By Henry Aloysius Barry
CHAPTER XXL
THE ACT OF SENDING.
The Arians eagerly embraced the fact that the Son was 'sent' as affording them ground for the conclusion that the Son was not on an equal plane with the Father. On the other hand, acting in a contrary direction, the Fathers of the Church take up the same fact, namely, that of being "sent," and argue against the Arians and Sabellians that, as St. Basil observes—distinction of persons is implied and that the person "sent" must be eternally in procession from the 'one sending.' Owing to the perfection that attends a divine person and in view of the Unity of the divine Nature, no idea of dependency on the part of the one who sends can be involved in the idea or entertained by us. When it has to do with a divine Person being 'sent' the imperfections of the mere creature are absent from the operation; hence, there is no inferiority in the Son or Holy Ghost to be deduced from the fact of their being "sent." The Arians for example had forgotten the character of their subject. They had tried to submit a thing divine to the rules of judgment, the standards of weights and measures that are only for creatures. This makes all the difference in the world in results as gathered from the consideration of Godhead by a prophet or an ill-disposed person. The prophet, the saint, the christian man invariably approaches Godhead duly imbued with a right sense of the fact that God is above creatures; He studies His laws with holy awe and leaves a blank space for the wisdom of God. —"Who," says David, "among the Sons of God shall be like unto God?" "God Who is glorified in the assembly of the saints, great and terrible, adorable above all them that are about Him. O Lord of Hosts, Who is like to Thee?" (Ps. lxxxviii. 7, 8, 9.) There are two elements that enter the woof and warp of a divine Person's being "sent." There is the origin, a quo, — from whom—and a new relationship—to whom. We have, consequently, an eternal element and a temporal one, the latter being what one might term an affinity to the creature or the work being accomplished. Because indeed the procession of the Holy Ghost through the Son in the direction of creatures is termed a 'being sent,' inasmuch as it transpires in time, that is to say in the interests of creatures, who, in time, become partakers thereof, the temporal element indeed arises from the side of creatures. The sun does not, neither may it be said to, begin to shine only so soon as a blind man comes into possession of his visual faculties and the enjoyment of the sun's rays. The sun had been, all the while, shooting its arrows of light, though the blind man had walked in its radiant splendors with sealed, impenetrant and darkened orbs. Says St. Basil: —"Procession, with God, hath naught of time though time unveils its inward workings in effects."
"Being sent" embraces procession and outward efficient power, and, as it would be rash to denythat the Father ever appeared, sensibly, in as far as He is no whit less invisible than the Son or Holy Ghost, yet as He still lacks the former element of the idea namely procession—He never having proceeded from anyone—the Father could never be sent, for as St. Augustine remarks, "He has none of Whom He should proceed." (De Trinit. Cap. xx.) St. Thomas and conservative Fathers of Holy Mother Church confirm this contention. St. Fulgenus, for example, says: —"The Holy Ghost, we read, is sent by the Father and Son because He proceeds from the Father and Son." In a less proper sense, the Son is said to be sent by the Father and Holy Ghost, because in union with the Father the Holy Ghost wrought out the Incarnation. The basis of this external and less-properly called "Mission" or being sent shows, in its own way, that the internal Mission is only possible when the one sent proceeds from the one sending. The external element of Mission in general is such as comes within the focus of the senses, for example, "The Word made flesh," and made visible to man, or the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove. Even this outward efficiency or external element may he sub-exterior, so to speak, as when for example the Holy Ghost without being visible outwardly is sent to one of the faithful. It remains, however, that "being sent," properly so called, embraces the eternal and external element. St. Augustine so asserts:—"Since the Father and Son accomplished Christ's appearance in the flesh, He,Who appeared in the flesh, is appropriately said to be sent, but, He Who did not appear is said to have sent. Inasmuch as those things that took place in the presence of the corporeal eye are existent from the internal supply of the spiritual nature, therefore are they properly said to be sent." (lib. ii, De Trinit. Cap. v.) The Father herein shows that Mission or being sent is coalescent of two elements, namely the eternal and the temporal. "Mission" is, properly speaking, nothing more than the eternal production and communication of nature in which is contained an external working out in time — one might say, a sort of overflow or extension.
