---
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: 63 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/63/
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 63. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/63/"
---

# 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.

## 63. Of the Divine Unity, and the Resurrection of the Flesh · 7 of 8

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/63/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/63/#p-N

[¶0] On the Lord in our teaching, as if He

[¶1] 265 Were one to raise the soul, as having met

[¶2] With ruin, and to set her free from death

[¶3] So that the granted faculty of life

[¶4] Upon the ground of sole desert (because

[¶5] She bravely acted), should abide with her;

[¶6] 270 While she who ever shared the common lot

[¶7] Of toil, the flesh, should to the earth be left,

[¶8] The prey of a perennial death. Has, then,

[¶9] The soul pleased God by acts of fortitude?

[¶10] By no means could she Him have pleased alone

[¶11] 275 Without the flesh. Hath she borne penal bonds?

[¶12] The flesh sustained upon her limbs the bonds.

[¶13] Contemned she death? But she hath left the flesh

[¶14] Behind in death. Groaned she in pain?

[¶15] The flesh is slain and vanquisht by the wound. Repose

[¶16] 280 Seeks she? The flesh, spilt by the sword in dust,

[¶17] Is left behind to fishes, birds, decay,

[¶18] And ashes; torn she is, unhappy one!

[¶19] And broken; scattered, she melts away.

[¶20] Hath she not earned to rise? for what could she

[¶21] 285 Have e’er committed, lifeless and alone?

[¶22] What so life-grudging cause impedes, or else

[¶23] Forbids, the flesh to take God’s gifts, and live

[¶24] Ever, conjoined with her comrade soul,

[¶25] And see what she hath been, when formerly

[¶26] 290 Converted into dust? After, renewed,

[¶27] Bear she to God deserved meeds of praise,

[¶28] Not ignorant of herself, frail, mortal, sick.

[¶29] Contend ye as to what the living might

[¶30] Of the great God can do; who, good alike

[¶31] 295 And potent, grudges life to none? Was this

[¶32] Death’s captive? shall this perish vanquished

[¶33] Which the Lord hath with wondrous wisdom made,

[¶34] And art? This by His virtue wonderful

[¶35] Himself upraises; this our Leader’s self

[¶36] 300 Recalls, and this with His own glory clothes

[¶37] God’s art and wisdom, then, our body shaped

[¶38] What can by these be made, how faileth it

[¶39] To be by virtue reproduced? No cause

[¶40] Can holy parent-love withstand; (lest else

[¶41] 305 Ill’s cause should mightier prove than Power Supreme;)

[¶42] That man even now saved by God’s gift, may learn

[¶43] (Mortal before, now robed in light immense

[¶44] Inviolable, wholly quickened, soul