It must not be supposed that the only grounds of complaint against the Jesuits were those already enumerated. Wheresoever they were sent among heathen and unchristianized peoples, they gave trouble to the Church, and inflicted serious injury upon the cause of Christianity. When they found a missionary field occupied by any of the monastic orders, they endeavored either to remove them, or to destroy their influence by assailing their Christian integrity, so that they could have everything their own way. They accustomed themselves to obtain their ends by whatsoever means they found necessary, considering the latter as justified by the former. Not in Paraguay alone, but wheresoever else they obtained dominion over ignorant and credulous populations, it was mainly accomplished by persuading them to believe that conversion to Christianity consisted in the mere recital of formal words the professed converts did not understand, and in the ceremony of baptism without any intelligent conception of its character, or of the example and teachings of Christ. The seeds of error they thus succeeded in scattering broadcast among the natives of India, China, and elsewhere, have grown into such poisonous fruits that all the intervening years have failed to provide an antidote, and it remains a lamentable fact that the descendants of these same professing converts have relapsed into idolatry, and continued to shun Christianity as if all its influences were pestilential. They became Brahmins in India, and, by practicing the idolatrous rites and ceremonies of that country, brought the cause of Christianity into degradation. Continuing steadily to follow the advice of Loyola, they everywhere became "all things to all men," by worshiping at the shrines of the lowest forms of heathen superstition as if they were the holy altars of the Church. And when rebuked for this by the highest authorities of the Church, they justified themselves upon the ground that any form of vice, deception, and immorality became legitimated by Christianity when practiced in its name. In China they engaged with the natives in worshiping Confucius instead of Christ, and made offerings upon his altar without the slightest twinge of conscience. They omitted nothing, howsoever degrading, which they found necessary to successfully planting the Jesuit scepter among the Oriental populations, until at last, after a long and hard struggle, they were brought into partial obedience by the Church, whose authority they had defied, and whose precepts they contemptuously violated.
Whatsoever may be said or thought of the various religions which have prevailed throughout the world, there is one thing about which there can be no misunderstanding; that is, that the Brahminism of India and the Christianity of Christ can not be united together harmoniously. There are many reasons for this, apparent to every intelligent mind, but a few only are sufficient for present purposes. It has always been the central idea of the former that Brahma should be worshiped through a multitude of divinities, representing each passion and emotion of the mind; and that his wrath shall be appeased by sacrificial offerings, even of human beings, in order to reach total annihilation as the highest and most perfect state of beatitude after death; whereas the central idea of Christianity is that worship is due only to one God, the Author of all being and the Sovereign of the universe, so that when man shall reach "the last of earth," his spirit shall enter upon immortality. Brahminism held India for centuries in degrading bondage, and Christianity was designed to lift mankind to a higher plane of being. This belief was universal among all Christians, howsoever they may have differed in forms of faith and modes of worship; and none were louder in its profession than the Jesuits, who pretended that they alone were worthy to occupy the missionary field, and were specially and divinely set apart to spread the gospel among all heathen peoples. In carrying on their work, however, in India, they violated their solemn vow of fidelity to the Church by casting aside every pretense of Christianity, and openly, but with simulated professions of Christian zeal, adopting the idolatrous practices common to the natives. They shamelessly cast aside the profession of Christianity as if it were a thing of reproach, and performed with alacrity the most revolting Hindoo rites, seemingly as regardless of the obligation of obedience to the Church as of their own dignity and manliness of character. They substituted fraud, deceit, and hypocrisy for that open, frank, and courageous course of conduct which a sense of right never fails to suggest to ingenuous minds. They unchristianized themselves by becoming Brahmins and pariahs, crawling stealthily and insidiously into the highest places, and sinking with equal ease and skill into the lowest and most degrading. Even in this enlightened and investigating age, many intelligent people will wonder whether or no these things are possibly true, inasmuch as they shock so seriously every sense of personal honor and religious duty. But the verifications of them are sufficiently abundant to remove all possible doubt, furnished, as they are, not alone by the authors of general history, but by those friendly to the Jesuits, and usually prompt to apologize for them.
