Antoine Thomas (missionary)

Synopsis mathematica , 1685

Antoine Thomas (born January 25, 1644 in Namur , Belgium , † June 29, 1709 in Beijing , China ) was a Belgian Jesuit priest, missionary and astronomer at the court of the Emperor of China.

Life

In 1660 he entered the Jesuit order and after completing his training as a teacher was sent to Armentières, Huy and Tournai . He then dealt extensively with mathematics and astronomy and was sent to China in 1677 at his own request. After years of traveling via Goa , Siam and Malacca , he finally came to Macau in 1682 , the then only port to enter China, where he was able to observe a solar eclipse in 1683 .

Here he was called to Beijing by Father Ferdinand Verbiest , where he was soon appointed Vice-President of the Mathematics Tribunal . This position was of great importance both because of the setting of the imperial calendar and because of the proximity to the emperor. After Verbiest's death in 1688, he took over his position as mathematician and court astronomer . For 20 years, Father Thomas was a close advisor to Emperor Kangxi , who consulted him on moral and religious issues in addition to scientific questions. In 1692 an edict of tolerance was issued, which promised the Christian missionaries almost complete freedom in the exercise of their activities.

However, when the future of Christianity in China seemed secure at this point in time, the ritual dispute in Europe intensified . The Jesuits were accused of allowing the newly converted Chinese certain rites, such as ancestor worship , which were considered pagan in Europe. The papal legate Charles Thomas Maillard de Tournon was sent to Beijing in 1705 to get an idea of ​​the orthodoxy of these rites, which the Jesuits called social customs. Since he disregarded official etiquette (e.g. kowtowing ), he snubbed the emperor, who had initially received him benevolently. In 1707 Tournon issued a decree in which the missionaries were obliged to repeal these rites under threat of severe canonical penalties. A final request by Thomas to suspend the application of this decree in order to appeal to the Pope was rejected.

After Pope Clement XI. 1715 had confirmed Tournon's decree, the Christian missionaries were expelled from China in 1722. Thomas did not experience these developments, however, since he died in Beijing in 1709 and was buried next to Ferdinand Verbiest in the Jesuit cemetery in Beijing, where Matteo Ricci had found his final resting place a hundred years earlier .

Main work

• Synopsis mathematica. Douai 1685.

See also

• Roman Catholic Church in China

literature

• Han Qi: Antoine Thomas, SJ, and his Mathematical Activities in China. A Preliminary Research Through Chinese Sources . In: Willy vande Walle, Noël Golvers (Ed.): The History of the Relations Between the Low Countries and China in the Qing Era (1644-1911) (=  Louvain Chinese studies . Volume 14 ). Leuven University Press, 2003, ISBN 978-90-5867-315-2 , pp. 105–114 (English, 508 pages, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed July 2, 2017]).