Book contents
- A Jewish Jesuit in the Eastern Mediterranean
- A Jewish Jesuit in the Eastern Mediterranean
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Becoming a Jewish Jesuit: Eliano’s Early Years
- 2 Jesuit Missionary or Jewish Renegade? Eliano’s Confrontation with His Jewish Past
- 3 Jesuit Anti-Judaism and the Fear of Eliano’s Jewishness on the First Mission to the Maronites of Lebanon
- 4 Textual Transmission, Pastoral Ministry, and the Re-Fashioning of Eliano’s Intellectual Training
- 5 Revisiting Eliano’s Jewishness on His Return to Egypt
- 6 The Coptic Mission, Mediterranean Geopolitics, and the Mediation of Eliano’s Jewish and Catholic Identities
- 7 Eliano’s Reconciliation with His Jewishness in His Later Years
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Textual Transmission, Pastoral Ministry, and the Re-Fashioning of Eliano’s Intellectual Training
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2019
- A Jewish Jesuit in the Eastern Mediterranean
- A Jewish Jesuit in the Eastern Mediterranean
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Becoming a Jewish Jesuit: Eliano’s Early Years
- 2 Jesuit Missionary or Jewish Renegade? Eliano’s Confrontation with His Jewish Past
- 3 Jesuit Anti-Judaism and the Fear of Eliano’s Jewishness on the First Mission to the Maronites of Lebanon
- 4 Textual Transmission, Pastoral Ministry, and the Re-Fashioning of Eliano’s Intellectual Training
- 5 Revisiting Eliano’s Jewishness on His Return to Egypt
- 6 The Coptic Mission, Mediterranean Geopolitics, and the Mediation of Eliano’s Jewish and Catholic Identities
- 7 Eliano’s Reconciliation with His Jewishness in His Later Years
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter follows Eliano’s successful mission in Lebanon, which included the preparation of a printing press in Rome, sending Lebanese seminarians to Italy, a general synod, and dozens of pastoral visits to Lebanese villages. Nevertheless, his superiors remained skeptical of him. In turn, Eliano needed to find new ways to prove to his superiors that he could lead. In previous missions, he relied on his missionary empathy and emphasized that he alone could aid in conversion because of his own experiences. In this mission, Eliano emphasized his textual and pastoral skills that were grounded in his knowledge of Semitic languages as well as knowledge of colloquial Arabic. He also used his knowledge of scriptural exegesis to liken himself to biblical heroes of the faith, such as the prophet Elijah or John the Baptist – his namesakes. Given that his ability to do all of this was honed during his Jewish youth, Eliano surreptitiously promoted himself to his superiors as the only Jesuit who could safeguard the Maronites. This allowed Eliano to bolster his status as Jesuit by emphasizing his Jewishness while successfully distancing himself from anxieties that he was a crypto-Jew.
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- A Jewish Jesuit in the Eastern MediterraneanEarly Modern Conversion, Mission, and the Construction of Identity, pp. 119 - 149Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019