One of the most conspicuous of the Jesuit missionaries to India, after Xavier, was Nobili, who reached Madura about the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is pretended that his predecessors had been unable to convert any of the Brahmins, inasmuch as they had labored exclusively with the pariahs, who, besides being shunned and despised by the Brahmins, had paid no heed whatsoever to their Christian admonitions. Nobili, therefore, taxed his ingenuity to discover some practical method of removing this difficulty. He had before him numerous examples of those who had spread the cause of Christianity by openly professing and courageously vindicating it. There was something inspiring in the thought that in its past successes Christianity had required no disguises, but had achieved its victories over paganism in the field of open and manly controversy. To a devout and Christian mind there was no ground of compromise between Brahminism and Christianity. One or the other had to yield—they could not unite. Nobili knew this, and but for his Jesuit training would scarcely have departed from the plain line of Christian duty. With his mind, however, disciplined by the belief that it was his duty to be "all things to all men," he imitated the example of Mahomet, who went to the mountain when it would not come to him, by casting aside his character of Christian and becoming a Brahmin himself. He assumed the character and position of a "Saniassi;" that is, the highest caste among the Hindoos. What that word means is not very plain, but the Jesuits insist that those Brahmins who bore it had given some indications of penitence, and that the object of Nobili was to insinuate himself into their favor, secretly and by false pretenses, and thus bring them over to Christianity. There is much reason for believing that this was an afterthought, set up as a defense when the flagrant and unchristian conduct of the Jesuits excited general distrust among the Christians of Europe. But if it expressed the real motive existing at the time, it was then, as always, wholly without justification or excuse—a plain and manifest breach of Christian obligation and duty. He could not become a Saniassi without denying that he either was or had ever been a Christian, and without solemnly affirming that he was a native Hindoo, and not a European—the latter, known by the hated name of Feringees, being held in special and universal contempt by all the natives, and especially by the Brahmins.
All these things, of course, involve false professions and oaths without number; and, more than that, such stifling of the conscience as to leave it incapable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood, or between fair and false dealing. It was all done, says the Jesuit historian Daurignac, "with the approval of his superiors and of the Archbishop of Cranganore;" that is, it had full Jesuit indorsement. And as if it were possible to find merit in such profanation of what all Christians consider sacred, by departing from the rules of Christian life, this same authority informs his readers how Nobili appeared as a Jesuit-Brahmin, after he discarded all the distinguishing marks and characteristics of Christianity, and presented himself in the capacity of a full-fledged native Hindoo. "He assumed," says he, "the costume of the penitent Brahmins, adopted their exterior rule of life, and spoke their mysterious language." He shaved his head, wore the Brahmin dress, including ear-rings reaching down his neck. And "to complete the illusion"—that is, the deception and false pretense—he represents him as having "marked his forehead with a yellow paste, made from the wood of Sandanam"—a practice peculiar to the Hindoo Brahmins. Thus metamorphosed he "passed for a perfect Saniassi, and the Brahmins themselves, wondering at such a rival, sought his presence, and questioned him as to himself, his country, and his family." His disguise, however, perfect as it was, did not cause him to forget that he was still in fact a Jesuit, and he, obedient to his training, carried his impostures and falsehoods far enough to make his deception complete and effectual. Consequently, "his oath obtained for him admission among the most learned and holy Brahmins of the East. They named him Tatouva-Podagar-Sonami—a master in the ninety-six qualities of the truly wise." And thus, by means of the most unblushing hypocrisy and false oaths, Nobili denied his religion, his name, his country, and the God whom he had professed to worship, and became a Hindoo Saniassi, all for "the greater glory of God."[111]
Numerous other Jesuits imitated this example of Nobili, and became both Brahmins and pariahs. Some of them were specially trained and tutored for the purpose, under the elastic system of Jesuit education, each one, of course, having been carefully instructed in the best and safest modes of practicing deception, of violating oaths, and of making the basest means contribute to the end designed to be accomplished. It is claimed for them, apologetically, that they thus became enabled to convert many hundred thousand Indians, both Brahmins and pariahs, to the cause of Christianity. No intelligent mind, however, can be misled by such a pretense as this, for if even that number of the natives were brought under their influence, they could not have risen higher than the low standard fixed by the lives of their Jesuit instructors. But this story can not be accepted as true, coming as it does only from the active agents in this vast system of fraud and falsehood. It is far more likely to have been only one more untruth added to the multitude which these Jesuit impostors were in the habit of repeating daily. Besides, if any such conversions to Christianity had occurred, the impostures of the Jesuits would have been discovered, and the whole of them driven from the country. The Jesuits then in India admit enough themselves to assure us of this. One of them said: "Our whole attention is given to concealing from the people that we are what they call Feringees. The slightest suspicion of this on their part would oppose an