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San La Muerte

Frank Graziano

in Cultures of Devotion: Folk Saints of Spanish America

This chapter explores the devotion to San La Muerte (St. Death) in northeastern Argentina. It explains the evolution of San La Muerte from a Guaraní-Christian amulet to a folk saint, and examines ... More

This chapter explores the devotion to San La Muerte (St. Death) in northeastern Argentina. It explains the evolution of San La Muerte from a Guaraní-Christian amulet to a folk saint, and examines contemporary devotion in Corrientes and Chaco provinces.Less

Conversion and Colonialism in Northern Mexico: The Tarahumara Response to the Jesuit Mission Program, 1601–1767

Robert W. Hefner

in Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation

This chapter considers the issue of the Tarahumaras' conversion to Christianity. It also addresses why, at the time of the Jesuits' expulsion in 1767, only a small minority of Tarahumaras appear to ... More

This chapter considers the issue of the Tarahumaras' conversion to Christianity. It also addresses why, at the time of the Jesuits' expulsion in 1767, only a small minority of Tarahumaras appear to have been well instructed in the basic tenets of the Catholic faith. It explores some of the limitations of the view that conversion entails a radical shift in the religious beliefs of individuals. A more relativistic concept of conversion is briefly reviewed that is better suited to understanding religious conversion. The Jesuit mission program is divided into mission creation, social, political and technological innovations, and religious life. The Tarahumaras of today consider their ritual actions to be complete unto themselves and to some degree intrinsically efficacious. The ideology of at least some segments of the Catholic church has now been so transformed that the missionaries themselves can contemplate the possibility of converting to the native religion.Less

Disciples of All Nations

Philip Jenkins

in The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity

This chapter addresses the myth of Western Christianity and outlines the true origins and development of Christianity, as opposed to those presented in the history books. Accounts are given of the ... More

This chapter addresses the myth of Western Christianity and outlines the true origins and development of Christianity, as opposed to those presented in the history books. Accounts are given of the early Eastern churches, particularly those in Ethiopia and Armenia, and of the survival of Christian traditions in Asia and Africa through the Middles Ages, and under Islamic (Muslim) rule. Next, an analysis is presented of the size of Christian communities that survived under Muslim rule in ancient and medieval times and up to the early twentieth century, and the question addressed as to why, when Christians survived Muslim conquests so successfully, they form such a small minority in the modern Middle East. Further sections of the chapter discuss the Catholic missions that took place from about 1500 and the different ways in which Christianity developed in countries beyond the reach of the European empires, where missionaries where not able to enforce their will politically, and in those countries where this was not the case; and the adaptation of the gospel to local cultures, customs, and practices in countries where there was no imperial backing is described, with particular reference to the “silk strategy” in Japan (where the priests dressed in silk in preference to cotton and thus identified themselves with the social elite, who were able to assist in the spread of Christianity), and Jesuit missions to China. The last part of the chapter looks at Protestant missions from the late eighteenth century in Africa and China.Less

Telling Missionary Lives

in Sojourners in a Strange Land: Jesuits and Their Scientific Missions in Late Imperial China

Nicolas Trigault's reworking of Matteo Ricci's journal was a spectacular success. A hefty tome of nearly 700 quarto pages in its original 1615 edition, De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ... More

Nicolas Trigault's reworking of Matteo Ricci's journal was a spectacular success. A hefty tome of nearly 700 quarto pages in its original 1615 edition, De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu reappeared in Latin, French, German, Spanish, and Italian, and was even substantially excerpted in English—all within the space of a decade. The most telling indication of the work's influence, however, came in the form of the mission histories that followed in its wake. Produced and consumed in an era of intense saint-making activity within the Society of Jesus, the first history of the Jesuit mission to China provided ample precedent for a generic shift in Jesuits' writing concerning the Society's presence in the Middle Kingdom. Works written in its shadow continued the hagiographical saga of Jesuit masters of mixed mathematics as instruments of providential action. This chapter looks at other histories of the China mission penned respectively by Johann Adam Schall von Bell and Ferdinand Verbiest.Less

