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 XXIV.185    According to Pamelius, ch. xix.  Argument.—That These Have Therefore Erred, by Thinking that There Was No Difference Between the Son of God and the Son of Man; Because They Have Ill Understood the Scripture.

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 the Son of man; because if a distinction were made, Jesus Christ would easily be proved to be both man and God. For they will have it that the self-same that is man, the Son of man, appears also as the Son of God; that man and flesh and that same frail substance may be said to be also the Son of God Himself. Whence, since no distinction is discerned between the Son of man and the Son of God, but the Son of man Himself is asserted to be the Son of God, the same Christ and the Son of God is asserted to be man only; by which they strive to exclude, “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”186    John i. 14.  “And ye shall call His name Emmanuel; which is, interpreted, God with us.”187    Matt. i. 23. For they propose and put forward what is told in the Gospel of Luke, whence they strive to maintain not what is the truth, but only what they want it to be: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also the Holy Thing which is born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”188    Luke i. 35. If, then, say they, the angel of God says to Mary, “that Holy Thing which is born of thee,” the substance of flesh and body is of Mary; but he has set forth that this substance, that is, that Holy Thing which is born of her, is the Son of God. Man, say they, himself, and that bodily flesh; that which is called holy, itself is the Son of God. That also when the Scripture says that “Holy Thing,” we should understand thereby Christ the man, the Son of man; and when it places before us the Son of God, we ought to perceive, not man, but God. And yet the divine Scripture easily convicts and discloses the frauds and artifices of the heretics. For if it were thus only, “The Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore that Holy Thing which is born of thee shall be called the Son of God,” perchance we should have had to strive against them in another sort, and to have sought for other arguments, and to have taken up other weapons, with which to overcome both their snares and their wiles; but since the Scripture itself, abounding in heavenly fulness, divests itself of the calumnies of these heretics, we easily depend upon that that is written, and overcome those errors without any hesitation. For it said, not as we have already stated, “Therefore the Holy Thing which shall be born of thee;” but added the conjunction, for it says, “Therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee,” so as to make it plain that that Holy Thing which is born of her—that is, that substance of flesh and body—is not the Son of God primarily, but consequently, and in the secondary place;189    “The miraculous generation is here represented as the natural, but by no means as the only cause for which He who had no human father was to receive the name of God’s Son.”—Oosterzee, in loco, on Luke.—Tr. but primarily, that the Son of God is the Word of God, incarnate by that Spirit of whom the angel says, “The Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.” For He is the legitimate Son of God who is of God Himself; and He, while He assumes that Holy Thing, and links to Himself the Son of man, and draws Him and transfers Him to Himself, by His connection and mingling of association becomes responsible for and makes Him the Son of God, which by nature He was not, so that the original cause190    Principalitas. of that name Son of God is in the Spirit of the Lord, who descended and came, and that there is only the continuance of the name in the case of the Son of man;191    The edition of Pamelius reads:  ut sequela nominis in Filio Dei et hominis sit. The words Dei et were expelled by Welchman, whom we have followed. and by consequence He reasonably became the Son of God, although originally He is not the Son of God. And therefore the angel, seeing that arrangement, and providing for that order of the mystery, did not confuse every thing in such a way as to leave no trace of a distinction, but established the distinction by saying, “Therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God;” lest, had he not arranged that distribution with his balances, but had left the matter all mixed up in confusion, it had really afforded occasion to heretics to declare that the Son of man, in that He is man, is the same as the Son of God and man. But now, explaining severally the ordinance and the reason of so great a mystery, he evidently set forth in saying, “And that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God;” the proof that the Son of God descended, and that He, in taking up into Himself the Son of man, consequently made Him the Son of God, because the Son of God associated and joined Him to Himself. So that, while the Son of man cleaves in His nativity to the Son of God, by that very mingling He holds that as pledged and derived which of His own nature He could not possess. And thus by the word of the angel the distinction is made, against the desire of the heretics, between the Son of God and man; yet with their association, by pressing them to understand that Christ the Son of man is man, and also to receive the Son of God and man the Son of God; that is, the Word of God as it is written as God; and thus to acknowledge that Christ Jesus the Lord, connected on both sides, so to speak, is on both sides woven in and grown together, and associated in the same agreement of both substances, by the binding to one another of a mutual alliance—man and God by the truth of the Scripture which declares this very thing.

CAPUT XXIV, al. XIX. Illos autem propterea errasse, quod nihil arbitrarentur interesse inter Filium Dei et filium hominis, ob Scripturam male intellectam.

