|
|
|
|
CHAPTER 20
THE GREAT STRUGGLE IN INDIA
Besides hunting down heretics, Jews, new Christians, and all who were
accused of Judaizing (that is, conforming to the ceremonies of the Mosaic law,
such as not eating pork, attending the solemnization of the Sabbath, partaking
of the paschal lamb, and so forth), the Goanese Inquisitors also replenished
their dungeons with persons accused of magic and sorcery.1
WHILE the Church of the East was expanding in India and the Orient,
events in the West were hastening to the crisis which lifted the gloom of the
Dark Ages. The conflict between established systems and the word of God had been
precipitated. In 1517 Luther had taken his stand for the Holy Scriptures, and
they were being reinstated in their proper place. The Dark Ages were passing.
At this time a new Catholic order of monasticism was formed, called the
Society of Jesus, generally known as the Jesuits. It was distinctly brought into
existence for the purpose of recovering, if possible, what was lost, to repair
what was injured, to fortify and guard what remained, and to advance the revival
of the Papacy.2 Before Spain and Portugal had been reached by the reforming
power of a newly born Protestantism, the order of the Jesuits had made a secure
alliance with the monarchies of those countries. It was a dark night for the St.
Thomas Christians when the Jesuits, supported by the guns of Portugal, arrived
in India.
It was the lot of Portugal to erect an astonishing empire in the East. It
is amazing how little the public remembers of those seven areas seized by the
Portuguese men-of-war and completely claimed by the crown as imperial domain, an
act to which the pope gave his sanction.3 Omitting the settlements on the west
coast of Africa, this vast colonial dominion may be divided into the following
parts: (1) the east coast of Africa with adjacent islands, (2) the south coasts
of Arabia and Persia, (3) the coasts of Baluchistan and northwest India, (4) the
west coast of India, in which was located, as the Portuguese called it, the
"most noble city of Goa," (5) the east coast of India, (6) the west
coast of what is today Burma and the Malay states, (7) the coast from Singapore
around to Siam, Indo-China, and China, as far north as the island of Macao.
While one is astonished at the thrilling exploits of the Portuguese cavaliers
who subdued these overseas kingdoms, he is obliged to deplore their fanaticism
and cruelty. As J. D. D'Orsey says: "Religion, or rather religious
fanaticism, was the inspiring principle, the very mainspring of every movement
of every heroic exploit. Their wars were rather crusades than patriotic
struggles."4
One incident illustrating the cruelty which ultimately caused the
downfall of the invaders may be recited. On the third expedition from Portugal
(A.D. 1502), commanded by Vasco da Gama, a fleet of twenty vessels sailed for
Calicut. On the previous expedition the zamorin (ruler) of the Hindu kingdom of
Calicut had been induced by Arabian merchantmen of wealth to fall upon the
Portuguese, at which time Gasper Correa, a dear friend of Vasco's, was murdered.
Vasco da Gama's motives in this new expedition were to punish the Moslems for
this death, as well as for their insults to Catholicism. While on his way, he
encountered an ocean vessel filled with Moslem pilgrims returning from Mecca.
The Arabs, knowing the superiority of the Portuguese, offered a large ransom,
which was accepted. Nevertheless, command was given to fire the boat. The
desperate people succeeded in extinguishing the flames, but Da Gama ordered them
relighted. It is related that mothers held their children up toward Da Gama,
pleading for mercy. The conflagration was so terrible that one writer has
likened it to the fires of the inferno.5 Nevertheless, the Jesuits were cold to
the awfulness of the deed, claiming that it was simply a prelude to further
successes.
