17th-century
missionary activity in
Asia and the
Americas grew strongly, put down roots, and developed its institutions, though it met with
strong resistance in Japan in particular. At the same time Christian colonization of some areas outside Europe succeeded, driven by economic as well as religious reasons. Christian traders were heavily involved in the
Atlantic slave trade, which had the effect of transporting Africans into Christian communities. A land war between Christianity and
Islam continued, in the form of the campaigns of the
Habsburg Empire and
Ottoman Empire in the
Balkans, a turning point coming at
Vienna in 1683. The
Tsardom of Russia, where
Orthodox Christianity was the established religion, expanded eastwards into
Siberia and
Central Asia, regions of Islamic and
shamanistic beliefs, and also southwest into
Ukraine, where the Uniate
Eastern Catholic Churches arose.
There was a very large volume of Christian literature published, particularly controversial and
millennial but also historical and scholarly.
Hagiography became more critical with the
Bollandists, and ecclesiastical history became thoroughly developed and debated, with Catholic scholars such as
Baronius and
Jean Mabillon, and Protestants such as
David Blondel laying down the lines of scholarship. Christian art of the
Baroque and music derived from church forms was striking and influential on lay artists using secular expression and themes. Poetry and drama often treated Biblical and religious matter, for example
John Milton's Paradise Lost.
Changing attitudes, Protestant and Catholic
At the beginning of the century
James I of England opposed the
papal deposing power in a series of controversial works,[2] and the assassination of
Henry IV of France caused an intense focus on the theological doctrines concerned with
tyrannicide.[3] Both Henry and James, in different ways, pursued a peaceful policy of religious conciliation, aimed at eventually healing the breach caused by the
Protestant Reformation. While progress along these lines seemed more possible during the
Twelve Years' Truce, conflicts after 1620 changed the picture; and the situation of Western and Central Europe after the
Peace of Westphalia left a more stable but entrenched polarisation of Protestant and Catholic territorial states, with religious minorities.
By the end of the 17th century, the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique by
Pierre Bayle represented the current debates in the
Republic of Letters, a largely secular network of scholars and savants who commented in detail on religious matters as well as those of science. Proponents of wider religious toleration—and a sceptical line on many traditional beliefs—argued with increasing success for changes of attitude in many areas (including discrediting the
False Decretals and the legend of
Pope Joan,
magic and
witchcraft,
millennialism and extremes of anti-Catholic propaganda, and toleration of
Jews in society).
Polemicism and Irenicism
Contention between Catholic and Protestant matters gave rise to a substantial
polemical literature, written both in Latin to appeal to international opinion among the educated, and in vernacular languages. In a climate where opinion was thought open to argument, the production of polemical literature was part of the role of
prelates and other prominent churchmen, academics (in universities) and seminarians (in religious colleges); institutions such as
Chelsea College in
London and
Arras College in
Paris were set up expressly to favor such writing.
The major debates between Protestants and Catholics proving inconclusive, and theological issues within Protestantism being divisive, there was also a return to the
Irenicism: the search for religious peace.
David Pareus was a leading
Reformed theologian who favored an approach based on reconciliation of views.[4] Other leading figures such as
Marco Antonio de Dominis,
Hugo Grotius and
John Dury worked in this direction.
Heresy and demonology
The last person to be
executed by fire for
heresy in England was
Edward Wightman in 1612. The legislation relating to this penalty was in fact only changed in 1677, after which those convicted on a heresy charge would suffer at most
excommunication.[5] Accusations of heresy, whether the revival of
Late Antique debates such as those over
Pelagianism and
Arianism or more recent views such as
Socinianism in theology and
Copernicanism in
natural philosophy, continued to play an important part in intellectual life.
At the same time as the judicial pursuit of heresy became less severe, interest in
demonology was intense in many European countries. The sceptical arguments against the existence of
witchcraft and
demonic possession were still contested into the 1680s by theologians. The Gangraena by
Thomas Edwards used a framework equating heresy and possession to draw attention to the variety of radical Protestant views current in the 1640s.
Trial of Galileo
In 1610,
Galileo Galilei published his Sidereus Nuncius, describing observations that he had made with the new
telescope. These and other discoveries exposed difficulties with the understanding of the heavens current since antiquity and raised interest in teachings such as the
heliocentric theory of
Copernicus.
