Novatian — On the Trinity 24

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. And you shall call His name Emmanuel ; which is, interpreted, God with us. 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 you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you; therefore also the Holy Thing which is born of you shall be called the Son of God .

If, then, say they, the angel of God says to Mary, that Holy Thing which is born of you, 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 you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you; therefore that Holy Thing which is born of you 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 fullness, divests itself of the calumnies of these heretics , we easily depend upon that that is written, and overcome those errors without any hesitation.