Johann Adam Schall von Bell, SJ (Chinese 湯若望, Pinyin: Tāng Ruòwàng; * 1 May 1592 probably in Lüftelberg or Cologne; † 15 August 1666 in Beijing) was a scientist, Jesuit and missionary.

Schall von Bell was descended from the Rhenish noble family of Schall zu Bell. The sources name Lüftelberg (today part of the town of Meckenheim) or Cologne, where the family had a town house, as the probable place of birth. Presumably after an initial private education, he attended the Gymnasium Tricoronatum in Cologne, which was run by Jesuits at the time. The decision to apply to Rome in 1607 to study primarily mathematics and astronomy at the Collegium Germanicum there could be connected with the outbreak of the plague in Cologne. In any case, his parents soon sent him to Rome, although the application was rejected for a year because of Adam’s still youthful age. In Rome, a mediation then enabled him to gain early access to the Collegium.

Schall completed his education at the Collegium and entered the Jesuit Order in Rome in 1611. After the novitiate, he transferred to the Collegio Romano in 1613; there he studied theology, but also continued to study mathematics and astronomy, especially with Christoph Grienberger.

A group of Jesuits led by the procurator Nicolas Trigault set out from Lisbon on 17 April 1618 on a journey to China, where the Order maintained a missionary branch in Peking. The travelling party included Johann Schreck (Latinised: Johannes Terrentius; *1576), a student of Galileo from near Constance, Giacomo Rho (*1592 or 1593; † 1638) from Milan and Adam Schall. On 22 July 1619, the group reached China and the small Portuguese colony of Macao opposite the coastal city of Canton. The arrivals had to stay here for four years because the Jesuit missionaries in Beijing had just been expelled from the Chinese court. The group used their stay in Macao to learn the Chinese language.

The group got into an early colonialist dispute. A Dutch naval commando attempted to conquer Macao. The missionaries took part in the military defence; they had sufficient knowledge of weaponry, repaired four old cannons and used them to drive the attackers away. Schall himself is said to have captured the Dutch captain.

The military incident became known in Beijing. They were interested in the expert people from Europe. In 1623, the Jesuit group was able to settle in Beijing. From 1627 to 1630 Schall was active as a pastor in Singanfu (today Xi’an). From 1630 he worked again in Peking.

In this year, he published the “Treatise on the Telescope” in Chinese. In it, there is a drawing of the planetary system in which the Earth is at the centre, the Sun and the Moon revolve around the Earth and the planets in turn revolve around the Sun. This corresponded to the theories of the astronomer Tycho Brahe (*1546; † 1601), which were tolerated by the Church. It is quite doubtful whether Schall still shared this world view or whether he did not already secretly follow the ideas of Nicolaus Copernicus like other Jesuit contemporaries. It was the time when the Vatican threatened Galileo.

In 1630, Schall, together with Giacomo Rho, was commissioned by the imperial court to carry out an elaborate reform of the Chinese calendar, work that had just been taken up by Johann Schreck but then abandoned because of his death. As proof of the legitimate rule of the respective ruler, the calendar had political significance. For this commission, Schall had to translate reference books written in Latin into Chinese, set up a school for mathematical calculations and have astronomical instruments modernised. It speaks for Schall’s Copernican world view and confessional political openness that the Protestant Johannes Kepler, in contact with Schall, sent his Rudolphine Tables to Peking in 1632 to support the calendar work. In 1634 Schall built the first Galilean telescope in Peking. In 1635 the calendar work was published.

Schall and the other Jesuits made parallel efforts to Christianise a class of Chinese citizens and court officials. Here a community was formed in which Chinese views, habits and rites entered into a symbiosis with Christian views and ways of life. The coexistence with Confucianism, the retention of ancestor veneration among Chinese baptised as Christians and also the name of God used by the Jesuits, “Tian Zhu” (Lord of Heaven) - these and other things met with opposition from Dominicans and Franciscans who were also in Beijing and reported their complaints to Rome. The rites dispute flared up in the Vatican.

In 1640 Schall translated Georgius Agricola’s “De re metallica” into Chinese and presented the work at the imperial court. In 1642 he directed the production of a hundred cannons for the imperial house. In 1644 he was appointed president of the Imperial Astronomical Institute after repeatedly making successful astronomical predictions. Between 1651 and 1661, he was also one of the most important advisors to the first Manzhu emperor, Shunzhi, to whom Schall, who had come to the throne as a child in 1644, had been a fatherly teacher. Shunzhi even promoted Schall to Mandarin 1st Class in 1658.

When Emperor Shunzhi died suddenly in 1661, Schall initially retained his posts. After an interim calming down, the rite dispute had been reignited as a result of a Dominican visitation in Beijing. Schall found himself facing a Roman accusation. His political-scientific offices now also provoked considerable criticism: In the Vatican, the view strengthened that Jesuits should not actually hold secular offices.

In 1664 Schall suffered a stroke, the consequences of which limited his ability to speak. Opponents at court took advantage of this to accuse him of having provoked the death of the ruler at the time: He had deliberately miscalculated the time and place of the funeral of one of Shunzhi’s sons. The charges, which also concerned other Jesuits, were high treason, belonging to a religious community incompatible with the right order, and spreading false astronomical teachings. Schall was imprisoned over the winter of 1664/65. Jesuits who were not charged were expelled to Canton. On 15 April 1665 Schall was found guilty after a show trial.

Because of his disability he had to be defended by his confrere Ferdinand Verbiest, who in the meantime was working in Peking. The Ministry of Justice was responsible for the sentencing. Here, with the approval of the imperial regent, they decided on the cruellest death penalty provided for in criminal law: Dismemberment while fully conscious. But when a violent earthquake occurred shortly before the execution date, the judges interpreted this as a divine response and proof of Schall’s innocence. On 15 May 1665, Schall was released from prison at the behest of the new Emperor Kangxi. He died in the Jesuit mission in Beijing on 15 August 1666 at the age of 74, without the church trial having come to an end.