Scotus Academicus, Tomus decimus: De Baptismo, De Poenitentia, De Extrema Unctione

NOTE 1. A means for attaining a supernatural end can be called necessary in two ways. First, by necessity of precept: something must be done or possessed in order to attain an end, not because the end could not be attained without that prescribed thing, but because that thing is prescribed as a way to attain the end, so that despising it would be a sin on account of which the end could not be attained. The other is necessity of means, when something is so ordered to attaining an end that, without it, the end cannot be attained. There is this difference between these two kinds of necessity: the latter admits no excuse, but the former admits an excuse, for example, when the precept is invincibly unknown or cannot be carried out for some legitimate reason. We therefore ask whether Baptism must be had by absolutely everyone, adults and infants alike, in both these ways, in order for them to attain eternal beatitude.

NOTE 2. Although everyone admits that Baptism can be supplied both in infants and adults by baptism of blood, that is, by actually undergoing martyrdom, nevertheless no small controversy arises between Catholics and heretics concerning the necessity of Baptism for infants when there is no opportunity to undergo martyrdom. Some heretics absolutely deny that infants are capable of receiving Baptism before the use of reason, and are therefore commonly called Anabaptists. Others, such as Beza in his Questions on the Sacraments, question 121, and the Lutheran Hunnius in his little work On the Sacraments, chapter 11, deny that the infants of Jews, Muslims, and Gentiles are capable of the Sacrament of Baptism while they remain infants. Calvin, however, in his Commentary on the words of the third chapter of St. John, Unless someone is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, etc., denies that Baptism is necessary for everyone by necessity of means, for adults as well as infants, and especially with respect to the infants of faithful parents, whom he holds to be justified and adopted by God before they are even born. For he says in book 4 of the Institutes, chapter 15, number 20: God declares that he adopts our infants as his own before they are born, when he promises that he will be our God and the God of our offspring after us. Their salvation is contained in this word.... Few have noticed how much harm that dogma has caused when badly explained, namely, that Baptism is necessary for salvation, and so they are less on their guard. For when the opinion has prevailed that all are lost who have not been touched by water, our condition is worse than that of the ancient people, as if God’s grace were more restricted under the Law. Christ will then be thought to have come not to fulfill promises but to abolish them, since the promise which then, before the eighth day, was by itself effective enough for conferring salvation would now not be valid without the aid of a sign.

NOTE 3. The necessity of Baptism, especially with respect to infants, can be understood in three ways. First, as regards God’s absolute and extraordinary power, as though God could not save infants except through Baptism. There is no disagreement among theologians on this sense: all agree that God can cleanse them from original sin and advance them to eternal beatitude by another remedy or by the mere good pleasure of his mercy. The second way concerns the common and ordinary law: whether infants to whom Baptism cannot be administered can be helped by another means, namely, by the remedy of the law of nature with respect to the infants of Gentiles, or by circumcision with respect to the infants of Jews, or by the prayers, vows, or some pious work of faithful parents, through which their infants could be saved when Baptism of water cannot be applied to them. The third way can concern some special law: whether, by some singular privilege of God, certain infants are sometimes saved without actually receiving Baptism of water, God supplying its deficiency because of the prayers and vows of parents who could not procure Baptism for their infants.

Three main points, then, must be determined here: first, that Baptism is necessary for absolutely everyone, adults and infants alike, by necessity of means, in reality or by desire; second, that the infants of both the faithful and the unfaithful are capable of receiving Baptism; third, that no other means or remedy can now help infants.

First conclusion. — BAPTISM IS NECESSARY FOR ALL PEOPLE, ADULTS AND INFANTS ALIKE, BY NECESSITY OF MEANS. This is a matter of faith, defined by the Councils of Milevis and Carthage, as is clear from St. Augustine’s Letters 90 and 92, and from the Council of Trent, Session VII, Canon 5: If anyone says that Baptism is optional, that is, not necessary for salvation, let him be anathema.

