---
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: 61 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/61/
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 61. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/61/"
---

# 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.

## 61. Of the Divine Unity, and the Resurrection of the Flesh · 5 of 8

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/61/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/61/#p-N

[¶0] 175 To blame: nor e’en one—save you, hell’s new gate!—

[¶1] Thankless, ye choose to speak ill of your Lord!

[¶2] These cruel deadly gifts the Renegade

[¶3] Terrible has bestowed, through Marcion—thanks

[¶4] To Cerdo’s mastership—on you; nor comes

[¶5] 180 The thought into your mind that, from Christ’s name

[¶6] Seduced, Marcion’s name has carried you

[¶7] To lowest depths. Say of His many acts

[¶8] What one displeases you? or what hath God

[¶9] Done which is not to be extolled with praise?

[¶10] 185 Is it that He permits you, all too long,

[¶11] (Unworthy of His patience large,) to see

[¶12] Sweet light? you, who read truths, and, docking them,

[¶13] Teach these your falsehoods, and approve as past

[¶14] Things which are yet to be? What hinders, else,

[¶15] 190 That we believe your God incredible?

[¶16] Nor marvel is’t if, practiced as he is,

[¶17] He captived you unarmed, persuading you

[¶18] There are two Fathers (being damned by One),

[¶19] And all, whom he had erst seduced, are gods;

[¶20] 195 And after that dispread a pest, which ran

[¶21] With multiplying wound, and cureless crime,

[¶22] To many. Men unworthy to be named,

[¶23] Full of all magic’s madness, he induced

[¶24] To call themselves “Virtue Supreme;” and feign

[¶25] 200 (With harlot comrade) fresh impiety;

[¶26] To roam, to fly. He is the insane god

[¶27] Of Valentine, and to his Æonage

[¶28] Assigned heavens thirty, and Profundity

[¶29] Their sire. He taught two baptisms, and led

[¶30] 205 The body through the flame. That there are gods

[¶31] So many as the year hath days, he bade

[¶32] A Basilides to believe, and worlds

[¶33] As many. Marcus, shrewdly arguing

[¶34] Through numbers, taught to violate chaste form

[¶35] 210 ’Mid magic’s arts; taught, too, that the Lord’s cup

[¶36] Is an oblation, and by prayers is turned

[¶37] To blood. His suasion prompted Hebion

[¶38] To teach that Christ was born from human seed;

[¶39] He taught, too, circumcision, and that room

[¶40] 215 Is still left for the Law, and, though Law’s founts

[¶41] Are lost, its elements must be resumed.

[¶42] Unwilling am I to protract in words

[¶43] His last atrocity, or to tell all

[¶44] The causes, or the names at length. Enough