---
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: 89 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/89/
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 89. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/89/"
---

# 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.

## 89. Of Marcion's Antitheses · 6 of 8

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/89/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/89/#p-N

[¶0] Is manna; in that He, true heavenly Bread,

[¶1] 220 Is, and hath by the Father been transfused

[¶2] Into that bread which He hath to His saints

[¶3] Assigned for a pledge: this Bread will He

[¶4] Give perfectly to them who (of good works

[¶5] The lovers ever) have the bonds of peace

[¶6] 225 Kept. And the double tablets of the law

[¶7] Written all over, these, at the same time,

[¶8] Signify that that Law was ever hid

[¶9] In Christ, who mandate old and new fulfilled,

[¶10] Ark of the Supreme Father as He is,

[¶11] 230 Through whom He, being rich, hath all things given.

[¶12] The storax-rod, too, nut’s fruit bare itself;

[¶13] (The virgin’s semblance this, who bare in blood

[¶14] A body:) on the “wood” conjoined ’twill lull

[¶15] Death’s bitter, which within sweet fruit doth lurk,

[¶16] 235 By virtue of the Holy Spirit’s grace:

[¶17] Just as Isaiah did predict “a rod”

[¶18] From Jesse’s seed—Mary—from which a flower

[¶19] Issues into the orb.

[¶20] The altar bright with gold

[¶21] Denotes the heaven on high, whither ascend

[¶22] 240 Prayers holy, sent up without crime: the Lord

[¶23] This “altar” spake of, where if one doth gifts

[¶24] Offer, he must first reconciliate

[¶25] Peace with his brother: thus at length his prayers

[¶26] Can flame unto the stars. Christ, Victor sole

[¶27] 245 And foremost. Priest, thus offered incense born

[¶28] Not of a tree, but prayers.

[¶29] The cherubim

[¶30] Being, with twice two countenances, one,

[¶31] And are the one word through fourfold order led;

[¶32] The hoped comforts of life’s mandate new,

[¶33] 250 Which in their plenitude Christ bare Himself

[¶34] Unto us from the Father. But the wings

[¶35] In number four times six, the heraldings

[¶36] Of the old world denote, witnessing things

[¶37] Which, we are taught, were after done. On these

[¶38] 255 The heavenly words fly through the orb: with these

[¶39] Christ’s blood is likewise held context, so told

[¶40] Obscurely by the seers’ presaging mouth.

[¶41] The number of the wings doth set a seal

[¶42] Upon the ancient volumes; teaching us

[¶43] 260 Those twenty-four have certainly enough

[¶44] Which sang the Lord’s ways and the times of peace: