Studien zur Außereuropäischen
Christentumsgeschichte
(Asien, Afrika, Lateinamerika)
Studies in the History of Christianity
in the Non-Western World
Herausgegeben von / Edited by
Klaus Koschorke & Johannes Meier
Band 25 / Volume 25
2014
Harrassowitz Verlag . Wiesbaden
Polycentric Structures
in the History of World Christianity
Polyzentrische Strukturen
in der Geschichte des Weltchristentums
Edited by / Herausgegeben von
Klaus Koschorke & Adrian Hermann
2014
Harrassowitz Verlag . Wiesbaden
Gedruckt mit Unterstützung der Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung, Köln.
This publication was made possible by the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung, Cologne.
The illustration on the cover is taken from the Illustrated London News 43/1234 (1863),
p. 561. It depicts “Family Worship in a Plantation in South Carolina”. An old slave preaches,
while the white slave owner and his family listen (cf. http://beck.library.emory.edu/iln/
browse.php?id=iln43.1234.007, archived at: http://www.webcitation.org/6QCJTRe8t).
The polycentric history of World Christianity cannot be understood without taking into
account the plurality of actors, the multiplicity of indigenous initiatives, the varieties of
regional centers of expansion, and the many local forms of Christianity.
Bibliograische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen
Nationalbibliograie; detaillierte bibliograische Daten sind im Internet
über http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
Nationalbibliograie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet
at http://dnb.dnb.de.
For further information about our publishing program consult our
website http://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de
© Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden 2014
This work, including all of its parts, is protected by copyright.
Any use beyond the limits of copyright law without the permission
of the publisher is forbidden and subject to penalty. This applies
particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage
and processing in electronic systems.
Printed on permanent/durable paper.
Printing and binding: Memminger MedienCentrum AG
Printed in Germany
ISSN 1611-0080
ISBN 978-3-447-10258-2
Table of Contents / Inhaltsverzeichnis
Preface / Vorwort
KLAUS KOSCHORKE / ADRIAN HERMANN ........................................................................
11
I. Public Opening of the Conference / Eröffnungsvorträge
1.
2.
3.
4.
Polycentric Structures in the History of World Christianity
(Inaugural Lecture)
KLAUS KOSCHORKE ...........................................................................................
15
The Black Atlantic and the Shaping of African Christianity, 1820–1920
JEHU J. HANCILES ..............................................................................................
29
Die ‚Polyzentrik‘ des Christentums in der Perspektive der lutherischen
Orthodoxie des 17./18. Jahrhunderts / The ‘Polycentricity’of Christianity
as Seen by Lutheran Orthodoxy in the 17th and 18th Centuries
THOMAS KAUFMANN .........................................................................................
51
Global Christianity as the Horizon of Ecclesial Practice / Weltweite
Ökumene als Horizont kirchlichen Handelns
HEINRICH BEDFORD-STROHM ............................................................................
69
II. Transcontinental, Regional and Interdenominational Case Studies /
Transkontinentale, regionale und interkonfessionelle Fallstudien
II.1.
Korea as an Early Missionary Center of Global Christianity /
Korea als frühes Missionszentrum des globalen Christentums
5.
‘Non-Missionary Beginnings’ of Korean Catholic Christianity
in the Late Eighteenth Century
SEBASTIAN KIM .................................................................................................
73
Korea as an Early Missionary Center: Korean Missionaries Around 1910
in Northeast Asia and Beyond
KYO SEONG AHN ...............................................................................................
99
6.
6
Table of Contents / Inhaltsverzeichnis
7.
South Korea as a Missionary Centre of World Christianity: Developments
in Korean Protestantism After the Liberation (1945)
KIRSTEEN KIM ................................................................................................... 111
II.2.
Asian-Christian Networks / Asiatisch-christliche Netzwerke
8.
The Making of Modern China: Reflections on the Role of Chinese YMCA
Christians who Returned from Japan and the US in the Early 20th Century
PETER TZE MING NG ......................................................................................... 131
9.
Chinese Catholics in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam, 1865–2012
PETER C. PHAN .................................................................................................. 141
10.
Claiming Indian Values to Formulate Guianese Identity: Contributions
by Two Indian Christians in 19th Century British Guiana
DANIEL JEYARAJ ................................................................................................ 153
11.
Global-lokale Wechselwirkungen. Von den Feierlichkeiten zum Gedenken
an die Japan-Märtyrer in Manila zur national-philippinischen Verehrung
von San Lorenzo Ruiz / Global-Local Interchanges. From the Celebrations
in Manila Commemorating the Martyrs of Japan to the National Philippine
Veneration of San Lorenzo Ruiz
REINHARD WENDT ............................................................................................. 173
12.
Transnational Networks of Philippine Intellectuals and the Emergence
of an Indigenous-Christian Public Sphere Around 1900
ADRIAN HERMANN ............................................................................................ 193
II.3.
Oceania / Ozeanien
13.
Inselmissionare. Die Verbreitung des Christentums in und aus der
pazifischen Inselwelt / Island Missionaries. Spreading Christianity Within
and Beyond the Pacific Islands
HERMANN HIERY ............................................................................................... 205
II.4.
Africa and the ‘Black Atlantic’ / Afrika und der ‚Black Atlantic‘
14.
Kongolese Christianity in the Americas of the 17th and 18th Centuries
DAVID D. DANIELS ............................................................................................ 215
15.
Are the Ethiopians “the Prussians of Africa” or “the Japanese of Africa”?
Transatlantic and Transcontinental Networks in the West African Press
of the 1890s
FRIEDER LUDWIG ............................................................................................... 227
Table of Contents / Inhaltsverzeichnis
7
16.
Staging African Prophets in South Africa: Ilanga lase Natal as an Historical
Archive of Early African Pentecostalism
ANDREAS HEUSER ............................................................................................. 239
17.
African Women, Conversion and Evangelism in 19th Century Southern
Africa: A View from the ‘Far North’
LIZE KRIEL ......................................................................................................... 257
II.5.
Christian Europe in its Global Context / Das christliche Europa
im globalen Kontext
18.
Katholische Mission in protestantischer Deutung. Heidenbekehrung als
interkonfessionelles Thema des frühen 18. Jahrhunderts / Catholic Missions
in Protestant Perspective. Conversion of the Heathen as an Interconfessional
Issue in the Early 18th Century
MARKUS FRIEDRICH .......................................................................................... 269
19.
Early Modern Asian Catholicism and European Colonialism: Dominance,
Hegemony and Native Agency in the Portuguese Estado da Índia
PAOLO ARANHA ................................................................................................. 285
20.
African ‘Retro-Mission’ in Europe
AFE ADOGAME .................................................................................................. 307
21.
„Geschenk ökumenischer Bruderschaft“. Beobachtungen zu polyzentrischen
Strukturen der Bonhoeffer-Rezeption / “The Gift of Ecumenical
Brotherhood”. Observations on Polycentric Structures of the Reception
of Bonhoeffer
TIM LORENTZEN ................................................................................................ 317
II.6.
Variants of Orthodox Missions and Expansion / Varianten
orthodoxer Mission und Ausbreitung
22.
Die russisch-orthodoxe Mission in Japan / Russian-Orthodox Missions
in Japan
ANDREAS MÜLLER ............................................................................................ 335
23.
Koptisches Christentum im subsaharischen Afrika / Coptic Christianity
in Subsaharan Africa
KARL PINGGERA ................................................................................................ 347
8
24.
Table of Contents / Inhaltsverzeichnis
Die African Orthodox Church als transkontinentale Bewegung in den
1920er und 1930er Jahren. Von einer ‚imaginierten‘ zur ‚realen‘ Orthodoxie /
The African Orthodox Church as a Transcontinental Movement in the 1920s
and 1930s. From an ‘Imagined’ Towards a ‘Real’ Orthodoxy
CIPRIAN BURLACIOIU ........................................................................................ 359
III. Commentaries, Impulses / Kommentare, Impulse
25.
Polyzentrische Strukturen in der Geschichte des Weltchristentums als
Forschungsprogramm. Ein Kommentar / Polycentric Structures in the
History of World Christianity as a Research Program. A Commentary
HARTMUT LEHMANN ......................................................................................... 377
26.
Ältere und weltweite Christentumsgeschichte – Bemerkungen zur
Verbindung zweier Disziplinen / Early and Global Christianity –
Remarks on the Relationship Between Two Disciplines
MARTIN WALLRAFF ........................................................................................... 381
27.
Die Christenheit in der Weltgesellschaft. Kommentar und Fragen zu einem
Forschungsprogramm / Christianity in World Society. Commentary and
Questions to a Research Program
WOLFGANG LIENEMANN ................................................................................... 385
28.
Taking the ‘World Christianity Turn’: Theological Opportunities and
Challenges Ahead
JOY ANN MCDOUGALL ...................................................................................... 395
29.
Transkulturelle Perspektiven und das Programm einer polyzentrischen
Christentumsgeschichte / Transcultural Perspectives and the Program
of a Polycentric History of Christianity
KLAUS HOCK ..................................................................................................... 399
30.
Polyzentrik – Pluralismus – Toleranz / Polycentricity – Pluralism – Tolerance
MARKUS WRIEDT .............................................................................................. 409
31.
Kommentar zur Konferenz / Commentary on the Conference
CHRISTOPH MARX ............................................................................................. 425
32.
Kommentar zur Konferenz / Commentary on the Conference
JOHANNES MEIER .............................................................................................. 427
33.
Collected Abstract of Commentaries on the Conference / Sammel-Abstract
der Konferenzkommentare ................................................................................ 429
Table of Contents / Inhaltsverzeichnis
9
IV. Retrospectives and Perspectives / Retrospektiven und Perspektiven
34.
Rückblicke, Ausblicke. Die München-Freising-Konferenzen und das
Programm einer polyzentrischen Geschichte des Weltchristentums /
Looking Back, Looking Forward. The Munich-Freising-Conferences
and the Program of a Polycentric History of World Christianity
KLAUS KOSCHORKE ........................................................................................... 435
List of Authors / Autorenverzeichnis .............................................................................. 457
Early Modern Asian Catholicism and European Colonialism:
Dominance, Hegemony and Native Agency
in the Portuguese Estado da Índia1
PAOLO ARANHA
1. Asian Christianity beyond the West, today and in the past
The global and predominantly non-European character of Christianity is a fundamental feature of our contemporary time. Such a circumstance is obvious in numerical terms, as Europe (including Russia) contributes a mere 23,88% to the total of Christians worldwide.2
However, the overwhelming non-European diffusion of Christianity does not always seem
sufficient to confute easily what Lamin Sanneh calls as the “two vexing issues” that “nip at
the heel of a world Christianity student”:
The first is the criticism that Christianity was already so firmly anchored in the Enlightenment milieu of
its origins in the modern West that in whatever forms it emerged in the rest of the world it was bound to
sow the seeds of its formative Western character. What is worldwide about Christianity is what the
West did to the religion in the wake of the West’s colonial expansion.
The second is that, insofar as it was the offspring of the West, a reconstructed Christianity is little
compatible with indigenous societies and cultures, and as such the concept of world Christianity is historically inaccurate. Christianity becomes a world religion only because Europe was a world power.3
The assumption that Christianity was “firmly anchored in the Enlightenment milieu of
its origins” is a clear reference to a frequent conflation of Christian missions merely to the
Protestant missions of the 19th and 20th centuries, made possible also by the fact that, as
1
2
3
This essay was written during a Marie Curie Fellowship awarded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung for a
research project on “Between repression and collaboration: Indian Christians, Hindus and the Goa Inquisition”, mentored by Prof. Klaus Koschorke.