The truth of this conclusion is gathered from the words of the Lord Christ in John 3: Unless someone is born again of water, etc. By these words the Lord Christ signifies that after the Law has been promulgated, no one can attain eternal salvation unless he has been reborn through the water of Baptism. Tertullian plainly taught this truth in book On Baptism, chapter 12, where he says: It is prescribed that no one obtains salvation without Baptism, especially on the basis of that declaration of the Lord who says, “Unless someone is born of water, he will not have life.” Hence, in the following chapter, speaking of those who asserted that faith suffices for salvation, he says: Here those most wicked people raise their questions and say, “Baptism is not necessary for those for whom faith is enough; for Abraham too pleased God without any water, by the Sacrament of faith.” He answers: Salvation may have existed formerly through bare faith, before the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection. But when faith was enlarged to include belief in his Birth, Passion, and Resurrection, an enlargement was added by the Sacrament: the seal of Baptism, as it were the clothing of faith, which formerly was bare. In these words Tertullian plainly exposes that impious Calvinist assertion by which they contend that a person can be justified through faith even without Baptism.

St. Ambrose draws the same truth from that same saying of the Lord Christ in book 2 of On Abraham, chapter 11. After citing the aforesaid words of St. John, Unless someone is born again, etc., he says: He certainly excepts no one: not an infant, nor anyone overtaken by some necessity. The other holy Fathers agree: St. Jerome in the Dialogue Against the Pelagians; Gregory Nazianzen in his Oration on Holy Baptism; Basil in his Exhortation to Baptism; and especially St. Augustine in Letter 28 to St. Jerome, where he writes: Whoever says that even infants will be given life in Christ if they depart this life without participating in his Sacrament plainly opposes apostolic preaching and condemns the whole Church. That is why there is haste and a rush to baptize infants: there is no doubt that they cannot otherwise be given life in Christ. And in book 3 of On the Origin of the Soul, chapter 9: Do not believe, do not say, do not teach that infants overtaken by death before they are baptized can attain pardon for original sins, if you wish to be Catholic.

The Pelagians recognized this truth as so manifest that, although they denied that Baptism was necessary to erase original sin—which they did not admit existed—they nevertheless consistently maintained its great necessity for attaining the kingdom of heaven, as St. Augustine testifies in several places, especially book 1 of The Unfinished Work Against Julian, chapter 53, where he reports Julian’s words: We, then, confess Baptism’s grace to be so useful to all that we strike with an eternal anathema all who think it is not necessary even for infants. Hence St. Augustine, in Sermon 14, On the Words of the Apostle, after saying in chapter 7, addressing a Pelagian: You say, and so do I, that an unbaptized infant does not enter the kingdom of heaven. Let us both resist that common enemy who says that an unbaptized infant enters the kingdom of heaven, and let us raise the shield of faith against his most treacherous darts, adds in the following chapter: Come, let us say together to this man: “Are you a Christian?” “I am a Christian,” he says. “Hear the Gospel, you who wish to send unbaptized infants into the kingdom of heaven. Hear the Gospel: Unless someone is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of God. It is the Lord’s sentence; only a non-Christian resists it.”

