Important studies by nine specialists who participated in a symposium held at the University of Macerata in 2015 are here presented by the editors. The aim of the investigative team was to conduct research and analyze sixteenth- and seventeenth-century conversion narratives that reached Rome. Jesuits appear in most chapters, partly the result of their predominant role in parts of the first global empire. The text is divided into three sections: “Thinking Conversion and Violence,” “Conversion and Missions: Practicing Violence?,” and “Narrating and Occulting Violence: Tales of Conversion.” Each part includes three chapters, some concentrating on a region, others on a country or a theme.
The book's title implies that it centers on debates about the injustice of forced conversions. That is not the case. The editors suggest that although violence has been associated with conversion, on a certain level people may have found it expedient to ask for protections and accept conversion, while modifying or camouflaging their true identities and faith. As contributors probe theological and historiographic issues, they challenge recent interpretations, stimulating readers to reconsider and reevaluate the relation between violence and conversion.
Jesuits take center stage; their discipline, stress on education, and meticulous recordkeeping give historians rich sources to explore. Girolamo Imbruglia's inquiry into the Jesuit view of sacrifice in evangelization and martyrdom provides an appropriate beginning for the book. The Jesuit position was based initially on Ignatius of Loyola, who adapted some humanistic Erasmian views on the nature of Christ's life to convert by example and word. Joachimite millenarianism and concepts of Spain's Alumbrados also contributed to the thinking of the sixteenth-century Jesuits. Ignatius was concerned about the company's aims: should they focus on prayer, charity, and meditation, or active soldiering for the church? Facing the growing success of the Protestant Reformers, the Jesuits acted quickly to concentrate on conversion, embracing martyrdom as framed at the Council of Trent. Carlos Zeron in the subsequent chapter examines theologians’ positions on forced conversion, beginning with Thomas Aquinas and Francisco de Victoria, then continuing to specific actions and arguments by several Jesuits working in the South Atlantic. Zeron found Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta willing to use force in Portuguese Brazil to establish stable civic conditions to allow success. Adone Agnolin also studies Jesuit efforts in Brazil in a noteworthy chapter centering on teaching the catechism, written in 1618 by Antonio de Araújo, in Tupi.
Christian Windler probes the challenges to convert Muslims in Safavid Persia, where both Discalced Carmelites and Jesuits took a soft approach with only temporary success. Pedro Lage Correia examines internal divisions among Jesuits regarding how to react to violence inflicted on them by the Japanese. As Sabina Pavone points out, conversion efforts were perhaps more complex in South India, especially when after 1622, Franciscans, Jesuits, and Carmelites were joined by the secular clergy to minister to Portuguese settlers and convert the Indians.
Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia presents a convincing portrayal of Jesuit Matteo Ricci's acceptance of the Chinese banquet as an ideal locale for interactions, disputations, and the exchange of ideas in order to secure a position permitting continued residence. Vincenzo Lavenia next reviews the miracle of Mary's home in Nazareth, supposedly transferred by angels to Croatia, then Italy, after the Ottoman Turks’ victories. In the sixteenth century, the Jesuits, after soul-searching and verification of the story's authenticity, assumed its administration. Numerous books were written as Loreto's fame as a pilgrimage site grew from the Mediterranean to the Americas and Japan, with tales of miracles. Next, Chiara Petrolini gives a brief account of Tommaso Campanella's doomed 1599 rebellion against Spanish rule in Italy; he was imprisoned for decades and saved from death by claiming madness. Her important deconstruction of Campanella's unpublished massive Quod Reminiscentur, written in 1606–18 during his confinement, covers a variety of theological issues, advocating free will and logical argumentation instead of violence in conversion.
The book is not for the novice—contributors expect readers to be versed in complex theological texts. Nonetheless, because of the historical issues it raises and the relevancy of the past to current global developments, the book should be of interest to specialists and the educated public at large.
