Novatian, On the Trinity 30

I have spoken briefly about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, setting things forth succinctly without lengthy debate, though I could have treated the matter more extensively and argued it more fully, since the entire Old and New Testament can be summoned as witness that the true faith stands exactly as I have stated. However, because heretics who battle against the truth habitually drag the sincere tradition and the Catholic faith into controversy, scandalized by Christ because He is also God and is so proclaimed in Scripture and believed by us, we must rightly dispute that Christ is God in a way that impedes neither the truth of Scripture nor our own faith — the faith that holds and believes one God promised through the Scriptures. Both those who claim Jesus Christ is the Father Himself and those who insist He was merely a man have seized the roots and causes of their error and perversity from this very point: when they observed that Scripture writes there is one God, they thought they could maintain that confession only by deciding Christ must be either a mere man or the Father Himself. Thus they habitually gather their calumnies so as to try to validate their own error.

Those who call Jesus Christ the Father argue like this: if there is one God, and Christ is God, then Christ is the Father, because there is one God; but if Christ is not the Father, then — since Christ is the Son of God — two Gods appear to be introduced contrary to the Scriptures. Those who contend Christ is only a man reason the opposite way: if the Father is one and the Son another, and the Father is God and Christ is God, then two Gods are introduced together, the Father and the Son; and if there is one God, then Christ must consequently be a man so that the Father alone may be the one God. In truth the Lord is crucified between these two thieves just as He once was crucified, and so He receives the sacrilegious insults of these heretics from both sides. Yet neither the Holy Scriptures nor we supply the causes of their perdition and blindness if they either refuse to see or are unable to see the truths plainly set in the midst of the divine letters.

For we know, read, believe, and hold that there is one God who made heaven and earth alike, since we know no other and never will be able to know one, for none exists. 'I am,' He says, 'God, and there is no just and saving one besides Me' (Isaiah 44:6). And in another place: 'I am the first and the last, and there is no God besides Me. Who is like Me?' (Isaiah 44:6). And: 'Who has measured the heavens with a span, and the earth with a fist? Who has suspended the mountains in a balance, and the forests in a scale?' (Isaiah 40:12). And Hezekiah: 'that all may know that You are the only God' (Isaiah 37:16, 20). Moreover the Lord Himself: 'Why do you ask Me about what is good? There is one good God' (Matthew 19:17). The Apostle Paul also: 'He alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no human has seen or can see' (1 Timothy 6:16). And in another place: 'A mediator is not of one, but God is one' (Galatians 3:20).

But just as we hold, read, and believe this, so we must not pass over any part of the heavenly Scriptures: we must not refuse the signs of Christ's divinity placed in the Scriptures, lest by corrupting the authority of the Scriptures we be found to have corrupted the integrity of the holy faith. Therefore we should believe, since it is most faithful, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is our Lord and God: because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). This was in the beginning with God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). And: 'My Lord and my God' (John 20:28). And: 'of whom are the fathers, and from whom Christ came according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever' (Romans 9:5).

What then shall we say? Do the Scriptures propose two Gods? How then does it say there is one God? Or is Christ not God? How then was it said to Christ, 'My Lord and my God'? Therefore, unless we hold all this with proper reverence and legitimate reasoning, we will be thought to have given a scandal to the heretics — not because of any fault in the heavenly Scriptures, which never deceive, but because of the presumption of human error by which the heretics chose to be. First of all, this must be thrown back at those who presume to manufacture a controversy about two Gods for us. It is written, which they cannot deny, that there is one Lord (Deuteronomy 6:4; 1 Corinthians 8:6). What then do they think of Christ? That He is the Lord, or that He is not at all? But they do not doubt that He is the Lord; therefore, if their reasoning is true, there are already two Lords. How then is there one Lord according to the Scriptures? And Christ is said to be one Master; yet we read that the Apostle Paul is also a Master (1 Corinthians 4:15; 2 Timothy 1:11). So there is not one Master; for we infer two Masters from these things. How then is Christ one Master according to the Scriptures? One God is said to be good in the Scriptures; but in the same Scriptures Christ is also said to be good. Therefore, if they reason correctly, there is not one good but two goods. How then is there one good according to the faith of the Scriptures? And if they do not think any office can be attributed to the fact that there is one Lord through the fact that Christ is Lord; nor to the fact that there is one Master through the fact that Paul is Master; nor to the fact that there is one good through the fact that Christ is called good — by the same reasoning they should understand that an office cannot be taken away from the fact that there is one God by the fact that Christ is pronounced God.