---
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: 79 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/79/
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 79. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/79/"
---

# 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.

## 79. Of the Harmony of the Fathers of the Old and New Testaments · 6 of 10

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/79/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/79/#p-N

[¶0] The People to chastise: such and so great

[¶1] A love for the Lord’s cause he breathed. He smote

[¶2] Through Jordan; made his feet a way, and crossed

[¶3] Again; raised with a twig the axe down—sunk

[¶4] 215 Beneath the stream; changed into vital meat

[¶5] The deathful food; detained a second time,

[¶6] Double in length, the rains; cleansed leprosies;

[¶7] Entangled foes in darkness; and when one

[¶8] Offcast and dead, by bandits’slaughter slain

[¶9] 220 His limbs, after his death, already hid

[¶10] In sepulchre, did touch, he—light recalled—

[¶11] Revived.

[¶12] Isaiah, wealthy seer, to whom

[¶13] The fount was oped,—so manifest his faith!

[¶14] Poured from his mouth God’s word forth. Promised was

[¶15] 225 The Father’s will, bounteous through Christ; through him

[¶16] It testified before the way of life,

[¶17] And was approved: but him, though stainless found,

[¶18] And undeserving, the mad People cut

[¶19] With wooden saw in twain, and took away

[¶20] 230 With cruel death.

[¶21] The holy Jeremy

[¶22] Followed; whom the Eternal’s Virtue bade

[¶23] Be prophet to the Gentiles, and him told

[¶24] The future: who, because he brooded o’er

[¶25] His People’s deeds illaudable, and said

[¶26] 235 (Speaking with voice presaging) that, unless

[¶27] They had repented of betaking them

[¶28] To deeds iniquitous against their slaves,

[¶29] They should be captived, bore hard bonds, shut up

[¶30] In squalid gaol; and, in the miry pit,

[¶31] 240 Hunger exhausted his decaying limbs.

[¶32] But, after he did prove what they to hear

[¶33] Had been unwilling, and the foes did lead

[¶34] The People bound in their triumphal trains,

[¶35] Hardly at length his wrinkled right hand lost

[¶36] 245 Its chains: it is agreed that by no death

[¶37] Nor slaughter was the hero ta’en away.

[¶38] Faithful Ezekiel, to whom granted was

[¶39] Rich grace of speech, saw sinners’ secrets; wailed

[¶40] His own afflictions; prayed for pardon; saw

[¶41] 250 The vengeance of the saints, which is to be

[¶42] By slaughter; and, in Spirit wrapt, the place

[¶43] Of the saints’ realm, its steps and accesses,

[¶44] And the salvation of the flesh, he saw.