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This dissertation surveys the history of Christianity in China during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with particular attention given to Chinese clergy and lay Christians. A variety of issues are discussed: the social organization of Christian communities, the networks among communities in different localities, internal tensions and conflicts, and Christian devotions in relation to the printing and circulation of Chinese Christian texts known as "scriptures". By examining a group of unusual sources that have been mostly neglected by past scholars---the correspondence of Chinese Christians with ecclesiastical authorities in Rome, and other more familiar but little studied sources such as memorials and edicts regarding the investigation and interrogation of Chinese Christians and Western missionaries during the period of prohibition (1724-1844)---I intend to show how the imperial ban on Christianity in 1724, especially the expulsion of missionaries and the closing of all churches outside the imperial capital, may have affected Christian beliefs and practices at the local level. The historical survey of the period from 1724 to 1780 and the two case studies in Beijing and Jiangnan from 1780 to 1860 will demonstrate that the repression of Christianity and periodic anti-Christian campaigns did, to some extent, help to shape the Christian community in China, making them into a whole body of people connected by religious identity, as distinguished from non-Christians. Yet this strong sense of community may also have been due to spiritual and social connections with Christian communities beyond China. A second contribution of this dissertation study has to do with its exploring the nuances of Christian and other forms of popular devotions. Recent scholarship that sees Christianity primarily as a Chinese popular religion may have underestimated its distinctive "foreignness" and in part misunderstood what conversion meant in the context of Chinese religion and society. To some extent, Chinese converts were attracted to Christianity because it provided another choice for them beyond the existing religious traditions. A drastically different calendar characterized by distinctive feast days, fasting and abstinence, veneration of saints, along with other peculiar Christian beliefs and practices, have become what I define as "alternative devotions".

The office of the procurator of the papal Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide) offers a unique case study of noncommercial interloping in the long eighteenth century in the Pearl River Delta, and reveals the complexity and fluidity of life at the intersection of Asian and European maritime environments in that special human ecosystem. The oceanic infrastructure of the Age of Sail and the Sino-Western trade system in Canton sustained the Catholic missionary enterprise in Asia, and the professional figure of the procurator represented its economic and political linchpin. Procurators were agents connected with both European and Qing imperial formations, yet not directly at their service. They utilized existing maritime trade networks to their own advantage without being integral parts of those networks’ economic mechanisms. All the while, they subverted Qing prohibitions against Christianity. Using sources preserved in Rome, this article offers new insights into the global mechanisms of trade, communication, and religious exchange embodied by the procurators-interlopers and their networks, with significant implications for the history of the Sino-Western trade system, Qing policies toward the West and Christianity, and the history of Asian Catholic missions.

O presente ensaio visa compreender a evolução da cadeia de eventos, cronologicamente interligados, que definem um dos grandes focos históricos de comunicação intercultural entre o ocidente e o oriente. Os descobrimentos portugueses, mais do que a quebra de barreiras geográficas e inovação na exploração dos oceanos, foram predominantemente revolucionários na forma como seres humanos de diferentes polos civilizacionais passaram a interagir uns com os outros. Com a chegada à China estabelece-se o território de Macau, assim como o diálogo entre duas potências do mundo de então. Contudo, o apogeu da importância deste território está intrinsecamente ligado ao facto de ter permitido o acesso ao Império do Meio a um outro interveniente especial: a Companhia de Jesus que, desde os primeiros estágios da sua existência, teve acesso à ásia oriental através do Padroado Português. O modo inovador que os Jesuítas conceberam para compreender e se adaptarem às idiossincrasias da China, cujo contexto cultural e civilizacional eram radicalmente diferentes da europa, faz destes missionários um interessante caso de estudo.

