_Onesimus._ Then did Simeon, or Lucius, or Petrus, or Paulus or any other ever teach thee these things in the synagogue?
_Onesimus._ Then, prithee, how knowest thou that these things are so?
_Leather-cutter._ Because it must needs be that all things that are written in the Law and the Prophets should be fulfilled in Christus.
“Behold, my dear Artemidorus, the second shape of the Christian doctrine; which, if it be not speedily committed to writing, what third or fourth shapes it may assume, the wit of man cannot conjecture. But one thing is certain, that in every case the leather-cutter will carry the day against the learned man, and the man who believes everything against the man of discretion who believes some things and rejects others. Thus, although Christus died not a generation ago, and was born (as is thought) scarce more than two generations ago, yet already are there current many fables and stories which overshadow the things that he really did, and the doctrine that he really taught, and all this because of the ancient prophecies of his nation; so that, for my part, whensoever I hear one of their teachers say that Christus said or did this or that, and make no mention of any prophecy, then I incline to believe him; but when he adds that Christus said or did anything ‘that a prophecy might be fulfilled,’ then I shut my ears against the man’s words, knowing that they are, in all likelihood, imaginations and fancies.
“A second noteworthy point is, that they make frequent use of figures of speech, and these sometimes so mixed up with facts and histories that it is hard to understand whether they are to be taken according to the letter or not. Thus, for example, whereas they assert that their ancient Lawgiver gave them bread called manna and water from the rock, this they mean literally; but whereas they say that Christus was in no way inferior to him, for that he also gave them ‘bread from heaven’ and ‘living water,’ yea, also and (as some add) ‘wine instead of water,’ all these phrases are to be taken, not according to the letter but, (most say,) spiritually. Yet even some of these relations my friend the leather-cutter accepts as literally true, and his opinion will soon prevail; such confusion is there between the figures of speech and facts of history in the minds of the illiterate. Again, when the teachers speak of being ‘delivered from death,’ they mean (for the most part) not that which we call death but rather the decay and corruption of the soul; and in the same way, when they speak of the unclosing of the ears of the deaf, and of the eyes of the blind, and of making the lame to walk in the straight path, in all these cases their meaning (and the meaning of the prophets) is not to speak of the things of the body, but of the things of the soul. Yet even these the common sort have begun to interpret not of the soul but of the body, and hence have arisen already many perversions of the history of the acts of Christus.