The Jesuits, 1534-1921

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 60,00 °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.