---
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: 68 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/68/
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 68. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/68/"
---

# 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.

## 68. Of the Harmony of the Old and New Laws · 4 of 9

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/68/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/68/#p-N

[¶0] Nor joys in cattle’s blood. Slain be all flocks;

[¶1] Be every herd upburned into smoke;

[¶2] That expiatively ’t may pardon win

[¶3] Of but one sin: in vain at so vile price;

[¶4] 135 Will the stained figure of the Lord—foul flesh—

[¶5] Prepare, if wise, such honours: but the hope

[¶6] And faith to mortals promised of old—

[¶7] Great Reason’s counterpart—hath wrought to bring

[¶8] These boons premeditated and prepared

[¶9] 140 Erst by the Father’s passing parent-love;

[¶10] That Christ should come to earth, and be a man!

[¶11] Whom when John saw, baptism’s first opener, John,

[¶12] Comrade of seers, apostle great, and sent

[¶13] As sure forerunner, witness faithful; John,

[¶14] 145 August in life, and marked with praise sublime,

[¶15] He shows, to such as sought of olden time

[¶16] God’s very Paschal Lamb, that He is come

[¶17] At last, the expiation of misdeed,

[¶18] To undo many’s sins by His own blood,

[¶19] 150 In place of reprobates the Proven One,

[¶20] In place of vile the dear; in body, man;

[¶21] And, in life, God: that He, as the slain Lamb,

[¶22] Might us accept, and for us might outpour

[¶23] Himself Thus hath it pleased the Lord to spoil

[¶24] 155 Proud death: thus wretched man will able be

[¶25] To hope salvation. This slain paschal Lamb

[¶26] Paul preaches: nor does a phantasmal shape

[¶27] Of the sublime Lord (one consimilar

[¶28] To Isaac’s silly sheep) the passion bear,

[¶29] 160 Wherefore He is called Lamb: but ’tis because,

[¶30] As wool, He these renewed bodies clothes,

[¶31] Giving to many covering, yet Himself

[¶32] Never deficient. Thus does the Lord shroud

[¶33] In His Sire’s virtue, those whom, disarrayed

[¶34] 165 Of their own light, He by His death redeemed,

[¶35] Virtue which ever is in Him. So, then,

[¶36] The Shepherd who hath lost the sheep Himself

[¶37] Re-seeks it. He, prepared to tread the strength

[¶38] Of the vine, and its thorns, or to o’ercome

[¶39] 170 The wolf’s rage, and regain the cattle lost,

[¶40] And brave to snatch them out, the Lion He

[¶41] In sheepskin-guise, unasked presents Himself

[¶42] To the contemned teeth, baffling by His garb

[¶43] The robber’s bloody jaws.

[¶44] Thus everywhere