Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Journey to the East : the Jesuit mission to China, 1579-1724 / Liam Matthew Brockey.

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.Description: 1 online resource (xii, 496 pages) : illustrations, mapsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780674028814
  • 0674028813
  • 9780674030367
  • 0674030362
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Additional physical formats: Print version:: Journey to the East.DDC classification:
  • 266/.251 22
LOC classification:
  • BV3417 .B76 2007eb
Other classification:
  • online - EBSCO
  • BO 1875
Online resources:
Contents:
Preface -- Note on translations and orthography -- Introduction -- PART I. CHARTING THE COURSE. An uneasy foothold -- In the shadow of greatness -- Witnesses to armageddon -- The problem of success -- Between tolerance and the intolerable -- PART II. BUILDING THE CHURCH. In the apostles' classroom -- Learning the language of birds -- The business of conversion -- A good method and order -- Brothers of passion and mercy -- Conclusion -- Bibliographic note -- Notes -- Illustration credits -- Index.
Summary: It was one of the great encounters of world history: highly educated European priests confronting Chinese culture for the first time in the modern era. This "journey to the East" is explored by Liam Brockey as he retraces the path of the Jesuit missionaries who sailed from Portugal to China, believing that, with little more than firm conviction and divine assistance, they could convert the Chinese to Christianity. Moving beyond the image of Jesuits as cultural emissaries, his book shows how these priests, in the first concerted European effort to engage with Chinese language and thought, translated Roman Catholicism into the Chinese cultural frame and eventually claimed two hundred thousand converts. The first narrative history of the Jesuits & mission from 1579 until the proscription of Christianity in China in 1724, this study is also the first to use extensive documentation of the enterprise found in Lisbon and Rome. The peril of travel in the premodern world, the danger of entering a foreign land alone and unarmed, and the challenge of understanding a radically different culture result in episodes of high drama set against such backdrops as the imperial court of Peking, the villages of Shanxi Province, and the bustling cities of the Yangzi Delta region. Further scenes show how the Jesuits claimed conversions and molded their Christian communities into outposts of Baroque Catholicism in the vastness of China. In the retelling, this story reaches across continents and centuries to reveal the deep political, cultural, scientific, linguistic, and religious complexities of a true early engagement between East and West.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - EBSCO (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (ebsco)282497

Includes bibliographical references (pages 427-477) and index.

Preface -- Note on translations and orthography -- Introduction -- PART I. CHARTING THE COURSE. An uneasy foothold -- In the shadow of greatness -- Witnesses to armageddon -- The problem of success -- Between tolerance and the intolerable -- PART II. BUILDING THE CHURCH. In the apostles' classroom -- Learning the language of birds -- The business of conversion -- A good method and order -- Brothers of passion and mercy -- Conclusion -- Bibliographic note -- Notes -- Illustration credits -- Index.

Print version record.

It was one of the great encounters of world history: highly educated European priests confronting Chinese culture for the first time in the modern era. This "journey to the East" is explored by Liam Brockey as he retraces the path of the Jesuit missionaries who sailed from Portugal to China, believing that, with little more than firm conviction and divine assistance, they could convert the Chinese to Christianity. Moving beyond the image of Jesuits as cultural emissaries, his book shows how these priests, in the first concerted European effort to engage with Chinese language and thought, translated Roman Catholicism into the Chinese cultural frame and eventually claimed two hundred thousand converts. The first narrative history of the Jesuits & mission from 1579 until the proscription of Christianity in China in 1724, this study is also the first to use extensive documentation of the enterprise found in Lisbon and Rome. The peril of travel in the premodern world, the danger of entering a foreign land alone and unarmed, and the challenge of understanding a radically different culture result in episodes of high drama set against such backdrops as the imperial court of Peking, the villages of Shanxi Province, and the bustling cities of the Yangzi Delta region. Further scenes show how the Jesuits claimed conversions and molded their Christian communities into outposts of Baroque Catholicism in the vastness of China. In the retelling, this story reaches across continents and centuries to reveal the deep political, cultural, scientific, linguistic, and religious complexities of a true early engagement between East and West.

In English.