Going Native and Going Home: The Dilemma of Jesuit Sinology

Roaming far and wide across the early modern globe in their efforts to expand the reach of Christendom, Jesuit missionaries did much to accommodate themselves to the pagan cultures they sought to convert. Such was especially the case in the Chinese mission field, where many members of the Society of Jesus took on the persona of the ‘literatus’, the scholarly elite they sought to convert at least to their cause, if not ultimately to Christianity. As ‘scholars of the West’ in late imperial China, Jesuits flaunted the learning they brought from Europe and diligently applied themselves to the study of their adopted land. As ‘scholars of the East’ in early modern Europe, they turned this hard-won knowledge into the cultural capital vital for sustaining their missionary efforts. Yet the fortunes of Jesuit scholarship in and about China were complex, meeting with both approbation and skepticism at home and abroad. This paper assesses the global dilemma of Jesuit sinological expertise in the early modern era.