Jesuit Encounter Research Articles

Luís Fróis, Gendered Knowledge, and the Jesuit Encounter with Sixteenth-Century Japan

AbstractThis article argues that our understanding of the sixteenth-century Jesuit encounter with Japan is improved by taking into account the role gender played in cultural translation. Recent histories of the mission and the writings it produced have highlighted the strategies adopted by Jesuits to rely on and manipulate knowledge of local cultures to facilitate conversion. Yet, few scholars have used gender as a lens to read the actions and ethnographies performed and produced by Jesuits in overseas missions. Using Luís Fróis's Tratado das contradições e diferenças de costumes entre a Europa e o Japão (Treaty on the contrasts and differences between Europe and Japan), I argue that skilled cultural interpreters used gender as a determining lens to approach the primary task of conversion, but also the secondary task of cultural mediation. Unlike the invasion of the Americas, the ephemeral infiltration of Asia was accomplished through European accommodation of Asian political vocabularies and conduct. Examining the epistemological tools Fróis used to build knowledge of the Other sheds light on the initial stages of the unequal encounter between the Japanese and the Jesuits and how it changed based on a growing understanding of Japanese politics, class, and society.

Transatlantic Jesuit Encounters During the Nineteenth Century

In 1896 the Austrian-born Jesuit Johann Georg Hagen, director of the Georgetown College observatory in Washington, D.C., embarked upon a journey from the United States to Europe, from whence he had fled during Bismarck's Kulturkampf. The account of his travels, published in the Woodstock Letters, was emblematic of the Jesuit reportage that passed back and forth across the Atlantic during the nineteenth century, helping both to define and problematize Jesuit identity during the post-Restoration period. The transatlantic links between Jesuits in Europe and America, which involved the transfer of personnel (often in the wake of periods of persecution in the Old World) and commentary on affairs on both sides of the Atlantic was a source both of tension and sustenance within the Society of Jesus, and had a significant impact on the way in which the broader Catholic Church analyzed the emergence of the fledgling American Republic. Through analysis of individual Jesuit trajectories and Jesuit publications (including the Woodstock Letters in the U.S. and the Études in France), we gain insights into how the Society of Jesus attempted to negotiate the complex political and social realities of the nineteenth century. While nationality was crucial to how individual Jesuits approached this task, the process unfolded in the wider context of how the "old Society" and the "new Society" were to be reconciled and differentiated.

An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an

The manuscipt Animadversiones, Notae ac Disputationes in Pestilentem Alcoranum is an almost entirely unknown translation of the Qur'an into baroque Latin completed by the Jesuit priest Ignazio Lomellini in 1622, of which only one copy exists. It is accompanied by extensive commentaries and includes a complete text of the Qur’an in Arabic and numerous marginalia. It is, therefore, one of the earliest complete translations of the Qur’an into a western European language and a crucial document of the encounter between western Christianity and Islam in the early modern period. This essay examines Lomellini’s understanding of Arabic and, specifically, of the cultural and religious underpinnings of Qur’anic Arabic. Special attention is given to his lexical choices. This essay also deals with the document’s intended audience, the resources upon which he drew (including the library of his patron, Cardinal Alessandro Orsini), and the manuscript’s relationship to the Jesuits’ broader literary and missionary efforts. Finally, it asks why scholars, particularly those who study the history of the Jesuits, have ignored this manuscript and its author.

An Early Jesuit Encounter with the Qur’an

The manuscipt Animadversiones, Notae ac Disputationes in Pestilentem Alcoranum is an almost entirely unknown translation of the Qur'an into baroque Latin completed by the Jesuit priest Ignazio Lomellini in 1622, of which only one copy exists. It is accompanied by extensive commentaries and includes a complete text of the Qur’an in Arabic and numerous marginalia. It is, therefore, one of the earliest complete translations of the Qur’an into a western European language and a crucial document of the encounter between western Christianity and Islam in the early modern period. This essay examines Lomellini’s understanding of Arabic and, specifically, of the cultural and religious underpinnings of Qur’anic Arabic. Special attention is given to his lexical choices. This essay also deals with the document’s intended audience, the resources upon which he drew (including the library of his patron, Cardinal Alessandro Orsini), and the manuscript’s relationship to the Jesuits’ broader literary and missionary efforts. Finally, it asks why scholars, particularly those who study the history of the Jesuits, have ignored this manuscript and its author.

“Like the Hebrews in Spain”: The Jesuit Encounter with Muslims in China and the Problem of Cultural Change

This essay is concerned with the possibility of cultural change in the writings of Matteo Ricci. In order to elucidate this question, this essay discusses aspects of Matteo Ricci’s perception of Islam and Muslims in China and identifies the moments when they changed. I show that over time Ricci developed a much more nuanced perception of Islam in China, but argue still that his views remained quite limited because of lack of dialogue with Muslims he saw in China. These limitations, I also argue, reflect the limitations of European views of Islam in the early modern Euro-Mediterranean world. Recognizing these limitations, I suggest, might help us to develop new approaches to questions of religion in early modern China.

