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Question Three. Whether a Child Present in the Womb of his Mother could be Baptized
40. Process thus to the third [n.11], and it is argued that a child in the womb of his mother could be baptized.22
Because the gift of God is more perfect than the sin of Adam, as is plain in Romans 5.15-21; but a child in his mother’s womb can be infected by Adam’s sin; therefore he can be perfected by the gift of God, and thus can receive the most perfect sacrament.
41. Again, a child in the womb can be liberated from temporal servitude, because according to the laws, if a mother frees a maidservant, the child too who is in the maidservant’s womb is freed; therefore, a child in the womb can be freed from the spiritual slavery of sin; therefore he can be baptized.
42. Again, Romans 11.16, “if the root is holy, the branches are too;” therefore, if the mother, who is compared to the tree, is holy, the offspring in her womb, who is compared to the branch, will be holy.
43. To the contrary:
I Corinthians 15.46, “What is spiritual is not first, but what is animal, then what is spiritual;” therefore it is necessary to be born carnally first before being reborn spiritually.
44. Isidore [Sentences I ch.22 n.5] maintains the same, “One born according to Adam is not; he cannot be re-born through baptism” [sc. one cannot talk of regeneration if generation has not happened first].
I. To the Question
A. Opinion of Others and Rejection of It
45. A negative answer is given to this question, because a child in his mother’s womb is conjoined with the cause of his own corruption; but such a one so conjoined cannot be cleansed while he is conjoined.
46. To the contrary:
The flesh of the mother in the child is not the cause of corruption save mediately; but the flesh here of the child is the immediate cause, speaking of the corruption of original sin. For as soon as the soul of the child informs his flesh, it is infected with that corruption; the flesh then causes the corruptions in the child more immediately, because it is his flesh, than the mother’s flesh does. If then, while conjunction with the cause of corruption remains, he cannot be purged from it (according to you, n.45), it follows that a child possessed of his own flesh can never be purged from original sin, which is against the faith.
47. Again, although the child in his mother’s womb is conjoined to her as to place, yet he is distinct from her as to person, because he has another body and another soul. But personal distinction suffices for distinction as to sin and not-sin, because sin or justice are present in the person insofar as the person is ‘this’ person, not because he is in such and such a place. Therefore, notwithstanding this conjunction as to place, the child can be just because of this distinction in person, though his mother be disposed to justice whichever way.
48. Again, if grace in the child could not stand along with this conjunction to the cause of corruption, then the child in the mother’s womb could not have the baptism of desire or blood, each of which is false.
As to desire the fact is plain [about Jeremiah] in Jeremiah 1.5, “Before you came forth from the womb I sanctified you,” and about John the Baptist in Luke 1.41-44, and the Church firmly holds this about the Mother of Christ.
As to the second [blood], the fact is plain from this that, if someone is pursuing a pregnant mother, he is pursuing the child in her womb for the same reason as that by which he is pursuing the mother; therefore, the child is killed for justice if the mother be killed for justice. Also, if the child were killed outside the womb, he would have the baptism of blood if he were killed for justice or for the faith (even when not baptized). Therefore, it is reasonable in the same way that God not contemn him who suffered for a like cause in his mother’s womb.
49. And from this an argument against the opinion can be made, that if a child can have the baptism of desire then he can have purgation from original sin; but when conjoined to his mother, who is cause of corruption for you, he can have the baptism of desire;23 therefore, he can have purgation from original sin [sc. he can be baptized].
B. Scotus’ own Opinion
50. To the question I say that either a boy is in his mother’s womb as to all his parts or he appears outside the womb as to some part.
51. If in the first way, I say that a child cannot be baptized - not for the earlier reason, that ‘he is conjoined with the cause of corruption’ [n.45], but for this reason ‘that baptism is a washing or cleansing in water’ [d.3 nn.101-103]; a child in the womb cannot in this way be washed because neither can he in this way be touched immediately by water. From this a corollary follows, that if a child were wrapped in animal hide, and were placed in water so that the water did not touch his body, he would not be baptized, but if he were touched by water, it is well; similarly if he were thrown from a bridge, he would not be baptized, because this throwing is not ordered to life or to washing but to death.
52. If in the second way [n.50], as follows: either a principal part appears (as the head), and then the child can be baptized on that part, and in this way be also simply baptized; for it is not likely that on the day of Pentecost, when three thousand men were baptized, Acts 2.41, each of them was washed with water as to their whole body, but precisely as to the face by sprinkling, or as to the head by pouring; and in the case at hand, if afterwards [sc. after the appearing of the head] the boy was born, there would be no need to baptize him again. But if a less principal part appears (namely hand or foot), this part is to be baptized, because the whole soul is in it, though not every sense is, as in the head. And should this lesser [sc. washing] suffice for the fact that the child was simply baptized, if he were born alive afterwards, he should be baptized conditionally, as Decretals II tit.42 ch.2 of Gregory IX, ‘On baptism and its effect’ teaches. For one must believe that God would supply what powerlessness impeded; for such a child, even if he is born dead, is yet to be buried in consecrated ground, for the reason stated [sc. that the whole soul is present in less principal parts of the body].
II. To the Initial Arguments
53. To the first argument [n.40] I concede that God can by his own gift justify an unborn child, as was in fact the case with Jeremiah and John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary [n.48]; but not by this sacrament, because while a child is in the mother’s womb has not the capacity for this sacrament.
54. To the second [n.41] I say that, as to temporal servitude, a child, while he is in the womb, is not distinct from the mother; for the master does not have lordship over the child save because he has it over the mother. But as to spiritual servitude or liberty things are not alike, because this has regard to the distinct person, and a child in the womb is as distinct in person from his mother as he is outside the womb.
55. To the third [n.42] I concede that fruit, insofar as it is something of the tree, follows the condition of the tree; yet insofar as it is something in itself, it can have conditions opposite to the tree in itself, for the fruit of the tree can be soft and the tree hard. So it is in the issue at hand, because justice and injustice have regard to the person in himself, not as he is conjoined or divided in place, but as he is divided personally in respect of the other person; therefore justice can belong to the offspring though not to the mother, or conversely. - A response can be made in another way to the intention of the Apostle.24,a
a.a [Interpolated text]: For there [Romans 11.1-24] he is restraining the Romans from insult of the Jews. They were saying that the Jews were branches cut off and themselves branches ingrafted. For this reason does he say that some Jews are good and not cut off but natural branches, speaking thus: ‘if the root is holy’ (that is, the Patriarchs, who were the roots as it were of the Jewish people) ‘the branches are too’, namely they are holy (it is plain of the Apostles, who were Jews).