Dist. 15, Part 1, Art. 1, Q. 3
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-q3
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### QUESTION III.

*Whether mission, taken passively, belongs to the whole Trinity — specifically to the Father.*

Third it is asked of whom mission belongs as the one sent. And it seems that it belongs to the whole Trinity.

1. Augustine, *On the Trinity* IV: «The Son is sent when from time he is perceived in someone's mind». But the whole Trinity is from time perceived in the mind: therefore the whole Trinity is sent: therefore the Father also.

2. Likewise, for a person to be sent is for him to come anew to indwell; but the whole Trinity comes anew

to indwell in the sinner when grace is given to him: therefore etc. The minor [premise] is plain from John 14: *We will come to him* etc.

3. Likewise, mission connotes an effect in the creature; but it is a rule that every name connoting an effect is said essentially: therefore mission, passively spoken of, is said essentially: but what is said essentially belongs to the whole Trinity: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, when something is sent, there is sent with it everything that is inseparably joined to it; but the Father is inseparably joined to the Son: therefore when the Son is sent, the Father also is sent.

5. Likewise, *to send* and *to be sent* are either of equal nobility, or not. If of equal nobility: then for the same reason that *to send* is said of the Father, by the same reason *to be sent* [is said of him]; if unequal: then the one sending is greater than the one sent: therefore the Son is unequal to the Father.

**On the contrary:**

1. Augustine, *On the Trinity* II: «The Father is nowhere read as having been sent»; but we ought not to assert anything about God which we do not have from Scripture: therefore *to be sent* does not belong to the whole Trinity.

2. Likewise, Augustine says that it is *most absurd* to say that the Father is sent; but true statements are not most absurd, but rather false ones [are]: therefore *to be sent* is not truly said of the Father.

3. Likewise, Augustine says that *to be sent* is to be known to be from another; but the Father is not known to be from another: therefore the Father is not sent.

4. Likewise, every movable [thing] is reduced to an immovable; therefore [every] sendable to a non-sendable: therefore in the divine [persons] there is some person who cannot be sent — and this is none but the Father: therefore etc.

### CONCLUSION.

> Mission, taken passively, can in no way be said of the Father.

**I respond:** It must be said that mission, as is plain from Augustine's reasoning and will appear better below, always has two things in its meaning — namely, emanation, and manifestation through an effect. Therefore since mission spoken of passively always imports emanation passively, hence it follows that, since the Father is wholly without principle, passive mission can in no way be said of him; hence it is not found, and if it were found, it would have to be expounded as something false and as it were improper.

**1. & 2.** Therefore to what is objected first and second — that mission is perception by the intellect, or new indwelling — it must be said that this does not state the whole account of mission, but only [its] part on the side of the term *to which*; whence there must be added with these the emanation from another; and then [the objection] does not hold.

**3.** To what is objected third — that it connotes an effect, therefore it is essential — it must be said that a name connoting an effect either asserts only a respect to the effect, and then it is purely essential, as *to create*; or it asserts also along with this a respect to a person, and so it can be notional, as *to create through the Son* belongs to the Father alone. So it is with *to be sent*, since it asserts not only a comparison of the one sent to the one receiving the effect, but also to the principle. For it signifies that he is from another and into another; and so the [objection] is plain.

**4.** To what is objected — that inseparable [things] are sent together — it must be said that this is true of that mission which is by separation; but of that mission which is by distinction, it cannot be said that those who are distinguished are necessarily sent together, any more than in the other mission [are] those things which are separated. And since the Father is distinguished from the Son, and mission in the divine [persons] asserts distinction, therefore it is not necessary that, when the Son is sent, the Father be sent [along with him].

**5.** To what is objected last — that *to be sent* is of equal nobility as *to send* — it must be said that *to be sent* is not removed from the Father because it asserts ignobility, but because it asserts emanation and *subauthority* [*subauctoritas*], which, although it is not [a mark] of ignobility, still does not belong to the Father.