THE CALVINIST DANIEL REPLIES to chapter 4 of Bellarmine’s On Baptism that it cannot be inferred from this saying of St. John that Baptism of water is absolutely necessary. For, he says, the particle and must be taken disjunctively as or, so that the meaning of the Lord Christ is, “Unless someone is born again of water or of the Holy Spirit, he will not be saved,” and there are thus two means of salvation: one, rebirth through the water of Baptism, and the other, rebirth through the grace of the Holy Spirit. — First, against this, all the holy Fathers take the particle and not disjunctively but conjunctively, as can be seen in St. Cyprian’s Letters 72 and 73, St. Ambrose’s book On the Holy Spirit, chapter 11, and St. Augustine’s Tractate on John, tractate 11. Thus water and the Holy Spirit are required for spiritual rebirth. Second, if this Calvinist reply were true, it would follow that spiritual rebirth could take place through the mere application of elemental water, with the Holy Spirit excluded. For where two things are prescribed and said to be necessary only disjunctively, either one is sufficient to attain that for which they are ordered and prescribed; it is not necessary to do both together, since this is the nature and condition of a disjunctive precept, as can be seen by examining every disjunctive law. Therefore, if the particle and in Christ’s words is to be taken disjunctively, it will follow that just as, according to the Calvinists, the spiritual rebirth assigned there to the words of the Holy Spirit suffices without external washing, even by desire and intention, so mere external washing, even with the Holy Spirit excluded, will suffice for spiritual rebirth and the attainment of beatitude—nothing more absurd could be conceived. Third, if Baptism is not absolutely necessary for infants to attain eternal salvation, this is especially because, as we said above from Calvin in the third note, the infants of the faithful are incorporated into Christ by virtue of their descent from faithful parents. But this is plainly false, not only on the authority of the holy Fathers, who, as we just said, absolutely declare Baptism necessary for the salvation of all infants, but also by reason. For either this spiritual generation takes place immediately through God without any aid of a Sacrament, in view of the faith of the parents, or it takes place in view of the covenant God made with Abraham and his descendants in these words of Genesis 17: I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations, as an everlasting covenant. The faithful succeed to this covenant under the New Law, as the Apostle indicates in Romans 4 and Galatians 3, saying that those who are of faith are sons of Abraham, and that only they are to be blessed with faithful Abraham. But neither can be said. Not the first, because the Calvinists themselves, along with Beza in question 126 of On the Sacraments, plainly deny it. Beza teaches that this rebirth takes place only through the intervening faith of pious parents, by whose piety infants already born or yet to be born are reckoned within the covenant. Nor the second, because, according to the Calvinists, it is false that all those born of faithful parents, even the holiest, belong to this covenant, as Beza expressly teaches in the same place, question 123, confirming it with the example of Esau and also with everyday experience. Therefore they must admit that it is false that infants are holy and do not need Baptism of water to be reborn in Christ merely because they are born of faithful parents. — This is confirmed: if the formal reason for the sanctification of infants were that they were born of faithful parents, it would follow that this incorporation into the covenant of the Lord Christ, and the holiness corresponding to it, ought to be found in all infants born of faithful parents. Since the Calvinists do not admit this, neither should they admit anything else. — Nor does the aforesaid passage from Genesis help them: however much it is understood of Abraham’s spiritual offspring, it does not follow that the infants of the faithful can be sanctified without Baptism. Rather, the contrary follows: just as under the Mosaic Law no one was considered Abraham’s spiritual offspring without circumcision or another remedy to cleanse original sin, so under the Law of the Gospel no one should be reckoned among Abraham’s offspring unless cleansed from the same sin by Baptism. Moreover, just as, despite descent from faithful parents, Jewish infants had to be circumcised, so now they must be baptized.

THEY WILL OBJECT 1. The words of the Lord Christ in Matthew 19: Let the little ones come to me, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. Therefore, they say, children can be saved without Baptism. — I deny the consequence, since there the Lord Christ was speaking of the children of Jews and other faithful people, who had been justified by the Sacrament of Circumcision or by the remedy of the law of nature. Again, the Lord Christ said this to signify that, on account of their age, those little ones had none of the actual malice that excludes them from the kingdom of heaven, unlike adults, to whom he contrasts them. Or I say with St. Augustine, in book 1 of On the Merits of Sins, chapter 19, that the Lord praised the life of little children when he said that the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these, meaning truthfully that he placed the likeness of humility in their early age.

