On the Trinity

Contents

1. 1The rule of truth begins with faith in God the Father, the Creator of heaven, earth, sea, and man, whom he made free and gave a command, and of unseen realms above and below.
2. 2God contains all things, has neither beginning nor end, and exceeds every thought and word; whatever we say of him names something of his rather than himself.
3. 3Scripture shows God as the one Creator who measures heaven and earth, admits no rival, cannot be contained in a temple, and is known from his works though unseen.
4. 4God alone is good, so evil comes not from him but from man's free turning away; he is unchanging, one, infinite, beyond any proper name, immortal and incorruptible.
5. 5When Scripture speaks of God's anger or hatred, it does not mean human passions: God, simple and incorruptible Spirit, threatens only to heal and correct us.
6. 6Scripture speaks of God's eyes, hands, and feet to suit the people's understanding; these describe his workings, for God is Spirit, simple, everywhere, and needs no members.
7. 7Calling God “Spirit,” “Love,” “Light,” or “Fire” does not define his substance; these are figures that lead the mind beyond them to a God greater than all.
8. 8The church worships the God whom all creation praises, who guided sacred history from paradise to Christ and the apostles, and whose providence reaches every smallest thing, as Ezekiel's vision of his chariot shows.
9. 9The rule of truth also requires faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God the Creator, whom the Old Testament promised in many prophecies of his birth, miracles, passion, resurrection, and reign.
10. 10The heretics' Christ, who rejects the Old Testament and comes only in appearance, is a fiction; the true Christ took real flesh from Mary, died, and rose in that body as the pattern of our resurrection.
11. 11Against those who say Christ was only a man, Scripture shows him both man and God: his weaknesses prove his humanity, and his mighty works and titles prove his divinity.
12. 12Hosea, Isaiah, and Habakkuk speak of God saving, coming, and working signs, which Christ fulfilled; so those who call Christ a mere man must either confess him God the Son or fall into Sabellianism.
13. 13John's “the Word became flesh” shows Christ both God and man; since he came from heaven, knows hearts, forgives sins, is called God by Thomas and Paul, and made all things, he is God and not only man.
14. 14A series of questions shows that a mere man could not have made the world, come from heaven, be present everywhere when called upon, be the object of hope, precede John the Baptist, or give life as the Father does.
15. 15Christ's sayings that he came from above, proceeded from God, gives immortality, existed before Abraham, and is one with the Father prove him God, yet the Son and not the Father.
16. 16Christ's promises of eternal life to believers, the Paraclete's receiving from him, his joining himself to the Father as object of faith, and his glory before the world prove him God, not a mere man or only predestined.
17. 17Moses 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.
18. 18The God who appeared to Abraham at Mamre and the Angel who spoke to Hagar, called both angel and God, cannot be the invisible Father or a mere angel; he is the Son, who accustoms human eyes to see God.
19. 19Scripture calls the one who spoke to Jacob both Angel and God, and the man who wrestled with Jacob both man and God; these figures point to Christ, who is God and not only man or angel.
20. 20If angels, unjust judges, and Moses can be called “gods” without blasphemy, much more can Christ, who is Lord over them all and received the divine name without measure.
21. 21Christ's power to raise his own body, his title “firstborn of all creation,” and his putting off and on of the flesh show that the Word who took up a man is both God and man.
22. 22Philippians 2 shows Christ in the form of God, obedient to the Father, emptying himself by taking a servant's form and receiving the name above every name; a mere man is not emptied by being born, so Christ is God.
23. 23Even heretics who call Christ the Father, or who deny his flesh, testify by their error to his evident divinity; the Scriptures show him God as the Son and man as the Mediator who unites God and man.
24. 24Heretics use Luke 1:35 to identify the man born of Mary with the Son of God; but its “also” shows that the Son of God is principally the Word who came down, and that the man he took up became Son of God by union with him.
25. 25To the objection that if Christ is God then God died, Novatian answers that only the man in Christ died: as death cannot kill even the soul, much less can it touch the divinity of the Word.
26. 26Against those who say Christ is the Father because he is God, many texts show the Son as a second person after the Father, sent by him, obedient to him, and receiving all things from him.
27. 27“I and the Father are one” means one in concord, not one person: Christ says “one thing,” “we are,” and calls himself the Son sanctified and sent by the Father, as Paul and Apollos are two yet one.
28. 28“He who has seen me has seen the Father” does not make Christ the Father: Scripture speaks of the certain future as done, and whoever sees the Son, the Father's image, is on the way to seeing the invisible Father.
29. 29The rule of faith next requires belief in the Holy Spirit, promised by the prophets and given by Christ, who adorns the church with gifts, gives the new birth in baptism, sanctifies believers, and guards the church's truth.
30. 30Both Sabellians and adoptionists err by thinking “one God” excludes Christ's divinity; but as calling Christ Lord, Paul teacher, and Christ good does not undo the one Lord, Teacher, and Good, so Christ's being God does not undo the one God.
31. 31The one God is the Father, without origin; the Son, the Word born from him before all time, is God and a second person, yet, having his origin from the Father and returning all things to him in obedience, he does not make two Gods.