---
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: 45 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/45/
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 45. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/45/"
---

# 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.

## 45. A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord · 1 of 12

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/45/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/45/#p-N

[¶0] 4. A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord.

[¶1] (Author Uncertain.)

[¶2] Who will for me in fitting strain adapt

[¶3] Field-haunting muses? and with flowers will grace

[¶4] The spring-tide’s rosy gales? And who will give

[¶5] The summer harvest’s heavy stalks mature?

[¶6] 5 And to the autumn’s vines their swollen grapes?

[¶7] Or who in winter’s honour will commend

[¶8] The olives, ever-peaceful? and will ope

[¶9] Waters renewed, even at their fountainheads?

[¶10] And cut from waving grass the leafy flowers?

[¶11] 10 Forthwith the breezes of celestial light

[¶12] I will attune. Now be it granted me

[¶13] To meet the lightsome muses! to disclose

[¶14] The secret rivers on the fluvial top

[¶15] Of Helicon, and gladsome woods that grow

[¶16] 15 ’Neath other star. And simultaneously

[¶17] I will attune in song the eternal flames;

[¶18] Whence the sea fluctuates with wave immense:

[¶19] What power moves the solid lands to quake;

[¶20] And whence the golden light first shot its rays

[¶21] 20 On the new world; or who from gladsome clay

[¶22] Could man have moulded; whence in empty world

[¶23] Our race could have upgrown; and what the greed

[¶24] Of living which each people so inspires;

[¶25] What things for ill created are; or what

[¶26] 25 Death’s propagation; whence have rosy wreaths

[¶27] Sweet smell and ruddy hue; what makes the vine

[¶28] Ferment in gladsome grapes away; and makes

[¶29] Full granaries by fruit of slender stalks

[¶30] distended be; or makes the tree grow ripe

[¶31] 30 ’Mid ice, with olives black; who gives to seeds

[¶32] Their increments of vigour various;

[¶33] And with her young’s soft shadowings protects

[¶34] The mother. Good it is all things to know

[¶35] Which wondrous are in nature, that it may

[¶36] 35 Be granted us to recognise through all

[¶37] The true Lord, who light, seas, sky, earth prepared,

[¶38] And decked with varied star the new-made world;

[¶39] And first bade beasts and birds to issue forth;

[¶40] And gave the ocean’s waters to be stocked

[¶41] 40 With fish; and gathered in a mass the sands,

[¶42] With living creatures fertilized. Such strains

[¶43] With stately muses will I spin, and waves

[¶44] Healthful will from their fountainheads disclose: