Xavier, Francis
1506–1552

Francis Xavier, the first great missionary of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), was born in Navarre, Spain, on April 7, 1506, and died on the island of Sancian, off the Chinese mainland, on December 3, 1552.

Xavier left his native Spain in 1525 to take up studies at the University of Paris. It was here that he met Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556) and other founding members of the future Society of Jesus. Xavier was at first resistant to Loyola's attempts to bring about a spiritual conversion in his life. By 1533, however, the two men had developed a close friendship and they were among the group of seven students who, on August 15, 1534, assembled at a chapel in Montmartre and took private vows of poverty and chastity.

After finishing their studies in Paris, the friends aimed to travel to Jerusalem to help in the work of converting the infidels. If this proved impossible (as it did), they pledged to visit Rome and allow the pope to use them in whatever way he thought "most useful to the glory of God and the good of souls." Official papal recognition of the new Society of Jesus arrived in September 1540 with the bull Regimini militantis ecclesiae.

At this stage, there was little, if any, talk of some of the activities (combating the burgeoning Protestant Reformation; setting up educational establishments) that would come to characterize the Society's history. However, it was not long before another familiar sphere of Jesuit endeavor began to open up. Over the next four centuries, Jesuit missionaries would travel extensively across Asia, Africa, and the Americas: in the vanguard of such efforts was Francis Xavier, who, in response to a request from the Portuguese king, departed for India on April 7, 1541.

Xavier would spend the next decade evangelizing across southern and eastern Asia. He spent several months in Goa, on the western coast of India, ministering to the sick in the city's hospitals and striving to win converts among the city's children. In October 1542 he traveled south to Cape Comorin, where, armed with prayers translated into Tamil, he worked among the local pearl-fishing community. A trip to Malacca (1545) and the Spice Islands (1546–1547) followed, after which Xavier turned his attentions to the two greatest evangelical prizes Asia had too offer: Japan and China.

Xavier arrived at Kagoshima, Japan, on August 15, 1549. He was immediately impressed by what he perceived as the enormous Japanese potential to understand and embrace the Christian gospel. "We shall never find among heathens another race equal to the Japanese," he wrote, "they are people of excellent minds—good in general and not malicious." Drawing broad, usually reductive, conclusions about the relative worth of various Asian populations would be a hallmark of Christian evangelism throughout the early modern era. Although Xavier met with some resistance from local Buddhist leaders, his two and a half years in cities such as Hirado, Kyoto, and Yamaguchi proved worthwhile. By the time of his departure in 1551 he had won over several thousand converts.

Xavier was back in Goa by January 1552. He set sail for China in May but was destined never to enter the empire's territories. He was taken ill on Sancian Island in late November and died on the morning of December 3, within sight of the Chinese mainland.

Throughout Xavier's Asian career the links between evangelism and the colonial enterprise were plain to see. Xavier was a papal legate, but he was also under commission from the Portuguese king, arriving in Goa on board the Santiago in the company of Governor Martim Afonso de Sousa (ca. 1500–1564). There were clear advantages to be wrung from the association with empire. The awe and fear that the European colonists inspired could always be exploited, and satisfaction could be derived from the compulsive European habit of destroying the idols and temples of indigenous faiths. Perhaps most significantly, it could be made abundantly clear to local leaders that allowing missionaries to work in their territories (perhaps even converting to Christianity themselves) might bring military, political, and economic advantages.

That said, Xavier was more than capable of criticizing what he perceived as the lax morality of European settlers. Also, while he shared the prejudices and assumptions of his contemporaries, he did make efforts to genuinely understand the cultures in which he found himself. This, along with a willingness to adapt evangelical strategies according to local circumstances, would emerge as a defining characteristic of Jesuit missionary activity across the globe. Such an ethos certainly carried serious risks.

The accommodationist approach of Jesuit missionaries such as Xavier, Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) in China, and Roberto de Nobili (1577–1656) in India drew enormous criticism from commentators who feared that too much adaptation of the gospel message would result in syncretic, impure versions of the Christian faith. Nor was the work of reacting to local circumstances ever straightforward. In Japan, Xavier had turned to words in the local vernacular to translate concepts such as god, soul, and sacrament. It turned out that he had been badly advised, and the meanings carried by the chosen Japanese words were very different from what Xavier had intended. He was forced to employ Japanese "versions" of Latin words—Deusu, anima, eucaristia—which, to a Japanese audience, were essentially devoid of any inherent meaning.

Perhaps Xavier's greatest significance lay in his role as an icon and model of all subsequent Jesuit missionary activity. Canonized in 1622, his memory would inspire priests from Ethiopia to New France to Arizona. Relics of the saint would be a much sought-after spiritual commodity during the seventeenth century. The lower part of his right arm would be shipped off to Rome, the remainder would be divided in three and shared between the Jesuit communities in Macao, Cochin, and Malacca. By the eighteenth century, "Xavier-Water," in which medals or relics of the saint had been immersed, had become a popular central-European cure for fevers and bad eyesight. Even today, his body, housed in the Church of the Bom Jesus in Goa, remains a cherished sight of pilgrimage and adoration.

see also China to the First Opium War; Mission, Civilizing; Missions, China; Religion, Western Presence in East Asia.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alden, Dauril. The Making of an Enterprise: The Society of Jesus in Portugal, its Empire, and Beyond, 1540–1750. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.

Brodrick, James. Saint Francis Xavier, 1506–1552. New York: Wicklow, 1952.

Coleridge, Henry, ed. The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, 4th ed., 2 vols. London: Burns and Oates, 1912.

Elison, George. Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973.

Neill, Stephen. A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Ross, Andrew. A Vision Betrayed: The Jesuits in Japan and China, 1542–1742. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1994.

Schurhammer, Georg. Francis Xavier: His Life, His Times, 4 vols. Translated by M. Joseph Costelloe. Rome: Jesuit Historical Institute, 1973–1982.