One expedition followed another, until the Portuguese supremacy was
established. As the result of several wars, Goa, at the wide mouth of the
Mandavi River, was seized, strongly fortified, and made the capital of the new
empire. The mind visualizes the wide harbor teeming with the shipping of the
world, the brilliant military cavalcades, the pomp of state, the coming and
going of the ambassadors of the nations, the great warehouses bursting with the
merchandise to be exchanged between the West and the East, and the magnificent
estates of the Latin nobility. Probably the most glamorous of all the spectacles
of those brilliant days were the ecclesiastical processions and functions of the
church. At Goa one can still gaze upon the splendid cathedral where the bell was
tolled as the victims were led out to their execution. Such was the splendor,
power, and wealth of Goa. When one visits Goa today, he finds that the
Portuguese territory has dwindled to a small section of the country on the west
central coast, so badly desolated that it is but a sickly shadow of its former
greatness. However, many vestiges still remain of Goa's past grandeur and fame.
As the Jesuits were already in control of Spain and Portugal, they
accompanied the conquerors principally for the purpose of converting the St.
Thomas Christians.6 It was the unhappy lot of India to experience the crushing
weight of these haughty monks. These men were skilled in sublimated treachery
and trained for years in the art of rapid debate in which they could trap an
opponent by the cunning use of ambiguous terms; consequently, the simple,
trusting St. Thomas Christians were no match for them. The Jesuits proposed to
dominate all schools and colleges. This they sought to accomplish in
non-Catholic schools by occupying the pulpits and the professorial chairs, not
as Jesuits, but as professed adherents of the Protestant churches to which these
schools belonged. As an example of their success by 1582, only forty-eight years
after the order was founded, they controlled two hundred eighty-seven colleges
and universities in Europe, some of which were of their own founding.
It was their studied aim to gain entrance, under the guise of friendship,
into services of the state and to climb up as advisers to the highest officers,
where they could so influence affairs as to bring them into the orbit of Rome.
They were past masters of the ways of deception. They were adept in the policy
of secretly bringing on a public disaster, simultaneously providing for
salvation from the last terrors of that disaster; thus they would be credited
with salvation from the extremity of the calamity, while others were blamed for
its cause. The Jesuits Capture the Council of Trent
This Society of Jesus proposed to subordinate the Holy Scriptures and
in their place substitute the interpretations of the Bible by the ecclesiastical
writers of the first centuries whom they called the "fathers." All the
errors and vagaries of the allegorizers who confused and darkened the first
three centuries were selected. The first great papal council which assembled
after the Reformation, the Council of Trent (A.D. 1545-1563), was dominated by
the Jesuits. This assembly laid down the law, and no papal authority has dared
since to dispute it.
In assembling this church council, Emperor Charles V gave the order that
only the abuses in the church, not doctrine, should be considered. He was
distracted to behold his realm divided between two contending churches, and it
mattered little to him which creed prevailed. He only wished some general
assembly to remedy conditions. The emperor desired Lutherans and Catholics to
sit together in a general council, and he fondly believed Europe again would be
united.
The influence of the Jesuits was immediately seen when the pope ignored
the imperial command to notify the Reformers. Weeks passed, and finally the
council organized itself and accepted the following as its first four decrees:
(1) The Vulgate was the true Bible and not the Received Text which the Reformers
followed and which had been the Bible of the Greek Church, the Church of the
east, and the true churches of the West through the centuries; (2) tradition was
of equal authority with the Sacred Scriptures; (3) the five disputed books found
in the Catholic Bible, but rejected by Protestant scholars, were declared
canonical; (4) the priests only, and not the laity, were capable of rightly
interpreting the Scriptures.7
When the emperor learned that the Protestants had not been called to the
council, he was enraged. Uttering severe threats, he demanded that his original
plan be executed. Though the pope reluctantly and with long delay obeyed, the
decrees already passed irrevocably compromised the situation. The Lutherans
refused to accept the insulting notifications. In the meantime the pope had died
and his successor advocated Jesuit policies. The deliberations proceeded as they
had begun. Decree after decree was proclaimed; doctrine after doctrine was
settled. Repeatedly the emperor was misled until he expressed his anger strongly
to the Roman pontiff over the deceitful maneuvering.
How were the church prelates to defend these doctrines which had no
scriptural authority?
