On the Trinity 17
Summary: Moses agrees with John: the Word through whom God created all things, and who made man in God's image and came down at Babel, is the Son, Christ, who is therefore God.
Latin text · PL 3:944c–946b
Quid si Moyses hanc eamdem regulam veritatis exsequitur, et hoc in principio suarum nobis tradidit Litterarum, quo discamus omnia creata et condita esse per Dei Filium, hoc est per Dei Verbum? Id enim dicit quod Joannes, quod caeteri; imo et Joannes et caeteri ab hoc intelliguntur accepisse quod dicant. Si enim Joannes dicit: Omnia per ipsum facta sunt, et sine ipso factum est nihil; Prophetes autem refert: Dico ego opera mea Regi; Moyses autem introducit praecipientem Deum ut lux fiat in primis, coelum firmetur, aquae congregentur, arida ostendatur, fructus secundum semina provocetur, animalia producantur, luminaria in coelo atque astra ponantur; non alium ostendit tunc adfuisse Deo cui praeciperentur haec opera ut fierent, nisi eum per quem facta sunt omnia, et sine quo factum est nihil. Ac si hic Verbum Dei est, nam eructavit cor meum verbum bonum, ostendit in principio Verbum fuisse, et Verbum hoc apud Patrem fuisse, Deum praeterea Verbum fuisse, omnia per ipsum facta esse. Sed enim hoc Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis, Christus scilicet Filius Dei; quem, dum et postmodum secundum carnem hominem accipimus, et ante mundi institutionem Dei Verbum et Deum videmus, merito secundum institutionem Veteris et Novi Testamenti, et Deum et hominem Christum Jesum et credimus et tenemus. Quid si idem Moyses introducit dicentem Deum: Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram: et infra, Et fecit Deus hominem, ad imaginem Dei fecit illum, masculum et feminam fecit eos? Si, ut jam docuimus, Dei Filius est per quem facta sunt omnia, utique Dei Filius est per quem etiam homo institutus est, propter quem facta sunt omnia. Sed enim Deo praecipiente ut homo fiat, Deus refertur esse qui hominem facit: facit autem hominem Dei Filius, Verbum scilicet Dei, per quem facta sunt omnia, et sine quo factum est nihil. Hoc autem Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis: ergo Christus est Deus. Per Christum igitur homo factus est, ut per Dei Filium. Sed Deus hominem ad imaginem Dei fecit; Deus est ergo qui fecit hominem ad imaginem Dei, Deus ergo Christus est: ut merito nec Veteris Testamenti circa personam Christi vacillet auctoritas, dum Novi Testamenti manifestatione fulcitur, nec Novi Testamenti intercepta sit potestas, dum radicibus Veteris Testamenti ejusdem nititur veritas. Ex quo, qui Christum, Dei Filium et hominis, tantummodo praesumunt hominem, non et Deum, contra Testamentum et Vetus et Novum faciunt, dum et Veteris et Novi Testamenti auctoritatem veritatemque corrumpunt. Quid si idem Moyses ubique introducit Deum Patrem immensum atque sine fine, non qui loco cludatur, sed qui omnem locum claudat: nec eum qui in loco sit, sed potius in quo omnis locus sit: omnia continentem et cuncta complexum, ut merito nec descendat nec ascendat, quoniam ipse omnia et continet et implet: et tamen nihilominus introducit Deum descendentem ad turrem quam aedificabant filii hominum considerare quaerentem, et dicentem: Venite; et mox: Descendamus, et confundamus illic ipsorum linguas, ut non audiat unusquisque vocem proximi sui? Quem volunt hic Deum descendisse ad turrem illam, et homines tunc Illos visitare quaerentem? Deum Patrem? Ergo jam loco clauditur: et quomodo ipse omnia complectitur? Aut numquid Angelum cum Angelis dicit descendentem, et dicentem: Venite; et mox: Descendamus et confundamus illic ipsorum linguas? Sed enim in Deuteronomio animadvertimus retulisse Deum haec. Deumque dixisse, ubi ponitur: Cum disseminaret filios Adam, statuit fines gentium juxta numerum angelorum Dei. Neque ergo Pater descendit, ut res indicat; neque Angelus ista praecipit, ut res probat. Superest ergo, ut ille descenderit, de quo apostolus Paulus: Qui descendit, ipse est qui ascendit super omnes coelos, ut impleret omnia, hoc est Dei Filius, Dei Verbum. Verbum autem Dei caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis: hic erit Christus: Deus ergo pronuntiabitur Christus.
