Фантастика религиозная ненаучная исторически-альтернативная располагается тут.
How the Father Fra Luis SOTELO acquired the friendship of and relations with the King of Voxu at the Court of Iendo
Chapter IV
IDATE Masamune, King of Voxu, being in the court of the Prince, son of the Emperor, and brother of his son-in-law, taking pleasure and enjoyment in the City called Iendo, of great population and beauty, head of eight Kigdoms of the Quanto [Kanto], where never had penetrated other Priests than the Fathers of Saint Francis, and where there was their principal Church and Monastery, and where they lived with the public permission of the Emperor and of his son the Prince, and where already there were many Christians. At that time there fell ill a concubine of the said King, for whom he had most especial love because she was a foreigner (22) and this King Masamune hearing tell (after she had been treated by the best doctors of his Court and had remained in the same illness) that the Fathers of Saint Francis had in one of their Churches a hospital and a Religious who healed in it all kinds of infirmity, and that all of the sick who went there, and in particular that the wife of his chief Steward had been treated and healed by the same lay Religious, called Fra Pietro [Pedro] DE BURGUILLO, a most exemplary man and a friend of God, sent to call the Father SOTELO, so that as superior and Commissar of his Order, he ordered the said lay Father to go and cure the above-mentioned infirm concubine.
The Religious went, and while treating the patient Our Lord was pleased to cure her, at which rejoiced greatly the King, and was much obliged of the favor and pleasure received by means of the Father SOTELO, to whom he ordered to be given bars of gold and silver, clothes, and bolts of silk. But the Father refused the said gifts, saying that the Religious did not cure for self-interest but only for the love of God, nor did it accord with the profession of the cloth and Religion that they take gold or silver or anything of this world, apart from the teaching of the certain road of salvation to those who know it not, at which, being greatly amazed, the King said that he wished to see Father SOTELO and the Religious Doctor, who went to visit him, bringing (as is the custom) a present as a sign of observance and recognition of the person of the King, which consisted of fifty loaves of bread, thirty candles of white wax, three pounds of cloves, and three others of pepper.
he King received the gift in the Royal hall, with great Majesty and company; and rejoicing that the Father SOTELO knew even the language, asked him various things both about our land and our law and religion; and marvelling greatly at the answers which he gave, the King had prepared a collation, and he presented a toast according to his custom, which is sign of great courtesy and the greatest which can be done, and especially by the Kings and Lords to their equals. The King was already preparing to return to the Kingdom of Voxu, and the Father asked him permission to go and visit him in it, and the King rejoicing over the desire of the Father said that he could go freely and that he would see him willingly, and in taking leave of him the King gave an order to one of his nobles that he accompany him with many Knights and nobles of his House until the Father left the Palace.
(22) This probably means merely that she came from a province other than Oshu. However, it is not impossible that she was Chinese or Korean.
How the Father SOTELO went to the Kingdom of Voxu, was received by the King, and invited to eat in the Palace.
Chapter V
The King IDATE Massamune [sic] having already left for the Kingdom of Voxu, the Father SOTELO disposed the affairs of those Christians as best he knew; and leaving there in the Monastery two Priests, he put himself on the road to find the King and visit him; but first he went wandering through various Kingdoms and parts where there were Christians, to confess them and teach them in the faith, and baptize them with their wives and sons, in which work he did not fail, guiding many others to our holy Faith.
The Father arrived in the said Kingdom, where he was the first priest to enter preaching, there not having been announced the Holy Evangel to those people by any Religious before that time until God by His great mercy conducted thither safely the Father. As soon as the King learned of the arrival of the Father he ordered that a church of the infidel Bonzes or Priests be emptied in order to lodge him, since he was a Religious, with a further order that many servants and ministers prepare it and provide everything necessary with great generosity and abundance.
