Question Three. Whether Pure Natural Water is the Only Fitting Matter of Baptism

91. To the third principal question [n.6] there is argument that pure natural water is not the only fitting matter of baptism:

Because artificial waterFor the meaning of artificial water see nn.107-110 below. ¹⁶ has the same accidents as natural water, namely humidity, coldness, clearness, and the like; but a substance is known from its accidents, On the Soul 1.1.402b21-22.The Vatican editors note that several of these initial arguments are found in Richard of Middleton, and another in Thomas Aquinas. ¹⁷

92. Again, what is mixed is grosser than elemental water; but artificial water is finer, or at least not grosser;     therefore artificial water is not something mixed; therefore it is an element, and no element but water; therefore etc     .

93. Again, mixable things can be separated from the mixture, On Generation and Corruption 1.10.327b27-28; therefore someone can apply an active power to the passivity of the mixture to bring about such separation; therefore artificial water, when separated from the mixture, can be elemental water. There is a confirmation from Exodus 7.11-12, 8.7, about frogs, where the art of demons applied an active to a passive power to produce frogs at once from the water of the river; therefore, conversely, it was just as possible to apply by art the active power to the passive power to separate the element from the mixture, especially since reducing things to their elements is easier than generation or composition.

94. Again, as to the adjective ‘pure’, natural water is finer than water in use, from Meteorology 2.3.358a21-b27. And it is plain from experience that earth is separated from water in use by boiling or purifying, and lies at the bottom.

95. Again, from Christ’s side water flowed, wherein baptism is instituted, according to Gregory IX Decretals III tit.41 ch.8. But what flowed from Christ’s side was not elemental water but bodily fluids, because in a dead body there is not any fluid immediately that is elemental water, nor did any fluid come out through the wound save what was in the body at the time of the opening of the wound; but it was then not pure water;     therefore etc     .

96. On the contrary:

John 3.5 “Unless one be born again of water and the Holy Spirit     etc .”

97. Again, through reason: “Let alchemical artisans know that species cannot be mutated by art,” Meteorology 4.12.390b9-14. Therefore     , something mixed cannot be reduced to pure water.

I. To the Question

98. Here the reply must be stated proportionally to what was said at the beginning of the preceding question [nn.41-47]:

For matter (taking matter properly as that which the form of a thing is in) is the whole of what can there be sensed and on which the relation of the sign, which is the formal part of baptism, is founded. But just as in this whole sensed matter there is something that is more principal and ultimate determinant, and is called the ‘form’, so there is something less principal or is determinable, and is called the matter.

99. But such matter can be understood as proximate to that which is to be signified or as remote from it:

The proximate matter is the cleansing itself, for it, along with the words as proximate sign, signifies the effect of baptism.

100. And therefore we should not feel pressured by the doubt in Gratian Decretum with glosses, p.2 cause 1 q.1, ‘lest perhaps an ass drink the sacrament’ [Gandulphus, as quoted in Gratian, said that the water is the sacrament, so that if an ass drink the water it drinks the sacrament], which is truly an asinine doubt. For the cleansing only occurs in its becoming, and however much the water could be drunk or poured out here or there, the cleansing itself cannot be [cf. d.6 n.67].

101. And ‘cleansing’ is understood here not only in the way that water is said to wash the body as it were formally, but also as a man is said to wash the body with water as if the water were properly in an active state - for the mere contact of the body with water, which is as it were the formal cleansing, is not what was instituted in the sacrament as the sign or part of the sign, but the washing that is done by someone who does the cleansing.

102. Nor is it necessary that the cleansing here be the cleansing that is contrasted with washing and includes the removal of dirt from the body by contact with water. Rather the commonly meant sense of washing is enough, the washing of the body with water by someone else as agent; and this is nothing other than that water is brought into contact with the body by someone who brings that contact about.

103. And by understanding the cleansing or washing in this way, the washing is the proximate matter, as the per se foundation or part of the foundation of the signification of it.

104. But the water that is applied to the body in this cleansing is the remote matter.

105. And the proof is no other than that so it was instituted, as is plain in John 3.5 and Matthew 3.11.

106. But there is appropriate fittingness as to why it was so instituted, for water is cold, flowing, lucid, necessary, and common. And all these properties agree with the fluid that baptism ought to be done in, since baptism is for repressing the heat of concupiscence, to loosen the stiffness of disobedience, to lighten up the clarity of faith, to lead into the way of salvation; and all these properties are common, just as the law (of which the sacrament is the beginning) is common for salvation to all.The Vatican editors note that all these properties are found already in William of Militon and Richard of Middleton. ¹⁸

107. But why is ‘natural’ put in the question to distinguish water from artificial water? I reply that the waters that are commonly called artificial are certain mixed bodies and are not called water save equivocally.

108. The point is plain, first, because so it is as to the qualities that follow the whole species. For a single likeness in quality does not involve identity of substance, but a single unlikeness in the whole species proves that the substance is not alike. But the waters that are called ‘artificial waters’ have in their whole species some quality that is unlike elemental water.