English · Claude translation
What if Moses follows this same rule of truth, and has handed it down to us at the beginning of his writings, so that we may learn that all things were created and founded through the Son of God, that is, through the Word of God? For he says what John says, what the others say; indeed, John and the others are understood to have received from him what they say. For if John says, “All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made”; and the prophet declares, “I speak my works to the King”; and Moses presents God commanding first that light be made, the heaven made firm, the waters gathered, the dry land shown, fruit called forth according to its seeds, living creatures produced, lights and stars set in the heaven: he shows that no other was then present with God, to whom these works were commanded to be done, than he through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. And if this is the Word of God (for “my heart has uttered a good word”), he shows that the Word was in the beginning, and that this Word was with the Father, and moreover that the Word was God, and that all things were made through him. But this Word became flesh and dwelt in us, namely Christ, the Son of God; and since we both receive him afterwards as man according to the flesh, and see him before the founding of the world as the Word of God and God, we rightly, according to the ordering of the Old and New Testaments, both believe and hold Christ Jesus to be God and man.
What if the same Moses presents God saying, “Let us make man to our image and likeness”, and below, “And God made man; to the image of God he made him; male and female he made them”? If, as we have already shown, it is the Son of God through whom all things were made, surely it is the Son of God through whom man also was established, for whose sake all things were made. But when God commands that man be made, it is God who is reported to make man; and the Son of God makes man, namely the Word of God, through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. And this Word became flesh and dwelt in us: therefore Christ is God. Man, then, was made through Christ, as through the Son of God. But God made man to the image of God; he who made man to the image of God is therefore God; Christ therefore is God. So that rightly the authority of the Old Testament does not waver concerning the person of Christ, since it is propped up by the manifestation of the New Testament; nor is the power of the New Testament cut off, since its truth rests on the roots of the Old Testament. Hence those who presume Christ, the Son of God and of man, to be only man and not also God act against the Testament both Old and New, since they corrupt the authority and truth of both the Old and New Testaments.
What if the same Moses everywhere presents God the Father as immeasurable and without end, not one who is enclosed by place, but one who encloses every place; not one who is in a place, but rather in whom every place is; containing all things and embracing all, so that rightly he neither comes down nor goes up, since he himself both contains and fills all things; and yet nonetheless he presents God coming down to the tower that the sons of men were building, seeking to look at it, and saying, “Come”; and then, “Let us go down and confound their tongues there, so that each may not hear the voice of his neighbor”? Whom do they suppose to have come down here to that tower, seeking then to visit those men? God the Father? Then he is now enclosed by place; and how does he himself embrace all things? Or does he mean that an angel came down with angels, saying, “Come”, and then, “Let us go down and confound their tongues there”? But in Deuteronomy we observe that these things are reported of God, and that God said them, where it is written: “When he scattered the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.” Neither, then, did the Father come down, as the matter shows; nor did an angel command these things, as the facts prove. It remains, then, that he came down of whom the apostle Paul says: “He who came down is the same who ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things”, that is, the Son of God, the Word of God. But the Word of God became flesh and dwelt in us: this will be Christ: Christ therefore will be declared God.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations and allusions are Gen 1:3–16; John 1:3; Ps 45:1 (44:2 Vulg.); John 1:1, 14; Gen 1:26–27; Gen 11:5, 7; Deut 32:8 (in the LXX form “according to the number of the angels of God”); Eph 4:10. The point of the Deuteronomy passage seems to be that the dividing of the nations at Babel is ascribed to God himself, not to an angel; the reasoning is compressed.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (Migne's inline Scripture reference; OCR: b for h; OCR: misread word (the contrast with 'loco cludatur' requires 'claudat'); OCR: n for u; OCR: period for comma; OCR: u for a; OCR: u for n; OCR: uncertain character; editorial chapter summary (printed as a heading in ANF), not Novatian's text; removed like Migne's Argumentum in ch. 8): Item ex Moyse in principio sacrarum Litteracum. → ; Joanues → Joannes; factu sunt → facta sunt; ponantur (Gen. I); non → ponantur; non; praeciperentnr → praeciperentur; per que(??) facta → per quem facta; bominem → hominem; fulcitur. nec → fulcitur, nec; omnem locum eludat → omnem locum claudat; iu loco → in loco.
Cite this passage
Novatian, Trin. 17 (PL 3:944c–946b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/novatian-trinitate/17/).
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Plain text
Novatian, Trin. 17 (PL 3:944c–946b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/novatian-trinitate/17/).
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