A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity.

 A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity.

 The Rule of truth requires that we should first of all things believe on God the Father and Lord Omnipotent that is, the absolutely perfect Founder o

 And over all these things He Himself, containing all things, having nothing vacant beyond Himself, has left room for no superior God, such as some peo

 Him, then, we acknowledge and know to be God, the Creator of all things—Lord on account of His power, Parent on account of His discipline—Him, I say,

 Him alone the Lord rightly declares good, of whose goodness the whole world is witness which world He would not have ordained if He had not been good

 Moreover, if we read of His wrath, and consider certain descriptions of His indignation, and learn that hatred is asserted of Him, yet we are not to u

 And although the heavenly Scripture often turns the divine appearance into a human form,—as when it says, “The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous

 But when the Lord says that God is a Spirit, I think that Christ spoke thus of the Father, as wishing that something still more should be understood t

 This God, then, setting aside the fables and figments of heretics, the Church knows and worships, to whom the universal and entire nature of things as

 The same rule of truth teaches us to believe, after the Father, also on the Son of God, Christ Jesus, the Lord our God, but the Son of God—of that God

 But of this I remind you , that Christ was not to be expected in the Gospel in any other wise than as He was promised before by the Creator, in the Sc

 Chapter XI.—And Indeed that Christ Was Not Only Man, But God Also That Even as He Was the Son of Man, So Also He Was the Son of God.

 Why, then, should we hesitate to say what Scripture does not shrink from declaring? Why shall the truth of faith hesitate in that wherein the authorit

 And thus also John, describing the nativity of Christ, says: “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the o

 And yet the heretic still shrinks from urging that Christ is God, whom he perceives to be proved God by so many words as well as facts. If Christ is o

 If Christ is only man, how is it that He says, “Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true:  because I know whence I came, and whither I go

 If Christ was only man, how is it that He Himself says, “And every one that believeth in me shall not die for evermore?” And yet he who believes in ma

 What if Moses pursues this same rule of truth, and delivers to us in the beginning of his sacred writings, this principle by which we may learn that a

 Behold, the same Moses tells us in another place that “God was seen of Abraham.” And yet the same Moses hears from God, that “no man can see God and l

 What if in another place also we read in like manner that God was described as an angel? For when, to his wives Leah and Rachel, Jacob complained of t

 But if some heretic, obstinately struggling against the truth, should persist in all these instances either in understanding that Christ was properly

 And indeed I could set forth the treatment of this subject by all heavenly Scriptures, and set in motion, so to speak, a perfect forest of texts conce

 But why, although we appear to hasten to another branch of the argument, should we pass over that passage in the apostle: “Who, although He was in the

 In this place I may be permitted also to collect arguments from the side of other heretics. It is a substantial kind of proof which is gathered even f

 But the material of that heretical error has arisen, as I judge, from this, that they think that there is no distinction between the Son of God and th

 Therefore, say they, if Christ is not man only, but God also—and Scripture tells us that He died for us, and was raised again—then Scripture teaches u

 But from this occasion of Christ being proved from the sacred authority of the divine writings not man only, but God also, other heretics, breaking fo

 But since they frequently urge upon us the passage where it is said, “I and the Father are one,” in this also we shall overcome them with equal facili

 Hereto also I will add that view wherein the heretic, while he rejoices as if at the loss of some power of seeing special truth and light, acknowledge

 Moreover, the order of reason, and the authority of the faith in the disposition of the words and in the Scriptures of the Lord, admonish us after the

 And now, indeed, concerning the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, let it be sufficient to have briefly said thus much, and to have laid down t

 Thus God the Father, the Founder and Creator of all things, who only knows no beginning, invisible, infinite, immortal, eternal, is one God to whose

Chapter XVII.122    According to Pamelius, ch. xxv.  Argument.—It Is, Moreover, Proved by Moses in the Beginning of the Holy Scriptures.

