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 X.  Argument.—That Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Truly Man, as Opposed to the Fancies of Heretics, Who Deny that He Took Upon Him True Flesh.

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 Scriptures of the Old Testament; especially as the things that were predicted of Him were fulfilled, and those things that were fulfilled had been predicted. As with reason I might truly and constantly say to that fanciful—I know not what—of those heretics who reject the authority of the Old Testament, as to a Christ feigned and coloured up from old wives’ fables: “Who art thou? Whence art thou? By whom art thou sent? Wherefore hast thou now chosen to come? Why such as thou art? Or how hast thou been able to come? Or wherefore hast thou not gone to thine own, except that thou hast proved that thou hast none of thine own, by coming to those of another?  What hast thou to do with the Creator’s world? What hast thou to do with the Creator’s man? What hast thou to do with the image of a body from which thou takest away the hope of resurrection? Why comest thou to another man’s servant, and desirest thou to solicit another man’s son? Why dost thou strive to take me away from the Lord? Why dost thou compel me to blaspheme, and to be impious to my Father? Or what shall I gain from thee in the resurrection, if I do not receive myself when I lose my body? If thou wishest to save, thou shouldest have made a man to whom to give salvation. If thou desirest to snatch from sin, thou shouldest have granted to me previously that I should not fall into sin. But what approbation of law dost thou carry about with thee? What testimony of the prophetic word hast thou? Or what substantial good can I promise myself from thee, when I see that thou hast come in a phantasm and not in a bodily substance? What, then, hast thou to do with the form of a body, if thou hatest a body? Nay, thou wilt be refuted as to the hatred of bearing about the substance of a body, since thou hast been willing even to take up its form. For thou oughtest to have hated the imitation of a body, if thou hatedst the reality; because, if thou art something else, thou oughtest to have come as something else, lest thou shouldest be called the Son of the Creator if thou hadst even the likeness of flesh and body. Assuredly, if thou hatedst being born because thou hatedst ‘the Creator’s marriage-union,’ thou oughtest to refuse even the likeness of a man who is born by the ‘marriage of the Creator.’”

Neither, therefore, do we acknowledge that that is a Christ of the heretics who was—as it is said—in appearance and not in reality; for of those things which he did, he could have done nothing real, if he himself was a phantasm, and not reality. Nor him who wore nothing of our body in himself, seeing “he received nothing from Mary;” neither did he come to us, since he appeared “as a vision, not in our substance.” Nor do we acknowledge that to be Christ who chose an ethereal or starry flesh, as some heretics have pretended. Nor can we perceive any salvation of ours in him, if in him we do not even recognise the substance of our body; nor, in short, any other who may have worn any other kind of fabulous body of heretical device. For all such fables as these are confuted as well by the nativity as by the death itself of our Lord. For John says: “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us;”69    John i. 14. [Of fables and figments, see cap. viii. p. 617.] so that, reasonably, our body should be in Him, because indeed the Word took on Him our flesh. And for this reason blood flowed forth from His hands and feet, and from His very side, so that He might be proved to be a sharer in our body by dying according to the laws of our dissolution. And that He was raised again in the same bodily substance in which He died, is proved by the wounds of that very body, and thus He showed the laws of our resurrection in His flesh, in that He restored the same body in His resurrection which He had from us. For a law of resurrection is established, in that Christ is raised up in the substance of the body as an example for the rest; because, when it is written that “flesh and blood do not inherit the kingdom of God,”70    1 Cor. xvi. 50. [Vol. iii. p. 521, this series.] it is not the substance of the flesh that is condemned, which was built up by the divine hands that it should not perish, but only the guilt of the flesh is rightly rebuked, which by the voluntary daring of man rebelled against the claims of divine law. Because in baptism and in the dissolution of death the flesh is raised up and returns to salvation, by being recalled to the condition of innocency when the mortality of guilt is put away.

CAPUT X. Jesum Christum Dei Filium esse, et vere hominem: contra haereticos phantasiastas, qui veram carnem illum suscepisse negabant.

