---
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: 57 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/57/
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 57. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/57/"
---

# 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.

## 57. Of the Divine Unity, and the Resurrection of the Flesh · 1 of 8

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/57/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/57/#p-N

[¶0] 5. Five Books in Reply to Marcion.

[¶1] (Author Uncertain.)

[¶2] Book I.—Of the Divine Unity, and the Resurrection of the Flesh.

[¶3] Part I.—Of the Divine Unity.

[¶4] After the Evil One’s impiety

[¶5] Profound, and his life-grudging mind, entrapped

[¶6] Seducèd men with empty hope, it laid

[¶7] Them bare, by impious suasion to false trust

[¶8] 5 In him,—not with impunity, indeed;

[¶9] For he forthwith, as guilty of the deed,

[¶10] And author rash of such a wickedness,

[¶11] Received deserved maledictions. Thus,

[¶12] Thereafter, maddened, he, most desperate foe,

[¶13] 10 Did more assail and instigate men’s minds

[¶14] In darkness sunk. He taught them to forget

[¶15] The Lord, and leave sure hope, and idols vain

[¶16] Follow, and shape themselves a crowd of gods,

[¶17] Lots, auguries, false names of stars, the show

[¶18] 15 Of being able to o’errule the births

[¶19] Of embryos by inspecting entrails, and

[¶20] Expecting things to come, by hardihood

[¶21] Of dreadful magic’s renegadoes led,

[¶22] Wondering at a mass of feigned lore;

[¶23] 20 And he impelled them headlong to spurn life,

[¶24] Sunk in a criminal insanity;

[¶25] To joy in blood; to threaten murders fell;

[¶26] To love the wound, then, in their neighbour’s flesh;

[¶27] Or, burning, and by pleasure’s heat entrapped,

[¶28] 25 To transgress nature’s covenants, and stain

[¶29] Pure bodies, manly sex, with an embrace

[¶30] Unnameable, and uses feminine

[¶31] Mingled in common contact lawlessly;

[¶32] Urging embraces chaste, and dedicate

[¶33] 30 To generative duties, to be held

[¶34] For intercourse obscene for passion’s sake.

[¶35] Such in time past his deeds, assaulting men,

[¶36] Through the soul’s lurking-places, with a flow

[¶37] Of scorpion-venom,—not that men would blame

[¶38] 35 Him, for they followed of their own accord:

[¶39] His suasion was in guile; in freedom man

[¶40] Performed it.

[¶41] Whileas the perfidious one

[¶42] Continuously through the centuries

[¶43] Is breathing such ill fumes, and into hearts

[¶44] 40 Seduced injecting his own counselling