A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity.

Preface.

Novatian’s treatise concerning the Trinity is divided into thirty-one chapters. He first of all, from chapter first to the eighth, considers those words of the Rule of Truth or Faith,1    Which we call the Creed. which bid us believe on God the Father and Lord Almighty, the absolutely perfect Creator of all things.  Wherein among the other divine attributes he moreover ascribes to Him, partly from reason and partly from the Holy Scriptures, immensity, eternity, unity, goodness, immutability, immortality, spirituality; and adds that neither passions nor members can be attributed to God, and that these things are only asserted of God in Scripture anthropopathically.2    From the ninth chapter to the twenty-eighth he enters upon the diffuse explanation also of those words of our creed which commend to us faith in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the Lord our God, the Christ promised in the Old Testament, and proves by the authority of the old and new covenant that He is very man and very God. In chapter eighteenth he refutes the error of the Sabellians, and by the authority of the sacred writings he establishes the distinction of the Father and of the Son, and replies to the objections of the above-named heresiarchs and others. In the twenty-ninth chapter he treats of faith in the Holy Spirit, saying that finally the authority of the high admonishes us, after the Father and the Son, to believe also on the Holy Spirit, whose operations he recounts and proves from the Scriptures. He then labours to associate the unity of God with the matters previously contended for, and at length sets forth the sum of the doctrines above explained. [Anthropopathy, see cap. v. p. 615.]

ARGUMENTUM.

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Dividitur tractatus Novatiani de Trinitate in triginta et unum caput. Primum de iis verbis regulae veritatis, seu fidei (quam Symbolum vocamus) commentatur, quae nos credere jubent in Deum Patrem et Dominum omnipotentem, rerum omnium perfectissimum creatorem, a capite 1 ad 8 usque, ubi, inter alia etiam attributa divina, immensitatem, aeternitatem, unitatem, bonitatem, immutabilitatem, immortalitatem, spiritualitatem, partim ex ratione, partim ex SS. Litteris adstruit; additque nec passiones, nec membra Deo attribui posse, haecque in Scriptura solummodo ἀνθρωποπαθικῶς de Deo enuntiari. A capite 9 usque ad 28, ad ea Symboli nostri quoque verba late explicanda accedit, quae nobis fidem commendant in Filium Dei Jesum Christum, Dominum, 0885B Deum nostrum. Christum in Veteri Testamento promissum verum hominem, verumque Deum esse, Scripturam Veteris Novique Foederis auctoritate probat; capite 18 errorem Sabellianorum refutat, et auctoritate SS. Litterarum distinctionem Patris et Filii confirmat, hujusque haeresiarchae objectionibus aliorumque dein respondet. De fide in Spiritum sanctum agit capite 18, inquiens: Deinceps fidei auctoritatem admonere nos, post Patrem et Filium, credere etiam in Spiritum sanctum: 0886A cujus operationes ex Scripturis recenset, et comprobat. Dein unitatem Dei cum ante disputatis conjungere studet, tandemque summam rerum expositarum exhibet.