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Authors: S. W. J. O'Malley
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proper formed part of a complex that might contain ablution fountains, fishponds, and gardens.
At the instigation of Valignano, the Italian Jesuit Giovanni Niccolò in 1583 founded an art school and studio that had an extraordinary impact on Japanese art outside the mission community. The school grew over the course of the years, and by the end of the century may have employed as many as forty artists. Students painted in oil on copper and wood and occasionally on canvas. They also executed paintings in Japanese watercolors. The school had a foundry, where small statues were cast. The school also made bells, clocks, and musical instruments.
The mission thrived. By the early seventeenth century, there were some three hundred thousand Catholic Christians in Japan. Under the surface, however, serious problems smoldered, including an ever shifting political situation that was closely related to Japanese reactions to Portuguese traders and trade policies. Fear grew that the missionaries might be acting as a fifth column to prepare for a Spanish invasion of Japan launched from the Philippines.
The first blow fell on February 5, 1597, when twenty-six Christians, including three Japanese Jesuits, were crucified at Nagasaki. The fatal blow fell on January 27, 1614, when all missionaries were expelled from Japan and all Japanese Christians ordered to return to the practice of Buddhism. The decree ended the mission, where by that time 116 Jesuits labored, who with their lay catechists and other helpers made up a staff of more than 500 persons. Christianity would not return to Japan until the middle of the nineteenth century.
Ever since Xavier, Jesuits dreamed of entering China. It was Valignano, convinced the Jesuits had to dissociate themselves from the image of the westerner as marauder, who finally made the venture possible by the same program of enculturation he developed for Japan. He assigned two brilliant young ItaliansâMichele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricciâto the task of learning Chinese. Ready by 1583, the two gained entrance into the kingdom and eventually made their way to the capital, Beijing.
Ricci, by virtue of his marvelous gifts of mind and heart, his scientific skills, and his command of the language and the classics of Chinese literature, was able by 1594 to win the emperorâs favor and enter the elite social class of the mandarins, whose style of dress he adopted. He sought ways to show the compatibility of Confucianism with Christianity, much the way Aquinas and others earlier tried to show Aristotleâs compatibility. Unlike the Greeks with Aristotle, however, the Chinese honored Confucius in ritual ways. Ricci maintained that these rites were devoid of religious significance. But that was a position difficult to prove, and it became the center point of a controversy that ultimately proved disastrous.
Nonetheless, in these early years the mission in Beijing gave great promise. When Ricci died in 1610, there were some four hundred Catholics in the capital and many thousands in other parts of the country where Jesuits labored using more traditional approaches. Disappointing to Ricci and his successors was the minuscule number of conversions among the learned, who were ready to learn what the âwestern barbariansâ had to teach them but felt no inclination to embrace their religion.
In succeeding decades political upheavals made the Jesuitsâ position difficult, and for five years they had to go into hiding.The Jesuits persevered, however, and in 1618 twenty-two new missionaries set sail from Lisbon with China as their destination. Among them was the brilliant German astronomer Johann Adam Schall von Bell and the Swiss astronomer Johann Terrenz Schreck, who brought with him a science library of about seven thousand volumes. Although the Jesuitsâ position was often precarious, the learning of men like Schall and Schreck won respect and helped stave off the more drastic measures that
At the instigation of Valignano, the Italian Jesuit Giovanni Niccolò in 1583 founded an art school and studio that had an extraordinary impact on Japanese art outside the mission community. The school grew over the course of the years, and by the end of the century may have employed as many as forty artists. Students painted in oil on copper and wood and occasionally on canvas. They also executed paintings in Japanese watercolors. The school had a foundry, where small statues were cast. The school also made bells, clocks, and musical instruments.
The mission thrived. By the early seventeenth century, there were some three hundred thousand Catholic Christians in Japan. Under the surface, however, serious problems smoldered, including an ever shifting political situation that was closely related to Japanese reactions to Portuguese traders and trade policies. Fear grew that the missionaries might be acting as a fifth column to prepare for a Spanish invasion of Japan launched from the Philippines.
The first blow fell on February 5, 1597, when twenty-six Christians, including three Japanese Jesuits, were crucified at Nagasaki. The fatal blow fell on January 27, 1614, when all missionaries were expelled from Japan and all Japanese Christians ordered to return to the practice of Buddhism. The decree ended the mission, where by that time 116 Jesuits labored, who with their lay catechists and other helpers made up a staff of more than 500 persons. Christianity would not return to Japan until the middle of the nineteenth century.
Ever since Xavier, Jesuits dreamed of entering China. It was Valignano, convinced the Jesuits had to dissociate themselves from the image of the westerner as marauder, who finally made the venture possible by the same program of enculturation he developed for Japan. He assigned two brilliant young ItaliansâMichele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricciâto the task of learning Chinese. Ready by 1583, the two gained entrance into the kingdom and eventually made their way to the capital, Beijing.
Ricci, by virtue of his marvelous gifts of mind and heart, his scientific skills, and his command of the language and the classics of Chinese literature, was able by 1594 to win the emperorâs favor and enter the elite social class of the mandarins, whose style of dress he adopted. He sought ways to show the compatibility of Confucianism with Christianity, much the way Aquinas and others earlier tried to show Aristotleâs compatibility. Unlike the Greeks with Aristotle, however, the Chinese honored Confucius in ritual ways. Ricci maintained that these rites were devoid of religious significance. But that was a position difficult to prove, and it became the center point of a controversy that ultimately proved disastrous.
Nonetheless, in these early years the mission in Beijing gave great promise. When Ricci died in 1610, there were some four hundred Catholics in the capital and many thousands in other parts of the country where Jesuits labored using more traditional approaches. Disappointing to Ricci and his successors was the minuscule number of conversions among the learned, who were ready to learn what the âwestern barbariansâ had to teach them but felt no inclination to embrace their religion.
In succeeding decades political upheavals made the Jesuitsâ position difficult, and for five years they had to go into hiding.The Jesuits persevered, however, and in 1618 twenty-two new missionaries set sail from Lisbon with China as their destination. Among them was the brilliant German astronomer Johann Adam Schall von Bell and the Swiss astronomer Johann Terrenz Schreck, who brought with him a science library of about seven thousand volumes. Although the Jesuitsâ position was often precarious, the learning of men like Schall and Schreck won respect and helped stave off the more drastic measures that
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