---
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: 65 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/65/
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 65. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/65/"
---

# 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.

## 65. Of the Harmony of the Old and New Laws · 1 of 9

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/65/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/65/#p-N

[¶0] Book II.—Of the Harmony of the Old and New Laws.

[¶1] After the faith was broken by the dint

[¶2] Of the foe’s breathing renegades, and sworn

[¶3] With wiles the hidden pest emerged; with lies

[¶4] Self-prompted, scornful of the Deity

[¶5] 5 That underlies the sense, he did his plagues

[¶6] Concoct: skilled in guile’s path, he mixed his own

[¶7] Words impious with the sayings of the saints.

[¶8] And on the good seed sowed his wretched tares,

[¶9] Thence willing that foul ruin’s every cause

[¶10] 10 Should grow combined; to wit, that with more speed

[¶11] His own iniquitous deeds he may assign

[¶12] To God clandestinely, and may impale

[¶13] On penalties such as his suasion led;

[¶14] False with true veiling, turning rough with smooth,

[¶15] 15 And, (masking his spear’s point with rosy wreaths,)

[¶16] Slaying the unwary unforeseen with death

[¶17] Supreme. His supreme wickedness is this:

[¶18] That men, to such a depth of madness sunk!

[¶19] Off-broken boughs! should into parts divide

[¶20] 20 The endlessly-dread Deity; Christ’s deeds

[¶21] Sublime should follow with false praise, and blame

[¶22] The former acts, God’s countless miracles,

[¶23] Ne’er seen before, nor heard, nor in a heart

[¶24] Conceived; and should so rashly frame in words

[¶25] 25 The impermissible impiety

[¶26] Of wishing by “wide dissimilitude

[¶27] Of sense” to prove that the two Testaments

[¶28] Sound adverse each to other, and the Lord’s

[¶29] Oppose the prophets’ words; of drawing down

[¶30] 30 All the Law’s cause to infamy; and eke

[¶31] Of reprobating holy fathers’ life

[¶32] Of old, whom into friendship, and to share

[¶33] His gifts, God chose. Without beginning, one

[¶34] Is, for its lesser part, accepted. Though

[¶35] 35 Of one are four, of four one, yet to them

[¶36] One part is pleasing, three they (in a word)

[¶37] Reprobate: and they seize, in many ways,

[¶38] On Paul as their own author; yet was he

[¶39] Urged by a frenzied impulse of his own

[¶40] 40 To his last words: all whatsoe’er he spake

[¶41] Of the old covenant seems hard to them

[¶42] Because, deservedly, “made gross in heart.”

[¶43] Weight apostolic, grace of beaming word,

[¶44] Dazzles their mind, nor can they possibly