Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« Mission in general includes a certain order of the one sent both to the person by whom he is sent and to the term to which he is sent; whence mission in the divine persons includes not indeed a diversity of nature, but both the eternal procession of the one sent from the sender and an efficacy in time and a manifestation of the person; and by reason of the diversity of this efficacy and manifestation, visible and invisible mission are distinguished ».

I. Mission (taken passively) signifies the going forth of one from another according to some ratio of principle (physical or moral) toward some term. It therefore denotes a) a real distinction of the sender and of the one sent; b) some dependence, whether proper or improper, of the one sent on the sender, according to authority, or counsel, or origin (S. Th. I. q. 43. a. 1); c) a relation to a term; whether that term is a place, so that the one sent is there where he was not before, or is there in a new way; or whether it is some effect, so that he works it. Therefore mission necessarily entails a relation of the one sent to a twofold term: to the sender from whom, and to the term or effect to which he is sent.

Since this notion of mission is essential, even in the divine persons mission must be understood according to it, setting aside the imperfections which — not mission in itself, to be sure, but the creature sent — includes. The Arians transferred these imperfections from creatures to mission considered in itself, and thus asserted that the Son is inferior to the Father, and the Holy Spirit even inferior to the Son, because in the Scriptures the Son is said to be sent by the Father, and the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son. Nay rather, because the Father is the Father and the Son is the Son, and the Son can do nothing of Himself, but does in like manner whatever the Father does, from this unity of essence and distinction by origin Christ the Lord Himself infers that the mission of the Son from the Father is such as to demand equality of honor, with which the one sent is to be honored together with the sender: « that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father; he who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him » Io. V. 18-23.

The Fathers frequently refute that Arian fallacy; among others, Augustine points out the reason by which those imperfections are excluded in the mission of a divine person. « That the Son is not on this account lesser because He was sent by the Father, nor the Holy Spirit lesser because both the Father and the Son sent Him, has been sufficiently demonstrated. For whether these things are understood to be set down in the Scriptures on account of a visible creature, or rather on account of the commendation of the principle, not on account of inequality, or disparity, or dissimilitude of substance; because, even if God the Father had wished to appear visibly through a subject creature, He would nevertheless most absurdly be said to be sent either by the Son whom He begot, or by the Holy Spirit who proceeds from Him » Aug. Trin. IV. n. 32.; S. Th. I. q. 43. a. 1. ad 1. et 2. Cf. th. XXXIII.

Mission therefore in the divine persons includes two things: as it were the foundation is the origin of the person sent from the sender, while the formal ratio of mission is completed in some external efficacy, by which a person proceeding from another is either manifested, or begins to be present in the creature in a new way. See s. Aug. Trin. IV. n. 27. 28. For unless the person who is said to be sent proceeds from the sender, the order essentially included in the notion of sender and of one sent cannot be understood. For on account of the perfection of the divine person and on account of the unity of nature, the dependence of the one sent on the sender cannot be properly so called, but only, just as a communication of essence, so of virtue, counsel, and operation from one person to another, which is precisely the procession of one from another.

Furthermore, as regards the term to which the mission is made, on account of the same perfection of the person sent there can be no question of a change, whether local or any other, in the person herself, but the change necessarily stops in the creature, to which the divine person is either manifested as present in a special way, or conjoined in a special way. I said that in a special way the person is manifested as present to, or conjoined with, the creature. For mission, like the donation of a divine person, according to the sacred language of Scripture and of the Fathers, is not said — at least in the more proper sense — except for inhabiting and remaining in the creature (Ἐνοίκησις, μονὴ Io. XIV. 16. 23.; 1. Cor. III. 16.; VI. 19.; 2. Cor. VI. 16. etc.); and this inhabitation is that of the loving and beloved God in the supernaturally loved and loving creature. Whence every mission of a divine person has at least an order to this inhabitation and supernatural sanctification. But of this matter we shall speak a little later.

From these things it follows: a) that the foundation of mission is indeed eternal and necessary, but the mission itself takes place in time and is free with the freedom, to be sure, of one numerically single will in the person sending and in the person sent (cf. S. Th. I. q. 43. a. 2); b) that it extends more widely that the divine persons are said to come to, or to be given to, the creature, than that they are said to be sent. For God considered absolutely, or any divine person, can be said to come or to be given according to some effect or some charism, without respect to procession from a principle; but, from what has been said, only a person proceeding from another, who sends¹. Read Suarez l. XII. c. 2. et 3.; Petav. l. VIII. c. 1. Of the ratio by which God is said to come and to depart, we have treated in the Tractatus de Deo, th. XXXIV. c) From what has been said it follows that the mission of a divine person is only to a rational creature, and only according to effects and in order to supernatural effects.

II. We have said that the mission of a person is either through a manifestation of presence or through a special conjunction with the creature. In this very thing the distinction of the twofold mission — visible, namely, and invisible — is indicated.