109. The point is plain, second, from the way these waters are generated. For it is impossible for the whole of created nature to generate something else from something save by following a determinate process through determinate means. For the whole of created nature could not at once, and without intervening means, generate wine from vinegar, but there must be a return to the prime matter that is common to both, which is water and which, when at length drawn up in the grape through the trunk of the vine, is eventually converted into wine. And this opinion is posited by the Philosopher in Metaphysics 8.5.1045a3-6, and it is plain to the senses that it is so.

110. But these artificial waters, whatever they are made from, are not made by keeping to nature’s process through determinate or ordered means. They are also universally made by the action of fire decocting and dissolving them. But fire does not seem to be sufficient in its active force to convert any mixed thing into elemental water. For this reason, it can be universally admitted that the waters called ‘artificial’ are not fitting matter for baptism, because they are not in the species of elemental water.

111. As to the addition of ‘pure’ in the question [n.6], one must understand that impurity in water can be taken in two ways: either because of mixing or juxtaposition (as washing water is called ‘impure’), or because of a mixture deviating from the species (as mixed fluids are not said to be pure water).

12. The first impurity, indeed, is not an impediment, provided however it does not remove from the water its being suitable for washing; nor is there any reason for the exclusion save that it was instituted so. Hence water mixed with flour in paste or sponge, or water mixed with thick dye (and so on with others), even though these waters may touch the body, yet they are not fitting material for baptism. For such contact is not washing but only contact of flowing water that freely spreads itself over the skin or makes a separation between the skin and some other body.

113. In the second way [n.109] I say that there can be some impurity while yet the water remains within the species of water - as perhaps if water begins to thicken in tending to generate a grosser element; and this is not an impediment provided however it is still fluid. And I say so to this extent, that in ice or snow, which however are imperfect water or on the way to being a mixture, baptism cannot be done while they are ice and snow, because there is no washing there, as there is not either in anything hard. But if water is altered to be now outside the species of water, it is altogether not the matter of baptism. And it is sufficiently clear about some alterations that they make the altered result to be outside the species of water, as about fluids that are naturally reduced first through digestion (as saliva, urine, and the like), according to Decretals III tit.42 ch.5.

114. About other alterations, however, this is not manifest, as about the cookings and mixings we perceive, where it is not clearlyly apparent that the species is altered (as about the juice from boiled flesh, and water in flour, and the like, and about white mustard and beer and mead); for it is not manifest that there is any active force there that is corrupting the species of water

115. However, this discussion does not belong to a theologian, who is determining the matter of baptism, save insofar as it can be got from the canon of the Bible. Nor does it belong to the canonist, who is determining the conditions of the matter as they are determined by the ordering of the Church. Rather it belongs to the natural philosopher, whose job it is to investigate which alteration removes water from its species and which does not.

116. And if there is a doubt about any instances, and they have been used to confer baptism, one must use the three maxims set down in the solution of the preceding question [n.76] to apply remedies for those whose baptism is likely in doubt.

II. To the Initial Arguments

117. To the first argument [n.91] I say that although artificial water has similar accidents, yet it has a dissimilarity or dissimilarities from the whole species, and from this follows a distinction of substance.

118. To the second [n.92] I say that although some artificial water is finer than elemental water, because it is more penetrating, yet its fineness is not that of simplicity but of active power (and in this way is wine more fine than water); but the fineness that comes with elemental water is that of simplicity, in the way that an element is simpler than a mixture.

119. To the third [n.93] I admit that it would be possible for a good or a bad angel to apply some active powers to a mixture as passive object, whereby elemental water might be resolved out of it. For I did not say that artificial water was not elemental water because art was involved in it (for art is present not as producing the term but as applying something active to something passive); but I say that no art can apply the same active force (such as fire) to passive mixtures, however diverse, such that there would be, by that active force, an immediate dissolution into elemental water; for that same agent cannot have a force, as a force, of changing things without going through intermediate forms, nor even of corrupting such diverse things back to the same term.

120. To the fourth [n.94[ the answer is plain from what was said about impurity through juxtaposition [nn.111-112].

121. As to the fifth [n.95], Innocent responds in the cited Decretals that the water which flowed from the Savior’s side was not bodily humor but true water.

122. He proves it from the words of the Gospel, John 19.35, “‘And he who saw it has borne witness to the truth.’ He would certainly not have said water if it had not been water but some bodily fluid.”

123. He proves it also a posteriori from the matter of baptism. “Nor,” he says, “would the true sacrament of regeneration have been thereby shown, since in the sacrament of baptism people are not regenerated with bodily fluid but with water.”

124. He proves it also from the water that has to be added in the sacrament of the Eucharist.

125. He proves it fourth “from what prefigured it in the Old Testament when Moses struck the flint, from which not bodily fluid but water flowed.”

126. In support of the proof he makes response in the same place, namely that “either the water there was miraculously created anew, or was distilled from components.”

127. But whatever may be said about the water from the side of Christ - because this flowed as it pleased him, not because the sacraments took their efficacy from it, as said above [d.2 nn.19, 32], but because of a certain more perfect likeness to baptism and the Eucharist [d.2 n.42]) - it is nevertheless certain that baptism can only be performed with usual water, because Christ instituted this [n.105].