---
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: 76 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/76/
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 76. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/76/"
---

# 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.

## 76. Of the Harmony of the Fathers of the Old and New Testaments · 3 of 10

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/76/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/76/#p-N

[¶0] 85 The flood; constrained the People to pass o’er;

[¶1] Freely distributed the land—the prize

[¶2] Promised the fathers!—stayed both sun and moon

[¶3] While vanquishing the foe; races extern

[¶4] And giants’ progeny outdrave; razed groves;

[¶5] 90 Altars and temples levelled; and with mind

[¶6] Loyal performed all due solemnities:

[¶7] Type of Christ’s name; his virtue’s image.

[¶8] What

[¶9] Touching the People’s Judges shall I say

[¶10] Singly? whose virtues, if unitedly

[¶11] 95 Recorded, fill whole volumes numerous

[¶12] With space of words. But yet the order due

[¶13] Of filling out the body of my words,

[¶14] Demands that, out of many, I should tell

[¶15] The life of few.

[¶16] Of whom when Gideon, guide

[¶17] 100 Of martial band, keen to attack the foe,

[¶18] (Not keen to gain for his own family,

[¶19] By virtue, tutelary dignity,)

[¶20] And needing to be strengthened in the faith

[¶21] Excited in his mind, seeks for a sign

[¶22] 105 Whereby he either could not, or could, wage

[¶23] Victorious war; to wit, that with the dew

[¶24] A fleece, exposèd for the night, should be

[¶25] Moistened, and all the ground lie dry around

[¶26] (By this to show that, with the world, should dry

[¶27] 110 The enemies’ palm); and then again, the fleece

[¶28] Alone remaining dry, the earth by night

[¶29] Should with the self-same moisture be bedewed:

[¶30] For by this sign he prostrated the heaps

[¶31] Of bandits; with Christ’s People ’countering them

[¶32] 115 Without much soldiery, with cavalry

[¶33] Three hundred—the Greek letter Tau, in truth,

[¶34] That number is—with torches armed, and horns

[¶35] Of blowers with the mouth: then was the fleece,

[¶36] The people of Christ’s sheep, from holy seed

[¶37] 120 Born (for the earth means nations various,

[¶38] And scattered through the orb), which fleece the word

[¶39] Nourishes; night death’s image; Tau the sign

[¶40] Of the dear cross; the horn the heraldings

[¶41] Of life; the torches shining in their stand

[¶42] 125 The glowing Spirit: and this testing, too,

[¶43] Forsooth, an image of Christ’s virtue was:

[¶44] To teach that death’s fierce battles should not be