Letters from

Malabar,

turies.

Political events.

Malabar church as laid before the sovereign Pontiff in 1725, which shows a systematic demarcation between the high and low castes even during divine service. Whatever may have been lost of the primitive Christian equality by this system, it had the merit of being adpated to native habits of thought, and it was perhaps unavoidable in an Indian church which endeavoured to base itself upon an indigenous priesthood.1 The adoption of native terms by the Jesuit Fathers, such as guru, teacher; sanyási, hermit, etc., also led to embittered discussions.

The letters disclose, however, other and more agreeable aspects of the early missions to India. A few of them complain of the dangers and discomforts of missionary life in a tropical 18th cen- climate and among a suspicious people. But, as a rule, they are full of keen observation and triumphant faith. Some of them are regularly divided into two parts; the first being devoted to the secular history of the period, or 'Evènements politiques; the second to the current affairs and progress of the mission. Others are of a topographical and statistical character. Many of them record signs and wonders vouchsafed on behalf of their labours. A pagan woman, for example, who had been possessed of a devil from birth, is delivered from her tormentor by baptism, and enters into a state of joy and peace. Another native lady, who had deterMiracles. mined to burn herself on her husband's funeral pile, and had resisted the counter entreaties of her family and the Village Head, miraculously renounced her intention when sprinkled with ashes consecrated by the priest. Throughout, the letters breathe a desire for martyrdom, and a spiritual exultation in sufferings endured for the cause.

Martyrdoms.

One very touching epistle is written by de Britto from his prison the day before his execution. 'I await death,' he writes to the Father Superior, and I await it with impatience. It has always been the object of my prayers. It forms to-day the most precious reward of my labours and my sufferings.' Another letter relates the punishment of Father de Saa, several of whose teeth were knocked out by blows, so that he almost died under the pain (A.D. 1700). His tormentor was, however, miraculously punished and converted to the faith. The more

The plan of the church is given at p. 434 of Père Bertrand's Mission du Maduré, vol. iv. ed. 1854. The merits of the question are so fully discussed in that volume that it is unnecessary to reopen the question here. 2 For example, Lettre du Père Balthazar, dated Tanjore, 1653, op. cu. vol. iii. pp. 1 et seq.

3 La Mission du Maduré, vol. iii. p. 447. Letter dated 3rd February 1693. 4 Vol. iv. pp. 63–68.

JESUIT INDIAN LITERATURE.

253

striking events take place in Malabar and Cochin. But in other parts of India, also, there were triumphs and sufferings. Even here,' writes Père Petit from Pondicherri, 'we are not altogether without some hope of martyrdom, the crown of apostleship.'1 It is natural that such writers should regard as martyrs, their brethren who fell victims to popular tumults stirred up by their own preaching. Penalties for sectarian affrays, or for insults to the native religions, such as would now be punished by the Indian Penal Code, figure as 'persecutions.' The Salvationists have of late suffered several 'persecutions' of this sort from Anglo-Indian magistrates.

labours of

Nor are the literary labours of the Fathers without a fitting Literary record. Bishop Caldwell lately expressed his regret that the the Jesuits. biography of Father Beschi, the Tamil scholar and poet, should yet be unwritten.2 But the defect is supplied, not only in an elaborate notice of Beschi's life and works, but also by Beschi's own letters to the General of the Order. Several epistles of de Nobili are of scarcely less interest in the annals of Indian Christianity.

guese In

The arguments of the Catholic missionaries were enforced The Portuby the weapons of the secular power. In 1560, the Portuguese quisition, established the Inquisition at Goa, under the Dominican 1560-1812. Order. At first the establishment was of a modest and tentative character; the functionaries numbering only five, and the whole salaries amounting in 1565 to £71 a year. But by degrees it extended its operations, until in 1800 the functionaries numbered 47. The Goa Inquisition has formed the subject of much exaggerated rumour, and the narrative of one of its prisoners startled and shocked Europe during the seventeenth century. Dr. Claudius Buchanan recalled public attention to the subject by his vividly coloured letters at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The calmer narrative of Da Fonseca, derived from the archives of Goa, proves that the reality was sufficiently terrible. No continuous statistics exist of the

1 Vol. iv. p. 158.

6

2A Political and General History of the District of Tinnevelli, by Bishop Caldwell (Madras Government Press, 1881), p. 239.