Mission to China: Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit Encounter with the East, by Mary Laven

In the past year, no fewer than six books have been published in English, Italian, French, Chinese, and German on Matteo Ricci, in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the death of this famous Jesuit missionary and pioneer in the cultural encounter between sixteenth-century China and the West (in the interests of full disclosure, one of these is authored by this reviewer). Laven’s work is the latest addition to this growing scholarship. Eschewing a standard biography, she offers the reader only the barest chronological scheme of Ricci’s life, choosing to focus instead on the cultural encounter between the Jesuit mission and Late Ming society. Accordingly, the six chapters are organised around themes. In Chapter One, Laven narrates the earliest history of the China Mission in Zhaoqing, and rightly concentrates on explaining the important role played by Ricci’s senior colleague, Michele Ruggieri, whose contributions were forgotten by previous generations of historians, and on the patronage of mandarins. She uses Ruggieri’s manuscript memoirs to good effect, while ignoring the pioneering studies on Ruggieri by Joseph Shih and Albert Chan. Gift-giving is the central theme of Chapter Two, as Laven ponders the significance of a Jesuit list of proposed gifts for the emperor. Her insights into material culture (glass, silk, brocade, clocks, books) East and West represent some of the best parts of the book. Equally engaging is Chapter Three, in which Laven follows Ricci’s career in the late 1590s, as the Jesuit was then established in Nanchang, and enjoyed greater social success. Using Ricci’s treatise On Friendship as a fulcrum, Laven deftly analyses Ricci’s attachments to family and friends, Italy and China. Chapter Four, ‘Heavenly knowledge’, traces Ricci’s further ascent on the ladder of success in élite society, and introduces to the reader, in succinct and delightful prose, a diversity of subjects: the imperial civil service examination, western astronomy, printing and book culture in Ming China, etc. Especially original is her comment on the alchemical and possibly magical uses of the glass prism, a not extraordinary object in Italy, but a prized exotic item in Ming China, which helped to open many doors in Ricci’s advancement. Here, Laven’s training as a scholar of early modern Italy pays off handsomely. Launching his journey on the Grand Canal northward to Beijing in 1600, Ricci fell into the clutches of Ma Tang, an avaricious and powerful eunuch. The opposite twins ‘Jesuits and Eunuchs’ form the main theme of Chapter Five, in which Laven has given in to the Orientalist temptation to discourse at length on castration, eunuchs, and on the latter’s nefarious impact on Ricci and Late Ming society. In Chapter Six, the best known work by Ricci (not necessarily his most significant), the Tianzhu shiyi (True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven) is analysed in detail. In conclusion, Laven quite rightly points out the self-aggrandising stance of Ricci’s writings, the bias toward male élites in the story of cultural encounter, and the reality of the attractions of Christianity to the common folk, which consisted of healing (physical and spiritual), and of rituals, symbols, and senses.

Matteo Ricci: A Jesuit in the Ming Court. By Michela Fontana. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011. xv, 319 pp. $44.95 (cloth). - A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci, 1552–1610. By R. Po-chia Hsia. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. xvi, 359 pp. $57.50 (cloth). - Mission to China: Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit Encounter with the

Matteo Ricci: A Jesuit in the Ming Court. By Michela Fontana. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011. xv, 319 pp. 57.50 (cloth). - Mission to China: Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit Encounter with the East. By Mary Laven. London: Faber and Faber, 2011. xv, 279 pp. £17.99 (cloth); £9.99 (paper). - Volume 71 Issue 3

‘In carcere; ad dupplicium’: Jesuit encounters in prison and in places of execution. Reflections on the early-modern period

Jesuits of the early-modern period had, as a major aspect of their missions and ministry, encounters with prisoners and with those condemned to execution. The Jesuit experience of these encounters was profoundly influenced by the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, undertaken by every Jesuit. In these exercises the retreatant is required to visualise the physical sufferings of Christ. During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Jesuits were closely connected, from several perspectives, with the imprisonment and execution of scores of individuals. While many of the leading Jesuit theoreticians of the time, such as Roberto Bellarmino, supported the right of the secular state to exercise capital punishment, a tension persisted between the idea of common humanity expounded in the Spiritual Exercises and the role of the Jesuits as supporters of the Habsburg dynasty that conducted these public executions. This essay explores the Jesuit encounter along the eastern and northern Habsburg peripheries and on the ‘frontiers of faith’ with prisoners and the condemned, utilising archival materials, as a contribution to the intellectual history of the Jesuits and to the cultural history of the region.

