‘Morilucrum’: the ideal of mission and martyrdom and the 16th and 17th centuries’ Far-Eastern Jesuit missions
Resumo
In the 16th and 17th centuries, especially during periods in which
persecution was intensified against crypto-Christians, the missionary experience
of the Portuguese turned to early Christian martyrdom ideals and to a renewed
sense of mission, in order to bear witness to Christian faith in the harshest
situations.
Within the Society of Jesus, the author argues, such ideals were
particularly pertinent, not only on account of the Jesuits’ vast experience in the
Eastern missionary field, but also because Jesuit spirituality was particularly apt to
the development of martyrdom and mission ideals. As far as the cultural and
literary environment inspired by Jesuits is concerned, such ideals were cultivated
within neo-Latin poetry that was produced in the Jesuit High Schools. Among all
literary genres, the epic genre (traditionally viewed as the most glorious genre)
became the most apt and dignifying; the heroic epic genre was thus applied to
celebrations of the new kind of hero, to wit, the missionaries and the martyrs. By
shaping such heroic figures with epic literary features, and by addressing those
heroic figures to a culturally sophisticated public, the Jesuit author sought to
enhance the moral effectiveness of his literary work; in other words, his literary
work was aimed at edifying the reader (mouere), so that the latter might reach the
mystical ideal of mission and martyrdom, where death is understood as “profit”.
‘Morilucrum’: the ideal of mission and martyrdom and the 16th and 17th centuries’ Far-Eastern Jesuit missions
Resumo
In the 16th and 17th centuries, especially during periods in which
persecution was intensified against crypto-Christians, the missionary experience
of the Portuguese turned to early Christian martyrdom ideals and to a renewed
sense of mission, in order to bear witness to Christian faith in the harshest
situations.
Within the Society of Jesus, the author argues, such ideals were
particularly pertinent, not only on account of the Jesuits’ vast experience in the
Eastern missionary field, but also because Jesuit spirituality was particularly apt to
the development of martyrdom and mission ideals. As far as the cultural and
literary environment inspired by Jesuits is concerned, such ideals were cultivated
within neo-Latin poetry that was produced in the Jesuit High Schools. Among all
literary genres, the epic genre (traditionally viewed as the most glorious genre)
became the most apt and dignifying; the heroic epic genre was thus applied to
celebrations of the new kind of hero, to wit, the missionaries and the martyrs. By
shaping such heroic figures with epic literary features, and by addressing those
heroic figures to a culturally sophisticated public, the Jesuit author sought to
enhance the moral effectiveness of his literary work; in other words, his literary
work was aimed at edifying the reader (mouere), so that the latter might reach the
mystical ideal of mission and martyrdom, where death is understood as “profit”.