Dist. 5, Art. 2, Q. 1
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-a2-q1
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### Article II. *On the intensity or efficacy of the power conferred on those who baptize.*

As to the second article, it is asked consequently concerning the power of those who baptize, by comparison with the effect, and concerning this two things are asked.

First it is asked whether wicked ministers, although catholic, give the Sacrament and the reality.

Secondly it is asked whether heretics and those cut off from the Church give the reality of the Sacrament, as catholics [do].

### Question I. *Whether wicked ministers give the Sacrament and the reality of the Sacrament.*

And that wicked ministers do give the reality of the Sacrament:

1. It is proved by many authorities which are found in the [Master's] text, especially that one: «If a drunkard, a murderer, an adulterer has baptized any, if it is the baptism of Christ, [it is] Christ [who] baptizes»; but Christ baptizes by sanctifying: therefore the wicked minister likewise.

2. Likewise, it seems [so] by *reason*: because, if the baptism of a wicked man did not give grace, then our salvation would depend on another's life; and since to say this is wicked and unjust, it is plain that wicked ministers confer the reality of the Sacrament.

3. Likewise, teaching pertains more to the teacher than baptism to the one baptizing; but a wicked teacher gives good and sound teaching, which the Lord commands [us] to receive in Matthew, the twenty-third [chapter]: therefore much more strongly can he who baptizes, although wicked, give a good baptism or the effect of baptism.

**On the contrary:** 1. In Malachi, the second [chapter]: *I will curse your blessings,* it is said to wicked priests; and the Gloss of Jerome: «Whatever shall have been blessed by you shall be cursed by me»: therefore he who is baptized by a wicked priest is cursed: therefore he does not receive grace through his ministry.

2. Likewise, in Ecclesiasticus, the thirty-fourth [chapter]: *What shall be made clean by the unclean?* But a wicked priest is unclean: therefore from him or through him there is not conferred in baptism the grace which cleanses the soul.

3. Likewise, it seems [so] by *reason*: because, just as sense and motion flow from the head into the bodily members and from one member into another, so also in the mystical body: therefore if a withered member does not convey sense, the priest who is in mortal sin, in baptizing, does not confer grace on the one baptized.

4. Likewise, prayer is vitiated by the vice of the one praying, and a man rather merits wrath than grace — whence Gregory: «When he who is displeasing is sent to intercede, the mind of the angry one is provoked to worse things» — therefore baptism is vitiated by the vice of the one baptizing; or, if it is not vitiated; since God judges of works according to the inward things, and the priest is dead, and his work dead, but the dead does not give life: it is plain that a wicked priest cannot confer life-giving grace.

Likewise, it is asked whether he sins who approaches a wicked priest. And it seems that [he does]: because in the Law it was commanded to flee the unclean bodily: therefore we ought to observe that spiritually.

Likewise, suppose that the priest asks a price for the baptism, must it be given to him? If *yes,* since he buys the Sacrament, it is simony. If *no,* either he will remain unbaptized, and this is a danger; or [he will be] baptized without a priest beyond necessity.

> **Conclusion.** A wicked priest confers not only the Sacrament, but also the reality of the Sacrament.

**I respond:** It must be said that a wicked priest gives not only the Sacrament, but also the reality — not he himself, but God, whose Sacraments are good and unpolluted. For in baptism the minister does not cleanse nor baptize inwardly, but God [does]. — But since God washes inwardly, the outward washing preceding, and the outward [washing] is displeasing because the one washing is displeasing; how does it follow that, when a wicked priest washes outwardly, God washes inwardly?

And to that it must be noted that there is a certain work which has its power from inward charity alone; [and] a certain [work] which has [its power] from divine institution. The *first* work is [a work] of virtue and of vice and is weighed by God according to the quality of the will. The *second* is the work of the Sacrament, and this is weighed according to the merit and dignity of Christ who institutes it; such [a work] always remains efficacious and unpolluted, nor can it in any way be polluted, just as neither [can it] be bettered. For it has its power from Christ, not from the minister; just as seed cast into the earth bears fruit equally, whether he who sows be good or wicked; and so here.

From these things the objections are clear: for the Sacraments are blessings of God, not of the wicked. — Likewise the next [objection] is plain, because the unclean does not there cleanse. — Likewise to that which is objected from the likeness to bodily nourishment, the answer is plain, that it is not alike, because God immediately gives grace to the one baptized.

To that which is asked, whether he sins who approaches a wicked priest; it must be said that [he does] *not,* nay rather he sins more who refuses him, believing that the Sacrament dispensed through him is vitiated, because he does injury to the Sacrament. — Nor is the objection valid, because that [precept] is understood of touching by way of imitation and consent in evil; but he who receives baptism does not so touch.

To that which is objected concerning the simoniac, some say that *first* one ought to have oneself baptized by a layman. But suppose there were no other; they say that he cannot give a price in order to buy the sacred thing, but in order to buy the water. But suppose the water be consecrated: then they say that he ought rather to let the little one die without baptism, because *evils* are not to be done *that goods may come* of them. — Yet it is better to say that a price can be given not to buy the Sacrament or the water, but to redeem the harassment of one's [own] right. And this seems more in accord with piety and reason and also with law.