Scotus Academicus, Tomus tertius: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio

DE MISSIONE DIVINARUM PERSONARUM.

That some of the divine Persons are sent by others to creatures is established by faith, being set down in many texts of Sacred Scripture: for Ioan. 3. Christ says: God sent His Son into the world, not to judge the world, etc. And 15.: Whom the Father sanctified, and sent into the world. And 16.: I came forth from the Father, and I have come into the world; for, says Augustine, 2. De Trinit. cap. 5., to go forth from the Father, and to come into this world, this is to be sent. Likewise, of the Holy Spirit the same Son says: When I shall have been taken up from you, I will send Him to you, Ioann. 16.; and to the Galatians 6.: God sent the Spirit of His Son. 1. Petr. 1.: The Holy Spirit being sent from heaven. And Psalm. 103.: Send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created, etc.

Add that the definition of mission to be given below befits the divine Persons. It remains, therefore, to be determined what that divine Mission is, and to which divine Persons and in what manner it belongs, which, that they may be made more evident

Note. From St. Bonaventure, in 1. dist. 15. part 1. quaest. 1., mission is transferred from creatures to divine things according to some analogy. But mission in created things expresses especially a threefold respect: first indeed to the principle, or to the one sending: second to the term, to which some thing is sent: third to the one sent, or to him who is sent. In the order, however, of the principle, or of the one sending, the comparison of Mission can be varied: either as to one giving existence to another; thus a ray is sent by the sun, a root or flower by the tree: or as to one giving power; and thus a javelin is sent by a thrower: or as to one giving jurisdiction, or authority; and thus a messenger is sent by a praetor, and a legate by the Pontiff. According to this threefold acceptation, however, Mission truly exists in divine things, for the Son is sent by the Father, and the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son, as having existence and power, and hence also authority, from the one sending.

But according to the other comparisons, by which the one sending relates to the one sent — as giving counsel, just as councillors send the King to war; or as commanding, just as a master sends a servant — mission manifestly does not fit the divine Persons, for to receive counsel is an indication of inexperience; and to be subjected to command is of diminished power.

Likewise, in the order of the term, Mission can have a threefold respect; for someone is sent to something, either as to a place in which he may rest; thus a stone is sent downward; or as to a possessor; thus a gift is sent to someone: or as to an operation to be performed in someone, or with someone; in this way, however, the divine Person is sent, that He may be with us, or rest in us through an internal indwelling; that He may be possessed by us, and that He may work good things with us; for the Holy Spirit is said, first, to dwell in our hearts: second, to be the Gift of the Most High God: third, to work in us all things, as He wills. Moreover, for the perfect understanding of the things to be said, three imperfections of created Mission must be removed from divine Mission. First, indeed, in created Mission there is a separation of the one sent from the one sending: second, a subjection of the one sent to the one sending, and the authority of the one sending over the one sent: third, a change in the one sent, while he leaves one place and acquires another: these imperfections, however, are removed from the divine Persons by the unity, immensity, and equality of their essence; for unity excludes separation, equality excludes submission, and immensity excludes local change. These things being thus noted beforehand from the Seraphic Doctor,

I say firstly. Not only the created gifts, which are appropriated to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, but also the very Persons of the Son and of the Holy Spirit are truly sent; which indeed.

It is clear from Sacred Scripture, of which it suffices to weigh one or another text. Ioannis 14.: But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance; but the office of consoler, teacher, and reminder is not exercised except by a subsisting Person: therefore the one who is sent is truly the Person of the Holy Spirit. Likewise cap. 15.: When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of me; therefore the same one, who proceeds from the Father, and who by infallible authority bears witness of the Son, is the same who is sent by the Son together with the Father: therefore mission is understood not only of His gifts, but also of the Person Himself. Finally, to the Romans 5.: The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us. By which it is clear that the Spirit Himself is given to us, who is distinguished from the created gift of charity, as its author.

It is confirmed from the holy Fathers, especially Augustine, lib. 15. De Trinit. cap. 26., where, proving the Divinity of the Holy Spirit from the fact that Christ commanded all nations to be baptized in the name of the Father, he concludes: He is therefore the one who was also given from heaven on the day of Pentecost: how then is He not God, who gives the Holy Spirit, nay, how great a God is He, who gives God? By which he openly teaches that the Spirit Himself, in whose name we are baptized, and who is truly God, was given on the day of Pentecost. Likewise serm. 43. On the words of the Lord: Great, he says, is the mercy of God, He gives a gift equal to Himself, because the gift of God is the Holy Spirit, and one God is the whole Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: he confirms this, moreover, with the words of the Apostle The charity of Christ is poured forth, etc.

