It seems surprising that any one should be found to contradict a proposition apparently so evident. But the critics of the New Testament bring forward plenty of commentaries which are found on examination to be full of uncertainty. As regards style, ideas, and doctrines, the Acts are by no means what one would expect of a disciple of Paul. In no respect do they resemble the Epistles, nor can there be found therein a trace of those bold doctrines which showed the originality of the Apostle to the Gentiles. The temperament of St. Paul is that of a rigid Protestant; the author of the Acts produces the effect of a good and docile Catholic, with a tendency to optimism; calling each priest "a holy priest," each bishop "a great bishop," and ready to adopt every fiction rather than to acknowledge that these holy priests and these great bishops quarrelled, and sometimes most bitterly, among themselves. Though always professing the greatest admiration for Paul, the author of the Acts avoids giving him the title of apostle,[I.11] and is disposed to award to Peter the credit of the initiative in the conversion of the Gentiles. One would deem him a disciple of Peter rather than of Paul. We shall soon show that in two or three instances his principles of conciliation led him to grave errors in his biography of Paul. He was inexact,[I.12] and above all, guilty of omissions truly strange in one who was a disciple of that apostle.[I.13] He does not at all allude to the Epistles; he omits important facts.[I.14] Even in the portions relating to the period when he was supposed to be a constant companion of Paul's, he is dry, ill-informed, and far from entertaining;[I.15] and on the whole, the vagueness of certain portions of the narrative would imply that the writer had no direct or even indirect relation with the apostles, but wrote about the year 100 or 120.