The Baptism of Christ: Why He Was Baptized, Why by John, and Why at Thirty

Orientation #

He opens by saying “now we get another question on the baptism of Christ” and reads the prologue’s list of eight articles; the class covers articles one through three and stops at 4 o’clock mid-question. He does not say what comes next. The previous class treated the life of Christ and John’s baptism (prev. lecture).

The class, in order #

1. Thomas inherits the Fathers (“he seems to inherit the mind of them all”) #

The references to Jerome, Chrysostom, Augustine show “Thomas is not coming out of blue.” As Cajetan says, he so venerated the Fathers that he seems to inherit the mind of them all. Parallel: Aristotle venerated the philosophers before him, and inherits what was good in them even where they were mistaken — in Book VII of the Metaphysics (inferred; he says “that seventh book of wisdom”) Aristotle refutes Plato, but “without Plato’s mistakes, he wouldn’t have come to see what he did.”

2. The eight articles of the question (“about this, four things are asked. I didn’t know that. Eight things”) #

He self-corrects from four to eight: (1) whether Christ ought to be baptized; (2) whether by John’s baptism; (3) the time; (4) the place; (5) the heavens opened to him; (6) the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove; (7) whether the dove was a true animal; (8) the voice of the paternal testimony.

• Aside on (8): in the Odyssey Homer praises Odysseus more than once as “kind, like a father” to his people — the same insight as Isaiah’s “Father of the age to come,” and why we say “Our Father” and not “our King”: the father is a name of mercy, and so corresponds better to hope.

3. Article 1, objections: why Christ should not be baptized (“Christ did not belong to Christ to be washed”) #

1. To be baptized is to be washed; there was no impurity, no sin, in Christ.
2. Christ received circumcision to fulfil the law; baptism does not pertain to the law.
3. The first mover in any genus is immobile in the motion he causes — as the heavens, first alterer of qualities, is unalterable. But Christ is the first one baptizing (“upon whom you see the Holy Spirit descending and remaining, he is the one who baptizes”). Sed contra: Matthew 3, Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.

• Aside (a student and he agree): none of them ever heard the baptism of Christ explained from the pulpit, nor how it differs from the baptism we receive. In their liturgy Epiphany is the baptism rather than the three kings, so the season develops it.

4. Article 1, body: three reasons (“not wishing to be cleansed, but to cleanse the waters”) #

1. Ambrose on Luke: the Lord was baptized not wishing to be cleansed but to cleanse the waters; washed by the flesh of Christ who knew no sin, they get the force of baptism, left sanctified for those to be baptized after. He flags this as the one he finds most interesting, and notes it is also the first: contact of water and us cleanses us, but Christ acts on the water, and so for us.
2. Chrysostom on Matthew: though not a sinner, Christ took on a sinful nature, the likeness of the flesh of sin (mortal flesh, not sin itself); he did not need baptism for himself, but carnal nature in others had need. Gregory Nazianzen: Christ was baptized that the whole old Adam might be immersed. To a student’s question he explains by parallel with the cross: death is the punishment of sin, Christ did not sin, but took flesh from Adam subject to the punishments, and so underwent what befits a body with sin.
3. Augustine, Sermon on the Epiphany: he wished to do what he commanded to be done. “Thus it behooves us to fulfill all justice” (his word to John). Ambrose on Luke: justice is that what you want another to do, you first begin to do yourself, so that by your example you exhort others. Example: a military officer has to do what the man in the line does, and the men are exhorted by his example.

• Textual note: a clause is missing in their translation — ut quod alterum facere velis (“what you want another to do”).

5. Article 1, replies (“Christ is the first one baptizing spiritually”) #

1. He was baptized not that he might be washed but that he might wash (tied to the first reason of the body).
2. Christ ought not only to fulfil the old law but to begin the things of the new; hence not only circumcised but baptized.
3. Christ is the first one baptizing spiritually, and in that way he was not baptized — only in water. He stresses the subtlety: so Christ did not receive the baptism we receive.

6. Article 2, objections: why not John’s baptism (“the middle savors the nature of the extremes”) #

1. John’s baptism was a baptism of penance; penance did not belong to the sinless Christ.
2. Chrysostom: John’s baptism was midway between the Jewish baptism and Christ’s; the middle savors the nature of the extremes, and he was baptized by neither extreme.
3. Whatever is best in human things should be attributed to Christ, and John’s baptism does not hold the highest place among baptisms. Sed contra: Matthew 3 again.

7. Article 2, body: three reasons (“he was not baptized by his own baptism”) #

Augustine on John: the Lord baptized, but not by the baptism by which he was baptized — a tongue twister, he says.

1. Chrysostom: from the condition of John’s baptism, which was in water only, not in the Spirit; Christ needed no spiritual baptism, being full of the grace of the Holy Spirit from the beginning of his conception.
2. Bede: that by his own baptism he might approve the baptism of John.
3. Gregory Nazianzen: he came to John’s baptism to sanctify the waters of baptism. He notes the ordering: the first merely removes an impediment to suitability, the second is affirmative; and article 1’s first reason (cleansing the waters) corresponds to the third reason here.