Hours, weeks, and months; yes, many sessions went by with this anxious
question in their hearts. Then, one morning, January 18, 1562, the archbishop of
Rheggio hurried from his room and appeared before his confreres to proclaim that
he had the answer. Protestants, he urgently reasoned, never could defend Sunday
sacredness,8 If they continued to offer as their authority "the Bible and
the Bible only," it was clear that they had no Bible command for the first
day of the week. According to Pallavicini, papal champion of the council, the
archbishop said, "It is then evident that the church has power to change
the commandments," because by its power alone and not by the preaching of
Jesus it had transferred the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.9 Tradition, they
concluded, was not antiquity, but continuous inspiration. None could continue to
fight the acceptance of tradition when the only authority for Sunday sacredness
in the church was tradition. This discovery nerved the council to go forward
with its work.
All the doctrines against which the Reformers had protested were thus
again formulated and strengthened by Rome. All the rites and practices which the
Church in the Wilderness had straggled to escape were incorporated more strongly
than ever into papal tradition by the twenty-five sessions of the council
between 1545 and 1563.
Henceforth, the Papacy was to have only one mission in the world, namely,
to command nations and men everywhere to submit to the Council of Trent. The new
slogan now invented, which must go reverberating throughout the earth, was,
"The Council of Trent, the Council of Trent, the Council of Trent."
How poor India was made to tremble and bend beneath this cry!
With the Jesuits the Inquisition came into India. "A still more
decided form of compulsion was the Inquisition established at Goa, in the year
1560, which soon made itself felt by its terrible and mysterious
punishments."10 This was a European, not an Asiatic, engine of torment
imposed upon the St. Thomas Christians of India. In it could be found torture by
tire, by water, by the rack, and by burning at the stake.
The supreme punishment, of course, was burning at the stake. If the
unhappy believer in New Testament Christianity failed to renounce his simple
faith and accept all the innovations, rites, and mysteries of the Roman Catholic
Church, the day would come when, with a black gown and a cowl over his head, he
would be led to the public square to make the supreme sacrifice. Arriving at
their Golgotha, those condemned to the flames would be chained to a high stake
many feet above the piles of fagots. Then two Jesuits would wail out an
exhortation to repent. When finally the nod of the inquisitor was given, blazing
torches on long poles were dashed into the faces of the agonizing martyrs; and
this continued until their faces were burned to cinder. The flames were then
applied below; and as the roaring fire mounted higher and higher, it consumed
the sufferers who died for their faith.
About the year 1674, Dr. M. G. Dellon, a French physician, was traveling
in India. Suddenly he was seized and put into the prison of the Inquisition at
Goa on the charge that he did not honor certain papal doctrines and that he had
spoken contemptuously of the Inquisition. The real reason, he suspected, was
that he had been sociable with a young lady to whom the Portuguese governor had
been paying attention, although the traveler had no serious intentions.11 He was
confined in a dungeon ten feet square, where he remained nearly two years
without seeing any person but the one who brought him his meals and those who
brought him to trial. When arraigned before the court, he was obliged to walk
barefoot with other prisoners over the sharp stones of the streets; this wounded
his feet and caused the blood to flow. He says that his joy was inexpressible
when he heard that he was not to be burned, but was to be sentenced to work as a
galley slave for five years.12
In his book written upon these experiences in the Inquisition, Dr. Dellon
has revealed to the world the horrors of the place. He states that the buildings
had two stories and contained about two hundred chambers; that the stench was so
excessive that when night approached, he did not dare to lie down for fear of
the swarms of vermin and the filth which abounded everywhere.13 Repeatedly he
heard the cries of his fellow prisoners as they writhed in torture. He did not
suffer this form of affliction; but, having undergone many prolonged
examinations, he attempted suicide on several occasions. He was sent to serve
out his sentence on a ship, but in voyaging he encountered a friend of influence
who was able to obtain a commutation of his condemnation.
