Novatian — On the Trinity 15
XV. 1. If Christ is man only, how does he say: Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is true; because I know where I came from and where I am going; you judge according to the flesh? See, here too he says he will return there whence he testifies he came before, sent namely from heaven. He therefore descended whence he came, just as he goes there whence he descended. From which, if Christ were man only, he would not have come from there; and therefore he would not go there, because he would not have come from there. But by coming from there, whence a man cannot come, he showed that he came as God. 2. But the Jews, ignorant and unskilled about this very descent, made these heretics their heirs, to whom it is said: You do not know where I come from and where I am going; you judge according to the flesh. Both these and the Jews, holding Christ’s birth to be only fleshly, believed Christ to be nothing other than man, not considering that, since a man could not come from heaven so as to be able deservedly to return there, he who descended from there, whence a man could not come, is God. 3. If Christ is man only, how does he say: You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world? Therefore, if every man is of this world and therefore Christ is in this world, is he man only? Far from it. But consider what he says: I am not of this world. Does he then lie, since he would be of this world if he were man only? Or if he does not lie, he is not of this world. Therefore he is not man only, because he is not of this world. 4. But lest who he was should be hidden, he expressed whence he was: I, he says, am from above, that is from heaven, whence a man cannot come; for he was not made in heaven. He is therefore God who is from above and for that reason is not of this world. Although in a certain way he is also of this world. Whence Christ is not God only, but also man. So that, as he is not of this world according to the Word’s divinity, so he is of this world according to the frailty of the body he took; for man is joined with God and God coupled with man. 5. But for this reason Christ here leaned into the one part of divinity alone, because Jewish blindness looked only at the flesh part in Christ, and so in the present place, with the body’s frailty which is of the world passed over in silence, he spoke only of his divinity, which is not of the world, so that as far as they had leaned to believe him man only, so far Christ could draw them to consider his divinity, that they might believe him God, wanting to overcome their unbelief about his divinity by opposing divinity alone for the time being, with mention of the human lot omitted. 6. If Christ is man only, how does he say: I came forth from God and have come, when it is settled that man was made by God, not that he proceeded from God? But as man did not proceed from God, so God’s Word proceeded, of which it was said: My heart has belched a good word, which, because it is from God, is deservedly also with God, and which, because it was not brought forth idle, deservedly makes all things. For all things were made through him and without him nothing was made. But this Word, through which all things were made, is God. And God, it says, was the Word. God therefore proceeded from God, while the Word that proceeded is God who proceeded from God.
7. If Christ is man only, how does he say: If anyone keeps my word, he will not see death forever? Not to see death forever — what else is that than immortality? But immortality is companion to divinity, because divinity is immortal and immortality is divinity’s fruit. But every man is mortal, and immortality cannot be from what is mortal. Therefore immortality cannot be born from a mortal man Christ. But he who keeps my word, he says, will not see death forever. Therefore Christ’s word grants immortality and through immortality grants divinity. But if he himself mortal cannot bring it about that he make another immortal, yet this word of Christ both brings about and grants immortality, he who grants immortality is not man only — which, if he were man only, he could not grant; but by granting divinity through immortality he proves himself God by extending divinity, which, unless he were God, he could not grant. 8. If Christ is man only, how does he say: Before Abraham I am? For no man can be before him from whom he himself is, nor can it happen that anything was earlier before that from which it itself took origin. But Christ, though from Abraham, says he is before Abraham. Either he lies and deceives, then, if he who was from Abraham was not before Abraham, or he does not deceive if he is also God, while he was before Abraham. Which, unless he had been, he consequently could not, though from Abraham, be before Abraham. 9. If Christ is man only, how does he say: And I know them and my own follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish forever? But since every man is bound by mortality’s laws and therefore cannot preserve even himself forever, much less will he be able to preserve another forever. Yet Christ promises he will give salvation forever. Which if he does not give, he is a liar; if he gives, he is God. But he does not deceive, for he gives what he promises. He is therefore God, who extends perpetual salvation, which a man, who cannot preserve himself, will not be able to grant to another. 10. If Christ is man only, what is it that he says: I and the Father are one? For how are I and the Father one, if he is not both God and Son, who can for that reason be called one, while he is from him and while he is his Son and while he is born from him, while he is found to have proceeded from him, through which he is also God? 11. When the Jews thought this invidious and believed it blasphemous because by these words he had shown Christ to be God and therefore had run to stones and longed to cast rock-blows, he strongly refuted his adversaries by the example and testimony of the Scriptures. If it called them gods, he says, to whom the word was made, and Scripture cannot be dissolved: do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into this world that you blaspheme, because I said: I am the Son of God? 12. By which words he neither denied himself God; rather he confirmed that he is God. For because without doubt those to whom the word was made are said to be gods, much more is this one God who is found better than all of them. And nonetheless he fittingly refuted the false charge of blasphemy by a lawful arrangement. For he wants himself understood as God in such a way that he wished to be understood as the Son of God and not the Father himself. For he said he had been sent and showed he had displayed many works from the Father, from which he wished to be understood not as the Father but as the Son, and in the last part of the defense he made mention of the Son, not the Father, saying: You say that I blaspheme, because I said: I am the Son of God? 13. So as concerns the charge of blasphemy, he says he is Son, not Father; but as concerns his own divinity, by saying I and the Father are one he proved himself both Son and God. He is therefore God — but God in such a way that he is Son, not Father.
