The translation of Saints and the Confucian discourse of sages in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century China: the examples of Alfonso Vagnone, Zhang Xingyao and Yan Mo

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since the publication of Matteo Ricci's Tianzhu shiyi, sheng 聖 was commonly accepted as the translation of Catholic saints in China. A closer study, however, suggests that the use of sheng as the translation of saints was not an unquestioned process. In fact, the use of sheng diverged soon after the death of Matteo Ricci and disagreements continued at least into the early eighteenth century in the Catholic circle in China. This article seeks to deepen the understanding about the use of sheng as translation of saints in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century China. I focus on the examples of Alfonso Vagnone, Zhang Xingyao and Yan Mo, who represented three different approaches to sheng as the translation of saints in relation to sheng in reference to sages in the Confucian tradition. As we know, the Catholic Church eventually took the solution suggested by Yan Mo, who advocated referring to both Catholic saints and Confucian sages as sheng while maintaining a clear distinction between the two groups. But, before the decision was made in the twentieth century, there was much tension and complexity to translating the concept of Catholic saints as sheng.