Adjustments to the “Accommodation Strategy” of the Early Jesuit Mission in China: The Case of Michele Ruggieri's Tianzhu shilu (1584) and its Revised Edition (ca. 1640)

Abstract

Michele Ruggieri, the first Jesuit who obtained permission to live in China, had to make many subtle adjustments in the process of introducing Catholicism to China, and those adjustments require a careful scholarly examination. His True Record of the Lord of Heaven (Tianzhu shilu, 1584), the first book published in China by a European writer, is a pioneering work that has long been overlooked or misunderstood. Some fifty years later, the work was revised and republished, but the reason for the revised edition has remained largely unexplained. This article first presents the composition of the True Record of the Lord of Heaven, then analyses the content of the first printed version in 1584, as well as its immediate reception. After a comparative analysis of the two versions, the article then explains why the work was revised and takes this as a starting point to discuss the different “accommodation strategy” types adopted by the early Jesuits coming to China.