A Europa e a Igreja Católica viviam um período conturbado, no contexto da Reforma Protestante do século XVI, quando a Companhia de Jesus surgiu, ajudando a garantir a posição do catolicismo no velho continente e tomando para si a missão de divulgar a fé a outros povos. Enquanto isso, Portugal descobria todo um Novo Mundo, graças à temeridade dos seus marinheiros e à ousadia dos seus reis. O jesuíta português Tomás Pereira foi um dos que partiu de Lisboa para o Oriente, sob as ordens do Padroado Português, para converter os infiéis ao catolicismo. Para isso, o religioso estudou a língua e cultura chinesas em Macau, antes de conquistar um posto em Pequim, junto do imperador Kangxi. A par do seu trabalho de proselitismo, Pereira foi um embaixador das ciências ocidentais e ocupou um importante cargo na corte Qing, desempenhando um papel de relevo nas negociações com a Rússia, na sequência da invasão de territórios chineses. O episódio da Controvérsia dos Ritos é revelador da influência que Tomás Pereira alcançou: após a proibição das missões na China e graças aos seus argumentos junto do imperador, o jesuíta conseguiu que o Édito de Tolerância ao Cristianismo fosse publicado. Para além disso, conhecedor que era da teoria musical, foi professor de música do próprio imperador e escreveu a primeira obra em chinês sobre a técnica musical ocidental. Enquanto o padre permaneceu em Pequim, foi registando os assuntos e acontecimentos mais importantes no seu diário, testemunho posteriormente entregue à Igreja Católica, em Roma. Muitas das suas memórias sobre Kangxi foram conservadas, permanecendo como documentos de grande valor histórico até à atualidade. Concomitantemente, a sua imagem permaneceu na literatura popular da China. O percurso de Tomás Pereira, que nasceu em Portugal mas passou a maior parte da sua vida na China, terá provocado uma metamorfose identitária. Através dele, é possível revisitar a história de Portugal no diálogo com a civilização chinesa: o seu contributo no domínio da interculturalidade é inegável. O grande objetivo do presente trabalho é precisamente estudar as relações culturais entre os dois países, a partir da ação dos jesuítas na segunda metade do século XVII e inícios do século XVIII, com especial enfoque na vida e identidade do padre Tomás Pereira (1645-1708).

"Falar de Memória" é um programa de Hugo Pinto com a participação do jornalista e investigador João Guedes. Semanalmente, a revisitação do passado de Macau através das histórias que têm como protagonistas personagens e lugares que ainda perduram na memória. Esta edição foi para o ar na Rádio Macau no dia 14 de Dezembro de 2017.

Geographical explorations and the subsequent intensification of external commerce made many political actors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries AD drag in religion and its various institutions as pliable devices for strengthening their claims of monopoly and control over the political and commercial life of the newly discovered regions. In the midst of these developments, the pre-colonial struggles for appropriating surplus from the European possessions in Asia were at times in the form of struggles between different religious institutions and administrative machineries within the same belief system professed by the various European powers. These conflicts often arose when some of the religious institutions, which were devised at different points of time in history to transmit various types of spiritual experiences to the believers, were appropriated by power-mongers for realizing their political and economic agenda. One of the religious institutions that were often utilized for political purposes during the early modern period was the church administrative system of patronage or the Patronato that the Spaniards introduced in America and the Padroado Real that the Portuguese set up in Asia. As per the right of patronage that the Pope conceded in AD 1455, the Portuguese Crown became the sole authority that could send missionaries to the lands controlled by the Lusitanians, which eventually created a certain type of monopoly for them in matters of Christianity in areas under their influence and kept missionaries of other nationalities out of Asian and Brazilian soil. When the religious issues in Asia began to get increasingly embroiled in the politics of the times, thanks to the dominance of Lusitanian interests in the Padroado system, Pope Gregory XV devised the Propaganda Fide in AD 1622 as an alternative church administrative system for Asia, which in fact was meant to provide opportunities basically for non-Portuguese people, both Indians and Europeans, for missionary work in Asia. However, this led to a chain of conflicts between the ecclesiastical administrative institutions of the Padroado Real and those of the Propaganda Fide, in Asia in general and India in particular, where the core issues of contestation began to revolve around matters of politics and the exercise of power. The central purpose of this article is to examine the nuanced nature of the conflicts that arose between the church administrative systems of the Padroado and the Propaganda at different points in time and also to see how the religious conflicts were appropriated and politicized by the various European colonial powers to further their politico-economic agenda in India.

