On the Trinity 27
Summary: “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.
Latin text · PL 3:966a–968b
Sed quia frequenter intendunt illum nobis locum quo dictum sit: Ego et Pater unum sumus; et in hoc illos aeque facile vincemus. Si enim erat, ut haeretici putant, Pater Christus, oportuit dicere: Ego et Pater unus sum. At cum Ego dicit, deinde Patrem infert, dicendo, Ego et Pater, proprietatem personae suae, id est Filii, a paterna auctoritate discernit atque distinguit, non tantummodo de sono nominis, sed etiam de ordine dispositae potestatis; qui potuisset dicere: Ego Pater, si Patrem se esse meminisset. Et quia dixit unum, intelligant haeretici quia non dixit unus. Unum enim neutraliter positum societatis concordiam, non unitatem personae sonat. Unum enim non unus esse dicitur, quoniam nec ad numerum refertur, sed ad societatem alterius expromitur. Denique adjicit dicens, sumus, non sum, ut ostenderet per hoc quod dixit, sumus, et Pater, duas esse personas. Unum autem quod ait, ad concordiam et eamdem sententiam et ad ipsam charitatis societatem pertinet; ut merito unum sit Pater et Filius, per concordiam, et per amorem, et per dilectionem. Et quoniam ex Patre est, quidquid illud est, Filius est: manente tamen distinctione, ut non sit Pater ille qui Filius; quia nec Filius ille qui Pater est. Nec enim, sumus, addidisset, si unum se et solitarium Patrem, Filium factum esse meminisset. Denique novit hanc concordiae unitatem et apostolus Paulus, cum personarum tamen distinctione. Nam cum ad Corinthios scriberet, Ego, inquit, plantavi, Apollo rigavit, sed Deus incrementum dedit. Itaque neque qui plantat est quidquam, neque qui rigat: sed qui incrementum dat Deus. Qui autem plantat, et qui rigat unum sunt. Quis autem non intelligat alterum esse Apollo, alterum Paulum, non eumdem atque ipsum Apollo pariter et Paulum? Denique et diversa uniuscujusque sunt officia prolata: alter enim qui plantat, et alter qui rigat; hos tamen duos, non quod unus sit, sed quod unum sint proposuit apostolus Paulus; ut alter quidem sit Apollo, alter vero Paulus, quantum ad personarum distinctionem pertinet, quantum vero ad concordiam pertinet, unum ambo sint. Nam quando duorum una sententia est, veritas una est, fides una est, una atque eadem religio est, unus etiam Dei timor est, unum sunt, etiam si duo sint; ipsum sunt, dum ipsum sapiunt. Etenim quos personae ratio invicem dividit, eosdem rursus invicem religionis ratio conducit. Et quamvis idem atque ipsi non sint, dum idem sentiunt, ipsum sunt; et cum duo sint, unum sunt, habentes in fide societatem, etiam si gerant in personis diversitatem. Denique cum ad has voces Domini imperitia fuisset Judaica commota, et temere ad usque saxa succensa, ita ut discurrerent, et dicerent: Non te lapidamus propter bonum opus, sed propter blasphemiam, et quia tu, cum homo sis, facis te Deum, distinctionem posuit Dominus in ratione reddenda, quomodo se Deum aut dixisset aut intelligi vellet. Quem Pater sanctificavit, inquit, et misit in hunc mundum, vos dicitis, Quia blasphemas, quia dixi, Filius Dei sum? Etiam heic Patrem habere se dixit. Filius est ergo, non Pater; Patrem enim confessus se fuisset, si Patrem se esse meminisset: et sanctificatum se a suo Patre esse proponit. Dum ergo accipit sanctificationem a Patre, minor Patre est: minor autem Patre consequenter est, sed Filius. Pater enim si fuisset, sanctificationem dedisset, non accepisset. Et nunc autem profitendo se accepisse sanctificationem a Patre: hoc ipso, quo Patre se minorem accipiendo ab ipso sanctificationem probat, Filium se esse, non Patrem monstravit. Missum praeterea se esse dicit, ut per hanc obedientiam qua venit Dominus Christus, missus, non Pater, sed Filius probetur, qui misisset utique, si Pater fuisset: missus autem non fuit Pater, ne Pater subditus alteri Deo, dum mittitur, probaretur. Et tamen post haec adjicit, quod omnem omnino ambiguitatem dissolveret, et totam controversiam erroris extingueret. Ait enim in ultima parte sermonis: Vos dicitis, quia blasphemas, quia dixi, Filius Dei sum. Ergo si evidenter Filium Dominus se, non Patrem esse testatur, magnae temeritatis et ingentis est furoris exemplum, contra ipsius Christi Domini testimonium controversiam divinitatis et religionis agitare, et Christum Jesum Patrem esse dicere, cum animadvertat illum non Patrem se, sed Filium comprobasse.
