Sustainability in Early Modern China through the Evolution of the Jesuit Accommodation Method

This article clarifies the often overlooked facts attributed to European missionaries in Asia, especially Jesuits, who acted as catalysts of a kind of nuanced acculturation named <i>Accommodatio</i> (adaptation). To a great extent, they became harbingers of culture and science more than...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Inmaculada Rodriguez-Cunill, Miguel Gutierrez-Villarrubia, Francisco Salguero-Andujar, Joseph Cabeza-Lainez
Format: article
Language:EN
Published: MDPI AG 2021
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Online Access:https://doaj.org/article/9d91412c3bdb4c63b1a1d6aa1cda06f9
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Summary:This article clarifies the often overlooked facts attributed to European missionaries in Asia, especially Jesuits, who acted as catalysts of a kind of nuanced acculturation named <i>Accommodatio</i> (adaptation). To a great extent, they became harbingers of culture and science more than faith itself to the dismay of many, including the Roman Church. Such cultural and scientific transference was actually two-pronged, for simultaneously they presented in Europe unique findings related to language, e.g., the Chinese characters (considered to be the sole natural language), geography, cosmology and even governance. Here we try to prove that such procedure contributed positively to the modern scientific notions of sustainability and to provide the kind of accoutrements that model the modern world as we know it. However, in the process, many Jesuits clearly became sinified and eventually acculturated.