In reaction, scholars such as
Cosimo Boscaglia[6] maintained that the motion of the Earth and immobility of the
Sun were heretical, as they contradicted some accounts given in the
Bible as understood at that time. Galileo's part in the controversies over
theology,
astronomy and
philosophy culminated in his trial and sentencing in 1633, on a suspicion of heresy.
The Protestant lands at the beginning of the 17th century were concentrated in Northern Europe, with territories in
Germany,
Scandinavia,
England,
Scotland, and areas of
France, the
Low Countries,
Switzerland,
Kingdom of Hungary and
Poland. Heavy fighting, in some cases a continuation of the religious conflicts of the previous centuries, was seen, particularly in the Low Countries and the
Electorate of the Palatinate (which saw the outbreak of the
Thirty Years' War). In
Ireland there was a concerted attempt to create "plantations" of Protestant settlers in what was a predominantly Catholic country, and fighting with a religious dimension was serious in the 1640s and 1680s. In France the settlement proposed by the
Edict of Nantes was whittled away, to the disadvantage of the
Huguenot population, and the edict was revoked in 1685.
Protestant Europe was largely divided into
Lutheran and
Reformed (Calvinist) areas, with the
Church of England maintaining a separate position. Efforts to unify Lutherans and Calvinists had little success; and the ecumenical ambition to overcome the schism of the Protestant Reformation remained almost entirely theoretical. The Church of England under
William Laud made serious approaches to figures in the Orthodox Church, looking for common ground.
Within Calvinism an important split occurred with the rise of
Arminianism; the
Synod of Dort of 1618–19 was a national gathering but with international repercussions, as the teaching of Arminius was firmly rejected at a meeting to which Protestant theologians from outside the Netherlands were invited. The
Westminster Assembly of the 1640s was another major council dealing with Reformed theology, and some of its works continue to be important to Protestant denominations.
In the 1640s England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland underwent religious strife comparable to that which its neighbors had suffered some generations before. The rancor associated with these wars is partly attributed to the nature of the
Puritan movement, a description of which is found to be unsatisfactory by many historians. In its early stages the Puritan movement (late 16th–17th centuries) stood for reform in the Church of England, within the Calvinist tradition, aiming to make the Church of England resemble more closely the Protestant churches of Europe, especially
Geneva. The Puritans refused to endorse completely all of the ritual directions and formulas of the Book of Common Prayer; the imposition of its liturgical order by legal force and inspection sharpened Puritanism into a definite opposition movement.
After coming to political power as a result of the First English Civil War, the Puritan clergy had an opportunity to set up a national church along
Presbyterian lines; for reasons that were also largely political, they failed to do so effectively. After the
English Restoration of 1660 the Church of England was purged within a few years of its Puritan elements. The successors of the Puritans, in terms of their beliefs, are referred to as
Dissenters and
Nonconformists, and included those who formed various Reformed
denominations.
Emigration to North America of Protestants, in what became
New England, was led by a group of Puritan
separatists based in the Netherlands ("
the pilgrims"). Establishing a colony at
Plymouth in 1620, they received a charter from the
King of England. This successful, though initially quite difficult, colony marked the beginning of the Protestant presence in America (the earlier French, Spanish and Portuguese settlements were Catholic). Unlike the Spanish or French, the English colonists made little initial effort to evangelise the native peoples.[7]
Roman Catholicism
Devotions to Mary
Pope Paul V and
Gregory XV ruled in 1617 and 1622 that it was invalid to say that Mary was conceived non-immaculate.