0932C

Sed erroris istius haereticorum inde, ut opinor, nata materia est, quia inter Filium Dei et Filium hominis nihil arbitrantur interesse; ne facta distinctione, et Homo et Deus Jesus Christus facile comprobetur. Eumdem enim atque ipsum, id est hominem filium hominis, etiam Filium Dei volunt videri; ut homo et caro, et fragilis illa substantia eadem atque ipsa Filius Dei esse dicatur. Ex quo, dum distinctio filii hominis et Filii Dei nulla secernitur, 0932D sed ipse filius hominis Dei Filius vindicatur; homo tantummodo Christus idem atque Filius Dei asseratur. Per quod nituntur excludere: Verbum caro 0933Afactum est et habitavit in nobis (Joan. I, 14); Et vocabitis nomen ejus Emmanuel, quod est interpretatum Nobiscum Deus (Matth. I, 23). Proponunt enim atque illa praetendunt, quae in Evangelio Lucae relata sunt, ex quibus asserere conantur, non quod est, sed tantum illud quod volunt esse: Spiritus Sanctus veniet in te, et virtus Altissimi obumbrabit tibi; propterea et quod ex te nascetur sanctum, vocabitur Filius Dei (Luc. I, 35). Si ergo, inquiunt, Angelus Dei dicit ad Mariam, quod ex te nascetur sanctum, ex Maria est substantia carnis et corporis; hanc autem substantiam, id est sanctum hoc quod ex illa genitum est, Filium Dei esse proposuit: homo, inquiunt, ipse, et illa caro corporis, illud quod sanctum est dictum, ipsum est Filius Dei. Ut 0933B et cum dicit Scriptura sanctum, Christum filium hominis hominem intelligamus; et cum Filium Dei proponit, non hominem, sed Deum percipere debeamus. Sed enim Scriptura divina, haereticorum et fraudes et furta facile convincit et detegit. Si enim sic esset tantummodo, Spiritus veniet in te, et virtus Altissimi obumbrabit tibi, propterea quod nascetur es te sanctum, vocabitur Filius Dei; fortasse alio esset nobis genere adversus illos reluctandum, et alia nobis essent argumenta quaerenda et arma sumenda, quibus illorum et insidias et praestigias vinceremus: cum autem ipsa Scriptura coelesti abundans plenitudine sese haereticorum istorum calumniis exuat; facile ipso quod scriptum est nitimur, et errores istos sine ulla dubitatione superamus. Non enim dixit, ut jam expressimus, 0933Cpropterea quod ex te nascetur sanctum; sed adjecit conjunctionem: ait enim, propterea et quod ex te nascetur sanctum; ut illud ostenderet, non principaliter hoc sanctum quod ex illa nascitur, id est istam carnis corporisque substantiam Filium Dei esse, sed consequenter et in secundo loco: principaliter autem Filium Dei esse Verbum Dei incarnatum per illum Spiritum, de quo Angelus refert: Spiritus veniet in te, et virtus Altissimi obumbrabit tibi. Hic est enim legitimus Dei Filius qui ex ipso Deo est, qui dum sanctum istud assumit, et sibi Filium hominis annectit, et illum ad se rapit atque transducit, connexione sua et permixtione sociata praestat, et Filium illum Dei facit, quod ille naturaliter 0934A non fuit; ut principalitas nominis istius Filius Dei in Spiritu sit Domini, qui descendit et venit; ut sequela nominis in Filio Dei et hominis sit, et merito consequenter hic Filius Dei factus sit, dum non principaliter Filius Dei est. Atque ideo dispositionem istam Angelus videns, et ordinem istum sacramenti expediens, non sic cuncta confundens ut nullum vestigium distinctionis collocarit, distinctionem posuit, dicendo: Propterea et quod nascetur ex te sanctum, vocabitur Filius Dei: ne si distributionem istam cum libramentis suis non dispensasset, sed in confuso permixtam reliquisset, vere occasionem haereticis contulisset, ut hominis Filium, qua homo est, eumdem et Dei et hominis Filium pronuntiare deberent. Nunc autem particulatim exponens tam 0934B magni sacramenti ordinem atque rationem, evidenter expressit, ut diceret, et quod ex te nascetur sanctum, vocabitur Filius Dei; probans quoniam Filius Dei descendit: qui dum Filium hominis in se suscepit, consequenter illum Filium Dei fecit; quoniam illum Filius sibi Dei sociavit et junxit. Ut dum Filius hominis adhaeret in nativitatem Filio Dei; ipsa permixtione feneratum et mutuatum teneret, quod ex natura propria possidere non posset. Ac sic facta est Angeli voce, quod nolunt haeretici, inter Filium Dei hominisque, cum sua tamen sociatione, distinctio; urgendo illos uti Christum, hominis Filium, hominem intelligant quoque Dei Filium, et hominem Dei Filium, id est Dei Verbum (sicut scriptum est) Deum accipiant: atque ideo Christum Jesum Dominum, 0934C ex utroque connexum (ut ita dixerim), ex utroque contextum atque concretum, et in eadem utriusque substantiae concordia mutui ad invicem foederis confibulatione sociatum, hominem et Deum, Scripturae hoc ipsum dicentis veritate, cognoscant.