Novatian, On the Trinity 3

We therefore acknowledge and know this God as the Creator of all things, as Lord on account of his power, and as Father on account of his governance. He spoke, and all things came into being; he commanded, and the universe proceeded forth. Scripture says of him, 'You made all things in wisdom' (Psalm 104:24). Moses declares, 'God is in heaven above and on the earth beneath' (Deuteronomy 4:39). According to Isaiah, he measured the heavens with a palm's breadth and the earth with his fist (Isaiah 40:12). He looks at the earth, and it trembles (Psalm 104:32). He holds the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers (Isaiah 40:22). He weighs the mountains in a balance and the forests in a scale—that is, by a precise examination of divine ordering. Moreover, lest the earth's vast mass, unevenly spread, collapse into ruin, he balanced it with equal weights and so moderately stabilized this burden of earthly matter. Through the prophet he says, 'I am God, and there is no other besides me' (Isaiah 45:5). Through the same prophet he declares that he will not give his glory to another (Isaiah 42:8); thus he excludes all Gentiles with their fabrications and all heretics, proving that God is not an artifact made by an artisan's hand, nor a fiction invented by a heretic's mind. For that is not God for whom an artisan must be sought in order to exist. He added further through the prophet: 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is the footstool of my feet; what kind of house will you build for me, and what place will be my rest?' (Isaiah 66:1-2). He says this to show that the temple cannot contain him whom the world cannot contain. He speaks these things not for his own boasting but for our knowledge. He himself does not desire glory of greatness from us; rather, as a Father he wishes to impart to us religious wisdom. Furthermore, desiring to draw our savage minds—swollen with rustic barbarity and roughness—toward gentleness, he says: 'But upon whom will my Spirit rest, if not upon the humble and quiet and those who tremble at my words?' (Isaiah 66:2). He does this so that one may be able to recognize how great God is, while learning to fear him through the Spirit bestowed. Similarly, desiring to come even more fully into our knowledge, and stirring our minds to cultivate him, he was saying: 'I am the Lord, who made light and created darkness' (Isaiah 45:7)—so that we might not suppose some unknown nature to be the artisan of these alternations by which nights and days are governed, but rather recognize God as the Creator, which is the truth. Since we cannot see him with our physical eyes, we learn his greatness, power, and majesty from his works. For, as the apostle Paul says, his invisible attributes—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, understood through the things that have been made (Romans 1:20). Thus the human mind, learning hidden things from manifest ones, may contemplate the greatness of the Artisan from the magnitude of the works it sees. Concerning him the same apostle declares: 'Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever' (1 Timothy 1:17). He has escaped the contemplation of the eyes, having surpassed the magnitude of thought. For, Paul says, all things are from him and through him and in him (Romans 11:36). All things exist by his command, so that they may be from him; all things are ordered by his word, so that they may be through him; and all things fall under his judgment, so that—while they await freedom, having laid aside corruption—they may appear to have been recalled to him.