Chinese Buddhism and the Threat of Atheism in Seventeenth-Century Europe

Chinese Buddhism and the Threat of Atheism in Seventeenth-Century Europe Thierry Meynard When the Europeans first came to Asia, they met with the multiform presence of Buddhism. They gradually came to understand that a common religious tradition connected the different brands of Buddhism found in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Japan, and China. I propose here to examine a presentation of Buddhism written in Guangzhou by the Italian Jesuit Prospero Intorcetta (1626-1696) around the year 1668. This text was later edited by the Flemish Jesuit Philippe Couplet (1623-1693) and published in Paris in 1687, within an encyclopedia on Chinese thought titled Confucius Sinarum Philosophus (The Chinese Philosopher Confucius, hereafter called CSP). In the first part of this study, I shall introduce the background of the Jesuit encounter with Buddhism, first in Japan and then in China, as well as their literary production on the subject. Then, I shall examine Intorcetta's presentation of Chinese Buddhism, especially his understanding of the two faces of Buddhism: Pure Land Buddhism, which he categorized as superstition, and Chan Buddhism, categorized as atheism. These two notions of superstition and atheism seem contradictory, but in fact they are derived from Intorcetta's interpretation of the Buddhist theory of the "two truths." I shall conclude with an evaluation of Intorcetta's account. Because this early presentation of Buddhism exists only in Latin, I have inserted excerpts that I have translated. Historical Background of the Encounter with Buddhism Since the sixteenth century, missionaries have traveled to different regions of Asia and collected information about the religions they encountered, including Buddhism. They also exchanged information among themselves, asking questions of colleagues in order to confirm and complete information. The missionary reports were sent to Europe for their superiors and were sometimes published as such, but more often incorporated into larger works. [End Page 3] The First Encounter, from Japan to China Among the first reports reaching Europe about Buddhism were the letters of the Spanish Jesuit Francis-Xavier (1506-1552), who drew information from Yajiro, a Japa nese he met in Malacca in 1547. During his own stay of more than two years in Japan, in 1549-1551, Francis-Xavier had exchanges with monks and could progress in his understanding of Buddhism. His letters were very influential among the network of Jesuit schools in Europe, being copied and read at many venues.1 Other missionaries in Japan, like Cosme de Torres (1510-1570), Luís Fróis (1532-1597), and Baltasar Gago (1515-1583), went further in understanding Buddhism. Also, when, at the end of the sixteenth century, the Jesuit missionaries approached Buddhism in China, their understanding was already shaped by fifty years of knowledge gained in Japan. Just as in Japan, the China Jesuits were interested in Buddhism because it provided them with an indigenous vocabulary in which to express Christian ideas. Thus, the missionary was perceived as a kind of Buddhist monk. The symbolic identification with Buddhism went even further than in Japan, because for more than ten years in Guangdong, from 1579 to 1595, they adopted Buddhist dress and shaved their heads. However, as the missionaries deepened their understanding of the Buddhist doctrine, they realized that many tenets could not be reconciled with Christianity. Since they were greatly concerned about disseminating the orthodox faith and avoiding dubious theories, which they believed to be the tricks of the devil, they distanced themselves from Buddhism and became closer to Confucianism, whose discourse, which focused on moral life in the present world, did not directly conflict with the supernatural truths of Christianity. While Michele Ruggieri (1543-1607) and Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) had initially started interacting with Chinese culture by using Buddhism, later on Ricci abandoned this approach and started to use Confucianism as the main medium. In the Tianzhu shiyi (True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven), Ricci wrote for his Chinese readers a strong refutation of the Buddhist doctrine from the standpoint of Aristotelian philosophy.2 He criticized the concept of selflessness (wuwo) on metaphysical grounds, writing that everyone should draw their existence from an ultimate origin. In his Della entrata della Compagnia di Gesù e Christianità nella China (Entry of the Society of Jesus into...

Jesuit Encounters with Confucianism in Early Modern Japan

Jesuit Encounters with Confucianism in Early Modern Japan

Book Review: "Fr. Bouchet's India: An 18th Century Jesuit's Encounter with Hinduism"

Book Review: "Fr. Bouchet's India: An 18th Century Jesuit's Encounter with Hinduism"

Cunning Pedagogics: The Encounter between the Jesuit Missionaries and Amerindians in 17th-century New France

The Jesuit encounter with the Amerindians of the St. Lawrence Valley in 17th-century New France provides us with incalculable insights into the inner workings of the “colonial imagination” that believes the objects of instruction have everything to learn and nothing of value to teach. This article explicates how the Jesuits got to know their learners, how they tried to displace indigenous adult educational leaders and gradually produced Euro-Catholic subjectivities in their learners, and the pedagogical methods and techniques they used to undermine the indigenous belief and action system.

Jesuit Encounters with Rural France in the Sixteenth Century

Jesuit Encounters with Rural France in the Sixteenth Century