ENDS OF THE EARTH
Xavier departs for the East--Goa--Around Hindostan--Malacca--The
Moluccas--Return to Goa--The Valiant Belgian--Troubles in Goa--
Enters Japan--Returns to Goa--Starts for China--Dies off the
Coast--Remains brought to Goa--Africa--Congo, Angola, Caffreria,
Abyssinia--Brazil, Nobrega, Anchieta, Azevedo--Failure of
Rodriguez in Portugal.
When John III of Portugal asked for missionaries to evangelize the
colonies which the discoveries of Da Gama and others had won for the
crown in the far east, Bobadilla, Rodriguez and Xavier were assigned to
the work. Bobadilla's sickness prevented him from going, and then His
Majesty judged that he was too generous to his new possessions and not
kind enough to the mother country; so it was decided to keep Rodriguez
in Portugal, his native land, and send Xavier to the Indies.
Xavier arrived at Lisbon in June, 1540, and waited there eight months
for the departure of the vessel, during which time he and Rodriguez
effected a complete reformation in the morals of the city. He then began
a series of apostolic journeys which were nothing less than stupendous
in their character, not only for the distances covered during the eleven
years to which they were restricted, but because of the extraordinary
and often unseaworthy craft in which he traversed the yet uncharted seas
of the East, which were swept by typhoons and infested by pirates, and
where there was constant danger of being wrecked on inhospitable coasts
and murdered by the savage natives. Three times his ship went to pieces
on the rocks, and on one occasion he had to cling to a plank for days
while the waves swept over him. Several times he came near being
poisoned, and once he had to hide in the bush for a long time to escape
the head-hunters of the Moluccas. The distances he traversed can only be
appreciated by having an atlas at hand while perusing the story.
Leaving Europe, his course lay along the west coast of Africa, rounding
Cape of Good Hope and then making for far away Mozambique. From there he
pointed across the Arabian Sea to Goa on the west coast of Hindostan.
Shortly afterwards, he continued down the coast to Cochin and Cape
Comorin and across to Ceylon, then along the eastern side of the
peninsula to the Pearl Fisheries, and back to Goa. Soon after, he is
sailing across the Bay of Bengal to distant Malacca, which lies north of
Sumatra; from there he penetrates into the Chinese Sea, and skirting
Borneo and the Celebes, he arrives at the Molucca Islands, going through
them from north to south and back. Returning to Goa, he again makes for
Malacca and points north to Japan, passing the Philippines on his way,
though it is claimed that he landed at Mindanao. From Japan he returns
to Goa and then sets out for China. He reached an island opposite
Canton, pined away there for a month or so, as no one dared to carry him
over to the coast. He then took his flight to heaven, which was very
near.
It was a great day for Lisbon when, on April 7, 1541, which happened to
be his birthday, Xavier set sail for India. He was papal nuncio and King
John's ambassador to the Emperor of Ethiopia. Nevertheless the princes
and potentates whom this poorly clad ambassador met on his way must have
gazed at him in wonder; for in spite of his honors, he washed and mended
his own clothes, and while on shipboard refused the assistance of a
servant and scarcely ate any food. The crew were a rascally set, as
were most of the sea-rovers of those days; but this extraordinary papal
nuncio and ambassador passed his time among them, always bright,
approachable and happy, nursing them when they were sick, and gently
taking them to task for their ill-spent lives. All day long he was busy
with them, and during the night he was scourging himself or praying. By
the time the ship reached its destination it was a floating church.
Goa was the capital of Portuguese India. It was not yet the golden Goa
of the seventeenth century; but it had churches and chapels and a
cathedral, an inchoate college and a bishop and a Franciscan friary.
Mingled, however, with the Christian population was a horde of
idolaters, Mussulmans, Jews, Arabians, Persians, Hindoos and others, all
of them rated as inferior races by the Portuguese who were the hidalgos
or fidalgos of Goa, even if they had been cooks and street-sweepers in
Lisbon or Oporto. They were now clad in silks and brocades, and wore
gold and precious gems in profusion; they delighted in religious
displays; but in morality they were more debased than the worst pagans
they jostled against in the streets. There were open debauchery,
concubinage, polygamy and kindred crimes.
The coming of the papal nuncio was a great event, but he refused all
recognition of his official rank. He lived in the hospital, looked after
the lepers in their sheds, or the criminals in the jails, taught the
children their catechism, and conversed with people of every class and
condition. He got the secrets of their conscience; and in five months,
Goa, at least in its Christian population, was as decent in its morals
as it had formerly been corrupt and depraved. At the end of the
peninsula, but beyond Cape Comorin, were the Pearl Fisheries, where
lived a degraded caste who had been visited by the Franciscans and
baptized some years before; but they had been left in their ignorance
and vice, and no one in Goa now ever gave them a thought. Thither Xavier
betook himself with his chalice and vestments and breviary, but with no
provisions for his support.