The King at that time was on the point of going on several hunts, and before he left he gave the order that the Nobles fete him and invite him each day one by one until his Majesty return, as they did most lavishly and with great pomp. The people on foot and on horseback stayed two continuous days before the King came out with his game. Returned from the hunt, [the King] sent immediately someone to visit the said Father, and invite him to dine with him. The following day he went to the palace taking three [?] vestments and some loaves of savory bread, of which His Majesty rejoiced, and showed himself pleased at the visit and at the work which he had undertaken.
The King, noticing that the Father was modest and circumspect in his eating, and that he refused the most delicious dishes of the feast, curious to know the reason, asked the Father why he ate the fish and neglected to eat the meat. To which, responding with much reverence and modesty, he took the opportunity of telling about the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ and of the fifty-three-day fast which precedes it, called Advent, observed by his Religion in memory and gratitude for the infinite mercy and generosity which God disposed toward the posterity of the first father Adam, causing His own Son to be incarnated for our redemption, and that the Order of Saint Francis at that time not only fasted and abstained from meat and milk products but that, at the same time, it endeavored to mortify the body with other penitenial exercises; to the point that the King felt this principle so exalted, and his desire grew to know how and when there took place this prodigious event of the arrival of the Christ in the world; and the Father replied that the ineffable mystery and very great secret of Heaven could not be made manifest without a knowledge of doctrine, and without many sermons preceding as a necessary means toward making the intellect capable of understanding, with the small light of reason, the effects and marvellous works of the omnipotence of God.
The King responded that he had been told some years earlier that in Europe in particular was observed the law of one God, in everything corresponding to reason: and not having had means of hearing it, he would be pleased in the extreme to have the Father deign to give him the light of the said law and to ordain the method that would appear appropriate to facilitate the intelligence and augment the pleasure of the soul which it had for a thing so long desired. The feast having been terminated with this holy proposal, the Father recommended to His Divine Majesty the perseverance of the King and his own weakness; so that He would give him spirit and efficacy so as to be able to awaken the King from the profound blindness in which he lay, and with the light of the Holy Faith to illumine him in all of the mysteries of the church.
The King ordained the day on which it would please him to hear the sermons, which was the 18th of November, a day of mystery, because the Church celebrates the dedication of the Basilica of Saint Peter and Saint Paul; God disposing that on the said day there would begin to be propagated and grow Christianity and the new Church in Japan, as it began in Rome.
How the Father SOTELO made many sermons to the King concerning the Catechism.
Chapter VI
The hour and audience most convenient for the king having been arranged, the Father entered into the Royal presence, and in the name of the Lord of Heaven and of earth, began to present the beginnings of the declaration of the Catechism, proving with incontrovertible evidence of reasoning that the world is not eternal but created, and that its origin is the true God, Creator of the universe and eternal Father of all things generated; deceiving themselves,. the Bonzes of Japan, who negate the providence of God and the immortality of the soul and who force themselves in the schools to persuade people that Amida, Jaca [Shaka], Camis [Kami], and Fotoques [Hotoke], who die as others condemned to the inferno, as members of the Devil, are the Founders of the world, and the lords of the other life.
Concerning which the King asked several questions, and the Father, responding with much clarity of doctrine and of natural examples, showed that he was aware of the infinite power and eternity of God, and of the false and empty one ascribed to the Gods of Japan. Passing then to the second and third article, in which he proved the immortality of the soul, the creation of the Angels, [and] the fall of Lucifer, the King was forced to believe and confess, after many arguments and doubts removed by the Father, and propounded by him, that there is another, eternal life, in which the souls of those who in this life have believed in God and observed His holy law go to enjoy the glory of Heaven; and [in which the souls] of those who have not followed the road of salvation and eternal life are condemned to the inferno. In the fourth proposition, the creation of man and his sin transferred to posterity, he concluded that the demon, desirous of being adored on earth, as God is in heaven, began to persuade men, blind through sin and ignorant of their good, that they adore him and serve him in the form of statues and effigies of men, who for some heroic acts were respected in the world, as were in Japan Camis, and Fotoques, Jaca, and Amida: in Greece Jove and Bacchus; in Italy Saturn and Janus, giving to each the title of Deity, according to their deceived concept, or benefices which they imagine to have received from him, and the astuteness and malice of the Demon, who always has endeavored to keep eclipsed the human understanding, so that man not know his Creator nor adore Him as his ultimate end.
