A Vision Betrayed: The Jesuits in Japan and China, 1542-1742 by Andrew C. Ross (review)

746book reviews The problem of how to Christianize without Europeanizing was raised frequently as the African missions progressed. In many cases a solution was attempted by the creation of a separate African church community. The fissiparous nature of Protestantism was certainly more sympathetic to such developments , and Professor Isichei describes the many instances of such independent congregations Ui aU parts of Africa over the years, but she also points to the twentieth-century examples of separatist movements from CathoUcism. This becomes a Uvely issue in Professor Isichei's final chapter, where she examines the current situation of the estabUshed Christian churches with regard to wealtii, to women, to local politics, and to the claims of traditional African phUosophies. Altogether Professor Isichei has produced not simply a fascinating account ofrival churches UiAfrica but a convincing history ofAfrican Christianity . Brian Garvey University ofLeeds Asian A Vision Betrayed: TheJesuits inJapan and China, 1542-1742. By Andrew C. Ross. (MaryknoU, NewYork: Orbis Books. 1994. Pp. xvü, 216. $34.95.) Based principaUy on selected EngUsh-language secondary Uterature, this attempt at a "synoptic history" offers some insights about the Jesuit mission in Japan and China from the time of St. Francis Xavier to the 1742 papal buU Ex quo singulari condemning the Chinese Rites. Andrew Ross, a senior lecturer on the history of missions at the University of Edinburgh, opens with the premise that "many scholars," including Nigel Cameron and Joseph Needham, have so focused on Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) that diey have not asked how he ever came "to be in China at aU." Ross emphasizes diat it was Alessandro VaUgnano (1539-1606) who shaped developments inJapan "within certain limits" set by those who were there after Xavier had founded die mission Ui 1549. He adds that widi the same vision of developing an indigenous Church,VaUgnano initiated die China mission whUe Ricci,"the perfect instrument," carried out and developed the program. The opening chapter onJapan and China before the Iberian expansion is followed by separate chapters on Xavier and onVaUgnano. Ross holds as "certain" that Xavier planned aJesuit mission toJapan to be'Outwith [sic] the bounds of the Padroado." Such a view faUs to recognize that Ui June, 1549, Xavier was indebted to the Portuguese as he asked the king of Portugal to repay the Portuguese merchant who had provided for the passage of Xavier and his companions and had bought the gifts that Xavier was to present to the emperor ofJapan. The two chapters on theJapan mission until the mid-seventeendi cen- BOOK REVIEWS747 tury benefited from the research of Georg Schurhammer,Josef F. Schutte, and die recent volume byJ. F. Moran. The book's second half centers on China with two chapters on Ricci, one on Johann Adam SchaU von BeU and FerdinandVerbiest, then one on the pope, the Bourbon kings, and the Kangxi emperor, and a conclusion. Throughout these pages on China Ross contends that it was "ultimately the Church's denial of the vaUdity of the way ofVaUgnano and Ricci that led to [the emperor] Kangxi and China's rejection of Christianity."WhyVaUgnano is included in diis quotation is unclear since the sources cited did not examine aU of Valignano's extant correspondence about China. More tiian a dozen simUar scholarly problems cannot be discussed in this review. But any reader wUl be puzzled by footnotes that at times lack fuU book citations which are not clarified in the bibUography and also by a number ofJapanese given names cited as surnames Ui the index. Ross indicates that individual ItalianJesuits formed by their Ignatian training "created the vision that shaped the Christian century in Japan and die Confucianist Christianity" of Ricci. But then he adds, "To say that the vision was betrayed is perhaps too harsh." This raises questions about die book's title and ultimately about who betrayed whom, that is, whether the Jesuits betrayed the Church or vice versa. In fact, the Jesuits had not abandoned tiietf missionary poUcy. Yet the Church did not condemn the entire "way" of Ricci, but certain practices that he claimed were perhaps not superstitious. Closer attention to such subtle argumentation would have greatly improved this study. JohnW.Witek,SJ. Georgetown University The...