---
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: 43 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/43/
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 43. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/43/"
---

# 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.

## 43. Genesis · 4 of 5

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/43/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/43/#p-N

[¶0] 130 Her tale: “The speaking serpent’s suasive words

[¶1] I harboured, while the guile and bland request

[¶2] Misled me: for, with venoms viperous

[¶3] His words inweaving, stories told he me

[¶4] Of those delights which should all fruits excel.”

[¶5] 135 Straightway the Omnipotent the dragon’s deeds

[¶6] Condemns, and bids him be to all a sight

[¶7] Unsightly, monstrous; bids him presently

[¶8] With grovelling beast to crawl; and then to bite

[¶9] And chew the soil; while war should to all time

[¶10] 140 ’Twixt human senses and his tottering self

[¶11] Be waged, that he might creep, crestfallen, prone,

[¶12] Behind the legs of men,—that while he glides

[¶13] Close on their heels they may down-trample him.

[¶14] The woman, sadly caught by guileful words,

[¶15] 145 Is bidden yield her fruit with struggle hard,

[¶16] And bear her husband’s yoke with patient zeal.

[¶17] “But thou, to whom the sentence of the wife

[¶18] (Who, vanquished, to the dragon pitiless

[¶19] Yielded) seemed true, shalt through long times deplore

[¶20] 150 Thy labour sad; for thou shalt see, instead

[¶21] Of wheaten harvest’s seed, the thistle rise,

[¶22] And the thorn plenteously with pointed spines:

[¶23] So that, with weary heart and mournful breast,

[¶24] Full many sighs shall furnish anxious food;

[¶25] 155 Till, in the setting hour of coming death,

[¶26] To level earth, whence thou thy body draw’st,

[¶27] Thou be restored.” This done, the Lord bestows

[¶28] Upon the trembling pair a tedious life;

[¶29] And from the sacred gardens far removes

[¶30] 160 Them downcast, and locates them opposite,

[¶31] And from the threshold bars them by mid fire,

[¶32] Wherein from out the swift heat is evolved

[¶33] A cherubim, while fierce the hot point glows,

[¶34] And rolls enfolding flames. And lest their limbs

[¶35] 165 With sluggish cold should be benumbed, the Lord

[¶36] Hides flayed from cattle’s flesh together sews,

[¶37] With vestures warm their bare limbs covering.

[¶38] When, therefore, Adam—now believing—felt

[¶39] (By wedlock taught) his manhood, he confers

[¶40] 170 On his loved wife the mother’s name; and, made

[¶41] Successively by scions twain a sire,

[¶42] Gives names to stocks diverse: Caïn the first

[¶43] Hath for his name, to whom is Abel joined.

[¶44] The latter’s care tended the harmless sheep;