378 NOVATIAN THE ROMAN PRESBYTER good. How, then,accordingto the scripturalfaith,isthere saidto he only one good ? But if they do not think thatit can by any means interferewith the truththat there is one Lord, thatChristalsoisLord, nor with the truththat one is our Master,that Paul alsoisour master,or with the truth that one is good, that Christ alsois calledgood ; on the same reasoning,letthem understandthat,from the fact that God isone,no obstructionarisesto thetruththat Christ also isdeclaredto be God. CHAPTER XXXI. Argument. — But that God, the Son of God, born of God theFatherfrom everlasting,who was always in theFather, istliesecondperson totheFather,who doesnothingwithout His Fathers decree; and thatHe is Lord, and theAngel of God's greatcounsel,to whom theFathers godhead is givenby community of substance. Thus God the Father, the Founder and Creator of all things,who only knows no beginning,invisible,infinite,im mortal,eternal,is one God ; to whose greatness,or majesty, or power, I would not say nothing can be preferred,but nothing can be compared ; of whom, when He willedit,the Son, the Word, was born,who is not received[as the Word formed] in the sound of the strickenair,or in the tone of voice forced from the lungs,but is acknowledged in the substanceof the power put forth by God, the mysteriesof whose sacred and divine nativityneither an apostle has learnt,nor prophet has discovered,nor angel has known, nor creaturehas apprehended. To the Son alonethey are known, who has known the secretsof the Father. He then, sinceHe was begottenof the Father,isalways in the Father. And I thus say always,that I may show Him not to be unborn, but born. But He who is before alltime must be saidto have been always in the Father ; for no time can be assignedto Him who is beforealltime. And He isalways in the Father,unlessthe Father be not always Father,only