According to the “Status of Global Mission, 2013, in the Context of AD 1800–2025”, published by the
CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF GLOBAL CHRISTIANITY at the Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary
(South Hamilton, Massachussets, USA), this is the geographic distribution of Christians in six continental regions around mid-2013: 509.579.000 in Africa; 365.063.000 in Asia; 562.258.000 in Europe;
555.621.000 in Latin America; 227.589.000 in North America; 24.798.000 in Oceania. These figures
imply that currently the Christians in the Western world (defined as the sum of Europe and North
America) amount to 755.341.000, whereas the “Global South” (Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania) has 1.455.061 Christians. The balance would vary very little if we distinguished in the Oceanian
area a sub-group that belongs to the “West” (Australia and New Zealand) from countries that have socio-economic conditions that can be better defined as proper to the “Global South”. See http://
www.gordonconwell.edu/resources/documents/StatusOfGlobalMission.pdf
(archived at: www.webcitation.org/6NGHAkxIl, 09.02.2014).
L. SANNEH, Disciples of All Nations. Pillars of World Christianity (New York 2008), 217.
286
Paolo Aranha
observed by Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, “one of the prominent themes ignored in the traditional
historiography of early modern Catholicism, and still neglected in the current crop of texts,
is the history of non-European Catholicism”.4 Indeed neither the Nestorian missions to
Central Asia and South India5 nor the Catholic missions all throughout the world in the
early and late modern time had any anchorage in the Enlightenment. It would be indeed
paradoxical and an expression of blatant Eurocentrism to equate two millennia of non-European expansion of Christianity with dynamics occurred in the last three centuries. During
the first millennium Christianity covered an Afro-Eurasian space that ranged from the Atlantic to China and counted Egypt, Ethiopia and the Maghreb among its main centers.
During the early modern age it is possible to detect the emergence of new non-European
Christian communities as a consequence of the colonial and missionary expansion carried
out by the Portuguese and Spanish crowns, followed by the Netherlands, France, England
and Denmark. Within the colonial spaces defined by these six nations we can also find the
substantial and decisive contributions of missionaries coming from other European regions,
in particular the Italian and the Germanic worlds, then not involved yet in a direct extraEuropean imperial expansion.6 If conversions took place often within colonial terms of
exchange, scholars have too often overlooked the vernacular dynamics triggered by Euro4
5
6
R. PO-CHIA HSIA, The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540–1770 (Cambridge 22005), 6. In a time of
persistent confessional confrontation such the 19th century, Protestant and Catholic authors indulged in
ignoring the missionary efforts of the opposite Christian denominations: “Most Protestant accounts of
missions ignore the Roman missions or touch them slightingly. In like manner the only Roman Catholic history of missions in general treats of Protestant missions for the avowed purpose of disparagement” (L. CALL BARNES, Two Thousand Years of Missions Before Carey. Based upon and Embodying
Many of the Earliest Extant Accounts, Chicago 1900, viii).
An orientation on the history of the Church of the East and its missions can be found in recent works
such as W. BAUM/D.W. WINKLER, Die apostolische Kirche des Ostens. Geschichte der sogenannten
Nestorianer (Klagenfurt 2000) [English translation: The Church of the East. A Concise History (London/New York 2003)]; C. BAUMER, Frühes Christentum zwischen Euphrat und Jangtse. Eine Zeitreise
entlang der Seidenstraße zur Kirche des Ostens (Stuttgart 2005) [English translation: The church of the
East: An illustrated history of Assyrian Christianity (London 2006)]; R. MALEK (Ed.), Jingjiao. The
Church of the East in China and Central Asia (Sankt Augustin 2006). An interpretation of the Church
of the East as a continental network has been proposed by K. KOSCHORKE, “‘Ob er nun unter den Indern weilt oder unter den Chinesen…’. Die ostsyrisch-nestorianische ‘Kirche des Ostens’ als kontinentales Netzwerk im Asien der Vormoderne” (Jahrbuch für Europäische Überseegeschichte 9, 2009,
9–35). As for the history of the “Nestorians” in South India, a relatively limited documentation and the
persistent clash of denominational claims hinder the achievement of a scholarly consensus. Useful for
a first approach to the topic is still L. BROWN, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas. An Account of the
Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar (Cambridge 1982 [1956]).
All these six countries were active in India, both in colonial and missionary terms, during the 16th to
18th centuries. From Spain hailed the most famous Catholic missionary to the East, the Jesuit Francis
Xavier (Francisco de Javier, 1506–1552) and Spain ruled the Portuguese Estado da Índia at the time of
the Iberian dynastic union between 1580–1640, while maintaining the Spanish and Portuguese administrations separate. Supported by the Portuguese royal patronage (Padroado) we can find also a great
number of Italian and German missionaries, particularly belonging to the Society of Jesus. Among the
most notable ones we might think respectively of Roberto Nobili (1577–1656) in the Tamil region and
Johann Ernst Hanxleden (1681–1732) in Kerala. However, the most famous German missionary in India was definitely the Pietist Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (1682–1719), founder of the mission in the
Danish settlement of Tranquebar (Taraṅkampāṭi) on the Tamil coast. An attempt to understand the
history of Christianity in India in an ecumenical and comprehensive perspective can be found in the
multi-authored and still ongoing History of Christianity in India, published for Church History Association of India (Bangalore 1982–).
Early Modern Asian Catholicism and European Colonialism
287
pean and (and later, North American) missions in the rest of the world, “in large part because attention was directed to the priority of foreign transmission rather than local reception; since the transmission focused on organizing the missionary effort in Europe and
North America, attention shifted there rather than to the local settings and agents”.7
It is possible to find significant cases in which Christianity was adopted by populations
that entered in contact with European colonial powers, without being directly subject to
them. Particularly eloquent is the historical dynamic of the Parava fishermen in South
India, who converted en masse to Catholicism out of a spontaneous initiative addressed
towards the Portuguese Estado da Índia. Later on this Roman Catholic community, controlled by the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie), did not
embrace the Reformed variant of Christianity, notwithstanding the practical advantages that
such a move could produce in relation to the new colonial power.8
If Christianity could be adopted by the Paravas as a consequence of a contact with a
colonial power but without Western imposition, the problematic connection between colonialism and evangelization in Asia is even clearer when we consider the events that preceded the very arrival of Vasco da Gama in India. In the late Middle Ages it was the pax
mongolica, not some sort of European colonial enterprise, that made it possible for the
Papacy to send Franciscan friars, such as Giovanni da Montecorvino (1247–1328) and
Giovanni de’ Marignolli († 1359), as envoys and missionaries to the great Khan.9 Even the
missions that the Jesuits and the mendicant orders were then able to undertake in China
since the Sixteenth century did not count on a European colonial support, but were rather
made possible by the toleration, and sometimes even the protection, granted by the Ming
and Qing Emperors. While in 1587 a missionary such as the Spanish Jesuit Alonso Sanchez
could even consider the possibility of combining the Christian evangelization with a European military conquest of the Heavenly Empire, a prominent confrère such as José de
Acosta promptly criticized the feasibility expediency of such an approach, modeled on
what the Spanish had undertaken in their American territories.10 If we consider Japan, it is
undeniable that its “Christian century” – started with the predication by Francis Xavier and
ended in persecutions that led both to martyrdoms and apostasies – was made possible by
the establishment of commercial relations with Portugal and Spain. However, while the
7
8
9
10
SANNEH, Disciples of All Nations 131.
See S. BAYLY, “A Christian Caste in Hindu Society: Religious Leadership and Social Conflict among
the Paravas of Southern Tamilnadu” (Modern Asian Studies 15/2, 1981, 203–234); P.A. ROCHE, Fishermen of the Coromandel. A Social Study of the Paravas of the Coromandel (New Delhi 1984);
S. BAYLY, Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Asian Society, 1700–1900
(New York 1990), 321–378; M.P.M. VINK, “Church and State in Seventeenth-Century Colonial Asia:
Dutch-Parava Relations in Southeast India in a Comparative Perspective” (Journal of Early Modern
History 4/1, 2000, 1–43).
The standard collection of primary sources on this early missionary experience remains A. VAN DEN
WYNGAERT OFM (Ed.), Sinica Franciscana, (Quaracchi 1929–), Vol. 1, Itinera et relationes Fratrum
minorum saeculi XIII et XIV. An essential study is G. SORANZO, Il Papato, l'Europa cristiana e i Tartari: Un secolo di penetrazione occidentale in Asia (Milano 1930). Useful are also I. DE RACHELWITZ,
Papal Envoys to the Great Khans (Stanford 1971), even though it is lacking in footnotes, and J.
RICHARD, La papauté et les missions d’Orient au Moyen Age (XIIIe–XVe siècles) (Rome 1977). A recent assessment of these missions, in relation also to the development of the Nestorian communities
during the Yuan dynasty, is finally to be found in N. STANDAERT SJ (Ed.), Handbook of Christianity
in China. Volume One (635–1800) (Leiden 2001), 43–111.
M. CATTO, “Una crociata contro la Cina: Il dialogo tra Alonso Sánchez e José de Acosta intorno a una
guerra giusta al Celeste Impero (1587)” (Nuova Rivista Storica 93/2, 2009, 425–448).
288
Paolo Aranha
Iberian powers, united under a single sovereign since 1580, were suspected of having plans
for the conquest of Japan, the final prohibition of Christianity in 1639 followed a major act
of indigenous Christian resistance such as the Shimabara rebellion (1637–1638), rather than
a European offensive.11 The native Catholics who defied the prohibition of their faith were
not only proclaimed saints in successive waves of canonizations, from the Seventeenth
century until today; often they even acquired a status of local folk heroes fighting against
injust authorities.12
While the emergence of new Christian communities in Asia during the early modern
age expressed primarily a predominant indigenous agency, it cannot be denied that in certain specific contexts it was a European colonial intervention that triggered, with a varying
use of violence and coercion, a religious shift in the local societies. The convergence between a colonial pressure and a certain type of missionary activity can be seen in Siam at
the end of the Seventeenth century. If we consider the Greek adventurer Costance Phaulkon
(1647–1688) and missionaries like the Jesuit Guy Tachard (1651–1712), it is difficult to
discern the precise limits between a failed attempt at establishing a French colonial protectorate over Siam and the promotion of Christianity.13 However, it is still remarkable that the
“revolution” through which Phetracha (1632–1703) succeeded to the francophile Narai
(1633–1688) as King of Siam, implied the expulsion of the Jesuits but – after an initial
persecution – did not impede the presence of the Fathers of the Missions Etrangères de
Paris and the activities of a Seminary for the training of native priests.14 Once the threat of
a colonial take-over was diverted, Christianity was permitted to exist in relative peace,
although localized persecutions continued to occur and no massive conversion wave ever
took place.15
11
12
13
14
15
Useful introductions to the complex history of Catholicism in 16th to 17th century Japan are the classic
works by C.R. BOXER, The Christian century in Japan (Berkeley 1967 [1951]); G. ELISON, Deus destroyed. The image of Christianity in early modern Japan (Cambridge 1973).
The impact of those Catholic martyrs on Japanese popular culture since the early modern times and
until today has been examined by Jiang Wei in her paper on “A Contested Hagiography of a Japanese
Martyr in the Seventeenth Century”, presented on 22nd November 2013 at the international workshop
on Entangled Hagiographies of the Religious Other, organized by Alexandra Cuffel and Nikolas Jaspert within the framework of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg on “Dynamics in the History of Religions” at
the Ruhr-Universität Bochum.
