The Earliest Description of the Tarahumara: Letters from Jesuit Missionary Johannes Ratkay

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 426-467
Author(s):  
Robert E. Dahlquist ◽  
Raymond H. Thompson ◽  
Werner S. Zimmt
Keyword(s):  
Jesuit Missionary

Becoming “Indians”: The Jesuit Missionary Path from Italy to Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-50
Author(s):  
Camilla Russell
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Jesuit Missions ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Italian Provinces ◽  
Jesuit Missionaries ◽  
Jesuit Missionary

The Jesuit missions in Asia were among the most audacious undertakings by Europeans in the early modern period. This article focuses on a still relatively little understood aspect of the enterprise: its appointment process. It draws together disparate archival documents to recreate the steps to becoming a Jesuit missionary, specifically the Litterae indipetae (petitions for the “Indies”), provincial reports about missionary candidates, and replies to applicants from the Jesuit superior general. Focusing on candidates from the Italian provinces of the Society of Jesus, the article outlines not just how Jesuit missionaries were appointed but also the priorities, motivations, and attitudes that informed their assessment and selection. Missionaries were made, the study shows, through a specific “way of proceeding” that was negotiated between all parties and seen in both organizational and spiritual terms, beginning with the vocation itself, which, whether the applicant departed or not, earned him the name indiano.

Jesuit Anthropology

2018 ◽  
pp. 810-830
Author(s):  
Charlotte de Castelnau-l’Estoile
Keyword(s):  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Michel De Certeau ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Jesuit Missionary ◽  
Christian Message

This chapter analyzes the Jesuit missionary tradition of studying local customs and languages, which is known as “Jesuit anthropology.” By looking into some of the foundational Jesuit texts, the goal is to show how knowledge of non-Christian peoples had been constructed around the metaphor of “living books”: a “stranger” was a book, which the missionaries needed to decipher. From the information, observation, and expertise developed informally in all missionary fields, some Jesuits produced texts—some published but mostly remaining in manuscript—that were and still are considered important pieces in the European library of knowledge. The need and desire to know others was, of course, linked to religious goals: translating Christian message, administering sacraments, fulfilling divine will. From Francis Xavier to Michel de Certeau, the chapter addresses a set of Jesuit perspectives on alterity. They document the richness of interactions between the Jesuits and the local actors, but they always have to be read in light of the Jesuit project of religious conversion.

scholarly journals Rethinking the Rites Controversy: Kilian Stumpf's Acta Pekinensia and the Historical Dimensions of a Religious Quarrel

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh
Keyword(s):  
Chinese History ◽  
Jesuit Missionary ◽  
Chinese Rites Controversy ◽  
Historical Nature ◽  
Papal Legate

The Chinese rites controversy (c.1582–1742) is typically characterized as a religious quarrel between different Catholic orders over whether it was permissible for Chinese converts to observe traditional rites and use the terms tian and shangdi to refer to the Christian God. As such, it is often argued that the conflict was shaped predominantly by the divergent theological attitudes between the rites-supporting Jesuits and their anti-rites opponents towards “accommodation.” By examining the Jesuit missionary Kilian Stumpf's Acta Pekinensia—a detailed chronicle of the papal legate Charles-Thomas Maillard de Tournon's 1705–6 investigation into the controversy in Beijing—this article proposes that ostensibly religious disputes between Catholic orders consisted primarily of disagreements over ancient Chinese history. Stumpf's text shows that missionaries’ understandings of antiquity were constructed through their interpretations of ancient Chinese books and their interactions with the Kangxi Emperor. The article suggests that the historiographical characterization of the controversy as “religious” has its roots in the Vatican suppression of the rites, which served to erase the historical nature of the conflict exposed in the Acta Pekinensia.

Making a Founding Father out of a French Jesuit

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-53
Author(s):  
Katherine D. Moran
Keyword(s):  
Upper Midwest ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Jesuit Missionary ◽  
Industry And Commerce ◽  
The Way

This chapter explores the development in the upper Midwest from the 1870s to the 1910s of a commemorative culture focusing on Jacques Marquette, the French Jesuit missionary who explored the Mississippi with Louis Jolliet in 1673. It analyzes commemorative culture, with particular attention to race and commerce where Marquette was most often described as the “first white man” of the Midwest. It also explains the idea of a common whiteness and broadly defined Christianity that allowed Marquette's admirers to argue that he was essentially similar to other national founding figures. The chapter ends with an examination of the way Marquette's elevation as a regional founder intersected with the growing midwestern economy. It demonstrates how Marquette is not only recognized as a regional symbol and brand but also how his pious example was mobilized to provide a spiritual gloss to the materialism of a developing center of industry and commerce.

A Cycle of Polemics and Translation Projects

2020 ◽  
pp. 38-65
Author(s):  
Alberto Tiburcio
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
General Overview ◽  
History Of ◽  
Jesuit Missionary ◽  
Biblical Translation ◽  
Persian Translation

This chapter presents the history of a cycle of theological polemics of which Jadid al-Islam’s work was the last link. This cycle starts in Mughal India with the work of the Jesuit missionary Jerome Xavier, followed by responses in Iran and counter-responses in Rome, under the auspices of the missionary congregation of Propaganda Fide. The chapter also presents the history of biblical translation projects in Arabic and Persian, which were directly linked to these polemics, including Jadid al-Islam’s own biblical Persian translation and commentary. A general overview about other polemical works in Iran into the nineteenth century is also provided.

The Jesuit Missionary Ethos

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 431-434
Author(s):  
Carolyn C. Guile ◽  
Robert A. Maryks
Keyword(s):  
Jesuit Missionary

Displacing China: The Martini-Blaeu Novus Atlas Sinensis and the Late Renaissance Shift in Representations of East Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 953-990
Author(s):  
Mario Cams
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Far East ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
Book Market ◽  
The Far East ◽  
Publishing Houses ◽  
Jesuit Missionary ◽  
Dramatic Shift ◽  
Late Renaissance

In the mid-seventeenth century, as the first full atlas of East Asia became available on the European book market, a dramatic shift took place in textual and visual representations of the Far East. The atlas, titled “Novus Atlas Sinensis” (1655), was the product of a cooperation between Joan Blaeu, who headed one of Europe's foremost commercial publishing houses, and Martino Martini, a prominent Jesuit missionary to China. This study shows how the Martini-Blaeu atlas thoroughly challenged the worldview of late Renaissance audiences by tracing and reconstructing a series of displacements that facilitated its production process.

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