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 XII.  Argument.—That Christ is God, is Proved by the Authority of the Old Testament Scriptures.

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 authority of Scripture has never hesitated? For, behold, Hosea the prophet says in the person of the Father: “I will not now save them by bow, nor by horses, nor by horsemen; but I will save them by the Lord their God.”75    Hos. i. 7. If God says that He saves by God, still God does not save except by Christ. Why, then, should man hesitate to call Christ God, when he observes that He is declared to be God by the Father according to the Scriptures? Yea, if God the Father does not save except by God, no one can be saved by God the Father unless he shall have confessed Christ to be God, in whom and by whom the Father promises that He will give him salvation: so that, reasonably, whoever acknowledges Him to be God, may find salvation in Christ God; whoever does not acknowledge Him to be God, would lose salvation which he could not find elsewhere than in Christ God. For in the same way as Isaiah says, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and ye shall call His name Emmanuel, which is, interpreted, God with us;”76    Isa. vii. 14. so Christ Himself says, “Lo, I am with you, even to the consummation of the world.”77    Matt. xxviii. 20. Therefore He is “God with us;” yea, and much rather, He is in us. Christ is with us, therefore it is He whose name is God with us, because He also is with us; or is He not with us? How then does He say that He is with us? He, then, is with us. But because He is with us He was called Emmanuel, that is, God with us. God, therefore, because He is with us, was called God with us. The same prophet says: “Be ye strengthened, ye relaxed hands, and ye feeble knees; be consoled, ye that are cowardly in heart; be strong; fear not. Lo, our God shall return judgment; He Himself shall come, and shall save you:  then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear; then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be eloquent.”78    Isa. xxxv. 3, etc. Since the prophet says that at God’s advent these should be the signs which come to pass; let men acknowledge either that Christ is the Son of God, at whose advent and by whom these wonders of healings were performed; or, overcome by the truth of Christ’s divinity, let them rush into the other heresy, and refusing to confess Christ to be the Son of God, and God, let them declare Him to be the Father. For, being bound by the words of the prophets, they can no longer deny Christ to be God.  What, then, do they reply when those signs are said to be about to take place on the advent of God, which were manifested on the advent of Christ? In what way do they receive Christ as God? For now they cannot deny Him to be God. As God the Father, or as God the Son? If as the Son, why do they deny that the Son of God is God? If as the Father, why do they not follow those who appear to maintain blasphemies of that kind? unless because in this contest against them concerning the truth, this is in the meantime sufficient for us, that, being convinced in any kind of way, they should confess Christ to be God, seeing they have even wished to deny that He is God. He says by Habakkuk the prophet: “God shall come from the south, and the Holy One from the dark and dense mountain.”79    Heb. iii. 3. [See English margin, and Robinson, i. p. 552.] Whom do they wish to represent as coming from the south? If they say that it is the Almighty God the Father, then God the Father comes from a place, from which place, moreover, He is thus excluded, and He is bounded within the straitnesses of some abode; and thus by such as these, as we have said, the sacrilegious heresy of Sabellius is embodied. Since Christ is believed to be not the Son, but the Father; since by them He is asserted to be in strictness a bare man, in a new manner, by those, again, Christ is proved to be God the Father Almighty. But if in Bethlehem, the region of which local division looks towards the southern portion of heaven, Christ is born, who by the Scriptures is also said to be God, this God is rightly described as coming from the south, because He was foreseen as about to come from Bethlehem.  Let them, then, choose of the two alternatives, the one that they prefer, that He who came from the south is the Son, or the Father; for God is said to be about to come from the south. If the Son, why do they shrink from calling Him Christ and God? For the Scripture says that God shall come. If the Father, why do they shrink from being associated with the boldness of Sabellius, who says that Christ is the Father? unless because, whether they call Him Father or Son, from his heresy, however unwillingly, they must needs withdraw if they are accustomed to say that Christ is merely man; when compelled by the facts themselves, they are on the eve of exalting Him as God, whether in wishing to call Him Father or in wishing to call Him Son.

CAPUT XII. Deum enim Veteris Testamenti Scripturarum auctoritate probari.

