Read more
M. Antoni J. Ucerler examines how the Jesuit missionaries sought new ways to communicate their faith in an unfamiliar linguistic, cultural, and religious environment--and how they sought to "re-invent" Christianity in the context of samurai Japan. Based on little-known primary sources in various languages,
The Samurai and the Cross explores the moral and political debates over religion, law, and "reason of state" that took place on both the European and the Japanese side.
List of contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- Part I: Re-inventing Christianity
- Chapter 1: Aristotle and Aquinas come to Japan
- Chapter 2: Japanese Cases of Conscience
- Chapter 3: Jesuit Casuistry: from Rome to Nagasaki
- Part II: Re-imagining the Enterprise
- Chapter 4: The Politics of Accommodation
- Chapter 5: Alonso Sánchez' and his 'Empresa de China'
- Chapter 6: The Cross, the Sword, and 'Just War'
- Chapter 7: Gómez vs. Sánchez: 'Compel them to enter'?
- Part III: Re-interpreting 'Reason of State'
- Chapter 8: Jesuit Debates on Japanese 'Reason of State'
- Chapter 9: The Mechanics of Jesuit Obedience
- Chapter 10: Japanese Reactions to Christian 'Reason of State'
- Chapter 11: The End of the Missionary 'Enterprise'
- Chapter 12: Temporal vs. Spiritual Conquest
- Epilogue: Some Further Reflections
- Appendices
- Notes
- Select Bibliography
- Glossary
- Index
About the author
M. Antoni J. Ucerler, S.J., is the Director of the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History and Provost's Fellow at Boston College. He has also taught at Sophia University in Tokyo, Georgetown University, the University of San Francisco, and the University of Oxford, where he is an Associate Fellow of Campion Hall. His interests and publications focus on the history of Christianity in Japan and the global histories of East Asian engagement with Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He is also Co-Editor in Chief of the Brill monograph series, Studies in the History of Christianity in East Asia.
Summary
In 1614 the shogunate prohibited Christianity amidst rumors of foreign plots to conquer Japan. But more than the fear of armed invasions, it was the ideological threat--or "spiritual conquest"--that the Edo shogunate feared the most. This book explores the encounter of Christianity and premodern Japan in the wider context of global and intellectual history. M. Antoni J. Ucerler examines how the Jesuit missionaries sought new ways to communicate their faith in an unfamiliar linguistic, cultural, and religious environment--and how they sought to "re-invent" Christianity in the context of samurai Japan. They developed an original "moral casuistry" or "cases of conscience" adapted to the specific dilemmas faced by Japanese Christians.
This volume situates the European missionary "enterprise" in East Asia within multiple geopolitical contexts: Both Ming China and "Warring States" Japan resisted the presence of foreigners and their beliefs. In Japan, where the Jesuits were facing persecution in the midst of civil war, they debated whether they could intervene in military conflicts to protect local communities. Others advocated for the establishment of a "Christian republic" or civil protectorate. Based on little-known primary sources in various languages, The Samurai and the Cross explores the moral and political debates over religion, law, and "reason of state" that took place on both the European and the Japanese side.
Additional text
Ucerler's text endows the reader with a much-needed nuanced picture vis-á-vis religious expansion and Western imperialistic ambitions on Asian soil during the early modern era, elegantly enumerating and pointing out the significance of various practical considerations the Christian decision-makers had to take into account in order to be successful and efficient in a slowly modernizing, essentially non-Christian East Asian environment.
