---
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: 84 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/84/
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 84. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/84/"
---

# 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.

## 84. Of Marcion's Antitheses · 1 of 8

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/84/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/84/#p-N

[¶0] Book IV.—Of Marcion’s Antitheses.

[¶1] What the Inviolable Power bids

[¶2] The youthful people, which, rich, free, and heir,

[¶3] Possesses an eternal hope of praise

[¶4] (By right assigned) is this: that with great zeal

[¶5] 5 Burning, armed with the love of peace—yet not

[¶6] As teachers (Christ alone doth all things teach),

[¶7] But as Christ’s household—servants—o’er the earth

[¶8] They should conduct a massive war; should raze

[¶9] The wicked’s lofty towers, savage walls,

[¶10] 10 And threats which ’gainst the holy people’s bands

[¶11] Rise, and dissolve such empty sounds in air.

[¶12] Wherefore we, justly speaking emulous words,

[¶13] Out of his own words even strive to express

[¶14] The meaning of salvation’s records, which

[¶15] 15 Large grace hath poured profusely; and to ope

[¶16] To the saints’ eyes the Bandit’s covert plague:

[¶17] Lest any untrained, daring, ignorant,

[¶18] Fall therein unawares, and (being caught)

[¶19] Forfeit celestial gifts.

[¶20] God, then, is One

[¶21] 20 To mortals all and everywhere; a Realm

[¶22] Eternal, Origin of light profound;

[¶23] Life’s Fount; a Draught fraught with all wisdom. He

[¶24] Produced the orb whose bosom all things girds;

[¶25] Him not a region, not a place, includes as

[¶26] 25 In circuit: matter none perennial is,

[¶27] So as to be self-made, or to have been

[¶28] Ever, created by no Maker: heaven’s,

[¶29] Earth’s, sea’s, and the abyss’s Settler is

[¶30] The Spirit; air’s Divider, Builder, Author,

[¶31] 30 Sole God perpetual, Power immense, is He.

[¶32] Him had the Law the People shown to be

[¶33] One God, whose mighty voice to Moses spake

[¶34] Upon the mount. Him this His Virtue, too,

[¶35] His Wisdom, Glory, Word, and Son, this Light

[¶36] 35 Begotten from the Light immense, proclaims

[¶37] Through the seers’ voices, to be One: and Paul,

[¶38] Taking the theme in order up, thus too

[¶39] Himself delivers; “Father there is One

[¶40] Through whom were all things made: Christ One, through whom

[¶41] 40 God all things made;” to whom he plainly owns

[¶42] That every knee doth bow itself; of whom

[¶43] Is every fatherhood in heaven and earth

[¶44] Called: who is zealous with the highest love