Volume 2 — CHAPTER V.

Of the religion of the Tarsá[488], containing three sections.

Section I—an account of the Lord Aisíá (Jesus).

Section II—of the creed of the Nasárá.

Section III—of the works of the Tarsá.

Of the Tarsá I saw several learned individuals, such as the Padrî Fransaî, who is highly esteemed by the Portuguese in Goa, and by those who are in Surat, a maritime place in India. In the year of the Hejira 1057 (A. D. 1647) the author of this book found him in the port of Surat.

Section the first: an account of the Lord Aisia (Jesus).—They say that the birth of the Lord Mesîah took place in the year 3199 of the creation of the world,[489] 2957 after the deluge of Noah,[490] 2015 years 306 after the birth of Ibráhím,[491] and 1510 from the coming of Mosîah (Moses);[492] and when the children of Israél were in the 65th week, which the prophet Dáníel had announced, 752 years after the building of Rome,[493] in the 42nd year of the reign of Cæsar Tiberius. When Aísía appeared, the high priest said: “We charge thee, upon thy oath by the living God, say, art thou the son of God?” The blessed and holy Lord Aísîâ replied to him: “I am what thou hast said. Verily, we say unto you, you shall see the son of man seated at the right hand of God, and he shall descend in the clouds of heaven.” They said: “Thou utterest a blasphemy, because, according to the creed of the Yahuds, God never descends in the clouds of heaven.” Ishâîá the prophet has announced the birth of Aîsîá in words the translation of which is as follows: “A branch from the root of Ishaî shall spring up, and from this branch shall come forth a flower in which the spirit of God shall dwell: verily, a virgin shall be pregnant and bring forth a son.” 307 Isháî is the name of the father of Dávid. When they had apprehended Aisîa, they spit upon his blessed face and smote him. Ishâa had predicted it: “I shall give up my body to the smiters, and my cheek to the diggers of wounds; I shall not turn my face from those who will use bad words, and throw spittle upon me.” When Aflátes (Pilatus), a judge of the Yahuds, scourged the Lord Aîsiâ in such a manner that his body from head to foot became but one wound, so was it as Ishâía had predicted: “He was wounded for our transgressions; I struck him for his people.” When Pilatus saw that the Yahuds insisted upon the death and the crucifixion of Jesus, he said: “I take no part in the blood of this man; I wash my hands clean of this blood.” The Yahuds answered: “His blood be on us and on our children.” On that account, the Yahuds are oppressed and curbed down, in retribution of their iniquities. When they had placed the cross upon the shoulder of Aísiá, and led him to die, a woman wiped with the border of her garment the face, full of blood, of the Lord Aîsîa; verily, she obtained three images of it, and carried them home: the one of these images exists still in Ispániah, in the royal town which is situated within the country of the king of Portugal; and is shown there twice every year:[494] the other is in the town of Milan, in 308 the country of Italy, and the third in the city of Rome.

By the Septuaginta 2250 years before Christ.

— Archbishop Usher 2348 — — —

— Others 3882 — — —

Section the second: of the creed of the Ai su yah (Christians). They say that, in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, every one ought to bear in his heart and to keep perpetually on his tongue the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, and never to deny him, if even it were at the peril of his head.[495] The holy cross is the sign of the Christians. They reckon fourteen parts of their creed: seven of which relate to God the Almighty, and seven to the human nature of the Lord Jesus. The first seven are as follow: 1. to confess 309 that God is omnipotent and supreme; 2. to believe that he is the Father; 3. to believe that he is the Son; 4. that he is a pure spirit; 5. that he is the Creator; 6. that he bestows heaven; 7. that he grants salvation.[496] The seven other articles, which relate to the human nature of Jesus are the following: 1. to believe that he is the Son of God, by the power of the Holy Ghost, born in the body of Maria; 2. that he was born of Maria, the virgin, and without detriment to her virginity; 3. that for our sake he was crucified, died, and was buried; 4. that he shall descend from heaven, and raise up the former generations, who there anxiously expected his blessed arrival; 5. that he resuscitated on the third day; 6. that he ascended to heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, the omnipotent and supreme God; 7. that he shall come at the end of the world to judge the living and the dead, and to reveal their good and bad actions. They call God a father, because he is bountiful to his servants as a father to his children. They maintain that, although God has three different persons, yet, in truth, he is but one being; in such a manner that the persons are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, without the unity of the blessed entity being affected by it, and this peculiarity belongs to the divinity; in no 310 creature is such an attribute to be found. Jesus is in truth the Son of God; it is only metaphorically that other holy personages are called the sons of God; it is in an abstract sense,[497] inasmuch as, being God, that Jesus came forth in heaven from the Father, not from the mother; in a similar manner, in an abstract sense, inasmuch as, being a man upon earth, he has a mother, but no Father. Jesus did not die, but, having a perfect love for the sons of Adam, he sacrificed himself for the people, that they may be liberated again from all sins. They say further, that below the earth there are four places: the undermost of all is hell, which is the place of severe punishment for the Satans and the iniquitous. Another place, above this, is that which they call purgatory, that is, a place of purification for good men, as some of the disobedient who have rebelled, when they shall have there been purified, go to heaven. A third place, higher than the last, is called the limbus, in which are children under age; except that of being deprived of the sight of the Lord Almighty, they are there exempt from all other suffering. The fourth place is the most elevated of all; they call it “the House of Ibrahîm,” that is, the dwelling 311 of the souls of the prophets and holy men: these were formerly not quite happy, because they expected anxiously the arrival of the Saviour, the Lord Jesus; when Jesus left the body which was buried, he descended to this fourth place, and when he rose from the grave, he brought the pure souls with him, leaving the souls in the three other places where they were. When, after having been put to death, he was restored to life, his soul was reunited to his body, and he remained forty days with his disciples; he then, before their eyes and those of others, ascended to heaven, and, in the highest place, seated himself at the side of God Almighty. They declare: “When we say that Jesus is seated at the right side of God, his Father, we mean not to say that God has a body and is any thing corporeal. No! the Divine Being has neither right nor left side. By such a description we intend to be intelligible to the vulgar; for Jesus, in the abstract sense of being the son of God, possesses the same greatness and power which his Father has, and in the abstract sense of his being a man, he dwells in the most glorious and most excellent place, which is in heaven.” They declare further: “When we say that Jesus shall come on the last day of the world to judge the dead and the living, and to give their due to all men, we mean not to imply that all men will then be alive, but by the living we denote 312 the good men, and by the dead, the wicked.” Except Christians, nobody else will be found pure and holy. On the day of resurrection, all men shall live and their souls shall be reunited to their bodies, and none will ever more die.

Section the third: of the works of the Christians.—Ten commandments are established in the Gospel; three of them relate to God, and seven others to the servants of God: 1. thou shalt love the Lord thy God above all things; 2. thou shalt not swear by the name of God for the sake of an argument, that is, thou shalt accustom thyself to the truth; when this quality shall be manifest in thee, thou wilt never have occasion for an oath. The wise master of secrets, the king Naser Khusró says:

“At any time speak nothing else but truth, that thou mayst not have need of an oath.”

3. keep the holy days, that is the Sunday and the other sanctified days; 4. honor thy father and thy mother; 5. thou shalt not kill: this means, evidently, thou shalt not kill a living being at all; but they have interpreted it that only the animal which is a private property ought not to be killed, such a one as is serviceable, and in life, or after death, may be of use. The true sense is, that we 313 ought not only not to kill our brother (and such is any son of Adam), but even not hurt him by any deed or word; 6. thou shalt not commit fornication, that is, with a woman not thy own, be she married or without a husband; 7. thou shalt not steal; 8. thou shalt not calumniate nor lie: in this command enters that, if any thing bad concerning somebody be a secret, although we know it as a certainty, we ought nevertheless to keep it concealed, and not to divulge it, except the bad thing were against religion and faith, or tended against the king; 9. thou shalt not covet another’s wife; 10. thou shalt not covet another’s good.

The other five commandments, which are less imperative, are: 1. to hear mass on Sunday, and on other holy days; and this is a rite of devotion which a padri performs; and every body ought in solitude to turn his whole mind towards the remembrance of the sufferings of Jesus; 2. every one ought to go to confession at least once a year. The confession implies three conditions: the first is truth; the second, contrition; the third, completeness; that is, to recount humbly one’s own sins without diminution or addition, to speak out, and to beg absolution; 3. it is necessary that every one should take, yearly, the communion at the Easter feast, that is, when Jesus attained to manhood and made his testament, establishing the rule of the holy sacrament, 314 which is a worship; 4. let every man keep the fast at Christmas, and other fasts, except a person be excused; 5. it is obligatory to pay the tithes, that is, the tenth part of whatever grows from the earth, or comes forth from an animal, is to be given to God.