3 Père Bertrand, vol. iv. pp. 342-375.

4 O Chronista de Tissuary, vol. iv. p. 51. Quoted in Fonseca's Goa, p. 217 (Bombay, 1878).

Relation de l'Inquisition de Goa, by the Physician Dellon, who was confined in one of its cells in 1674. Pyrard, Fryer, and other travellers have also left notices of the Goa Inquisition.

See his Letters and Journal dated 1808, pp. 150-176 of Christian Researches in Asia, 4th ed. (1811).

punishments inflicted.

But the records repeatedly speak of the necessity for additional cells, and in 1674 they numbered Number of two hundred. Seventy-one autos da fé, or general jail deliveries, autos da fé. are mentioned between 1600 and 1773. The total number of persons condemned on these occasions is unknown. But at a few of the autos it is said that 4046 persons were sentenced to various kinds of punishment, of whom 3034 were males and 1012 females.'1 These punishments included 105 men and 16 women condemned to the flames, of whom 57 were burned alive and 64 in effigy.

Christians set ex

ample of religious persecu

tion.

Inquisition abolished 1812.

The

It is not necessary to inquire how far such examples of religious punishment in Portuguese territory were responsible for the persecution of the Catholic missionaries in Cochin and Malabar. Nor, in passing judgment on the Hindu princes, should we forget the perpetual military aggressions and occasional cold-blooded massacres by the Portuguese on the southern and western coasts. Christian missions in Northern India had scarcely anything to fear from the native powers. Indeed, under Akbar, and almost throughout the entire period of the Mughal Emperors until the accession of Aurungzeb, Christianity seems to have been regarded with an enlightened interest, and certainly without disfavour, by the Delhi court. More than one of the Mughal queens and princes are said to have been Christians; and the faith was represented both by Imperial grants and in the Imperial seraglio. Many of the great Hindu Feudatories also displayed a courteous indiffer ence to the Christian missionaries, and a liberal recognition of their scientific and secular attainments.

The Inquisition at Goa was temporarily suspended in 1774 but re-established in 1779. It was abolished in 1812, and the ancient palace in which it had been held was pulled down in 1820. The debris were finally removed in 1859 on the occasion of the exposition of the body of St. Francis Xavier.

In 1759, Portugal broke up the Society of Jesus, seized Jesuitssup its property, and imprisoned its members. France did the pressed, 1759-73. same in 1764; and to prevent greater evils, Clement XIV. in 1773 was forced to suppress the Society altogether. The French Revolution followed. These events deprived the Indian

1 Da Fonseca's Goa, p. 220.

The original authorities quoted are O Chronista de Tissuary, Historia dos Principaes actos e Procedimentos da Inquisição em Portugal, Lisboa, 1845, p. 38; and F. N. Xavier in the Gabinete Litterario, vol. iii. pp. 89 and 280; Narração da Inquisição de Goa, pp. 143 et seq. (Nova Goa, 1866).

2

A popular account of its history will be found in Mr. E. Rehatsek's 'Holy Inquisition at Goa,' Calcutta Review, No. 145, April 1881.

CATHOLIC ORGANIZATION IN INDIA. 255

Jesuit missions alike of priests and of funds, and for a long time they languished, served in the south only by a few priests from Goa and Pondicherri. That dismal period, however, presents some illustrious names; among them two well-known writers, the Abbé Dubois of Mysore, and the Carmelite Fra Paolino de San Bartholomeo (in India 1774-90). In the absence of priests to sustain the courage of the Christians, every occasional or local persecution told. Tipú, about 1784, forcibly circumcised 30,000 Catholics of Kánara, and deported them to the country above the Ghats. Many native Christians lived and died without ever seeing a priest; they baptized their own children, taught them the prayers, and kept up daily worship in their churches.

re-estab

Better days, however, dawned. In 1814, the Society of The Jesus was re-established; under Gregory xvI., its missions Jesuits began a new life, and have since made great progress. Their lished, prosperity is, however, hampered by the action taken in Europe 1814. against the religious orders. The claims of Portugal to appoint the Archbishop of Goa, and through him to regulate clerical patronage, as opposed to the right of the Pope, have occasioned schisms in the past, and still give rise to discord.