8. Article 2, replies (“let no one refuse the washing of grace”) #

1. Christ wished to be baptized to induce us by example; that the inducement be more efficacious, he took a baptism he manifestly did not need, so that men might accede to the baptism they do need. Ambrose on Luke: “Let no one refuse the washing of grace, when Christ did not refuse the penance.” He calls this strange and presses it: it would make no sense for Christ to go to confession to induce us to confession — nor, a student adds, to receive his own body and blood. A student’s resolution: the other sacraments are ordered to the good of the individual, baptism in a certain way to the good of the nature. He adds that baptism is the most necessary sacrament — the only one named when Christ sends them forth at the end of Matthew.
2. The Jewish baptism commanded in the law was only figurative (the class guesses: washings, leprosy); John’s was in some way real, inducing men to abstain from sin; Christ’s baptism cleanses from sin and confers grace. Hebrews: gifts and sacrifices that cannot perfect the conscience, dealing only with food, drink and various ablutions (“baptisms” in the Greek). Christ needed neither remission nor grace, and being truth itself it does not belong to him to undergo what is only a figure — hence the middle baptism. His summary: full of grace, he does not receive the baptism of the new law; being truth, he does not receive the figurative one. He flags a wrinkle: “that’s not true, because you got two baptisms here.”
3. Baptism is a spiritual remedy; the more perfect a thing, the less remedy it needs. Christ being maxime perfectus, it was fitting he not be baptized by the most perfect baptism — as the healthy man does not need efficacious medicine.

9. Article 3, objections: why not earlier than thirty (“praiseworthily baptized… in infantile age”) #

1. If the point is example, the faithful are praiseworthily baptized before thirty, even in infancy (he glances at the infant Clara Maria).
2. Christ is not read to have taught or done miracles before his baptism; it would have been more useful to the world to teach longer, from twenty or before (a student: twelve, in the temple).
3. Divinely infused wisdom should be most manifest in Christ, and it was made known in Daniel in childhood (Daniel 13: the Lord raised up the holy spirit of the junior boy, Daniel).
4. John’s baptism was ordered to Christ’s as to an end; the end is first in intention and last in execution — so Christ should have been either first or last baptized by John. Sed contra: Luke 3:21, when the whole people were baptized Jesus also was baptized and praying, beginning around his thirtieth year.

10. Article 3, body: three reasons for the thirtieth year (“thirty arises from three led into ten”) #

1. From then he began to teach and preach, and this requires perfecta aetas, the perfect age, such as thirty. He notes Thomas’s commentary has the baptism chapter and then the temptation chapter: the teacher must first be crowned with spiritual benefits, then tried, before going out to teach. Scriptural instances: Joseph thirty when he took rule of Egypt (Gen 41:46); David thirty when he began to rule (2 Kings); Ezekiel began to prophesy in the thirtieth year. A student notes these give prophet and king but no priest.
2. Chrysostom on Matthew: after Christ’s baptism the law was to come to an end; he came to baptism at this age, having observed the law, so that no one could say he dissolved it because he was unable to fulfil it. The class works on the hard clause about “all sins” and leaves the translation doubtful; the sense they settle on is that Christ did everything the law required rather than skipping it.
3. Baptism brings forth perfect men — Ephesians 4, “until we come together… in a perfect man, in the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ.” The number fits: thirty arises from three led into ten; three is the faith of the Trinity, ten the fulfilment of the commandments, and in these two consists perfection.

• Asides: Aristotle says the mind is best at forty-nine, seven times seven (seven is the age of reason, and a number multiplied by itself has the same signification, expanded). A long, unresolved discussion of the Constitution’s ages for Senate and House (thirty; twenty-five), Teddy Kennedy, and the age of ordination (twenty-six in canon law now). They say we will rise at the age of thirty — “that’s what convinces me” that thirty is the perfect age.

