The Inquisitive Christians

H. H. Meyers

New Millennium Publications Post Box 290

Morisset N. S.W. 2264. Australia

CONTENTS 

Preface

Chapter 1       India a land of diverse religions –  

Chapter 2       Sabbath observance, a memorial of God's creation - 

Chapter 3       Early Syrian Christians reach Persia and India -  

Chapter 4       Vasco da Gama's expedition to Malabar -  

Chapter 5       Information on Goa Inquisition restricted - 

Chapter 6       Goa Inquisition  

Chapter 7       Power to change commandments and appoint holy days -  

Chapter 8       Alexis de Menezes arrives in Goa  

Chapter 9       Description of Diamper  

Chapter 10     Goa in the Sixteenth century  

Chapter 11     Erasmus produces Greek New Testament  

Chapter 12     British occupation of India encourages Syrian Christians

Chapter 13     Is persecution in India now relevant to our time?  

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Appendix D

Appendix E 

Sabbath Language Chart 

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

In writing a book that, because of its very subject matter, will fail to please all readers, the charge of bias must inevitably surface. I do not expect this book to be an exception and I free­ly admit that I am biased.

Professing the Christian faith, I am biased towards Jesus Christ, the Creator; towards God's holy word which foretold of His coming to this earth as the Saviour of mankind; towards the Scriptures which tell of His sojourn in this world and which teach us Christianity; and towards His revelation of things to come, as given to His disciple John.

Everyone has a bias and writers are no exception. Recently I spent some time perusing Malachai Martin's recent work, "The Keys of This Blood". As he is a Roman Catholic and an ex Jesuit priest, we should not be surprised to find him biased towards the Roman Catholic Church and its dogmas. This does not mean that Mr. Martin's work is of no value. On the contrary, his skilful pen gives us a valuable insight into an experienced observer's view of the workings of the papal system - its ambitions, goals and methods of operation. Bias in promoting a worthy cause can be a decided advantage if that bias is based on real evidence. It should then lead to sound conclusions.

Mr. Martin's approach to Rome's present role in global strategy is based on illusory premises which wisely he doesn't attempt to prove. Two of them, to use his own terminology, are the Primacy of Peter as "Christ's vicar", and the apostolic succession of "Petrine keys" (See Appendix B). On page 19 of his introductory chapter he postulates three geopolitical contenders for global supremacy in a new world order - Roman Catholicism, led by Pope John Paul II; the Soviet Union, led by Mikhail Gorbachev and the Western Democratic Alliance, led presently by American president, George Bush.

In discussing Rome's attitude to the two latter powers ("models" he calls them), Martin shows just where bias, based on false premises, can lead: "The primary difficulty for Pope John Paul II in both of these models for the new world order is that neither of them is rooted in the moral laws of human behaviour revealed by God through the teaching of Christ, as proposed by Christ's Church." He is adamant on one capital point: "No system will ensure and guarantee the rights and freedoms of the individual if it is not based on those laws. This is the backbone principle of the new world order envisaged by the Pontiff".

In view of the Vatican's continuing attempts to dominate politics and control a new order through global supremacy, it is well that we should question the quality of Christian morality which Martin imputes to the papacy by denying it to the other two "globalist" powers.

In this book, we shall look at aspects of Roman Catholicism's views on "rights and freedoms" as inflicted upon the hapless people of India.

Why India? Because it was in India that the papacy allied itself with the Portuguese state to establish a tribunal for the "Holy Office of the Inquisition". It is in India that the cruelties which in the name of "peace and love" "were carried to even greater excesses" than in European Inquisi­tions (Goan Historian, Miranda). It is in India, where the Vatican has been most successful in ob­scuring the history of hideous crimes against its peoples, its culture, and its Christian minority.

There, "Christ's Church" not only prostituted "the moral laws of human behaviour revealed by God" but ruthlessly stamped out the sacred observance of the very day which Christ claimed specifically as His very own - the Sabbath day! (Luke 6:5)

History is a hard schoolmaster. Those who do not learn its lessons are doomed to experience the consequences of its repetition. Rome's face might change, but her spirit does not. History teaches us that Rome's notion of rights and freedoms is, to put it mildly - extremely subjective.

In presenting this sad encounter of India's introduction to the inquisitive practices of Im­perial Christendom, I have had to make a choice common to all who delve into history - to risk boring the reader through diligent documentation, or to hold the reader's attention with little in­terruption to the narrative. Should readers con­sider that I have leaned toward the former, I trust they will accept it as a token of my respect for their time and intellect.

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