It is also proved by reason. If only the gift were sent, and not the Person of the Holy Spirit Himself, it would follow that He could not be called a gift by reason of personality: but this is false, from what has been said, because the personal notion of the Holy Spirit is to be the gift and the spirated Love: therefore just as it belongs to Him to be Love in Himself, and not only in effect, so also it belongs to Him to be given. Then, if He were sent only with respect to gifts, the mystery of the Incarnation could be evaded, and it could be said that the mission of the Son was made in some gifts: for why would this one be so explained, and that one not, since Sacred Scripture equally expresses both under the name of mission?

I say secondly. Mission presupposes the procession of the Person sent from the one sending.

It is likewise gathered from Sacred Scripture, for Ioannis 7. Christ says: I have not come of myself, but He is true who sent me, whom you do not know: I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent me. Likewise cap. 16.: I came forth from the Father, and I have come into the world, which text Cyril of Alexandria weighs thus, book 11. on cap. 9.: To have gone forth, he says, from God is nothing other than to have been born, to have shone forth from the substance of the Father by that procession by which He is, and is understood in His own subsistence… or He says that He went forth from the Father, that is, I was made Man, and I descended on behalf of your nature. Whence Augustine, Tract. 102. on John: He went forth from the Father, who is of the Father, and came into the world, because He showed His body to the world.

The procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son is proved and gathered from the fact that He is sent by Him, as we said above: therefore procession is presupposed to mission. St. Anselm confirms this in the Treatise De Processione Spiritus sancti, saying:

It is exceedingly difficult, indeed impossible, to show how He does not proceed from both; for whence could the Son together with the Father give, or send, the Holy Spirit, and He be of both, if He is not at the same time of both? For why does the Son give the Holy Spirit more than the Holy Spirit gives the Son? Or why is He more the Spirit of the Son, than the Son is of the Holy Spirit, unless because the Son is not so of the Father and of the Holy Spirit together, as the Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son together?

In the same way John the Theologian proceeded in the Council of Florence, session 24., where, weighing that text of Ioannis 15.: Whom I will send you, he says:

I will send — what else, I beseech you, does it signify than that it is sent from someone? But he who sends something is seen to send his own, and what is sent is said to be from him, just as if a Prefect of a province should be seen to have done this not of himself, but by the command of the Emperor; who, since in generation he received the same, even as the Father, the Holy Spirit consubstantial with the Father, having the same faculty and nature, is believed to send the same Spirit.

It is confirmed, by the fact that St. Augustine asserts that mission does not only include the apparition of some divine Person through a visible creature; for if, he says, lib. 1. De Trinit. cap. 1., He had wished, even God the Father would appear visibly through a subject creature; yet He would most absurdly be said to be sent either by the Son whom He begot, or by the Holy Spirit who proceeds from Him, surely for no other reason than because, as he had said in cap. 20., the Father, when He is known in time by anyone, is not said to be sent; for He has not that from which He is, or from which He proceeds: but moreover, mission requires the procession of the Person sent from the Person sending; for in mission the authority of the Person sending, and the sub-authority of the Person sent, must be preserved, all superiority and inferiority being nevertheless excluded: but this authority and sub-authority is found only between the Person producing and the Person produced: therefore Mission itself argues an ad intra procession. Finally, mission includes the going out of the one sent from the one sending: but among the divine Persons there is no going out except according to procession: therefore passive mission includes procession.

You will say. The divine Son is sent by the Holy Spirit, as is clear from that text of Isaiah 48.: The Lord God has sent me, and His Spirit: whence St. Augustine, 2. De Trinit. 5., attributes the mission of the Son to the Holy Spirit: God, he says, sent His Son, made of a woman; where he sufficiently shows that the Son Himself was sent, who was made of a woman. Therefore He could not be sent by the Father without the Holy Spirit, because the Father is understood to have sent Him, when He made Him of a woman; which He certainly did not do without the Holy Spirit. Likewise St. Ambrose, book 2. De Spiritu sancto: Who is he who says: the Lord has sent me, and His Spirit, except the one who came from the Father, that He might save sinners, that is, Christ? Therefore both the Father sent the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Likewise the same Ambrose in the same place:

Again, He was given by the Father, as Isaiah says: a child is born to us, and a Son is given to us. He was given, I dare to say, also by the Holy Spirit, because He was also sent by the Holy Spirit. For the Son of God says: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, wherefore He has anointed me, He has sent me to evangelize the poor.

