VERBIEST, FERDINAND. — Jesuit, missionary, and astronomer at the Court of Peking, born at Pitthem, near Courtrai (Belgium), on 29 October 1623, died at Peking on 28 January 1688.
He entered the Order in 1641 and, having completed his studies at Seville, departed in 1658 with 35 other missionaries for China. Arriving there in 1659, he worked for some time in Shen-si; then, in 1660, he was summoned to Peking as collaborator and eventual successor of Fr. Adamo Schall in the direction of the astronomical Observatory founded by him. The persecution of 1664, instigated during the minority of the Emperor K'ang-hsi, threw him into prison; but the resounding victory he achieved in an astronomical contest with the persecuting mandarin, who had taken the place of Fr. Schall as president of the Tribunal of Mathematics, restored European science to honor and procured for him and his companions the freedom to resume preaching. In 1666 V. succeeded Fr. Schall in the presidency of the Tribunal, increasingly accompanied by the esteem and confidence of the Emperor, who wished for five months to be his constant pupil in learning the sciences and Christian doctrine; and V. for a long time nourished the hope of converting him, which did not come to pass. For him V. constructed six astronomical instruments, all in brass and artistically wrought, which are still preserved and, until the Boxer War of 1900, could be seen on the tower of the Imperial Palace, where V. had placed them. He also cast 132 cannons, of considerably greater power than those possessed by the Chinese. Raised by the Emperor to the first grade of the second order of mandarins, V. used his high position for the successful advancement of the missionary enterprise, which he also directed as vice-provincial from 1676 to 1680. Against the accusations, carried as far as Rome, of Fr. F. D. Navarrete concerning the method employed by the Jesuit missionaries, V. was able to send a full defense of his conduct, which earned him from Innocent XI, by the brief of 3 December 1681, an ample justification for his worthy scientific work, so useful to the faith and the conversion of the pagans.
As vice-provincial he vigorously pleaded the cause of the indigenous clergy and that of introducing the Chinese language into theology and the liturgy; for this reason he sought to obtain confirmation of the concessions already granted by Paul V in 1615, and sent the Pope, as a gift, the Chinese version of the Missal made by Fr. L. Buglio. For the Emperor and for the Christians he composed many short works on religion, astronomy, physics, mechanics, and geography. Worthy of particular remembrance, besides his numerous correspondence, are his Astronomia eterna dell'Imperatore K'ang-hsi (32 vols., Peking 1678), in which he determined the courses of the planets and solar and lunar eclipses for the following 2,000 years; and the Manuale della dottrina cattolica (ibid. 1669; published several times and translated into Tatar, Korean, and French), which the Emperor, because of its classical style, wished to have catalogued among the books of the imperial library. His tomb is at Ciala, near Peking, beside those of Fr. Ricci and Fr. Schall.