Guy Tachard was one of the five French Jesuits that in 1685 were appointed as “Mathematicians of
His Majesty to go to China”. See in particular R. VONGSURAVATANA, Un jésuite à la Cour de Siam,
(Paris 1992); ID., “Guy Tachard ou la Marine française dans les Indes orientales (1684–1701)” (Histoire, économie et société 13/2, 1994, 249–267); F. HSIA, “Jesuits, Jupiter’s Satellites, and the Académie Royale des Sciences”, in: J.W. O’MALLEY SJ et al. (Eds.), The Jesuits. Cultures, Sciences, and the
Arts (Toronto 1999, 241–257). The original Greek name of Phaulkon was Κωνσταντῖνος Γεράκης.
Born in Cephalonia, then ruled by the Venetian Republic, he was baptized within the Orthodox
Church, but later converted to Anglicanism and finally to Catholicism. An apologetical biography is
provided by G.A. SIORIS, Phaulkon. The Greek first counsellor at the court of Siam: an appraisal
(Bangkok 1998). For a more critical and scholarly analysis see A. FOREST, Falcon. L’imposteur de
Siam . Commerce, politique et religion dans la Thaïlande du XVIIe siècle (Paris 2010).
ID., Les Missionnaires Français au Tonkin et au Siam (XVIIème–XVIIIème siècles). Analyse comparée
d'un relatif succès et d'un total échec (Paris/Montréal 1998), Vol. I, Histoires du Siam, throughout Part
II, containing a Histoire Générale de la Mission du Siam (1662–1767).
Ibid., Vol 1, 240–241.
Early Modern Asian Catholicism and European Colonialism
289
2. Dominance without hegemony? Native Christians in the Portuguese
Estado da Índia
If the case of Siam can be rightly cited in order to highlight the connection between colonialism and mission in the early modern Christian missions to Asia, nonetheless the most
obvious instance of such an association is clearly to be found in Goa and, more generally,
in the territories of the Portuguese “State of India” (Estado da Índia).16 Even though the
Portuguese were able to exert a variable influence throughout the Indian Ocean space, particularly during the Sixteenth century, it was only in Goa and in the “Northern Province”
(Província do Norte) – a coastal area between the regions of Maharashtra and Gujarat – that
they succeeded in establishing a type of political and military regime that can be reasonably
compared with the sort of colonialism imposed by the Spaniards in their American Viceroyalties.17 The christianization of Goa and other similar territories was indeed accompanied by the destruction of Hindu temples and the introduction of peculiar institutions of
religious repression.18 Family and kin structures were heavily affected by the action of the
“Fathers of the Christians” (Pais dos Cristãos). While the general function of these religious officers was to empower the neophytes against the infidels, they were feared in a
special way for their tasks in relation to the orphans of the “gentiles”. Under the category of
“orphans” were included not only the minors deprived of both parents, but also the ones
who had lost only their father, while still having grandparents or uncles willing to take care
of them. The Pais dos Cristãos would educate such orphans according to Christian principles, so that their conversion and persistence in the faith as adults would be almost assured.19
Even more dreaded than the taking away of orphans was an institution such as the Goa
Inquisition. This “tribunal of the faith” was erected in Goa in 1560, with the initial purpose
of repressing the “new Christians” of Jewish origin, believed to practice their Mosaic ritu16
17
18
19
I have sketched out a synthesis of this phenomenon in Il Cristianesimo Latino in India nel XVI Secolo,
(Milano 2006). Another conspicuous example of an early modern association of colonialism and mission in Asia is provided by the Philippines. However, the Spanish colonization of this region took
place much later than the arrival of the Portuguese in India. While Magellan claimed possession of the
islands already by 1521, it was only in 1565 that a consistent campaign of conquest was undertaken
under the lead of Miguel López de Legazpi. Furthermore, the Philippines depended from Mexico in
political and religious terms, so that their model was not purely “Asian”. A general introduction to the
relations between evangelization and imperial conquest in the Philippines is provided by F.J.
MONTALBÁN SJ, El Patronato español y la Conquista de Filipinas (Bibliotheca Hispana Missionum
IV; Burgos 1930). For a new approach to the religious history of the Philippines in the 16th and 17th
centuries, with special reference to the emergence of the Chinese Rites controversy and intestine clerical conflicts, see J. WEI, “Missionary rivalry in the Far East, 1580–1670” (PhD thesis, King’s College
London, 2014). Particularly relevant are the first three chapters, entitled respectively “Rivalries
Within”, “Cross and Sword” and “Domican Dao”.
On this northern region of the Estado da Índia see the essays in O Estado da India e a província do
norte: Actas do VII Seminario Internacional de História Indo-Portuguesa; Goa, 20 a 24 de janeiro de
1994, published as a special issue of the journal Mare liberum: Revista de história dos mares 9/1995.
The most recent scholarly contribution on the history of the Província do Norte is an excellent research in the history of military architecture, namely the doctoral dissertation of S.D. LOSA
MENDIRATTA, “Dispositivos do Sistema Defensivo da Província do Norte do Estado da Índia, 1521–
1739” (PhD dissertation, Universidade de Coimbra, 2012).
A recent analysis of the process of christianization and imperial consolidation in Goa can be found in
D. MENDONÇA, Conversion and Citizenry. Goa under Portugal, 1510–1610 (New Delhi 2002).
J. WICKI SJ (Ed.), O Livro do “Pai dos Cristãos” (Lisboa 1969).
290
Paolo Aranha
als in secret, but most of all envied for the ostensible economic success of some of their
members20. As the cristãos novos faded away, the full power of the Goa Inquisition was
addressed to the religious disciplination of the Indian Christians, targeted for their attachment to customs and rituals inherited from their Hindu or (presumably more rarely) Islamic
past. However, the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was extended also to the non-Christians,
in particular the Hindu inhabitants of the Estado, inasmuch they prevented new conversions
or acted in ways that could allegedly lead to the apostasy of the Catholic neophytes21.
While the Goa Inquisition was definitely a by-product of the establishment of a colonial
presence by a proselytizing Catholic nation, it is not so easy to argue that this tribunal was
also a major agent of christianization, understood in the sense of an inclusion into the
Christian fold by receiving the sacrament of baptism. As already mentioned, the Inquisition
could repress both Christians and “infidels”; however, the jurisdiction on the first category
was absolute, whereas the second group could not be persecuted for mere reasons of private
belief, or in case the rituals performed were sufficiently discreet. In other words, the very
existence of the Inquisition could act as a factor restraining, rather than encouraging conversions to Christianity, as these implied a more comprehensive inquisitorial jurisdiction on
the natives. On the contrary, a certain militant historiography has claimed that there was a
direct relation between the inquisitorial repression of the Indian converts and the reasons
that had led most natives to become Christians. Taking for granted that such motives were
not “spiritual”, but only “material”, a historian like Anant Kabka Priolkar could claim that
the fact that conversions to Christianity in Goa were generally motivated by reasons other than religious
conviction, was responsible for the widespread tendency on the part of the new converts to revert to the
practices of their old religion. The Inquisition came into existence for the purpose of checking this
tendency. A history of the Inquisition in India must, therefore, include a review of the policy of
20
21
The process that led to the establishment of the Goa Inquisition has been investigated by A. CANNAS
DA CUNHA, A Inquisição No Estado Da India. Origens (1539–1560) (Lisboa 1995). The single most
important contribution to the initial functioning of the tribunal has been provided by A. BAIÃO in his
two-volume work entitled A Inquisição De Goa (Lisboa 1930–1945). The second volume, a collection
of primary sources with the subtitle Correspondência dos inquisidores da India (1569–1630), was
published in 1930, whereas it was only in 1945 that appeared the first volume, containing a Tentativa
de historia da sua origem, estabelecimento, evolução e extinção (Introdução á Correspondencia dos
Inquisidores da Índia, 1569–1630). While the overall literature on the history of the Goa Inquisition is
rather limited, particularly in comparison to the studies concerning the Spanish and Roman Inquisitions, as well as the Inquisitions in metropolitan Portugal (Brazil included), fundamental contributions
on the specific action of the eastern tribunal against the cristãos novos of Jewish origin have been
published by J. A. RODRIGUES DA SILVA TAVIM. Among his many studies, it is impossible not to
mention his book on Judeus e Cristãos-Novos de Cochim. História e Memória (1500–1662) (Braga
2003). Important in this respect are also the researches developed by J.C. BOYAJIYAN, for instance in
the article “Goa Inquisition: A New Light on First 100 Years (1561–1660)” (Purabhilek-Puratatva 4,
1986, 1–40).
It is particularly the repression of the Hindu and the Indian Christians that is examined by A. KAKBA
PRIOLKAR, The Goa Inquisition. Being a Quatercentenary Commemoration Study of the Inquisition in
India (Bombay 1961). This book was published just before the Operation Vijay, the military action
through which India annexed in December 1961 the remaining Portuguese colonies in South Asia,
namely Goa, Damão and Diu. Priolkar’s book does not focus only on the concrete action of the Goa
Inquisition, but rather tends to conflate all the forms of religious intolerance displayed by the Portuguese in the early modern era under the unifying banner of the Inquisition.
Early Modern Asian Catholicism and European Colonialism
291
systematic religious persecution adopted by the Portuguese in India, the object of which was to convert
the native population to Christianity.22
As we have said, the Inquisition was initially established in Goa to fight the new Christians of Jewish origin, definitely not to check the religious reversals of the Indian “native
population”. Furthermore, the religious sociologist Rowena Robinson has convincingly
argued that the connection between an alleged sincere conversion to Christianity and the
action of the Inquisition can be questioned on at least two grounds. First of all, the very
notion of a sharp separation between the “temporal and spiritual motivations for conversion” is hard to maintain, as “for the converts the two were inseparable: they saw the missionaries’ offerings as an undifferentiated ‘package deal’”. Secondly, “any view of conversions that attributed them mainly or primarily to the use or the threat of the use of force and
violence” is problematic inasmuch it “denudes them of all agency” and misses the dynamic
of “strategic election in the adoption of the new faith by various groups”.23
If the connection between the motives that led certain Indians to convert to Christianity
and the inquisitorial disciplination of these neophytes is far from being obvious, it has to be
noticed that even the relation between the native population and the “tribunal of the faith”
cannot be understood merely in terms of repression. On the one hand, Indians Catholics,
both laymen and belonging to the clergy, could find employment and privileges serving as
ministers of the Inquisition; on the other hand, it has been ignored until now the archival
evidence that demonstrates how the tribunal was also financed by loans granted by Hindu
merchants, even if its action – particularly in the eighteenth century – was primarily addressed at repressing Hindu rituals and customs practiced by Indian that were either baptised or not.24
A representation of the Estado da Índia as some sort of Portuguese occupation of an Indian territory, with “white” soldiers, bureaucrats and missionaries subjugating a mass of
“brown” natives for 450 years would be a caricature that neither logic nor basic demographic statistics would ever substantiate. Native agency and strategic native collaboration
is one of the factors, if not the main one, to understand the resilience of the Portuguese
power in Asia once a major challenge was posed by European competitors such as the
Dutch, the English and the French East India Companies.25 While the historical research on
22
23
24
25
PRIOLKAR, The Goa Inquisition 60.
R. ROBINSON, “The Construction of Goan Interculturality: A Historical Analysis of the Inquisitorial
Edict of 1736 as Prohibiting (and Permitting) Syncretic Practices”, in: C.J. BORGES/Ó.G. PEREIRA/
H. STUBBE (Eds.), Goa and Portugal. History and Development (New Delhi 2000, 289–315), 292.
To the exploration of such a complex dynamic, on the basis of an extensive set of archival sources, is
devoted my project entitled Between repression and collaboration: Indian Christians, Hindus and the
Goa Inquisition. This two-year research plan (April 2013–March 2015), funded by the Gerda Henkel
Stiftung through a Marie Curie action, is hosted by the Faculty of Protestant Theology of the LudwigMaximilians-Universität Munich and is mentored by Prof. Klaus Koschorke.
