ST. FRANCIS XAVIER’S LETTERS FROM CHINA (1552)聖方濟各的中國來信(一五五二年)
This article examines the corpus of letters attributed to Saint Francis Xavier during his final maritime itinerary (1552), with particular focus on "The China Letters" (1552) as a privileged source for understanding the "spiritual conquest" in the Far East. The author argues that the epistolary narr...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
July 2006
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40019/3749 |
| Summary: | This article examines the corpus of letters attributed to Saint Francis Xavier during his final maritime itinerary (1552), with particular focus on "The China Letters" (1552) as a privileged source for understanding the "spiritual conquest" in the Far East. The author argues that the epistolary narratives, articulated between miraculous experiences, missionary frustrations, and strategic decisions, function simultaneously as devotional testimony and as an instrument of spiritual and political orientation for Jesuit action, in dialogue with the stage culminating in the formulation of directives by Valignano.
Methodologically, the analysis combines a historiographical reading of the letters with contextualization using coeval accounts (including documentation employed in the canonization process), confronting episodes such as the transformation of "sea water" and the recovery of a child during the voyage. The letters are further situated within the specific context of the stopover at Sanchoão, a point of commercial contact between the Portuguese and Chinese junks, where missionary presence occurs under settlement restrictions and amid tensions among merchants.
The conclusion holds that Xavier mobilizes the language of the prodigy to legitimize the mission and sustain the continuity of the project, while simultaneously rendering visible the structural uncertainty of access to the Chinese interior and the necessity of phased planning. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |