Here now was a subject for a violent dispute. The question was, whether the new Christians followed the manners of the Jews or not. St. Paul at that very time sacrificed in the Temple of Jerusalem; and we know that the first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were circumcised Jews; and that they observed the Sabbath, and abstained from the meats forbidden by the Jewish law. Should a bishop of Spain or Portugal at this time be circumcised, or observe the Sabbath, he would assuredly burn at an _auto da fé_: and yet this fundamental point did not occasion the least animosity between the Apostles, or between the primitive Christians. If the Evangelists had resembled our modern writers, what an immense field was there for disputation between them. St. Matthew reckons only eight and twenty generations from David to Jesus. St. Luke reckons forty-one; and these generations are absolutely different. Yet no dissension appears to have arisen between the disciples on account of these apparent contradictions, which have been so admirably well reconciled by the Fathers of the Church; but they still continued in brotherly love, peace, and charity with one another. What more noble lesson can we have of indulgence in our disputes, and of humility in regard to those things which we do not understand? St. Paul, in his Epistle to certain Jews of Rome who had been converted to Christianity, employs all the latter part of his third chapter in telling them that by faith alone they will be glorified, and that no man is justified by good works only. St. James, on the contrary, in the second chapter of his Epistle to the twelve tribes dispersed over the earth, is continually preaching up to them, that without good works no man can be saved. This has occasioned the separation of two great communions amongst us; but it caused no division among the Apostles. If the persecuting of those who differ from us in opinion is a holy action, it must be confessed that he who had murdered the greatest number of heretics would be the most glorious saint in heaven. If so, what a pitiful figure would a man who had only stripped his brethren of all they had, and thrown them to rot in a dungeon, make, in comparison with the zealot who had butchered his hundreds on the famous day of St. Bartholomew? This may be proved as follows: