Thomas McClatchie’s Mythological Interpretation of the Yijing

Abstract

The Yijing captured considerable attention from Catholic missionaries in the early Qing era, as well as Protestant missionaries in the late Qing and Republican periods. This chapter attempts to examine the distinct mythological interpretation of the Yijing produced by the leading Protestant missionary Thomas McClatchie (1814–1885), an Irish Anglican missionary in Shanghai who published the first English translation of the classic in 1876. McClatchie’s pioneering attempt to introduce the Yijing to the English-speaking world from a mythological perspective came off as one of the earliest encounters between Christian theology and Chinese mythology amid the rise of the comparative study of mythology during the late nineteenth century. With this Christian encounter with Chinese mythology, McClatchie also expanded the possibilities of diversified interpretations of the ancient Chinese classic. This study carries out a close textual comparison between the original and translated texts in an effort to offer some explanations for the translation phenomena of these complicated cross-cultural activities, as well as to yield insights into the approaches to negotiating religious terms and concepts.