Rival Mission, Rival Science? Jesuits and Pietists in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century South India

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2109151
AutoresWill Sweetman (0000-0002-8010-244X, University of Otago, autor correspondente), Ines G Županov (0009-0000-4748-8582)
Ano2019
Volume61
Fascículo3
Páginas624-653
Data de publicação2019-07-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417519000203
OpenAlexW2955289433
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas25

Two European missionary teams, one Catholic and the other Protestant, encountered each other in the Tamil country in the first decade of the eighteenth century. They acted as if and thought that their goals were irreconcilable, even if the Protestants in Tranquebar admitted that the Catholic Jesuit proselytism in the region had been efficient as 'preparatio evangelicae' for the Protestant mission. Jesuits and Pietists were not only rivals; they also collaborated, uneasily and unequally, in collecting, processing, and disseminating knowledge. Missionary linguistic and medico-botanical expertise was considered an indispensable proselytizing tool, and it showcased their 'scientific' achievements that were admired and envied in Europe. Both Pietists and Jesuits of this period were fighting the early Enlightenment atheists while feeding them the materials from the missions. Both missionary groups were also victims of Enlightenment historiography. Despite their theological differences, they were far closer in their practices than either the missionaries themselves or their historians, who have mostly written from the same denominational perspective, have been willing to acknowledge. In part this was because the Protestants, especially their mission's founders, relied on both texts and converts produced by their Catholic rivals

Art · Enlightenment · Historiography · Literature · Perspective (graphical) · Political science · Protestantism · Sociology · Tamil · Theology · Classics · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment · Religious studies