On his way he passed Salsette, where Rudolph Aquaviva was martyred in
later days; and he saw Canara and Mangalore and Cananon, where there was
a mission station. He then went to Calicut and Cranganore and Cape
Comorin, where the goddess Dourga was worshipped, and finally arrived at
the Fisheries, where he found a people who were wretchedly poor, with
nothing to cover them but a turban and a breech-clout, and who lived in
huts along the shifting sands near the cocoanut-trees. With their tiny
boats and rafts they contrived to get a livelihood from the sea, but
they were shunned by the other Hindoos; for baptism had made them
outcasts, and they were also the helpless victims of the pirates who
were constantly prowling along the coast. Xavier lived in their filthy
houses, talked with them through interpreters, gave them what
instructions they were capable of receiving, and baptised all who had
not yet become Christians. He remained two years with them, and after
getting Portuguese ships to patrol the Sea, sent other missionaries to
replace him when he had built catechumenates and little churches here
and there. Although Xavier appears to have justified these rapid
conversions by the precedent of 3000 people becoming Christians after
the first sermon of St. Peter, yet Ignatius, while not blaming his
methods, wrote him later that the instructions should precede and not
follow baptism, and that quality rather than quantity should be the
guide in accessions to the Faith.
Xavier returned thence to Goa, but we find him in the last days of
September, 1545, abandoning India for a time and going ashore near the
Portuguese settlement on the Straits of Malacca. It was a dangerous
post, for it swarmed with Mohammedans. There were fierce _écumeurs de
mer_, or sea-combers, on the near-by coasts of Sumatra, and on the
island of Bitang the dethroned sultans were waiting for a chance to
expel the Portuguese, while all through the interior were fierce and
unapproachable savage tribes. Besides all this, the whites who had
settled there for trade were a depraved mob; it is recorded that Xavier
spent three whole days without food hearing their confessions, and
passed entire nights praying for their conversion. In spite of all this
accumulation of labor, he contrived to write a catechism and a
prayer-book in Malay. In 1546 he went further east, past Java and
Flores, and reached the Moluccas after a month and a half. He was on
sociable terms everywhere, with soldiers and sailors and commandants of
posts as well as cannibals, and made light of every hardship and danger
in his efforts to win souls to God. Up and down the islands of the
archipelago he travelled, meeting degeneracy of the worst kind at every
step. But he established missionary posts, with the wonderful result
that ten years later, De Beira, whom he sent there, had forty-seven
stations and 3000 Christian families in these islands. Xavier spent two
years in the Moluccas to prepare the way, and was back again in Goa in
1548.
During his absence, a number of missionaries, making in all six priests
and nine coadjutor brothers, had been sent from Portugal. With them were
a dozen Dominicans. Among the Jesuits were Fernandes and Cosmo de
Torres, who, later on, were to be along with Xavier the founders of the
great mission of Japan. There came also Antonio Gomes, a distinguished
student of Coimbra, a master of arts, a doctor of canon law, and a
notable orator. But, except as an orator, he was not to have the success
in Goa that he had won in Lisbon. Likewise in the party was Gaspard
Baertz, a Fleming, who had had a varied career, as a master of arts at
Louvain, a soldier in the army of Charles V, a hermit at Montserrat, a
Jesuit in Coimbra, and now a missionary in India. It was Baertz's
capacity for work that prompted Xavier's famous petition: "Da mihi
fortes Belgas" (Give me sturdy Belgians). Criminali, the first of the
Society to be martyred in the East, had arrived previously, as had
Lancilotti, a consumptive, who seemed to be particularly active in
writing letters to Rome complaining of Xavier's frequent absences from
Goa.
Gomes was appointed rector of the nondescript college, which belonged to
the Bishop of Goa, and which had been partly managed by Lancilotti up to
that time. The new superior immediately proceeded to turn everything
upside down, and his hard, authoritative methods of government
immediately caused discontent. According to Lancilotti, he was utterly
unused to the ways of the Society in dealing not only with the members
of the community but with the native students. His idea was to make the
college another Coimbra--a great educational institution with branches
at Cochin, Bacaim and elsewhere. However, the plan was not altogether
his conception. Something of that kind had been projected for India in
connection with a great educational movement which was agitating
Portugal at that time. In writing to Lisbon and Rome about this matter,
Xavier incidentally reveals his ideas on the question of a native
priesthood. He required for it several previous generations of
respectable Christian parents. The division of castes in India also
created a difficulty, for the reason that a priest taken from one caste
was never allowed intercourse with those who belonged to another; and,
finally, he pointed out that for a Portuguese to confess to a native was
unthinkable.
Meanwhile, although domestic matters were not as satisfactory as they
might have been, Xavier was planning his departure for Japan. He first
visited several posts and settled the difficulties that presented
themselves. Gomes was his chief source of worry, and there is no doubt
that he would have been removed from his post as rector on account of
the dissatisfaction he had caused, had it not been for his wonderful
popularity in the city as a preacher. Just then a change might have
caused an outbreak among the people and a rupture with the bishop.
Xavier contented himself, therefore, with restricting the activities of
Gomes to temporal matters; and assigned to Cypriano the care of the
spiritual interests of the community. He could have done nothing more,
even if he had remained at Goa.
These repeated absences of Francis Xavier from Goa have often been urged
against him as revealing a serious defect in his character; a yielding
to what was called "Basque restlessness," which prompted those who had
that strain in their blood to be continually on the road in quest of new
scenes and romantic adventures. The real reason seems to have been his
despair of doing anything in Goa, with its jumble of Moslems and pagans
and corrupt Portuguese, and its string of military posts where every
little political commandant was perpetually interfering with missionary
efforts. It could never be the centre of a great missionary movement. "I
want to be," he said, "where there are no Moslems or Jews. Give me out
and out pagans, people who are anxious to know something new about
nature and God, and I am determined to find them." He had heard
something about Japan, as verifying these conditions; and, though he
had travelled much already and was aware of the complaints about
himself, he resolved to go further still; so, taking with him de Torres
and Fernandes, besides a Japanese convert, Xaca, and two servants, he
set his face towards the Land of the Rising Sun. He was then forty-three
years of age.
He was at Malacca from May 31 to June 24, 1549, and found that the
missions he had established there were doing remarkably well, as were
the others in the Moluccas. The latter, however, he did not visit. He
started for Japan in a miserable Chinese junk, three other associates
having joined him meantime,--a Portuguese, a Chinaman, and a Malay. It
took two months before he saw the volcanoes of Kiu Siu on the horizon,
and it was only on August 15, 1549, that he went ashore at Kagoshima,
the native city of his Japanese companion. The day was an auspicious
one. It was the anniversary of his first vows at Montmartre.
Xavier began studying the language of the country and remained for a
time more or less in seclusion; with the help of Xaca, or Paul as they
called him, a short statement of the Christian Faith was drawn up. With
that equipment, after securing the necessary permission, he, Fernandes
and Xaca started on their first preaching excursion. Their appearance
excited the liveliest curiosity. In the eyes of the people Xavier was
merely a new kind of bonze, and they listened to him with the greatest
attention. The programme adopted was first for Xaca to summon the crowd
and address them, then Xavier would read his paper. They were always
ready to stop at any part of the road or for any assembly and repeat
their message. Soon their work rose above mere street preaching. They
were invited to the houses of the great who listened more or less out of
curiosity or for a new sensation. When they had accomplished all they
could in one place, they went to another, always on foot, in wretched
attire, through cities and over snow-clad mountains, always, however,
with the aim of getting to the capital of the empire, both to see the
emperor and to reach the great university, about which they had heard
before they set out for Japan. Naturally, the teaching of this new
religion brought Xavier into conflict with the bonzes, who were a
grossly immoral set of men, though outwardly pretending to great
austerity. The people, however, understood them thoroughly and were more
than gratified when the hypocrites were held up to ridicule.
By this time he discovered his mistake in going about in the apparel of
a beggar, and henceforward he determined to make a proper use of his
position as envoy of the Governor of the Indies and of the Bishop of
Goa. He, therefore, presented himself to the Daimyo of Yamaguchi in his
best attire, with his credentials engrossed on parchment and an abundant
supply of rich presents--an arquebus, a spinnet, mirrors, crystal
goblets, books, spectacles, a Portuguese dress, a clock and other
objects. Conditions changed immediately. The Daimyo gave him a handsome
sum of money, besides full liberty to preach wherever he went. He lived
at the house of a Japanese nobleman at Yamaguchi, and crowds listened to
him in respectful silence as he spoke of creation and the soul--subjects
of which the Japanese knew nothing. His learning was praised by every
one, and his virtue admired; soon several notable conversions followed.
