Novatian — On the Trinity 15

If Christ is only man, how is it that He says, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: because I know whence I came, and whither I go; you know not whence I came, and whither I go. You judge after the flesh? Behold, also He says, that He shall return there whence He bears witness that He came before, as being sent — to wit, from heaven. He came down therefore from whence He came, in the same manner as He goes there from whence He descended.

Whence if Christ were only man, He would not have come thence, and therefore would not depart there, because He would not have come thence. Moreover, by coming thence, whence as man He could not have come, He shows Himself to have come as God. For the Jews, ignorant and untaught in the matter of this very descent of His, made these heretics their successors, seeing that to them it is said, You know not whence I come, and whither I go: you judge after the flesh.

As much they as the Jews, holding that the carnal birth of Christ was the only one, believed that Christ was nothing else than man; not considering this point, that as man could not come from heaven, so as that he might return there, He who descended thence must be God, seeing that man could not come thence. If Christ is only man, how does He say, You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world?

But therefore if every man is of this world, and Christ is for that reason in this world, is He only man? God forbid! But consider what He says: I am not of this world. Does He then speak falsely when He says of this world, if He is only man? Or if He does not speak falsely, He is not of this world; He is therefore not man only, because He is not of this world. But that it should not be a secret who He was, He declared whence He was: I, said He, am from above, that is, from heaven, whence man cannot come, for he was not made in heaven.

He is God, therefore, who is from above, and therefore He is not of this world; although, moreover, in a certain manner He is of this word: wherefore Christ is not God only, but man also. As reasonably in the way in which He is not of this world according to the divinity of the Word, so He is of this world according to the frailty of the body that He has taken upon Him. For man is joined with God, and God is linked with man.

But on that account this Christ here laid more stress on the one aspect of His sole divinity, because the Jewish blindness contemplated in Christ the aspect alone of the flesh; and thence in the present passage He passed over in silence the frailty of the body, which is of the world, and spoke of His divinity alone, which is not of the world: so that in proportion as they had inclined to believe Him to be only man, in that proportion Christ might draw them to consider His divinity, so as to believe Him to be God, desirous to overcome their incredulity concerning His divinity by omitting in the meantime any mention of His human condition, and by setting before them His divinity alone.

If Christ is man only, how does He say, I proceeded forth and came from God, when it is evident that man was made by God, and did not proceed forth from Him? But in the way in which as man He proceeded not from God, thus the Word of God proceeded, of whom it is said, My heart has uttered forth a good Word; which, because it is from God, is with reason also with God. And this, too, since it was not uttered without effect, reasonably makes all things: For all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.

But this Word whereby all things were made (is God). And God, says he, was the Word. Therefore God proceeded from God, in that the Word which proceeded is God, who proceeded forth from God. If Christ is only man, how does He say, If any man shall keep my word, he shall not see death for ever? Not to see death for ever! What is this but immortality? But immortality is the associate of divinity, because both the divinity is immortal, and immortality is the fruit of divinity.