§ 150. Foreign Missions.The grand discoveries of new continents which had preceded the Reformation age, and the serious losses sustained in European countries, revived the interest in missions throughout the Roman Catholic church. Commercial enterprise and campaigns for the conquest of the world, which were still almost exclusively in the hands of the Catholic states, afforded opportunities for the prosecution of mission work in the New World; and abundant means for carrying it on were furnished by the numerous monkish orders.
The grand discoveries of new continents which had preceded the Reformation age, and the serious losses sustained in European countries, revived the interest in missions throughout the Roman Catholic church. Commercial enterprise and campaigns for the conquest of the world, which were still almost exclusively in the hands of the Catholic states, afforded opportunities for the prosecution of mission work in the New World; and abundant means for carrying it on were furnished by the numerous monkish orders.
§ 150.1.Missions to the Heathen: East Indies and China.—The Portuguese founded the first bishopric in theEast Indies, at Goa on the Malabar Coast, inA.D.1534. Soon thereafter a tribunal of the Inquisition was established alongside of it. The bishop confined his attention to the European immigrants, and the inquisitors applied themselves mainly to secure the destruction of the Thomas-Christians settled there. Neither of them had the remotest idea of doing any properly speaking mission work among the native races. But it was quite different when, inA.D.1542, Loyola’s companionFrancis Xavier, the Apostle of the Indians, made his appearance as papal nuncio in this wide field along with two other Jesuits. Working with glowing zeal and unparalleled self-denial, he baptized in a short time a hundred thousand, mostly of the low, despised caste of pariahs, going forward certainly with a haste which never allowed him time to make sure that the spiritual fruits should bear any proportion to the outward successes. His unmeasured missionary fervour, to which characteristic expression was given in his saying,Amplius! amplius!impelled him constantly to go on seeking for new fields of labour. From the East Indies he moved on to Japan, and only his death, which occurred inA.D.1552, hindered him from pushing his way into China.Numerous successors from Loyola’s order undertook the carrying on of his work, and so soon asA.D.1565 the converts of the East Indies numbered 300,000.441—Commerce opened the way for missions intoChina, where all traces of earlier Christianity (§§ 72, 1;93, 15) had already completely vanished, and proud contempt of everything stood in the way of the introduction of any western customs or forms of worship. But the Jesuits, withMatthew Ricciof Ancona at their head, by making use of their knowledge of mathematical, mechanical, and physical science, secured for themselves access even to the court. Ricci at first completely nationalized himself, and then began his missionary enterprise by introducing Christian instructions into his mathematical and astronomical lectures. In order to render the Chinese favourable to the adoption of Christianity, he represented it to be a renewal and restoration of the old doctrine of Confucius. The confession of faith which the new converts before baptism were required to make was confined to an acknowledgment of one God and recognition of the obligation of the ten commandments. And even in worship he tolerated many heathen practices and customs. The mathematical and astronomical writings composed by him in the Chinese language are said to have extended to 150 volumes. The Chinese artillery also stood under his immediate supervision.When he died, inA.D.1610, the Jesuits had even then formed a network of hundreds of churches spread over a great part of the land.442—Continuation, § 156, 11, 12.§ 150.2.Japan.—Xavier had here, chiefly on account of his defective acquaintance with the language, relatively speaking only a very small measure of success. But other Jesuits followed in his footsteps, and enjoyed the most brilliant success; so that inA.D.1581 there were already more than two hundred churches and about 150,000 Christians in the land, of whom many belonged to the old feudal nobility, the daimios, while some were even imperial princes. This distinguished success was greatly owing, on the one hand, to the favour of the then military commander-in-chief Nobunaga, who greeted the advance of Christianity as a welcome means for undermining the influence of the Buddhist bonzes, which had become supreme, and, on the other hand, to the abundance of money put by Portugal and Spain at the disposal of the Jesuits, which they used as well in the adorning of the Catholic services as in the bestowing of liberal gifts upon the converts. It was, however, chiefly owing to the close and essential relationship between the Romish ritual and constitution and those of Buddhism, which rendered the transition from the one to the other