English · Claude translation
But since they often urge against us that passage where it was said, “I and the Father are one”, we will beat them on this too just as easily. For if Christ were the Father, as the heretics think, he ought to have said, “I, the Father, am one.” But when he says “I” and then brings in the Father, saying “I and the Father,” he separates and distinguishes the distinctness of his own person, that is, of the Son, from the Father's authority, not only in the sound of the name, but also in the order of the power as arranged; for he could have said, “I, the Father,” if he had been conscious of being the Father. And since he said “one” (unum), let the heretics understand that he did not say “one person” (unus). For “one” put in the neuter signifies the concord of fellowship, not the unity of a person. For he is said to be “one thing,” not “one person,” since it is not referred to number but is expressed with reference to fellowship with another. Finally he adds, saying “are,” not “am,” to show by saying “are,” and “the Father,” that there are two persons. And the “one” that he says pertains to concord, to the same mind, and to the very fellowship of love; so that rightly the Father and the Son are one through concord, through love, and through affection. And since he is from the Father, whatever he is, he is the Son; yet the distinction remains, so that he who is the Son is not the Father, because neither is he who is the Father the Son. For he would not have added “are” if he had been conscious that he, the one and solitary Father, had become the Son.
Finally, the apostle Paul also knew this unity of concord, yet with a distinction of persons. For when he wrote to the Corinthians, he said, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth. But he who plants and he who waters are one.” And who would not understand that Apollos is one and Paul another, not that Apollos and Paul are the same and identical? Finally, the offices of each are set out as different: one who plants and another who waters. Yet the apostle Paul set forth these two, not as being one person, but as being one thing; so that Apollos is one and Paul is another, as far as the distinction of persons is concerned, but as far as concord is concerned, both are one. For when two have one mind, one truth, one faith, one and the same religion, one fear of God too, they are one, even if they are two; they are the same, since they think the same. For those whom the account of person divides from each other, the account of religion in turn brings together. And though they are not the same identical individuals, since they feel the same, they are the same; and though they are two, they are one, having fellowship in faith, even if they bear diversity in their persons.
Finally, when Jewish ignorance had been stirred by these words of the Lord, and rashly inflamed even to stones, so that they ran about and said, “We do not stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy, and because you, though you are a man, make yourself God,” the Lord set down a distinction in giving his reason, showing how he had called himself God or wished to be understood as God. “Do you say of him,” he says, “whom the Father sanctified and sent into this world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” Here too he said that he has a Father. He is therefore the Son, not the Father; for he would have confessed himself the Father if he had been conscious of being the Father; and he sets forth that he was sanctified by his Father. Since, then, he receives sanctification from the Father, he is less than the Father; and consequently, being less than the Father, he is the Son. For if he had been the Father, he would have given sanctification, not received it. And now, by professing that he received sanctification from the Father, by the very fact that he proves himself less than the Father in receiving sanctification from him, he has shown himself to be the Son, not the Father. Moreover, he says that he was sent, so that by this obedience by which the Lord Christ came, sent, he might be proved to be not the Father but the Son, who would surely have sent if he had been the Father; but the Father was not sent, lest the Father, in being sent, should be proved subject to another God. And yet after this he adds what would dissolve all ambiguity whatever and extinguish the whole controversy of error. For he says in the last part of his speech: “You say, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” If, then, the Lord plainly testifies that he is the Son, not the Father, it is an example of great rashness and enormous madness to stir up a controversy about divinity and religion against the testimony of Christ the Lord himself, and to say that Christ Jesus is the Father, when one sees that he has proved himself not the Father but the Son.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The argument turns on Latin grammar: “unum” (neuter, “one thing”) versus “unus” (masculine, “one person”), “sumus” (“we are”) versus “sum” (“I am”). The quotations are John 10:30; 1 Cor 3:6–8; John 10:33, 36. The statement that the Son is “less than the Father” because sanctified and sent is pre-Nicene subordinationist language, translated as written.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (OCR: broken letter; OCR: period for comma; OCR: periods for commas; OCR: u for n; OCR: uncertain character; editorial chapter summary (printed as a heading in ANF), not Novatian's text; removed like Migne's Argumentum in ch. 8; stray bracket): Pulchre respondet ad illud: Ego et Pater unum sumus, quod illi pro se intendebant. → ; illos [aeque → illos aeque; soc(??)etatis → societatis; quouiam → quoniam; inci ementum → incrementum; vos dicitis. Quia blasphemas, quia dixi. Filius Dei sum? → vos dicitis, Quia blasphemas, quia dixi, Filius Dei sum?; quia dixi. Filius Dei sum. Ergo → quia dixi, Filius Dei sum. Ergo.
Cite this passage
Novatian, Trin. 27 (PL 3:966a–968b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/novatian-trinitate/27/).
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Plain text
Novatian, Trin. 27 (PL 3:966a–968b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/novatian-trinitate/27/).
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