---
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: 66 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/66/
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 66. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/66/"
---

# 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.

## 66. Of the Harmony of the Old and New Laws · 2 of 9

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/66/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/66/#p-N

[¶0] 45 Discern the Spirit’s drift. Dull as they are,

[¶1] Seek they congenial animals!

[¶2] But ye

[¶3] Who have not yet, (false deity your guide,

[¶4] Reprobate in your very mind,) to death’s

[¶5] Inmost caves penetrated, learn there flows

[¶6] 50 A stream perennial from its fount, which feeds

[¶7] A tree, (twice sixfold are the fruits, its grace!)

[¶8] And into earth and to the orb’s four winds

[¶9] Goes out: into so many parts doth flow

[¶10] The fount’s one hue and savour. Thus, withal,

[¶11] 55 From apostolic word descends the Church,

[¶12] Out of Christ’s womb, with glory of His Sire

[¶13] All filled, to wash off filth, and vivify

[¶14] Dead fates. The Gospel, four in number, one

[¶15] In its diffusion ’mid the Gentiles, this,

[¶16] 60 By faith elect accepted, Paul hands down

[¶17] (Excellent doctor!) pure, without a crime;

[¶18] And from it he forbade Galatian saints

[¶19] To turn aside withal; whom “brethren false,”

[¶20] (Urging them on to circumcise themselves,

[¶21] 65 And follow “elements,” leaving behind

[¶22] Their novel “freedom,”) to “a shadow old

[¶23] Of things to be” were teaching to be slaves.

[¶24] These were the causes which Paul had to write

[¶25] To the Galatians: not that they took out

[¶26] 70 One small part of the Gospel, and held that

[¶27] For the whole bulk, leaving the greater part

[¶28] Behind. And hence ’tis no words of a book,

[¶29] But Christ Himself, Christ sent into the orb,

[¶30] Who is the gospel, if ye will discern;

[¶31] 75 Who from the Father came, sole Carrier

[¶32] Of tidings good; whose glory vast completes

[¶33] The early testimonies; by His work

[¶34] Showing how great the orb’s Creator is:

[¶35] Whose deeds, conjoined at the same time with words,

[¶36] 80 Those faithful ones, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,

[¶37] Recorded unalloyed (not speaking words

[¶38] External), sanctioned by God’s Spirit, ’neath

[¶39] So great a Master’s eye!

[¶40] This paschal Lamb

[¶41] Is hung, a victim, on the tree: Him Paul,

[¶42] 85 Writing decrees to Corinth, with his torch,

[¶43] Hands down as slain, the future life and God

[¶44] Promised to the fathers, whom before