354 NOVATIAN THE ROMAN PRESBYTER God. For althoughHe remembered thatHe was God from God the Father, He never eithercompared or associated Himself with God the Father, mindful that He was from His Father,and that He possessedthatvery thing thatHe is,because the Father had given it Him. Thence, finally, both beforethe assumptionof the flesh,and moreover after the assumption of the body, besides,afterthe resurrection itself,He yielded all obedience to the Father, and still yieldsit as ever. Whence it is proved that He thought that [the assertionof] a certaindivinitywould be robbery, to wit, that of equallingHimself with God the Father; but,on the otherhand, obedientand subjectto allHis rule and will,He even was contentedto take on Him the form of a servant(thatis,to become man) ; and the substance of fleshand body which,as itcame to Him from the bondage of His forefathers'sinsaccordingto His manhood, He under took by being born, at which time moreover He emptied Himself,in tbat He did not refuseto take upon Him the frailtyincidentto humanity. Because if He had been born man only,He would not have been emptied in respectof this; for man, being born, is increased,not emptied: for in beginning to be thatwhich He couldnot possess,so long as He did not exist,as we have said,He is not emptied,but is ratherincreasedand enriched. But if Christ is emptied in being born,in taking the form of a servant,how isHe man only? of whom itcould more trulyhave been saidthat He was enriched,not emptied,at the time thatHe was bom, except because the authorityof the divineWord, reposing for awhilein taking upon itselfhumanity, and not exercis ing itselfwith itsrealstrength,castsitselfdown, and puts itselfoff for the time, in bearing the humanity which it has undertaken? It emptiesitselfin descending to injuries and reproaches,in bearing abominations,in experiencing thingsunworthy ; and yet of thishumilitythere is present at once an eminent reward. For He has "receiveda name which is above every name," which assuredlywe understand to be none other than the name of God. For sinceitbelongsto God aloneto be above allthings,itfollows