Novatian — On the Trinity 6

VI. 1. And although heavenly Scripture often turns the divine face toward human form when it says: The eyes of the Lord are upon the just, or when the Lord God smelled a smell of good fragrance, or when tablets written by God’s finger are handed to Moses, or when the people of Israel’s sons is freed from Egypt’s land by a strong hand and lofty arm, or when it says: For the Lord’s mouth has spoken these things, or when the earth is asserted to be the footstool of God’s feet, or when it says: Incline your ear and hear — yet we who say that the law is spiritual do not enclose the measure or figure of divine majesty within these outlines of our body, but pour it out, so to speak, upon its own fields of unbounded greatness without any end. 2. For it is written: If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I descend to the underworld, you are present; and if I take my wings and go across the sea, there your hand will seize me and your right hand will hold me. For we know Scripture’s reason about the tempering of arrangement. For by parables still according to faith’s time the prophet then spoke about God, not as God was, but as the people could take. Therefore that these things are so said about God should be charged not to God but rather to the people. 3. So also the people is permitted to raise a tabernacle, and yet God is not shut contained within the tabernacle. So also a temple is built, and yet God is not at all fenced within the temple’s narrows. God therefore is not mediocre, but the people’s sense is mediocre; nor is God narrow, but the people’s reason has a narrow understanding. 4. Finally in the Gospel the Lord said: The hour will come when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. And he gave reasons saying: God is Spirit; and those who worship must therefore worship in spirit and truth.

5. Therefore divine workings are shown there through members; God’s habit and bodily outlines are not set. For when eyes are described, it is expressed that he sees all. And when an ear, it is put forward that he hears all. And when a finger, a certain signifying of will is opened. And when nostrils, perception of prayers as of odors is shown. And when a hand, it is proved that he is author of every creature. And when an arm, it is declared that no nature can fight against his strength. And when feet, it is unfolded that he fills all things and there is nothing where God is not. 6. For neither are members or members’ offices necessary to him, to whose even silent judgment alone all things both serve and are present. For why would he require eyes, who is light? Or why seek feet, who is everywhere? Or why wish to walk, when there is nowhere he can go forward outside himself? Or why demand hands, whose silent will is craftsman for establishing all things? Nor does he need ears, who knows even silent wills. Or for what cause would he seek a tongue, for whom to think is to have commanded? 7. For these members were necessary for men, not for God, because man’s counsel would have been ineffective unless the body filled out the thought; but not necessary for God, whose works not only follow the will without any effort, but the works themselves proceed at once with the will. 8. For the rest he himself is all eye, because he wholly sees, and all ear, because he wholly hears, and all hand, because he wholly works, and all foot, because he is wholly everywhere. For the same one, whatever that is, is wholly equal and wholly everywhere. 9. For whatever is simple does not have diversity of itself in itself. For those things finally fall into diversity of members which come from birth into dissolution. But these things which are not compacted cannot sense. For whatever is immortal, whatever it is, that itself is one and simple and always. And therefore because it is one, it cannot be dissolved, since whatever that itself is, placed outside dissolution’s right, is loosed from death’s laws.