Dist. 3, Part 2, Art. 1, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/3/q/bon-sent-IV-d3-p2-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether by the institution of baptism some power was conferred on the waters.*

Secondly it is asked whether, by the institution of baptism, some power was conferred on the waters in the water. And that it is so, seems [to be the case].

1. Luke, chapter three: *When Jesus had been baptized*; Gloss: « The Lord was baptized, not because he needed to be cleansed, but cleansing the waters by the touch of his clean flesh, so that they might have the power of washing »: therefore if the power of washing is some power, it is clear that some power was conferred on the waters.

2. Likewise, it is held in [the part] On Consecration, distinction four: « Never could the waters of baptism have purged the sins of believers, had they not been sanctified by the touch of the Lord's body ».

3. Likewise, by reason it seems [so], because every operation proceeds from a substance by means of some power: therefore since water, by touching the body, washes the soul, this is from the water by means of some power; but not by a natural one: therefore some power was given to the waters in the institution of baptism.

**On the contrary:** 1. If some power was given to the water, I ask how it was given; and the Gloss says that [it was given] « by the touch of the Lord's flesh »: if therefore [it is] by the touch of the Lord's flesh, then they [the waters] have it [the power], everything else being set aside: therefore if anyone were immersed in water without any word, the water would regenerate him; which is false. If you say that it is [given] simultaneously in the water and the word; then it is objected that these [water and word] differ in substance and nature, therefore in operation and power: therefore there cannot be one power in both.

2. Likewise, if the clean flesh of Christ conferred that power; but it frequently touched waters, as when the boy was being washed, and when he washed his hands; and where the cause is the same, there the effect is the same: therefore he conferred [it] before he was baptized.

3. Likewise, if [it is] by the touch of his flesh: therefore only those waters have the power which the flesh of Christ touched, therefore not every water. If you say that that power was derived into other waters; then since derivation from body to body does not occur except through what is continuous, in no way will it be able to reach waters discontinuous from those waters: therefore the same difficulty [follows].

4. Likewise, if some power was conferred, I ask what it is: because, if [it is] a good, [it is] either of the least goods, or of the greatest, or of the middle ones. If of the least, it is inferior to the soul: therefore it does not act upon it. If of the middle ones: therefore it is equal to the soul and still does not flow in. If of the greatest: therefore some gratuitous power was given to the waters.

> **Conclusion.**
> The more probable and more intelligible opinion is that no absolute property was added to the baptismal water, but only an ordination toward the regenerating of man.

**I respond:** Some say that the Lord, by the touch of his most clean flesh, conferred upon the waters a power which they did not have; and that this power was some absolute property; and that this property was an improvement of the water and its reduction to the first state, in which it was before man's fall, because after the fall all the elements were made worse, so that the dwelling might match the worsened dweller. But because man, through the Sacrament of water, was to be improved and to rise again; therefore the water was improved and reduced to its first state; and this they call that power. — But this position cannot stand: first, because this power is said to be a power for regenerating; but the water did not have this in the state of innocence, because there was no need of regeneration; hence that improvement contributes nothing to the matter. Furthermore, if the water is improved, and not the other elements: then it seems that the ordination of the elements is broken up, since it is necessary that they have their due proportion.

And therefore others say that the conferral of regenerative power is not an improvement or purification of the water, but the conferral of some supernatural power, which is not given to the water according to perfect being, until the word comes; just as the power of altering sight is not perfect in color, except when light supervenes; and this is given above nature and exists there above nature, so that it may have an effect above nature through the divine will.

But since it is difficult to understand how anything absolute, whether according to nature or above nature, should now be in the water, which was not [there] before; and how it should have been given by the touch of [Christ's] flesh even to remote waters: therefore it must be said, as was touched on above, that that power is not any absolute property or essence added to the water, but only its ordination to this, that man be regenerated. — For previously all liquids were indifferent, and one could, so far as it lies in itself, be baptized in some other liquid as in water; but when the Lord willed to be immersed and was baptized in water, now water alone had the ordination to this: and therefore baptism could be done only in it. But because he did not institute that baptism be done only through immersion, but rather also through the utterance of words and of such words; likewise he ordained the words to this. Hence both the water, in which he was immersed, and the words, which he uttered, henceforth have power, neither one without the other, because he ordained both together for obtaining regeneration.

And thus the objections to both sides become clear, because the first ones proceed concerning power as it is an ordination to regeneration; but the second ones [proceed] concerning power which is an absolute quality. This power, however, is not through transfusion, but through institution. Hence just as the Lord ordained and instituted not only the words which he uttered for regenerating, but also all things alike; so [he ordained] not only the water which he touched, but all water alike in species — « now all water is alike to all water in species » — therefore he conferred [it] on all water. — And there is a likeness: if a king should ordain that only his letters should have power and efficacy which were written on goatskins and which were written in certain determined words; and this indeed he would do with his own hand, by writing on that kind of skin: [so that] the king would be said [to do it] by that hand, [and] gave his efficacy to that parchment and to every parchment of the same species, even that which is to come for a long time hence; and this through institution and ordination alone, not through any conferral upon [it]. So it must be understood in the matter at hand: that the Lord, by the touch of his clean flesh, gave power to the waters, not because cleanness passed from the flesh into the water, but because, since the Lord was clean, he willed for no other reason to be immersed in the water, except that by that immersion the water might have this ordination. Hence if water were created anew like this one in species, I believe that it would have the same ordination and would be said to have the same power.

And if you object to me: every relation is founded upon something absolute, because of which it accrues: therefore if this ordination, which is a relation, accrues, it was necessary that something absolute be given; it must be said that this does not hold true in voluntary relations, because a coin, as Augustine says, becomes a pledge without any change in itself, and likewise this word *buba* could become significative without any change in itself. Likewise it must be understood in the matter at hand. — And although each of these

opinions is catholic and probable, this one nevertheless is more intelligible and more consonant with the authorities of the Saints. For the waters are said to be cleansed and sanctified and made powerful, because they are efficaciously ordained to the sanctification and cleansing of the soul, not to be done by them, but to be received and given in them by God to the very man being baptized; and similar [expressions] are to be explained in this way. Nor is it to be understood that there is any action from the waters upon the soul. For just as the waters do not properly have power, so neither [do they have] operation; but their power and action is an efficacious ordination, either according to act, or according to habit. And so they incur no censure of the things which are said concerning these matters.

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