That the adoration of the Sun and the Moon and of the stars was truly a diabolical deceit: for as inanimate and bodily things they have no power whatsoever over the soul and free control of man; nor any power whatsoever over the prosperous or unhappy events of this life; for there are no other proper actions than the movements and influences which God has ordained. That all kinds of sins, with which we offend God, are inventions of the Demon, who ordains war, and sows continually tares in human nature; the which, depraved and obstinate in evil, and thus inclined toward sin, was destroyed with the deluge, God preserving Noah, a holy man and friend of God, with his family, with a view toward human conservation and generation. But mankind having increased, and malice together with it, and sin also, God elected as chief of the people who adored Him Abraham, a perfect man and His friend, by means of whom He instituted the method of recognizing and adoring the same God Himself by the Circumcision and sacrifices; to whom God with various mysteries and signs promised to make incarnate the eternal Wisdom of the Son, Christ Our Lord; so that the infinity of the offense which man had committed against God might be paid for by the infinite worth of the merits of Christ His only and eternal Son; no creature being able with finite works to satisfy the eternal Majesty of God, Which is without beginning and without end.
Continuing the fifth sermon with fervor and toward the delight of the royal spirit and extreme pleasure of the Father [himself], who saw himself favored by Divine aid, he endeavored to persuade and make possible the understanding of the King [with regard to the fact] that the signs and prophecies having been completed with which by means of the Holy Prophets [God] had announced the birth of the Messiah, [He] had made incarnate His own Son to fulfill the word which He had given to the holy Patriarch and other Prophets, to redeem mankind and exalt him to the eternal rest of glory; the Father not desisting to refer minutely to the purity of the Most Holy Madonna Virgin Mary our Lady in the conception of the Son of God in her womb by virtue of the Holy Spirit; as also the holy life, miracles, and preaching of Christ.
In the sixth he entered upon the understanding of the purpose, of the cause of His most holy death and passion, of the mystery of the Cross, of the destruction of sin, the freedom of human nature, and the imprisonment of the demon; proceeding with ordered method to the Resurrection, Ascension, the descent of the Holy Spirit, and other mysteries congruent with this article.
In the seventh, in treating of the merits and demerits of our actions, of the prize and of the punishment of the other life prepared for the good and the evil, he explained with great awe the universal Judgment and the end of the world, the resurrection of the dead, the glory of the Saints, and the eternal sufferings of Hell. In the last, he treated of the preaching of the Apostles, of the institution, authority, and power of the holy Roman Catholic Church, and of its universal head, Saint Peter, and his successors, and concluded the discourse [by telling ofl the observance of the ten commandments in order well to serve God.
How the King of Voxu Confessed That the Law of God was Holy and Good.
Chapter VII
Having understood the Christian history and doctrine in divers times, the King was satisfied and convinced of the reasons and answers which the Father gave to the many doubts which he propounded in favor of the Bonzes and of the sects of Japan; he was intrinsically touched by the divine ardor and illumined by the efficacious light which God dispenses when He sees the matter so disposed, and he gave thanks to His Divine Majesty and to the Father together, who had made him know, with the light of faith, the deceit with which the demon had held him in friendship: attesting with true confession and intrinsic pain of [his] past life that he who does not know the excellence of that admirable doctrine, so consonant with natural light, and contradictory to the vain superstitions of Japan, could not nor should not call himself a creature of reason, endowed with the strength of the spirit, inasmuch as he does not know his own beginning, middle, and end; and as a brute seeing the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars of the Sky receives pleasure, without knowing Who produces such a variety of ornaments and for what end were made these things of the World; thus his Royal Majesty and the others of Japan were similar to a horse, seeing and enjoying with admiration the spectacle of the Heavens and of the Earth without understanding the infinite power of the Author and without penetrating the secrets which are therein inclosed. And if it is necessary that man distinguish himself from the brute by the natural reason which he possesses, it is much more important that he understand an eternal principle, which is the God of the Christians; and that by means of adoring Him and serving Him, with His favor and grace the immortal soul created by Heaven differentiates itself from those who, not knowing God nor enjoying the merits of Jesus Christ, are damned to the inferno.
"By these comparisons," said the King, " today I have begun to be a man and to know dignity and nobility; and simultaneously I conceive a great indignation and hatred against Jaca and Amida Cobadagin, Itangiadasin, Darma [Dharma, daruma], and other teachers of lies, who with such falsity and ignorance wished to make men equal to animals and to leave them without felicity and rest, and even worse than themselves; because the brutes acquire those things in this life, while men acquire them neither in this one nor in the other; and thus I have decided to avenge myself on them and to strive to the end that all know this truth which I confess."
How the King published an Edict that the law of God be preached and that all in his Kingdom be baptized.
Chapter VIII
Since it did not seem just that his Royal Majesty, already knowing, by special privilege of Heaven, the infinite power of the eternal God, as Author and Creator of all the intricacies of the world, and as He Who governs and ordains all things visible and invisible, and having knowledge and revelation of mysteries and secrets of such consequence, that the same things should be hidden from his own vassals, obliged by the bond of the law to profess the sect of their King, and to conform themselves unto their chief as president of the members; he resolved to publish, with determined deliberation and solemnity more than the ordinary, that all his vassals of whatsoever rank, age, and condition should make themselves Christians with the holy baptism; and that the unwilling should be forced to receive the said sacrament, as the chief key which opens Heaven, and makes manifest the treasure of the Church; in everything departing from the superstitious cult of the Idols and the false doctrine of the Bonzes confederated with the demon.
With this holy proposition he ordered that the said Father be called, and he said to him: "The things that you have told me have caused me great melancholy because I see myself in the midst of light without being able to enjoy it, and without doubt I should become a Christian did I not know that I should cause the hatred of my relatives and friends; moreover, that I should make it impossible for me to ascend to the Imperial seat. That which I shall do while I do not possess [the power to adhere openly] will be to adore God from this day forward and to attempt to have all my vassals become Christians on my behalf, so that God be not angry with me, until I be baptized.”
And the Father, seeing that he wished that the vassals be baptized by force of Edict, persuaded the King that the sacrament of baptism was voluntary and not obligatory in order to receive its true Character and effect; he deliberated then with more mature counsel for a new edict that the law of God and of the holy Gospel be preached and published, having it affixed to the gate of the Palace and in the very royal hall itself on the 23rd of November 1611, the which declared that there be preached the holy law of God in his kingdom, and that those become Christian who wished to receive the holy baptism.
But the King, anxious that there be planted the fruitful tree of life eternal and that there be sown the seed of the Evangelical truth in Japan, and that there remain neither shadow nor vestige of the vain superstition of the sects, with perpetual oblivion of the Bonzes, turned to ask the Father with great fervor what order could be given so that without much delay all the Kingdom would profess the law of Christ and would regenerate itself with the water of the holy Baptism; to make them capable [of participating] in the immortality of the other life.
The Father said that he should reward with dignity and royal emolument those who should make themselves Christians and at the same time should disparage and vilify publicly the Idols, Camis, and Fotoques. The King attempted to know them by special inquisition, and to each, conforming to his station, gave rewards and chief honors of the Kingdom: so that, invited by this benevolence and liberality, there should come all the others voluntarily to make themselves capable of [entering] the bosom of the Church, and discipline themselves in all the articles respecting the faith and the divine worship.