The idea of a Portuguese colonial resilience at a time during the second half of the Seventeenth century
has been proposed by G.J. AMES, Renascent empire? The House of Braganza and the quest for stability in Portuguese Monsoon Asia, c. 1640–1683 (Amsterdam 2000). Ames concedes that “the recent
historiography is no doubt correct in maintaining that indigenous merchants played an important role
in the economy of the Estado” (142, italic in the original text). However, he also claims that, as far as
trade is concerned, “any assertion for indigenous dominance is based on very shaky documentary evidence” (143, italic in the original text). Still, the author does not consider a problem deserving investigation, namely the reason why the native population of the Estado da Índia, either Christian, Hindu or
292
Paolo Aranha
such a native essential role during the early modern period is far from being extensive,
significant instances of this dynamic are already known. If we consider trade, an eloquent
example is provided by the Mhamai family, a Hindu commercial house that prospered
greatly in Goa since the eighteenth century, namely at a time that in which the Portuguese
colony was definitely not at its heyday.26 It is clear that no act of Portuguese coercion
would have retained such powerful native agents, furthermore Hindu ones, if the Estado
had not been considered by those indigenous elites as a partner with which it was useful to
collaborate under certain conditions. If really Portuguese colonialism and Catholic evangelization procedeed hand in hand, synchronous throughout the early modern age, then it
would be very difficult to understand why Hindu traders did not prefer to transfer their
economic activities in regions ruled by more tolerant native kings. The very existence in
Goa of Hindu trading houses such as the one of the Mhamai, at a time in which the Inquisition was still active (the Goan “tribunal of the faith” was abolished once for all only in
1812) is a straightforward proof that the Portuguese colonial dimension did not coincide
with a consistent project of Christian social engineering. It is even more striking to observe
that during the eighteenth century, namely at the very time when the Mhamai House
emerged, on average the Goa Inquisition was sentencing every year 61 “criminals”, in the
overwhelming majority convicted for practicing Hindu rituals.27
If we cast our attention on religious and social representations, we can find further evidence undermining any naïve assumption on a univoque and simplistic connection between
colonialism, violence and christianization. The sources we have to refer to belong to the
conflicting literature on “true nobility” that was produced in Goa at the beginning of the
eighteenth century by native clergymen belonging to different castes. On the one hand we
find an author like António João de Frias, Goan Vicar and Apostolic Protonotary (not to
mention other titles) who in 1702 published in Lisbon the Aureola dos Indios & Nobiliarchia Bracmana (“The halo of the Indians and the Brahman aristocratic rule”), a treatise
extolling his Brahmanic progeny, claiming that its founder was one of the Three Magi who
adored Jesus in the crib.28 Known in the Western tradition as Caspar, according to Frias he
should be identified with the King Cheriperimale (i.e. Cēramān Perumaḷ), a famous figure
in the South Indian folklore. Frias claimed that Cheriperimale had founded the city of Calicut and erected in it a sumptuos temple dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, visited also
26
27
28
Muslim, did not rebel against the Portuguese rule, at a time in which alternative political scenarios
were indeed conceivable.
See T.R. DE SOUZA, “Mhamai House Records: Indigenous Souces for Indo-Portuguese Historiography”, in: S. SARKAR (Ed.), Indian History Congress. Proceedings of the Forty First Session, Bombay
University, Bombay, 1980 (New Delhi 1981, 435–445); S. KAMAT MHAMAI (Ed.), Mhamais of Goa in
the network of trade and culture (Goa 2004); ID. , The Mhamai’s and Goa’s neighbours. Commercial
links and allied interests (Panaji 2007).
C. AMIEL, “L’Inquisition de Goa”, in: A. BORROMEO (Ed.), L’Inquisizione. Atti del Simposio
internazionale, Città del Vaticano, 29–31 ottobre 1998 (Città del Vaticano 2003, 229–250), 239–240.
The full frontespice of Frias’ book, eloquent in its baroque exuberance, was drafted carefully in the
following terms: Aureola dos Indios & Nobiliarchia Bracmana: Tratado Historico, Genealogico, Panegyrico, Politico, & Moral, offerecido ao Excellentissimo Senhor Dom Pedro Luis de Menezes, Marquez de Marialva, Conde de Cantanhede, Mordomo Mór, &c. Escrito pelo Licenciado Antonio Joam
de Frias Protonotario apostolico, Notario da Bulla da Santa Cruzada, Capellão de Sua Magestade, &
Vigario confirmado da Igreja Parochial de S. André de Goa Velha. Lisboa, Na Officina de Miguel
Deslandes, Impressor de Sua Magestade, Com todas as licenças necessarias. Anno 1702.
Early Modern Asian Catholicism and European Colonialism
293
by Vasco da Gama and his companions in 1498.29 In direct polemics with Frias, on the
opposite front in the competition for honours and recognition, we find Leonardo Paes,
another Goan Vicar and Protonotary (obviously not deprived, he too, of many other titles),
similar to Frias in terms of ecclesiastical rank, but belonging to the Charodo caste, rival of
the Brahman one. He too published in Lisbon a book, eleven years laters after the edition of
Frias work and clearly having it as its implicit polemical target.30 Paes demolished the
identification of Cheriperimale with the Magus Caspar and cited malignly the allegation
that the king had actually converted to Islam and died in a shipwreck while sailing to
Mecca.31 Moreover, the Charodo Vicar stressed carefully how the “Brahman priests of the
temples” had killed the Apostle Thomas and that Saint Francis Xavier converted thousands
of Indians, but only an old man within the entire caste of the Brahmans.32 On the contrary,
Paes argued that the Goan Charodos were of the same caste of the Rajput Kṣatriya
(Razeputrus Qhetris) of Rajasthan, rulers that could be defined “petty kings” (Regulos)
only in comparison with the might of the Mughal Emperor.33 Even more importantly, the
main disciple of the Apostle Thomas, as well as his companion of martyrdom, had been the
king Sagamo, obviously identified as belonging to the Charodo caste.34 The exercise developed by Frias and Paes shows the extent to which the pre-colonial past (represented by the
mythological figures of the king Cheriperimale and Sagamo) was reinterpreted within the
29
30
31
32
33
34
Frias was referring to a well known episode. On 21 May 1498 Vasco da Gama and his party, who had
reached Calicut just three days before, were accompanied by their Indian hosts to visit a Hindu temple.
The Portuguese believed that the building was actually a Catholic Church. The pujāris were interpreted as deacons and priests, the gods painted and engraved on the walls were understood as Christian
saints and the shrine of a goddess was identified as a chapel in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As
I have observed elsewhere (Cristianesimo Latino 22–34), in the following decades the episode underwent a gradual transformation and later historians claimed that Vasco da Gama had suspected since the
beginning that the edifice was a “pagan” temple, so that he and his companions did not address their
prayers to the images there depicted, but rather to the true Christian God, to the Blessed Virgin and all
the saints. It is remarkable that, as late as at the beginning of the 18th century, the Brahmin Goan priest
António João de Frias could present the temple visited in Calicut by the first Portuguese explorers not
only as a church, but as the Christian monument erected by the “saint king Cheriperimale”.
Even richer than Frias’ frontespice was the one on Paes’ work, as it included also a summary of its six
books: Promptuario das Diffiniçoens Indicas deduzidas De varios Chronistas da India, graves Authores, & das Historias Gentilicas, Offerecido ao Serenissimo Senhor D. João V. Rey de Portugal, &c.
pelo Licenciado Leonardo Paes, da Familia dos Reys de Sirgapor, Vigario confirmado da Igreja do
Padroeiro da India o Apostolo S. Thomè desta Cidade de Goa, Proto-Notario Apostolico, & Notario
de Sua Santitade. Contem Seis Tratados: O primeyro demonstra as qualidades, & excellencias da India: Publica o segundo os seus Reys, Reynos, & divisão: As qualidades de gentes della declara o terceiro: O quarto indica algũas noticias acerca do que se diz do Cheriperimale, & de outra antiguidades: O quinto manifesta a vinda do Apostolo S. Thomè à India, & os prodigios que nella obrou: O
sexto finalmente a do Apostolo, & Nuncio della S. Francisco Xavier. Lisboa. Na Officina de Antonio
Pedrozo Galram. Com as licenças necessarias. Anno 1713. For an analysis of Frias’ and Paes’ books,
as well as of other similar works see Â. BARRETO XAVIER, A invenção de Goa. Poder imperial e conversões culturais nos séculos XVI e XVII (Lisboa 2008), especially ch. 7 (381–440), devoted to
“Apologias da “verdadeira nobreza”: Conflitos de memória, identidade e poder”.
Promptuario 195. The alleged Islamic identity of Cēramān Perumaḷ is attested in the Kēraḷōlpatti, i.e a
book on the “Origins of Kerala” composed presumably around the Seventeenth century. See
T. MADHAVA MENON (Ed.), Keralolpatti by Gundert. Translation into English (Thiruvanantapuram
2003), 9, 43, 64–65, 67, 69.
Promptuario 238. 265.
Promptuario 157.
Promptuario 160. 240.
294
Paolo Aranha
Latin Christian framework established within the Estado da Índia. If the christianization of
Goa and other similar territories had been made possible by a colonial conquest, the native
Christians succeeded in using skilfully the resources made available by the Portuguese in
order to define power struggles that were not specifically related to or determined by the
European presence. In order to win the competition between Brahmans and Charodos – a
polemic that concerned honour, but also very concrete privileges and economic and political opportunities – Goan clerics such as Frias and Paes published their treatises in Portugal,
addressing their arguments to a metropolitan audience and following the European literary
conventions.35
Ângela Barreto Xavier has argued that they were undertaking “a negotiation in the
context of the ‘social contract’ established between colonizers and colonized”.36 Furthermore, “acting as a Portuguese and feeling as Portuguese, the Indian Frias was a typical
product of a hegemonic domination and, in this sense, he was a manifestation of the effectiveness of its conformation devices”.37 Such a Portuguese behaviour and self-representation is supposed by Barreto Xavier primarily on the basis of a specific passage in the Aureola dos Indios, in which Frias develops a reflection on the relation between the Portuguese
expansion and the christianization of the Indian peoples. The Brahman Vicar writes that the
the Indian nations owe their knowledge of the Faith to two factors. In the first place there is
35
36
37
BARRETO XAVIER, Invenção de Goa 425. 429 observes that Frias’ text was organized as the works on
lineage and nobility that circulated at that time in Portugal. As for Paes’ Promptuario das Diffinições
Indicas, she argues that its title recalled the genre of grammars and dictionaries, although its preface
qualified the entire work as a história. According to Barreto Xavier, such a discrepancy could either be
explained on the basis of a limited acquaintance of the Charodo Vicar with the Western literature of
the time, or by postulating the assumption of a specific historical register provided by the local written
culture, namely the one of Western India. However, if we consider carefully further details in the text,
it is possible to argue that the Promptuario was inspired also by other European literary models. On
the one hand, at the conclusion of the work (272), this is qualified as a “summary of the news on India” (resumo das noticias da India), an expression that would fit well in a geographic dictionary. Even
more cogently, the introduction at the beginning of the Treatise 1 (1–2) mentions how “Aristotle, the
Sun of Philosophy” had observed that “before we dealt with a faculty, we should first examine certain
requirements in it: the first, whether the thing dealt about did have its existence; the second, what this
thing was and what it was about; the third, which were its properties; the fourth, what was its importance”. As an example of how such a method could be applied, Paes argued that it was useless to
talk about mining diamonds and precious stones from a mountain, if it was not known in the first place
whether the mountain existed and whether it conserved precious stones in its depths. Such an Aristotelian introduction would suggest that the Promptuario was understood by Paes as a philosophical and
scientific work. This hypothesis gains strength if we consider that in the Prologue (Prologo ao Leytor,
with no page numbers), Paes mocks at those authors who give a Greek title to a works written in Latin
or in a vulgar language, so as to give them more authority (para os authorizarem). He complains that
certain people in India (the reference to Frias’ Nobiliarchia is transparent) had written books and histories on their own nobility and denied other people’s social quality (abatendo a qualidade alhea), using
titles that were “more than Greek” (com titulos mais que Gregos) and without providing “neither the
authority, nor the foundation, nor the reason” (nem.. authoridade, nem consto, & rezão) for such alleged nobility. In other words, Paes criticizes Frias for attempting to claim a Brahmanical nobility
more by using naïve rhetorical artifices, such as the use of imposing and pretentious Greek names, rather than by providing concrete arguments and evidence. It would seem therefore that Paes opposed
his work to Frias’ one in terms of demonstrative rigour. In this sense, considering also the Aristotelian
inspiration in the Introduction to Treatise 1, it would seem that the main genre Paes had in mind was
actually the philosophical one, presumably with a special reference to natural philosophy.
