"Flowers" among "Thorns of Idolatry" The Christian East, Gender and Writing in the Portuguese Empire (Agostinho de Santa Maria, eighteenth century)
Agostinho de Santa Maria. Portugal. East. Female Spirituality. Gender.
The purpose of this research is to analyze the religious writings of Friar Agostinho de Santa Maria on the reports of the lives of Eastern (Japanese and Cochin) women converted to Catholic Christianity during a mission in Japan and Cochinchina between the middle of the 16th century and the first half of the XVII. The disclosure of these lives was made by the author with the publication of two laudatory works of feminine spirituality which gave the name of Roses of Japam and Roses of Japam and Cochinchina. For the author, the importance of "giving news" of these lives was justified by the mission of providing the "Christian trolls of the kingdom" with the examples of the Eastern Christian devotees who were born among the thorns of "blind gentility" and "abominable idolatry" of strength in the face of tribulations, persecutions and martyrdom suffered during the persecution and banishment of Christianity in their respective "kingdoms." It is our intention to analyze the methodology applied by the author in the making of such works, as well as to identify which were, for Santa Maria, the social and religious conduct considered by the author as ideals to Christian behavior. It adds to this question the fact that the books of Augustine de Santa Maria not only highlight the religious sensibilities reinforced by the counterreformist Church, but also reveal a model of virtuous life for women in societies markedly misogynist and therefore we also seek to understand the religious discourses of virtue and moral valid in the Portuguese Seventy and transmitted by the author as guarantors of a perfect Christian life.