Recording the burning at the stake which was inflicted upon many of the
St. Thomas Christians, the following statements are from the account by Dr.
Dellon, reproduced by George M. Rae: But
perhaps the blackest acts of this unholy assembly have yet to be recorded. The
cases of such as were doomed to be burnt had yet to be disposed of, and they
were accordingly ordered to be brought forward separately. They were a man and a
woman, and the images of four men deceased, with the chests in which their bones
were deposited.... Two of the four statues also represented persons convicted of
magic, who were said to have Judaized One of these had died in the prison of the
Holy Office; the other expired in his own house, and his body had been long
since interred in his own family burying ground, but, having been accused of
Judaism after his decease, as he had left considerable wealth, his tomb was
opened, and his remains disinterred to be burnt at the auto-da-fe.... We may
well throw a veil over the smoky spectacle on the banks of the river which seems
to have attracted the viceroy of Goa and his heartless retinue.14
How much the wrath of the Jesuits was directed against the St. Thomas
Christians because they observed Saturday, the seventh day of the week, as the
Sabbath may be seen in this further quotation from Rae: "In the remote
parts of the diocese, as well towards the south as towards the north, the
Christians that dwell in the heaths are guilty of working and merchandizing on
Sundays and holy days, especially in the evenings."15
The Jesuits now proceeded methodically to obliterate the St. Thomas
Christians. They depended upon their usual weapons: (1) the founding of a Jesuit
college in which the youth won over from the Assyrian communities, or the St.
Thomas Christians, were trained as papal clergymen in the Syrian tongue; (2) the
power of the selecting of the Assyrian leaders; (3) the calling of a synod which
they were assured beforehand they could dominate. The Jesuit college founded at
Vaipicotta near Cochin introduced the Syrian language. It allowed the youth of
the St. Thomas Christians to use Syrian dress. These youth were indoctrinated in
the traditional beliefs and practices of the Papacy. But when the teachers had
finished the training of a number of Syrian Christian young people, these youth
found that, as they went among their people, the Assyrian Church would not
recognize them as clergymen. This church also refused to allow the Portuguese
priests to enter into their places of worship.
Failing in this school venture, the Jesuits moved upon the heads of the
church. One after another they singled out the leaders, Mar Joseph, Mar Abraham,
and Mar Simeon. Not having bishops in the accepted usage of the term, the Church
of the East called their provincial directors by the title, "mar,"
meaning "spiritual lord;" while the title "catholicos," or
"patriarch," was given to the supreme head, the father of fathers at
Bagdad (formerly at Seleucia). The Jesuits surrounded the leaders in India with
spies. They threatened them with the terrors of the Inquisition at Goa.
During this time there came to Goa a papal prelate, Alexis de Menezes,
the agent of Rome who succeeded in crushing the Assyrian Church. He was a man of
invincible tenacity and consummate craft. The Vatican had elevated him to be
archbishop of Goa and had commanded him to bring an end to the heresies of the
St. Thomas Christians. At the death of Mar Abraham, Menezes turned with all his
fury upon Archdeacon George, whom Abraham had appointed to act until the arrival
from Bagdad of a new head of the church.
Menezes immediately undertook the difficult and unusual journey of
approximately four hundred miles from Goa to the Malabar Coast. Archdeacon
George was pressed to subscribe to the doctrines of Rome. He refused, saying
that the St. Thomas Christians had always been, and always would be, independent
of Rome. Of the immediate results, D'Orsey writes as follows: Popular
excitement was now at its height. The poor mountaineers, who had at first
welcomed their Roman fellow Christians so warmly, were thoroughly excited
against their oppressors. They looked upon the Portuguese as the relentless
enemies of their ancient faith, and as the barbarous persecutors of their
beloved bishops and priests. They therefore rose in arms, expelled the Jesuits
from their country, and in two instances, were barely restrained from putting
them to death.16
But the worst was yet to come. When the archbishop arrived at Cochin,
January, 1599, he was received with an uproarious welcome. He had previously
obtained an alliance with the Hindu raja, in whose territory the St. Thomas
Christians dwelt, because he had used Portuguese fleets to wipe out a nest of
pirates. "The grandest preparation had been made for his reception, richly
carpeted stairs had been expressly constructed; the governor and a brilliant
staff were at the landing place, and the prince of the church disembarked amid
the waving of flags, the clang of martial music, the shouts of the people, and
the thunder of artillery."17
Having soon disposed of military and political matters, the Roman
Catholic primate turned his attention to the main project of his life. He
summoned before him the perplexed and terrified archdeacon George. The latter
decided to play a double game. He reasoned that if he could only temporize until
Archbishop Menezes returned to Goa, time might work in his favor. He and his
armed escort went to Cochin to welcome the powerful ecclesiastic. They kissed
his hand, and gave him permission to preach and to sing mass in the Syrian
churches. But when the archbishop learned that the patriarch of Babylon was
mentioned in the prayers of the St. Thomas Christians as the universal pastor of
the church, his anger knew no bounds. He summoned the professors, students,
archdeacons, and clergy to appear before him, asserting with rage that the pope
alone was supreme and that the Assyrian catholicos was a heretic. He produced a
written document, excommunicating any person who should in the future pray for
the patriarchs of Babylon or Bagdad. "Sign it," he ordered the
archdeacon. The war galleys of the Portuguese lay in the harbor. In Menezes were
united military power and church authority. To the scandal of Christianity, he
forced the evangelical shepherd to surrender the rights of his people. Quailing
before the Jesuit archbishop, Archdeacon George signed.
Having struck down the head of the system, the papal prelate now
proceeded to make a large number of St. Thomas Christian leaders sign away the
remainder of their fifteen-hundred-year-old heritage. Having been given
permission to visit the Syrian worshipers on condition that he would teach no
papal doctrine, the archbishop broke his promise. He openly preached against the
beliefs and practices of the Malabar Church. He even ordained young men to the
ministry who promised to renounce the patriarch of Babylon and to recognize the
pope. These youth gave up the distinctive teachings of the Church of the East
for papal doctrines and rites. This he continued to do until he was assured of
enough votes in the approaching synod. The archdeacon appealed to the raja for
protection; but Menezes saw to it that by threats and favors all the rajas were
restrained. One more act, and he had delivered the final blow.
He ordered Archdeacon George to submit to the pope and ratify the papal
decrees authorizing the calling of a synod. The archdeacon hesitated. Then
Menezes brought out the most terrible weapon of all which he had kept in
reserve. He threatened the tormented leader of the helpless people with
excommunication, and the Inquisition at Goa. Visions of the gibbet, the rack,
and the fagot rose up before the lonely official. Overcome with terror, he
signed the ten articles laid before him, which paved the way for the Synod of
Diamper. The Disastrous Synod of Diamper
The morning of June 20, 1599, was the day when a great church gave up
its independence. Eleven days previous, Archbishop Menezes had arrived with his
supporters and certain subservient Assyrian Church leaders in order to give
final touches to the decrees which he proposed the synod should pass. He planned
that this assembly should preserve all appearances of a deliberative delegation,
while in reality it was a subjected body.
It had been decided to hold the synod in the Church of All Saints at
Diamper, a community which lies about fourteen miles east of Cochin. The crowds
began to gather early. The government administration officers at Cochin, with a
large staff of officers richly costumed in silk, velvet, and lace, blending in
dazzling colors with polished mail and plumed helmets, had arrived the evening
before.18
The papal church was represented by the dean, pastor, and choir. Along
with them came the town council accompanied by merchants and captains of ships.
In fact, all within traveling distance forsook their ordinary avocations in
order to be present on the opening day. Archdeacon George, as leader of the St.
Thomas Christians, came robed in splendid vestments of dark red silk, a large
golden cross hanging from his neck, and his beard reaching below his girdle. One
hundred fifty-three of their clergymen accompanied him, clad in their long white
vestments and wearing their peculiar headdress of red silk. There were six
hundred delegates from various Malabar churches, besides numerous deacons, which
increased the body of Syrian representatives to nearly a thousand men.
