East Winch.
_Can a Man baptize himself?_ (Vol. vi., pp. 36. 110.).--This question has
not yet received any {28} correct answer. The following quotation from the
_Summa_ of St. Thomas Aquinas will resolve it as far as your querist W. is
concerned:
"Similiter autem Forma mutaretur, si diceretur 'Ego baptizo me;' et
ideo nullus potest baptizare seipsum propter quod et CHRISTUS a Joanne
voluit baptizari."--_Summa_, 3^{tia} Pars, Quæstio lxvi. Art. v. Arg.
4.
The REV. A. GATTY, while right in the negative answer which he gives to the
question of W., is quite wrong in the reasons on which he founds it.
"Christian fellowship" is _not_ of necessity a requisite for administering
the sacrament of holy baptism. I quote again from the _Summa_ of St.
Thomas:
"Ad primum ergo dicendum, quod Baptismum a schismaticis recipere non
licet, nisi in articulo necessitatis: quia melius est de hâc vitâ cum
signo CHRISTI exire, a quocumque detur, etiam si sit Judæus vel
Paganus, quam sine hoc signo, quod per Baptismum confertur."--_Summa_,
2^{nda} Pars, Quæstio xxxix. Art. iv. Arg. 1.
As our own Church apparently only recognises sacerdotal baptism in her
formularies, in answering such a question as that of W. we must have
recourse to the schoolmen and casuists of earlier times.