Against the oblivion: Mathias Tanner (1630-92) and the jesuit martyrs of Southern Philippines (17th century)

Abstract

The blood of the martyrs, as Michel de Certeau (1995) said, is the metaphor of grace. In the middle of the 17th century, the individual or compiled martyrdoms, which were consumed to edify the faithful, represented the culmination of the Roman Catholic martyrdom consciousness that started in the last decades of the 16th century and was popularized in the images of suffering and piety transmitted by their protagonists. In this article I analyze some of the works of Mathias Tanner, SJ (1630-92), in particular, the Societas Jesu usque ad sanguinis et vitae profusionem militans in Europa, Africa, Asia et America (1675), an illustrated work that presents the martyrs of the Jesuit Company on every continent (with the exception of Oceania). In line with the global phenomenon of martyrdom proposed by the Bohemian provincial, I read the communicational and iconic system of the universalist project of the Society of Jesus in the Southern islands of the Philippines. Images of rejection and open hostility to the Muslim exchange networks from Mindanao and Joló, but also those from Macassar, Borneo and the Moluccas, have maintained the Christians of Manila, reinforcing their self-perception of a "us-Jesuits" against the “them-pagans” in frontier mission spaces.