Alexander VII declared in 1661 that the soul of Mary was free from
original sin. Popular Marian piety was even more colourful and varied than ever before, and included numerous Marian
pilgrimages, Marian Salvedevotions, new Marian
litanies, Marian theatre plays, Marian
hymns, Marian
processions. Marian
fraternities, today mostly defunct, had millions of members.[8]
Pope Innocent XI
Toward the latter part of the 17th century,
Pope Innocent XI viewed the increasing Turkish attacks against Europe, which were supported by France, as the major threat for the Church. He built a Polish-Austrian coalition for the Turkish defeat at
Vienna in 1683. Scholars have called him a saintly pope because he reformed abuses by the Church, including
simony,
nepotism and the lavish papal expenditures that had caused him to inherit a papal debt of 50,000,000
scudi. By eliminating certain honorary posts and introducing new fiscal policies, Innocent XI was able to regain control of the Church's finances.[9]
The most significant failure of Roman Catholic missionary work was in
Ethiopia. Although its ruler, Emperor
Susenyos, had publicly declared his conversion to Catholicism in 1622, the declaration of Roman Catholicism as the official religion in 1626 led to increasing civil war. Following Susenyos' abdication, his son and successor
Fasilides expelled archbishop
Afonso Mendes and his
Jesuit brethren in 1633, then in 1665 ordered the remaining religious writings of the Catholics burnt. On the other hand, other missions (notably
Matteo Ricci's
Jesuit mission to China) were relatively peaceful and focused on integration rather than
cultural imperialism.
The first
Catholic mission in Sichuan was carried out by
Lodovico Buglio in 1640.[12] The first Catholic church was built in
Beijing in 1650.[13] The emperor granted freedom of religion to Catholics. Ricci had modified the Catholic faith to Chinese thinking, permitting among other things the veneration of the dead. The Vatican disagreed and forbade any adaptation in the so-called
Chinese Rites controversy in 1692 and 1742.
In the year 1641 Parthenius summoned a
synod at Constantinople, at which eight prelates and four dignitaries of the church were present. In this synod the term Transubstantiation is said to have been authorised. In the next year Parthenius organized the more important
Synod of Iași.[15] The purpose of this assembly was to counter certain
Catholic and
Protestant doctrinal errors which had infiltrated Orthodox theology and to offer a comprehensive Orthodox statement on the truth of faith.[16] Including representatives of the Greek and Slavic Churches, it condemned the
Calvinist teachings ascribed to
Cyril Lucaris and ratified (a somewhat amended text of)
Peter Mogila's Expositio fidei (Statement of Faith, also known as the Orthodox Confession), a description of Christian orthodoxy in a question and answer format.[17][18][19] The Statement of Faith became fundamental for establishing the Orthodox world's attitude toward
Reformation thought. The major contribution of the synod was the reinforced sense of unity in the
Eastern Orthodox Church through the promulgation of an authoritative statement agreed upon by all the major sees.[16]
Synod of Jerusalem
In 1672, Patriarch
Dositheos II of Jerusalem convened the
Synod of Jerusalem that rejected all the Calvinist doctrines and reformulated Orthodox teachings in a manner that distinguished them from Roman Catholicism as well as Protestantism.
The Synod was attended by most of the prominent representatives of the
Eastern Orthodox Church, including six
Metropolitans besides Dositheus and his retired predecessor, and its decrees received universal acceptance as an expression of the faith of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Against both the Roman Catholic Church and most Protestants, the Synod affirmed that the
Holy Spirit proceeds from
God the Father alone and not from both Father and Son.[20]
In the Synod's decrees, called the
Confession of Dositheus, it reaffirmed existing Orthodox beliefs incompatible with Calvinist doctrines, restating that
apostolic succession of bishops is necessary, that good works done with faith are required for salvation, that there are seven sacraments, that the Eucharist is both sacrament and sacrifice, offered for the dead as well as for the living.
Russian Orthodox Church
The fall of
Constantinople in the East, 1453, led to a significant shift of gravity to the rising state of Russia, the "Third Rome". The Renaissance also stimulated a program of reforms by patriarchs of prayer books. A movement called the "
Old believers" consequently resulted and influenced
Russian Orthodox theology in the direction of
conservatism and
Erastianism.