After remaining at this place for six months, Xavier went to the
capital, Meaco, the present Kioto, but apparently he made little or no
impression there. Then news came from Goa which compelled him to return
to India. So leaving his faithful friends, de Torres and Fernandes, to
carry on the work which was so auspiciously begun, he started for Goa,
somewhere between 15 and 20 November, 1551. He had achieved his
purpose--he had opened Japan to Christianity.
On the ship that carried him back to Goa, Xavier made arrangements with
a merchant named Pereira to organize an expedition to enter China.
Pereira was to go as a regularly accredited ambassador of the Viceroy of
the Indies, while Xavier would get permission from the emperor to preach
the Gospel, and ask for the repeal of the laws hostile to foreigners
and, among other things, for the liberation of the Portuguese
prisoners--dreams which were never realized, but which reveal the
buoyant and almost boyish hopefulness of Xavier's character. On his way
back he heard of the tragic death of Criminali at Cape Comorin--the
first Jesuit to shed his blood in India. It occurred in one of the
uprisings of the Badages savages against the Portuguese. Later a brother
was killed at the same place. Success, however, had attended the labors
of Criminali and his associates; for according to Polanco and an
incomplete government census, there were between 50,000 and 60,000
Christians at that point in 1552. It was well on in February of that
year when Xavier stepped ashore at Goa.
During his absence, the missions had all achieved a remarkable success.
Among them was a new post at Ormuz off the coast of Arabia where
Mussulmans of Persia, Jews from far and near, even from Portugal, Indian
Brahmans and Jains, Parsees, Turks, Arabians, Christians of Armenia and
Ethiopia, apostate Italians, Greeks, Russians and a Portuguese garrison
met for commerce, and for the accompanying debauchery of such Oriental
centres. The Belgian missionary, Baertz, had transformed the place. All
this was satisfactory; but the college at Goa where Gomes presided was
in disorder. Before that imprudent man could have possibly become
acquainted with the ways of the new country, he had let himself be duped
by one of the native chiefs who pretended to be a convert, but who was
in reality a black-hearted traitor. He had also nullified the authority
of his associate in the government of the college, and had been acting
almost as superior of the entire mission. Among the people he had caused
intense irritation by changing the traditional church services; he had
dismissed the students of the college and put novices in their stead; he
had appropriated a church belonging to a confraternity and, in
consequence, had got both himself and the Society embroiled with the
governor-general. But in spite of all this, it was still difficult to
depose him on account of his popularity and because he was looked upon
as an angel by the bishop. Unfortunately, Gomes refused to be convinced
of his shortcomings and even disputed the right of his successor, who
had already been appointed. Hence popular though he was, he was given
his dimissorial letters. He appealed to Rome, and on his way thither was
lost at sea. It is rather startling to find that Francis Xavier not only
used this power of dismissal himself but gave it even to local superiors
(Monumenta Xaveriana, 715-18). Possibly it was because of the difficulty
of communication with Rome that this method was adopted, but it would be
inconceivable nowadays.
When all this was settled, Xavier appointed Baertz, vice-provincial,
and, on April 17, 1552, departed for China. On arriving at Cochin, he
heard that one of the missionaries had been badly treated by the
natives, that the mission was in dire want, and that Lancilotti was in
sore straits at Coulam. But all that did not stop him. He merely wrote
to Baertz to remedy these evils, and then continued on his journey. Of
course it would be impossible to judge such missionary methods from a
mere human standpoint. For Xavier's extraordinary thaumaturgic powers,
his gifts of prayer and prophecy easily explain how he could not only
convert multitudes to the Faith, in an incredibly short space of time,
but keep them firm and constant in the practice of their religion, long
after he had entrusted the care of them to others. The memory of his
marvellous works, which are bewildering in their number, would
necessarily remain in the minds of his neophytes, while the graces which
his prayers had gained for them would give them a more intelligent
comprehension of the doctrines he had taught them than if they had been
the converts of an ordinary missionary.
Up to the time of his departure for China his apostolic career had been
like a triumphal progress. He was now to meet disaster and defeat, but
it is that dark moment of his life which throws about him the greatest
lustre. His friend, Pereira, had been duly accredited as ambassador of
the viceroy and had invested the largest part of his fortune in the
vessel that was to convey Xavier as papal nuncio to the court of the
Emperor of China. It was the only way to enter the country and to reach
the imperial court; but the Governor of Malacca defeated the whole
scheme. He was a gambler and a debauchee, and wanted the post of
ambassador for himself to pay his debts. Hence, in spite of the
entreaties of Xavier and the menace of the wrath both of the king and
the Pope he confiscated the cargo and left the two envoys stranded, just
when success was assured. The result was that Pereira had to remain in
hiding, while Xavier shook the dust from his feet, not figuratively but
actually, so as to strike terror into the heart of Don Alvaro. He
embarked on his own ship, "The Holy Cross," which was now converted into
a merchantman and packed with people. In that unseemly fashion he
started for China.