Visible mission, therefore, takes place when a divine person proceeding from another either becomes visible in a visible nature made proper to herself, or when, with some relation to supernatural inhabitation and sanctification, she is exhibited as specially present through certain outward signs produced to signify that distinct person. Whence visible mission is rightly distinguished into that which can be called substantial, of which sort alone was the Incarnation of the Word: « when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, made from a woman » Gal. IV. 4. etc.; the other, then, can be called mission in symbols or representative, of which sort was, upon the baptized Christ, « the Holy Spirit descending as a dove », and upon the Apostles in « tongues as of fire ».

Augustine discusses at length this visible mission of the divine persons in Trin. II. « If therefore the Son is said to be sent, inasmuch as He appeared outwardly in a bodily creature — He who is always hidden within in spiritual nature from the eyes of mortals — it is already at hand to understand also of the Holy Spirit why He too is said to be sent. For a certain species of creature was made in time, in which the Holy Spirit would be visibly shown, whether when He descended upon the Lord Himself in bodily species like a dove, or when on the day of Pentecost.... there were seen by them divided tongues as of fire.... This operation, visibly expressed and offered to the eyes of mortals, was called the (visible) mission of the Holy Spirit — not that His very substance might appear, by which He Himself is invisible and unchangeable as are the Father and the Son, but that by outward sights the hearts of men, being moved, might be converted from the temporal manifestation of the One coming to the hidden eternity of the ever-present One.... These things appeared, as they ought to have appeared opportunely, the creature serving the Creator and, at His nod — who abides unchangeably in Himself — changed and converted to signify and demonstrate Him, as it behooved Him to be signified and demonstrated to mortals » Aug. l. c. n. 10. 11.; see the rest there. Cf. thesim VI.

Since representative visible mission has an order to invisible mission through sanctification, some theologians therefore teach (cf. Suarez l. XII. c. 4. n. 5. sqq.; Ruiz disp. 109. sect. 8. n. 9. sqq.) that the visible mission is a manifestation of an invisible mission that is present, as when the Holy Spirit was sent to the Apostles; or already made, as when the visible mission was made upon the baptized Christ. For that reason they are reluctant to call the theophanies of the Old Testament — about which we treated in th. VI. — missions of the Son, even if « the Angel of the Lord » is said to be the Word Himself, and prefer to call them apparitions. The reason is that those apparitions were not ordered to signify a sanctification and an invisible mission that would then be made, or had already been made before (cf. S. Th. I. q. 43. a. 7. ad 6.; Suarez l. XII. c. 6. n. 23.; Ruiz disp. 109. sect. 9. n. 10. sqq.). But since the theophanies belonged assuredly to the supernatural order, and so had at least a mediate connection with sanctification, the dispute about the manner of speaking is on this account not of great moment. Rather it must be said that the mission of the Son of God was the principal one in the Incarnation itself, while those theophanies, as we showed l. c., were certain preludes and preparations for this visible mission in a nature hypostatically assumed; for that reason they, in comparison with this, are not called, and without qualification are not to be called, the mission of the Son of God. In almost the same way one would have to speak of the mission of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, if any visible one took place there (cf. p. 90. 91), in comparison with the visible mission of the same Spirit in the New Testament.

Corollary. From what has been said it is understood: a) that the mission of a divine person is not made to that sensible thing by which she is signified as present; for that thing is not the term of the mission, but a medium assumed to render the mission sensible to men — both to those to whom the mission is made, and to others on whose account it is made at least mediately; b) that the visible mission of the Holy Spirit can take place and has taken place without the (passive) mission of the Son, and conversely; although the invisible mission, as we shall say later, is necessarily conjoined to both persons, and the inhabitation belongs to the whole Trinity. For although the efficiency of the visible sign is common to the three persons, the signification can nevertheless be referred to one distinct person (p. 92), just as we have elsewhere demonstrated that in the Incarnation too, viewed efficiently and terminatively, a distinction of operation is needed (Tract. de Incarnat. th. XXXII.). c) That the Sacraments are indeed visible and efficacious signs of sanctifying grace, and consequently of the invisible mission of the Holy Spirit, yet they are not outward signs then effected by God to signify the presence of the Holy Spirit; but things in themselves human or natural are elevated by God to the signification and efficacy of conferring grace (we do not speak of the permanent Sacrament of the Eucharist); for that reason in the Sacraments there cannot be understood a visible but only an invisible mission of the Holy Spirit. Cf. August. Trin. l. II. n. 11.; S. Th. I. q. 43. a. 7.; Ruiz disp. 109. sect. 12. It appears also from all that has been said so far, not only that the invisible mission is principally intended by God, especially in comparison with the representative mission, but also that the latter cannot be fully understood without the former. Wherefore we must now treat of it, the declaration of which is the principal scope of the present disputation.