At the time of prayer, they say, God is to be invoked as our Father; he loveth us just as a father loveth a son, and his own Son says and orders that we should call him a father. We ought then to abstain from sins, that he may enable us to be his children. And when we say to God: “thou art in heaven,” it is because we think he has chosen heaven, and for that reason we raise our hearts from the earth upwards, if even God has no dwelling so as to be beheld in heaven. Besides, in their prayer, they do not demand bread from God, because he is displeased at our wanting to-day the necessaries of life for a future day, but because he wills us to be contented, and to feel no anxious care about to-morrow. They say, that we ought to pardon the mischief that we receive from others, in order that God Almighty may also pardon our transgressions. They offer likewise prayers in praise of the glorious Mary, saying that the Lord God diffuses abundantly his grace in any place in which the image of the blessed Lady Mary be present. In the same manner they consider the image of the Lord Jesus, and that of the holy cross.

315 There are seven sacraments, which consist in submissive prayers and invocations for remission of sins from God the Almighty: 1. Baptism; that is, an external ablution in the name of God, of his Son, and of the Holy Ghost; for this act any sort of water that may be procured is acceptable; by this act the soul is purified from the contamination of all sins; this rite may be performed by the first padri who may be present, and if none are at hand, by any individual among the Christians; 2. Confirmation; that is, a friction with holy oil, given in the name of God; and the giver, that is, a padri of known merit, bestows it on all Christians of an adult age; Sanct-Eucharisty: this, they say, is the holiest of all the sacraments, as it presents the Lord Jesus under the form of bread, that he may become the power of the soul. Three conditions are required in this act: the first is a true faith; the second, abstinence from sins; the third, to fast, and eat nothing until taking the sacrament; the time of taking it is Christmas; 4. Penitence; which consists of two conditions that the Lord Jesus has imposed therein: the first is confession; that is the avowal made by the sinner of his sins, and the absolution of the padri, as of one who is the substitute of Jesus, and whose forgiveness is the absolution of Jesus. Then, it is necessary that the sinner should give a detailed account of his concealed and open crimes, and to this 316 he must add two things; the one is an aversion to, and a repentance of, every action which he may have done without the approbation of God; the other is a sincere resolution of never undertaking any blamable acts; to execute faithfully the penance imposed upon him by the padri, as Jesus ordered a return for every crime. Further, whatever sins, venial or capital, may have struck the ear of the padri, he ought never, even at the peril of his head, to reveal or publish them; 5. Sacrament of extreme unction; this is a friction by which they anoint a Christian with holy oil, and they bestow this sacrament with some words which the Lord Jesus has spoken. The above five sacraments are obligatory to every adult Christian; 6. Ordination; this sacrament is taken by devoting one’s self by free choice to the worship of God, which vocation the Christians recommend; 7. Matrimony; this is an agreement which a man and a woman take together at the time of their binding themselves in wedlock, that during the whole of their life they will keep faith to each other. This is peculiar to the adults. This act is allowable to women frequently at the age of twelve years; to men at that of fourteen. The man is not permitted to take more than one wife, and the woman is bound to a single husband. The padri who gives this sacrament, after having ascertained that there is no objection to the marriage, and the compact 317 being made before witnesses, unites both to each other in wedlock according to the conditions of matrimony.

The Christians say that faith is something by which we know a religion to be certainly true, and that, whenever God, the Almighty, has sent his message, however hard and difficult, and out of the natural mode and rule it may appear, we know that God cannot tell a lie. The truth is found in the book of God, by means of the evidence given by him who is the substitute of the Lord Jesus, and whom they call Pope. It is certain that he throws nobody into an error, because the Lord Jesus has in the holy Gospel, made an arrangement with him to that effect. It should be known that the life of man depends upon these laudable qualifications. To search and to acquire knowledge is a laudable intention, in every business and profession; on that account it is by method and virtue that affairs find a proper arrangement; knowledge is the master of things; it is like salt in meat, it is the eye of the body; and as the sun in heaven. Justice consists in using moderation in the manifold transactions of men, and in keeping men in peace and in mutual satisfaction: if therefore every body were contented with his share, and entertained no desire for more, there would be no war and contention. Fortitude is something by means of which one obtains superiority 318 over the difficulties which obstruct the life of men, and the business of fortitude is to triumph over terror and fear, which Iblis (Satan) throws into the heart, in order to retain us from acts which are to be done. Continence is a faculty which bestows measure and order in sensual pleasures; the business of continence is to prevent men from being carried away by the delights of the world; we ought to tend in this life towards godliness; blessed are those who feel hunger and thirst after God. It is required that, in our devotion to God there enters no other desire but that of the beatitude to see the Divine Being; on that account blessed are those whose hearts are pure, because the sight of God shall be their reward in heaven, and even in this world they shall in a certain way see God: because those whose eyes are pure, behold things of superlative beauty; it is required that we carry strife to a peaceful end, and accomplish our virtuous endeavors. Those who are in a state of opposition to this, take with efforts and struggles the road of misery. On that account blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God.