insurmountable obstacle to the propagation of the faith,"—the plain and obvious import of which is, that honesty and fair dealing would have weakened the cause of Christianity, whereas its strength was increased and maintained by false pretenses, false swearing, and the false profession of devotion to the Brahminical religion. Another one of them said: "The missionaries are not known to be Europeans. If they were believed to be so, they would be forced to abandon the country; for they could gain absolutely no fruit whatever. The conversion of the Hindoos is nearly impossible to evangelical laborers from Europe: I mean impossible to those who pass for Europeans, even though they wrought miracles." At another place he represents that it "would have been the absolute ruin of Christianity" if the Jesuits had been known as Feringees or Europeans; that is, that in order to advance Christianity, it was necessary to deny it, even under oath, and to profess that the idolatry of the Hindoos was the true worship of God.[112]
The pretense of the Jesuits, therefore, that immense numbers of converts to Christianity were made by them, must have been entitled to no higher credit than their other professions; at all events, the acknowledged authors of a system of falsehoods and deceptions are not entitled to our confidence. It is possible, however, that they may have succeeded in baptizing in secret a few of the natives, and that some Brahmins were among them. But if they did, it is quite certain that the ceremony must have been administered by stealth, and generally so that those who were baptized had no distinct knowledge of what it meant, and may not even have known the time of its administration. At no point in the Jesuit missionary system has more harm been done to the cause of true Christianity than at this. Millions of ignorant and deluded people have been persuaded to believe that Christianity consisted in nothing else but the mere ceremony of baptism, without any intelligent conception of God. Xavier commenced this system in India, and these Jesuit-Brahmins, who followed Nobili, were his imitators. Taking all the accounts together, the number of converts in India was simply enormous, and yet in 1776, after the Jesuits had left there, a very small percentage of their estimated numbers were found.[113] But these exaggerations are more excusable than the methods adopted to impose baptism upon unsuspecting and simple-minded multitudes. The German Steinmetz, alluding to this, says: "They insinuate themselves as physicians into the houses of the Indians; draw a wet cloth over the head and forehead of the sick person, even when at the point of death; mutter privately to themselves the baptism service; and think they have made one Christian more, who is immediately added to the list." The Jesuit De Bourges is represented by him as saying: "When the children are in danger of death, our practice is to baptize them without asking the permission of their parents, which would certainly be refused. The Catechists and the private Christians are well acquainted with the formula of baptism, and they confer it on these dying children, under the pretext of giving them medicine;" that is, by that kind of "pious fraud" which, according to the Jesuits, promotes "the greater glory of God." Another Jesuit father, whose experience in India enabled him to speak advisedly, mentions one woman "whose knowledge of the pulse and of the symptoms of approaching death was so unerring, that of more than ten thousand children whom she had herself baptized, not more than two escaped death." The number of such baptisms during a famine in 1737 are alleged by still another Jesuit to have been "upwards of 12,000." And he supplements this statement by saying that "it was rare, in any place where there were neophytes, for a single heathen child to die unbaptized."[114] Looking over this whole field of Jesuit operations, and contemplating the demoralizing influences of the Jesuits in India, this same German historian feels himself warranted in saying that "every Jesuit who entered within these unholy bounds, bid adieu to principle and truth—all became perjured impostors, and the lives of all ever afterwards were but one long, persevering, toilsome LIE."[115]
It would be a fruitless task to summarize the pretexts invented by the Jesuits to convince ignorant and superstitious people that God not only approved, but directly sanctioned, the frauds and perjuries they practiced in his name, and that he had specially and divinely set them apart—distinct from any other body of people in the world—to demonstrate how "the greater glory of God" could be promoted by such iniquities. If the line could be accurately drawn between their good and evil deeds, it would be most instructive to observe how enormously the latter exceed the former. There was no trouble whatsoever for a Jesuit Saniassi to assume the character of a Christian and an idolatrous Hindoo almost at the same instant of time, in which dual capacity he could perform miracles, like those of Xavier, with the ease and skill of a modern prestidigitator. They even held the wildest animals at bay by the odor of sanctity which encircled them! One of them states that, when traveling at night with his companions, a large tiger was discovered approaching them, when, by simply crying out, "Sancta Maria!" the ferocious animal became terrified and moved away, showing, "by the grinding of his teeth, how sorry he was to let such a fine prey escape." Another, to show how Providence overshadowed and shielded the Jesuits, said "that when heathens and Christians happened to be together, the tigers devour the former without doing any harm to the faithful—these last finding armor of proof in the sign of the cross, and in the holy name of Jesus and Mary."[116] Such superstitious tales as these are told, and many pretended miracles added to them, with a seeming unconsciousness upon the part of those who relate them, that the world has reached a period when the truth can be discovered, even through all the disguises which falsehood and deception may throw around it.
