St. Paul Jesuit College (Macau)

St. Paul's College of Macau (Portuguese: Colégio de São Paulo) also known as College of Madre de Deus (Mater Dei in Latin) was a university founded in 1594 in Macau by Jesuits at the service of the Portuguese under the Padroado treaty. It claims the title of the first Western university in East Asia.

"St. Paul's University College of Macau" was funded by Alessandro Valignano in 1594 by upgrading the previous Madre de Deus school, as a stopover to prepare Jesuit missionaries traveling east. Its academic program came to include core disciplines such as theology, philosophy, and mathematics, geography, astronomy, and Latin, Portuguese and Chinese, including also a school of music and arts. It had immense influence on the learning of Eastern languages and culture, housing the first western sinologists Matteo Ricci, Johann Adam Schall von Bell and Ferdinand Verbiest, among many famous scholars of the time.

The College was the base for Jesuit missionaries travelling to China, Japan and East Asia, and developed mingled with a thrifty Macau-Nagasaki trade until 1645. After a revolt blamed on religious influence, Japan expelled the Portuguese and banned Catholicism, and the college became then a shelter for fleeing Christian priests. Jesuits abandoned it in 1762 when they were expelled by the Portuguese authorities, during the suppression of the Society of Jesus. The buildings were destroyed in a fire in 1835. In 2005, the ruins of St. Paul's - notably the facade of the Madre de Deus church - were officially enlisted as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site - Historic Centre of Macau.

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