Also the Council of Toledo 11. in the Confession of faith: The Son must be believed to be sent not only by the Father, but also by the Holy Spirit, in that which is said through the Prophet: and now God has sent me, and His Spirit: but the Son does not proceed from the Holy Spirit: therefore Mission does not presuppose procession.

I answer. This Mission is understood of the Son according to His humanity, namely inasmuch as He was sent in the assumed nature, and that not by nature, but by will and command, to preach and to accomplish the other works of our salvation; for to that extent the humanity is said to be sent by the whole Trinity, and by God, even by the Word Himself, as the following words of the Council of Toledo declare: He is also, he says, understood as sent by Himself, through which not only the will, but also the operation of the whole Trinity is recognized as inseparable.

The Doctor confirms in 1. dist. 15. nu. 4. from St. Ambrose in the 3rd book De Spiritu sancto, cap. 2., where, weighing that text of Isaiah 61.¹ The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, he says well, says Ambrose, the Holy Spirit of the Lord has sent me to preach: because, as it were, the Son of man was sent and anointed, for according to His Deity the Spirit is not upon Christ, but in Christ: therefore that authority of Isaiah, which says that Christ was sent by the Holy Spirit, is understood of Christ as man, not, however, of the Mission of the eternal Word to be incarnated.

The Doctor admits, nevertheless, that the opinion of the Master is not improbable, affirming that Mission does not necessarily require the procession of one Person from another, but that its manifestation through some visible effect suffices. Nor does it matter that any divine Person can give Himself; for it does not follow from this that He can also send Himself, because more things are required for mission than for donation; since in the one sending there is required, as it were, authority, and in the one sent sub-authority, which in divine things are explained by producing and being produced.

I say thirdly. Mission necessarily imports the manifestation of the Person sent through the production of some created gift, invisible or visible.

Proof 1. from the words of Christ, Ioann. 4.: My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, that I may perfect His work: and cap. 6.: I came down not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me, the Father. And this is the will of Him who sent me, the Father, that of all that He has given me I should lose nothing of it, etc. Whence the Sage justly prayed, cap. 9., for the Mission of divine Wisdom in these words: Send her from Your holy heavens, and from the seat of Your greatness, that she may be with me, and labor with me, that I may know what is acceptable before You at all times.

It is confirmed. from the fact that the holy Fathers explain the Mission of the divine Persons in no other way than by the production of some effect in a creature; whence the Doctor rightly gathers, in the cited question, that divine Mission always connotes a real change in the creature; which change, although it is made by the whole Trinity, since the works of the Trinity ad extra are undivided, is nevertheless attributed in particular to the Person sent, on account of the new personal, or moral or mystical, mode by which that Person begins to be anew in the creature, as the holy Fathers expressly explain, especially Athanasius in Oration 5. against the Arians, where, weighing those words of Christ: He who sent me, the Father, etc., he says: he named the Mission the union with the man, by which the invisible nature of God could become known to men through the visible: for God does not change place after our manner. But because He presented Himself present in the flesh, therefore the holy men wished to use the word Mission: and August. 2. De Trinitate c. 5. The invisible Father, he says, together with the Son invisible with Him, by making the same Son visible, is said to have sent him: and at the end of the chapter he infers:

It is now easy to understand also concerning the Holy Spirit, why He too is said to be sent; for a certain visible form of a creature was made in time, in which the Holy Spirit might be shown visibly... This operation, visibly expressed and offered to the eyes of mortals, is called the Mission of the Holy Spirit.

With these words the holy Fathers do not exclude the notion of the eternal procession of the Person sent from the One sending; but they connect it with the external operation.

Hence divine Mission can rightly be described as: The procession of a divine Person from the Person sending to a creature, in which He begins to be in a new mode. From which it is clear that the Father alone cannot be sent, although He gives Himself, and comes with the other divine Persons to dwell in the soul through sanctifying grace, according to that of Ioannis 14. If anyone loves me, my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him. For, says St. Augustine lib. contra Arianos cap. 4.: Only the Father is read as not sent, because He alone has no author, from whom He is begotten or from whom He proceeds. It is likewise clear that the Son is properly sent by the Father alone into the world for the Incarnation, according to that of Ioan. 8. I have come forth from God, and have come into the world: for as He proceeds from the Father alone, so He is sent by Him alone: but the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son together, as proceeding from both.

I say fourthly. That Mission on the part of the effect is twofold, namely visible, and invisible.

