---
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: 74 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/74/
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 74. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/74/"
---

# 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.

## 74. Of the Harmony of the Fathers of the Old and New Testaments · 1 of 10

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/74/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/74/#p-N

[¶0] Book III.—Of the Harmony of the Fathers of the Old and New Testaments.

[¶1] Now hath the mother, formerly surnamed

[¶2] Barren, giv’n birth: now a new people, born

[¶3] From the free woman, joys: (the slave expelled,

[¶4] Deservedly, with her proud progeny;

[¶5] 5 Who also leaves ungratefully behind

[¶6] The waters of the living fount, and drinks—

[¶7] Errant on heated plains—’neath glowing star:)

[¶8] Now can the Gentiles as their parent claim

[¶9] Abraham; who, the Lord’s voice following,

[¶10] 10 Like him, have all things left, life’s pilgrimage

[¶11] To enter. “Be glad, barren one;” conceive

[¶12] The promised people; “break thou out, and cry,”

[¶13] Who with no progeny wert blest; of whom

[¶14] Spake, through the seers, the Spirit of old time:

[¶15] 15 She hath borne, out of many nations, one;

[¶16] With whose beginning are her pious limbs

[¶17] Ever in labour.

[¶18] Hers “just Abel” was,

[¶19] A pastor and a cattle—master he;

[¶20] Whom violence of brother’s right hand slew

[¶21] 20 Of old. Her Enoch, signal ornament,

[¶22] Limb from her body sprung, by counsel strove

[¶23] To recall peoples gone astray from God

[¶24] And following misdeed, (while raves on earth

[¶25] The horde of robber-renegades,) to flee

[¶26] 25 The giants’sacrilegious cruel race;

[¶27] Faithful in all himself. With groaning deep

[¶28] Did he please God, and by deserved toil

[¶29] Translated is reserved as a pledge,

[¶30] With honour high. Perfect in praise, and found

[¶31] 30 Faultless, and just—God witnessing the fact—

[¶32] In an adulterous people, Noah (he

[¶33] Who in twice fifty years the ark did weave)

[¶34] By deeds and voice the coming ruin told.

[¶35] Favour he won, snatched out of so great waves

[¶36] 35 Of death, and, with his progeny, preserved.

[¶37] Then, in the generation following,

[¶38] Is Abraham, whose sons ye do deny

[¶39] Yourselves to be; who first—race, country, sire,

[¶40] All left behind—at suasion of God’s voice

[¶41] 40 Withdrew to realms extern: such honours he

[¶42] At God’s sublime hand worthily deserved

[¶43] As to be father to believing tribes

[¶44] And peoples. Jacob with the patriarchs