THEY WILL OBJECT 2. St. Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7, where he calls the children born of the faithful holy, saying: The unbelieving husband is sanctified through the faithful wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through the faithful husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. Therefore Baptism is not necessary for children born of the faithful. — I deny the consequence, first because the Apostle does not say that their children are holy from the womb, or holy from their mother’s womb, as the heretics claim. The contrary appears from the same Apostle: in Romans 9, speaking of Jacob and Esau, although they came from faithful and holy parents, he says: Before they were born or had done anything good or evil personally, so that God’s purpose according to election might stand, not from works but from the one who calls, it was said to her, “The elder will serve the younger,” as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” St. Augustine asks in Letter 105: What did God hate in Esau before he had done anything evil, if not original sin? And in book 1, To Simplician, question 2: God does not hate Esau the man; God hates Esau the sinner. — Moreover, in Ephesians 2 the same Apostle testifies of himself: We too were by nature children of wrath, like the rest. Yet he was indeed born of faithful parents, as he himself indicates in Galatians 1: I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my people, being an exceedingly zealous adherent of my ancestral traditions. — Finally, the Apostle says that the children of the faithful are holy for the same reason that he says an unbelieving husband is sanctified through a holy wife, and vice versa. But, says St. Augustine, considering the same sentence of the Apostle in book 2 of On the Merits of Sins, chapter 26: I do not think anyone understands these words so faithlessly, whatever he understands them to mean, as to think that an unchristian husband need not be baptized, has already attained remission of sins, and has entered the kingdom of heaven, because he is said to be sanctified in his wife, if his wife is a Christian. Hence he concludes in book 3, chapter 12: This must be held without doubt: whatever that sanctification may be, it is not effective for making people Christians and remitting sins unless they are made faithful through Christian and ecclesiastical instruction and the Sacraments. For unbelieving spouses, however much they cling to holy and just spouses, are not cleansed from iniquity, which compels those separated from the kingdom of God to come under God’s condemnation; nor are infants born of any holy and just parents absolved from the debt of original sin unless they have been baptized in Christ. We ought to speak all the more earnestly for them because they are less able to speak for themselves. — I therefore judge that we should say with St. Augustine, in book 2 of On the Merits of Sins, chapter 26, that the Apostle is speaking of a certain external sanctification, just as the same Apostle says in 1 Timothy 4 that the foods by which we sustain ourselves in this life are sanctified through the word of God and the prayer with which we pray before nourishing our little bodies; and just as everything else joined to sacred things acquires holiness in some way or is considered holy, according to Romans 11: If the first fruits are holy, so is the whole batch; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. The Subtle Doctor explains this very well in Distinction 1, question 3, number 4, where he writes: A fruit, insofar as it is something belonging to a tree, follows the condition of the tree; yet insofar as it is something in itself, it can have conditions opposite to those of the tree itself: the fruit can be soft while the tree is hard. So here, since justice and injustice concern a person in himself, not as locally joined to or separated from another person, justice can belong to a child even if it does not belong to the mother, and vice versa.

THEY WILL OBJECT 3. If infants must necessarily be baptized to attain salvation, it is especially because the Lord Christ said, Unless someone is born again, by which sentence he seems to bind absolutely everyone to receive Baptism. But this is not so: first, because several people in the New Testament were saved without Baptism of water, as is clear of Zechariah, Elizabeth, Anna, and Simeon; second, because the Lord Christ also said in equally universal terms in John 6: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man ... you will not have life in you. Yet we do not include infants in this general sentence; therefore they should not be included in the earlier sentence either. — I deny the minor premise. As for its first proof, I say that all those saints lived and died before the New Testament was completed through the death of the Lord Christ, and consequently before Baptism of water became necessary for people by necessity of means to attain salvation. Nor does it matter that the Lord Christ spoke the words unless someone is born again before his death: he did not say them for the time when he was then speaking with Nicodemus, but only for the time when the Law of the Gospel had been sufficiently promulgated. As for the second, I say that the two sayings of the Lord Christ are not parallel as regards the universality of their obligation. Children are capable of spiritual rebirth, to which the Sacrament of Baptism is ordered, but not of spiritual nourishment, to which the Eucharist is ordered. For spiritual nourishment was instituted to restore all that is lost from spiritual strength through daily sins. Since no such loss occurs in infants, spiritual nourishment should not occur in them either.

Second conclusion. — INFANTS OF THE FAITHFUL AND OF THE UNFAITHFUL ALIKE ARE CAPABLE OF RECEIVING BAPTISM. This is a matter of faith, defined by the Fifth Council of Carthage, the Second Council of Milevis, the Council of Gerona, Canon 5, the Second Council of Braga, Canon 7, the Council of Vienne, and the Fourth Lateran Council under Innocent III, as reported in the chapter Firmiter, On the Supreme Trinity, in these words: The Sacrament of Baptism, duly conferred by anyone according to the form of the Church, profits both infants and adults for salvation; and most recently by the Council of Trent, Session VII, Canon 13, in these words: If anyone says that infants, because they do not have the act of believing, are not to be counted among the faithful after receiving Baptism, and that therefore they are to be baptized again when they reach the years of discretion, or that it is better to omit their Baptism than to baptize them in the sole faith of the Church when they do not believe by their own act, let him be anathema.

This truth is gathered from Sacred Scripture, specifically from those passages where entire households are said to have been baptized. Thus, in Acts 16, verse 5, it is said of Lydia: When she had been baptized, and her household. And there, in verse 33, it is said of the jailer in whose prison St. Paul had been confined: He was baptized, and immediately all his household. And in 1 Corinthians 1: I baptized the household of Stephanas. Who could reasonably doubt that in these households, baptized as a whole, there were some little children initiated into Baptism by the Apostles? Therefore infants really are capable of Baptism.

