'Someone touched me,' when the woman who suffered from an issue of blood, touching the hem of his garment, was made whole. For he seemed to say this wondrously to his disciples: 'Who touched me?' and, 'Someone touched me,' when the crowd was pressing upon him. And so they answered him: 'The crowds press upon you, and you say, Who touched me?' Just as, therefore, those men were pressing upon him, yet she touched him, so those men had been sent to Christ, but the centurion drew nearer. Thus Matthew both preserved a manner of speech not altogether unusual and hinted at something mystically; but Luke showed this same thing, how it was actually done, so that from this we should be compelled to notice how Matthew had said it.
I should indeed wish that some one of those vain men, who calumniously fling such little puzzles against the Gospel as though they were great matters, would himself narrate one and the same thing twice over—not falsely nor deceitfully, but wholly intending to convey and set it forth—and that his words should be taken down with the pen and read back to him; whether he would not say something more or less, or in an inverted order not only of words but even of facts, or whether he would not add something out of his own understanding, as though another had said what he had not heard him say but had plainly recognized that he willed and meant it;
or whether he would not briefly comprise the truth of some meaning whose particulars he had earlier unfolded, as it were, more explicitly; and if there be any other thing that perchance can be comprehended under fixed rules—how it comes about that, whether in the several narratives of two men concerning the same matter, or in two narratives of one man out of one and the same matter, many diverse things are found, yet nothing contrary, and many varied things, yet nothing opposed. Thus are dissolved all those things by which these wretched men bind a halter about their own necks, so as to keep within the spirit of their own error and admit from without no spirit of salvation.
Wherefore, having refuted all of Faustus' calumnies—at least those of these his chapters, to which in this work, so far as the Lord has deigned to help, I have, as I judge, sufficiently and at length replied—I briefly admonish you who are held fast in that so wicked and execrable error: that if you wish to follow the authority of the Scriptures, which is to be preferred to all things, then follow that authority which, from the very times of Christ's presence, through the dispensations of the apostles and through sure successions of bishops from their sees down to these times, has come to us guarded, commended, and made illustrious throughout the whole world. For there you will see both the obscure things of the Old Testament revealed and the things foretold fulfilled.
But if you are moved as it were by reason, first consider who you are, how far from fit you are to comprehend the nature—I will not say of God—but of your own soul; to comprehend it, that is, in the way you say you wish or have wished, by most certain reason, not by most vain credulity. And since you will by no means be able to do this—for without doubt, so long as you remain such as you are, you will in no way be able—yet at least that which is naturally implanted in every human mind, if only it be not disturbed by the depravity of perverse opinion, believe or think: that the nature and substance of God is altogether unchangeable, altogether incorruptible; and you will forthwith cease to be Manichees, that at some time you may also be able to be Catholics. Amen. Printed in type by Rudolph M. Rohrer, at Brünn.