Suicide and Historical Forgetting in the Early Modern Chinese Missions

In 1628, the Jesuit missionary Nicolas Trigault died by suicide while in the field in Hangzhou, China. Suicide in the seventeenth century was regarded as a shameful act, often understood as an “unpardonable sin” in Catholic circles. The Society of Jesus’s immediate response was thus to clamp down on any news of the event, leading to archival suppressions and enforced silence. When it was mentioned, it was also linked with divisions among Jesuits over terminology signifying God, especially the word “Shangdi.” The result was that Trigault, a renowned and celebrated missionary and cross-cultural broker, was marginalized from later narratives about the Jesuit China mission. This article examines Trigault’s suicide, moving beyond medicalized theories to assert that this is not a story of a Catholic scandal, but of the tangible, human impacts of early modern globalization on a person plagued by ill-health and misfortune. This article argues that a closer examination of Trigault’s autographical sources can lead to a deeper appreciation of why he chose to end his life.