Innocent III had defined the same truth in the chapter Maiores, where he says: Since circumcision was conferred by the Lord’s command on adults as well as infants, lest Baptism, which succeeded it and is more general because both men and women are baptized, appear to have a lesser effect, it is to be conferred on adults and infants alike.

The holy Fathers teach the same: Dionysius in the final chapter of The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy; Irenaeus in book 2, chapter 36, where he pointedly says, All who are reborn in Christ are saved: infants, children, young people, etc.; Origen, who says in chapter 6, The Church received from the Apostles the tradition of giving Baptism even to little children. St. Augustine teaches the same—omitting the others—in book 4 of On Baptism, chapter 23, where he writes: The whole Church holds as a tradition that little infants are baptized, although they certainly cannot believe unto righteousness or confess with the mouth unto salvation, as the thief could. Indeed, they interrupt the very sacred words with which the mystery is celebrated in them, by crying and wailing; yet no Christian has said that they are baptized to no purpose.

Reason also supports this: first, because little children can be saved, as is clear from Matthew 19: Let the little children come to me, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these; second, because the Church venerates the Innocents who were slain as saints and martyrs; finally, because they can share in Adam’s sin, and therefore also in Christ’s grace. But, as was said in the first conclusion, after the Law of the Gospel has been sufficiently promulgated no one can be saved without Baptism. Therefore Baptism can truly profit little children as well.

YOU WILL SAY 1. When the Lord Christ commissioned his Apostles to preach the Gospel, he said in Matthew 19¹: Go, teach all nations, baptizing them, etc. One can therefore argue as follows: only those are capable of receiving Baptism who are capable of receiving instruction, for ministers must teach before baptizing; consequently, the person to be baptized must first be taught before being baptized. But children before the use of reason are not capable of instruction; therefore they are not capable of Baptism either. It is confirmed: a person must first believe the mysteries of faith before being baptized, for the Lord Christ says, Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. There he wishes faith to precede as necessary for Baptism. Hence St. Jerome says on the aforesaid text of Matthew: It cannot happen that the body receives the Sacrament of Baptism unless the soul has first received the truth of faith. But children cannot believe; therefore they cannot be baptized. — I answer that both these sayings of the Lord Christ are to be understood of adults. In baptizing them he wished this order to be observed: they were to be instructed in matters of faith before receiving Baptism. For he had first said in Mark 16, Preach the Gospel to every creature—that is, to adults, whom he commissions to instruct and baptize so that, having received instruction, they are prepared to believe the mysteries of faith before being baptized. Yet even in adults an act of faith is not required for the validity of Baptism, as will be clear below; it suffices that they receive the habit of faith infused by God, of which little children too are capable. Accordingly they believe at least habitually and profess the faith, if not through an act of faith, then at least through the Sacrament of faith they have received. Innocent III explains the aforesaid text in this way, as reported in the chapter Maiores. After saying that the authority in 1 Peter 4, Charity covers a multitude of sins, is to be understood only of adults, who have a multitude of sins, not of little children, who are held only by original sin, he immediately adds: The same solution applies to the authority, “Whoever believes and is baptized,” etc., since little children cannot believe, but adults can; otherwise the first clause would refer to some people and the second to others. Although some concede that little children believe not by an act but by the habit of faith they receive in Baptism, many other words likewise, according to common usage, refer not to an act but to a capacity. — The Subtle Doctor expresses both these interpretations above in replying to this argument from the final chapter of Mark: Whoever does not believe will be condemned. A little child cannot believe; therefore he cannot be saved through Baptism; therefore he is baptized in vain. As to the other point, he says, it is clear that it must be understood of adults from what precedes it: “Whoever believes and is baptized.” Or one can say that whoever does not believe, either actually or habitually, will be condemned, because, according to the Apostle in Hebrews 11, “Without faith it is impossible to please God,” etc. Little children, however, although they cannot have an act of faith, can have its habit. — Or one can answer otherwise with St. Augustine, in book 1 of the Unfinished Work Against Julian, chapter 6: just as little children are guilty through another’s will, namely Adam’s, so too they are faithful through another’s faith, since they believe through their godparents, who answer and make their profession on their behalf. For, he says, it is true that they believe through others (and for this reason they are called faithful throughout the whole Church), so they certainly do not fall under what the Lord says, “Whoever does not believe will be condemned.” They would therefore be condemned if they did not believe through others, since they cannot believe by themselves. Or, as he explains this truth more clearly in Sermon 14, On the Words of the Apostle, chapter 11: The one wounded by another’s deed is healed by another’s words. “Do you believe in Jesus Christ?” the question is asked. “He believes,” the answer is given. For one who cannot speak, who is silent and weeps, the answer is given, as though prayerfully seeking help, and it avails. Far be it from the hearts of any Christians to doubt this: the answer is given, and it avails. By a certain shared participation the Spirit communicates; one believes in another, because one sinned in another.

YOU WILL SAY 2. They are incapable of that which belongs to observing the Law of the Gospel. But infants are incapable of this obligation and observance; therefore they are incapable of Baptism as well. — I distinguish the minor premise: they are incapable of this obligation for the time when they are baptized and before they grow up, I grant; once they reach adulthood, I deny. Hence the Council of Trent, Session VII, Canon 14: If anyone says that such baptized infants, when they have grown up, are to be asked whether they wish to consider valid what their godparents promised on their behalf when they were baptized, and that if they answer that they do not, they are to be left to their own choice, and not compelled in the meantime to live as Christians by any other penalty than exclusion from receiving the Eucharist and the other Sacraments until they repent, let him be anathema.

Third conclusion. — AFTER THE LAW OF THE GOSPEL HAS BEEN SUFFICIENTLY PROMULGATED, THERE IS NO OTHER REMEDY (EXCEPT MARTYRDOM) FOR WASHING AWAY ORIGINAL SIN, NOR ANY ORDINARY MEANS OF ATTAINING SALVATION THAT COULD PROFIT LITTLE CHILDREN, WHETHER OF THE FAITHFUL OR UNFAITHFUL, EVEN WHEN IN DANGER, EXCEPT BAPTISM. This is the common teaching of Catholics, directed not only against Calvinists but also against Cajetan. In his Commentary on question 68, article 2, Cajetan teaches that, when there is no opportunity to baptize infants, the desire for Baptism conceived by their parents or others sufficiently profits them for salvation. He explains this there as follows: In such a case a parent ought to mark the infant with the sign of the cross, invoking the Trinity, and thus offer the dying child to God in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And on article 11 he adds: Little children in danger in their mothers’ wombs can be saved through the Sacrament of Baptism, not actually received, but received in the desire of their parents, together with some blessing of their offspring or an offering of the child to God with invocation of the Trinity. This commentary was, of course, expunged from Cajetan’s writings by order of the Supreme Pontiff St. Pius V.

The truth of this conclusion is clear from what was said in the first conclusion, where we showed that the necessity of Baptism is general and applies to absolutely all people, whatever their age or condition. It is proved further from 1 Peter, chapter 3, where he compares the necessity of Baptism of water to Noah’s ark: In it, he says, a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water; Baptism, corresponding to this, now saves you also. Two words in this passage must be observed: now saves. For St. Peter compares the time after the Gospel of the Lord Christ was promulgated, or the time of the Christian Law, with the time of Noah, and Baptism of water with Noah’s ark raised up by water. Thus, just as in Noah’s time only those were saved from the floodwaters who were enclosed in that ark, while the others perished, so after the solemn promulgation of the Gospel, which had already taken place when St. Peter wrote this, no one can be saved—except by martyrdom—unless he has received Baptism in reality or by desire. St. Augustine understood St. Peter’s text this way in book 12 of Against Faustus, chapter 14, where he writes: Noah with his household was delivered through water and wood, just as the household of Christ is delivered through Baptism, signified by the Passion of the cross. So did St. Jerome in Letter 57 to the Supreme Pontiff Damasus, where, speaking of the Catholic and Roman Church, he says: Whoever eats water outside this house will be profane; if anyone is not in Noah’s ark, he will perish while the flood reigns.

