---
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: 54 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/54/
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 54. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/54/"
---

# 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.

## 54. A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord · 10 of 12

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/54/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/54/#p-N

[¶0] And now the reeling earth, by not a swain

[¶1] Possest, is by the sea’s profundity

[¶2] Prest, at her farthest limit, where the sun

[¶3] 400 (His ray out-measured) divides the orb,

[¶4] And where, when traversed is the world, the stars

[¶5] Are hidden. Ether thickens. O’er the light

[¶6] Spreads sable darkness; and the latest flames

[¶7] Stagnate in secret rills. A place there is

[¶8] 405 Whose nature is with sealed penalties

[¶9] Fiery, and a dreadful marsh white-hot

[¶10] With heats infernal, where, in furnaces

[¶11] Horrific, penal deed roars loud, and seethes,

[¶12] And, rushing into torments, is up-caught

[¶13] 410 By the flame’s vortex wide; by savage wave

[¶14] And surge the turbid sand all mingled is

[¶15] With miry bottom. Hither will be sent,

[¶16] Groaning, the captive crowd of evil ones,

[¶17] And wickedness (the sinful body’s train)

[¶18] 415 To burn! Great is the beating there of breasts,

[¶19] By bellowing of grief accompanied;

[¶20] Wild is the hissing of the flames, and thence

[¶21] The ululation of the sufferers!

[¶22] And flames, and limbs sonorous, will outrise

[¶23] 420 Afar: more fierce will the fire burn; and up

[¶24] To th’ upper air the groaning will be borne.

[¶25] Then human progeny its bygone deeds

[¶26] Of ill will weigh; and will begin to stretch

[¶27] Heavenward its palms; and then will wish to know

[¶28] 425 The Lord, whom erst it would not know, what time

[¶29] To know Him had proved useful to them. There,

[¶30] His life’s excesses, handiworks unjust,

[¶31] And crimes of savage mind, each will confess,

[¶32] And at the knowledge of the impious deeds

[¶33] 430 Of his own life will shudder. And now first,

[¶34] Whoe’er erewhile cherished ill thoughts of God;

[¶35] Had worshipped stones unsteady, lyingly

[¶36] Pretending to divinity; hath e’er

[¶37] Made sacred to gore-stained images

[¶38] 435 Altars; hath voiceless pictured figures feared;

[¶39] Hath slender shades of false divinity

[¶40] Revered; whome’er ill error onward hath

[¶41] Seduced; whoe’er was an adulterer,

[¶42] Or with the sword had slain his sons; whoe’er

[¶43] 440 Had stalked in robbery; whoe’er by fraud

[¶44] His clients had deferred; whoe’er with mind