II. To the Question

11. It seems possible then to reply otherwise to the question. For it is manifest that, according to the intention of Augustine in On the Trinity IV ch.20, the Father is not said to have been sent, but ‘to be sent’ has to connote - along with its asserting an outward respect - an inward procession [n.5], and it seems reasonable to say the like of ‘to send’, because although it principally states a respect of outward action, yet it connotes a respect of inward active production; and thus neither will be purely essential, but ‘to be sent’ belongs only to the produced person and ‘to send’ only to the producing person; and in this way there are only two persons who send (the Father and the Son) and only two who are sent (the Son and the Holy Spirit), nor does any person send himself, nor does the proceeding person send the producing person.

12. An example of this can be found in something else; for the Father is said to create through the Word, and thus it can be conceded that the Son creates through the Holy Spirit; but not conversely so, for ‘to create through the Son’ does not assert absolutely an outward action but action along with authority, and in this way it connotes active production in the operator with respect to the person through whom he operates as it were with sub-authority. Thus it can be said that ‘to send a person’ is to operate through him and thus to work the effect along with that person by way of an authority that gives action to that person, and it belongs only to the producing person with respect to the produced person, - and ‘to be sent’ would mean the same as to operate with sub-authority, by virtue of the sending person, because it only happens when the operating person receives the power of acting from another.