baptized with these words, ‘If you are baptized I do not baptize you; but if you are not yet baptized, I baptize you etc.’”].

II. To the Initial Arguments

59. As to the first argument [n.26]: the antecedent is not true when speaking of one baptism, for if the same person baptizes several people, this is by several undergoings of baptism, and so there are several baptisms. And if the intention is to prove the major by speaking of one baptism, I say that the first proof, about many who are sprinkled at once, does not prove this (as is plain in the third member of the distinction [nn.47-49]); nor does the second proof about monstrous births, for if there were two persons in such a monstrous birth, they would have to be baptized individually; and if they were baptized together under this form ‘I baptize you (plural)’, then although the minister would sin without necessity (because a case could not easily be found of a sort that their baptism one by one could not be waited for), yet they would be two baptisms (as was said in the third member of the distinction [nn.47-49]). As to the third proof, about the eucharist, I say that although the priest, by speaking the words once, may consecrate several hosts at once, yet there are several instances of being consecrated there; and it could also be conceded that they would be several hosts or eucharists; similarly, just as there would be several hosts, there would be several consecrated wines.

60. To the second [n.27] I say that in some case several things run together each of which without the other is something in itself (and just as it is something in itself, thus can it remain so as to be something of the whole - just as in that example about the parts of the house). It is not this way in the issue at hand, because neither are the words without the washing anything of the baptism, nor is the washing without the words.

61. And if you say that at least as existing together they [the washing and the words] are something of baptism, and in this way can they yet be from several diverse ministers - this is true if the unity of the efficient cause were not requisite insofar as they constitute a single sign; but unity is requisite because of the ordaining by its principal agent [=God] (not also by its provider [=the Church]) that it is an efficacious sign when it is administered totally by the same minister.