Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Charts
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Organizing the Society of Jesus
- 3 Decentralizing the Society of Jesus
- 4 Imagining Global Mission
- 5 Space, Time, and Truth in the Jesuit Psychology
- 6 The Missionary Motivation
- 7 The Jesuit Missionary Network
- 8 The Jesuit Financial Network
- 9 The Jesuit Information Network
- 10 The Jesuit Sacred Economy
- 11 An Edifying End: Global Salvific Catholicism
- Appendix A Abbreviations for Document Sources
- Appendix B Chronological Tables (1540–1722)
- Appendix C Principal Prosographical Information
- Appendix D Monetary Systems
- Works Cited
- Index
4 - Imagining Global Mission
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Charts
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Organizing the Society of Jesus
- 3 Decentralizing the Society of Jesus
- 4 Imagining Global Mission
- 5 Space, Time, and Truth in the Jesuit Psychology
- 6 The Missionary Motivation
- 7 The Jesuit Missionary Network
- 8 The Jesuit Financial Network
- 9 The Jesuit Information Network
- 10 The Jesuit Sacred Economy
- 11 An Edifying End: Global Salvific Catholicism
- Appendix A Abbreviations for Document Sources
- Appendix B Chronological Tables (1540–1722)
- Appendix C Principal Prosographical Information
- Appendix D Monetary Systems
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
“I firmly assert that the highest art, which imitates reality itself, both expresses martyrdom in the martyrs, tears in the weeping, sorrow in the suffering, glory and joy in the risen, and fixes them in our hearts. This is indeed the substance of art.”
– Jesuit art theorist Antonio Possevino (1603)As the previous chapter suggested, the Society of Jesus struggled to overcome the obstacles that their global and globalizing intentions created. The next trilogy of chapters pursues the ideal of global mission from its visual representation, to its internalization, and finally to its manifestation in the form of aspiration to missionary work.
Realizing the Global World
We can safely view the articulation of this global network at a remove of centuries. Such developments also impressed observant people of the time, and their responses give us a sense of their worldviews. Christian thinkers raided their traditions for the necessary metaphors, ideas, and justifications for comprehending the New World and the new age issued in by early-modern European expansion.
Writers signalled the importance of the discovery of America by locating it in the course of sacred history. In the dedication to his Historia general de las Indias [General History of the Indies] (1552), Francisco López de Gómara called it “the greatest thing after the creation of the world (excepting the incarnation and death of its creator).” Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo's praise for the circumnavigation of the globe exceeded this, for he ranked it the “greatest and most original event” after Creation.
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- Information
- Salvation and Globalization in the Early Jesuit Missions , pp. 68 - 89Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008