The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 35, 1640-1649: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 35, 1640-1649: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
I have just completed the official statements regarding our martyrs,
and have finished transcribing them; two copies of them I send now,
the other I will carry or send to your Lordship. The martyrs of whom
this report is made are: Fray Luys Gomez, Fray Gabriel, Fray Juan
Torrilla, Fray Gines de Quesada, and Fray Geronimo de la Cruz--who
is that Japanese priest who, when I came from Spain, was in that
church of the Japanese (in our war of Dilao [27]) at the side of,
or a little behind the well. The holy Fray Luys Gomez is one of those
who in former years were summoned by the emperor in order to question
them about our holy faith; he was eighty-four years of age and had
spent forty in Japon. He died hanged in a cave, head down, with two
Japanese helpers [dogicos], in company with Father Sebastian Viera,
and four other native helpers of theirs. In the official account
which the Society drew up about their father, our Fray Luys is also
included. The holy Fray Gabriel de la Madalena, or Fonseca, after
having suffered the torture of hot water was burned alive, in company
with Fray Geronimo, a Japanese, in the little cottage of the latter,
on the third of September, 1632; Fray Luis, on the sixth of June,
1634. Marvelous things, enough to fill a large book are related of Fray
Gabriel. It is common knowledge that when he prayed he was many times
raised above the ground, and that he often disappeared for a time from
the eyes of those present. From various small herbs that he gathered
he made medicines, with which he wrought miraculous cures. While he
was being burned, they say, he rose in the air two cubits [codos],
and while praying in the mountains this was an ordinary occurrence.
Besides the conversions in China and Japon, the Lord has revealed,
through the medium of his servants the sons of our father Saint
Francis, another and by no means small multitude of people who
desire with all sincerity to receive holy baptism, and to attain
the knowledge of the truth--regarding whom the governor of Terrenate
already mentioned says, in the following paragraph taken from one of
his letters:
Paragraph from the letter of the governor of Terrenate
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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