SCHALL
520
SCHALL
Grmu hist. ScHpl.: XVII (Hanover, ISOl), 334-.50: Necrologium
Srh^ftlar., loc. cit.; Necrologia. Ill (Hanover, 1905), 116-33;
SciiEGLSlAN'X, GeschirfUe der S&kularisntion in rechtrheinischen
Baycrn, III, Pt. II (R;Uisbon, 190S), 341-50.
Klemexs Loffler.
Schall von Bell, Johann Adam, an especially prominent figure among the missionaries to China, b. of an important family at Cologne in 1591; d. at Poking, 15 Aug., 1666. He studied at Rome, where he entered the Society of Jesus on 20 Oct., 1611. After liis novitiate and some years devoted to philo.sophy and theology he asked to be sent on the missions and in April, 161S, he set sail from Lisbon for China. When he reached Macao (1619) the Chinese Christian settlements were still deeply troubled by the war waged against them since 1615 by the high mandarin Kio Shin. Four of the chief mi.ssionaries, two of them from Peking, had been expelled and conducted to Macao ; the others had only escaped the same fate through the devotion of some Christian mandarins who hid them in their houses. It was only in 1622, when the per- secution began to relax, that Schall could penetrate to the interior. lie laboured first at Si-ngan-fu in Shen-si. His ministry, which for a long time was difficult and thwarted, had ju.st begun to afford him great consolation when he was summoned to Peking in 1630. He had to replace Father Terrentius (deceased) in the work of reforming the Chi- ne.se calendar. The task was far removed from his ordinary duties of the apostolate but it was one on which the future of the mission then flepended.
In China the establishment of the annual calentlar was from time immemorial one of the mo.st important affairs of State. The official astronomers who were entrusted therewith composed the " Board of Mathematics " ; there were 200 members in this board, which was divided into several sections, presided over by exalted mandarins. They had to make known in advance the astronomical situation for the whole year, the days of new and full moons, movements of the 8un with the dates of its entrance into each of the twenty-eight constellations forming the Chinese zo- diac, the times of the solstices and equinoxes, and the beginnings of 8ea.sons, the positions and conjunctions of planets, finally, and especially, eclipses of the moon as well as of the sun. For tlicsc announcements the Chinese had several emj)iriral rules, inherited from their ancestors, and fspcfiHlly those which the Mo- hammedan astronomers had brought to China dur- ing the Yuen, or Mongol, dynasty. These rules were insufficient to prevent errors, which were sometimes very serious, and, having no scientific principle, the Chinese astronomers were incapable of discovering the defects of their methods and calculations, far less correcting them. Here was an opportunity for the missionaries to render a service and thus do much to strengthen their position in China. This hafl already been well understood by the founder of the mission. Father Matteo Ricci; his direct offer of assistance would have been ill received, but he had di.screetly inspired in the most intelligent of the Chinese literati a desire for his aid. A translation of the Catholic liturgical calendar which he had communicated in MS. to his neophytes had very greatly excited this
.loHANN Adam Schall vc
From a portrait discovered in the 01
wish. That the mission might be ready for the offi-
cial appeal which would come sooner or later he re-
peatedly urged the general of the Society to send a
good astronomer, and in 1606 Father Sabbatino de
Ursis, a Neapolitan, arrived.
Father Ricci had been dead but a few months when because of the mistake of an hour by the Board of Mathematics in the announcement of an eclipse, the Government decided to request the aid of the mission- aries for its tangled astronomy. At the beginning of 1611 an imperial decree entrusted the missionaries with the correction of the calendar and requested them to translate books containing the rules of Euro- pean astronomy. Father de Ursis at once undertook this task, assisted by two Christian doctors, Paul Siu Koang and Leon Li-ngo-tsen, but the work was scarcely begun when it was halted by the intrigues of the native astronomers. Then the persecution of Kio Shin forced Father Sabbatino and his com- panion. Father Diego Tan toya, to withdraw to Macao, where both ended their dajvs. Never- theless these same illustrious neophytes, who had saved the mission from total ruin, suc- ceeded not only in securing other missionaries from Peking but in having confided to them anew the duties of official cor- rectors of the calendar. This mandate was renewed by an imi)erial decree of 27 Sept., 1629. The great Christian mandarin Paul Siu again re- sumed the high offices of which the persecution had deprived him and received by the same decree the direction of the re- form with full power for its ex- ecution. The fathers were certain of obtaining through him all the means necessary for the success of the under- taking. The first missionary to resume the work was unable to devote to it his remarkable abilities for any length of time. This was Father John Terrentius, or to call him by his true name, Schreck. Born at Constance on Lake Geneva in 1576, he embraced the religious life in Rome at the age of thirty-five being then in possession of an enviable renown as physician, botanist, and mathematician. The Academia dei Lincei (founded at Rome by Prince Frederico Cesi) had admitted him among its earliest members; here he had as colleague Galilei, whose discoveries he followed with sympathy. In his first letters from China, which he had entered secretly in 1621, we find Father Terrentius endeavouring "to obtain from the Florentine astronomer through the mediation of mutual friends, "a calculation of the eclipses, especially solar, according to the new observa- tions", for he says, "this is supremely necessary to us for the correction of the [Chinese] calendar. And if there is any means by which we may escai)e expul- sion from the empire it is this". This learned mis- sionary died prematurely on 13 May, 1630, and Father Schall was summoned to Peking to noplace him. Father James Rho, a native of Milan, who had also come from Europe to China in 1618, and who since 1624 had been working in the Christian settle- ments, was also called to the capital to assist Leather Schall in his scientific undertaking.
Th(! task imposed on the two missionaries was very difficult; they had not only to convince the Chinese of the errors of their calendar, but also to make them
- Bkll
crvatory,
Prague