This is confirmed by the authority of the holy Fathers, especially St. Ambrose, book On the Calling of the Gentiles, chapter 8. He says: It is not right to believe that little children who have not obtained the Sacrament of rebirth belong at last to the company of the blessed, since the Lord said in John 13², “Unless someone is born again,” etc. St. Augustine teaches similar things in various places, especially book 1 of On the Merits of Sins, chapter 23, where he says: Let no one promise infants eternal salvation by any choice of our own apart from the Baptism of Christ, when divine Scripture, which is to be preferred to every human ingenuity, does not promise it. Likewise St. Fulgentius, in book On Faith to Peter, chapter 26: Hold most firmly, and do not doubt in any way, that not only people who already use reason but also little children—whether they begin to live in their mothers’ wombs and die there, or are born from their mothers and depart from this life without the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, which is given in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—are to be punished with the everlasting torment of eternal fire. St. Bernard teaches the same in Letter 77, where he expressly says that, at the very time he was writing, no reason could be offered to show that Baptism was not necessary even for infants: But now, he says, since the sound of their preaching has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world, because what has been heard cannot be ignored, contempt is plainly without excuse. Nor is it an objection that, when speaking of the time after the Apostles promulgated the Gospel, he seems to leave to God’s judgment whether Baptism was then absolutely necessary for infants: whether it was so or not is for God, not me, to determine. This, I say, is no objection: a little later he writes of infants born after the aforesaid promulgation of the Gospel by the Apostles: Indeed, infants who, because their age prevents them, cannot have faith—that is, a conversion of the heart to God—consequently cannot have salvation if they die without receiving Baptism.

CALVIN OBJECTS, in book 4 of the Institutes, chapter 15, number 20: The condition of Christians is not worse than that of the ancient people, nor is God’s grace more restricted under the Gospel than under the Law. Otherwise Christ will be thought to have come not to fulfill promises but to abolish them, not to save people but to condemn them. But, notwithstanding the precept of circumcision under the Old Law, when necessity pressed before the child’s eighth day after birth, applying the remedy of the law of nature sufficed for the child’s salvation, namely, the parents’ faith attested by some visible sign. Therefore, by the same reasoning, indeed all the more under the Law of grace, notwithstanding the precept of Baptism, applying the same faith together with a sign and invocation of the most holy Trinity suffices for a little child who cannot be baptized. — I deny the parity, and the reason for the difference is that under the Old Law God expressly prohibited circumcising a child before the eighth day. It was therefore fitting to leave the remedy of the law of nature available for those in danger before that day. The case is different under the Law of grace: since God wished Baptism to be instituted so that it could be applied to infants as soon as they were brought into the light, it should not seem surprising if he left no other remedy to be applied to them. Nor does it follow from this that the condition of infants under the Law of the Gospel is worse than under the Mosaic Law or the law of nature. The remedy of Baptism is not only more effective and confers a far more abundant and more worthy sanctifying grace; it is also more general, since it is administered throughout the universal Church spread across the world, and easier, since water, the matter of Baptism, is very common and it is much easier to wash with it and pronounce a few words of the baptismal form than to apply a visible sign and an act of supernatural faith, which were required for the remedy of the law of nature. Add that at that time not as many people could assist infants as can now: the remedy of the law of nature could be administered and applied only by the faithful, whereas Baptism can be administered not only by the faithful but also by heretics, Jews, and pagans. — Nor does it follow that Christ came rather to condemn than to save people, if all peoples and nations to whom the Gospel has not yet been preached, and to whom the necessity of receiving Baptism has not become known, are deprived of every other remedy for obtaining remission of original sin. This, I say, does not follow. For, for example, the Americans and other peoples to whom the Gospel has not yet been announced, whether infants or adults, are not condemned because Christ came for their condemnation, nor because they lack faith in Christ or have not received his Sacraments, but because of the sins—both original and actual—with which they depart from this temporal life. St. Augustine teaches something similar in book On Nature and Grace, chapter 2, where, treating a similar argument and considering the Apostle’s words in Romans 10, How will they believe in one of whom they have not heard? Or how will they hear without someone preaching? Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But I ask, have they not heard? Their sound has gone out into all the earth, etc., St. Augustine adds: But before this began to happen, before preaching itself finally reached the ends of the whole earth—for there are still remote nations, although, as we are told, very few, to whom this has not yet been preached—what will human nature do, or what has it done, when it either had not yet heard that this would happen or it has not yet happened to it, except by believing in God, “who made heaven and earth,” by whom it naturally understands that it too was made, and by living rightly fulfills his will, though it has not been imbued with faith in the Passion and Resurrection of Christ? If this could or can be done, then I too say what the Apostle said about the Law: “Then Christ died for nothing.” For if he said this of the Law received by the one nation of the Jews, how much more justly is it said of the law of nature received by the whole human race? If righteousness comes through nature, “then Christ died for nothing.” But if Christ did not die for nothing, then human nature as a whole can in no way be justified and redeemed from God’s most just anger—that is, punishment—except through faith and the Sacrament of Christ’s blood. And in chapter 4: Hence those who are not delivered through it, either because they have not yet been able to hear, or because they have refused to obey, or even, while unable to hear because of their age, have not received the “washing of rebirth” which they could have received and through which they would have been saved, are justly condemned. For they are not without sin, whether the sin they inherited originally or the sin they added by evil conduct: “For all have sinned,” either in Adam or in themselves, “and they lack the glory of God.” And in the following chapter: The whole mass, therefore, owes punishment; and if the punishment of condemnation owed by all were paid to them, it would doubtless be paid justly.... Who, then, could be so madly insane as not to give ineffable thanks to the mercy that liberates whom it wills, and not to be able rightly to find fault with the justice that condemns absolutely everyone? These are the words of St. Augustine.

