Having thus become masters of the field of battle, Paul, his adherents, and the disciples formed in their school, saw themselves in possession of the power of regulating belief, of inventing new dogmas, of making gospels, and of arranging them in their own manner, of forging to themselves titles, and of excommunicating as heretics all those who showed themselves unteachable. It is thus that the author of the Acts of the Apostles, only speaks, as it were, of his master, of St. Paul, and glances very slightly over the Acts of the Apostles of the contrary party. The same author (St. Luke) is presumed to have composed his gospel from the notes furnished him by St. Paul, though he had neither known nor seen Jesus Christ. Faustus, the Manichean, said on the subject of the gospels, "that they had been composed a long time after the Apostles, by some obscure individuals, who fearing that faith would not be given to histories of facts with which they must have been unacquainted, published under the name of the Apostles their own writings, so filled with mistakes and discordant relations and opinions, that we can find in them neither connection nor agreement with themselves." A little further on he loudly accuses his adversaries, who had the credit of being orthodox, and says to them, "It is thus that predecessors have inserted in the writings of our Lord many things which, though they bear his name, do not # at all agree with his doctrine. That is not surprising since we have often proved that these things have not been written by himself nor by his Apostles, but that for the greater part they are founded on tales, on vague reports, and collected by I know not who, half Jews, but little agreed among themselves, who have nevertheless published them under the name of our Lord, and thus have attributed to him their own errors and deceptions." Origeo informs us, that Celsus exclaimed against the licence that the Christians of his time, had taken of altering many times imprudently the originals of their gospels, in order to be able to deny or to retract those things, which embarrassed them. CHAPTER III. Of the Authority of the Councils, of the Fathers of the Church, and of Tradition