BARRETO XAVIER, Invenção de Goa 418.
Ibid. 441.
Early Modern Asian Catholicism and European Colonialism
295
God himself, “who is the first cause and the true light that enlighens the men with the
knowledge of truth”. In the second place, the Indians owe their Christian Faith to the Lusitans (Lusitanos), who acted truly as lights (Luzes). The pun Lusitanos – Luzes is developed
by Frias, not so surprisingly, as a baroque conceit: the East, from where the Sun light
comes, had fallen into a darkness that was eventually dispelled only by lights – the Portuguese – who came from the West. The Brahman Vicar then praised the evangelical piety of
the Lusitan monarchy and its generous expenditure in favour of the missions. The Indian
Frias pushed his identification with the Portuguese to the point of qualifying the Asian
peoples as “barbarous and uncultivated nations”. These had received from the Lusitans not
only the light of the Gospel, but had also been instructed “in the sciences and the liberal
arts with greater perfection”, so that they had become, thanks to these very sciences and
arts, “befitting the happiness and improvements (augmentos) that through these one can
achieve”. Finally, the Portuguese treated all the nations subject to their State with “a paternal love, honouring them with positions of authority” (lugares authorizados). Therefore, all
the natives (os naturaes) had to be grateful to the Portuguese for such a generosity.38 Such a
passage, considered by itself, would definitely support Barreto Xavier’s interpretation of
Frias as a typical example of a native introjection of the Portuguese imperial and colonial
power according to a model of hegemonic domination.
However, it is important to consider the passage in its very context. Such an exhalted
praise of the Portuguese colonial and missionary agenda was actually the fifth and final
paragraph of the eighteenth chapter (Preludio XVIII) of the book, entitled “On the ancient
Christianity that existed in India before the Portuguese discovery, and on the missions that
the Brahmans have undertaken” (Da antigua Christandade que houve na India antes da
descuberta pelos Portuguezes; & das missões a que os Brachmanes hão dado principio).
Frias stressed that “the Christianity of Xaram Perimal [= another spelling of Cheriperimal],
king of Cranganore, was far more ancient than the [Portuguese] discovery of India”. Vasco
da Gama in 1500 and Afonso de Albuquerque in 1503 came in contact with certain St
Thomas Christians that were settled respectively in the kingdoms of Cranganore and Quilon. Those Christians had converted at the time of Perimal. However,
time, to which nothing can escape, had gradually perverted that vaste evangelical harvest, out of which
only some relics were conserved, that lasted until today as a witness of that truth; in this way it can be
seen that the Evangelical Law was planted among the Indians and among the Brahmans soon after the
death of our Lord Christ, and at the same time in which this Law was preached among other nations.39
Frias then referred that, if Brahmans had killed the Apostle Thomas, three Brahmans
had also been among the Christians who suffered martyrdom in Cuncolim in 1583.40 Brahman missionaries had even worked industriously to convert other people to Christianity.
Frias mentioned Fr. Belchior da Silva, sent to Ethiopia by the Archbishop of Goa Aleixo de
Menezes.41 Silva’s Brahmanical status was mentioned as a factor that triggered the Negus
38
39
40
41
FRIAS, Aureolas dos Indiosi 159–160, quoted (without page reference) by BARRETO XAVIER, Invenção de Goa: 17–19.
FRIAS, Aureola dos Indios 154–160, specif. 154–155.
On this episode see ARANHA, Cristianesimo latino 151–162; BARRETO XAVIER, Invenção de Goa
333–367.
The mission of this Belchior da Silva is mentioned also by the Jesuit historian FRANCISCO DE SOUSA
at the beginning of the eighteenth century in his Oriente Conquistado a Jesu Christo pelos Padres da
Companhia de Jesus da Provincia de Goa. Segunda parte, na quel se contèm o que se obrou desdo
[sic] anno 1564. atè o anno de 1585. ordenada pelo P. Francisco de Sousa Religioso da mesma Com-
296
Paolo Aranha
to bestow special honours on the missionary. More recently, the Catholics in Ceylon were
the ones who had been confirmed in their faith by Brahman missionaries. As the Dutch
rulers did not allow the presence of Catholic clergy, the Brahman José Vaz (1651–1711)
had sneakily entered the region of Kandy and undertaken an underground apostolate.42 His
example had then been followed by other Brahmans priests, namely Pedro Ferrão, José de
Menezes and José Carvalho. Vaz, as well as the other three, were all original of the peninsula of Salsette.43
The fourth paragraph of the Preludio XVIII was an unproblematic spiritual meditation
on the importance of Faith, a virtue that had been displayed by Noah and Abraham, as well
as “Aram”, the father of Moses.44 It was only after this reflection that Frias praised the
Portuguese as the “lights” that had come from the West. The careful construction of this
Preludio hints at a relation between the Portuguese empire and the christianization of India
that does not allow for a simple and straightforward qualification of Frias , and of the Indian subjects like him, as mere “products of a hegemonic domination”. What can be seen is
rather a combination of native assertiveness and strategic positioning within a specific
political context. Frias indeed praised the Portuguese, saying that it was to them that the
Indians owed their knowledge of the Faith. However, such a Portuguese primacy was undermined by two major qualifications. First, the Indians could come to the Faith thanks to
God himself, by the means of natural revelation and the correct use of reason. Secondly,
India had been evangelized by the Apostle Thomas, who had converted no less than the
powerful king Cheriperimal and had left a permanent heritage in the Saint Thomas Christians. These qualifications were so extensive and significant, that the simple statement that
the Indians owed to the Portuguese the knowledge of the Faith was denied in the very mo-
42
43
44
panhia de Jesus. Lisboa, Na Officina de Valentim de Costa Deslandes, Impressor de Sua Magestade.
MDCCX. Com todas as licenças necessarias, 619. De Sousa specifies that Belchior da Silva, on orders
received from the Archbishop of Goa Aleixo de Menezes, recorded in 1603–1604 the miracles attributed to the Jesuit André de Oviedo (1518–1577), Patriarch of Ethiopia, and his other missionary
confrères. Another Belchior da Silva is reported to be active in Ethiopia at the end of the seventeenth
century. As both the first and the second Belchior da Silva are clearly attested in historical sources, it
cannot be concluded that “accepting that a second Goan priest, of identical name, was sent to Ethiopia
exactly a century after the first […] is extremely improbable”, as argued by A. HASTINGS, The Church
in Africa, 1450–1950 (Oxford 1994), 142.
The name “José” is always spelled by Frias in its Latin form “Ioseph”. On Vaz there is a number of
hagiographical publications, mostly based on Vida do Veneravel Padre Joseph Vaz, da Congregação
do Oratorio de S. Filippe Neri da Cidade de Goa, na Índia Oriental; Fundador da laboriosa Missão,
que os Congregados desta Casa tem à sua conta na Ilha de Ceylão. Composta pelo Padre Sebastião
do Rego, da mesma Congregação. Lisboa, Na Regia Officina Sylviana, e da Academia Real. M. DCC.
XLV. Com todas as licenças necessarias.
On the role played by the Goan Oratorians in Ceylon, see recently I.G. ŽUPANOV, “Goan Brahmans in
the Land of Promise: Missionaries, Spies and Gentiles in the 17th–18th century Sri Lanka”, in:
J. FLORES (Ed.), Re-exploring the Links. History and Constructed Histories between Portugal and Sri
Lanka (Wiesbaden 2006, 171–210). On the lives of Pedro Ferrão, José de Menezes and José Carvalho,
abundant information can be found in S. DO REGO, Cronologia da Congregação do Oratório de Goa,
Ed. by Maria de Jesus dos Mártires Lopes (Lisboa 2009). See also: K. KOSCHORKE, “Dutch Colonial
Church and Catholic Underground Church in Ceylon in the 17th and 18th Centuries”, in: ID. (Ed.),
“Christen und Gewürze”. Konfrontation und Interaktion kolonialer und indigener Christentumsvarianten (StAECG 1; Göttingen 1998, 95–105).
Frias quotes for “Aram” the revelation of St Stephen in Acts 7. However, that chapter speaks of Moses
but does not mention the name of his father. Amram (mispelled by Frias as “Aram”) is mentioned in
several biblical passages, starting from Exodus 6:20 and Numbers 26:59.
Early Modern Asian Catholicism and European Colonialism
297
ment that it was uttered. In other words, Frias’ praise of the Portuguese empire displayed a
disquieting contradiction. While the interpretation proposed by Barreto Xavier would require a different and more convincing set of evidence to be argued for, it is highly probable
that Frias adopted a technique of “honest dissimulation”, in the sense theorized by the Italian Torquato Accetto and sharing an inspiration that can be discerned in multiple phenomena of the early modern age, such as the religious dissimulation known as “nicodemism”.45
The expression “hegemonic domination” used by Ângela Barreto Xavier to qualify
Frias’ work is borrowed from the Marxist tradition and the post-colonial theory and historiography. According to Ranajit Guha, founding member of the “Subaltern Studies” group,
“hegemony stands for a condition of Dominance (D), so that, in the organic composition
of D, Persuasion (P) outweighs Coercion (C)”.46
Guha’s notion of hegemony is a specific interpretation of the influential analysis developed by Antonio Gramsci in his Prison Notebooks. As Jean and John Comaroff rightly observe, “the difficulties of establishing what Gramsci may have meant by hegemony are by
now notorious”. These two anthropologists propose to define hegemony as “that part of a
dominant worldview which has been naturalized and, having hidden itself in orthodoxy, no
more appears as ideology at all”.47 If we consider, among many other interpretations of
Gramsci’s category, only the ones provided by Guha and Jean and John Comaroff, it is
possible to see a fundamental coherence. Persuasion can indeed outweigh Coercion if a
colonial ideology is naturalized and interiorized by the natives to the point that they do not
see it anymore as an ideology imposed on them.
