Novatian, On the Trinity 30

We have spoken briefly about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, keeping our statement concise and avoiding lengthy debate, though we could have expanded far more and argued at greater length because the entire Old and New Testament bears witness that the true faith stands exactly as we hold it. Yet since heretics who fight against the truth habitually drag the sincere tradition and the catholic faith into controversy, scandalized that Christ is also God and is both proclaimed in Scripture and believed by us to be so, we must dispute that Christ is God in a way that neither impedes the truth of Scripture nor our own faith, by which the one God is promised in Scripture and is held and believed by us. Both those who claim that Jesus Christ is the Father himself and those who insist that he is only a man have drawn the roots and causes of their error from this same point: when they observed that Scripture says there is one God, they concluded they could preserve that conviction only by deciding that Christ must be either a mere man or actually God the Father. That is how they habitually gather their slanders, striving 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 Scripture. Those who contend that Christ is only a man argue from the opposite direction: if the Father is one and the Son another, and the Father is God and Christ is God, then two Gods are introduced, the Father and the Son; and if there is one God, then Christ must be a man, so that the Father may rightly be the one God. In truth, the Lord is crucified between these two thieves just as he was once fixed on the cross, and so he receives the sacrilegious insults of these heretics from both sides. Yet neither the holy Scriptures nor we ourselves supply the causes of their perdition and blindness if they either refuse to see or cannot see the truths plainly set in the midst of the divine letters. We know, read, believe, and hold that there is one God who made heaven and earth alike, because we know no other and never will. 'I am,' he says, 'God, and there is no just and saving one besides me' (Isaiah 44:6). Again: 'I am the first and the last, and there is no God besides me' (Isaiah 44:6). 'Who is like me?' (Isaiah 44:7). 'Who has measured heaven with a span and the earth with a fist? Who has weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in scales?' (Isaiah 40:12). And Hezekiah prayed: 'that all may know that you alone are God' (Isaiah 37:16, 20). The Lord himself says: 'Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good' (Matthew 19:17). The apostle Paul also says: 'He alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see' (1 Timothy 6:16). And elsewhere: 'A mediator implies more than one party, 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, for we must not refuse the marks of Christ's divinity placed there, lest by corrupting the authority of Scripture we be found to have corrupted the integrity of the holy faith. Therefore we believe, because it is most faithful, that Jesus Christ the Son of God is our Lord and God: in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). He was in the beginning with God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). And Thomas cried, 'My Lord and my God!' (John 20:28). And again: 'From whom are the patriarchs, and from whom, according to the flesh, comes the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever' (Romans 9:5). What then shall we say? Does Scripture propose two Gods? How then does it say there is one God? Or does it not also say that Christ is God? How then was it said to Christ, 'My Lord and my God'? Unless we hold all this with proper reverence and sound reasoning, we will rightly be thought to have given a scandal to heretics, not from any fault in the heavenly Scriptures, which never fail, but from the presumption of human error by which heretics choose to be heretics. First, this must be thrown back at those who presume to manufacture a controversy about two Gods for us. It is written, and they cannot deny it, 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 the Lord 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 Scripture? Christ is called the one Teacher; yet we read that the apostle Paul is also a teacher (1 Timothy 2:7; 2 Timothy 1:11). So there is not one Teacher; by their logic we count two. How then is Christ the one Teacher according to Scripture? One God is called good in Scripture; but in the same Scriptures Christ is also called good (Mark 10:18). So if they reason correctly, there is not one good but two. How then is one good God affirmed according to the faith of Scripture? If they do not think that the fact there is one Lord can be reconciled with Christ being Lord; nor that the fact there is one Teacher can be reconciled with Paul being a teacher; nor that the fact there is one Good can be reconciled with Christ being called good; then by the same reasoning let them understand that the fact there is one God cannot be invalidated by the fact that Christ is declared to be God.