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1540s-1600s CEPrimary source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Jesuit Missionaries Carry Christianity to Asia and the Americas

Francis Xavier dies waiting at China's door; Matteo Ricci gets through it dressed as a Confucian scholar

On the timeline · around 1540s-1600s CE · Reformation and DivisionReformation and DivisionJesuit Missionaries Carry Christianity to Asia and the Americas1475150015251550157516001625

Quick facts

Jesuit order founded
1540 CE
Xavier's letter on China
1552 CE; died that December, entry denied
Ricci arrives in China
1583 CE
Ricci's method
Cultural accommodation, presenting as a Confucian scholar

What happened

The Jesuit order, founded in 1540 CE partly as a response to the Reformation, sent missionaries across Catholic colonial and trade networks to Asia and the Americas. Francis Xavier, who had already worked in India and Japan, wrote in 1552 CE that he hoped to enter China that same year and penetrate even to the emperor himself, expressing hope that God would soon provide free entrance to China not only to the Jesuits but to religious orders of every kind; he died that December on an island off the Chinese coast without ever gaining entry. Decades later, Matteo Ricci succeeded where Xavier had not, arriving in China in 1583 CE and adopting a strategy, developed under the Jesuit visitor Alessandro Valignano, of presenting himself as a Confucian-educated Western scholar rather than a foreign disruptor, a method of cultural accommodation that helped the China mission gain a foothold among the educated elite.

Why it matters

Jesuit missionary strategy, especially Ricci's accommodation of local elite culture rather than demanding its rejection, set a pattern for how Christianity spread into societies with their own long-established religious and philosophical traditions, a pattern that later missionary movements sometimes followed and sometimes explicitly rejected.

How we know

Xavier's own letters, preserved and published by the Jesuit order, and later Jesuit records of Ricci's mission provide direct documentary evidence for both men's approaches and outcomes.

Sources

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Part of a timelineHistory of Christianity28 events · A crucified Jewish teacher, a persecuted sect that became an empire's official religion, and two thousand years of councils, schisms, and missions that carried it to every continentView all →
Jesuit Missionaries Carry Christianity to Asia and the Americas · History of Christianity · SourcedStory