Roman

The Roman Catholics throughout all India, British, Feuda- Number of tory, and Foreign, number altogether 1,356,037 souls, as Catholics returned in the table to be presently given from the Madras in India. Catholic Directory for 1885. The Census Report of 1881, adding the latest figures for Portuguese and French India,

gives a total of 1,248,801.

Roman

The Roman Catholic missions are maintained by many of Organizathe European nations, and are nearly equally divided between tion of the the secular and regular clergy. Almost every mission contains Catholic a mixture of races among its priests; even Holland, Scot- missions. land, and Germany being ably represented. Although all are directed by Europeans, seven-eighths of the priests are natives. It is also worthy of remark that, in the list of bishops during the last 300 years, the names of several natives are found, some of them Bráhmans. The Roman Catholic missions are presided over by sixteen bishops (vicars and prefects apostolic), the delegates of the Pope, who governs the missions himself, without the intervention of the Camera. Side by side with these papal vicars-apostolic, who are also bishops, the Archbishop of Goa (appointed by the King of Portugal) Archhas an independent jurisdiction over a certain number of bishop of Catholics outside his diocese, who are scattered over India, but chiefly in the south. The prefect-apostolic of Pondicherri

Goa.

presides over the Catholics in several British Districts and throughout the southern French possessions. In Pondicherr he has technically jurisdiction only over 'those who wear hats. The independent jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Goa, and rate juris- the dissensions to which it gave rise, have been referred to. diction. It had its origin in the Jus patronatus granted by Pope

His sepa

Juspatronatus 1600. Clement VIII. to King Philip. By the Pontifical Bull, the Portuguese king was charged with the support of the Catholic churches in India, and in return was invested with the patronage of their clergy. On the ruin of the Portuguese power in India by the Dutch, it was held that the sovereign was no longer in a position to fulfil his part of the agreement. The Indian clergy became a growing charge upon Rome. Curtailed, In 1673, therefore, Clement x. abrogated the jurisdiction of 1673. the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa beyond the limits of the Portuguese settlements. In 1674, two Briefs declared that the Portuguese bishops had no authority over the vicars and missionaries - apostolic sent from Rome to India. These orders only produced a long ecclesiastical dispute. Accord ingly, in 1837, Gregory xvI. published his Bull, Multa pradare dividing the whole of India into vicariates-apostolic, and forbade the Goanese prelates to interfere in their manage

Concordat

of 1857.

of 1861.

ment.

The Portuguese Archbishop of Goa disregarded this decree, and the Indo-Lusitanum schisma continued until 1861. Ia 1857, a concordat was agreed to by the Pope and the King of Portugal, by which such churches as were then under the apostolic vicars should remain under the same, while those which then acknowledged the Goanese jurisdiction should Settlement continue under the Archbishop of Goa. In 1861, joint com missioners were sent out from Rome and Portugal to put this arrangement into execution. In the end, the Pope granted for some time, ad tempus,' to the Archbishop of Goa an extraordinary jurisdiction over certain churches, served by Goanese priests, but beyond the Portuguese dominions. Such churches are still to be found in Malabar, Madura, Ceylon, Madras, Bombay, and apparently in the lower delta of Bengal. It is intended that this independent jurisdiction of the Portuguese Archbishop of Goa shall in time lapse to the vicars-apostolic appointed from Rome. But meanwhile it continues to this day. and still gives rise to occasional disputes.1

The foregoing two paragraphs on the extraordinary jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Goa are condensed from MS. materials supplied to the author by the papal Vicar-Apostolic of Verapoli.