11. Article 3, replies 1–3 (“it is not a law of the Church what happens rarely”) #

1. Gregory Nazianzen: Christ was not baptized as needing purgation, nor was any danger imminent in deferring; but for anyone else it is no small danger to go forth from this life not clothed with the vestment of incorruption, which is grace. Though it is good to keep one’s cleanliness after baptism, it is better to be for a time [imperfectly holy — unclear in recording] than to lack grace.
   • Aside: in Shakespeare’s day the custom was to baptize on the third day, which is why we have his baptism record and not his birth date — and he went out on the day he came in. Cassius before the last battle; the saying that he is a happy man who can join the end of his life to the beginning; Chesterton’s “my end is my beginning,” and his last words greeting his wife. Homer’s Odysseus wanting to return over the wine-dark sea to the land of his fathers, and heaven called our patria — yet a student observes that one cannot in fact go back to one’s home or childhood here below. Washington Irving returning to the United States after seventeen years.
2. The utility coming from Christ to men is especially through faith and humility. For faith: his true humanity is shown in one who progressed bodily by increments of time, and lest this progress be thought fantastic he did not manifest his wisdom and virtue before the perfect age of his body (the class notes the body keeps maturing till about thirty). For humility: lest before the perfect age anyone presumptuously assume the grade of prelate and the office of teaching. He adds that the apocryphal gospels are full of the child Christ’s miracles — the clay birds, striking a nasty child dead — “a little too much.”
   • Aside: William Walker, summa cum laude at fourteen, filibuster in Baja California and Nicaragua, recognized by President Franklin Pierce, finally shot in Honduras — an example of starting too quick. And “Johnny Walker,” the American found in the caves in Afghanistan.
3. Christ is proposed as an example to all men, so what belongs to all by the common law must be shown in him: teaching at a perfect age. Gregory Nazianzen: what happens rarely is not a law of the Church — as Aristotle’s one swallow does not make a spring. To some, by special dispensation according to divine wisdom, presiding or teaching before the perfect age was conceded: Solomon, Daniel, Jeremiah (from the womb). Joseph, David and Ezekiel follow the common law, and so foreshadow Christ.

12. Reply 4, and the close (“the sun doesn’t wait till the setting of the morning star”) #

Christ ought to be neither the first nor the last baptized by John. Chrysostom on Matthew: he was baptized to confirm John’s preaching and baptism and to receive testimony from John, and John’s testimony would not be believed unless many had already been baptized by him — so not first. Nor last: as the light of the sun does not wait for the falling of the [morning] star, but going forth obscures it by its light, so Christ did not wait for John to cease; John was still teaching and baptizing when he appeared. They stop at 4 o’clock, the question unfinished.

His words #

• “four things are asked. I didn’t know that. Eight things” — his own self-correction on the number of articles.
• “the father is a name of mercy” — why we pray “Our Father” rather than “our King”; corresponds to hope.
• “not wishing to be cleansed, but to cleanse the waters” (Ambrose) — article 1’s first and his favourite reason.
• “likeness of the flesh of sin” — Christ took mortal flesh subject to Adam’s punishments, not sin.
• “the whole old Adam might be immersed” (Gregory Nazianzen).
• “the middle savors the nature of the extremes” — the objection’s principle about John’s baptism.
• maxime perfectus — “most of all perfect”; why Christ needs the lesser remedy.
• perfecta aetas — “perfect age,” thirty, required for teaching and ruling.
• “thirty arises from the leading of three into ten” — three the faith of the Trinity, ten the commandments.
• “the vestment of incorruption, which is grace” (Gregory Nazianzen).
• “it is not a law of the Church what happens rarely” — with Aristotle’s one swallow.
• patria — heaven as the fatherland we are exiled from.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 39, prologue (the eight articles)
• Summa Theologiae III, q. 39, a. 1 (objections, sed contra from Matthew 3, body, replies)
• Summa Theologiae III, q. 39, a. 2 (objections, body, replies; Hebrews on ablutions)
• Summa Theologiae III, q. 39, a. 3 (objections, sed contra Luke 3:21, body, replies 1–4)
• Within these: Ambrose on Luke; Chrysostom on Matthew; Gregory Nazianzen; Augustine, Sermon on the Epiphany and on John; Bede; Genesis 41:46; 2 Kings; Ezekiel; Daniel 13; Ephesians 4

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Metaphysics VII (inferred, “that seventh book of wisdom”); the one-swallow saying; the mind best at forty-nine
• Homer, Odyssey; Isaiah, “Father of the age to come”; the Our Father
• Matthew, end of the Gospel (the sending forth, baptism named)
• The apocryphal infancy gospels; Shakespeare (Julius Caesar, Cassius); Chesterton; Washington Irving; Plato’s test by wine

His questions #

• Why should the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth, be baptized? Not to be cleansed but to cleanse the waters, to bear the need of carnal nature in others, and to do first what he commands.
• Is the second reason more about teaching us by example? Yes — he underwent what befits a body subject to sin’s punishments, as with the cross; the third reason is properly the example one.
• Would Christ receive the baptism we receive? No: he is the first one baptizing spiritually, and was baptized in water only.
• Does it make sense to say Christ took a baptism of penance to induce us to baptism? Would he go to confession, or receive his own body and blood? Baptism differs: it is the most necessary sacrament and looks in a certain way to the good of the nature, not only the individual.
• Why did Christ not take the extreme baptisms? Full of grace, he needed not the baptism of the new law; being truth, he would not undergo what is only a figure.
• Why was he baptized at thirty rather than sooner? It is the perfect age for teaching, it showed he had fulfilled the whole law, and thirty (three into ten) signifies baptism’s perfect man.
• Does the passage about “all sins” mean Christ or the age? Left open — they doubt the translation.
• Why neither the first nor the last baptized by John? Not first, or John’s testimony would carry no weight; not last, as the sun does not wait for the morning star to set.