---
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: 34 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/34/
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 34. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/34/"
---

# 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.

## 34. A Strain of Sodom · 1 of 6

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/34/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/34/#p-N

[¶0] 2. A Strain of Sodom.

[¶1] (Author Uncertain.)

[¶2] Already had Almighty God wiped off

[¶3] By vengeful flood (with waters all conjoined

[¶4] Which heaven discharged on earth and the sea’s plain

[¶5] Outspued) the times of the primeval age:

[¶6] 5 Had pledged Himself, while nether air should bring

[¶7] The winters in their course, ne’er to decree,

[¶8] By liquid ruin, retribution’s due;

[¶9] And had assigned, to curb the rains, the bow

[¶10] Of many hues, sealing the clouds with band

[¶11] 10 Of purple and of green, Iris its name,

[¶12] The rain-clouds’ proper baldric.

[¶13] But alike

[¶14] With mankind’s second race impiety

[¶15] Revives, and a new age of ill once more

[¶16] Shoots forth; allotted now no more to showers

[¶17] 15 For ruin, but to fires: thus did the land

[¶18] Of Sodom earn to be by glowing dews

[¶19] Upburnt, and typically thus portend

[¶20] The future end. There wild voluptuousness

[¶21] (Modesty’s foe) stood in the room of law;

[¶22] 20 Which prescient guest would shun, and sooner choose

[¶23] At Scythian or Busirian altar’s foot

[¶24] ’Mid sacred rites to die, and, slaughtered, pour

[¶25] His blood to Bebryx, or to satiate

[¶26] Libyan palæstras, or assume new forms;

[¶27] 25 By virtue of Circæan cups, than lose

[¶28] His outraged sex in Sodom. At heaven’s gate

[¶29] There knocked for vengeance marriages commit

[¶30] With equal incest common ’mong a race

[¶31] By nature rebels ’gainst themselves; and hurts

[¶32] 30 Done to man’s name and person equally.

[¶33] But God, forewatching all things, at fix’d time

[¶34] Doth judge the unjust; with patience tarrying

[¶35] The hour when crime’s ripe age—not any force

[¶36] Of wrath impetuous—shall have circumscribed

[¶37] 35 The space for waiting.

[¶38] Now at length the day

[¶39] Of vengeance was at hand. Sent from the host

[¶40] Angelical, two, youths in form, who both

[¶41] Were ministering spirits, carrying

[¶42] The Lord’s divine commissions, come beneath

[¶43] 40 The walls of Sodom. There was dwelling Lot

[¶44] A transplantation from a pious stock;