CHAPTER III - LEGENDARY LIFE OF FRANCIS XAVIER

Summary

We have hitherto given the account of Xavier's labours in India from his own reports. We are therefore in possession of the truth of his history, as to all the events recorded in those reports. Let us proceed to inquire what additional information may be gleaned from his biographers.

A comparison of Xavier's own narrative, with the statements of his biographers, will at once show that all their main facts have been taken from his letters, but that these facts have been rery clumsily put together; and that the truth of the history is often distorted, and often lost amidst a redundancy of detail, such as none but an eye-witness could have supplied; whilst the circumstances of the case, and the distance of time at which his biographers wrote, prove that they did not possess the advantage of eye-witnesses.

The additional facts supplied by the biographers, which are not found in the letters, are nearly all of a marvellous and miraculous character. Many of these marvellous stories have been manifestly fabricated by persons who had no just conception of Xavier's character. They fall far below the moral standard which justly belongs to him; and many are artful, though flimsy expansions of Xavier's own narrative into extravagant or miraculous romances. One example may be cited. A story is thus told by Bohours. The Badages entered the kingdom of Travancore with an army, to ravage the country, and to destroy the Christians. The King of Travancore collected an army to oppose them.