Menezes delivered an opening address in which he thanked God for the
large assembly crowding the little cathedral. His next act was to celebrate a
solemn mass using the form designated by the Roman Catholic Church for the
removal of the schism. He ignored completely the claims of the Syrian archdeacon
to any part in the religious service. Then he mounted the pulpit to set forth
vigorously the claims of the Roman pontiff to obedience, because he, as Christ's
vicar upon earth, had been commanded to see to it that no Syrian successor
should be permitted to land in India after the death of Mar Abraham. After this
discourse he brought forth Rome's decrees and demanded that the delegates should
pass by and sign them.
The first decree touching the differences between the two churches was
like the first decree of the Council of Trent, and was directed against the
Protestant Bible. This decree set up the Latin Vulgate as the Bible to be
followed in contrast to the Syrian Bible. Other decrees were presented, aimed at
the acknowledgment of the seven Roman sacraments, whereas the Syrians had
recognized only three; they demanded that communion should be celebrated
according to the papal rite, and that the Syrians should recognize in the
eucharist, or Lord's Supper, the claim of transubstantiation. Then followed the
decrees to bring the Syrian Church into line with the papal doctrines of
penance, auricular confession, extreme unction, adoration of images, reverence
for relics, purgatory, eternal punishment, the worship of saints, the doctrine
of indulgence, papal supremacy, and above all, the worship of the Virgin Mary.
All who taught anything contrary to the Council of Trent were to be accursed.
Nine decrees were passed respecting the eucharist and fifteen regarding the
mass, all pointing to the extirpation of Syrian practices and the introduction
of Roman doctrine and ritual without the slightest concession.19
In addition to eliminating the Syrian Bible, it was demanded that all
Syrian books were to be delivered up, altered, or destroyed; that every trace
relating to the patriarch of Babylon or to the doctrines of the St. Thomas
Christians was to be condemned; and that all St. Thomas Christians were to be
subject to the Inquisition at Goa. Forty-one decrees were passed with reference
to fasts and festivals, organization, and order in church affairs. In all there
were nine sessions lasting a week and promulgating two hundred sixty-seven
decrees.
The submission demanded of the archdeacon and his associated clergy is
presented in the following words of the learned Geddes who gives an abbreviated
translation of the actions of the synod, handed down by a scribe recognized as
official by Portuguese authorities: The
most reverend metropolitan after having made this protestation and confession of
faith, rose up, and seating himself in his chair, with his miter on his head,
and the holy Gospels, with a cross upon them in his hands; the Reverend George,
archdeacon of the said bishopric of the Serra, kneeling down before him, made
the same profession of faith, with a loud and intelligible voice, in the Malabar
tongue, taking an oath in the hands of the lord metropolitan, and after him all
the priests, deacons, subdeacons, and other ecclesiastics that were present,
being upon their knees, Jacob curate of Pallany, and interpreter to the synod,
read the said profession in Malabar, all of them saying it along with him; which
being ended, they all took the oath in the hands of the lord metropolitan, who
asked them one by one in particular, whether they did firmly believe all that
was contained in the profession.20
Three of the demands passed by this crushing assembly stand out above all
others for their cruelty. First, there was the decree demanding the celibacy of
the clergy. If the synod had passed this regulation as of force from then on, it
would have been a great enough revolution; but the decree was made retroactive.
All the Syrian priests were immediately to put away their wives. Since it had
been the practice of the St. Thomas Christians to permit the wife of the priest
to draw some little financial pay from the revenues of the church, this also was
cut off, leaving the poor woman and her children without support.
