Novatian — On the Trinity 23
Here I may also gather arguments from the side of other heretics. Firm is that kind of proof which is taken even from an adversary, so that truth is proved even by the enemies of truth. For it is so plain that he is handed down as God in the scriptures that many heretics, moved by the greatness and truth of his divinity, stretching his honors beyond measure, have dared to put forward or think not the Son but God the Father himself.
Others so embraced Christ’s plain divinity that they said he was without flesh and stripped from him the whole assumed man, lest they should cook down in him the power of the divine name if they joined, as they thought, a human birth. We do not approve that, but we bring the argument that Christ is so God that some thought him God only with the man subtracted, and some believed him the Father God — while the measure of the heavenly scriptures shows Christ God, but as Son of God, and that with the son of man also assumed by God he must be believed man. For if he was coming to man to be mediator of God and men, he had to be with him and the Word to become flesh, so that in himself he might buckle together the concord of earthly and heavenly things, while joining the pledges of both sides in himself and coupling God to man and man to God, so that deservedly the Son of God by assumption of flesh could be made son of man and the son of man by reception of God’s Word the Son of God. This highest and hidden sacrament, destined before the ages for the salvation of the human race, is found fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ God and man, so that the condition of the human race could be brought to the fruit of eternal salvation.
Latin
XXIII. 1. Hoc in loco licebit mihi argumenta etiam ex aliorum haereticorum parte conquirere. Firmum est genus probationis, quod etiam ab aduersario sumitur, ut ueritas etiam ab ipsis inimicis ueritatis probetur. 2. Nam usque adeo hunc manifestum est in scripturis et Deum tradi, ut plerique haereticorum diuinitatis ipsius magnitudine et ueritate commoti, ultra modum extendentes honores eius, ausi sint non Filium, sed ipsum Deum Patrem promere uel putare. 3. Quod etsi contra scripturarum ueritatem est, tamen diuinitatis Christi argumentum grande atque praecipuum est, qui usque adeo Deus, sed qua Filius Dei natus ex Deo, ut plerique illum, ut diximus, haeretici ita Deum acceperint, ut non Filium, sed Patrem pronuntiandum putarent. 4. Aestiment ergo an hic sit Deus, cuius auctoritas tantum mouit quosdam, ut putarent illum, ut diximus superius, iam ipsum Patrem Deum, effrenatius et effusius in Christo diuinitatem confitentes, ad hoc illos manifesta Christi diuinitate cogente ut, quem Filium legerent, quia Deum animaduerterent, Patrem putarent. 5. Alii quoque haeretici usque adeo Christi manifestam amplexati sunt diuinitatem, ut dixerint illum fuisse sine carne et totum illi susceptum detraxerint hominem, ne decoquerent in illo diuini nominis potestatem, si humanam illi sociassent, ut arbitrabantur, natiuitatem.
6. Quod tamen nos non probamus, sed argumentum afferimus usque adeo Christum esse Deum, ut quidam illum subtracto homine tantummodo putarint Deum, quidam autem ipsum crediderint Patrem Deum, cum ratio et temperamentum scripturarum caelestium Christum ostendant Deum, sed qua Filium Dei, et assumpto a Deo etiam filio hominis credendum et hominem. 7. Quoniam si ad hominem ueniebat, ut mediator Dei et hominum esse deberet, oportuit illum cum eo esse et uerbum carnem fieri, ut in semetipso concordiam confibularet terrenorum pariter atque caelestium, dum utriusque partis in se connectens pignora et Deum homini et hominem Deo copularet, ut merito Filius Dei per assumptionem carnis filius hominis et filius hominis per receptionem Dei uerbi Filius Dei effici possit. 8. Hoc altissimum atque reconditum sacramentum, ad salutem generis humani ante saecula destinatum, in Domino Iesu Christo Deo et homine inuenitur impleri, quo condicio generis humani ad fructum aeternae salutis posset adduci.