The many efforts made for the rescue of the prisoners without any
good results, and rather to their cost; the martyrdom of the prisoners.
[Several of the fathers who were in Japon made efforts to rescue
the prisoners. At one time father Fray Pedro de Zuñiga and the two
Spaniards were slipped past the guard, but were soon caught again and
driven back. When the Japanese sent to ask if they were religious,
father Fray Luis sent an answer complaining of the Dutch for plundering
the ship and taking him prisoner, and alleging that they were rebels
and pirates. The Dutch, in anger, determined to force the father by
torture to confess that he was a religious. They bound his body and let
water drip upon a cloth over his face until he lost consciousness. The
prisoners were afterward actually rescued from prison, but were
soon caught again and were beaten. It may be asked how priests
were justified in concealing the fact that they were priests. To
this it may be answered, as St. Thomas says (22, sec. 3, art 2),
that the priesthood is a free state, which may be assumed by anyone
who desires; and when they were asked if they were priests or not,
they had a right to conceal it, or to deny it in some good sense true
according to their own meaning, without following the meaning of him
who asked the question--which they were not bound to follow, because
the question was unjust. In making this denial they did not deny that
they were Christians. Indeed, they expressly confessed that; they
denied only that they were fathers, as they were not in the natural
sense. This declaration did not scandalize or injure the Japanese
Christians. They were satisfied that it was not a lie, but a prudent
and lawful artifice. As there is a time to be silent, there is also a
time to speak, and as the evidence against father Fray Zuñiga became so
strong that the truth could not be denied except to his own discredit,
he confessed in December, 1621. Father Fray Pedro was then handed over
to the Japanese to be put in prison; and father Fray Luis, seeing that
nothing would be gained by further concealment, confessed to the king
of Firando that he was a religious of the Order of St. Dominic. The
two friars were imprisoned on the island of Quinoxima. The other
Christian prisoners were visited by a priest, a Japanese by nation,
named Thomas Araqui, who had studied at Roma, but who upon his return
to his own country had apostatized. He was laboring at Nangasaqui to
induce the Christians to recant, that the work of persecution might
be carried on with less bloodshed. On the seventeenth of August,
the fathers and the Japanese who had tried to rescue father Fray Luis
were taken to Nangasaqui. Here it was impossible to find Christians
who would bring the wood for the pyre of the fathers; and finally the
officials found some heathen of low life who lived among the brothels,
who consented to do it. [30] The apostate Thomas Araqui strove to
pervert the fathers, and the holy prisoners were offered their lives
if they would recant, but they boldly refused. Finally sentence was
passed upon fifteen Christians. Three, including the fathers, were to
be burnt alive, and the others were to be burnt after decapitation. On
the following day, the twentieth of August, the sentence was executed
in the presence of a great multitude. When the heads of the twelve
were shown to the multitude in order to strike terror into the hearts
of the Christians, the contrary result was attained, for they shouted
aloud that the saints were happy and victorious. The Japanese by the
name of Joachim who suffered the extreme of torture with the fathers
spoke boldly to the crowd, as the fathers did also. The death of the
fathers came by noon; and this great multitude remained there all
that time without breaking their fast, accompanying the saints with
prayers and groans. At this time the women and children went home,
while the men remained to obtain the holy relics, which were kept
for five days that they might be shown to the Dutch as evidence that
the sentence had been carried out. The Christians afterward secured
the relics. His own holy religious order will take care to provide
an account of Fray Pedro de Zuñiga. The holy Fray Luis Flores was
a Fleming by nation, a native of Gante (i.e., Ghent). He went to
España in company with his relatives, and from there to the Yndias,
assuming the habit of the Order of St. Dominic in the convent of the
illustrious City of Mexico. When he came to the Philipinas he was sent
to the province of Nueva Segovia, where he was an excellent minister.]