The life of Antonio Possevino SJ is a vast area for research in various disciplines. He was a priest, a scholar and a politician, quite (but not always) successful in each of the fields. His interests concerned mainly Jesuit and European...
moreThe life of Antonio Possevino SJ is a vast area for research in various disciplines. He was a priest, a scholar and a politician, quite (but not always) successful in each of the fields. His interests concerned mainly Jesuit and European matters, however he could see the future of Christianity from a much wider perspective, planning world evangelization in the age of discoveries and colonization. The aim of the article is to answer the question about the presence of the Japanese theme in Possevino’s best known work – Bibliotheca selecta. In this compendium of the Christian literature of the time, helpful in studies and evangelization, the Japanese matters earned an important place. The text included in Bibliotheca selecta is, as the author notes, Alessandro Valignano’s catechism. It takes more space in the book than the texts concerning other Asian regions and religions and is disproportionally elaborate taking into account the size of the country and the state of knowledge about it at the time. What is more interesting, however, is that Valignano’s catechism was not the only such document which could be used for Possevino’s compendium. It is also not the best means to understand the Japanese culture and religion (because it is written in a European style, being a logical apology of Christianity and an explanation of the Catholic doctrine). To explain why this particular text was included in Possevino’s work one must see the importance of the work done by Alessandro Valignano in the development of the Jesuit missions in Japan. Valignano, who was a Jesuit Visitor to Asia at the time, introduced the printing press to Japan, helped in establishing new seminaries and opted for ordaining Japanese priests as quickly as they were ready to undertake the pastoral tasks. However, before Possevino’s work was published, missions in Japan started experiencing difficulties such as the change of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s policy towards Christianity (1587) and the insufficiency of funds for further development. Including the whole Valignano’s text within Possevino’s work could be therefore a way of supporting the needs of the Jesuit missions and reminding the Apostolic See about them. The dedication of the first volume (with Valignano’s catechism) to the pope makes this even more evident. On the other hand, there was also an internal problem in the Jesuit Order of the time, that might have been the reason for including the Japanese case and showing it as very important. In the 1580s the Jesuits discussed the problem of limpieza de sangre – the purity of blood rule which banned the acceptance to the Order of people of the Jewish and Moor. Possevino strongly opposed the rule and wrote a polemical treaty about it. However, he was not in the majority in that case, hence shedding some light on the mission in Asia might be considered his way to show that limpieza de sangre could not be combined with the Order’s plans to introduce Christianity all through the world as was Christ’s command.