by no means very difficult. Then everything that had gone to secure for Buddhism in Japan a superiority over the simple old national Sintuism or ancestor-worship, as well as everything that the Japanese Buddhists had been wont to regard as indispensable requisites of worship, the elegance of the temples, altars glittering with bright colours blending together, theatrical display in the vestments for their priests, grand solemn processions and masses, incense, images, statues and rosaries, a hierarchical system, the tonsure, celibacy, cloisters for monks and nuns, worship of saints and images, pilgrimages, etc., was given them in even an exaggerated degree in Jesuit Christianity. The zealous neophytes from among the daimios effectually backed up the preaching of the Jesuit fathers by fire and sword. They compelled the subjects of their provinces to go over to the Christian religion, banished or put to death those who proved refractory, and overthrew the Buddhist temples and cloisters. InA.D.1582 they sent an embassy of four young noblemen to Europe to pay homage to the pope. After they had received the most flattering reception in Madrid from Philip II., and in Rome from Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V., they returned to their own home inA.D.1590, accompanied by seventeen Jesuit priests, who were soon followed by whole crowds of mendicant friars. By the close of the century the number of native Christians had increased to 600,000. But meanwhile the axe was already being laid at the root of the tree that had thriven so wondrously. Nobunaga’s successor Hidejoshi found occasion, inA.D.1587, to issue a decree banishing from the country all foreign missionaries. The Jesuits were wise enough to cease at once all public preaching, but the begging monks treated the decree with contempt and open defiance.In consequence of this six Franciscans and seventeen Japanese converts of theirs, and along with them also three Jesuits, were arrested at Nagasaki and there crucified (§ 156, 11). Soon afterwards Hidejoshi died. One of his generals, Ijejasu, to whom he had assigned the regency during the minority of his six year old son, assumed the sovereign power to himself. A civil war was the result, and inA.D.1600 his opponents, among whom were certain Christian daimios, were conquered in a bloody battle. Ijejasu persuaded the mikado to give him the hereditary rank ofshiogun,i.e.field-marshal of the empire; and his successors down to the revolution ofA.D.1867 (§ 182, 5), as military vice-emperors alongside of the really powerless mikado, had all the power of government in their own hands.Thus were corrupting elements introduced which led to the complete overthrow of the Japanese church.443§ 150.3.America.—The desire to spread Christ’s kingdom was not by any means the smallest among the impulses that contributed to Christopher Columbus’ enthusiasm for the discovery of new countries; but the greediness, cruelty, and animosity of the Spanish conquerors, who had less interest in converting the natives into Christians than in reducing them to slavery, was a terrible hindrance to the Christianizing of the New World. The Christian missionaries indeed most emphatically, but with only a small measure of success, defended the human rights of the ill-used Indians. The noble Mexican bishop,Bartholomew de las Casas, in particular wrought unweariedly, devoting his whole life,A.D.1474 toA.D.1566, to the sacred task, not only of instructing the Indians, but also of saving them from the hands of his greedy and bloodthirsty fellow countrymen. Six times he journeyed to Spain in order to use personal influence in high quarters for ameliorating the lot of hisprotégés, and he was obliged to undertake a seventh journey in order to justify himself and repel the violent accusations of his enemies. Even inA.D.1517 Charles V. had, at the bishop’s entreaty, granted personal liberty to the Indians, but at the same time gave permission to the Spanish colonists to introduce African negro slaves for the laborious work in the mines and on the plantations. The enslaving of the natives, however, was still continued, and only inA.D.1547 were vigorous measures taken to secure the suppression of the practice, after many millions of Indians had been already sacrificed. So far as the Spanish dominion extended Christianity also spread, and was established by means of the Inquisition.