---
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: 30 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/30/
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 30. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/30/"
---

# 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.

## 30. A Strain of Jonah the Prophet · 1 of 4

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/30/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/30/#p-N

[¶0] Appendix.

[¶1] [Translated by the Rev. S. Thelwall.]

[¶2] 1. A Strain of Jonah the Prophet.

[¶3] After the living, aye—enduring death

[¶4] Of Sodom and Gomorrah; after fires

[¶5] Penal, attested by time-frosted plains

[¶6] Of ashes; after fruitless apple-growths,

[¶7] 5 Born but to feed the eye; after the death

[¶8] Of sea and brine, both in like fate involved;

[¶9] While whatsoe’er is human still retains

[¶10] In change corporeal its penal badge:

[¶11] A city—Nineveh—by stepping o’er

[¶12] 10 The path of justice and of equity,

[¶13] On her own head had well-nigh shaken down

[¶14] More fires of rain supernal. For what dread

[¶15] Dwells in a mind subverted? Commonly

[¶16] Tokens of penal visitations prove

[¶17] 15 All vain where error holds possession. Still,

[¶18] Kindly and patient of our waywardness,

[¶19] And slow to punish, the Almighty Lord

[¶20] Will launch no shaft of wrath, unless He first

[¶21] Admonish and knock oft at hardened hearts,

[¶22] 20 Rousing with mind august presaging seers.

[¶23] For to the merits of the Ninevites

[¶24] The Lord had bidden Jonah to foretell

[¶25] Destruction; but he, conscious that He spare;

[¶26] The subject, and remits to suppliants

[¶27] 25 The dues of penalty, and is to good

[¶28] Ever inclinable, was loth to face

[¶29] That errand; lest he sing his seerly strain

[¶30] In vain, and peaceful issue of his threats

[¶31] Ensue. His counsel presently is flight:

[¶32] 30 (If, howsoe’er, there is at all the power

[¶33] God to avoid, and shun the Lord’s right hand

[¶34] ’Neath whom the whole orb trembles and is held

[¶35] In check: but is there reason in the act

[¶36] Which in his saintly heart the prophet dares?)

[¶37] 35 On the beach-lip, over against the shores

[¶38] Of the Cilicians, is a city poised,

[¶39] Far-famed for trusty port—Joppa her name.

[¶40] Thence therefore Jonah speeding in a barque

[¶41] Seeks Tarsus, through the signal providence

[¶42] 40 Of the same God; nor marvel is’t, I ween,

[¶43] If, fleeing from the Lord upon the lands,

[¶44] He found Him in the waves. For suddenly