Cur ergo dubitemus dicere, quod Scriptura non dubitat exprimere? cur haesitabit fidei veritas, in quo Scripturae numquam haesitavit auctoritas? Ecce enim Osee prophetes ait ex persona Patris: Jam non salvabo eos in arcu, neque in equis, neque in equitibus; sed salvabo eos in Domino Deo (Osee, I, 7) ipsorum. Si Deus salvare se dicit in Deo, non autem salvat nisi in Christo Deus: cur ergo homo dubitet Christum 0905C Deum dicere, quem Deum a Patre animadvertit positum per Scripturas esse? immo si non salvat nisi in Deo Pater Deus, salvari non poterit a Deo Patre quisquam, nisi confessus fuerit Christum Deum, in quo se et per quem se repromittit Pater salutem daturum; ut merito quisquis illum agnoscit esse Deum, salutem inveniat in Deo Christo; quisquis non recognoscit esse Deum, salutem perdiderit, quam alibi nisi in Christo Deo invenire non poterit. Quomodo enim Isaias: Ecce virgo concipiet, et pariet filium, et vocabitis nomen ejus Emmanuel (Isa., VII, 14); quod interpretatum est nobiscum Deus, sic Christus ipse dicit: Ecce ego vobiscum sum usque ad consummationem saeculi (Matth., XXVIII, 20). Est ergo nobiscum Deus, immo multo magis etiam in nobis est. Nobiscum 0905D est Christus: est ergo cujus nomen est, nobiscum Deus, quia et nobiscum est. Aut numquid non 0906A est nobiscum? quomodo ergo dicit se nobiscum esse? est ergo nobiscum. Sed quoniam nobiscum est; Emmanuel, id est, nobiscum Deus, dictus est. Deus ergo quia nobiscum est, nobiscum Deus dictus est. Idem Prophetes: Convalescite, manus dissolutae, et genua debilia, consolamini pusillanimes sensu, convalescite, nolite timere: ecce Deus noster judicium retribuet; ipse veniet et salvabit nos: tunc aperientur oculi caecorum, et aures surdorum audient; tunc saliet claudus sicut cervus, et diserta erit lingua mutorum (Isa., XXXV, 3, 4, 5, 6). Si in adventu Dei dicit Prophetes haec futura signa quae facta sunt; aut Dei Filium agnoscant Christum, in cujus adventu, et a quo haec sanitatum signa facta sunt; aut divinitatis Christi veritate superati, in alteram haeresim ruentes, Christum, dum Filium Dei et Deum confiteri nolunt, Patrem 0906B illum esse confiteantur. Vocibus enim Prophetarum inclusi, jam Christum Deum negare non possunt. Quid ergo respondent, cum in adventu Dei haec signa futura dicuntur, quae in adventu Christi gesta sunt, Christum qualiter accipiunt Deum? Deum enim jam negare non possunt. Qua Patrem? aut qua Filium? Si qua Filium; cur Dei Filium Deum negant? Si qua Patrem; cur eos non sequuntur; qui ejusmodi blasphemias tenere videntur? nisi quoniam nobis in hoc adversus illos de veritate certamine, hoc interim sufficit, ut quocumque genere convicti Christum confiteantur et Deum, quem etiam Deum negare voluerunt. Per Abacuc prophetam ait: Deus ab Africo veniet et sanctus de monte opaco et condenso (Abac., III, 3). Quem volunt isti ab Africo venire? Si venisse aiunt 0906C omnipotentem Deum Patrem, ergo de loco Deus Pater venit ex quo etiam loco cluditur, et intra sedis alicujus angustias continetur; et jam per istos, ut diximus, Sabelliana haeresis sacrilega corporatur. Siquidem Christus non Filius, sed Pater creditur; et novo more, dum ab istis districte homo nudus asseritur, per eos rursum Christus Pater Deus omnipotens comprobatur. At si in Bethlehem, cujus metaturae regio ad meridianam respicit plagam coeli, Christus nascitur, qui per Scripturas et Deus dicitur: merito Deus hic ab Africo venire describitur, quia a Bethlehem venturus esse praevidebatur. Eligant ergo ex duobus quid velint, hunc, qui ab Africo venit Filium esse, an Patrem: Deus enim dicitur ab Africo venturus. Si Filium, quid dubitant Christum et Deum 0906D dicere? Deum enim Scriptura dicit esse venturum: si Patrem, quid dubitant cum Sabellii temeritate 0907A misceri, qui Christum Patrem dicit? nisi quoniam, sive illum Patrem, sive Filium dixerint, ab haeresi sua, inviti licet, desciscant necesse est, qui Christum hominem tantummodo solent dicere: dum illum, rebus ipsis coacti, Deum incipiunt promere, sive dum illum Patrem, sive dum illum Filium voluerint nuncupare.