---
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: 40 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/40/
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 40. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/40/"
---

# 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.

## 40. Genesis · 1 of 5

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/40/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/40/#p-N

[¶0] 3. Genesis.

[¶1] (Author Uncertain.)

[¶2] In the beginning did the Lord create

[¶3] The heaven and earth: for formless was the land,

[¶4] And hidden by the wave, and God immense

[¶5] O’er the vast watery plains was hovering,

[¶6] 5 While chaos and black darkness shrouded all:

[¶7] Which darkness, when God bade be from the pole

[¶8] Disjoined, He speaks, “Let there be light;” and all

[¶9] In the clear world was bright. Then, when the Lord

[¶10] The first day’s work had finished, He formed

[¶11] 10 Heaven’s axis white with nascent clouds: the deep

[¶12] Immense receives its wandering shores, and draws

[¶13] The rivers manifold with mighty trains.

[¶14] The third dun light unveiled earth’s face, and soon

[¶15] (Its name assigned) the dry land’s story ’gins:

[¶16] 15 Together on the windy champaigns rise

[¶17] The flowery seeds, and simultaneously

[¶18] Fruit-bearing boughs put forth procurvant arms.

[¶19] The fourth day, with the sun’s lamp generates

[¶20] The moon, and moulds the stars with tremulous light

[¶21] 20 Radiant: these elements it gave as signs

[¶22] To th’ underlying world, to teach the times

[¶23] Which, through their rise and setting, were to change.

[¶24] Then, on the fifth, the liquid streams receive

[¶25] Their fish, and birds poise in the lower air

[¶26] 25 Their pinions many-hued. The sixth, again,

[¶27] Supples the ice-cold snakes into their coils,

[¶28] And over the whole fields diffuses herds

[¶29] Of quadrupeds; and mandate gave that all

[¶30] Should grow with multiplying seed, and roam

[¶31] 30 And feed in earth’s immensity.

[¶32] All these

[¶33] When power divine by mere command arranged,

[¶34] Observing that things mundane still would lack

[¶35] A ruler, thus It speaks: “With utmost care,

[¶36] Assimilated to our own aspect,

[¶37] 35 Make We a man to reign in the whole orb.”

[¶38] And him, although He with a single word

[¶39] Could have compounded, yet Himself did deign

[¶40] To shape him with His sacred own right hand,

[¶41] Inspiring his dull breast from breast divine.

[¶42] 40 Whom when He saw formed in a likeness such

[¶43] As is His own, He measures how he broods

[¶44] Alone on gnawing cares. Straight way his eyes