Latin
XV. 1. Si homo tantummodo Christus, quomodo ait: Etsi ego de me testificor, uerum est testimonium meum; quia scio unde uenerim et quo eam, uos secundum carnem iudicatis? Ecce et hic illuc se dicit rediturum, unde se testificatur ante uenisse, missum scilicet de caelo. Descendit ergo unde uenit, quomodo illuc uadit unde descendit. Ex quo si homo tantummodo Christus esset, non inde uenisset; atque ideo nec illuc abiret, quoniam non inde uenisset. Veniendo autem inde, unde homo uenire non potest, Deum se ostendit uenisse. 2. Sed enim huius ipsius descensionis ignari et imperiti Iudaei heredes sibi haereticos istos reddiderunt, quibus dicitur: Vos ignoratis unde ueniam et quo eam: uos secundum carnem iudicatis. Tam isti quam Iudaei carnalem solam esse Christi natiuitatem tenentes nihil aliud Christum esse quam hominem crediderunt, non considerantes illud, quoniam [,cum] de caelo homo non potuerit uenire, ut merito illuc posset redire, Deum esse qui inde descenderit, unde homo uenire non potuerit. 3. Si homo tantummodo Christus, quomodo dicit: Vos ex inferioribus estis, ego de sursum sum; uos de hoc mundo estis, ego non sum de hoc mundo? Ideo autem si omnis homo ex hoc mundo est et ideo in hoc mundo est Christus, an homo tantummodo est? Absit. Sed considera quod ait: Ego non sum de hoc mundo. Numquid ergo mentitur, cum ex hoc mundo sit, si homo tantummodo sit? Aut si non mentitur, non est ex hoc mundo. Non ergo homo tantummodo est, quia ex hoc mundo non est. 4. Sed ne lateret, quis esset, expressit unde esset: Ego, inquit, de sursum sum, hoc est de caelo, unde homo uenire non potest; non enim in caelo factus est. Deus est ergo qui de sursum est et idcirco de hoc mundo non est. Quamquam etiam quodammodo ex hoc mundo est. Vnde non Deus tantum est Christus, sed et homo. Vt merito quomodo non est ex hoc mundo secundum uerbi diuinitatem, ita ex hoc mundo sit secundum suscepti corporis fragilitatem; homo est enim cum Deo iunctus et Deus cum homine copulatus. 5. Sed idcirco nunc hic Christus in unam partem solius diuinitatis incubuit, quoniam caecitas Iudaica solam in Christo partem carnis aspexit, et inde in praesenti loco silentio praeterita corporis fragilitate, quae de mundo est, de sua sola diuinitate locutus est, quae de mundo non est, ut in quantum illi inclinauerant ut hominem illum tantummodo crederent, in tantum illos Christus posset ad diuinitatem suam considerandam trahere, ut se Deum crederent, uolens illorum incredulitatem circa diuinitatem suam omissa interim commemoratione sortis humanae solius diuinitatis oppositione superare. 6. Si homo tantummodo Christus, quomodo dicit: Ego ex Deo prodii et ueni, cum constet hominem a Deo factum esse, non ex Deo processisse? Ex Deo autem homo quomodo non processit, sic Dei uerbum processit, de quo dictum est: Eructauit cor meum uerbum bonum, quod quoniam ex Deo est, merito et apud Deum est, quodque quia non otiose prolatum, merito omnia facit. Omnia enim per ipsum facta sunt et sine ipso factum est nihil. Sed enim hoc uerbum, per quod facta sunt omnia, <Deus est>. Et Deus, inquit, erat uerbum. Deus ergo processit ex Deo, dum qui processit sermo Deus est qui processit ex Deo.
