Dist. 5, 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/5/q/bon-sent-IV-d5-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether heretics can baptize.*

Granted secondly that clerics and laics can baptize, it is asked whether heretics can baptize. And that [they can], it is shown:

1. First, by the authority of Bede: «Whether a heretic or a schismatic baptizes in the name of the holy Trinity, he who is baptized cannot be baptized [again] by catholics».

2. Likewise, Augustine: «No injury is to be done to any Sacrament»; but those do injury to it who say that they are polluted by the pollution of the ministers: therefore heretics, although polluted, can baptize.

3. Likewise, «when the word is joined to the element, the Sacrament comes to be»; but the heretic says the word and has the element: therefore he can confer the Sacrament.

4. Likewise, the power of baptizing is not a gift of grace making [one] pleasing [to God], but only of grace gratuitously given, since it is established that wicked priests baptize: therefore suppose that some catholic priest become a heretic; since on account of this he does not lose the gratuitously given grace, it seems that he can baptize.

**On the contrary:** 1. When the form of baptism is handed over, two things are set before it, namely teaching and faith, in Matthew, the last [chapter]: *Teach them, baptizing in the name of the Father* etc.; and again: *He who shall have believed and been baptized;* but the teaching of heretics is not knowledge, but folly, and their faith is error, not faith: therefore neither is their baptism a baptism.

2. Likewise, baptism is a Sacrament of faith: therefore where faith is lacking, baptism is lacking. *Proof of the first.* Augustine: «The word is joined to the element, and the Sacrament comes to be, not because it is said, but because it is believed»; therefore if it is not believed, it is not a Sacrament: since therefore the heretic does not believe, he does not confer the Sacrament.

3. Likewise, intention is required for baptism; but the heretic does not have intention, because he does not have faith, «which directs the intention», as Ambrose says: therefore he cannot baptize.

4. Likewise, heresy is not the Church, therefore the baptism of heresy is not the baptism of the Church; but only the baptism of the Church is baptism: therefore of heretics, who are not of the Church, there is no baptism.

> **Conclusion.** A heretic, the things to be observed being observed, validly baptizes.

**I respond:** It must be said, as has been said, that these three things belong to the integrity of baptism, namely immersion in water, the utterance of the word, and the intention of doing what the Church does; and since a heretic, remaining a heretic, can have these three; he can baptize and does baptize, when none of these is lacking; for then he acts not as a heretic, but as a catholic.

1. 2. To that, then, which is objected concerning teaching and faith, it must be said that those are not of necessity, but of *fittingness* — the faith, I mean, of the one baptizing; for the faith of the Church is necessary, and this is not lacking. — And by this the following [point] is plain.

3. Likewise, to that which is objected concerning intention, it must be said that, as will appear below, the intention can be with respect to the work, not with respect to the end; and so it can be right even without faith.

4. To the last it must be said that that argument is not valid; and Augustine brings a counter-instance: Egypt is not paradise: therefore the river of Egypt is not the river of paradise. And it is the fallacy of the *consequent* — man is not an ass: therefore the genus of man is not the genus of the ass — for the Church and heresy can share in something, although they differ much.

From these things there appears a case which could be asked concerning a heretic who believes that the Church does nothing; for it seems that, since such a one intends to do nothing, he does not baptize.

And to this it must be said that the heretic does sometimes well intend to do what the Church does, and yet believes that the Church does nothing, because the intention and the belief are with respect to different things. For the belief is with respect to the effect, and he believes that no effect underlies that work; nevertheless he intends to do that work, not only as it is an act of bodily washing, but also as it is a certain act customarily done by the Church; and by intending to do this, although he does not principally intend the effect, he intends it nevertheless as a consequence, just as above it was touched on concerning him who voluntarily subjects himself to the exterior work, [and] consequently voluntarily subjects himself to the character. And so the whole is plain.

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