Dist. 15, Part 1, Art. 1, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/1/d/15/q/bon-sent-I-d15-p1-a1-q2
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### QUESTION II.

*Whether mission in the divine [persons] is only from time, or also from eternity.*

Second it is asked whether mission in the divine [persons] is only from time, or also from eternity. And that it is from eternity is shown by authority and by reason.

1. By authority, thus: Gregory: «By that very thing the Son is sent, by which he is generated»; but he is generated from eternity: therefore he is sent from eternity: therefore mission in the divine [persons] is from eternity.

2. Likewise, Bede in a homily: «The mission of the Holy Spirit is his procession»: but he proceeds from eternity: therefore he is sent from eternity.

3. Likewise, by reason, thus: mission, whether spoken of actively or passively, is God; but every action which actively and passively is God is from eternity: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, every action which has God as term and as principle is from eternity, as is plain when it is said: God understands God, God generates God: but mission is of this kind, since God sends God: therefore mission is eternal. If you say that mission requires a twofold term — namely, the one who is sent, and the one to whom he is sent — and the one to whom mission is made is temporal; on the contrary: God can be the one who sends, [and] God the one who is sent: therefore by like reasoning [also] God [as the one] to whom he is sent; and it seems that these comparisons of principle and term belong most fully to God. For God is *alpha and omega, the beginning and the end*: therefore it is more properly said God to whom he is sent than God who is sent.

5. Likewise, whatever is God is eternal; mission is God: therefore it is eternal; but the premises are true: therefore so also is the conclusion.

**On the contrary:**

1. John 16: *If I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you; but when I have gone away, I will send him to you*. Therefore the Holy Spirit can be sent and *promised*; but what is eternal cannot be promised: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, Augustine, *On the Trinity* IV: «The Son or the Holy Spirit is sent when from time he is perceived in someone's mind».

3. Likewise, every mission is to something posterior to the one sending; but where there is posteriority, the account of principle and of time necessarily intervenes: therefore etc. The first proposition is per se true, since the one sending has the very thing that he sends *prior* to the one to whom he sends [it].

4. Likewise, every mission is either by reason of change or by reason of operation; but in the divine [persons] there is no change: therefore for there to be mission, an operation must intervene; and if operation, then [also] an effect; and if an effect, then [also] time: therefore every mission is from time.

### CONCLUSION.

> Mission, on account of [its] comparison to a created term, must be called temporal.

**I respond:** It must be said in reply to the foregoing that mission in the divine [persons] is in no way said except from time. And the reason for this is that it asserts a comparison not only to the principle, nor only to the one sent, but

also to the term. That term is necessarily created, because mission in God, since it does not assert change, asserts some operation about a term, and so some effect; and because everything that receives an effect is created and temporal, mission is necessarily temporal.

**1.** Therefore to what Gregory says — «By that very thing the Son is sent, by which he is generated» — it must be said that he is speaking with the manifestation in the creature presupposed. For the Father is manifested in the creature, but he is not sent; rather the Son is sent. And Gregory gives the reason, namely that there is no other cause except that this one is generated, [and] that one is not — that is, the Father.

**2.** To what is objected from Bede, it must be said that Bede is speaking of the procession of the Holy Spirit insofar as it is in the creature, and so always is temporal, just like mission.

**3.** To what is objected — that everything which is posited actively and passively is in God eternal — it must be said that this is true unless it has a further respect to the creature; but mission, beyond the respect which is of the one sending to the one sent, imports some effect in the creature.

To what is objected — that mission is actively and passively God — it must be said that there is a certain action which regards only the patient, as «I strike you»; another which [regards] the patient and another term, as «I teach you grammar», and similarly «I send you to him». And what is objected is true in [that] action and passion which regard nothing other than principle and object; but not in others, which require another term, and so it has a counter-instance in the case at hand.

**4.** Similarly the next [objection] must be solved: it would be true if that action were wholly terminated in God.

But to what is objected — that mission regards God as term *to which* — it must be said that if the term to which mission is made were only in the character of *that which terminates*, it would be true; but as it is, it is not so, but rather in the character of *that which receives*.

**5.** To the last objection it must be said that there a fallacy of accident is committed, just as here: every bronze is natural, the statue is bronze: therefore etc.; for what belonged to the matter is attributed to the statue by reason of the craftsmanship. Similarly here, what belonged to the divine essence is attributed to mission by reason of what is connoted.