And it was with such extreme [zeal] that, knowing that certain huntsmen of falconry were Christians, he took off the very vestments which his royal Person wore and distributed them among the three huntsmen in front of many of the nobility who were in his presence; and said that he who is a Christian and has a soul so beautiful can divest himself dignifiedly of the royal garments without being thereby worsened. These actions moved so powerfully the hearts of the common people that already one could not enter the small Church which was being constructed if one did not go in the morning or did not wait a long time.
How the King ordered that a house of adoration of Idols be destroyed.
Chapter IX
After the King had with premeditated counsel manifested the expressed will and holy intention, which he held, that the law of God be imprinted in the hearts of the people, inspired by heaven to continue this holy undertaking, while going for amusement in the City of Xandai [Sendai] fifteen miles distant from the Court, the which by the magnificence of the buildings and the amenities of the site is among the others the most superb, having conjoined a river, in which are fished a very great quantity of trout, had occasion to see in the course of the fishing expedition which he had ordained, the great Maitxuxima [Matsushima], one of the seven houses of adoration in Japan, as our Lady of Monserrato [Montserrat] in Catalunfa and our Lady of Loreta in Marca d'Ansona; to which throng an infinite number of pilgrims to procure the benevolence of the Gods and implore pardon for [their] sins: a House certainly of great capacity, design, and riches, by the many Bonzes and innumerable number [sic] of statutes of stone, with which these Gentiles, born in error, with many ceremonies and with various manners of adoration, continually engage in idolatry. And when any pilgrim does not go purged and with respectful intention and reverence toward those enchanted statues, God permitted that the demon avenge himself with afflictions and punishments: a thing which had so increased the fear of the pilgrims that no one desisted from complying punctually with the observance of the ceremonies due them.
The King, indignant that the worship which a rational creature should render to his eternal Creator, Who from nothing has generated the world, should continue still to be rendered to the deaf, mute, and blind Idols, and to the statutes, and that the demon should triumph over the souls of Japan, called God with a very loud voice that He aid him to destroy an inveterate sect of the demon and in this holy undertaking that He show that He was the God of Pharaoh, [and] with an intrepid ardor, burning with holy zeal, and despoiled of fear and of the respect which was given to the Fotoques, adored for so many centuries past, commanded under pain of lese majeste to a very large multitude of people destined to ordinary service of the guard and of war, that without any delay or disobedience they should profane the house of adoration, insult the Idols, prostrate the altar, breaking the heads, attack the bodies, and with every kind of imputation and of opprobrium that they mock the Amida and the Jaca, that they laugh at the Camis and the Fotoques, proclaiming that, if they were able, since for so many centuries they had deceived Japan, they free themselves from the insults and they avenge themselves of the prostration and destruction of their bodies.
And having abandoned respect for eight hundred stone idols in all, and some of extraordinary size placed around the house, continuously adored for one thousand eight hundred [sic] years, they threw some of them in the sea, some in the river, and some on the ground; shouting with great acclamation, "Long live the God of the Christians, powerful above all the Gods of Japan:" remaining amazed, even as those very statues, those who intrepidly had witnessed the destruction of the House, that the Fotoques did not become indignant and vengeful with bitter rigor at the castigations and flagellations. Following this destruction of so many demons, the King, victorious and triumphant with the shield of the faith, implored the Father that he go in person to perceive the very great miracle of his God and to see the great ruin done to the Idols, the profanation of the temple, and the flight of the demons.
Complying with the Royal commandment, he found an infinity of pieces of the statues on the ground and the people who confessed that the power of the King was greater than the deity of Amida and of laca, and that the King, having knowledge of the true God of the Christians, held dominion in His name over all the forces and demons of the inferno. For which the Father, rejoicing extraordinarily and confirming those in the Faith and in the observance of the Royal edict, promised to discipline them in the Christian doctrine, conforming to the desire which they demonstrated of knowing the certain path of the other life; and returning from the king with a most acceptable account, they congratulated themselves on the victory, and rendered infinite thanks to His Divine Majesty, that He had favored His own cause and authenticated in the Regal soul the truth of the holy Christian Faith.
On another occasion in a very famous Church the King commanded the Bonzes that they do the same [as he had done], and upon their refusing to abandon respect for the Idols, he became indignant and ordered that the place be burned together with the Bonzes, and the executor of the Royal commandment was the present Ambassador Don Filippo FAXICURA [HASEKURA], who, being Captain of a royal guard of four thousand arquebus-bearers, set fire to the place, and having compassion on the Bonzes, had them beheaded so that they not be burned alive in the fire. The King meeting one old Bonze with a table of indulgence so that he win it by revering it, ordered that it be placed on his head, the which [was] fulfilled by a halberd-bearer, [who] penetrated his brain with it, hitting it on top with a great stone. Through this means the principal Lords moved themselves to hear our holy law and to be baptized.
How many people of the Kingdom were baptized seeing the destruction of the Idols.
Chapter X
The falsity of the sects, the impotence of the Idols, and the infinite worth of the God of the Christians having been apprehended by these actions of the King, there burned so much the ardor of the Faith in the breasts of the Japanese that with incredible attention they listened to the preaching of the Evangelical doctrine and with great emulation they asked for the holy baptism; in such a manner that the Father with three other Preachers of Japan day and night busied themselves indefatigably in catechizing and in baptizing a great number of people; all giving unitedly with great sign of tears and of spiritual joy glory to God that in that Kingdom there had begun to be manifested the light of the Gospel and to be embraced certain hope of salvation.
The King, seeing the notable increase of the faithful, so that they might be able to congregate for the things regarding the faith, wished in the extreme to erect Churches, Convents, and Oratories; but the Father told him that in the Kingdom there were no Priests, and that it would serve little to raise temples without the Ministers and workers of the church. At which the King was sorely vexed, not being able because of this lack to found splendid houses and Churches worthy of his royal grandeur to the honor and glory of the most powerful God Who had illuminated him, although the Christians had built two small Churches in which to congregate.
And requesting the Father several times for the remedy, [he] remarked to him that Christianity has as its head and Vicar of Christ the Most Holy Pope of Rome, Father and universal Pastor of the Church, to whom concerns absolutely the spiritual government of the Church, the increase of the faith, and the free disposition of the Ecclesiastical state in all of the Kingdoms of the World, and in particular in those in which the Catholic faith is beginning to be propagated. The King asked what voyage had to be made in order to send an Embassy, and having been given information about the route, decided that the very Father SOTELO should go to render obedience to His Holiness, since he [Father SOTELO] was informed of his thoughts, of the disposition, state, and being of that Kingdom, telling him that if the Father did not go, the Embassy would not achieve good issue.
And although the Father was depriving that area of Christendom and new vineyard by his absence: still he placed faith in the Lord Who had brought him to that Kingdom that He would give him the grace of conducting him again to the same [land] with many companions, in such a manner that all would become Christians. The King insisting in this, the Father knew not how to respond, since he could not contradict the just desire which the King had with regard to the holy Seat, in such a manner that he offered his weakness for the service of His divine Majesty, and of the King, who prayed him to go. At which the King, rejoicing greatly, immediately directed his officials and counsellors to execute the orders that the Father SOTELO had given him, and without sparing any expense, that they provide him with everything necessary for the trip and for the decorum of the embassy.
И все эти чудесные события, по мнению автора хроники, происходили в 1612-13 году...
Продолжение Амати
Фантастика религиозная ненаучная исторически-альтернативная располагается тут.
И все эти чудесные события, по мнению автора хроники, происходили в 1612-13 году...
И все эти чудесные события, по мнению автора хроники, происходили в 1612-13 году...