This dramatic representation of the Mission of the Son stands alone in the writings of Athanasius, and, if pressed, lends itself to a conception of the relation of the Son to the Father which, if not Arian, is at least contrary to the more explicit and mature conception of Athanasius as formulated for example in Orat. ii. 31 (and see note 7 there). The same idea appears in Milton’s Paradise Lost (e.g. Book X.). See Newman, Arians 4, p. 93, note.