▾
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
DE TRINITATE LIBER.