There are fourteen gifts of God, the all merciful; seven of them are bodily, and seven spiritual. The seven bodily gifts are: 1. to satiate the hungry; 2. to quench the thirst of the thirsty; 3. to clothe the naked; 4. to harbor the stranger; 5. to inquire 319 after the sick, and to console the captive; 6. to procure liberty to prisoners; 7. to bury the dead. The spiritual acts are as follow: 1. to instruct the ignorant; 2. to advise the poor in spirit; 3. to comfort the heart of the mourners; 4. to admonish the sinners; 5. to forgive injuries inflicted; 6. to show forbearance to the deformities of nature; 7. to offer pious prayers for the living and the dead. The Christians say that every necessitous individual is worthy of charities, to whatever religion or sect he may belong, but the person of the same faith, or a relative, is more deserving of favor. It is a sin, when by choice we perpetrate an action which is in opposition to the pleasure of God, and when we abandon an act which we are commanded to perform. A capital sin is it for a man, by his own choice, to commit an abominable act and deed, such as the unrighteous spilling of blood, and whoredom. Of venial sins seven are enumerated: such as stealing some slight thing without a perfect concurrence of the will in it. The summary of the capital sins is as follows: pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth.

Pride consists in esteeming one’s self higher than others, whence proceed petulance, which displays itself in vaunting one’s self and despising others, and in dispute, and disobedience. The remedies to be applied to it are trust, submission, and obedience to 320 another; these are suitable means by which the hateful mind may be subdued.

Avarice is a desire without measure of the brittle things of the world, and the bad consequences which result from it are theft, deception in buying and selling, lies, and perjury: the remedies for it may be good works and liberality.

Lust is an unbounded desire of sensual pleasures; but the way and scandalous display of it is the defilement of women: the remedy to be sought for counteracting it is chastity.

Anger is a desire without measure of vengeance upon somebody, and the display of it is hatred of God’s creatures, insulting speeches against men, contentions, and a total want of mildness: the remedies for it are patience, forbearance, and the reflection that, for our crimes and shameful acts, we are deserving of the adversity which comes upon us, and to keep before our sight the Lord Jesus and his apostles, who showed nothing but mercy and kindness to those very men who caused their distress and affliction.

Gluttony is a desire without measure of eating and drinking; the offspring of this is sensuality, rejection of fasts, slowness in worship, and all sorts of diseases ruining the body: the remedies for this are abstinence, moderation in eating and drinking, in order that a becoming attention to divine favor be 321 excited, the constitution restored to health, and a return from all extravagance accomplished.

Envy is a pain and sadness derived from the good condition of the affairs of other people; whence proceeds the jealous intention to find fault and occasion for detraction. It displays itself by rejoicing at the distress of one’s neighbors, when related by other tongues, by reviling certain people, and by leading an unprofitable life: the remedy for it is affection for mankind on account of their being God’s creatures, and to consider that happiness and welfare are bestowed upon them by the mercy of God, and that it is an exceeding offence against good morals to be afflicted on account of the works and effects which result from divine disposition.

Sloth is negligence in the worship of God and in good behaviour. It displays itself by a frequent deficiency in laudable and obligatory actions, and in always letting slip out of our hands the expedients of spiritual and material life: the remedy for it is activity and alacrity.

Hell is a place a worse than which cannot exist, and in this abode one is imprisoned to all eternity, on account of commission of sins for punishment, more severe than which none can be imagined. Heaven is a place full of all sorts of delight; the happiness of this place manifests itself for all ages by jubilation and pleasure.

322 Jesus told his disciples: “After me, a great number of men will set forth pretensions to divine mission, but all will be deceivers: remain you persevering and steady in your adherence to me, until my coming.”

The Gospel has been translated from the tongue of Jesus into different languages; namely, into Arabic, Greek, Latin, which last is the language of the learned among the Firang; into Syriac, and this all men of letters know.