At a first glance the Christianization of Goa, although limited in extent and depth, could
suggest that the local Catholics obeyed to their colonial masters, both in the political and
religious sphere, out of persuasion, truly convinced that “there is no authority except from
God” and that “he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those
who resist will incur judgement”.48 However, the fruitful contradictions that we have
discovered in Frias’ text suggest a more articulate landscape. A Brahman cleric such as
Frias could pay lip service to the evangelizing and even civilizing mission of the Portuguese (crucial in this respect is his reference to the improvement in arts and sciences due to
45
46
47
48
T. ACCETTO, Della dissimulazione onesta. Ed. Salvatore Nigro (Torino 21997). Accetto’s book was
originally published in Naples in 1641 but became widely known only thanks to the edition made in
1928 (Bari) by Benedetto Croce. On the early modern practices of dissimulation, mostly religious and
political, see C. GINZBURG, Il nicodemismo. Simulazione dissimulazione religiosa nell’Europa del
‘500, (Torino 1970); P. ZAGORIN, Ways of Lying. Dissimulation, Persecution and Conformity in Early
Modern Europe (Cambridge/London 1990). Calvin defined “Nicodemists” those reformed Christians
who, living in Catholic countries such as France, disguised their true faith and simulated an allegiance
to the “Popish” religion. I have proposed some reflections on the connection between nicodemism and
accommodatio in the chapter on “Nicodemism and Cultural Adaptation: The Disguised Conversion of
the Rāja of Tanor, a Precedent for Roberto Nobili’s missionary method”, in: C.J. ARUN SJ (Ed.), Interculturation of Religion. Critical Perspectives on Robert de Nobili’s Mission in India (Bangalore 2007,
105–144).
R. GUHA, Dominance without Hegemony. History and Power in Colonial India (Cambridge/London
1997), 23.
J. COMAROFF/J. COMAROFF, Of Revelation and Revolution. Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa (Chicago 1991), 19. 25.
“Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit. Non est enim potestas nisi a Deo; quae autem
sunt, a Deo ordinatae sunt. Itaque, qui resistit potestati, Dei ordinationi resistit; qui autem resistunt
ipsi, sibi damnationem acquirent». Romans 13:1–2 (Vulgate). The English translation is from the Revised Standard Version.
298
Paolo Aranha
the arrival of the colonizers), but would also stress that Christianity existed in India well
before Vasco da Gama and that Cheriperimal, reconstructed as a powerful Christian king,
had been at the very origin of the Brahmanical caste. If the position expressed by Frias
could be considered representative of feelings shared by important sections of the Goan
indigenous elites, then we could argue that the situation in the early modern Estado da
Índia had a significant analogy with the “dominance without hegemony” that Ranajit Guha
proposed for the British Raj. According to the Indian historian,
the primacy of C [Coercion] in the organic composition of D [Dominance] made Order a more decisive
idiom than Improvement in the authority of the colonialist elite. The efforts of the “improvers” […] had
failed to develop a strategy of persuasion effective enough to overcome the sense of isolation that
haunted the regime, a sense in which the alien character of the state was more amply documented than
anything else. This failure is clearly demonstrated by the aggressive, militarist, and autocratic nature of
the administration for the greater part of British rule until nearly the end of the nineteenth century,
when militarism ended but did so without changing the character of the raj as an autocracy.49
Most historians, with the exception of some Portuguese scholars of the Salazar era,
would agree in defining “aggressive, militarist and autocratic” even the administration of
the Estado da Índia since the Sixteenth century and probably until its demise in 1961. We
have already mentioned the aggressive early modern religious policy pursued by the Portuguese, including repressive institutions such as the Goa Inquisition and, to a different extent, the Pai dos Christãos. However, the population of Portuguese India had to endure
colonial violence until the very end of the Estado. In 1950s “there was strict censorship.
The most outspoken and eloquent voices were silenced. Salazar’s secret police, the Policia
Internacional da Defesa do Estado or PIDE, though not as vile as the Tonton Macoute of
Haiti’s Papa Doc, was equally feared even among the masses”.50 Such a persistent condition would suggest that in Portuguese India coercion prevailed consistently over persuasion, since the beginning and until to the very end. It appears therefore imprecise the qualification, proposed by a renowned scholar, of Indo-portuguese history as a dynamic in
which “overall there was much more co-operation and interaction than dominance”.51 On
the contrary, there is no contradiction between dominance on the one hand, and co-operation and interaction on the other. As Ranajit Guha shows convincingly, a colonial regime is
always a form of dominance, whereas hegemony is a specific modality that cannot be verified in the case of the British Raj. Both in that region and in Portuguese India there were
innumerable instances of interaction and co-operation between the colonial authorities and
leading native groups pursuing opportunistic strategies through various forms of accommodation. What failed both in British and in Portuguese India was the project of a patronizing
“improvement” of the natives by their colonial masters. In other words, co-operation and
interaction between the European rulers and the Indians did not imply also a shared vision
of the future and a common political project. However, such a dissonance and mismatch
between different imperial and native visions was not consciously sought after, but rather
the failure of a hegemonic design. In the case of the Estado da Índia, the conversion to
Christianity of the native subjects was indeed meant to generate an imperial “citizenry” that
would support the Portuguese colonial enterprise.52 However, the conversion of all the
49
50
51
52
GUHA, Dominance without Hegemony, 65–66.
M. AURORA COUTO, Goa. A Daughter’s Story (New Delhi 2005 [2004]), 33.
M. PEARSON, The Portuguese in India. Vol. 1:1 of The New Cambridge History of India (Cambridge
1987), 2.
MENDONÇA, Conversion and Citizenry, 20–25.
Early Modern Asian Catholicism and European Colonialism
299
native subjects was never achieved and no large-scale conversions ever took place in the
“New Conquests” annexed by the Portuguese in the second half of the Eighteenth century,
namely Pernem, Ponda, Bicholim, Canacona, Sanguem, Quepem and Satari.53 On the contrary, the incorporation of territories with an overwhelming Hindu population and the increasing emigration of the Goan Christians to British India (particularly Bombay) and East
Africa led to a demographic situation that contradicted entirely the proselytising ambitions
expressed by the Portuguese and the other European missionaries since the Sixteenth century. Between 1910 and 1920 the Hindus equalled the Christians in the Goa region and
since then they increased, giving origin to a Hindu majority.54 However, the project of
building up an imperial “citizenry” failed furthermore, and even more dramatically, for the
very fact that the natives who became Christians did not always turn out being meek and
obedient subjects of the Portuguese empire. Different forms of resistance against the colonial masters were undertaken both by Hindu and Christian groups throughout the history of
the Estado. Being Christian did not mean necessarily being pro-Portuguese and being
Hindu did not imply by default an opposition to the colonial rule. If then the promotion of
Christianity was understood by the Portuguese as the fundamental means to establish a
hegemony over the Indian subjects, it has to be acknowledged that such a design failed and
that, following the interpretation proposed by Jean and John Comaroff, the colonial ideology was never interiorized to a full extent by the totality of the Indian Christians, to the
point of being perceived as natural. Furthermore, the very conversion to Christianity could
actually provide practical means and an ideological foundation for the opposition to the
Portuguese colonial rule. The Christian religion and culture could supply a conceptual
framework within which a discourse of resistence could be articulated. Such an unexpected
twist is personified by an exemplary figure in the history of Goa, Mateus de Castro Mahalo.
By examing briefly his life and achievements it will be possible to see how the process of
Christianization could turn into the very opposite to the creation of any sort of “imperial
citizenry”.
3. Mateus de Castro Mahalo: The Transcontinental and Polycentric World
of a “Preter-Colonial” Resistant Brahman Churchman
Born around 1594 into a Brahman Catholic family living in the island of Divar, near Goa,
Mateus de Castro Mahalo (i.e. “Mahale”) is a figure that is still waiting for an impassionate
biographer. The most comprehensive study devoted to this figure is a dissertation defended
by the Italian missionary Carlo Cavallera (1909–1990), remained unpublished notwithstanding its significant value.55 Castro struggled initially to receive the permission from the
53
54
55
R. ROBINSON, Conversion, Continuity and Change. Lived Christianity in Southern Goa (New Delhi
1998), 49. On the life in the villages of the “New Conquests”, see P. AXELROD, “Living on the edge:
The Village and the State on the Goa-Maratha frontier” (Indian Economic Social History Review 45/4,
2008, 553–580).
A. HENN, “The Becoming of Goa: Space and Culture in the Emergence of a Multicultural Lifeworld”
(Lusotopie 2000, 333–339), 337.
C. CAVALLERA, “Matteo de Castro Mahalo (1594–1677). Primo vicario apostolico dell’India”, (Doctoral Thesis, Pontificio Ateneo Urbaniano de Propaganda Fide, Roma, 1936), 3 vols. Among the studies actually published on Mateus de Castro, the most significant is the one by T. GHESQUIÈRE,
Mathieu de Castro, Premier vicaire apostolique aux Indes. Une création de la Propagande a ses débuts
300
Paolo Aranha
Portuguese ecclesiastical authorities to be ordained a priest, at a time in which the emergence of a local clergy in the Estado da Índia was seen with mixed feelings and a certain
suspicions in many quarters.56 A typical instance of a non-hegemonic condition was precisely the contradicton between the universalistic promises made by the missionaries, implying an equal dignity for the old and the new Christians, irrespective of their ethnic
origin, and the discrimination faced by the native Christians in the access to priesthood and
church leadership. Nonetheless, supported by Franciscan and Carmelites friars, Mateus de
Castro was able to receive a good humanistic education in India57 and to travel to the West
to see his priestly vocation satisfied. He passed through Persia, established a contact with
the Archbishop of Armenia Major and, unable to accommodate himself to the Armenian
rite, proceeded to Rome. There he was ordained and in 1631 he was appointed as a fullfledged missionary of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide, established by Pope Gregory
XV in 1622 to supervise the Catholic missions throughout the world.58 Such a dramatic
reversal in Castro’s condition, from Portuguese rejection in Goa to a welcoming reception
in Rome, was made possible by the Christian identity of the young Brahman. If Christianity
was promoted by the Portuguese to create an “imperial citizenry” of meek and docile subjects, the establishment by Castro of a direct connection with Rome, bypassing the Portuguese Padroado, posed the conditions for subverting the Lusitan colonial project. The competition between Propaganda Fide and the Padroado created a large space within which
Mateus de Castro could exert a native Christian agency. Obviously, Propaganda Fide’s
support for the formation of native clergy did not imply some sort of anti-imperial stance
on behalf of the Holy See. Rather, it was the competition between the Portuguese imperialism and the Roman ambition to a universal spiritual jurisdiction that provided Mateus de
Castro with entitlements and means to pursue a native Indian strategy of his own. Strengthened by the Roman endorsement, Mateus de Castro took his way back to Goa. However, in
the Portuguese colony he was not allowed by the ecclesiastical establishment to exert his
apostolate and was compelled to appeal in person to Rome in 1636. There he obtained once
again a success, not only seeing his ordination and missionary prerogatives confirmed, but
also being secretly consecrated Bishop of the diocese of Chrysopolis in partibus infidelium.
56
57
58
(Louvain 1937). See also F. COMBALUZIER, “Mathieu de Castro, vicaire apostolique d’Idalcan, Pegu et
Golconda (1638–1658)” (Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 39, 1943, 132–135); J. METZLER, “Der
Brahmanenspiegel des Matthäus de Castro” (Neue Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft – Nouvelle Revue de science missionaire 23, 1967, 252–265); G. SORGE, Matteo de Castro (1594–1677). Profilo di
una figura emblematica del conflitto giurisdizionale tra Goa e Roma nel secolo XVII (Bologna 1986).
It is remarkable that according to Frias, Mateus died in 1679 and not in 1677. However, far more surprising, is that according to the Brahman writer, the Bishop of Chrysopolis had died at the age of 109
years! This means that according to Frias, Mateus de Castro was born in 1570. Aureola dos Indios 147.
