Self-baptism?
To minimize doubtful cases,
Innocent III continued his predecessors’ work of defining what was and what was
not a baptism, and the consequences in the latter case. One source of uncertainty,
until Innocent III resolved it—supporting document [f]—was self-baptism. ON 28
August 1206 the pope was asked to decide whether the self-baptism of a Jew from
Metz was valid. Apparently he had baptized himself when he thought he was dying—evidently
he wanted to become a Christian. The question was, did he have to be baptized
again? Repeating a once-in-a-lifetime sacrament was considered wrong. Innocent
III ruled that he must be baptized afresh—apparently he had not died after all.
Had anyone even posed the question to an authority before this case? Is the
answer self-evident within the system? Probably not, on both counts. Equally
unobvious was the much earlier solution given by Nicholas I in his response to
the Bulgars, that an unbaptized Jew could actually baptize another person
validly. Uncertainty on such issues is a central theme in Christian history and
should be in modern historiography. Innocent III recognized that the answer he
had given was not self-evident, and he explains his rationale at some length,
noting on the way that if the Jew had died as he had expected, he would have
gone to heaven because of his faith in the sacrament. He is navigating the
area of the law and theology of baptism where custom and core religious values
flow together, so the stakes are high as the answers are uncertain to anxious
questioners. (D. L. d’Avray, Debating Papal History, c. 250-c. 1300:
Responsive Government and the Medieval Papacy [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2025], 201-2, emphasis in bold added)
[f] Invalidity of self-baptism
(by a Jew, incidentally), Innocent III, 1206, August 28 and Liber Extra
(1234).
Translated from X.3.42.4,
Friedberg, Corpus, ii, cols 646-647. Optthast, 2875. As usual, note that
passages in diamond brackets (in the translation as in the Friedberg edition)
were not incorporated into the Liber Extra.
The same [Innocent III] to the
bishop of Metz.
<you carry out> the duty of
the pastoral office<, when you ask to be instructed concerning doubtful
articles of law by a response from the apostolic see.> Indeed, you have
intimated to us <through your letter,> that a certain Jew, when he was near
to death, since he was in the company only of Jews, immersed himself in water,
saying: ‘I baptize myself in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, Amen.’ <Now however you ask, whether the same Jew, persevering in
devotion to the Christian faith, ought to be baptized.> We <however>
reply <as follows to you, brother:> that since there should be a
distinction between the baptizer and the baptized, as may be clearly gathered from
the words of the Lord when he said to the apostles: ‘Go, and baptize all
nations in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit’, the aforementioned
Jew should be baptized anew by someone else, so that it may be shown that there
is one person who is baptized and another who baptizes. To make this clear,
Christ himself wished to be baptized not by himself but John, although, if
this man has passed away straightaway, he would have ascended directly to the
heavenly homeland because of the faith in the sacrament, even if not because of
the sacrament of faith. In baptism, indeed, that spiritual begetting is
solemnized about which the Truth said (John 3:5 & 7): ‘It is necessary for
you to be reborn, since, unless a person has been born again of water and the
holy Spirit, he will not enter into the kingdom of heaven’. Therefore just as
in carnal begetting, though which offspring is born of man and woman, there is
one who begets carnally, and there is another who is carnally begotten, so too
in sacramental begetting, by which offspring is reborn from water and the holy
Spirit, there should be one who spiritually procreates, and another who should
be procreated spiritually. Indeed, when the body is baptized externally, or
when the heart is baptized externally (‘quum corpus exterius, sive quum cor
interius baptizatur’), it is necessary that paternity and offspring, by which
the baptizer and the baptized are related to each other, be able to be found. .
. .
Given at Ferentino, 5 Kal Sept.
ninth year 1206. (D. L. d’Avray, Debating Papal History, c. 250-c. 1300:
Responsive Government and the Medieval Papacy [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2025], 208-9; emphasis in bold added)