Another of the cruel regulations was to single out for burning at the
stake those Christians whom the Roman Catholic Church chose to designate as
apostate.21 As has been noted before, the Christians whom they designated as
apostate were generally called Judaizers, or those who observed the seventh day
as the Sabbath. Decree 15 of Action VIII, as recorded by Geddes, reads,
"The synod doth command all the members thereof upon pain of mortal sin,
not to eat flesh upon Saturdays."22 Decree 16, which will not be rendered
verbatim, demands that all feast and fast days shall commence and cease at
midnight, because the practice of beginning and ending the day at sundown is
Jewish.23 This decree is in direct opposition to the Scriptures which command
that the day begin at sunset.
The effort of the Papacy to disgrace the Sabbath by turning it into a
fast day is attested by many authors. The historian Neander has stated that the
early opposition to the honoring of the seventh-day Sabbath by Christians led to
the special observance of Sunday in its place.24 Bishop Victorinus, about 290,
betrays the real motive of the Papacy in the introduction of the Sabbath fasting
as follows: "Let the parasceve become a rigorous fast, lest we should
appear to observe any Sabbath with the Jews."25 Neander also wrote:
"While in the Western, and especially in the Roman Church, where the
opposition against Judaism predominated, the custom, on the other hand, grew out
of this opposition, of observing the Sabbath also as a fast day."26
Archbishop Menezes, therefore, in harmony with the usual practice of imperial
Christianity forced the decree which turned Saturday into a fast day through the
Synod of Diamper. This put those St. Thomas Christians who in the future would
observe the Sabbath as a festival, into the category of apostate Christians, and
destined them for the stake at Goa. Thomas Yeates, who traveled largely in the
Orient, writing of the St. Thomas Christians and other Christians of the East,
said that Saturday "amongst them is a festival day agreeable to the ancient
practice of the Church."27
Samuel Purchas, in enumerating the doctrines of the Syrian Church, said
that they believed "that the Holy Ghost proceedeth only from the Father;
that they celebrate Divine Service as solemnly on the Sabbath, as on the Lord's
Day; that they keep that day festival, eating therein flesh, and fast no
Saturday in the year but Easter Eve,...that they acknowledge not
purgatory."28
In an earlier chapter it was noted how the Papacy stigmatized as Arians
those who disagreed with her in general, and in particular how she branded those
as Judaizers who were convinced that "the Sabbath" of the fourth
commandment was the seventh day. Writings are extant of irregular Gnostic or
semi-Gnostic writers of the first three centuries who attempted to prove that
God had abolished the Ten Commandments and that all the conscience needed was
the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This no-law strain was strongly accentuated in
ecclesiastical Christianity. Pope Gregory I, in 602, issued his famous bull in
which he branded those Christians who conscientiously believed the seventh day
to be the holy Sabbath of the fourth commandment as Judaizers and antichrist.29
Consequently, down through the centuries the Papacy has allowed no standing room
whatever for sincere Christians who were convinced that the seventh day of the
week was still binding upon the followers of Christ.
As an evidence that the St. Thomas Christians came under this unjust and
reviling opprobrium of Judaziers because they solemnized the Sabbath, the
reader's attention is called to the quotation at the head of this chapter.
Moreover, as further testimony that other Christian bodies in India also
sanctified Saturday, there is the authority of trustworthy historians that the
Armenians kept Saturday as the Sabbath: "The Armenians in Hindustan...have
preserved the Bible in its purity, and their doctrines are, as far as the author
knows, the doctrines of the Bible. Besides they maintain the solemn observance
of Christian worship, throughout our empire, on the seventh day."30
Another act of the Synod of Diamper which historians consider
unforgivable, was the decree to destroy, or alter beyond recognition, all the
writings of the St. Thomas Christians. Having crushed the distinctive
theological values of this church, the assembly reached out to obliterate all
the cultural ties which bound her to the past. Manuals of church activities were
torn to pieces, records of districts and documents relating the manifold
contacts of this wonderful people were burned. What a wealth of evangelical
literature was ruined in a moment!
