---
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: 82 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/82/
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 82. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/82/"
---

# 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.

## 82. Of the Harmony of the Fathers of the Old and New Testaments · 9 of 10

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/82/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/82/#p-N

[¶0] Of sinners, empty, mindless, who have placed

[¶1] God’s promises in a mistrustful heart;

[¶2] 340 Men vanquisht by the miserable sweet

[¶3] Of present life: that troop would have been bound

[¶4] Capital slavery to undergo,

[¶5] By their own fault, if sin’s cause shall impose

[¶6] Law’s yoke upon the mass. For to serve God,

[¶7] 345 And be whole-heartedly intent thereon,

[¶8] Untainted faith, and freedom, is thereto

[¶9] Prepared spontaneous.

[¶10] The just fathers, then,

[¶11] And holy stainless prophets, many, sang

[¶12] The future advent of the Lord; and they

[¶13] 350 Faithfully testify what Heaven bids

[¶14] To men profane: with them the giants, men

[¶15] With Christ’s own glory satiated, made

[¶16] The consorts of His virtue, filling up

[¶17] The hallowed words, have stablished our faith;

[¶18] 355 By facts predictions proving.

[¶19] Of these men

[¶20] Disciples who succeeded them throughout

[¶21] The orb, men wholly filled with virtue’s breath,

[¶22] And our own masters, have assigned to us

[¶23] Honours conjoined with works.

[¶24] Of whom the first

[¶25] 360 Whom Peter bade to take his place and sit

[¶26] Upon this chair in mightiest Rome where he

[¶27] Himself had sat, was Linus, great, elect,

[¶28] And by the mass approved. And after him

[¶29] Cletus himself the fold’s flock undertook;

[¶30] 365 As his successor Anacletus was

[¶31] By lot located: Clement follows him;

[¶32] Well known was he to apostolic men:

[¶33] Next Evaristus ruled without a crime

[¶34] The law. To Sixtus Sextus Alexander

[¶35] 370 Commends the fold: who, after he had filled

[¶36] His lustral times up, to Telesphorus

[¶37] Hands it in order: excellent was he,

[¶38] And martyr faithful. After him succeeds

[¶39] A comrade in the law, and master sure:

[¶40] 375 When lo! the comrade of your wickedness,

[¶41] Its author and forerunner—Cerdo hight—

[¶42] Arrived at Rome, smarting with recent wounds:

[¶43] Detected, for that he was scattering

[¶44] Voices and words of venom stealthily: