p. 296). Many miracles have been ascribed to him; an official list of these, said to have been attested by eye-witnesses, was drawn up by the auditors of the Rota when the processes for his canoniza tion were formed, and is preserved in manuscript in the Vatican library.
The contention that Xavier should be regarded as the greatest of Christian missionaries since the 1st century A.D. rests upon more tangible evidence. His Jesuit biographers attribute to him the conversion of more than 700,000 persons in less than ten years; and though the figures are absurd, the work which Xavier accomplished was enormous. He inaugurated new missionary en terprises from Hormuz to Japan and the Malay archipelago, leav ing an organized Christian community wherever he preached; he directed by correspondence the ecclesiastical policy of John III.
and his viceroy in India ; he established and controlled the Society of Jesus in the East. Himself an ascetic and a mystic, to whom things spiritual were more real than the visible world, he had the strong common sense which distinguished the other Spanish mystics, St. Theresa, Luis de Leon or Raimon Lull. This quality is nowhere better exemplified than in his letters to Gaspar Baertz (Barzaeus), the Flemish Jesuit whom he sent to Hormuz, or in his suggestions for the establishment of a Portuguese staple in Japan. Supreme as an organizer, he seems also to have had a singularly attractive personality, which won him the friendship even of the pirates and bravos with whom he was forced to con sort on his voyages.
Modern critics of his work note that he made no attempt to understand the oriental religions which he attacked, and censure him for invoking the aid of the Inquisition and sanctioning per secution of the Nestorians in Malabar. He strove, with a success
disastrous to the Portuguese empire, to convert the Government in i Goa a proselytizing agency. Throughout his life he re mained in close touch with Ignatius of Loyola, who is said to have selected Xavier as his own successor at the head of the Society of Jesus. Within a few weeks of Xavier's death, indeed, Ignatius sent letters recalling him to Europe with that end in view.
(K. G. J.) BismoGRAPHY.—Many of the authorities on which the biographies of Xavier have been based are untrustworthy, notably the Pere grinacam of F. M. Pinto (q.v.). Xavier's extant letters, supplemented by a few other 16th century documents, outweigh all other evidence. A critical text of the letters, with notes, bibliography and a life in Spanish, will be found in Monumenta Xaveriana ex Autographis vel ex Antiquioribus Exemplis colkcta, vol. i. (Madrid, 1899-1900), in Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu. For translations, H. Coleridge, The Life and Letters of Saint Francis Xavier (2 vols., 1872) is useful. There are numerous old and uncritical biographies ; best and earliest are 0. Torsellino (Tursellinus) De vita Francisci Xaverii, libri sex (Antwerp, 1596) ; Eng. trans. T.F., The Admirable Life of Saint Francis Xavier (Paris, 1632) and Joao Lucena, Historic da Vida do Padre Francisco de Xavier (Lisbon, 1600) . J. M. Cros, St. Francois de Xavier, sa vie et ses lettres (2 vols., Toulouse, 5900), embodies the results of long research. See K. G. Jayne, Vasco da Gama and his Successors, ch. xxv. to xxxii. (19io) ; Otis Carey, A History of Christianity in Japan (2 vols., 1909) ; E. A. Stewart, Life of St. Francis Xavier (1917) ; A. Bellessort, Saint Francois Xavier (1917) ; F. Apalategui, Empresas y viajes apostolicds de San Francisco Xavier (1920).