STEPHENS
292
STEUCO
of corrupting faith and morals by their teaching. In
answer to these accusations Father Stephens published
a set of theses, " Conclusiones theologicae miscel-
laneiE" (Liege, 1702) and had them publicly defended
by one of his pupils. In answer to another Jansenistic
work known as the "Epistola Leodiensis de formula
Alexandri VII", he published his "Vera defensio
authoritatis Ecclesiae " (Liege, 1707). The Jansenist,
Henry Denys, thereupon defended the "Epistola" in
an anonymoiisly published work which called forth
Father Stephens's "Author epistolae Leodiensis denuo
confutatus" (Liege, 1709). His other works are
the " Dissertatio theologica de Condemnatione Libri
Janseniani" (Liege, 1710), and the "Consilium pacis
adversariis propriis inter se disputantibus" (Liege,
1710). In all these works his name appears in the
latinized form of Stephani.
SoMMERVOGEL, Bibl. de la Comp. de J., VII (Brussels, 1896).
Edward C. Phillips.
Stephens, Thomas (also known in India as Padre EsTEVAO or Estevam; less familiarly Padre Buste.v, BusTON, or DE Bubston), b. about 1549 at Bulstan, Wiltshire; d. in 1619 at Goa, India. He is admittedly the first Englishman in India. His father was an influential London merchant. Little is known of his boyhood and youth. Though Hakluyt ("Voyages ") and Philip Anderson ("The EngHsh in Western India") believe him to have been educated at New College, Oxford, while A. F. Pollard in the "Dictionaiy of National Biography" identifies him with the Thomas Stephen of Bourton, Dorset, who was elected scholar of Winchester in 1564, a careful search among the registers of O.xford students gives no evidence of his ever having been at any of the colleges of Oxford. The error of counting Stephens as an O.xonian may easily have arisen from his name having been mistaken either for that of Richard Stephens his brother, who studied at New College, or for that of another Thomas Stephens who is said to have taken his degree at St. John's College, Oxford, in 1577, when the subject of this article was already a novice at Sant' Andrea's in Rome. Though not a student at Oxford, owing to his father's influential position and to his own brilliant parts, he very probably came into familiar contact with Edmund Campion and several other Catholic Oxford students whose examples may have influenced his subsequent conversion. Soon after he had fin- ished his scholastic career Stephens attached himself to one Thomas Pounde. The perusal of the accounts of the Indian Missions seems to have engendered in them the desire of entering the Society of Jesus. Their common aspirations and a similarity of tastes brought the two friends often together during the persecutions of the English Catholics. Finally, impa- tient of delay in carrying out their spiritual object, they determined to set out for Rome, but Pounde, betrayed, was doomed to p:iss the next thirty years in prison. Stephens travelled alone to Rome and entered the Society of Jesus. Having finished his novitiate, Stephens received permission to proceed to India. He sailed from Lisbon (4 April, 1579) and reached Goa, then the principal city of the East Indies, on 24 October of the same year. From Goa he wrote a series of letters to his father, which appear to have held out "the strongest inducements which Lon- don merchants had been offered to embark on Indian speculations ", coming, as they did, from one with a thorough grasp of commercial ideas. It h:us been im- doubtcdly put fortli that Ihcsc Odinmiiiiicatinnson the mercantile I'luim-cs and iiossibilitics in the Ivust subse- quently led ti) the formation of the East India Com- pany; but, unfortunately, only two of the letters have been preserved. One of them (10 November, 1579), the first he wrote to his father on reaching Goa, is in- cluded in Hakluyt's "Voyages". The other (240cto- ber, 1583), written in Latin to his brother in Paris, is
preserved in part in the National Library of Brussels,
and published by Dr. Gerson da Cun'ha in the " In-
stituto Vasco daGama", II. Fr. Stephens's first five
years were spent as minister of the professed house at
Goa, rector of Salsette College, and temporary sociiis to
the visitor. The remaining thirty-five years of his
ministry were spent among the Brahmin Catholics of
Salsette. His energy and zeal won the devotion of
the people and his influence often protected travellers,
not only his countrymen, but other Europeans as well.
