,
Adam Schall von Bell,
Ferdinand VerbiestBottom:
Paul Siu, colao or Prime Minister of State; Candide Hiu, granddaughter of Colao Paul Siu. Since 1557,
Portuguese Macau had been the single center for exchange between
China and
Japan, and from there to Europe via
Goa. In 1571
Nagasaki was opened for Portuguese ships, after an agreement with
daimyō Ōmura Sumitada who converted to Catholicism, and a
flourishing trade established between the two cities, that would become known as "
Nanban trade period".
Missionary activities in Japan had begun in 1549, when Jesuit co-founder
Francis Xavier was received in a friendly manner and permitted to preach. Jesuits established congregations in Hirado, Yamaguchi and Bungo (by 1579 there were about 130,000 converts) and many
daimyōs converted to Christianity, some to gain access to trade and arms. An attempt to reach China was made in 1552 by Francis Xavier, after being sought to talk to the Chinese Emperor in the favor of Portuguese being held prisoners in
Guangzhou, but he died off mainland China, at
Shangchuan Island: although Macau had been granted to Portuguese, contacts with continental China were always cautious and,
starting in 1517, several Portuguese embassies were stalled while trying. In 1576
Pope Gregory XIII included Japan in the Portuguese
diocese of Macau. In September 1578
Alessandro Valignano arrived at Macau as a visitor of Jesuit Missions in the
Indies, to examine and when necessary reorganize, answering to the Jesuit Superior in
Rome. No missions had succeeded in establishing in mainland China, while in Japan they multiplied. Language study had always been one of the core problems: in his view, it was necessary first to learn to speak, read, and write the
Chinese language. To this end, he wrote to the Superior in India, who sent to Macau Jesuit scholar
Michele Ruggieri (羅明堅) who called the help of
Matteo Ricci (利瑪竇), to share the work. Ricci joined him in Macau in 1582. to the Pope and the kings of Europe sponsored by
Kirishitan daimyos Sumitada,
Ōtomo Sōrin and
Arima Harunobu, whom he accompanied via Macau to Goa. In 1583, the Portuguese in Macau were permitted to form a
Senate and kept sovereignty. Macau prospered, and Jesuits engaged in the trade. This breach of ecclesiastical practice did not go unnoticed by other European missions in the area, or by those living via inter-Asiatic trade. Eventually, the Pope was forced to intervene, and, in 1585, ordered an immediate cessation of all mercantile activities by the Society. Valignano made an impassioned appeal to the Pope, as Jesuits needed the funds for their many enterprises. In 1594 St. Paul's College of Macau was authorized by the Jesuit superior in Rome, by upgrading the previous Madre de Deus school. At first, the college included two seminaries for lay brothers, a university with faculties of
arts,
philosophy and
theology, a primary school and a school of music and arts. By 1595 Valignano could boast in a letter that not only had the Jesuits printed a Japanese grammar (see
Arte da Lingoa de Iapam) and dictionary (see
Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam (Nippo Jisho)), published in a printing press established in Nagasaki, but also several books (mostly the lives of saints and martyrs) entirely in Japanese. The main body of the grammar and dictionary was compiled from 1590–1603; when finished, it was a truly comprehensive volume with the dictionary alone containing some 32,798 entries. Between 1597 and 1762 it had immense influence on the learning of Eastern languages and culture by missionary Jesuits, making Macau a base for the spreading of
Christianity in China and in
Japan. Its academic program soon became comprehensive and equivalent to that of a university: it included core disciplines such as
theology,
philosophy, and
mathematics,
geography,
astronomy, and
Latin,
Portuguese and
Chinese. Many famous scholars taught and learned at this college, which became home to the first western
sinologists such as
Matteo Ricci,
Johann Adam Schall von Bell and
Ferdinand Verbiest. Macau was thus the training ground for missions in Asia. From 1597 until 1762, Jesuit priests entering into China would always come first to Macau where, at St. Paul’s College, they would learn to speak Chinese together with other areas of Chinese knowledge, including philosophy and comparative religion, gathering a body of knowledge that would lead to the Jesuit position in defense of the adoption of local practices in the
Chinese Rites controversy. It was the largest seminary in East Asia at the time and the first Western-style university in the region. ==Notable scholars==