George Munford.
East Winch.
Can a Man baptize himself? (Vol. vi., pp. 36. 110.).—This question has not yet received any
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, 3tia 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, 2nda 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.
W. Fraser.