In the midst of his missionary labours he found time
for considerable literary work, though few of his writ-
ings remain. The suppression of the Society of Jesus
in 1773 and the checkered career of the Konkani race
(the descendants of the Brahmin Catholic community
of Salsette) destroyed most of his works and renders the
drawing up of anything like a complete list impossible.
M. Pollard states that Padre Estevao was the first to
make a scientific study of Canarese, that he also
learned Hindustani, and that in both these languages
he published manuals of piety and grammar. Yet not
a single trace of these productions is exlant. Hig
greatest surviving work, "The Christian Purdnna",
shows that he must have acquired a complete mastery
of Mardthi and Konkani and of Sanskrit, and it is
possible to suppose that he must have written more
works with the help of these than are preserved to us.
The following list includes all the extant writings: the
two letters mentioned above; a Catechism of Chris-
tian Doctrine which first appeared under the title,
"Doutrina Christa em lingua Braraana-Canarin,
Ordenada a maniera de dialogo para ensinar os
meninos, pelo Padre Thomas Estevao, Jesuita, no
CoUegio de Rachol" (1622); "Arte de hngua Cana-
rin", a grammar of the Konkani language, the first
grammar of an Indian tongue by a European, chiefly
of bibliographical interest (Rachol, 1640), revised and
improved by Fr. Diogo Ribiero, S. J., and bearing the
imprimatur of the prcepositus General of the Society,
Fr. Vitelleschi. Onlj' two copies of the first edition
are known to exist; a second edition was issued in
1857; "The Christian Purdnna" (1616, 1649, and
1654), but no copies of any of these editions are
extant. An editio princeps, reproduced from authen-
ticated MS. copies by the present writer, was issued in
1907 from the Jesuit Press at Mangalore, India. "The
Christian PurAnna" is a Marathi-Konkani metrical
composition, consisting of 10,962 strophes, divided
into two parts treating of the Old and the New Testa-
ment respectively.
Hakluyt, Navigation, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation (Edinburgh, 1886 — ); Dodd, Church History, II (Brussels. vere Wolverhampton. 1737-42); Foley, Records of the English Procince S. J., Ill (London. 1878) ; Anderson. The English in Western India (Bombay, 1856); DA Ccnha Rivara, Ensaio Historico da Lingua Concani (New Goa. 1858); Pollard in Diet, Nat. Biog., s. v. Stephens or Stevens, Thomas, in supplement; Sommervoqel. Bibliothi'que de la C. de J. (Brussels, 1890-1900); Bacmqartner, Gesch. der WeUliteratur (Freiburg. 1900): Grier- SON. Linguistic Survey of India, VII. Mardthi Language (Calcutta, 1905); DA CtiNHA in Instituto Vasco da Gama, II (New Goa, 1873) ; Idem. Materials for the History of Oriental Studies amongst the Portuguese (paper read before the International Congre.ss of Orientalists. Florence. 1878. and published in the Atti of that Congress. II. Florence. 1881); Idem. The Origin of Bombay (Bombay. 19(X)) ; Burnell. Tentative list of works on the Portu- guese in India (Mangalore. 1880; only fifteen copies printed by the Board Mission Press) ; Idem. Specimens of South Indian Dialects (Mangalore. 1872); Fernandes in The Mangalore Maga- line, I; Saldanha. The Indian Caste, I (Bombay. 1904); Idem, The Christian PurinTux, an essay (Bombay. 1903); Monieb- WiLUAMS. Facts of Indian Progress in Contemporary Review; Mascarenhas in The Indian Antiquary (.\pril. 1878); BhAo- AVAT in Vividha Dnydna Vistdra (December. 1906).
Joseph L. Saldanha.
Steuco (SxEtrcHus), Agostino, exegete, b. at Gubbio, Umbria, 1496; d. at Venice, 1.549. At the age of seventeen he entered the order of the Canons Regular of the Lateran at Gubbio, and in 1525 he was made diiector of the library of Cardinal Grimani at Venice. In 1530 he became prior of the canons of Reggie and shortly after at Gubbio. Early in 1538
