---
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: 85 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/85/
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 85. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/85/"
---

# 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.

## 85. Of Marcion's Antitheses · 2 of 8

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/85/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/85/#p-N

[¶0] Of parent-care His people-ward; and wills

[¶1] 45 All flesh to live in holy wise, and wills

[¶2] His people to appear before Him pure

[¶3] Without a crime. With such zeal, by a law

[¶4] Guards He our safety; warns us loyal be;

[¶5] Chastens; is instant. So, too, has the same

[¶6] 50 Apostle (when Galatian brethren

[¶7] Chiding)—Paul—written that such zeal hath he.

[¶8] The fathers’sins God freely rendered, then,

[¶9] Slaying in whelming deluge utterly Parents alike with progeny, and e’en

[¶10] 55 Grandchildren in “fourth generation” now

[¶11] Descended from the parent-stock, when He

[¶12] Has then for nearly these nine hundred years

[¶13] Assisted them. Hard does the judgment seem?

[¶14] The sentence savage? And in Sodom, too,

[¶15] 60 That the still guiltless little one unarmed

[¶16] And tender should lose life: for what had e’er

[¶17] The infant sinned? What cruel thou mayst think,

[¶18] Is parent-care’s true duty. Lest misdeed

[¶19] Should further grow, crime’s authors He did quench,

[¶20] 65 And sinful parents’ brood. But, with his sires,

[¶21] The harmless infant pays not penalties

[¶22] Perpetual, ignorant and not advanced

[¶23] In crime: but lest he partner should become

[¶24] Of adult age’s guilt, death immature

[¶25] 70 Undid spontaneous future ills.

[¶26] Why, then,

[¶27] Bids God libation to be poured to Him

[¶28] With blood of sheep? and takes so stringent means

[¶29] By Law, that, in the People, none transgress

[¶30] Erringly, threatening them with instant death

[¶31] 75 By stoning? and why reprobates, again,

[¶32] These gifts of theirs, and says they are to Him

[¶33] Unwelcome, while He chides a People prest

[¶34] With swarm of sin? Does He, the truthful, bid,

[¶35] And He, the just, at the same time repel?

[¶36] 80 The causes if thou seekst, cease to be moved

[¶37] Erringly: for faith’s cause is weightier

[¶38] Than fancied reason. Through a mirror—shade

[¶39] Of fulgent light!—behold what the calf’s blood,

[¶40] The heifer’s ashes, and each goat, do mean:

[¶41] 85 The one dismissed goes off, the other falls

[¶42] A victim at the temple.

[¶43] With calf’s blood

[¶44] With water mixt the seer (thus from on high