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

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.

0885A

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, 0885BDeum 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: 0886Acujus operationes ex Scripturis recenset, et comprobat. Dein unitatem Dei cum ante disputatis conjungere studet, tandemque summam rerum expositarum exhibet.