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Jesuit Missions in Asia: 1500s-1700s | Inculturation and Expansion of Christianity

Explore the Jesuit missions to Asia during the 1500s-1700s, focusing on inculturation, expansion of Christianity, challenges faced, and strategies employed, including key figures like Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci.

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Jesuit Missions in Asia: 1500s-1700s | Inculturation and Expansion of Christianity

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  1. Jesuit missions to Asia 1500s–1700s

  2. Before 1500 • Christianity mostly found in Europe • pockets in Ethiopia, India, Egypt, and isolated communities on trade routes • Muslim countries bound Christianity to the East • 1453: Constantinople falls to Ottoman Turks • Christianity inculturated in the West • Philosophically: Plato and Aristotle • Culturally: European customs

  3. Portugal and Spain lead • Portugal first to develop missions by going around Africa (early 1500s; in India by 1534) • mostly developing commercial interests • brought slaves from Africa (Mozambique) to Goa • Split territory in Americas (Pope Alexander VI) • Tied to commercial interests, but can’t be reduced to them • often missionaries and commercial/political forces at odds with each other, esp. in the Americas • At first Catholic; Protestants get going in the 19th century • Although Dutch and English traders move into Asia 1600s

  4. Jesuits • Numbers • 1,000 by death of Ignatius (1556) • 16,000 by 1615 • Focus on education and missions • By 1750, 3,300 Jesuits outside of Europe (more than any other religious order) • Pioneers of Christian expansion into Asia • Vision was one of inculturating by accommodation • Ultimately, this vision lost out, due to various historical circumstances (within Christianity)

  5. India • Francis Xavier (friend of Ignatius) arrives 1542 • intellectual strategy • Base at Goa established • Roberto de Nobili (1605): accommodation • lived as a sanyassi (holy man) • robes, diet, learning language and writings • refused contact with other Europeans • focused on debate with Indians (Brahmins) • Problem: caste system • not coherent with Christianity • yet, could not get into (upper) society without it • compromise: build churches with half-walls and multiple entrances

  6. Jesuit mission in China • Matteo Ricci arrives 1601 • Strategy: speak to intellectuals • Wore Confucian robes • Debated philosophy (“Master of Heaven”) • Offered his scientific knowledge (clocks, maps, etc.)

  7. Back in Europe • Jesuits seen as too powerful and elite • Confessors to European aristocracy and rulers • Sucessful in foreign missions • Other orders (Dominicans, Franciscans) began to raise questions about the Jesuits’ “syncretistic” strategies • Big issue: inculturation and ancestor veneration

  8. Rites controversy • Jesuits allowed ancestor veneration for Chinese Christians • Seen as a social and civic ritual, not religious • Dominicans objected, did not let Asian Christians practice rites of veneration • 1600s: both sides appealed to pope • 1742: Benedict XIV prohibits allowing ancestor veneration; all missionaries must take oath to uphold this • 1939: Reversed by Pius XII

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