Who can tell how much of the literature destroyed went back even to
apostolic days, and would have thrown great light upon the work of the apostle
Thomas and upon the early years of the Church of the East? Many difficult
problems which face zealous missionary endeavors today in the Far East might
have found their solution in this literature so wantonly obliterated. It has
been noticed before that certain celebrated writers of the Assyrian Church in
Persia and in other parts of the East not only translated their own productions
to be sent to fellow believers in India, but also translated productions of
other authors of great value and had them carried to the Malabar Coast. One
would naturally have expected the Mohammedans to bum and destroy Christian
literature when they overran central and farther Asia, but who would ever have
expected this attempt to destroy such priceless treasure by a church which calls
itself Christian? Jesuit Seapower Destroyed by the English
While the Jesuits were destroying the Church of the East in India,
events were moving toward a world revolution in Europe. In 1582 the Jesuits had
launched their new translation of the Latin Vulgate in English in order to
counteract the powerful effects of Tyndale's epoch-making Bible translated into
English in 1525 from the Received Text in Greek. The 1582 Jesuit New Testament
in English declares in its preface its opposition to the Waldensian New
Testament.
Spain marshaled all the power and wealth which she had gained from her
possessions in the New World to send forth the greatest navy man had yet seen.
She had just conquered Portugal, possessing through this conquest the navies of
two countries. A fleet of about 130 Spanish ships, great and small, some armed
with fifty cannon, sailed up the English Channel to accomplish by force the ruin
of English Protestantism.
John Richard Green gives this information about the Spanish Armada: Within
the Armada itself, however, all hope was gone. Huddled together by the wind and
the deadly English fire, their sails torn, their masts shot away, the crowded
galleons had become mere slaughterhouses. Four thousand men had fallen, and
bravely as the seamen fought, they were cower by the terrible butchery. Medina
himself was in despair. 'We are lost, Senior Oquenda,' he cried to his bravest
captain: 'what are we to do?' 'Let others talk of being lost,' replied Oquenda,
'Your Excellency has only to order up fresh cartridge.' But Oquenda stood alone,
and a council of war resolved on retreat to Spain.31 Glorious Revolt of the St. Thomas Christians
The victory of the English over Spain paved the way for the Jesuit
defeat on the Malabar Coast. It was several years before the full meaning of the
conquest over the Spanish Armada worked its way to the Orient. A ray of light
was seen by the suffering St. Thomas Christians. They groaned beneath what they
called their Babylonian captivity. They loathed the worship of the images, the
adoration of relics, processions, incense, confessional, and all the ceremonies
their fathers knew not. They longed for the crystal streams of the Scriptures.
They yearned for the literature which the church had fostered since the days of
the apostles. As they meditated on the "city which hath foundations, whose
builder and maker is God," their spirit burned within them.
Then an event occurred which caused a revolution among the people. The
successive victories of the Dutch and English over the papal armies in India had
opened the way for the patriarch at Babylon to ordain and send a new head to the
church in India, Ahatalla. He was seized when he landed at Mailapore near
Madras, shipped to Goa, and burned at the stake. Immediately a cry of horror ran
through the Malabar churches. At the summons of protest, they came from town and
village. Before a huge cross at a place near Cochin they assembled by the
thousands to take their stand against the Papacy. Since all were not able to
touch the sacred symbol, long ropes were extended from it which they firmly
grasped while they took the oath renouncing their allegiance to Rome. This
happened in 1653, and the incident is known as Coonen Cross.
When the papal leaders beheld nearly 400,000 Christians lost to their
church, they immediately dispatched monks to go in among them and, if possible,
to remedy the disaster. "The result," says Adeney, "was a split
of the Syrian Church, one party adhering to the papal church as Romo-Syrians,
while the more daring spirits reverted to the Syrian usages. It is estimated
that the former, known as Puthencoor, or the new community, now number about
110,000 while the latter, the Palayacoor, or old community, amount to about
330,000."32
Divisions along these lines still exist there, and a large field presents
itself for evangelization by those who give the Bible first place in advancing
the kingdom of heaven. |