João Rodrigues (missionary)

João Rodrigues (* around 1561/62 in Sernancelhe (Portugal); † August 1, 1633 in Macau ) was a Portuguese Jesuit who proselytized in Japan and is particularly known for his linguistic studies. His talent for languages ​​earned him the Japanese nickname "Tçuzzu / Tçuzu" (interpreter, modern transcription: tsūji ). He has authored several books, including Arte da Lingoa de Iapam (1604), a milestone in Western exploration of Japanese . He was probably also involved in the compilation of the Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam (1603), but his role in this project has not yet been sufficiently clarified.

Life

João Rodrigues comes from Sernancelhe, a small town in northern Portugal. The background to his departure to East Asia is not clear, but he moved to East Asia around 1574 and reached Japan from Macau in 1577, where he entered the Society of Jesus as a novice . In addition to his grammar and Latin studies, he dealt intensively with the acquisition of the Japanese language and received, first in Bungo, a theological training, which he completed in Nagasaki .

In 1580 he was ordained a priest in the Portuguese enclave of Macau , after which he returned to Japan. Thanks to his excellent language skills, he became a key figure in communication between the Japanese authorities or rulers and the Europeans in the country. Rodrigues witnessed the expansion and growing problems of the Portuguese in Japan. He saw the birth of the Tokugawa dynasty under the first Shogun Ieyasu and the arrival of the Dutch in Japan. Many of his observations on the life of the Japanese and the political events are preserved in letters and writings. Noteworthy is u. a. the first western description of the Japanese tea ceremony ("Arte del cha").

In 1603 he became procurator of the Nagasaki Mission. In 1609 an incident occurred in Macau with a red seal ship belonging to the sovereign Arima Harunobu , in which 48 of his sailors were killed. Harunobu obtained permission to retaliate from the Shogun Ieyasu, and when he heard that the captain in charge of the ship Madre de Deus had come to Nagasaki, he tried to arrest him. During the violent clashes, the Madre de Deus caught fire and sank. In the course of further retaliation, Portuguese missionaries, including Rodrigues, were expelled from the country.

Rodrigues moved to Macau, where the Society of Jesus had founded an academy with the Colégio de São Paulo in 1594 , in which the Asia missionaries not only carried out theology, philosophy and mathematics, but also geography, astronomy, Portuguese, Latin and Chinese language studies. Here he dealt with the history of Christianity in China until 1615. In 1620 a compressed, more manageable edition of his Japanese grammar appeared in Macau. Then he accompanied the visitor André Palmeiro to Beijing. In 1630 he interpreted for Portuguese soldiers who helped the Ming Dynasty troops against the invading Manchus .

In the so-called " rites dispute " he achieved a certain influence on the question of whether one could use Chinese terms for the god of Christianity. Rodrigues advocated keeping the Japanese "Deus" based on his experience in Japan. This position was incorporated into Niccolò Longobardo's weighty Responsio brevis super controversias de "Xamti" . Rodrigues died in Macau in the summer of 1633.

Works

• Arte Da Lingoa De Iapam Composta Pello Padre Ioão Rodriguez Portugues da Cõpanhia de Iesv diuidida em tres Livros. Com Licença Do Ordinario, E Svperiores Em Nangasaqui no Collegio de Iapão da Companhia de Iesv Anno. 1604.
• Arte Breve da Lingoa Iapoa tirada da arte grande da mesma lingoa, pera os que come, cam a aprender os primeiros principios della. Amacao, 1620.
• Arte del Cha. (Edition: Arte del Cha. ) By Juan Rodriguez Tsuzu, SJ Edited by Jose Luis Alvarez-Taladriz. 1954
• Tractatus copiosissimus contra praxes Matthaei Ricci (missing)

literature

• Jacques Bésineau: Au Japon avec João Rodrigues, 1580-1620. Center culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon 1998.
• Isabel Castro Pina: João Rodrigues Tçuzu and the controversy over Christian terminology in China: The perspective of a Jesuit from the Japanese mission. In: Bulletin of Portuguese-Japanese Studies, No. 6 (2003), pp. 47-71.
• Hubert Cieslik: Father João Rodrigues the Interpreter. Missionary Bulletin IX (1955), pp. 326-331, pp. 404-409.
• Claudia von Collani: The Treatise on Chinese Religion (1623) of N. Longobardi, SJ In: Sino-Western Cultural Relations Journal XVII (1995), pp. 29-37.
• Michael Cooper: Rodrigues the Interpreter: An Early Jesuit in Japan and China. Weatherhill, New York 1973.
• Michael Cooper: This Island of Japon: Jõao Rodrigues' Account of 16th-Century Japan. Kodansha International, Tokyo 1973.
• Michael Cooper: Rodrigues in China. The Letters of João Rodrigues, 1611-1633. In: Doi Tadao (ed.): Kokugoshi e no michi: Doi sensei shōjukinen ronbunshū (Festschrift Prof. Doi Tadao), Vol. 2, Tokyo 1981, pp. 352-224.
• Georg Schurhammer: P. Johann Rodriguez Tçuzzu as a historian of Japan. In: Archivum Historicum Societatis Jesu, No. 1 (1932), pp. 23-40. Also in: Orientalia, Gesammelte Studien, T. 2, Rom 1963, pp. 605–618.
• Otto Zwartjes: Portuguese Missionary Grammars in Asia, Africa and Brazil, 1550–1800 . John Benjamin, Amsterdam / Philadelphia 2011.

Web links

• Monument to João Rodrigues in his birthplace Sernancelhe

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Not to be confused with João / Girão Rodrigues (1559–1629)
2. ↑ On life and work, see especially Cooper (1973)
3. ↑ More on this in Zwartjes (2011), p. 277.
4. ↑ Cooper (1973), pp. 20ff, 33f.
5. ↑ More on this from Charles Ralph Boxer : The affair of the "Madre de Deus". A chapter in the history of the Portuguese in Japan. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, London 1929.
6. ↑ Chinese shàngdì上帝, highest emperor, god