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 XXIII.182    According to Pamelius, ch. xviii.  Argument.—And This is So Manifest, that Some Heretics Have Thought Him to Be God the Father, Others that He Was Only God Without the Flesh.

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 from an adversary, so as to prove the truth even from the very enemies of truth. For it is so far manifest that He is declared in the Scriptures to be God, that many heretics, moved by the magnitude and truth of this divinity, exaggerating His honours above measure, have dared to announce or to think Him not the Son, but God the Father Himself.183    [The Noetians, Hippol., p. 148, supra.] And this, although it is contrary to the truth of the Scriptures, is still a great and excellent argument for the divinity of Christ, who is so far God, except as Son of God, born of God, that very many heretics—as we have said—have so accepted Him as God, as to think that He must be pronounced not the Son, but the Father. Therefore let it be considered whether He is God or not, since His authority has so affected some, that, as we have already said above, they have thought Him God the Father Himself, and have confessed the divinity in Christ with such impetuosity and effusion—compelled to it by the manifest divinity in Christ—that they thought that He whom they read of as the Son, because they perceived Him to be God, must be the Father. Moreover, other heretics have so far embraced the manifest divinity of Christ, as to say that He was without flesh, and to withdraw from Him the whole humanity which He took upon Him, lest, by associating with Him a human nativity, as they conceived it, they should diminish in Him the power of the divine name.184    [Irenæus, vol. i. p. 527.] This, however, we do not approve; but we quote it as an argument to prove that Christ is God, to this extent, that some, taking away the manhood, have thought Him God only, and some have thought Him God the Father Himself; when reason and the proportion of the heavenly Scriptures show Christ to be God, but as the Son of God; and the Son of man, having been taken up, moreover by God, that He must be believed to be man also. Because if He came to man, that He might be Mediator of God and men, it behoved Him to be with man, and the Word to be made flesh, that in His own self He might link together the agreement of earthly things with heavenly things, by associating in Himself pledges of both natures, and uniting God to man and man to God; so that reasonably the Son of God might be made by the assumption of flesh the Son of man, and the Son of man by the reception of the Word of God the Son of God. This most profound and recondite mystery, destined before the worlds for the salvation of the human race, is found to be fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, both God and man, that the human race might be placed within the reach of the enjoyment of eternal salvation.

CAPUT XXIII, al. XVIII. Quod adeo manifestum est, ut quidam haeretici eum Deum Patrem putarint, alii Deum tantum sine carne fuisse.

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Hoc in loco licebit mihi argumenta etiam ex aliorum haereticorum parte conquirere. Firmum est genus probationis, quod etiam ab adversario sumitur, ut veritas etiam ab ipsis inimicis veritatis probetur. Nam usque adeo hunc manifestum est in Scripturis esse Deum tradi, ut plerique haereticorum, divinitatis ipsius magnitudine et veritate commoti, ultra modum extendentes honores ejus, ausi sint non Filium, sed ipsum Deum Patrem promere vel putare. Quod, etsi contra Scripturarum veritatem est, tamen divinitatis Christi argumentum grande atque praecipuum est; qui usque adeo Deus, sed qua Filius Dei natus ex Deo, ut plerique illum (ut diximus) haeretici ita Deum acceperint, ut, non Filium, sed Patrem pronuntiandum 0931D putarint. Aestiment ergo an hic sit Deus, cujus auctoritas tantum movit quosdam, ut putarent illum ut diximus superius, jam ipsum Patrem 0932A Deum; effrenatius et effusius in Christo divinitatem confiteri, ad hoc illos manifesta Christi divinitate cogente, ut quem Filium legerent quia Deum animadverterent, Patrem putarent. Alii quoque haeretici usque adeo Christi manifestam amplexati sunt divinitatem, ut dixerint illum fuisse sine carne, et totum illi susceptum detraxerint hominem, ne decoquerent in illo divini nominis potestatem, si humanam illi sociassent, ut arbitrabantur, nativitatem: quod tamen nos non probamus; sed argumentum afferimus usque adeo Christum esse Deum, ut quidam illum, subtracto homine, tantummodo putarint Deum; quidam autem ipsum crediderint Patrem Deum: cum ratio et temperamentum Scripturarum coelestium, Christum ostendant Deum, sed qua Filium 0932B Dei, et assumpto a Deo etiam Filio hominis, credendum et hominem. Quoniam si ad hominem veniebat ut mediator Dei et hominum esse deberet, oportuit illum cum eo esse, et Verbum carnem fieri, ut in semet ipso concordiam confibularet terrenorum pariter atque coelestium, dum utriusque partis in se connectens pignora, et Deum homini, et hominem Deo copularet; ut merito Filius Dei per assumptionem carnis Filius hominis, et Filius hominis per receptionem Dei Verbi Filius Dei effici possit. Hoc altissimum atque reconditum sacramentum ad salutem generis humani ante saecula destinatum, in Domino Jesu Christo Deo et homine invenitur impleri, quo conditio generis humani ad fructum aeternae salutis posset adduci.