A landing was made on the island of Sancian which lay about thirty miles
from the mainland, on a line with the city of Canton. Trading was
allowed at that distance, but any nearer approach to the coast meant
imprisonment and death. That island was Xavier's last dwelling-place on
earth; there he remained for months gazing towards the land he was never
to enter. There were several ships in the offing, but he was shunned by
the crews, for fear of the terrible Alvaro who was officially "master of
the seas" and could punish them for being friends of his enemy. At least
the Chinese traders who had come over to the island were approachable,
and Xavier succeeded in inducing one of them for a money consideration
to drop him somewhere on the coast--he did not care where. But no sooner
was the bargain known than there was an uproar among the crews of the
ships. If he were caught, they would all be massacred, and so he agreed
to wait till they had sailed away.
Slowly the weeks passed, as one by one the vessels hoisted sail and
disappeared over the horizon. Xavier's strength was failing fast, and he
lay stretched out uncared for, under a miserable shed which had been
built on the shore to protect him from the inclemency of the weather.
With his gaze ever turned towards the coast which he had so longed to
reach, he breathed his last on December 2, 1552, with the words on his
lips: "In thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let me not be confounded forever."
He was but forty-six years old; eleven years and seven months had
elapsed since he sailed down the Tagus for the Unknown East. Only four
people were courageous enough to give him the decencies of a burial, the
others looked on from the gunwales of the ship, while his grave was
being dug on shore. His body was placed in a box of quick-lime so that
the flesh might be quickly consumed, and the bones carried back to Goa;
having lowered it into a grave which was made in a little hillock above
the sea, the small party withdrew.
Two months later, when the ship was about to leave, the box was opened,
and to the amazement and almost the terror of all, not only was the
flesh found to be intact, but the face wore a ruddy hue, and blood
flowed from an incision made below the knee. It was a triumphant
ship's-crew that now carried the precious freight to Malacca. They were
no longer afraid, for their ship was a sanctuary guarding the relics of
a saint. The ceremonies were impressive when they reached Malacca,
though Don Alvaro scorned even to notice them; but when the vessel
entered the harbor of Goa the splendor of the reception accorded the
dead hero surpassed all that the Orient had ever seen. Xavier rests
there yet, and his body is still incorrupt. It was a proper ending of
the earthly career of the greatest missionary the world has known since
the days of the Apostles. In 1622 he was canonized with his friend
Ignatius by Pope Gregory XV.
In striking contrast with all this glory is the failure of every one of
the missions on the Dark Continent of Africa. Between 1547 and 1561 the
Congo and Angola had been visited, but no permanent post had been
established. In Caffreria, Father Silveira and fifty of his neophytes
were martyred. In 1555 Nunhes, Carnero and Oviedo were sent to
Abyssinia, the first as patriarch, the others as suffragans. The
patriarchate subsequently passed to Oviedo, who was the only one to
reach the country. He was well received by the Negus, Asnaf, and
permitted to exercise his ministry, but, in 1559 the king was slain in
battle, and his successor drove the missionary and his little flock out
into the desert of Adowa, a region made famous, in our own times, by the
disastrous defeat of the Italian troops when they met Menelik and his
Abyssinians. Oviedo continued to live there during twenty years of
incredible suffering. In 1624 Paez, one of his successors, succeeded in
converting the Emperor Socimos, and in getting Abyssinia to abjure its
Eutychianism, but when Basilides mounted the throne in 1632 he handed
over the Jesuits to the axe of the executioner. After that, Abyssinia
remained closed to Christianity until 1702.
The most curious of these efforts to win Africa to the Faith occurred as
early as 1561, when Pius IV, at the request of the Patriarch of
Alexandria, sent a delegation to the Copts, in an endeavour to re-unite
them to the Church. Among the papal representatives was a Jesuit named
Eliano, who was a converted Jew. He had been brought up as a strict
Hebrew, and when his brother became a Christian he had hurried off to
Venice to recall him to Judaism. The unexpected happened. Eliano himself
became a Christian and, later, a Jesuit. As he had displayed great
activity in evangelizing his former co-religionists, he was thought to
be available in this instance, but unfortunately on arriving at
Alexandria, he was recognized by the Jews, who were numerous and
influential there, and a wild riot ensued, the voice that shrieked the
loudest for his blood being that of his own mother. It was with great
difficulty that his friends prevented his murder. He returned to Europe
and his last days were spent in Rome where he was the friendly rival of
the great Cardinal Farnese in caring for the poor of the city. They
died on the same day, and their tombs were regarded as shrines by their
sorrowing beneficiaries.