Timeline
17th century Timeline
1601 –
Matteo Ricci goes to China;[21] First ordination of Japanese priests
1602 – Chinese scientist and translator Xu Guangqi is baptized
1603 – The Jesuit Mission Press in Japan commences publication of a Japanese-Portuguese dictionary, the Nippo Jisho
1609 – Missionary Nicolas Trigault goes to China [23]
1609
Baptist Church founded by
John Smyth, due to objections to infant baptism and demands for church-state separation
1609–1610
Douay-Rheims Bible, 1st Catholic English translation, OT published in two volumes, based on an unofficial Louvain text corrected by the
Sistine Vulgate, NT is Rheims text of 1582
1610 – Chinese mathematician and astronomer Li Zhizao is
baptized[24]
1611–1800
King James Version (Authorised Version) is released, based primarily on Wycliffe's work & Bishop's Bible of 1572, translators are accused of being "damnable corrupters of God's word", original included
Apocrypha
1615 – French missionaries in Canada open schools in
Trois-Rivières and
Tadoussac to teach
First Nations children with the hopes of converting them
1615
Confessio Fraternitatis, the second Rosicrucian manifesto describing the "Most Honorable Order" as Christian
1616 – Nanjing Missionary Case in which the clash between Chinese practice of
ancestor worship and
Catholic doctrine ends in the deportation of foreign missionaries. Missionary
Johann Adam Schall von Bell arrives in China
1623 – A stone monument over nine feet tall, 33 inches wide, and ten inches thick is unearthed in Ch'ang-ngan (Si-ngan-fu), China. Its inscription, written by a Syrian monk almost a thousand years earlier and in both Chinese characters and Persian script, begins with the words, "Let us praise the Lord that the [Christian] faith has been popular in China"; it told of the arrival of a missionary, A-lo-pen (Abraham), in AD 625.
1624 – Persecution intensifies in Japan with 50 Christians being burned alive in
Edo (now called Tokyo)
1631 – Dutch missionary
Abraham Rogerius (anglicized as Roger), who authored Open Door to the Secrets of Heathendom, begins 10 years of ministry among the
Tamil people in the Dutch colony of
Pulicat near Madras, India [31]
1632 –
Zuni Indians murder a group of
Franciscan missionaries who had three years earlier established the first mission to the Zunis at Hawikuh in what is now
New Mexico
1635 – An expedition of Franciscans leaves
Quito,
Ecuador, to try to penetrate into
Amazonia from the west. Though most of them will be killed along the way, a few will manage to arrive two years later on the Atlantic coast.
1636 – The
Dominicans of
Manila (the Philippines) organize a missionary expedition to Japan. They are arrested on one of the
Okinawa islands and will be eventually condemned to death by the tribunal of
Nagasaki.
1636 Founding of what was later known as
Harvard University as a training school for ministers – the first of thousands of institutions of Christian higher education founded in the USA
1638 – Official ban of Christianity in Japan with death penalty; The Fountain Opened, a posthumous work of the influential
Puritan writer
Richard Sibbes is published, in which he says that the gospel must continue its journey "til it have gone over the whole world."
1638
Anne Hutchinson banished as a heretic from Massachusetts
1639 – The first women to
New France as missionaries – three
Ursuline Nuns – board the "St. Joseph" and set sail for
New France
1642 – Catholic missionaries
Isaac Jogues and
René Goupil are captured by
Mohawk Indians as they return to Huron country from
Quebec. Goupil was tomahawked to death while Jogues will be held for a period of time as a slave. He used his slavery as an opportunity for missionary work [33]
1645 – After thirty years of work in
Vietnam, the Jesuits are expelled from that country
1646 – After being accused of being a sorcerer, Jesuit missionary
Isaac Jogues is killed by the
Iroquois[33]
1646
Westminster Standards produced by the Assembly, one of the first and undoubtedly the most important and lasting religious document drafted after the reconvention of the Parliament, also decreed
Biblical canon
1651 – Count Truchsess of Wetzhausen, prominent
Lutheran layman, asks the theological faculty of
Wittenberg why Lutherans are not sending out missionaries in obedience to the
Great Commission[37]
1652 – Jesuit Antonio Vieira returns to Brazil as a missionary where he will champion the cause of exploited
indigenous peoples until being expelled by Portuguese colonists [38]
1653 – A
Mohawk war party captures Jesuit
Joseph Poncet near
Montreal. He is tortured and will be finally sent back with a message about peace overtures
1657 – Thomas Mayhew Jr., is lost at sea during a voyage to England that was to combine an appeal for missionary funds with personal business
1658 – After the flight of the
French missionaries from his area, chief
Daniel Garakonthie of the
Onondaga Indians, examines the customs of the French colonists and the doctrines of the missionaries and openly begins protecting Christians in his part of what is now
New York
1660–1685 King
Charles II of England, restoration of monarchy, continuing through
James II, reversed decision of Long Parliament of 1644, reinstating the Apocrypha, reversal not heeded by non-conformists
1664 –
Justinian Von Welz authors three powerful pamphlets on the need for world missions; he will go to Dutch Guinea (now called
Surinam) where he will die after only three months [43]
1665 – Japanese feudal landholders (called daimyōs) were ordered to follow the shogunate's example and to appoint inquisitors to do a yearly scutiny of Christians
1666 -John Eliot publishes his The Indian Grammar, a book written to assist in conversion work among the
Indians. Described as "some bones and ribs preparation for such a work", Eliot intended his Grammar for missionaries wishing to learn the dialect spoken by the
Massachusett Indians.