Observational Fortunes

in Sojourners in a Strange Land: Jesuits and Their Scientific Missions in Late Imperial China

With Thomas Gouye's publication of their scientific labors, China Jesuits finally achieved a textual presence appropriate to the academic persona they sought to embody. After returning to France in ... More

With Thomas Gouye's publication of their scientific labors, China Jesuits finally achieved a textual presence appropriate to the academic persona they sought to embody. After returning to France in 1692 as procurator for the China mission, Louis Lecomte—one of the original mathématiciens du roi—presented the Académie des sciences with more astronomical observations, a map of Tartary, drawings of plants and fish, and accounts of the Jesuits' journeys, among other items. New recruits for the French Jesuit mission departed in great numbers in the late 1690s. Charles Le Gobien told Leibniz in 1698 that the Jesuit procurator at Paris for the missions, Antoine Verjus, had sent eighteen missionaries to China by various routes. This chapter takes up the later fortunes of Jesuit academicians, the limits of generic innovation for bending institutional boundaries, and the legacy of the academic collection in enabling Jesuit participation in European academic cultures from the other side of the early modern globe.Less

Writing Missions

in Sojourners in a Strange Land: Jesuits and Their Scientific Missions in Late Imperial China

Matteo Ricci's De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu (1615) was the first sustained history of the Jesuit mission in China, as well as the history of a particular sort of ... More

Matteo Ricci's De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu (1615) was the first sustained history of the Jesuit mission in China, as well as the history of a particular sort of apostolic life. Within its pages, the Jesuits' engagement with mixed mathematics in the Chinese mission fields was first transformed from an occasionally convenient tactic to a manifestation of authentic evangelical action. The Society of Jesus's foundational legislative text, Constitutions, stipulated a regular correspondence patterned on the order's administrative structure. The Constitutions' prescriptions represent but a starting point for grasping the development of administrative letter-writing practices within the Society. This chapter examines the emergence of mission histories from the rich substratum of Jesuit correspondence that linked members of the Society of Jesus. In the hands of De Christiana's editor, Nicolas Trigault, the first history of the Jesuit mission in China doubled as a vita of Ricci, the saintly missionary mathematician.Less

Music, Dance, and Community, 1680–1767

in The Power of Song: Music and Dance in the Mission Communities of Northern New Spain, 1590–1810

This chapter investigates the impact of political and economic conditions on the forms and functions of music and dance within mission communities in New Spain during the period from 1680 to 1767. It ... More

This chapter investigates the impact of political and economic conditions on the forms and functions of music and dance within mission communities in New Spain during the period from 1680 to 1767. It analyzes the use of music in the Jesuit missions of Baja California, Nueva Vizcaya, and Sonora, and the Franciscan missions in New Mexico, Coahuila, and Texas. The analysis suggests that the forms and functions of music and dance in these mission communities mirrored the political and economic realities of each region.Less

Making Jesuit Science Travel

in Sojourners in a Strange Land: Jesuits and Their Scientific Missions in Late Imperial China

This chapter focuses on the entry of a new Jesuit man of science, the apologetic voyager, into the China mission field, French Jesuits first entered the China mission en masse in 1688, their ranks ... More

This chapter focuses on the entry of a new Jesuit man of science, the apologetic voyager, into the China mission field, French Jesuits first entered the China mission en masse in 1688, their ranks increasing rapidly towards the century's close. Traveling eastward under the aegis of the Sun King, they simultaneously broke with Portugal's well-established right of ecclesiastical patronage over the Asian missions and dispensed with the persona of the missionary mathematician by helping themselves to a corporate identity only recently manufactured by the Bourbon monarchy. This chapter examines the making of the Voyage de Siam (1686), a book that was edited by Guy Tachard and harnessed the traditional apologetic functions of Jesuit mission history and the activities of Parisian academicians to the expressive possibilities of the travelogue. In following the passage of the Voyage de Siam from script to print, the chapter evaluates the strategies with which French Jesuit missionaries first asserted themselves as “knowledgeable men” sent by the Parisian Académie des sciences to “make observations in foreign lands.”Less

