Georgius Candidius (1597– 30 April 1647) was a

Dutch Reformed Church The Dutch Reformed Church (, , abbreviated NHK ) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the traditional denomination of the Dutch royal famil ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

Dutch Formosa The island of Taiwan, also commonly known as ''Formosa'', was partly under colonial rule by the Dutch Republic from 1624 to 1662 and from 1664 to 1668. In the context of the Age of Discovery, the Dutch East India Company established its presence ...

from 1627 to 1637. He was the first missionary to be stationed on the island.

Name

Candidius's

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

ate

first name First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared an ...

is sometimes Germanified to Georg or

Anglicized Anglicisation or anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by the culture of England. It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English place adopts the English language ...

to George.Campbell, ''Sketches''
p. 336
He sinified it as , whose modern

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

romanization In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...

is ''Gān Zhìshì''.

Biography

Candidius was born in 1597 at

Kirchardt Kirchardt () is a town in the district of Heilbronn in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Geography Kirchardt is in the north-west of Heilbronn and belongs to the outskirts of the Stuttgart Metropolitan Region. Starting in the north and proceeding in ...

in the Palatinate. He studied at

Leiden Leiden ( ; ; in English language, English and Archaism, archaic Dutch language, Dutch also Leyden) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Nethe ...

in the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...

from 1621 to 1623, when he was persuaded by Sebastiaen Dankaerts to minister overseas. Before arriving in

Formosa Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The island of Taiwan, formerly known to Westerners as Formosa, has an area of and makes up 99% of the land under ROC control. It lies about across the Taiwan Strait f ...

in 1627 Candidius worked in Ternate,

Moluccas The Maluku Islands ( ; , ) or the Moluccas ( ; ) are an archipelago in the eastern part of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located in West Melanesi ...

. Having arrived in Taiwan he refused to live in the Dutch castle Zeelandia and settled in the native village of Sinckan (modern-day Sinshih) instead. In 1632 he married

Saartje Specx Saartje Specx (1617–1636) was the daughter of Jacques Specx, governor of the North Quarter of the Dutch East India Company's (VOC's) Asian trading empire, and a Japanese concubine. Saartje (Sara in English) was born at the Dutch trading base on ...

, daughter of

Governor-General Governor-general (plural governors-general), or governor general (plural governors general), is the title of an official, most prominently associated with the British Empire. In the context of the governors-general and former British colonies, ...

Jacques Specx Jacques Specx (; 1585 – 22 July 1652) was a Dutch merchant, who founded the trade on Japan and Korea in 1609. Jacques Specx received the support of William Adams to obtain extensive trading rights from Tokugawa Ieyasu, the ''shōgun'' emeritu ...

. Specx had previously evoked a scandal in Batavia and Holland when she was discovered making love to a young soldier in the private quarters of Specx's predecessor,

Jan Pieterszoon Coen Jan Pieterszoon Coen (; 8 January 1587 – 21 September 1629) was a Dutch naval officer of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the early 17th century, holding two terms as governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. He was the founder of ...

, who was known for his harsh

discipline Discipline is the self-control that is gained by requiring that rules or orders be obeyed, and the ability to keep working at something that is difficult. Disciplinarians believe that such self-control is of the utmost importance and enforce a ...

. Narrowly escaping a death sentence, she was flogged and her lover beheaded.Specx, Sara (1616/1617-ca. 1636)
/ref> After a year in residence in the region of Tayouan (present-day

Tainan Tainan (), officially Tainan City, is a Special municipality (Taiwan), special municipality in southern Taiwan, facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and commonly called the "Taiwan Prefecture, ...

), Candidius commented regarding his missionary duties that: Candidius returned to the Netherlands in 1639 and went to Batavia (

Jakarta Jakarta (; , Betawi language, Betawi: ''Jakartè''), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta (; ''DKI Jakarta'') and formerly known as Batavia, Dutch East Indies, Batavia until 1949, is the capital and largest city of Indonesia and ...

) in the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

(

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

) in 1643. There, he served as rector of the Latin school until his death on 30 April 1647.

Sun-Moon Lake Sun Moon Lake ( zh, t=, p=Rìyuè tán, poj= ; Thao: ''Zintun'') is a lake in Yuchi Township, Nantou County, Taiwan. It is the largest body of water in Taiwan. The area around the lake is home to the Thao people, one of Taiwan's indigenous e ...

in central Taiwan was named ''Lake Candidius'' in his honour and is referred to thus in older English writings, although this name was not adopted by the local inhabitants and later fell into disuse.

Published works

* *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Candidius, George Protestant missionaries in Taiwan Dutch Protestant missionaries Dutch expatriates in Taiwan 1597 births 1647 deaths People from Tainan People from Heilbronn (district) People from Dutch Formosa Dutch Reformed Church missionaries Dutch East India Company people