---
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: 86 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/86/
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 86. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/86/"
---

# 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.

## 86. Of Marcion's Antitheses · 3 of 8

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/86/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/86/#p-N

[¶0] Bidden) besprinkled People, vessels all,

[¶1] Priests, and the written volumes of the Law.

[¶2] 90 See here not their true hope, nor yet a mere

[¶3] Semblance devoid of virtue: but behold

[¶4] In the calf’s type Christ destined bodily

[¶5] To suffer; who upon His shoulders bare

[¶6] The plough-beam’s hard yokes, and with fortitude

[¶7] 95 Brake His own heart with the steel share, and poured

[¶8] Into the furrows water of His own

[¶9] Life’s blood. For these “temple-vessels” do

[¶10] Denote our bodies: God’s true temple He,

[¶11] Not dedicated erst; for to Himself

[¶12] 100 He by His blood associated men,

[¶13] And willed them be His body’s priests, Himself

[¶14] The Supreme Father’s perfect Priest by right.

[¶15] Hearing, sight, step inert, He cleansed; and, for a “book,”

[¶16] Sprinkled, by speaking words of presage, those

[¶17] 105 His witnesses: demonstrating the Law

[¶18] Bound by His holy blood.

[¶19] This cause withal

[¶20] Our victim through “the heifer” manifests

[¶21] From whose blood taking for the People’s sake

[¶22] Piacular drops, them the first Levite bare

[¶23] 110 Within the veil; and, by God’s bidding, burned

[¶24] Her corse without the camp’s gates; with whose ash

[¶25] He cleansed lapsed bodies.

[¶26] Thus our Lord (who us

[¶27] By His own death redeemed), without the camp

[¶28] Willingly suffering the violence

[¶29] 115 Of an iniquitous People, did fulfil

[¶30] The Law, by facts predictions proving; who

[¶31] A people of contamination full

[¶32] Doth truly cleanse, conceding all things, as

[¶33] The body’s Author rich; within heaven’s veil

[¶34] 120 Gone with the blood which—One for many’s deaths—

[¶35] He hath outpoured.

[¶36] A holy victim, then,

[¶37] Is meet for a great priest; which worthily

[¶38] He, being perfect, may be proved to have,

[¶39] And offer. He a body hath: this is

[¶40] 125 For mortals a live victim; worthy this

[¶41] Of great price did He offer, One for all.

[¶42] The semblance of the “goats” teaches that they

[¶43] Are men exiled out of the “peoples twain”

[¶44] As barren; fruitless both; (of whom the Lord