It is invisible, by which the Son and the Holy Spirit are sent to inhabit in a peculiar way the rational creature through sanctifying grace, as the Doctors commonly affirm with the Seraphic Bonaventure dist. 15. part. 2. articulo 1. quaest. 1. For indeed, for a Mission it is required that the Person sent exist in the one to whom He is sent, and be possessed by him: but those divine Persons are not perfectly possessed by a rational creature except through sanctifying grace, through which indeed He is within the reach of the one having and rightly using it, so that through it that divine Person sent may be enjoyed as an object. Whether, moreover, that invisible Mission is made not only to those who are first renewed through grace, or first justified, but also to those who grow in grace through the increase of justification, the Authors do not agree among themselves; for some affirm this, others deny it. Yet more rightly, with the Seraphic Doctor ibid. quaest. 3., and more suitably to the concept of Mission, seem to think those who deny that a new Mission is made through the increase of grace; for precisely to that extent the Person sent does not begin to be in the just soul in a new mode, unless insofar as, on the occasion of such increase or progress, He operates in the just soul certain particular gifts, or effects, v. g. the gift of Prophecy or the like: by which reason, while the double spirit of Elijah rested upon Elisha, the Holy Spirit is rightly said to have been sent to him.

Visible Mission, as our Herinx observes Disp. 3. quaestione 1. num. 16., is on the one hand substantial in being, or is for subsisting; as is the Incarnation of the Word alone: on the other hand it is only for representing, or for appearing in a visible form; as the Holy Spirit was sent in the form of a Dove, in fiery tongues, in a sound, in a bright cloud, which were not substantially assumed by the Holy Spirit, but only used as signs signifying by institution, not indeed all the Persons, but specially the Holy Spirit, and representing the interior sanctification. These symbols, moreover, were formed either immediately by God, or (as Augustine judges 3. De Trinit. cap. 1. and 10. and seq.) by the ministry of Angels: whence the Dove was indeed a true body, but not a true nor a living Dove, according to the truer opinion, which St. Bonaventure hands down 1. dist. 16. Art. 1. Quaest. 3. ad 4., and therefore it immediately ceased; hence also among the Evangelists Matth. 3. and Luc. 3: the Spirit is read to have descended like a Dove. Similarly, according to St. Bonaventure above, the fire was indeed a true body, not however true fire, because it did not burn; and therefore the Dispersed tongues are said to have appeared as of fire, Act. 2.²

For many mystical reasons that divine Spirit appeared on the day of Pentecost under the form of Fire, of a Dove, and of Wind, or of a mighty Spirit. For He assumed the figure of fire first, to testify His Divinity: for fire is the symbol of Divinity, according to that of Deuteronomy: Our God is a consuming fire: whence excellently St. Gregory Homil. 30. in Evangelia: the Son coeternal with the Father and the Son is shown in fire, because God is an incorporeal, invisible, and ineffable fire.

Moreover, by this very adumbration of fire He testified Himself to be the notional Love of the Father and of the Son: for Love is a kind of fire, and is wont to be depicted under the form of fire, and is always described by the Poets with fires and flames.

Second, to express His divine fruitfulness toward creatures: for as fire in its own sphere seems unfruitful, and produces nothing, while in sublunary regions it is the parent and cause of absolutely all productions: so also that divine Spirit in the very bosom of the Deity indeed produces nothing; but, says Cornelius Mussius lib. 3. De sacra Historia: He produces the Heavens, the Earth, the Elements, and all living things; and what He has produced He nourishes, conserves, vivifies, and renews: the Founder of Nature, the Author of grace, the Consummator of glory, the universal Principle of all things: for from Him flow all the Charisms of graces, for He it is who adopts those reborn in Christ as sons of God in Baptism, the same Spirit filling the font, who filled also the Virgin, says St. Leo; which wondrous fruitfulness indeed the Spouse, beholding, besought, in Canticles first, let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth, which St. Bernard thus weighs Serm. 9. The kiss of such efficacy and fruitfulness is holy (namely the Holy Spirit, who is the most sweet kiss of the Father and the Son) that from it, as soon as the Spouse has received it > she conceives, with her breasts surely swelling, and as it were growing plump with milk: for through charity the holy soul not only conceives the Son of God, but is itself made the Daughter of God.