—In South America the Portuguese held sway in the rich and as yet little known empire of Brazil. InA.D.1549 King John III. sent thither a Jesuit mission, with Emanuel Nobreya at its head.Amid unspeakable hardships they won over the native cannibals to Christianity and civilization.444§ 150.4. The newly awakened missionary zeal of the church made an attempt also upon theschismatical Churches of the East. The enterprise, however, was even moderately successful only in reference to a portion of the Persian and East IndianNestorians(§ 72, 1), who in Persia were called Syrian or Chaldæan Christians, because of the language which they used in their liturgy, and in India Thomas-Christians, because they professed to have had the Apostle Thomas as their founder. They had their origin really, inA.D.1551, in Mesopotamia, in consequence of a double episcopal election there. The one party chose a priest Sulakas, whom Pope Julius III. had consecrated priest under the name of John, but the other party refused to acknowledge him. The Archbishop Alexius Menezius also became involved in these controversies, and succeeded in getting the former party to recognise the Roman primacy and accept the Catholic doctrine; while, on the other hand, Rome permitted the retention of its ancient ritual and form of constitution. These united Nestorians were now called by way of eminence Chaldæan Christians. Their chief, chosen by themselves and approved by the pope, was called Bishop of Babylon, but had his residence at Mosul in Mesopotamia. The Thomas-Christians of India, however, proved much more troublesome. But even they were obliged, after a long, protracted struggle, at a synod at Diampur inA.D.1599, to abjure the Nestorian heresy. All Syrian books were burnt, and a new Malabar liturgy in accordance with the Romish type was introduced.—The existence of an independentJacobiteChristian church in Abyssinia (§ 64, 1) first became known in Europe in the beginning of the sixteenth century through Portuguese commercial and diplomatic missions. The Abyssinian sultan, David, inA.D.1514, upon promise of Portuguese help, of which he stood in need because of the aggressions of the neighbouring Mohammadan [Mohammedan] states, agreed to receive the physician Bermudez as Catholic patriarch. But the next sultan, Claudius, expelled him from his land. InA.D.1562 Jesuit missionaries began to settle in the country; but Claudius denounced them as Arians, and wished the people to have nothing to do with them. As the result of a friendly communication from the Coptic patriarch, Paul V., in the beginning of the 17th century, sent the Jesuit Rodriguez intoEgypt. The patriarch accepted the rich presents which the Jesuit brought with him, and then made him return home without having gained the object of his mission.
§ 150.1.Missions to the Heathen: East Indies and China.—The Portuguese founded the first bishopric in theEast Indies, at Goa on the Malabar Coast, inA.D.1534. Soon thereafter a tribunal of the Inquisition was established alongside of it. The bishop confined his attention to the European immigrants, and the inquisitors applied themselves mainly to secure the destruction of the Thomas-Christians settled there. Neither of them had the remotest idea of doing any properly speaking mission work among the native races. But it was quite different when, inA.D.1542, Loyola’s companionFrancis Xavier, the Apostle of the Indians, made his appearance as papal nuncio in this wide field along with two other Jesuits. Working with glowing zeal and unparalleled self-denial, he baptized in a short time a hundred thousand, mostly of the low, despised caste of pariahs, going forward certainly with a haste which never allowed him time to make sure that the spiritual fruits should bear any proportion to the outward successes. His unmeasured missionary fervour, to which characteristic expression was given in his saying,Amplius! amplius!impelled him constantly to go on seeking for new fields of labour. From the East Indies he moved on to Japan, and only his death, which occurred inA.D.1552, hindered him from pushing his way into China.Numerous successors from Loyola’s order undertook the carrying on of his work, and so soon asA.D.1565 the converts of the East Indies numbered 300,000.441—Commerce opened the way for missions intoChina, where all traces of earlier Christianity (§§ 72, 1;93, 15) had already completely vanished, and proud contempt of everything stood in the way of the introduction of any western customs or forms of worship. But the Jesuits, withMatthew Ricciof Ancona at their head, by making use of their knowledge of mathematical, mechanical, and physical science, secured for themselves access even to the court. Ricci at first completely nationalized himself, and then began his missionary enterprise by introducing Christian instructions into his mathematical and astronomical lectures. In order to render the Chinese favourable to the adoption of Christianity, he represented it to be a renewal and restoration of the old doctrine of Confucius. The confession of faith which the new converts before baptism were required to make was confined to an acknowledgment of one God and recognition of the obligation of the ten commandments. And even in worship he tolerated many heathen practices and customs. The mathematical and astronomical writings composed by him in the Chinese language are said to have extended to 150 volumes. The Chinese artillery also stood under his immediate supervision.When he died, inA.D.1610, the Jesuits had even then formed a network of hundreds of churches spread over a great part of the land.442—Continuation, § 156, 11, 12.