7. Si homo tantummodo Christus, quomodo ait: Si quis uerbum meum seruauerit, mortem non uidebit in aeternum? Mortem in aeternum non uidere, quid aliud quam immortalitas est? Immortalitas autem diuinitati socia est, quia et diuinitas immortalis est et immortalitas diuinitatis fructus est. Sed enim omnis homo mortalis est, immortalitas autem ex mortali non potest esse. Ergo ex Christo homine mortali immortalitas non potest nasci. Sed qui uerbum custodierit, inquit, meum, mortem non uidebit in aeternum. Ergo uerbum Christi praestat immortalitatem et per immortalitatem praestat diuinitatem. Quodsi non potest exhibere ut immortalem alterum faciat ipse mortalis, hoc autem Christi uerbum exhibet pariter et praestat immortalitatem, non utique homo tantum est qui praestat immortalitatem, quam, si tantummodo homo esset, praestare non posset; praestando autem diuinitatem per immortalitatem Deum se probat diuinitatem porrigendo, quam, nisi Deus esset, praestare non posset. 8. Si homo tantummodo Christus, quomodo inquit: Ante Abraham ego sum? Nemo enim hominum ante eum potest esse ex quo ipse est nec potest fieri ut quicquam prius fuerit ante illum ex quo ipsum originem sumpsit. Sed enim Christus cum ex Abraham sit, ante Abraham esse se dicit. Aut mentitur igitur et fallit, si ante Abraham non fuit, qui ex Abraham fuit, aut non fallit, si etiam Deus est, dum ante Abraham fuit. Quod nisi fuisset, consequenter cum ex Abraham fuisset, ante Abraham esse non posset. 9. Si homo tantummodo Christus, quomodo ait: Et ego agnoscam eas et sequuntur me meae, et ego uitam aeternam do illis, et numquam peribunt in perpetuum? Sed enim cum omnis homo mortalitatis sit legibus alligatus et idcirco in perpetuum se ipse seruare non posset, multo magis in perpetuum alterum seruare non poterit. At in perpetuum se Christus repromittit salutem daturum. Quam si non dat, mendax est; si dat, Deus est. Sed non fallit, dat enim quod repromittit. Deus est ergo, qui salutem perpetuam porrigit, quam homo, qui se ipsum seruare non potest, alteri praestare non poterit. 10. Si homo tantummodo Christus, quid est quod ait: Ego et Pater unum sumus? Quomodo enim ego et Pater unum sumus, si non et Deus est et Filius, qui idcirco unum potest dici, dum ex ipso est et dum Filius eius est et dum ex ipso nascitur, dum ex ipso processisse reperitur, per quod et Deus est? 11. Quod cum inuidiosum Iudaei putassent et blasphemum credidissent eo quod se ostenderat his sermonibus Christum esse Deum ac propterea ad lapides concurrissent et saxorum ictus inicere gestissent, exemplo et testimonio scripturarum aduersarios suos fortiter refutauit. Si illos, inquit, dixit deos, ad quos uerba facta sunt, et non potest solui scriptura: quem Pater sanctificauit et misit in hunc mundum uos dicitis quia blasphemas, quia dixi: Filius Dei sum ego? 12. Quibus uocibus neque se negauit Deum, quinimmo Deum se esse firmauit. Nam quia sine dubitatione dei esse dicuntur ad quos uerba facta sunt, multo magis hic Deus qui melior illis omnibus inuenitur. Et nihilominus calumniosam blasphemiam dispositione legitima congruenter refutauit. Deum enim se sic intellegi uult, ut Filium Dei et non ipsum Patrem uellet intellegi. Missum enim se esse dixit et multa opera se ex Patre ostendisse monstrauit, ex quo non Patrem se, sed Filium esse intellegi uoluit, et in ultima parte defensionis Filii, non Patris fecit mentionem dicendo: Vos dicitis quia blasphemas, quia dixi; Filius Dei sum? 13. Ita quod ad crimen blasphemiae pertinet, Filium se, non Patrem dicit, quod autem ad diuinitatem spectet ipsius, Ego et Pater unum sumus dicendo Filium se esse et Deum probauit. Deus est ergo, Deus autem sic, ut Filius sit, non Pater.