Noël Golvers, Libraries of Western Learning for China. Circulation of Western Books between Europe and China in the Jesuit Mission (ca.1650–1750), ii: Formation of Jesuit Libraries. (Louvain: Ferdinand Verbiest Institute K.U. Leuven, 2013), 559 pp. ISBN: 9789082090901

Alexander Statman

in History of Universities: Volume XXIX / 1

The chapter discusses Western book collecting in China during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It draws from Noël Golvers' Libraries of Western Learning for China and its volume Formation of ... More

The chapter discusses Western book collecting in China during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It draws from Noël Golvers' Libraries of Western Learning for China and its volume Formation of Jesuit Libraries (2013), which contains accounts of Jesuit missions during the period and how the Jesuit-run libraries were built, maintained, and dismantled. Golvers relies almost entirely on archival documents, with lengthy quotations throughout the text in at least six European languages and many supplemental graphs, tables, and lists. The main argument is that in the early seventeenth century, the missionaries Nicolas Trigault and Niccolò Longobardo formulated a centralised program for procuring European books and organizing them in China, but it comes off largely as an afterthought. What Golvers actually shows is just how diverse the Jesuit libraries really were. He addresses themes, such as the division between communal and private libraries, the circulation of books, and the continuity of collections.Less

The Missionary Activity

José Eugenio Borao Mateo

in The Spanish Experience in Taiwan, 1626–1642: The Baroque Ending of a Renaissance Endeavour

This chapter describes the introduction of Christianity in Taiwan. The first contact of Taiwan with Christianity was in the context of Jesuit missions, when the yearly nao from Macao to Japan was ... More

This chapter describes the introduction of Christianity in Taiwan. The first contact of Taiwan with Christianity was in the context of Jesuit missions, when the yearly nao from Macao to Japan was shipwrecked in northern Taiwan in 1582. The 300 persons on board had to stay in Taiwan from 16 July to 30 September, until they managed to go back to Macao in a smaller ship they constructed. Among them were four Jesuit priests and one brother. The first Christian ceremonies ever held in Taiwan were conducted at that time since the Jesuits celebrated mass in their camp. The flow of missionaries entering Taiwan intensified in the first half of the 1630s, when eight Franciscans arrived in 1633.Less

Return to the Americas

in A Life in Shadow: Aimé Bonpland in Southern South America, 1817–1858

This chapter considers Aimé Bonpland's arrival in the city of Buenos Aires early in 1817. This reflected the bold decision to chance a career in the Americas in the early phase of the formation of ... More

This chapter considers Aimé Bonpland's arrival in the city of Buenos Aires early in 1817. This reflected the bold decision to chance a career in the Americas in the early phase of the formation of nations there. Despite recognition of his talents from multiple quarters, the unstable politics soon undermined the potential of his scientific work. Still, this was a time for making new connections, of trying new things, including a journey to the former Jesuit missions. In December 1821, Bonpland's life took on a new direction as he was dragged into confinement in Paraguay.Less

From Paraguay to Pago Largo

in A Life in Shadow: Aimé Bonpland in Southern South America, 1817–1858

This chapter considers Bonpland's life following his release in 1831. While educated Europeans took for granted his imminent return to that continent, the long experience of Paraguay and the ... More

This chapter considers Bonpland's life following his release in 1831. While educated Europeans took for granted his imminent return to that continent, the long experience of Paraguay and the friendships developed there anchored him in the subtropics. He came to divide his residence between the former Jesuit missions of Rio Grande do Sul and the grasslands of southeastern Corrientes. In his first year of freedom, his correspondents were almost wholly American, testimony to the immediate challenges of subsistence. Soon after, began a flurry of correspondence with European intellectuals, mainly botanists, which included discussions of plans to publish his South American materials.Less

The Correspondence and Unpublished Papers of Robert Persons, SJ, ed. Victor Houliston, Ginevra Crosignani, and Thomas M. McCoog, SJ (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2017).

