Baptism, Chapter I §3: Sacramental Effects

§3. Sacramental Effects

Baptism has for its general effect the regeneration of the soul, and hence belongs to the “Sacraments of the dead.”

Its specific effects are three, viz.: (1) the grace of justification (iustificatio prima); (2) forgiveness of all the penalties of sin; and (3) the sacramental character.

1. First Effect: The Grace of Justification

Justification comprises the remission of sin and the sanctification of the soul. Baptism, as a means of justification, must therefore forgive sin and infuse sanctifying grace.¹ Such is indeed the defined teaching of the Church. “If any one denies,” says the Council of Trent, “that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in Baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted, or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin, is not taken away, … let him be anathema.”² And in the Decretum pro Armenis Eugene IV declares: “The effect of this Sacrament [Baptism] is the remission of every sin, original and actual.”³

a) For the Scriptural proof of this dogma we refer to our treatises on God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural and Grace, Actual and Habitual, and also to the general introduction to the Sacraments, above.

b) In this connection theologians are wont to discuss several problems intimately related to sacramental justification.

α) Though Baptism completely blots out the guilt of original sin (reatus culpae), there still remains concupiscence (fomes peccati, concupiscentia), which, however, no longer partakes of the nature of guilt, but is merely a consequence of original sin.⁴ This teaching was emphasized by St. Augustine.⁵

Besides forgiving sin and producing sanctifying grace, with all its formal effects — justice, supernatural beauty, the friendship of God, and His adoptive sonship⁶ — Baptism also effects the supernatural concomitants of sanctifying grace, viz.: the three divine virtues of faith, hope, and charity, the infused moral virtues, and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, including His personal indwelling in the soul, which is the crown and climax of the process of justification.⁷ The Fathers extol these prerogatives in glowing terms. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, e.g., says: “Baptism is the splendor of the soul, life’s amendment, the uplifting of conscience to God, a means of getting rid of our weakness, the laying aside of the flesh, the attainment of the spirit, the participation of the Word, the drowning of sin, the communication of light, the dispersion of darkness.”⁸

β) The very excellence of these effects — not to speak of the sacramental character which Baptism imprints⁹ — compels us to draw an essential distinction between the Baptism of Christ and that administered by John the Baptist. The existence of such a distinction is expressly affirmed by the Tridentine Council: “If any one saith that the Baptism of John had the same force as the Baptism of Christ, let him be anathema.”¹⁰ The Baptism of John was merely an exhortation to do penance and to prepare for the coming of the Messias, and consequently cannot have had the same power as the Baptism of Christ. This explains why St. Paul, upon meeting the twelve disciples of John at Ephesus, commanded them to be rebaptized in the name of Jesus before he imposed his hands on them and called down the Holy Ghost. “John,” he explained, “baptized the people with the Baptism of penance, saying that they should believe in him who was to come after him, that is to say, in Jesus.”¹¹ The teaching of the Fathers agrees perfectly with this. We pass over Tertullian, St. Ambrose,¹² St. Chrysostom,¹³ St. Gregory the Great,¹⁴ and others, and content ourselves with quoting a passage from St. Augustine. “I ask, therefore,” he says in his treatise De Baptismo contra Donatistas, “if sins were remitted by the Baptism of John, what more could the Baptism of Christ confer on those whom the Apostle Paul desired to be baptized with the Baptism of Christ after they had received the Baptism of John?”¹⁵

The difference must have consisted in this that the Baptism of John did not produce its effects ex opere operato, but through the disposition of the recipient (ex opere operantis), as St. Thomas explains with his usual clearness: “The Baptism of John did not confer grace, but only prepared for grace; and this in three ways: first, by John’s teaching, which led men to faith in Christ, secondly, by accustoming men to the rite of Christ’s Baptism; thirdly, by penance, preparing men to receive the effect of Christ’s Baptism.”¹⁶ In other words, “the Baptism of John was not in itself a Sacrament, properly so called, but a kind of sacramental, preparatory to the Baptism of Christ.”¹⁷

2. Second Effect: The Remission of Punishments Due to Sin

Sin and its punishment are really distinct,¹⁸ and the remission not only of sin but of all the penalties due to it, is an effect peculiar to Baptism alone. According to the constant teaching of the Church, the Sacrament of Baptism remits not only the eternal penalties of sin — the remission of which seems to be an essential part of the forgiveness of sin itself — but likewise all temporal punishments, so that, were one to die immediately after receiving Baptism, he would go straightway to Heaven.¹⁹ “In those who are born again,” says the Council of Trent, “there is nothing that God hates, because there is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by Baptism into death; … so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into Heaven.”²⁰