See J. WICKI SJ, “Der einheimische Klerus in Indien (16. Jahrhundert)”, in: J. BECKMANN (Ed.), Der
einheimische Klerus in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Festschrift P. Dr. Laurenz Kilger OSB (SchöneckBeckenried 1950, 17–72); C. MERCEŜ DE MELO, The Recruitment and Formation of the Native Clergy
in India (16th–19th century). An historico-canonical study (Lisboa 1955).
An attempt to reconstruct the culture shared by the Franciscans in 17th century India, on the basis of
inventories of books in their conventual libraries, has been made by Â. BARRETO XAVIER, “Les bibliothèques virtuelles et réelles des franciscains en Inde au XVIIe siècle”, in: C. DE CASTELNAUL'ESTOILE et al. (Eds.), Missions d’Évangelisation et circulation des saviors. XVIe–XVIIIe siècles
(Madrid 2011, 151–170).
The richest scholarly contribution to the history of the Congregation de Propaganda Fidei remains
J. METZLER (ed.), Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide memoria rerum. 350 anni a servizio
delle missioni, 1622–1972. 5 vols. (Rome/Freiburg/Vienna 1971).
Early Modern Asian Catholicism and European Colonialism
301
His mission was to help Francesco Antonio Frasella († 1655), an Archbishop under the
jurisdiction of Propaganda Fide, to enter Japan and impose there his authority.59 Once fulfilled this task, the Brahman cleric would then exert his episcopal functions as Apostolic
Vicar in the kingdom of Bijāpur, bordering Goa and ruled by the Adil Khān sultans (hence
known also as Idalcan).60 If a simple priest could be a nuisance, a Bishop was a real threat
to the Portuguese imperial power in India.
Mateus was indeed the first Indian ever consecrated as Bishop by the Latin Church. It is
not possible to affirm with certainty that he was also the first Indian ever consecrated as a
Bishop, as it is not possible to determine whether any Indian had ever been ordained within
the Church of the East before the Seventeenth century.61 Rejected from the Portuguese,
Mateus de Castro became – together with Archbishop Frasella – the first Apostolic Vicar
appointed by Propaganda Fide to administer missions in Asia, avoiding the Portuguese and
Spanish royal patronage. However, by 1640 Japan closed effectively its territory to all
missionary activities, so that Mateus de Castro immediately started his apostolate in the
Bijāpur kingdom. He ordained to priesthood various Brahman young men (many related to
him by kinship), joined together as an Oratorian congregation, notwithstanding the opposition of the Goan ecclesiastical establishment.62
Under the protection of the Bijāpuri Sultan, Mateus de Castro was able to establish his
vicariate in the town of Bicholim, within a region that – as already mentioned – would be
annexed to the Estado da Índia, as a “New Conquest”, only in the late Eighteenth century.
Mateus de Castro chose to operate on the external fringes of a European colonial space, in a
situation that we might define as “pretercolonial”63. The new category I propose here is
modelled on the theological notion of preternatural, intermediate between the ones of natural and supernatural. Thomas Aquinas observed that not all the phenomena taking place
beyond the natural order (præter naturæ ordinem) were also miracles. This was the case of
events that, even though occurred beyond such a natural order, were neither arduous or
rare, could concern very minor things, did not surpass the potentiality of nature (supra
59
60
61
62
63
On de Castro’s and Frasella’s planned mission to Japan see L. M. PEDOT, La S. C. De Propaganda
Fide e le Missioni del Giappone (1622–1838) (Vicenza 1946), 212–230.
The political history of the kingdom of Bijāpur is analysed by HAROON KHAN SHERWANI/ PURSHOTTAM MAHADEO JOSHI (Eds.), History of Medieval Deccan, 1295–1724. 2 vols. (Hyderabad
1973– 1974). For the religious and cultural history of Bijāpur is important R.M. EATON, Sufis of Bijapur, 1300–1700. Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India (Princeton 1977).
The first known Indian bishop within the Syriac tradition was Paṟampil Chāṇṭi Metrān, alias Alexander
de Campo (†1687). See T. PALLIPURATHKUNNEL, A Double Regime in the Malabar Church (1663–
1716) (Alwaye 1982), 11–23.
Quite interesting, this early Indian Oratorian congregation was not considered a forerunner of the one
established in Goa in 1686, whose history is described by S. DO REGO, Cronologia da Congregação
do Oratório de Goa. Ed. Maria de Jesus dos Mártires Lopes (Lisboa 2009).
The expression “pretercolonial” does not seem to have been used in previous studies. A single instance
could be found in the review made by S. GRMEK GERMANI of the mute film La Fanciulla, il Poeta e la
Laguna, directed by Carmine Gallone in 1922. Hinting incidentally at the film Cartagine in fiamme directed by Gallone in 1959, Germani speaks of a “pretercolonial nature of the regime colossus”, with
reference to Italian fascism. See Le giornate del cinema muto, Pordenone 4–11 ottobre 2008, XXVII
edizione, Teatro comunale Giuseppe Verdi. 27th Pordenone silent film festival, Catalogo – catalogue,
(Pordernone 2008, 33–34), specif. 33. With the expression “pretercolonial” Germani seems to suggest
a rather debatable point, namely that the relation between fascism and colonialism was only accidental.
Our use of the expression “pretercolonial” has nothing to do with such a qualification.
302
Paolo Aranha
facultatem naturæ), nor were beyond human hope.64 Such phenomena beyond the natural
order could be produced by angels, who nonetheless did not have the capacity of producing
miracles, i.e. events that went beyond the order of the entire creation, and not of a single
creature.65 Later theologians specified that the preternatural realm was peculiar of angels
and devils. A baroque polymath such as Athanasius Kircher would discuss, for instance,
“of prodigious sounds, that do not have straightforwards neither a supernatural nor a natural
force, but are produced either by angels or by good or evil spirits, either for good or for
evil”. These sounds were included in a second class, defined as preternatural, and presented
the feature either of being produced by a natural agent, or of taking place through a “major
human force”.66 As the preternatural events were intermediate between the natural and the
supernatural ones, so a pretercolonial realm is to be defined on the continuum between
spaces that are straightforwards either colonial or non-colonial. A pretercolonial space such
as the one where Mateus de Castro and his Brahman clerics operated may be defined as a
realm that is beyond a colonial domination, but that is also fundamentally defined by a
colonial contact. Protected by the Sultan of Bijāpur, Castro and his followers were men
whose religious, cultural and even political references were Portuguese to a significant
extent.
Accused of undertaking political negotiations with the Adil Khān ruler, so that he might
conquer back territories held by the Portuguese, Mateus de Castro traveled once again to
64
65
66
“[…] miraculum dicitur aliquid arduum et insolitum supra facultatem naturae et spem admirantis
proveniens. Sed quaedam fiunt praeter naturae ordinem, quae tamen non sunt ardua, sunt enim in minimis rebus, sicut in restauratione gemmarum, vel sanatione aegrorum. Nec etiam sunt insolita, cum
frequenter eveniant, sicut cum infirmi in plateis ponebantur ut ad umbram Petri sanarentur. Nec etiam
sunt supra facultatem naturae, ut cum aliqui sanantur a febribus. Nec etiam supra spem, sicut resurrectionem mortuorum omnes speramus, quae tamen fiet praeter ordinem naturae. Ergo non omnia quae
fiunt praeter naturae ordinem, sunt miracula”. Summa Theologiæ, Iª q. 105 a. 7 arg. 1.
“[…] licet Angeli possint aliquid facere praeter ordinem naturae corporalis, non tamen possunt aliquid
facere praeter ordinem totius creaturae, quod exigitur ad rationem miraculi, ut dictum est”. Summa
Theologiæ, Iª q. 110 a. 4 ad 4. As for the capacity of Devil of producing “preternatural” events, Aquinas observed in one of his Quæstiones disputatæ that “the Devil does not do this [= tempting men to
commit sins] beyond the order of nature, but moving locally the intrinsic principles, from which they
have been produced, so as to occur in this way” (“hoc Diabolus non facit praeter naturae ordinem, sed
movendo localiter principia intrinseca, ex quibus nata sunt huiusmodi provenire”; I interpret “provenire” as an infinitive depending from “nata sunt”). De malo, q. 3 a. 4 ad 4. It is clear that in Aquinas
thought the notion of “preternatural” was not defined yet in a univoque way, as it encompassed phenomena that later theologians would distinguish as “preternatural” in strict sense and “supernatural”.
See V. BOUBLÍK, L’azione divina “praeter ordinem naturae” secondo S. Tommaso d’Aquino. Filosofia del miracolo (Rome 1968).
“Loquimur hîc de quibusdam sonis portentosis, quæ nec prorsùs supernaturalem, nec prorsùs naturalem vim videntur habere, sed vel ab Angelis seu Genijs bonis, aut malis in bonum vel malum efficiuntur”. The heading of the section was “De sonis portentosis secundæ Classis, id est, quæ ab Agente
quidem naturalis, sed vi humana majore contingent”. Athanasii Kircheri e Soc. Jesu. Phonurgia Nova
sive Conjugium Mechanico-physicum Artis & Naturæ Paranympha Phonosophia consinnatum; quâ
universa sonorum natura, proprietas, vires effectuúmq. Prodigiosorum Causæ, novâ & multiplici experimentorum exhibitione enucleantur; Instrumentorum Acusticorum, Machinarúmq. Ad Naturæ prototypon adaptandarum, tum ad sonos ad remotissima spatia propagandos, tum in abditis domorum recessibus per occultioris ingenii machinamenta clam palámve sermocinandi modus & ratio traditur,
tum denique in Bellorum tumultibus singularis hujusmodi Organorum Usus, & praxis per novam Phonologiam describitur. Campidonæ, Per Rudolphum Dreherr. Anno M.DC.LXXIII: 219. The three classes of “prodigious sounds” were specifically distinguished as natural, preternatural and supernatural or
miraculous (217).
Early Modern Asian Catholicism and European Colonialism
303
Rome for a second appeal. In 1644–1645 the controversy around him was examined by
Propaganda Fide. He succeeded even this time and, as a clear sign of appreciation, was
furthermore entrusted with the care of the Catholics in Ethiopia. The opposition of the Negus Fasilädäs (b.1603, r. 1632–1667) impeded him to enter the country, so that he moved to
the Mughal Empire and then came back to Bicholim. In 1653 Goa saw a palace revolt
against the legitimate viceroy, while the Bijāpuri troups tried an invasion of the Portuguese
colony67. Mateus de Castro was indicted, particularly by the Jesuits, of being the organizer
of such a political turmoil. As a response to this accusation the Bishop of Chrysopolis addressed a public letter to the Brahman Christians in Goa, inviting them to revolt against the
Jesuits and the Franciscan missionaries.68 In this “Mirror of the Brahmans” the Indian
bishop justified the right of his people to rebel providing historical precedents on a truly
global scale: the Sicilians against the French (1282) and the Castilians (1647); the Dutch, as
well as the Portuguese against the same Castilians; the Abissinians against their Emperor
Susәnyos (b. 1572; 1606–1632) for his support to the Jesuits;69 even the English Parliament
against his own king Charles I. The alleged evil nature of the Jesuits was also demonstrated
with examples and expulsions they had suffered in Malta, Venice, Japan, Ethiopia, as well
as in India on the Fishery Coast.70 Unable to convince his fellow Brahmans to follow Hor-
67
68
69
70
See S. SUBRAHMANYAM, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700. A Political and Economic
History (Chichester 22012), 248–249.
The Portuguese original text is conserved integrally in Archivio della Congregazione per
l’Evangelizzazione dei Popoli de Propaganda Fide, Scritture Originali della Congregazione Particolare, vol. 1, ff. 180r–195r; Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Goa 34, ff. 489r–502v.