0901D

0902A Sed illud admoneo, non alterum in Evangelio Christum expectandum fuisse, quam hunc a Creatore Veteris Testamenti litteris ante promissum; maxime cum et quae de ipso praedicta sunt impleta sint, et quae impleta sunt ante praedicta sint. Ut merito haereticorum istorum Testamenti Veteris auctoritatem respuentium, nescio cui commentitio et ex fabulis anilibus ficto Christo atque fucato possim vere et constanter dicere: Quis es? unde es? a quo missus es? quare nunc venire voluisti? quare talis? vel qua venire potuisti? vel quare non ad tuos abisti? nisi quod probasti tuos non habere, dum ad alienos venis? Quid tibi cum mundo creatoris? quid tibi cum homine conditoris? quid tibi cum figmento corporis, cui eripis spem resurrectionis? quid ad alienum venis 0902B famulum, alienum sollicitare desideras filium? quid me a Domino eripere conaris? quid me in Patrem blasphemare atque impium esse compellis? aut quid sum a te in resurrectione consecuturus, qui me ipsum non recipio dum corpus amitto? Si salvare vis, fecisses hominem cui salutem dares. Si a delicto eripere cupis, ante mihi ne derelinquerem contulisses. Quod autem tecum suffragium circumfers legis? Quod habes testimonium propheticae vocis? aut quid mihi possum de te solidum repromittere, cum te videam in phantasmate et non in soliditate venisse? Quid ergo tibi cum figura corporis, si corpus odisti? immo revinceris corporis quod odisti circumferre substantiam, cujus suscipere voluisti etiam figuram. Odisse enim debueras corporis imitationem, si oderas 0902C veritatem. Quoniam si alter es, aliter venire debueras: ne dicereris filius creatoris, si vel imaginem habuisses carnis et corporis. Certe si oderas nativitatem, quia creatoris oderas nuptiarum conjunctionem, recusare debueras etiam imitationem hominis, qui per nuptias nascitur creatoris. Neque igitur eum haereticorum agnoscimus Christum, qui in imagine (ut dicitur) fuit et non in veritate: nihil enim verum eorum quae gessit fecerit, si ipse phantasma et non veritas fuit: neque eum, qui nihil in se nostri corporis gessit, dum ex Maria nihil accepit, ne non nobis venerit; dum non in nostra substantia visus apparuit. Neque illum, qui aetheream sive sideream, ut alii voluerunt haeretici, voluit carnem; ne ullam in illo nostro intelligamus salutem, si non etiam nostri 0902D corporis cognoscamus soliditatem: nec ullum omnino alterum qui quodvis aliud ex figmento haereticorum gesserit corpus fabularum. Omnes enim istos et nativitas Domini et mors ipsa confutat. Nam et (Joan. I, 0903A 14) Verbum, inquit Joannes, caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis. Ut merito corpus nostrum in illo fuerit quoniam quidem nostram carnem Sermo suscepit. Et sanguis idcirco de manibus ac pedibus, atque ipso latere demanavit, ut nostri consors corporis probaretur, dum occasus nostri legibus moritur. Qui dum in eadem substantia corporis in qua moritur, ressuscitatus ipsius corporis vulneribus comprobatur, etiam resurrectionis nostrae leges in sua carne monstravit, qui corpus, quod ex nobis habuit, in sua resurrectione restituit. Lex enim resurrectionis ponitur, dum Christus ad exemplum caeterorum in substantia corporis suscitatur. Quoniam, cum (I Cor. XVI, 50) caro et sanguis non obtinere regnum Dei scribitur, non carnis substantia damnata est, quae divinis manibus, ne periret, 0903B exstructa est; sed sola carnis culpa merito reprehensa est, quae voluntaria hominis temeritate contra legis divinae jura grassata est. Quia in Baptismate et in mortis dissolutione, sublata caro ad salutem revertitur: dum ad statum innocentiae, deposita criminis mortalitate, revocatur.