Gabriel de Magalhães

Gabriel de Magalhães (; 1610 – 6 May 1677), or gallicized as Gabriel Magaillans, was an early Portuguese Jesuit missionary to China who was one of the first Catholic missionaries to reach Sichuan. He also worked in Peking and founded the original St. Joseph's Church there.

Early life Magalhães was born in Pedrógão, Coimbra, Portugal, a member of the same family as Ferdinand Magellan.

Mission to China After first spending six years in the Portuguese colony of Goa, Magalhães arrived in Hangzhou in 1640. He was then sent to Chengdu in Sichuan and arrived in August 1642. He began a close association with fellow Jesuit Lodovico Buglio in Chengdu, and started to study Chinese under Buglio's guidance. Buglio would become his biographer 35 years later.

Both Magalhães and Buglio were pressed to serve under the rebel "King of the West", Zhang Xianzhong after Zhang captured Sichuan in 1644. Initially Magalhães wrote sympathetically of Zhang's attempts at empire-building in Chengdu, but became fearful when Zhang started his campaign of terror in Sichuan. They were taken to the Forbidden City in Peking in 1648 where they were well received by the Shunzhi emperor, and were given a church, house and income. He and Buglio undertook the construction of the original St. Joseph's Church in Peking (originally known as Dong Tang or Eastern Church). Magalhães was given the duty of maintaining various Western machinery, including the clocks at the court of the Shunzhi and Kangxi emperors. He built a number of mechanical devices, including a carillon and turret clock that played a Chinese tune on the hour. It was also translated into English the same year as A New History of China Containing a Description of the Most Considerable Particulars of that Vast Empire.

Magalhães also left works in Chinese – including the translation of De resurrectione carnis (復活論), which is part of the supplement to pars tertia of Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica (超性學要) previously partly translated into Chinese by Buglio.

Legacy Magalhães and his fellow missionaries left a positive impression on the Kangxi emperor who described them as "devoted to the public good." He went on:

"They have done nothing wrong, yet many Chinese have mistrusted them. However, We have always known that they are sincere and trustworthy. We have for many years carefully observed their behaviour and found that they have done absolutely nothing improper."

This recognition by the emperor laid the foundation for the edict of toleration of 1692.