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Este estudo pretende alertar para a existência de importantes lacunas e imprecisões no conhecimento diacrónico da Arquitectura Religiosa de Origem Portuguesa em Macau e, simultaneamente, trazer à luz novos dados que permitam confirmar e aumentar o que dela sabemos. Centrar-nos-emos na Época Moderna, em alguns edifícios , e, recorrendo a fontes gráficas e escritas, procuraremos conhecer a sua evolução. Futuramente, um estudo diacrónico aprofundado permitirá um real entendimento sincrónico e uma valorização de um núcleo classificado como Património Mundial, testemunho de um encontro intercultural, no contexto do Mundo Português e nas suas filiações Portuguesa e Europeia.

A survey of the latest scholarship on Catholic missions between the 16th and 18th centuries, this collection of fourteen essays offers a global view of the organization, finances, personnel, and history of Catholic missions to the Americas, Africa, and Asia.

The Jesuit Archives in Rome (Archium Romanum Societatus Iesu) contains books and manuscripts from the Ming (1369-1644) and Ching (1644-1911) dynasties on Chinese history, Chinese and Western philosophy, astronomy and other sciences; volumes by Westerners introducing Christian thought to the Chinese; and works by Chinese Christians comparing what they were taught by the Jesuits with the Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian traditions. Many works deal with the famous Chinese rites controversy. There are also volumes that treat other religious groups such as the Muslims and the Jews. The archive has a collection of some of the first Chinese-Western dictionaries. Some of the works include marginal annotations by the emperors of China, famous Chinese scholars, and Jesuit missionaries and much, much more. This catalogue consists of careful descriptions of all these archival items with bibliographical sources pertaining to them. English is the main language, but Latin, other European languages, and Chinese (with characters) are also abundant.

Em meados do século XX, Macau entra num período culturalmente florescente. O conhecimento da língua e da cultura chinesas é apreciado. São muitas as traduções para o português, publicadas em diversos jornais, revistas e livros em Macau, pela elite macaense. A editora Colecção Notícias de Macau publica vinte e três volumes de escritos e tradução, a maioria dos quais é sobre a China e Macau, de autoria de Luís Gonzaga Gomes (1907-1976) – filho da terra. É de destacar que não é por acaso que Luís Gonzaga Gomes escreve artigos temáticos sobre a China e Macau, nem traduz obras clássicas da China somente por motivos pessoais. Tais iniciativas são uma medida estratégica de conciliação da comunidade macaense com a comunidade chinesa, que, por sua vez, contribui para a reflexão e construção da identidade macaense, especialmente, ao longo das convulsões socias, jurídico-políticas e étnicas que marcam estas décadas. O presente estudo pretende usar os conceitos como identidade, imagem e tradução, cruzando os Estudos de Imagens com os Estudos Descritivos de Tradução, para analisar as imagens construídas pelas obras de Gonzaga Gomes. Apresenta o resultado de pesquisa de arquivo para a identificação das publicações de Gonzaga Gomes e procede a uma análise paratextual e textual, a fim de desvendar as considerações poéticas e ideológicas de Gonzaga Gomes sobre a identidade macaense.

Trade between Manila and Macao in silks and other products in exchange for American Japanese silver had repercussions around the world. Commerce on the Macao-Manila route (1580–1642) represented a remarkable coming together of old adversaries to distribute luxury products throughout the Spanish and Portuguese empires. The present study examines Iberian competition, war, and trade with the Netherlands, England and the opening of China to European trade. Despite frequent attempts to keep Portuguese and Spanish imperial holdings separate, their merchants shared economic and strategic interests that surpassed imperial regulations. Attracted to wealth and the retention of imperial holdings, the merchants of the Macao-Manila trade route made the voyage a viable link between China and the Iberian Empire. This commerce connected not only the two Asian port cities, but it also linked their global imperial networks, opening the world to the riches of the Orient.