YOU WILL OBJECT 2. A law or privilege remains in force as long as its revocation has not reached the ears of those who use it. But the remedy of the law of nature is a privilege or indulgence whose revocation has not yet become known to those peoples to whom the Gospel has not yet been sufficiently preached. Therefore the remedy of the law of nature may still remain in force among them. — I answer the major premise by saying that privileges are of two kinds: some are granted without any time limit; others are granted only for a fixed and definite time. Those of the first kind do require their abrogation or revocation to become sufficiently known to those to whom the privileges were granted. The opposite is true of privileges of the latter kind: as soon as the time fixed for them has elapsed, they immediately cease to be in force without any notice or promulgation. The privileges or remedies of both the law of nature and the Mosaic Law were of this kind. For the Law and the Prophets lasted until John, who was the last prophet of the Old Law and, as it were, the twilight and dawn of the Law of the Gospel. Hence the Apostle says in Galatians 3: The Law was established because of transgressions until the offspring should come, that is, Christ. Therefore, when Christ came, promulgated the Law of the Gospel, and instituted other Sacraments and means necessary for salvation, the obligation of the Old Law ceased at once, as did the efficacy of all its Sacraments. Hence the Apostle says in Hebrews 7: When the priesthood is changed, the law must necessarily be changed as well.

YOU WILL PRESS: From what has often been said, a law does not bind before it is promulgated or received; therefore the Law of Baptism does not bind those to whom it has not yet been sufficiently promulgated. — I distinguish the antecedent: it does not bind as a precept or command whose omission is a special sin and is imputed as guilt and punishment, I grant; it does not bind as a means or remedy necessary for attaining the end, I deny. For as soon as something is ordained by a superior as necessary for attaining an end, so that the end cannot be attained if it is omitted, other means immediately become useless. Therefore the precept to receive Baptism does not bind those to whom the Law of the Gospel has not yet become known in the sense that its omission brings some new debt of guilt; but Baptism is necessary by necessity of means for attaining beatitude, so that salvation cannot be obtained if that means is omitted.

YOU WILL OBJECT 3. The will that is sufficient, on the part of its free choice, for sinning is also sufficient for justifying. But the will of the first man is sufficient for infants to be judged to have sinned with him; therefore the will of parents will also be sufficient for their infants to attain justification through the parents’ vows and devout intentions. — I distinguish the major premise: if that will is the same in its moral character and as an act of free choice, both with respect to meriting good for someone and with respect to demeriting evil for him, as was the will of the first man, who, insofar as he was the head of the whole human race, morally contained all our wills with respect to meriting or losing original justice for us, I grant; if the will is not of this kind, I deny. The contrary is evident in that very first parent. His will and freedom were the same in their physical nature when he sinned and when he repented; yet they were not the same in their moral character, because when he repented he no longer had the standing of head of the human race. Therefore his will, which was sufficient for all his descendants to be infected by his sin, was not so sufficient that they could all be cleansed of sin through his repentance.