would not serve under Indian bishops, of whatever caste. Nor was there any prospect of the Brahmins making any impact on Christian rites or dogma. The irony in De Nobili's case is that the low-caste converts to whom he handed the eucharis on a stick were far more numerous even in his mission than any other Indian element. The low-castes often welcomed Christianity enthusiastically; only among them was it possible to effect mass-baptism. Hence some of the friars, especially Franciscans, wanted to concentrate on this approach. But for this to be successful meant the presentation of Christianity in its primitive, revolutionary form (as, of course, St Francis would have wished). Neither the hierarchy in the East, nor Rome - nor indeed most of the missionary clergy - wanted the millenium. The Portuguese secular authorities and merchants (and, later their French and British successors) had no desire to subvert society, which would have meant conflict with the Mohammedans as well as the Indian princes; on the contrary, they were anxious to work through, and reinforce, the existing structure and hierarchy. Hence the missionary effort fell neatly between two stools: neither Asian’ Christianity nor ‘pure’ Christianity was offered. Instead, the Indians were presented with European Christianity, and rejected it. In China the missionaries did not face the problem of caste. But this meant there was less chance of adopting the strategy of conversions from the base. Indeed, it is hard to see how it could have been used unless as part of a deliberate plan to subvert the whole of Chinese government and society, something the sixteenth century Catholic Church could not have contemplated. In any event, it was not considered, since the first on the scene were the elitist Jesuits, in the steps of St Francis Xavier, who regarded China as the key to the Christianization of Asia. They deemed it essential to work through the imperial court. But that meant a confrontation with one of the oldest, most arrogant and least adaptable civilizations in the world, whose moral philosophy was permeated with powerful concepts such as Confucian ancestor-worship. The alternative to confrontation was alliance, in which Christianity would have to play the role of junior, and humble, partner. This, in effect, was the strategy the Jesuits tried to adopt. Chinese imperial policy admitted only subject tribute-payers, Mohammedan merchants, and foreigners ‘lured by the good fame of Chinese virtues. They did not welcome European Christians. A local south China chronicle, c. 1520, gives their first recorded experience of the Christians (in fact Portuguese): ‘Some time near the end of Chin-Te's reign, a people not recognized as tributary to China known as the Freights, together with a crowd of riff: raff, filtered into the harbor between Tun Mun and Kwait Ch'ung and set up barracks and forts, mounted many cannons to make war, captured islands, killed people, robbed ships and terrorized the population by their fierce dominion over the coast. Hence the first Jesuit to penetrate to the imperial court, Father Matthew Ricci, spent seventeen years, 15831600, insinuating his way there, and his approach was suitably supplicatory: ‘Despite the distance, fame told me of the remarkable teaching and fine institutions with which the imperial court has endowed all its people. | desire to share these advantages and live out my life as one of Your Majesty's subjects, hoping in return to be of some small use.' The Jesuits and other Christians in China had to accept that the Chinese ruling class regarded them as learners, not teachers; and, initially at least, the only tolerable form of instruction the Chinese would take was in practical matters rather than the realm of ideas and concepts. The Jesuits operated through science, mathematics and mechanics. Ricci presented the Emperor Wan-Li with a clock in 1601, and then drew a map showing China as the centre of the world. By the time he died in 1610 he had established himself at the court. The salient was enlarged by Father Adam Schall over nearly half a century. He was able to demonstrate errors in the calculations of the Moslem astronomers at court, and was eventually made director of the Chinese observatory and minister for mathematics, with the title ‘Master of the Mysteries of Heaven’. To the Chinese court Christianity was 'the religion of the great Schall’, thus making its appearance as an Epiphenomenon of physical science in an age when the papacy had 101]