Poverty, Finance and Evangelization: the Case of the Jesuit Mission to Japan (16th-17th centuries) - Archive ouverte HAL
Article Dans Une Revue Bulletin of Portuguese/Japanese Studies Année : 2023

Poverty, Finance and Evangelization: the Case of the Jesuit Mission to Japan (16th-17th centuries)

Helene Vu Thanh

Résumé

The Society of Jesus was often attacked as a wealthy order, most famously by its Jansenist enemies in the 18th centuries. In fact, the accusation can be dated back to the Society’s early days in the 16th centuries, as its first overseas missions were being established. That was especially salient in the case of the Japanese mission, which acquired its own reputation for affluence, owing to its investment in the silk trade, in particular. The Franciscans, an order chiefly built on the ideal of poverty, were active in circulating such representations, as they tried to challenge the Jesuits’ influence in the country. But the mission’s alleged riches also drew criticism from inside the Society, revealing the tensions accrued by the choices the Jesuits made in order to fund their activities in Japan. Through the case of the Japanese mission, this article intends to explores the ways in which the ideal of poverty actually structured the Society of Jesus’ missionary thought and practice. It demonstrates that respecting the oath of poverty was an essential aspect of Jesuit spirituality, but that reconciling it with the order’s evangelical ambitions was an enduring problem. This was especially so in the case of the Japanese mission. How was the poverty ideal to be observed in a society that was understood to be experiencing large scale poverty but also to have strongly negative attitudes towards it? What were the consequences for the funding of the mission locally, as well as for conversion methods? Also, how could investment in the silk trade be made compatible with the poverty ideal? Addressing such questions, this article is intended to add to our understanding of Jesuit spirituality, and to identify its specificities in the missionary context.

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hal-03975358 , version 1 (06-02-2023)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03975358 , version 1

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Helene Vu Thanh. Poverty, Finance and Evangelization: the Case of the Jesuit Mission to Japan (16th-17th centuries). Bulletin of Portuguese/Japanese Studies, 2023. ⟨hal-03975358⟩
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