To those who have not investigated the history of the Jesuits, as written by themselves, these accusations may seem harsh and unmerited; not so, however, to those who have. No matter where they went, the obligation of being "all things to all men" was held to be obligatory upon every member of the society. Obedience to the Superior was the highest virtue, notwithstanding it may have involved violations of the laws of God, of morality, and of society. How else could professed Christians pretend to be engaged in the practice of virtue by denying Christ, disavowing his worship, and habitually practicing the debasing rites of the Hindoo religion, for more than a century, as Nobili and his Jesuit followers and imitators did? And what other possible pretext can be offered for the Jesuit worship of Confucius in China, in religious confraternity with the natives, who made their public ceremonies and festivities special testimonials of their adoration of him as the founder of their national religion and the chief among the gods of their idolatry? We shall see how these things were by the proceedings which led to their condemnation by the popes, although the Jesuit historians, who are forced to acknowledge them, try hard to show that the pontifical censure was not deserved.
Daurignac—the ablest of the Jesuit defenders—referring to the course of Nobili and others who practiced idolatrous rites, says: "Some Europeans had been scandalized by this method of appearing all things to all men, in order to win all to Christ." This sentence is misleading in this, that instead of there being merely "some" who felt scandalized, there were multitudes throughout Europe. The ecclesiastical authorities at Goa, in India, were also of this number; and when the complaint reached there that Nobili "had become a Brahmin, and given himself up to idolatry and superstition," he was summoned to Goa to explain his conduct. He could not disobey this summons, and when he reached there, "the sight of his singular costume elicited a general expression of indignation" among the Christians. When required to explain, by the Archbishop of Goa, as the official representative of the Church—appointed by the pope for that purpose—the only defense he could make was that his motives were good; that is, that the prostitution of himself and his sacred calling was well meant because his object was to promote "the greater glory of God!" The Jesuits at Goa accepted his reasons "as sufficient," says Daurignac. There are two methods of accounting for this: First, they were Jesuits; and second, because Nobili's method of falsehood and deception opened to them new and extensive fields of operation, which, if recognized, they could occupy with great success in extending the power of their society. But the archbishop thought otherwise, and "absolutely refused" to accept Nobili's reasons as satisfactory. Accordingly—speaking for the Church and the pope, as he was authorized and empowered to do—he condemned the conduct of Nobili and the reasons he assigned. Nobili "asserted that the truths of the gospel could not have been introduced into Madura by any other means;" but the archbishop refused to accept this excuse, evidently regarding it as a debasing doctrine, aimed at the very foundation of Christianity. Neither would yield. Nobili, backed by the Jesuits, insisted that he was under no obligation to obey the archbishop, although he acted under the special authority of the Church and the pope; and the result was that the matter had to be sent to Rome and the decision of the pope awaited. In the meantime Nobili returned to Madura, where he continued his idolatrous practices, notwithstanding the censure of the Archbishop of Goa was resting upon him, and he was thereby placed in the attitude of disobedience to the legitimate authority of the Church.[117]
Jesuit ingenuity was not sufficient to limit the scope of the inquiry thus brought before the pope and the Papal Curia at Rome, because of the increasing indignation against the society. Added to the complaints of the Portuguese authorities regarding their conduct in Paraguay, and that of Nobili at Madura, their idolatrous worship of Confucius in China came generally to be known about this time. Consequently, the investigation which it became necessary for the pope to make, had not only increased in importance, but became broader almost every day. Not only were the matters involved important to the Church, but to the cause of Christianity throughout the world; for it was easy to foresee the injurious and demoralizing results if the Jesuits were permitted to mingle Christian and idolatrous worship together, so as to make it appear to every heathen people within the limits of their missions that Christianity sanctions both forms of worship in the same degree. Consequently, it became necessary for the pope to examine and decide both questions at the same time; that is, whether the Church could rightfully tolerate either the adoption and practice of the Hindoo rites by the Jesuits in India, or their participation in the idolatrous worship of Confucius in China.