Donin, in order to meet, if they could, the charges that he was prepared to maintain. In the course of the debate, which was held in the precincts of the Court and in the presence of members of the Royal family and great dignitaries of the Church, Donin asserted that the Talmud encouraged the Jews to despise, deceive, rob, and even murder Christians, that it contained blasphemous falsehoods concerning Christ, superstitions and puerilities of all kinds, and passages disrespectful to God and inconsistent with morality. The Rabbis answered as best they could, but the court of Inquisitors decided that the charges had been substantiated, and ordered that all the confiscated copies of the Talmud should be burnt. After a delay of about two years the _Auto-da-fe_ took place, and fourteen cartloads of the Talmud were sacrificed.[189] The other famous incident of the kind took place in Spain. Pablo Christiano, a converted Jew, who, like Donin, had joined the Dominicans, challenged the Jews of Aragon to a discussion on the differences between Judaism and Christianity, and induced James I. to compel them to take up the challenge. The famous Nachmanides came forward as the representative of his co-religionists. Pablo undertook to show that the Old Testament, and other books recognised by the Jews, taught that the Messiah had come, that he was “very God and very man,” that he suffered and died for the salvation of mankind, and that with his advent the ceremonial law ceased to be of any effect. Nachmanides denied that any of these propositions could be substantiated from the Jewish sacred books. For four days the disputation was carried on in the presence of the king and many great personages of Church and State. Of course the verdict was that the Christian disputant had beaten the Jew.[190]