1667 – The first missionary to attempt to reach the
Huaorani (or Aucas), Jesuit Pedro Suarez, is slain with spears [44]
1668 – In a letter from his post in Canada,
French missionary Jacques Bruyas laments his ignorance of the
Oneida language: "What can a man do who does not understand their language, and who is not understood when he speaks. As yet, I do nothing but stammer; nevertheless, in four months I have baptized 60 persons, among whom there are only four adults, baptized in periculo mortis. All the rest are little children."
1672 – A chieftain on
Guam kills Jesuit missionary
Diego Luis de San Vitores and his Visayan assistant,
Pedro Calungsod, for having baptized the chief's daughter without his permission (some accounts do say the girl's mother consented to the
baptism)
1676 –
Kateri Tekakwitha, who became known as the Lily of the
Mohawks, is
baptized by a Jesuit missionary. She, along with many other Native Americans, joins a missionary settlement in Canada where a syncretistic blend of ascetic indigenous and Catholic beliefs evolves.
1679 – Writing from
Changzhou, newly arrived missionary Juan de Yrigoyen describes three Christian congregations flourishing in that Chinese city [47]
1680 – The
Pueblo Revolt begins in
New Mexico with the killing of twenty-one Franciscan missionaries
1681 – After arriving in
New Spain, Italian Jesuit
Eusebio Kino soon becomes what one writer described as "the most picturesque missionary pioneer of all North America." A bundle of evangelistic zeal, Kino was also an explorer, astronomer, cartographer, mission builder, ranchman, cattle king, and defender of the frontier [48]
1682 – 13 missionaries go to "remote cities" in East
Siberia
1683 – Missionary
Louis Hennepin returns to France after exploring
Minnesota and being held captive by the
Dakota to write the first book about Minnesota, Description de la Louisiane
1696 – Jesuit missionary François Pinet founds the Mission of the Guardian Angel near what is today
Chicago. The mission was abandoned in 1700 when missionary efforts seemed fruitless
1699 – Priests of the Quebec Seminary of Foreign Missions establish a mission among the
Tamaroa Indians at
Cahokia in what is now the state of Illinois
1700 – After a Swedish missionary's sermon in
Pennsylvania, one Native American posed such searching questions that the episode was reported in a
1731 history of the Swedish church in America. The interchange is noted in
Benjamin Franklin's Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America (1784).[52]
^W. B. Patterson, King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom (1997), pp. 50,86
^Roland Mousnier, The Assassination of Henry IV: The Tyrannicide Problem and the Consolidation of the French Absolute Monarchy in the Early 17th Century, Part II (1973 English translation)
^Decree 1 of Confession states: "We believe in one God, true, almighty, and infinite, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; the Father unbegotten; the Son begotten of the Father before the ages, and consubstantial with Him; and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, and consubstantial with the Father and the Son. These three Persons in one essence we call the All-holy Trinity, — by all creation to be ever blessed, glorified, and adored" (
Calvinism as Heresy).
Esler, Philip F. The Early Christian World. Routledge (2004).
ISBN0-415-33312-1.
White, L. Michael. From Jesus to Christianity. HarperCollins (2004).
ISBN0-06-052655-6.
Freedman, David Noel (Ed). Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing (2000).
ISBN0-8028-2400-5.
Pelikan, Jaroslav Jan. The Christian Tradition: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600). University of Chicago Press (1975).
ISBN0-226-65371-4.