--- title: "Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Commodian and Origen" author: "Various Church Fathers" translator: "S. Thelwall and others; A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.)" languages: [en] shelf: "Church Fathers" section: 107 of 199 url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/107/ cite: "Various Church Fathers, tr. S. Thelwall and others; A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.), Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Commodian and Origen, section 107. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/107/" --- # Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Commodian and Origen *Various Church Fathers, tr. S. Thelwall and others; A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.)* Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Commodian, and Origen's On First Principles and Against Celsus. ## 107. Elucidations Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/107/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/107/#p-N [¶0] (Editions, p. 171.) [¶1] For an interesting account of the bibliographical history of this work, see Dupin. It passed for the Eight Book of Arnobius until a.d. 1560, and was first printed in its true character at Heidelberg in that year, with a learned preface by Balduinus, who restored it to its true author. ### II [¶3] (The neighing of horses, note 1, p. 183.) [¶4] It strikes me as singular that the Edinburgh edition, which gives a note to each of the instances that follow, should have left me to supply this reference to the case of Darius Hystaspes. The story is told, as will be remembered by all who have ever read it, by Herodotus, and is certainly one of the most extraordinary in history, when one reflects that a horse elected a great monarch, and one whose life not a little affected the fortunes of mankind. A knavish groom was indeed the engineer of this election, as often, in such events, the secret springs of history are hidden; but, if the story is not wholly a fable, the coincidence of thunder in the heavens is most noteworthy. It seemed to signify the overruling of Providence, and the power of God to turn the folly, not less than the wrath, of men, to God’s praise. See Herod., book iii. cap. lxxxvi. ### III [¶6] (From nothing, p. 194.) [¶7] From this chapter, if not from others, it had been rashly affirmed that our author imagined that the soul perishes with the body, and is to be renewed out of nothing. The argument is wholly ad hominem, and asserts nothing from the author’s own point of view, as I understand it. He gives what is “sufficient for his argument,” and professes nothing more. He was not a clergyman, nor is his work a sermon to the faithful. He defies any one to deny, that, if God could form man out of nothing, He can make him anew out of nothing. The residue of the argument is a brilliant assertion of the imperishability of matter, in terms which might satisfy modern science; and the implication is, that the soul no more perishes to the sight of God than does the body vaporized and reserved in the custody of the elements. ### Introductory Note [¶9] to the [¶10] Instructions of Commodianus. [¶11] [a.d. 240.] Our author seems to have been a North-African bishop, of whom little is known save what we learn from his own writings. He has been supposed to incline to some ideas of Praxeas, and also to the Millenarians, but perhaps on insufficient grounds. His Millenarianism reflects the views of a very primitive age, and that without the corrupt Chiliasm of a later period, which brought about a practical repudiation of the whole system. Of his writings, two poems only remain, and of these the second, a very recent discovery, has no place in the Edinburgh series. I greatly regret that it cannot be included in ours. [¶12] As a poetical work the following prose version probably does it no injustice. His versification is pronounced very crabbed, and his diction is the wretched patois of North Africa. But the piety and earnestness of a practical Christian seem everywhere conspicuous in this fragment of antiquity. ### Preface [¶14] The Instructions of Commodianus [¶15] in favour of [¶16] Christian Discipline, [¶17] Against the Gods of the Heathens. [¶18] (Expressed in Acrostics.) [¶19] I.—Preface. [¶20] My preface sets forth the way to the wanderer and a good visitation when the goal of life shall have come, that he may become eternal—a thing which ignorant hearts disbelieve. I in like manner have wandered for a long time, by giving attendance upon heathen fanes, my parents themselves being ignorant. Thence at length I withdrew myself by reading concerning the law. I bear witness to the Lord; I grieve alas, the crowd of citizens! ignorant of what it loses in going to seek vain gods. Thoroughly taught by these things, I instruct the ignorant in the truth. ### God's Indignation [¶22] II.—God’s Indignation. [¶23] In the law, the Lord of heaven, and earth, and sea has commanded, saying, Worship not vain gods made by your own hands out of wood or gold, lest my wrath destroy you for such things. The people before Moses, unskilled, abiding without law, and ignorant of God, prayed to gods that perished, after the likenesses of which they fashioned vain idols. The Lord having brought the Jews out of the land of Egypt, subsequently imposed on them a law; and the Omnipotent enjoined these things, that they should serve Him alone, and not those idols. Moreover, in that law is taught concerning the resurrection, and the hope of living in happiness again in the world, if vain idols be forsaken and not worshipped.