— Thirdly: fire has three principal effects, namely to burn, to purge, to illuminate, all of which the Holy Spirit operates in us, since He kindles our hearts with the fire of His love; whence St. Augustine in the Soliloquy: O holy fire, how sweetly You burn! how longingly You burn up! You burn, I say, not indeed to destroy and consume, like corporeal fire, but rather to increase and perfect. Whence Christ rightly said: I came to cast fire upon the earth, and what will I, but that it be kindled? Which St. Ambrose excellently weighs Serm. 18. in Psalmum 118:

The Lord sent fire upon the earth, not to set it aflame again with a Sodomite conflagration, nor to exclude it from the gift of bestowed fruitfulness, or from the use, or the flower, of greenness: for He is wont to approve and increase His work rather than to diminish or damn it. The Lord therefore scattered divine fire in the new Testament, which would inflame the secret affections of minds with the ardor of divine knowledge, which would burn up the vapor of faith and devotion, which would kindle the desire of virtue.

Similarly He purges and illuminates, according to that of Lamentations: From on high He sent fire into my bones, and instructed me: whence St. Gregory proclaims the most happy School of the Holy Spirit:

In which there is no delay for learning; for as soon as it has touched the mind, it teaches, and merely to have touched is to have taught: for, as he adds Homil. 30. in Evangelio: behold, He fills the boy harpist, and makes him a psalmist; He fills the herdsman shepherd, and makes him a Prophet; He fills the Fisherman, and makes him a Preacher; He fills the persecutor, and institutes him Doctor of the Gentiles; He fills the Publican, and makes him an Evangelist. O what an artisan is this Spirit!

He likewise put on the form of a Dove: first, to testify the purity and cleanliness, which the Holy Spirit specially effects and requires, and of which the Dove is an excellent symbol: whence beautifully Basil:

The most chaste Dove applies itself wholly to heavenly things, nor does it ever lift even the least grain from the earth without immediately raising its eyes to heaven; it does not fly around corpses and flesh, but it settles beside the streams of waters, where the image of Heaven is reflected; heavenly things are always set before its gaze, and it always contemplates the things above.

Second, He assumed the figure of a Dove, to show Himself the Author and Lover of meekness: whence Paschasius lib. 2. in Matthaeum:

The Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a Dove, that through it He might set forth of what sort they would be who were to attain to the grace of the same Spirit: for the Dove has no gall, and from this He intimates that whoever longs to come to the grace of the Holy Spirit ought not to be in the gall of bitterness.

Third, finally, by this form of the Dove He declared Himself the Artificer of Peace; for, as Tertullian says lib. De Baptismo cap. 8:

Just as after the waters of the deluge, by which iniquity was purged, the Dove, the herald, sent down from the Ark and returned with the OLIVE branch, announced peace to the lands after the celestial wrath, which sign is also held out for peace among the nations: so after the old offenses the Dove of the holy Spirit flies to us, bringing the peace of God, sent forth from the Heavens.

Finally, He testified His descent into souls by the form of Wind, and of a mighty Spirit: first indeed, to signify His origin, and demonstrate His Personal property, for He proceeds as love; but love signifies a certain impulse, by which the will of the lover is impelled toward the beloved: second, just as the origin of the winds lies hidden from us, and is known to Him alone, who brings forth the winds from His treasuries, so Christ said, Ioannis 3.³ The Spirit breathes where He will, and you hear His voice, and you know not whence He comes, or whither He goes. Third and finally, wind, or air, is necessary for life; for without breath and respiration one does not live: so also the Holy Spirit is altogether necessary for spiritual life: whence St. Ambrose, weighing those words of Genesis 2. God formed man from the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life: and also those which Christ, breathing upon the Disciples, said: Receive the Holy Spirit: thus he speaks: God had breathed upon you, that by the gift of His inspiration you might have the grace, which guilt had taken away; you had been made a living soul, but because the sinner could not keep the seal, therefore Jesus came, and when He had said this, He breathed, saying: receive the Holy Spirit.

I would set about saying more, did not the oracle of Ecclesiasticus, chapter 43., deter me: Many things, he says, shall we say of God, and we shall not reach the end, and He Himself is the consummation of all discourses. Wherefore I will make an end of speaking by proclaiming the descent of the divine Spirit in these words of St. Augustine Tract. 74. in Ioannem:

Come, kindly Spirit, come, love of the divine Numen, holy communication of the omnipotent Father and of the most blessed Offspring, omnipotent Paraclete, consoler of the mourning, glide into the inmost parts of my heart with mighty power, and, O pious inhabitant, gladden all the dark places of my mind with the splendor of the shining Numen. Come, strength of the fragile, Teacher of the humble, destroyer of the proud. Come, Father of the Poor, come, giver of gifts, come, light of hearts. Give the merit of virtue, give the issue of salvation, give everlasting joy. Amen.

⁴