But whether this anecdote be true or false, this one thing is certain, that the Egyptian idolatry was in the possession of a temple in Rome with the public consent. The Jews had also lived as traders in that city ever since the Punic war; they had their synagogues there in the time of Augustus, and almost always continued to have them in the same manner as they now have in modern Rome. Can we desire a stronger instance that the Romans looked upon toleration as the most sacred of all the laws of nations? We are told that as soon as the Christian religion began to make its appearance, its followers were persecuted by these very Romans who persecuted no one. This fact, however, appears to me to be evidently false, and I desire no better authority than that of St. Paul himself. In the Acts of the Apostles[15] we are told that St. Paul, being accused by the Jews of attempting to overturn the Mosaic law by that of Jesus Christ, St. James proposed to him to shave his head and go into the temple with four Jews and purify himself with them, “That all men may know,” says he, “that those things whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing, but that thou thyself dost keep the law of Moses.” Accordingly, we find that St. Paul, though a Christian, submitted to perform these Jewish ceremonies for the space of seven days; but before the expiration of this time, the Jews of Asia, who knew him again, seeing him in the temple, not only with Jews but Gentiles also, cried out that he had polluted the holy place, and laid hands upon him, drew him out of the temple, and carried him before the Governor Felix; they afterwards accused him at the judgment-seat of Festus, whither the Jews came in crowds demanding his death. But Festus answered them: “It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have licence to answer for himself.”[16] These words of the Roman magistrate are the more remarkable as he appears to have been no favorer of St. Paul, but rather to have held him in contempt, for, imposed upon by the false lights of his own reason, he took him for a person beside himself; nay, he expressly says to him, “Much learning hath made thee mad.”[17] Festus then was entirely guided by the equity of the Roman law in taking under his protection a stranger for whom he could have no regard. Here then we have the word of God itself declaring that the Romans were a just people, and no persecutors. Besides, it was not the Romans who laid violent hands on St. Paul, but the Jews. St. James, the brother of Jesus, was stoned to death by order of a Sadducee Jew, and not by that of a Roman judge. It was the Jews alone who put St. Stephen to death;[18] and though St. Paul held the clothes of those who stoned him, he certainly did not act then as a Roman citizen.