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 XXV.192    According to Pamelius, ch. xx.  Argument.—And that It Does Not Follow Thence, that Because Christ Died It Must Also Be Received that God Died; For Scripture Sets Forth that Not Only Was Christ God, But Man Also.

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 us to believe that God died; or if God does not die, and Christ is said to have died, then Christ will not be God, because God cannot be admitted to have died. If they ever could understand or had understood what they read, they would never speak after such a perilous fashion. But the folly of error is always hasty in its descent, and it is no new thing if those who have forsaken the lawful faith descend even to perilous results. For if Scripture were to set forth that Christ is God only, and that there was no association of human weakness mingled in His nature, this intricate argument of theirs might reasonably avail something. If Christ is God, and Christ died, then God died. But when Scripture determines, as we have frequently shown, that He is not only God, but man also, it follows that what is immortal may be held to have remained uncorrupted. For who cannot understand that the divinity is impassible, although the human weakness is liable to suffering?  When, therefore, Christ is understood to be mingled and associated as well of that which God is, as of that which man is—for “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt in us”—who cannot easily apprehend of himself, without any teacher and interpreter, that it was not that in Christ that died which is God, but that in Him died which is man? For what if the divinity in Christ does not die, but the substance of the flesh only is destroyed, when in other men also, who are not flesh only, but flesh and soul, the flesh indeed alone suffers the inroads of wasting and death, while the soul is seen to be uncorrupted, and beyond the laws of destruction and death? For this also our Lord Himself said, exhorting us to martyrdom and to contempt of all human power: “Fear not those who slay the body, but cannot kill the soul.”193    Matt. x. 28. But if the immortal soul cannot be killed or slain in any other, although the body and flesh by itself can be slain, how much rather assuredly could not the Word of God and God in Christ be put to death at all, although the flesh alone and the body was slain! For if in any man whatever, the soul has this excellence of immortality that it cannot be slain, much more has the nobility of the Word of God this power of not being slain. For if the power of men fails to slay the sacred power of God, and if the cruelty of man fails to destroy the soul, much more ought it to fail to slay the Word of God. For as the soul itself, which was made by the Word of God, is not killed by men, certainly much rather will it be believed that the Word of God cannot be destroyed. And if the sanguinary cruelty of men cannot do more against men than only to slay the body, how much more certainly it will not have power against Christ beyond in the same way slaying the body! So that, while from these considerations it is gathered that nothing but the human nature in Christ was put to death, it appears that the Word in Him was not drawn down into mortality. For if Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, who, it is admitted, were only men, are manifested to be alive—for all they,194    [Luke xx. 38. A solemn admonition is found in the parallel Scripture, Matt. xxii. 29, which teaches us how much we ought to find beneath the surface of Holy Writ.] says He, “live unto God;” and death in them does not destroy the soul, although it dissolves the bodies themselves: for it could exercise its power on the bodies, it did not avail to exercise it on the souls: for the one in them was mortal, and therefore died; the other in them was immortal, and therefore is understood not to have been extinguished: for which reason they are affirmed and said to live unto God,—much rather death in Christ could have power against the material of His body alone, while against the divinity of the Word it could not bring itself to bear. For the power of death is broken when the authority of immortality intervenes.

CAPUT XXV, al. XX. Neque inde sequi, quia Christus mortuus, etiam Deum mortuum accipi: non enim tantummodo Deum, sed et hominem Christum Scriptura proponit.

Ergo, inquiunt, si Christus non homo est tantum, sed et Deus, Christum autem refert Scriptura mortuum pro nobis et ressuscitatum; jam docet nos Scriptura credere Deum mortuum: aut si Deus non 0935A moritur, Christus autem mortuus refertur; non erit Christus Deus, quoniam Deus non potest accipi mortuus. Si umquam intelligerint, aut intellexissent quod legunt, numquam tam periculose omnino loquerentur. Sed erroris semper est abrupta dementia; et non est novum si usque ad periculosa descendunt, qui fidem legitimam reliquerunt. Si enim Scriptura proponeret Christum tantummodo Deum, et nulla in illo fragilitatis humanae sociatio esset permixta, merito illorum heic aliquid valuisset sermo contortus. Si Christus Deus, Christus autem mortuus, ergo mortuus est Deus. Sed cum non tantummodo illum, ut ostendimus jam frequenter, Deum, sed et hominem Scriptura constituat; consequens est, quod immortale est, incorruptum mansisse teneatur. Quis enim 0935B non intelligat, quod impassibilis sit divinitas, passibilis vero sit humana fragilitas? Cum ergo tam ex eo quod Deus est, quam etiam ex illo quod homo est, Christus intelligatur esse permixtus et esse sociatus: Verbum enim caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis (Joan. I, 14), quis non sine ullo magistro atque interprete ex sese facile cognoscat, non illud in Christo mortuum esse quod Deus est, sed illud in illo mortuum esse quod homo est? Quid enim si divinitas in Christo non moritur, sed carnis solius substantia extinguitur; quando et in caeteris hominibus, qui non sunt caro tantummodo, sed caro et anima, caro quidem sola incursum interitus mortisque patitur, extra leges autem interitus et mortis anima incorrupta cernatur? Hoc enim et ipse Dominus hortans 0935C nos ad martyrium et ad contemptum omnis humanae potestatis aiebat: Ne timueritis eos qui corpus occidunt, animam autem occidere non possunt (Matth. X, 28). Quod si anima immortalis occidi aut interfici non potest in quovis alio, licet corpus et caro sola possit interfici, quanto magis utique Verbum Dei et Deus in Christo interfici omnino non potuit, cum caro sola et corpus occisum sit? Si enim hanc habet generositatem immortalitatis anima in quovis homine, ut non possit interfici, multo magis hanc habet potestatem generositas Verbi Dei, ut non possit occidi. Nam si potestas hominum ad interficiendam sacram Dei potestatem, et si crudelitas humana ad interficiendam animam deficit; multo magis ad Dei Verbum interficiendum deficere debebit. Nam cum ipsa anima, 0935D quae per Dei Verbum facta est, ab hominibus non occiditur; multo magis utique Verbum Dei perimi non posse credetur. Et si plus non potest hominum 0936A cruenta saevitia adversus homines, quam ut tantummodo corpus occidat; quanto magis utique in Christo non valebit, quam ut idem tantummodo corpus occidat: ut dum per haec colligitur non nisi hominem in Christo interfectum, appareat ad mortalitatem Sermonem in loco non esse deductum. Nam si Abraham, et Isaac, et Jacob quos homines tantummodo constat fuisse, manifestum est vivere (omnes enim, inquit, illi vivunt Deo (Luc. XX, 38), nec mors in illis animam perimit, quae corpora ipsa dissolvit; jus enim suum exercere potuit in corpora, in animas exercere non valuit: aliud enim in illis mortale, et ideo mortuum; aliud in illis immortale, et ideo intelligitur non extinctum! ob quam causam vivere Deo pronuntiati, et dicti sunt); multo magis utique 0936B mors in Christo adversum solam materiam corporis potuit valere, adversus divinitatem sermonis non potuit se exercere . Frangitur enim potestas mortis, ubi intercedit auctoritas immortalitatis.