Novatian — On the Trinity 2

II. 1. Above all which things he himself, containing all things, leaving nothing empty outside himself, has left place for no superior god, as some suppose, since he himself has enclosed the universe in the bosom of perfect greatness and power, always intent on his work and going through all things and moving all things and vivifying the universe and looking upon the whole and so joining discordant materials into the concord of all the elements that from unequal elements one world is so solidified by that compacted conspiracy that it can be dissolved by no force, except when he alone who made it has ordered it to be dissolved in order to furnish other greater things to us. 2. For we read that this one contains all things and therefore that nothing could have been outside him, inasmuch as he has no origin at all and consequently feels no exit, unless perhaps — which far be it — he sometime began to be and is not above all things, but while he began to be after something, is below that which was before him, found lesser in power while he is also marked later even by time itself. 3. For this reason, then, he is always immense, because nothing is greater than he, always eternal, because nothing is older than he. For that which is without origin can be preceded by no one, while it has no time. Therefore he is immortal, not failing in an end of consummation. And since whatever is without origin is without law, it shuts out a measure of time, while it feels itself debtor to no one. 4. About this one, then, and about those things which are his and are in him, neither can the mind of man worthily conceive what they are, how great they are, and of what sort they are, nor does the eloquence of human speech bring forth a force of speech equal to his majesty. 5. For toward thinking and toward speaking that majesty every eloquence is deservedly mute and every mind is small. For he is greater than mind itself and cannot be thought how great he is, lest if he could be thought he be lesser than the human mind by which he could be conceived. He is greater also than every speech and cannot be uttered, lest if he could be uttered he be lesser than human speech, by which when he is uttered he can also be gone around and gathered.

6. For whatever will have been thought about him will be less than he himself; and whatever will have been announced, compared with him, will be less around him. For silently we can sense him to some extent; but as he himself is, we cannot explain by speech. 7. For whether you will have called him light, you will have said his creature more than himself and will not have expressed him; or whether you will have called him virtue, you will have said and brought forth his power more than himself; or whether you will have said majesty, you will have described his honor more than him himself. 8. And why do I make it long by running through each several thing? I will explain the whole at once. Whatever at all you will have reported about him, you will have explained some thing of his and a power more than himself. 9. For what would you worthily either say or sense about him who is greater than all speeches and senses, except that in one way and this itself, as we can, as we take, as it is allowed to understand, we will grasp by mind what God is, if we will have thought him to be that which of what sort and how great it is cannot be understood and cannot come even into thought itself? 10. For if at the sight of the sun the sharpness of our eyes grows dull, lest the gaze look upon the disk itself, overcome by the brightness of rays meeting it, this same thing the mind’s sharpness suffers in every thought about God, and the more it is strained toward considering God, the more it is blinded by the light of its own thought. 11. For what, that I may repeat again, would you worthily say about him who is more sublime than every sublimity and higher than every height and deeper than every depth and brighter than every light and clearer than every clarity, more splendid than every splendor, stronger than every strength, more vigorous than every virtue, more beautiful than every beauty, truer than every truth and stronger than every fortitude and greater than every majesty and more powerful than every power and richer than all riches, more prudent than every prudence and kinder than every kindness, better than every goodness, more just than every justice, more clement than every clemency? 12. For the kinds of all virtues must necessarily be lesser than that very one who is both God and parent of all virtues, so that it can truly be said that God is that which is of such a kind that nothing can be compared to it. For he is above everything that can be said; for he is a certain mind begetting and filling all things, which without any beginning or end of time governs the naturally linked causes of things for the usefulness of all by highest and perfect reason.