a. First Reason

205. Argument for this conclusion:

First as follows: just as, following natural reason, more things are not to be posited whose necessity is not clear from things known by natural reason [supra d.1 nn. 294, 300], so about what is believed or the sacraments more things are not to be posited whose necessity does not appear necessary, or needing to be posited, according to the faith. But such a necessity for an impressed form does not appear even according to things that are believed about baptism.

206. The proof of the minor is that neither does Sacred Scripture express that this is necessary in baptism, nor do the saints explicitly express it, nor does it follow evidently from the truth believed about baptism, because the whole truth of baptism consists in the visible sacrament and the invisible effect; and when Augustine specifies the invisible effect, he commonly calls it grace [e.g. Sermon 994, ‘On the day of the Pasch,’ I ch.1 n.1, et al.]

α. Objection

207. Here the response is made that the Saints do sufficiently hand on a tradition about the character in the way we speak of it, as is adduced from Dionysius and Damascene [nn.190-191].

β. Response to the Objection

208. But these authorities seem to be only verbal, and not to the intention of the saints -

209. [Proof that the authorities are only verbal] - for as is evident from looking at the translation and exposition of the Abbot of Vercelli,Abbot Thomas Gallus, who wrote a paraphrase/exposition of this work of Dionysius; the translation is not by him but was mistakenly attributed to him. ⁴⁷ Dionysius Ecclesiastical Hierarchy ch.2, on the words cited [n.190], where the Abbot says according to that translation: “The divine beatitude receives him [the one baptized], thus drawn upward, to participation in himself, and hands over of his own light to him, as by a certain sign, making him divine and in communion with those who remain in God.” And there follows there, “A holy sign from the hierarch, a seal given to the one who comes forward,” where some add from another translation words of this sort, “To him who comes to baptism is given by the supreme priest a sacred seal.”

210. Likewise he [the one who holds this view, n.190] adduces this from Damascene IV ch.1 as follows, that “through baptism is given to us regeneration and a seal;” by seal, according to them, is understood character. In the same place Damascene says of the three [qualities of the sign of the cross]Damascene, Orthodox Faith, ch.84, “This cross is given to us as a sign on the forehead, in the way circumcision was given to Israel. This is the helmet and shield and trophy against the devil; these are the seal.” ⁴⁸, “as circumcision was for Israel,” and after it, “and a seal.”

211. [Proof that they are not adduced to the intention of the authors] - These authorities [of Dionysius and Damascene] are not adduced to the intention of the authors:

About the first [n.190] it is clear, because as the plain ground of the text has it, and as Vercelli expounds that part of ch.2, para. 6, Dionysius is making determination about a certain preamble to baptism, namely how, according to the rite of the Greeks in the primitive Church, the one to be baptized was first brought into the Church, and on his head the hierarch put his hand and put a sign on him, commanding the priests to register both him and his reception. That would happen long before the baptizing, as is plain from the procedure of the text there, because determination is made about the act of baptizing in para.17 there, under the letter R.

212. Whence too that text of Dionysius in the translation of Vercelli is adduced in truncated form [n.190]. For after premising “and hands over of his own light to him, as by a certain sign...and in communion with those who remain in God etc.” [n.209], he adds about them, “Whose is the holy sign, a seal given by the hierarch to the one who comes forward, and the saving registration by the priests.” ‘Whose’ - I say render singulars for singulars,That is, each singly of ‘those who remain in God’ received singly the same ‘holy sign’ or ‘seal’, and this they received long before baptism. Scotus’ point seems to be that the omission of ‘whose’ in the initial citation [n.209] gives the misleading impression that someone baptized receives an additional holy sign or seal. In fact, however, the true meaning is that everyone, those who were in communion before and he who has become so now, received the same sign or seal, and that this sign or seal, in context, was the laying of hands on the head and registration by the priests, and that it all preceded baptism. Hence it can have nothing to do with any sign or seal or ‘character’ impressed at baptism, and only the omission of ‘whose’ could insinuate otherwise. ⁴⁹ that is, ‘the holy sign’ of the light handed on, ‘a seal given by the hierarch’, namely the imposition of hands on his head; and that he be in communion with those who are divine the sign is ‘the saving registration of the priests’, namely those who register him and his reception, as received into the communion of Christians. - Now this imposition of hands and registration happened long before baptizing; therefore, in no way can these things said here be understood of any sign impressed in baptism.

213. The authorities from Damascene [nn.191, 210] are very ineptly adduced.

Because a part of one passage is conjoined to a part of another, with a sentence passed over that needs to be continued with the preceding part. For the text of Damascene runs thus: “Through baptism we take up the first fruits of the Holy Spirit,” and it is a verse there; and another verse follows, “and the beginning of a second life becomes regeneration for us,” and then follows at once, “sign and protection and illumination.”     Therefore , in no way does he mean to say that through baptism a seal is made for us, but that by baptism we take up ‘the first fruits of the Holy Spirit’ in the first verse, and in another clause that ‘regeneration is the beginning of life and a sign etc     .’ Therefore from this authority can be got only that baptism, or regeneration, is a sign, and not that through baptism a sign is made for us.

214. And the other authority from Damascene [n.210] is of no validity, for he is expressly speaking there of the cross when he says “It is given to us as a sign on the forehead, as circumcision was for Israel; for by it the faithful are distinguished from infidels;” and about the same cross there follows, “This is the helmet and shield and trophy against the devil, and a sign that the ravager not come near us.” He does not mean to say more than that the cross is impressed on us as a sign against the enemy - which is not relevant to the matter in hand.

215. And there is a confirmation of this, because Augustine, who only treated of what baptism was intended for (namely in On Baptism against the Donatists VI and On Baptism of Children III and On the Single Baptism and much in his commentary On John and On the Faith to Peter [actually by Fulgentius]), would not have kept silent about ‘character’ if it had been an immediate and necessary effect of baptism.

216. And if you say ‘he does not deny it’, I reply: for the matter in hand it is sufficient that he not affirm it, because it is supposed to be a matter for so great investigation that, if character had been a thing proper to baptism, he would have been express about it elsewhere. But as it is, he only distinguishes in baptism the ‘sacrament’, that is, something externally visible, and ‘the thing of the sacrament’, namely grace; nor does he ever say that someone pretending receives any ‘thing of the sacrament’ but only the ‘sacrament’; nor does he ever show that baptism is unrepeatable through such an impressed character.

217. Likewise too in Gratian, Decretum p.3 d.4: the authorities of the saints about baptism are collected, and it does not seem likely that none of them would have spoken about character if it had been so necessary an effect of baptism.

218. And what seems much to be of weight, the Master of the Sentences never spoke about the character according to that understanding,Lombard speaks of character in Sent. V d.6 ch.2 n.3 and d.24 ch.13 n.1, but not in the sense of its being a necessary effect of the sacrament. ⁵⁰ although however he diligently compiled the authorities of the saints about the matters he deals with.