§ 150.2.Japan.—Xavier had here, chiefly on account of his defective acquaintance with the language, relatively speaking only a very small measure of success. But other Jesuits followed in his footsteps, and enjoyed the most brilliant success; so that inA.D.1581 there were already more than two hundred churches and about 150,000 Christians in the land, of whom many belonged to the old feudal nobility, the daimios, while some were even imperial princes. This distinguished success was greatly owing, on the one hand, to the favour of the then military commander-in-chief Nobunaga, who greeted the advance of Christianity as a welcome means for undermining the influence of the Buddhist bonzes, which had become supreme, and, on the other hand, to the abundance of money put by Portugal and Spain at the disposal of the Jesuits, which they used as well in the adorning of the Catholic services as in the bestowing of liberal gifts upon the converts. It was, however, chiefly owing to the close and essential relationship between the Romish ritual and constitution and those of Buddhism, which rendered the transition from the one to the other by no means very difficult. Then everything that had gone to secure for Buddhism in Japan a superiority over the simple old national Sintuism or ancestor-worship, as well as everything that the Japanese Buddhists had been wont to regard as indispensable requisites of worship, the elegance of the temples, altars glittering with bright colours blending together, theatrical display in the vestments for their priests, grand solemn processions and masses, incense, images, statues and rosaries, a hierarchical system, the tonsure, celibacy, cloisters for monks and nuns, worship of saints and images, pilgrimages, etc., was given them in even an exaggerated degree in Jesuit Christianity. The zealous neophytes from among the daimios effectually backed up the preaching of the Jesuit fathers by fire and sword. They compelled the subjects of their provinces to go over to the Christian religion, banished or put to death those who proved refractory, and overthrew the Buddhist temples and cloisters. InA.D.1582 they sent an embassy of four young noblemen to Europe to pay homage to the pope. After they had received the most flattering reception in Madrid from Philip II., and in Rome from Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V., they returned to their own home inA.D.1590, accompanied by seventeen Jesuit priests, who were soon followed by whole crowds of mendicant friars. By the close of the century the number of native Christians had increased to 600,000. But meanwhile the axe was already being laid at the root of the tree that had thriven so wondrously. Nobunaga’s successor Hidejoshi found occasion, inA.D.1587, to issue a decree banishing from the country all foreign missionaries. The Jesuits were wise enough to cease at once all public preaching, but the begging monks treated the decree with contempt and open defiance.In consequence of this six Franciscans and seventeen Japanese converts of theirs, and along with them also three Jesuits, were arrested at Nagasaki and there crucified (§ 156, 11). Soon afterwards Hidejoshi died. One of his generals, Ijejasu, to whom he had assigned the regency during the minority of his six year old son, assumed the sovereign power to himself. A civil war was the result, and inA.D.1600 his opponents, among whom were certain Christian daimios, were conquered in a bloody battle. Ijejasu persuaded the mikado to give him the hereditary rank ofshiogun,i.e.field-marshal of the empire; and his successors down to the revolution ofA.D.1867 (§ 182, 5), as military vice-emperors alongside of the really powerless mikado, had all the power of government in their own hands.Thus were corrupting elements introduced which led to the complete overthrow of the Japanese church.443