a) This dogma cannot be conclusively proved from Sacred Scripture,²¹ but if we carefully consider the language used by St. Paul in comparing Baptism with the death and burial of our Lord, we can hardly doubt that the Apostle means to teach that Baptism remits not only all sins but also all the penalties due to them. Cfr. Rom. VI, 4: “For we are buried together with him by baptism into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life.”²² The Roman Catechism comments on this text as follows: “Of Baptism alone has it been said by the Apostle, that by it we die and are buried with Christ. Hence holy Church has always understood that to impose those offices of piety which are usually called by the holy Fathers works of satisfaction, on him who is to be purified by Baptism, cannot be done without the gravest injury to this Sacrament.”²³

b) Tertullian speaks the mind of the Latin Fathers when he says: “The guilt being removed, the penalty is removed also. Thus man is restored to God according to the likeness of him [i.e. Adam] who in days gone by had been [created] to the image of God.”²⁴ And St. Athanasius expresses the universal belief of the Greeks when he declares: “Baptism is called a laver, because in it we wash off our sins; it is called grace, because through it are remitted the punishments due to sins.”²⁵

c) From this teaching Catholic theologians consistently infer that such penalties as remain after Baptism (e.g. sickness and death) no longer partake of the nature of punishment, but are purely medicinal. In the technical terminology of the Schoolmen, they are not poenae but poenalitates.²⁶ This explains why no works of satisfaction are imposed on adults at Baptism. True, in the olden time the baptizandi were compelled to fast, as Tertullian reminds us;²⁷ but this was done only to aid them in subduing concupiscence, to accustom them to pious practices, to obtain special graces, and for similar purposes.

By the “temporal punishments of sin” we do not, of course, mean those which a secular judge is bound by law to inflict upon convicted offenders. Nevertheless St. Thomas²⁸ recommends Christian rulers, “for the honor of the Sacrament,” to remit capital punishment to convicted pagans who ask for Baptism, and the Roman Catechism repeats the recommendation.²⁹

3. Third Effect: The Baptismal Character

Like Confirmation and Holy Orders, Baptism imprints in the soul of the recipient an indelible mark, which renders repetition impossible. The Tridentine Council defines: “If any one saith that in the three Sacraments, to wit, Baptism, Confirmation, and Order, there is not imprinted in the soul a character, that is a certain spiritual and indelible sign, on account of which they cannot be repeated; let him be anathema.”³⁰

a) For the Scriptural argument in support of this dogma, see above, v08-05.

b) From the theological point of view the following considerations are pertinent.

α) That Baptism cannot be repeated, is owing to the fact that it is a rebirth of the soul³¹ and in a mystic manner exercises the same functions as Christ’s death on the cross.³² Referring to the former, St. Augustine observes: “The womb does not repeat its births,”³³ and with the latter analogy in mind St. Chrysostom says: “As there is no second crucifixion for Christ, so there can be no such a thing as rebaptism.”³⁴

Rebaptism has always been condemned by the Church as sacrilegious. St. Augustine shows its intrinsic absurdity by comparing it to an “impositio Christi super Christum.”³⁵ The older Fathers furnish plenty of material for this argument. Clement of Alexandria, for example, quotes the following remarkable passage from the eclogues of Theodotus the Valentinian: “As even the dumb animals show by a mark to whom they belong, and each can be recognized by that mark, thus the faithful soul that has received ‘the seal of truth’ bears the stigmata of Christ.”³⁶ St. Basil eulogizes the Sacrament as follows: “Baptism is the ransom paid for prisoners, the remission of debts, the death of sin, the rebirth of the soul, a shining garment, an indelible seal,³⁷ a vehicle [to convey men] to Heaven, a medium of the kingdom [of God], a free gift of sonship.”³⁸

β) The general purpose of the sacramental character has been sufficiently explained above (v08-05). In addition to what we have said there, we will briefly comment on what may be termed the secondary effects of the baptismal character.

In the first place the baptismal character, as a signum configurativum, incorporates the recipient into Christ’s own family, bestows upon him the Saviour’s coat-of-arms, and thus renders him a Christian, i.e. one who is like unto Christ. Cfr. Gal. III, 27: “As many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ.”³⁹ By Baptism, furthermore, one becomes a member of our Lord’s “mystic body,” i.e. the true Church. “Baptism,” says the Decretum pro Armenis, “is the door to the spiritual life, for by it we are made members of Christ and [part] of the body of the Church.”⁴⁰ This is but another way of expressing St. Paul’s thought, 1 Cor. XII, 13, 27: “We were all baptized into one body. … Now you are [together] the body of Christ, and severally his members.”⁴¹ In this respect the baptismal character is a signum distinctivum, marking off those who are baptized from those who are not. Only the former are “members” of the corpus Ecclesiae, while the latter may at most belong to the anima Ecclesiae.

By making them members of the Church, the baptismal character, as a signum obligativum, subjects all baptized Christians to her jurisdiction, obliges them to keep their baptismal vow and to observe the ecclesiastical precepts. In return, it guarantees them the graces they require for their respective state of life⁴² as well as all the benefits, privileges, and means of sanctification which the Church is pleased to bestow upon her children, particularly the right to receive the other Sacraments.⁴³