Late-Ming Book Culture and the Fujian Christian Community: a Case Study of Lixiu yijian 勵修一鑑 (A Mirror to Encourage Self-cultivation)

Abstract

Abstract This study demonstrates the importance of book culture in the building of a religious community and in the preservation and interpretation of local experiences, through the making of a book titled Lixiu yijian 勵修一鑑 (A mirror to encourage self-cultivation) around 1645. The main author, Li Jiugong 李久功, mobilized members of the Fujian Christian community to collaborate on this communal book project outside the Christian church. Both xylographic print culture and manuscript culture were involved in the process and in the final product of this project. Through genre affiliation, content categorization, and the addition of commentaries, Li and his associates transformed the diverse source materials into a cohesive guidebook for their fellow Christian readers. The book provided Chinese references or contexts to stories of Western origin. Meanwhile, it also portrayed a group image of devoted and resourceful local Chinese Christians among their Western peers, thus promoting Chinese Christians’ experience as an invaluable part of a universal religious system.