Jan Machielsen

in History of Universities: Volume XXXIII/1

This chapter examines the volume on the letters and papers of the English Jesuit Robert Persons (1546–1610) — the most prominent of the leaders of the early English Mission — edited by Victor ... More

This chapter examines the volume on the letters and papers of the English Jesuit Robert Persons (1546–1610) — the most prominent of the leaders of the early English Mission — edited by Victor Houliston, Ginevra Crosignani, and Thomas M. McCoog, SJ. This volume covers the period in Persons's life from shortly after his expulsion from Balliol College in 1574 to the run up of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The letters in between give a first-hand account of a wide range of crucial events. They cover the conflicts between the Welsh and the English at the Venerable English College in Rome. They also give more than a glimpse into the fateful mission of Persons and Edmund Campion to England in 1580–1581. Letters usefully place this endeavour within the context of global Jesuit missions. The documents show the elitism of the Jesuits, preoccupied above all with the conversion of the gentry. The chapter then considers a number of considerable challenges faced by the editors in putting this correspondence together.Less

Chinese Religion: The Religion of Measure

Jon Stewart

in Hegel's Interpretation of the Religions of the World: The Logic of the Gods

The first religion proper is that of ancient China. Hegel’s analysis, while mentioning Taoism and Confucianism, seems primarily to be concerned with the state religion that was introduced by the Zhou ... More

The first religion proper is that of ancient China. Hegel’s analysis, while mentioning Taoism and Confucianism, seems primarily to be concerned with the state religion that was introduced by the Zhou Dynasty, which ruled ancient China from 1045 BC to 256 BC. The Zhou defeated the Shang Dynasty and instituted a number of religious reforms. They introduced the idea of an impersonal deity named Tian, which represents a universal force of nature or the universe. In an effort to claim a special divine mandate for their dynasty, the Zhou conceived the emperor as having a unique relation to this deity, which had entrusted him with ruling the world. The emperor is thus regarded as the “Son of Heaven.” Chapter 3 explores Hegel’s critical analysis of this religion and his numerous sources of information about it, which for the most part come from Jesuit missionaries.Less

From the “Shield of Orthodoxy” to the “Tome of Joy”: The Anti-Western Stance of Dositheos II of Jerusalem (1641–1707)

Norman Russell

in Orthodox Constructions of the West

Modern Orthodox anti-Westernism has its roots in the early modern retrieval of late Byzantine ecclesiological teaching. In the latter part of the seventeenth century Patriarch Dositheos of Jerusalem ... More

Modern Orthodox anti-Westernism has its roots in the early modern retrieval of late Byzantine ecclesiological teaching. In the latter part of the seventeenth century Patriarch Dositheos of Jerusalem embarked on an ambitious program of publication to counter Jesuit and Franciscan proselytization in the Levant. He was skilful in using the privileged position of Orthodoxy in the Ottoman Empire to faciliate the setting up of the first Orthodox-controlled Greek printing press. The books issuing from this press published many late Byzantine works that sought to counter Western ecclesiological claims. Dositheos was also active in resisting Uniatism in the Slav lands and corresponded with Peter the Great (before the Petrine reforms of 1721) in an attempt to strengthen the Byzantine tradition in Russia. He did not mirror the soteriological exclusiveness of the Westerners of that time but simply made the traditional appeal for Rome to return to the status quo ante, the situation before the adoption of the filioque and Roman claim to universal jurisdiction. His approach is still influential.Less