---
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: 96 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/96/
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 96. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/96/"
---

# 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.

## 96. General Reply to Sundry of Marcion's Heresies · 5 of 8

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/96/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/96/#p-N

[¶0] To make men recognise what God can give

[¶1] And man can suffer, and thus live? But since

[¶2] Neither predictions earlier nor facts

[¶3] 180 The latest can suede senseless frantic men

[¶4] That God became a man, and (after He

[¶5] Had suffered and been buried) rose; that they

[¶6] May credit those so many witnesses

[¶7] Harmonious, who of old did cry aloud

[¶8] 185 With heavenly word, let them both learn to trust

[¶9] At least terrestrial reason.

[¶10] When the Lord

[¶11] Christ came to be, as flesh, born into the orb

[¶12] In time of king Augustus’ reign at Rome,

[¶13] First, by decree, the nations numbered are

[¶14] 190 By census everywhere: this measure, then,

[¶15] This same king chanced to pass, because the

[¶16] Will

[¶17] Supreme, in whose high reigning hand doth lie

[¶18] The king’s heart, had impelled him: he was first

[¶19] To do it, and the enrolment was reduced

[¶20] 195 To orderly arrangement. Joseph then

[¶21] Likewise, with his but just delivered wife

[¶22] Mary, with her celestial Son alike,

[¶23] Themselves withal are numbered. Let, then, such

[¶24] As trust to instruments of human skill,

[¶25] 200 Who may (approving of applying them

[¶26] As attestators of the holy word)

[¶27] Inquire into this census, if it be

[¶28] But found so as we say, then afterwards

[¶29] Repent they and seek pardon while time still

[¶30] 205 Is had

[¶31] The Jews, who own to having wrought

[¶32] A grave crime, while in our disparagement

[¶33] They glow, and do resist us, neither call

[¶34] Christ’s family unknown, nor can affirm

[¶35] They hanged a man, who spake truth, on a tree:

[¶36] 210 Ignorant that the Lord’s flesh which they bound

[¶37] Was not seed-gendered. But, while partially

[¶38] They keep a reticence, so partially

[¶39] They triumph; for they strive to represent

[¶40] God to the peoples commonly as man.

[¶41] 215 Behold the error which o’ercomes you both!

[¶42] This error will our cause assist, the while,

[¶43] We prove to you those things which certain are.

[¶44] They do deny Him God; you falsely call