What if Moses pursues this same rule of truth, and delivers to us in the beginning of his sacred writings, this principle by which we may learn that all things were created and founded by the Son of God, that is, by the Word of God? For He says the same that John and the rest say; nay, both John and the others are perceived to have received from Him what they say. For if John says, “All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made,”123    John i. 3. the prophet David too says, “I tell my works to the King.”124    Ps. xlv. 1.  Moses, moreover, introduces God commanding that there should be light at the first, that the heaven should be established, that the waters should be gathered into one place, that the dry land should appear, that the fruit should be brought forth according to its seed, that the animals should be produced, that lights should be established in heaven, and stars. He shows that none other was then present to God—by whom these works were commanded that they should be made—than He by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made.  And if He is the Word of God—“for my heart has uttered forth a good Word”125    Ps. xlv. 1. [As understood by the Father passim. See Justin, vol. i. p. 213; Theophilus, ii. 98; Tertullian, iv. 365; Origen, iv. 352, 421; and Cyprian, v. p. 516, supra.]—He shows that in the beginning the Word was, and that this Word was with the Father, and besides that the Word was God, and that all things were made by Him. Moreover, this “Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,”126    John i. 14.—to wit, Christ the Son of God; whom both on receiving subsequently as man according to the flesh, and seeing before the foundation of the world to be the Word of God, and God, we reasonably, according to the instruction of the Old and New Testament, believe and hold to be as well God as man, Christ Jesus. What if the same Moses introduces God saying, “Let us make man after our image and likeness;”127    Gen. i. 26. and below, “And God made man; in the image of God made He him, male and female made He them?”128    Gen. i. 27. If, as we have already shown, it is the Son of God by whom all things were made, certainly it was the Son of God by whom also man was ordained, on whose account all things were made. Moreover, when God commands that man should be made, He is said to be God who makes man; but the Son of God makes man, that is to say, the Word of God, “by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made.” And this Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us: therefore Christ is God; therefore man was made by Christ as by the Son of God. But God made man in the image of God; He is therefore God who made man in the image of God; therefore Christ is God: so that with reason neither does the testimony of the Old Testament waver concerning the person of Christ, being supported by the manifestation of the New Testament; nor is the power of the New Testament detracted from, while its truth is resting on the roots of the same Old Testament. Whence they who presume Christ the Son of God and man to be only man, and not God also, do so in opposition to both Old and New Testaments, in that they corrupt the authority and the truth both of the Old and New Testaments. What if the same Moses everywhere introduces God the Father infinite and without end, not as being enclosed in any place, but as one who includes every place; nor as one who is in a place, but rather one in whom every place is, containing all things and embracing all things, so that with reason He can neither descend nor ascend, because He Himself both contains and fills all things, and yet nevertheless introduces God descending to consider the tower which the sons of men were building, asking and saying, “Come;” and then, “Let us go down and there confound their tongues, that each one may not understand the words of his neighbour.”129    Gen. xi. 7. Whom do they pretend here to have been the God who descended to that tower, and asking to visit those men at that time? God the Father? Then thus He is enclosed in a place; and how does He embrace all things? Or does He say that it is an angel descending with angels, and saying, “Come;” and subsequently, “Let us go down and there confound their tongues?” And yet in Deuteronomy we observe that God told these things, and that God said, where it is written, “When He scattered abroad the children of Adam, He determined the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.”130    Deut. xxxii. 8. [ἔστησεν ὀρια ἐθνῶν κατὰ ἀριθμὸν ἀλλέλων Θεοῦ, Sept.]  Neither, therefore, did the Father descend, as the subject itself indicates; nor did an angel command these things, as the fact shows. Then it remains that He must have descended, of whom the Apostle Paul says, “He who descended is the same who ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all things,”131    Eph. iv. 10. that is, the Son of God, the Word of God. But the Word of God was made flesh, and dwelt among us. This must be Christ. Therefore Christ must be declared to be God.

CAPUT XVII. al. XXV. Item ex Moyse in principio sacrarum Litterarum.

Quid si Moyses hanc eamdem regulam veritatis exequitur, et hoc in principio suarum nobis tradidit Litterarum, quo discamus omnia creata et condita esse per Dei Filium, hoc est per Dei Verbum? Id enim dicit quod Joannes, quod caeteri; immo et Joannes 0917B et caeteri ab hoc intelliguntur accepisse quod dicant. Si enim Joannes dicit: Omnia per ipsum facta sunt, et sine ipso factum est nihil (Joan. I, 3); Prophetes autem refert: Dico ego opera mea Regi (Psal. XLIV, 2); Moyses autem introducit praecipientem Deum ut lux fiat in primis, coelum firmetur, aquae congregentur, arida ostendatur, fructus secundum semina provocetur, animalia producantur, luminaria in coelo atque astra ponantur (Gen. I): non alium ostendit tunc adfuisse Deo cui praeciperentur haec opera ut fierent, nisi eum per quem facta sunt omnia, et sine quo factum est nihil. Ac si hic Verbum Dei est, nam eructavit cor meum verbum bonum; ostendit in principio Verbum fuisse, et Verbum hoc apud Patrem fuisse, Deum praeterea Verbum fuisse, 0917C omnia per ipsum facta esse. Sed enim hoc Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis (Joan. I, 14), Christus scilicet Filius Dei; quem, dum et postmodum secundum carnem hominem accipimus, et ante mundi institutionem Dei Verbum et Deum videmus; merito secundum institutionem Veteris et Novi Testamenti, et Deum et hominem Christum Jesum et credimus et tenemus. Quid si idem Moyses introducit dicentem Deum: Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram (Gen. I, 26, 27): et infra, Et fecit Deus hominem, ad imaginem Dei fecit illum, masculum et feminam fecit eos? Si, ut jam docuimus, Dei Filius est per quem facta sunt omnia; utique Dei Filius est per quem etiam homo institutus est, propter quem facta sunt omnia. Sed enim Deo praecipiente 0917D ut homo fiat, Deus refertur esse qui hominem facit: facit autem hominem Dei Filius, Verbum scilicet Dei, per quem facta sunt omnia, et sine quo factum est nihil. Hoc autem Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit 0918A in nobis: ergo Christus est Deus. Per Christum igitur homo factus est, ut per Dei Filium. Sed Deus hominem ad imaginem Dei fecit; Deus est ergo qui fecit hominem ad imaginem Dei, Deus ergo Christus est: ut merito nec Veteris Testamenti circa personam Christi vacillet auctoritas, dum Novi Testamenti manifestatione fulcitur: nec Novi Testamenti intercepta sit potestas, dum radicibus veteris Testamenti ejusdem nititur veritas. Ex quo, qui Christum, Dei Filium et hominis, tantummodo praesumunt hominem, non et Deum, contra Testamentum et Vetus et Novum faciunt, dum et Veteris et Novi Testamenti auctoritatem veritatemque corrumpunt. Quid si idem Moyses ubique introducit Deum Patrem immensum atque sine fine, non qui loco cludatur, sed qui omnem 0918B locum cludat: nec eum qui in loco sit, sed potius in quo omnis locus sit: omnia continentem et cuncta complexum; ut merito nec descendat nec ascendat, quoniam ipse omnia et continet et implet: et tamen nihilominus introducit Deum descendentem ad turrem quam aedificabant filii hominum considerare quaerentem, et dicentem: Venite; et mox: Descendamus, et confundamus illic ipsorum linguas, ut non audiat unusquisque vocem proximi sui? (Gen. XI, 7.) Quem volunt heic Deum descendisse ad turrem illam, et homines tunc illos visitare quaerentem? Deum Patrem? Ergo jam loco clauditur: et quomodo ipse omnia complectitur? Aut numquid Angelum cum Angelis dicit descendentem, et dicentem: Venite; et mox: Descendamus et confundamus illic ipsorum linguas?0918C Sed enim in Deuteronomio animadvertimus retulisse Deum haec, Deumque dixisse, ubi ponitur: Cum disseminaret filios Adam, statuit fines gentium juxta numerum angelorum Dei (Deut. XXXII, 8). Neque ergo Pater descendit, ut res indicat; neque Angelus ista praecipit, ut res probat. Superest ergo, ut ille descenderit, de quo apostolus Paulus: Qui descendit, ipse est qui ascendit super omnes coelos, ut impleret omnia (Ephes. IV, 10); hoc est Dei Filius, Dei Verbum. Verbum autem Dei caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis: hic erit Christus: Deus ergo pronuntiabitur Christus.