News in Jesuit Studies
The following are notices of significant events related to the field of Jesuit Studies.
The notices appear chronologically, and all entries are indexed into the Portal’s search capabilities.
To contribute news of significant publications and events, both recent and forthcoming, please contact the Portal’s editors (jesuitportal@bc.edu)
The Jesuit Historical Institute (Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu – IHSI) in Rome has published two new titles on the early modern Jesuit missions in India and Japan. Both titles are available for purchase via: http://www.sjweb.info/arsi/en/publications/
Testing Ground for Jesuit Accommodation in Early Modern India: Francisco Ros SJ in Malabar (16th–17th Centuries) is authored by Antony Mecherry, SJ. According to IHSI, Mecherry “explores the underlying dynamics of the accommodation experiments led by Francisco Ros SJ (1559–1624)—a Catalonian from the Jesuit province of Aragón—in the cultural and religious terrain of Malabar, in particular, among the region’s Christian communities.”
Later missionary work in India, such as that of Roberto de Nobili, is only understood by first examining these earlier efforts by Ros. “Most importantly,” IHSI continues, Testing Ground “underscores the Jesuit mission in early modern India as the crucial meeting point of some of the most prominent promoters of accommodation in the first century of the Society of Jesus,” such as Alessandro Valignano and Matteo Ricci.
IHSI has also published an edited volume by Giuseppe Marino: Crónicas desde las Indias Orientales: Segunda parte da História Eclesiástica de Japão y otros escritos por João Rodrigues “Tsûzu” SJ (c.1561-1633). João Rodrigues “Tsûzu” was a Portuguese Jesuit missioned to Japan, where he was known among the Japanese as “the Interpreter.” Rodrigues was also “one of the most important witnesses of the so-called ‘Christian century’ in Japan,” according to IHSI. This publication offers part of a text Rodrigues wrote while in exile in Macao.
IHSI explains how Marino’s publication provides “an important account of the early history of Christianity in Asia and the first Jesuit efforts to Christianize Japan in the mid-sixteenth century under the leadership of Francis Xavier.” The book also publishes other letters and works by Rodrigues. Marino offers an introduction in Spanish but also an preface in English. All 28 chapters of the text — and the accompanying papers — are also summarized in English.
Jesuit Philosophy on the Eve of Modernity presents eighteen essays on, according to Brill, “the origins and development of Jesuit philosophy during the first century of the Society of Jesus.” The publisher continues to note that the scholars contributing to this volume seek “to identify and examine the limits of the ‘distinctiveness’ of Jesuit philosophers during an age of dramatic turbulence in Western thought.”
The volume is edited by Cristiano Casalini — research scholar at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies and profess of Jesuit pedagogy at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. An interview with Casalini is available online at Youtube. Jesuit Philosophy on the Eve of Modernity is published as part of Brill’s Jesuit Studies book series.
The table of contents appears below. Record for this book and for each chapter are available in the Jesuit Online Bibliography.
Introduction
By: Cristiano Casalini
The Landscape
Philosophy in Jesuit Schools and Universities
By: Paul F. Grendler
Uniformitas et soliditas doctrinae: History, Topics, and Impact of Jesuit Censorship in Philosophy (1550–99)
By: Christoph Sander
The Disciplines
Knowledge
From Probability to the Sublime(s): Early Modern Jesuit Rhetoric; an Anti-philosophy or an Alternative Path to a Modern Idea of “Truth”?
By: Anne Régent-Susini
Jesuit Logic
By: E. Jennifer Ashworth
Jesuit Psychology and the Theory of Knowledge
By: Daniel Heider
Nature and Theological Concerns
Early Jesuit Philosophers on the Nature of Space
By: Paul Richard Blum
“Accedit Theologicum argumentum”: Discussing Transubstantiation in Commenting Aristotle; Commentarius Collegii Conimbricensis on Aristotle’s De generatione
By: Stefano Caroti
Action
A Juridicized Language for the Salvation of Souls: Jesuit Ethics
By: Christoph P. Haar
Political Thought
By: Erik De Bom
Authors
The Roman College
Francisco de Toledo: Setting a Standard for Jesuit Philosophy
By: Anna Tropia
Benet Perera: the Epistemological Question at the Heart of Early Jesuit Philosophy
By: Marco Lamanna
Madrid
Luis de Molina: The Metaphysics of Freedom
By: Alexander Aichele
Coimbra
Pedro da Fonseca’s Unfinished Metaphysics: the First Systematic Jesuit Metaphysics before Suárez
By: António Manuel Martins
Manuel de Góis: The Coimbra Course and the Definition of an Early Jesuit Philosophy
By: Mário S. de Carvalho
Francisco Suárez: A “New” Thomistic Realism
By: Benjamin Hill
Reverberations
Descartes and the Jesuits
By: Alfredo Gatto
John Locke and the Jesuits on Law and Politics
By: Elliot Rossiter
Jesuit Sources now offers two important Spanish-language spiritual texts at a discounted rate. Both Corazones Ardientes and Momento a Momento are now available as a bundle for only $20.
Corazones ardientes is the Spanish edition of the popular Hearts on Fire. It consists of 117 prayers, written by some 40 Jesuits from the time of the foundation of the Society through today. Some are paraphrases of material in the Spiritual Exercises; others are practical applications that grew out of retreat meditations. The prayers are organized within four “weeks” of the Exercises, but each group of selections is eclectic and diverse. The prayer of a Jesuit steeped in the piety of the 17th century may appear next to that of a modern social reformer, for example; a theologian’s reflections may follow thoughts of an parish priest.
Momento a Momento draws on the classic retreat model, the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, to offer a series of 32 “moments” that guide the reader with thought-provoking questions, practical suggestions, and excerpts carefully chosen from scripture and the Spiritual Exercises. Its simple format can be used by an individual or by groups in a number of ways: as a way of making the Spiritual Exercises in daily life, as a guide for daily prayer, as a companion for reflection, or as suggested themes for a retreat.
More information about these two texts is available at: http://jesuitsources.bc.edu/jesuit-sources-bundle-corazones-ardientes-y-momento-a-momento/