The rebellion that Mateus de Castro was referring to was the proclamation in 1630 by Śärṣä Krәstos,
Viceroy of Bāgemdәr, of Fasilädäs, son of Susәnyos, as new emperor. The effective reign of the new
souvereign had its beginning two years later. On the controversial role played by the Jesuit missionaries in Ethiopia see H. PENNEC, Des Jésuites au Royaum du Prêtre Jean (Ethiopie) (Paris 2003); L.
COHEN, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits in Ethiopia (1555–1632) (Wiesbaden 2009).
The Jesuits were temporarily expelled from Malta around the Carnival of 1639. The cause was a conflict with some young Knights Hospitaller, who protested against the “alleged Jesuit attempts to ruin
their ‘piaceri del mondo’ – pleasures of the world – which, they said, were the only compensation that
they had to balance out their miserable existence on what the Jesuits themselves had described as that
‘orrido scoglio’ – horrid rock – that was Malta”. The Jesuits were then called back by September of
that same year 1639. D. DE LUCCA, Jesuits and Fortifications: The Contribution of the Jesuits to Military Architecture in the Baroque Age, (Leiden 2012), 241–243. The Jesuits were expelled from the
Republic of Venice at the time of the Papal Interdict on the city in 1606, but were readmitted in that
state only in 1657. See Pietro Pirri SJ, L’interdetto di Venezia e i gesuiti: Silloge di documenti con introduzione, (Roma 1959). The expulsions of the Jesuits from Japan and Ethiopia have already been
mentioned. As for the case of the Fishery Coast, Mateus de Castro was the editor of a report, composed in Portuguese by the Archbishop of Goa Frey Sebastião de São Pedro, against the Jesuits taking
care of the Parava Christians on that coastal region of South India. De Castro, not yet consecrated a
Bishop, translated the text into Italian and submitted it to Pope Urban VIII. The full title was Relazione
della destruzione della Cristianità nella Costa di Pescaria o sia Angamala, caggionata per li mali
portamenti fatti dalli RR. PP. Gesuiti, Raccolta da D.nFra Sebastiano di S. Pietro dell’Ordine di S.
Agostino, e Arcivescovo di Goa da varie relazioni di altri Vescovi, e Arcivescovi di Goa, che si conservano nell’Archivio della detta Città, Portata in Italiana da me Matteo de Castro Mahalò sacerdote
di Goa, e presentata alla Santità di Nostro Signore Urbano VIII. Ricavata dal mms. Vaticano n.° 6424.
The text is conserved in at least two copies, namely in the Biblioteca Angelica (Roma), Ms. 2294, pp.
560–634 and in the Biblioteca del Real Seminario de San Carlos de Zaragoza, as reported (with an unclear shelfmark) in “Documentos – Catalogo de los Manuscritos de la Biblioteca del Seminario de San
Carlos de Zaragoza” (Revistade archivos, bibliotecas y museos 20, 1909), 119.
304
Paolo Aranha
ace’s exhortation to “fight for the homeland, because it is sweet to die for her”71 and finding himself in a precarious situation, Mateus went once again to Rome. Castro’s agency
was wide, but still restrained within the limits that Portugal and the Holy See would set to
their conflictual ambitions. While eager to contain the pretentions of the Padroado, the
Holy See had no interest whatsoever in supporting a native rebellion against a Catholic
kingdom that had the ultimate merit of having established and promoted Catholic missions
throughout Asia, Africa and a significant part of Latin America. This time Mateus de Castro could not find further effective support and had to accept living in Europe for the rest of
his life, while obtaining the appointment of his nephews Custodio de Pinho (1638–1697)72
and Tomás de Castro (c. 1621–1684)73 as Apostolic Vicars respectively of Idalcan, Golconda and Pegu on the one hand, and Travancore and Cochin on the other.
The biographical trajectory of Mateus de Castro is remarkable in a threefold way. First
of all, it highlights a model of indigenous Indian Catholicism that was able to act beyond
colonial constraints. It is a powerful evidence in support of the qualification of Portuguese
India as a space where a colonial power was able impose dominance but failed in establishing a true hegemony. Secondly, Mateus de Castro’s life displays a global agency exerted not by a colonizing Europeans, but by native Indians. Castro and his Brahman Oratorians had an alerted awareness of the multiple centers of Christianity, not restricted to a
dychotomic relation between a metropolis and a colony. While Rome was a fundamental
reference point and source of support, the missionaries of Idalcan and their founder were
part of a network of information that included the whole space between Ethiopia and Japan.
If Mateus de Castro was eventually not able to enter into these two countries, nonetheless
he kept providing Propaganda Fide with reports on both regions. Finally, the Brahman
bishop set a precedent for future rebellions of native Christian clerics against the Portuguese colonial power, such as the so-called “Conspiracy of the Pintos” in 1787 or the fight
of Fr. António Francisco Xavier Álvares (1836–1923) against the Portuguese “pigmentocracy”.74
Mateus de Castro’s life and action represent a strong evidence in support of the characterization of the Estado da Índia as a form of colonial dominance without hegemony. However, it should be stressed that neither Castro, nor another Brahman cleric such as Frias
correspond to the actors that have been considered by Ranajit Guha in his seminal study on
a dominance without hegemony in the British Raj. Those Goan churchmen were very different from the “subalterns” who repeatedly rebelled against the British colonial power, as
they belonged to native Christian elites whose ambitions were frustrated by the Portuguese
religious and political establishment. Nonetheless, studying resistent native elites can represent a first step towards the understanding of broader social movements and conflicts. It
remains open to contention whether a Western-based historiography may be able to repre71
72
73
74
Such an invitation had allegedly been made by Urban VIII to Mateus de Castro. See SORGE, Matteo de
Castro 78. A clear reference was made to Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, a famous line of Horace’s Carmina, III, 2. 13.
See G. RADAELLI, “Mons. Custodio de Pinho e la sua prima missione” (Il pensiero missionario 14,
1942, 23–37).
On the role played by Tomás de Castro in the Canara region see S. SILVA, History of Christianity in
Canara. 2 vols. (Kumta 1957–1961).
J.H. DA CUNHA RIVARA, A Conjuração de 1787 em Goa, e varias cousas desse tempo. Memoria
histórica (Nova-Goa 1875); P. KAMAT, Farar far (Crossfire). Local Resistance to Colonial Hegemony
in Goa, 1510–1912 (Panaji, Goa 1999); ID., “‘The Indian Cry’ (O Brado Indiano) of Padre António
Alvares: ‘Swadeshi’ or ‘Seditious’?” (Indian Church History Review 46/1, 2012, 69–91).
Early Modern Asian Catholicism and European Colonialism
305
sent honestly the voice of the subalterns. As Spivak questioned in a famous essay, it is not
clear whether a subaltern can actually speak in the works of historians.75 But if the subalterns might be doomed to remain silent, unless a fundamental epistemological paradigm
shift overcomes the vision inherited from imperialism and colonialism, even native elites
fighting against European powers often have remained silent until today. This is the very
case of Mateus de Castro, who is indeed still waiting for a non-eurocentric biography. In
this respect, it is remarkable the thesis that Carlo Cavallera devoted the Brahman cleric. A
member of an Italian religious congregation specially consecrated to extra-european missions, namely the Missionari della Consolata, Cavallera completed a work that was remarkable for its precision and scope in terms of archival documentation. However, his
unpublished dissertation was characterized by a ubiquitous colonial and eurocentric gaze,
stigmatizing Mateus de Castro as an ambitious intriguer seeking political power and without any spiritual depth or moral integrity. Such a strong prejudice might surprise, if we only
consider that later on Cavallera participated very actively to the Second Vatican Council76
and was a committed and succesful missionary Bishop in Kenya.77 Cavallera’s antipathy
towards Mateus de Castro can be usefully compared with the opinions expressed by the
Italian missionary in relation to the Mau Mau movement in 1940s–1950s Kenya.78 In addition to a critique of its “mysterious and nefarious rites”, the secret association was condemned by Cavallera because it excited in the people of Kenya, and in particular in its
Catholic minority, “a false craving for progress, with an incomprehensible ingratitude for
the innumerable benefits received by the Church and the [colonial] Government”. In the
eyes of the Italian missionary the Mau Mau were an “impious sect” that could rightly be
compared to the seven-headed Dragon of Apocalypse 12, eventually defeated by a Woman,
namely the Immaculate Virgin Mary.79 Cavallera’s attitude was part of the spirit of his
time. It can be hoped that today’s historians, more conscious about their own possible eurocentric prejudices – not necessarily confined to European or Western scholars – may undertake the study of figures such as Mateus de Castro on more comprehensive, global and
sympathetic terms. The contribution of Klaus Koschorke and his legacy in the Munich
School of Global Christianity are fundamental starting points for such an enterprise.
75
76
77
78
79
G. CHAKRAVORTY SPIVAK, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, in: P. WILLIAMS/L. CHRISMAN (Eds.), Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory. A Reader (Hemel Hempstead 1993, 90–105); R.C. MORRIS
(Ed.), Can the subaltern speak? Reflections on the history of an idea (New York 2010).
Cavallera was a member of the Sub-Commission for the drafting of Chapter 1 entitled Concerning the
doctrinal principles of the Constitution Lumen Gentium. Among the experts that assisted the SubCommission there were the Fathers Yves Congar and Joseph Ratzinger. J.B. ANDERSON, A Vatican II
Pneumatology of the Paschal Mystery. The Historical-Doctrinal Genesis of Ad Gentes I, 2–5 (Rome
1988), 125–126.
H. MOESSMER, “Presentation of Missionaries of Marsabit, Maikona and North Horr Missions (Marsabit Diocese), Operating among Nomadic Tribes”, in: A. LUCIE-SMITH (Ed.), Mission Ad Gentes. The
Challenge for the Church in Kenya (Nairobi 2007, 52–56), 52–53.
It is not possible to synthetize here the enormous scholarly literature on the Mau Mau. However, it is
interesting to observe that the representation of that movement by the Italian Fr. Ottavio Sestero, another member of the Missionari della Consolata working in Kenya, has been analysed by
C. PUGLIESE, “The Catholic Father and the Elusive Mau Mau General: A Study of Father Ottavio
Sestero’s Novel ‘L’inafferrabile Mau Mau’ (1957)” (Journal of African Cultural Studies 15/2, 2002,
149–158).
L. ZAMUNER, Mons. Carlo Cavallera. Quando la missione diventa contemplazione (Rome 2001), 114.
306
Paolo Aranha
Abstract
The history of the early modern Catholic missions to Asia provides an excellent vantage
point to asses the relation between evangelization and colonialism. If the European expansion was an essential pre-condition for the creation of substantial Catholic communities in
that continent, nonetheless the neophytes did not coincide for most of the time with colonial
subjects and conversions usually did not take place in a context of coercion or moral pressure. However, native agency played a major role even in regions were Christianity was
indeed enforced by a European imperial presence. The most conspicuous case is the one of
the Portuguese Estado da Índia. Contrary to common assumptions, this contribution claims
that the Portuguese established in Goa and in similar areas a “dominance without hegemony” and that Christianity endowed the Goan local elites with tools to play strategically and
cunningly with the colonial power. Furthermore, the case of the Brahman cleric Mateus de
Castro Mahalo is presented here as a striking example of a native Christian able to move
through transcontinental spaces and live in a polycentric world thanks to his location in a
“preter-colonial” space. On the basis of similar instances, further researches on the history
of Christianity in Asia, stressing the role of native agency even in the early modern age, are
particularly necessary.