---
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: 51 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/51/
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 51. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/51/"
---

# 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.

## 51. A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord · 7 of 12

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/51/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/51/#p-N

[¶0] With its own lustre clad, another clothes;

[¶1] 265 And here with many a seed the dewy fields

[¶2] Are dappled, and the snowy tilths are crisped

[¶3] With rosy flowers. No region happier

[¶4] Is known in other spots; none which in look

[¶5] Is fairer, or in honour more excels.

[¶6] 270 Never in flowery gardens are there born

[¶7] Such lilies, nor do such upon our plains

[¶8] Outbloom; nor does the rose so blush, what time,

[¶9] New-born, ’tis opened by the breeze; nor is

[¶10] The purple with such hue by Tyrian dye

[¶11] 275 Imbued. With coloured pebbles beauteous gleams

[¶12] The gem: here shines the prasinus; there glows

[¶13] The carbuncle; and giant-emerald

[¶14] Is green with grassy light. Here too are born

[¶15] The cinnamons, with odoriferous twigs;

[¶16] 280 And with dense leaf gladsome amomum joins

[¶17] Its fragrance. Here, a native, lies the gold

[¶18] Of radiant sheen; and lofty groves reach heaven

[¶19] In blooming time, and germens fruitfullest

[¶20] Burden the living boughs. No glades like these

[¶21] 285 Hath Ind herself forth-stretcht; no tops so dense

[¶22] Rears on her mount the pine; nor with a shade

[¶23] So lofty-leaved is her cypress crisped;

[¶24] Nor better in its season blooms her bough

[¶25] In spring-tide. Here black firs on lofty peak

[¶26] 290 Bloom; and the only woods that know no hail

[¶27] Are green eternally: no foliage falls;

[¶28] At no time fails the flower. There, too, there blooms

[¶29] A flower as red as Tarsine purple is:

[¶30] A rose, I ween, it is (red hue it has,

[¶31] 295 An odour keen); such aspect on its leaves

[¶32] It wears, such odour breathes. A tree it stands,

[¶33] With a new flower, fairest in fruits; a crop

[¶34] Life-giving, dense, its happy strength does yield.

[¶35] Rich honies with green cane their fragrance join,

[¶36] 300 And milk flows potable in runners full;

[¶37] And with whate’er that sacred earth is green,

[¶38] It all breathes life; and there Crete’s healing gift

[¶39] Is sweetly redolent. There, with smooth tide,

[¶40] Flows in the placid plains a fount: four floods

[¶41] 305 Thence water parted lands. The garden robed

[¶42] With flowers, I wot, keeps ever spring; no cold

[¶43] Of wintry star varies the breeze; and earth,

[¶44] After her birth-throes, with a kindlier blast