In the western world, the first Jesuit missionary work was begun in the
Portuguese possession of Brazil. After Cabral had accidentally
discovered the continent in 1500, a number of Portuguese nobles
established important colonies along the coast; and when subsequently
some French Calvinists, under Villegagnon, attempted a settlement on the
Rio Janeiro, Thomas da Sousa was commissioned by the king to unite the
scattered Portuguese settlements and drive out the French intruders. He
chose the Bay of All Saints as his central position, and there built the
city of San Salvador. Fortifications were thrown up; a cathedral, a
governor's palace and a custom house were erected, and a great number of
houses were built for the settlers. Unlike France and England, Spain and
Portugal lavished money on their colonies. With da Sousa were six Jesuit
missionaries, chief of whom was the great Nobrega. They were given an
extensive tract of land some distance from San Salvador, and there in
course of time the city of São Paolo arose. There was plenty to do with
the degenerate whites in the various settlements, but the savages
presented the greatest problem. They were cannibals of an advanced type,
and no food delighted them more than human flesh. To make matters worse,
the white settlers encouraged them in their horrible practices, probably
in the hope, that they would soon eat each other up.
Nobrega determined to put an end to these abominations, he went among
the Indians, spoke to them kindly, healed their bodily ailments,
defended them against the whites, and was soon regarded by these wild
creatures as their friend and benefactor. At last, concluding that the
time had come for a master stroke, he one day walked straight into a
group of women who were preparing a mangled body for the fire, and with
the help of his companions carried off the corpse. This was sweeping
away in an instant all their past traditions, and as a consequence the
whole tribe rose in fury and swarmed around the walls of the city
determined to make an end of the whites. But Sousa called out his
troops, and, whether the Indians were frightened by the cannon or
mollified by the kind words of the governor, the result was that they
withdrew and promised to stop eating human flesh. This audacious act had
the additional effect of exciting the anger of the colonists against
Nobrega and his associates. The point had been made, however, that
cannibalism was henceforth a punishable offence and great results
followed. Tribe after tribe accepted the missionaries and were converted
to Christianity. But it was very hard to keep them steady in their
faith. A pestilence or a dearth of food was enough to make them fall
into their old habits; and they were moreover, easily swayed by the
half-breeds who, time and time again, induced them to rise against the
whites. But da Sousa was an exceptional man, and had the situation well
in hand. He pursued the Indians to their haunts, and, as his punitive
expeditions were nearly always headed by a priest with his uplifted
cross he often brought them to terms without the shedding of blood.
Another obstacle in this work of subjugation was found in the remnants
of Villegagnon's old French garrison. At one time they had succeeded in
uniting all the savages of the country in a league to exterminate the
Portuguese. Villegagnon's supposedly impregnable fort was taken and
battle after battle was won by the Portuguese, but the war seemed never
to end. At last Nobrega took the matter in his own hands. "Let me go,"
he said, "to see if I cannot arrange terms of peace with the enemy." It
was a perilous undertaking, for it might mean that in a few days his
body would be roasting over a fire in the forest, in preparation for a
savage banquet. But that did not deter him. He and his fellow-missionary
Anchieta set out and found the Indians wild with rage against the
whites. Plea after plea was made, but in vain. At last, he got them to
make some concession, and then returned to explain matters to the
governor, leaving Anchieta alone with the Indians. They did him no harm,
however; on the contrary, he won their hearts by his kindness and amazed
them by his long prayers, his purity of life, his prophecies and his
miraculous powers. Month after month went by and yet there was no news
from Nobrega. Finally the governor, accepting the conditions insisted on
by the Indians, yielded, and peace was made.
It is interesting to learn that the lonely man who had stayed all this
while in the forest, José Anchieta, was a perfect master of Latin,
Castilian and Portuguese; besides being somewhat skilled in medicine, he
was an excellent poet and even a notable dramatist. He composed grammars
and dictionaries of the native language, after he returned to where pen
and ink were available; and it is said he put into print a long poem
which he had meditated and memorized during his six terrible months of
captivity. He died in 1597; but before departing for heaven, he saw the
little band of six Jesuits who had landed with Nobrega increased to one
hundred and twenty, and when his career ended one hundred more rushed
from Portugal to fill the gap.
As for Nobrega, the day before he died, he went around to call on his
friends. "Where are you going?" they asked him. "Home to my own
country," he answered, and on the morrow they were kneeling around his
coffin. Southey says that "so well had Nobrega and Anchieta trained
their disciples that in the course of half a century, all the nations
along the coast of Brazil, as far as the Portuguese settlements
extended, were collected in villages under their superintendence"
(History of Brazil, x, 310). "Nobrega died at the close of the sixteenth
century," says Ranke, "and in the beginning of the seventeenth we find
the proud edifice of the Catholic Church completely reared in South
America. There were five arch-bishoprics, twenty-seven bishoprics, four
hundred monasteries and innumerable parish churches." Of course, with
due regard to Ranke, all that was not the work of Jesuits, but men of
his kind see "Jesuit" in everything. It may be said, however, that they
contributed in no small degree to bring about this result.
In 1570 Azevedo conducted thirty-nine Jesuits from Madeira to Brazil.
Simultaneously, thirty more in two other ships set sail from Lisbon for
the same destination. But the day after Azevedo's party had left
Madeira, the famous Huguenot pirate, Jaques Soria, swooped down upon
them, hacked them to pieces on the deck, and then threw the mangled
remains to the sharks. The amazing Southey narrates this event as
follows: "He did by the Jesuits as they would have done by him and all
their sect:--put them to death." When the news reached Madeira, the
brethren of the martyrs sang a Te Deum which Southey informs us, "was as
much the language of policy as of fanaticism." Four days later, one
English and four French cruisers which Southey fails to tell us were
commanded by the Huguenot Capdeville, caught the other missionaries and
did their work so effectually, that of the sixty-nine splendid men whom
Azevedo started out with, only one arrived in Brazil. The struggle did
not end with the massacre. Sixty years afterwards the same enemy
attacked the missions of Pernambuco in Brazil where, "one hundred and
fifty tribes"--a Protestant annalist calls them "hordes"--had been
brought into alliance with the Portuguese, and were rapidly making
progress both in Christianity and civilization; on Good Friday in the
year 1633 the freebooters, passing at midnight through the smoking ruins
of Olinda, attacked Garassu in the early morning, while the inhabitants
were assembled at Mass, with the result, says Southey, that "the men who
came their way were slaughtered, the women were stripped, and the
plunderers with cruelty tore away ear-rings through the ear-flap, and
cut off fingers for the sake of the rings that were upon them. They then
plundered and burnt the town."
Similar heroism was shown in other parts of the world about this time.
Thus in 1549 Ribeira was poisoned at Amboina; a like fate overtook
González in 1551 at Bazaim, India; in 1555 three Jesuits were wrecked on
a desert island while on their way to the East, and died of starvation;
in 1573, Alvares, the visitor of Japan and four companions were lost at
sea; and in 1575 another Jesuit died at Angola in Africa after fourteen
years' cruel imprisonment.
Over all this splendor, however, there rests a shadow. Simon Rodriguez,
who was so to speak the creator of all this apostolic enthusiasm, came
very near being expelled from the Society. He was the idol of Portugal
and the intimate friend and adviser of King John III, who was untiring
in promoting missionary enterprise in the vast regions over which he
held sway, both in the Eastern and Western world. This association,
however, involved frequent visits to the court, and the attractions of
the work soon grew on Rodriguez, though with his characteristic
unsteadiness he was writing to Xavier and others to say that he was
longing to go out to the missions, a longing he never gratified.
Moreover, his judgment in the choice of missionaries was of the worst.
Untrained novices were sent out in great numbers and were naturally
found unfit for the work with the result that they had to return to
Europe. Meantime another influence was effacing the real spirit of the
Society from the soul of this chosen man whom Ignatius himself had
trained. A craze for bodily mortifications had swept over Portugal, and
Brou in his "Vie de St. François Xavier" tells us: that it was not
uncommon to see eight or ten thousand flagellants scourging themselves
as they walked processionally through the streets of Lisbon. The Jesuits
there were naturally affected by the movement, with the result that
although intense fervor was displayed in the practice of this virtue,
domestic discipline suffered. The supreme fact that obedience was the
characteristic trait of the Society had never been thoroughly
appreciated or understood by Simon Rodriguez, although he was one of the
first companions of St. Ignatius.
