Novatian, On the Trinity 28

I will also add that other part in which the heretic, as it were rejoicing with his own eye after losing the truth and the light, may recognize the total blindness of his error. For he repeatedly and frequently objects that it was said: 'I have been with you for so long a time, and you do not know me? Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the Father' (John 14:9). But what he does not understand, let him learn. Philip is blamed, and rightly and deservedly so, because he said: 'Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.' For when had he ever heard or learned from Christ that Christ was the Father, since, on the contrary, he had heard and learned more frequently that Christ was the Son, not because he was the Father? For what the Lord said — 'If you have known me, you have also known my Father, and from now on you know him and have seen him' — he did not say so that he himself might be understood as the Father, but because whoever approaches the Son of God with total faith and total religion, in every way through that Son in whom he so believes, is going to come to the Father and will see him. For no one, he says, can come to the Father except through me (John 14:6), and therefore one is not only going to come to God the Father and know him, but also must hold and presume in mind and spirit as if he already knows the Father and has seen him. For divine Scripture often announces things not yet done as if they were already done, because they are going to be so, and it declares things that must happen in every way, not as if they were going to happen, but as if they had already happened. Finally, when Christ had not yet been born in the times of the prophet Isaiah, it was said: 'For a child has been born to us' (Isaiah 9:6); and when he had not yet come to Mary, it was said to the prophet: 'Behold, she has conceived and will bear a son' (Isaiah 7:14); and when Christ had not yet revealed the bosom of the Father, it was reported: 'His name will be called Angel of Great Counsel'; and when he had not yet suffered, it was proclaimed: 'He was led to slaughter' (Isaiah 53:7); and when the cross did not yet exist anywhere, it was said: 'All day long I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient people' (Isaiah 65:2; Romans 10:21); and when he had not yet been insultingly given drink, it was said: 'They gave me vinegar to drink' (Psalm 69:21); and when he had not yet been stripped, it was said: 'They cast lots for my garment' (Psalm 22:18), 'They numbered my bones' (Psalm 22:17), 'They pierced my hands and my feet' (Psalm 22:16). For divine Scripture, foreseeing, speaks of future things as done, because it knows they will come to pass, and of future perfections as perfect, which are certainly going to come. And therefore the Lord said in this present place: 'From now on you know him and have seen him.' For he said that the Father would be seen by whoever had followed the Son; not as if the Son himself were the Father seen, but because whoever would follow the Son and wished to be his disciple would receive the reward of being able to see the Father. For the Son is also the image of God the Father (Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3), so that this may be added: just as the Father works, so the Son also works, and the Son is the imitator of all the Father's works; so that each one may have it as if he had already seen the Father, while he sees the one who always imitates the invisible Father in all works. But if Christ himself is the Father, how does he immediately add and say: 'Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father' (John 14:12)? And he still adds: 'If you love me, keep my commandments: and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate' (John 14:15–16). And after these he also adds: 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him' (John 14:23). Nor does he fail to add that also: 'But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you and remind you of all that I have said' (John 14:26). He premises that place to show that he is the Son, and rightly adds and says: 'If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I am going to the Father: for the Father is greater than I' (John 14:28). What, then, when he also adds: 'I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser: every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit' (John 15:1–2)? He presses on and adds: 'As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love' (John 15:9–10). He further introduces and says: 'I have called you friends, because all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you' (John 15:15). He gathers also this: 'But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me' (John 15:21). These things, therefore, which clearly testify that he is not the Father but the Son, the Lord would never have added after those earlier words, if he had either remembered that he was the Father or wanted to be understood as the Father. Unless it was so that he might express that each one ought to have it as if he already held the Father, while seeing the image of God the Father through the Son, and as if he had seen the Father — since each one believing in the Son is exercised in the contemplation of the image, so that, having become accustomed to seeing the divinity through the image, he may progress and grow unto the perfect contemplation of God the Father Almighty — and because whoever drinks this in with mind and spirit and believes that all these things will be so, will have the Father whom he is going to see as if he had already seen him and already holds him here, as if he possesses what he knows he will certainly possess. But if he himself had been the Father, what reward would he promise as if it were future, which he had already granted and given? For since he says: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God' (Matthew 5:8), he is caught promising the contemplation and vision of the Father. Therefore he had not yet given it: for why would he promise it if he had already given it? He would have given it if he were the Father; for he would have been seen and touched. But when Christ, while being touched and seen, still promises and says that whoever is pure in heart shall see God, this very fact proves that he is not the Father, who, being present while he was seen, was promising that whoever was pure in heart would see the Father. Therefore it was the Son, not the Father, who was promising these things; because the Son, who had something to be seen, was promising it: a promise that would have been superfluous unless he were the Son. For why would he promise the pure in heart that they would see the Father, if those who were present at that time were already seeing Christ the Father? But because he was the Son, not the Father, rightly the Son, because he is the image of God, was then visible, and the Father, because invisible, is promised and marked out to the pure in heart, that he may be seen. These things, then, are enough to have been said even against this heretic — a few things out of many. For a field, and indeed a broad and spread-out one, would be opened if we should wish to engage this heretic more fully; since, deprived of the light by two passages having been dug out, he is entirely overcome in the blindness of his doctrine.