Dist. 16, Art. 1, Q. 1
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/16/q/bon-sent-I-d16-a1-q1
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### Article Unique. *On the visible mission of the Holy Spirit.*

### Question I. *What the visible mission is.*

Concerning the first [point], we proceed thus.

It is shown first, that the visible mission is nothing other than an exterior apparition.

1. Augustine says that "the Holy Spirit or the Son is then sent, when he is perceived by the mind of someone in time": therefore he is then visibly sent, when he is visibly perceived; but he is visibly perceived, when he appears in a visible creature: therefore the visible mission is nothing other than an apparition.

2. Likewise, this same point is seen by similitude, because to be sent invisibly is nothing other than to be invisibly manifested through an invisible effect: therefore to be sent visibly is nothing other than to be manifested through a visible creature: but this is nothing other than to appear visibly: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, this is seen again by example, because the Holy Spirit is said to have been sent in the form of a dove to the Son, as Augustine says, and as is held in the *littera*; but at that time no donation was made to the Son, because he was always full of the Holy Spirit: but only an exterior apparition: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:**

1. That the visible apparition itself is not the whole account of the visible mission appears, because the Father appeared in a subject creature, and yet is not said to be visibly sent: therefore the mission is more than the apparition. The *major* is clear, because Augustine says in the second [book] of *On the Trinity*: "It is rash to say that God the Father never appeared to the Prophets and Fathers through any visible forms".

2. Likewise, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament many times appeared visibly, and yet at that time neither is said to have been visibly sent, as Augustine says in the third [book] of *On the Trinity*, where he raises this question: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, everything which appears visibly is corporeal, since it is perceived by sense; but God, since he is simple, is altogether incorporeal: if therefore it does not pertain to God to appear visibly, then if he is visibly sent, the visible mission is not an apparition. If you say, that he does not appear in himself, but in an effect; on the contrary: thus he appears in every creature and always and everywhere: therefore on this account he is visibly sent in every creature always and everywhere, which it is foolish to say.

4. Likewise, where there is mission, there is manifestation of the person, as Augustine says: but through apparition alone there is never manifestation, unless there be also revelation: therefore the account of visible mission is not only apparition, but also revelation: therefore apparition is not the whole account.

### Conclusion.

> *The visible mission is an apparition, in which the emanation and indwelling of a divine person are manifested.*

**I respond:** It must be said that the visible mission presupposes mission as something prior, and superadds the difference, which is *visible*. Now mission, taken commonly, as was said above in the preceding distinction, presupposes in the one sent an emanation and superadds manifestation. And since the manifestation of the emanation, according to which the mission is reckoned, does not occur except upon him whom the Holy Spirit indwells through the effect of indwelling grace, hence it is that mission, as to its general account, names the manifestation of an emanation and an indwelling.

Now this difference *visible*, supervening upon mission, contracts mission as to its principal signification, which is manifestation: hence it names manifestation with apparition, that is, an apparition manifesting the indwelling of an emanating person, or the emanation of an indwelling person.

Whence I concede that the visible mission is an apparition; but this is not the whole account, but [it is] an apparition, in which a divine person is manifested not only as operating, but also as indwelling, and not only as indwelling, but also as emanating, as if coming from another. By the first [clause] he excludes the apparition of God in any creature whatsoever; by the second the apparition in the Old Testament; by the third the apparition of the Father, because the Father did not appear as emanating or as coming from another. The Son indeed or the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament did not appear as indwelling, but as foreshowing himself as one about to indwell; whence the Angel appeared in those creatures in the person of God. And this Augustine proves in the third book of *On the Trinity* saying: "It stands by the firmness of authority and by the probability of reason, that when God is said to have appeared to the ancient Fathers, those voices were made by Angels". And he adduces the authorities of the Apostle, to the Galatians chapter three: *The law was ordained by Angels*; and to the Hebrews chapter two: *For if the word spoken by Angels* etc. Nor however do I say, that this is the reason why he was not sent, namely because the apparition was made by angelic ministry; because as Augustine says in the fourth [book] of *On the Trinity*, it is probable that that dove, in which the Holy Spirit appeared, was moved according to the ministry of an Angel. Whence the same in the fourth book of *On the Trinity* at the end says: "Concerning this it is difficult to discover anything, and it is not expedient to assert rashly. Yet how these things could have come to pass without a rational or intellectual creature, I do not see".

**To the arguments on the contrary:**

*To 1, 2.* And so it is clear, that not every apparition is mission, and the answer is also clear to the two first arguments.

*To 3.* As to what is objected in the third, that it is not an apparition, because God is invisible; it must be said, that *to appear* is twofold: either in itself, and thus it pertains to the corporeal; or in another, and this in two ways: either as a cause in an effect, or as a signified thing in a sign; and in this third way the mission is an apparition: and according to this mode it does not pertain to every creature.

*To 4.* As to what is objected last, that apparition is not manifestation; it must be said, that when it is said: *mission is manifestation*, it is not understood in act, but in habit, because something is made or shown, in which the emanation of a person can be manifested, and this indeed apparition of itself imports.

**To the arguments for the affirmative:**

*To 1.* As to what is objected on the contrary, that it is precisely apparition; it must be said, that this does not take up the whole account of mission, because *to be sent* is not only to be perceived by the mind, but to be perceived by the mind as emanating from another and indwelling in someone.

*To 2.* Similarly to that: *to be sent invisibly is to be manifested through an invisible effect*; it must be said, that to be manifested does not state the whole account.

*To 3.* As to what is objected, that in the mission of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove there was nothing but apparition; it must be said, that although there was not there a donation of the Holy Spirit, there was nevertheless a manifestation of the one already given and then indwelling in Christ and resting and proceeding from another, and thus the whole and perfect account of mission; but from this it does not follow, that any apparition whatsoever is a visible mission; nevertheless every visible mission is an apparition.