Astrain in his "Historia de la Compañía de Jesús en la Asistencia de
España", does not mince matters on this point (I, xix). Indeed, the
provincialship of Rodriguez in Portugal almost brought about a tragedy
in the history of the Society. Yielding to the popular craze for public
penances, his subjects paid little attention to mortification of the
will, with the result that the defections from the Society in that
country, both in number and quality, amounted to a public scandal.
Finally, the removal of Rodriguez became imperative, but, unfortunately,
his successor, Father Mirón, was deplorably lacking in the very elements
of prudence. Disregarding the advice of Francis Borgia and of the
official visitor, de Torres, who were sent with him as advisers, he went
alone into Portugal and abruptly removed Rodriguez from his post. As
Rodriguez was almost adored then by the people of Portugal and was very
much admired and beloved by King John III and by the whole royal family,
they should have been first approached and the reason of the change
explained. To pass by such devoted friends who had lavished favors on
the Society and who could do so much harm, if alienated, was not only
highly impolitic but grossly discourteous. Anyone else but John III
might well not only have driven them from Portugal but have withdrawn
them from Brazil and the Indies, with the result that the Society would
probably never have had an Anchieta or a Francis Xavier. Happily such a
calamity was averted. Mirón's subsequent administration was in keeping
with his initial act, and when at last the visitor arrived and restored
normal conditions in the province no less than one hundred and
thirty-seven members of the province had either left the Society or had
to be dismissed.
Rodriguez was summoned to Rome and might have been pardoned immediately
had he avowed his fault, but he demanded a canonical trial. Several
grave fathers were, therefore, appointed and their sentence was
extremely severe, but Ignatius made them reconsider it again and again,
and make it milder. He even modified their final verdict. Rodriguez
never went back again to Portugal in an official capacity.
This humiliating episode is somewhat slurred over by Crétineau-Joly, but
the Jesuit historians like Jouvancy, Brou, Astrain, Valignano, Pollen
make no attempt to conceal or palliate it. The failure of Rodriguez only
illustrates the difficulty that St. Ignatius had in making his followers
grasp the fundamental idea of the Society.
Paulsen, the German Protestant historian, is shocked to find that in
Jesuits, generally, there exists "something of the silent but incessant
action of the powers of nature. Without passion, without appeals to war,
without agitation, without intemperate zeal, they never cease to
advance, and are scarcely ever compelled to take a step backward.
Sureness, prudence and forethought characterize each of their movements.
As a matter of fact, these are not lovable qualities," he says, "for
whoever acts without some human weakness is never amiable." The "step
backward" made by Rodriguez, in this instance, ought to satisfy
Paulsen's requirements for that amiability which, according to him, is
associated with "human weakness." One need not be reminded that it is a
curious psychology that can find amiability in a disease or a deformity.
The amiability is in the person who puts up with it, not in the
offender. Henri Joly in his "Psychologie des Saints," furnishes another
example of this disregard of facts which so often affects the vision of
a man in pursuit of a theory. To prove the marvellous power which
Ignatius exerted over men, he tells us that when Rodriguez was summoned
to Rome "the only sentiment in his mind was that of almost delirious
joy, at again seeing the companion of his youth, his friend and master."
The facts narrated above would imply that there was anything but
delirious joy in the mind of Rodriguez before, during or after his
trial, and the facts also show that sometimes it takes more than the
marvellous power of a St. Ignatius to control even a holy man under the
influence of a passion or a delusion.
This incident also disposes of the hallucination that Jesuits are all
run in the same mould and hence easily recognizable as members of the
Order. This is far from being the case. It is true that as the Society
is governed to a certain extent on military principles, cheerful and
prompt obedience is its characteristic. The General is supreme commander
and is in touch with every member of the organization; he can tell in a
moment where the individual is, what he is doing and what are his good
qualities and defects. He can assign him to any country or any post;
refusal to obey is absolutely out of the question. Such is the special
trait of the Society, but apart from this, it is an aggregation of as
disparate units as can possibly be imagined. Men of all races,
conditions, dispositions, aspirations and attainments, Americans,
English, French, Italian, Spanish, Syrians, Hungarians, Hindoos,
Chinese, Japanese, Malgache, and others live in the same house, follow
the same rules, and maintain absolute peace with each other. All
infractions of brotherly love are frowned upon and severely punished,
and continued dissension or rebellion means expulsion. These men, from
the highest to the lowest, do not shirk danger--like genuine soldiers
they covet it; nor are they depressed by the repeated exiles,
expulsions, spoliations and persecutions, to which the Society has been
always subject. Taught by experience of the past, they know that they
will emerge from the struggle stronger and better than before and will
win further distinction in the battle for God.