§ 150.3.America.—The desire to spread Christ’s kingdom was not by any means the smallest among the impulses that contributed to Christopher Columbus’ enthusiasm for the discovery of new countries; but the greediness, cruelty, and animosity of the Spanish conquerors, who had less interest in converting the natives into Christians than in reducing them to slavery, was a terrible hindrance to the Christianizing of the New World. The Christian missionaries indeed most emphatically, but with only a small measure of success, defended the human rights of the ill-used Indians. The noble Mexican bishop,Bartholomew de las Casas, in particular wrought unweariedly, devoting his whole life,A.D.1474 toA.D.1566, to the sacred task, not only of instructing the Indians, but also of saving them from the hands of his greedy and bloodthirsty fellow countrymen. Six times he journeyed to Spain in order to use personal influence in high quarters for ameliorating the lot of hisprotégés, and he was obliged to undertake a seventh journey in order to justify himself and repel the violent accusations of his enemies. Even inA.D.1517 Charles V. had, at the bishop’s entreaty, granted personal liberty to the Indians, but at the same time gave permission to the Spanish colonists to introduce African negro slaves for the laborious work in the mines and on the plantations. The enslaving of the natives, however, was still continued, and only inA.D.1547 were vigorous measures taken to secure the suppression of the practice, after many millions of Indians had been already sacrificed. So far as the Spanish dominion extended Christianity also spread, and was established by means of the Inquisition.—In South America the Portuguese held sway in the rich and as yet little known empire of Brazil. InA.D.1549 King John III. sent thither a Jesuit mission, with Emanuel Nobreya at its head.Amid unspeakable hardships they won over the native cannibals to Christianity and civilization.444
§ 150.4. The newly awakened missionary zeal of the church made an attempt also upon theschismatical Churches of the East. The enterprise, however, was even moderately successful only in reference to a portion of the Persian and East IndianNestorians(§ 72, 1), who in Persia were called Syrian or Chaldæan Christians, because of the language which they used in their liturgy, and in India Thomas-Christians, because they professed to have had the Apostle Thomas as their founder. They had their origin really, inA.D.1551, in Mesopotamia, in consequence of a double episcopal election there. The one party chose a priest Sulakas, whom Pope Julius III. had consecrated priest under the name of John, but the other party refused to acknowledge him. The Archbishop Alexius Menezius also became involved in these controversies, and succeeded in getting the former party to recognise the Roman primacy and accept the Catholic doctrine; while, on the other hand, Rome permitted the retention of its ancient ritual and form of constitution. These united Nestorians were now called by way of eminence Chaldæan Christians. Their chief, chosen by themselves and approved by the pope, was called Bishop of Babylon, but had his residence at Mosul in Mesopotamia. The Thomas-Christians of India, however, proved much more troublesome. But even they were obliged, after a long, protracted struggle, at a synod at Diampur inA.D.1599, to abjure the Nestorian heresy. All Syrian books were burnt, and a new Malabar liturgy in accordance with the Romish type was introduced.—The existence of an independentJacobiteChristian church in Abyssinia (§ 64, 1) first became known in Europe in the beginning of the sixteenth century through Portuguese commercial and diplomatic missions. The Abyssinian sultan, David, inA.D.1514, upon promise of Portuguese help, of which he stood in need because of the aggressions of the neighbouring Mohammadan [Mohammedan] states, agreed to receive the physician Bermudez as Catholic patriarch. But the next sultan, Claudius, expelled him from his land. InA.D.1562 Jesuit missionaries began to settle in the country; but Claudius denounced them as Arians, and wished the people to have nothing to do with them. As the result of a friendly communication from the Coptic patriarch, Paul V., in the beginning of the 17th century, sent the Jesuit Rodriguez intoEgypt. The patriarch accepted the rich presents which the Jesuit brought with him, and then made him return home without having gained the object of his mission.