Late Ming China Research Articles

Language, Friendship, and God: Jesuit Appropriation of Classical Legends for Evangelical Use in Late Ming China

Abstract Western Classicism came to Ming China through various channels including re-interpretations of “Aesop and His Tongues,” “Damon and Pythias,” and “The Sword of Damocles.” This paper traces ideas in these legends to sources in the Christian Bible and its related texts, and demonstrates how Jesuits recast these stories as vehicles for evangelizing Ming-dynasty intellectuals, with an obvious, ethical comparison of them with traditional Chinese texts.

Transwriting in Aleni’s Xingxue cushu: communicating the philosophy of human nature between the West and late Ming China

ABSTRACT Giulio Aleni’s Xingxue cushu 性學觕述 (A Brief Introduction to the Study of Human Nature, 1623–1646) was a product of an ambitious project by the Jesuits in China to introduce Aristotle's natural philosophy to Chinese literati. The book, originally from the Cursus Conimbricensis (1592-1606), shows a good example of the interactions between transmitter and receptor in the encounter of Western culture with Chinese culture. This paper explores Aleni's linguistic strategy for placing Western concepts of human nature in dialogue with traditional Chinese thought. It argues that the work's favourable reception among Chinese scholars was due to Aleni's use of translation principles that anticipate transwriting. Namely, instead of direct translation Aleni adapted the text for his Chinese readers by rewriting partly, adding his own responses, borrowing Chinese classical terms and creatively interpreting these terms, quoting many Chinese classical allusions, and employing Chinesestyle arguments. These linguistic tools Aleni used facilitate the reader's understanding and acceptance of the Western philosophy of human nature. His linguistic success on communication between the two thoughts on human nature helps us redefine the concept of transwriting and find an in-between space for a rational philosophic and religious dialogue between China and the West.

Reinventing Sacred Ground Amidst Natural Disaster: The Holy Islamic Tomb in Seventeenth-Century Quanzhou

The Holy Islamic Tomb at Lingshan Mountain in Quanzhou, China, is believed to be the final resting place of two of the Prophet Muhammad’s disciples who were dispatched as missionaries in the early seventh century. While prior scholarship has centred on verifying the tradition’s chronology, this article foregrounds the role of environmental actors in the tomb site’s ascent to prominence. I argue that the holy tomb (shengmu) tradition did not emerge until the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, so its invention should be analysed alongside concurrent climate hazards that plagued late Ming China (1368–1644). Uncommon episodes of snowfall, flooding, drought, and associated famines drove Quanzhou’s local communities towards popular religious practices. Muslim visitation practices in Quanzhou, which experienced a restrained period following the decline of Mongol rule, re-emerged into universal consciousness and became integral to the city’s spiritual landscape by aligning with Chinese allegorical narratives. Through this reinvented tradition, the Holy Islamic Tomb was characterized as a site blessed by the heavens during times of cosmic disturbances. Instead of passive assimilation, through which religious identities may be diluted, the active participation of Quanzhou Muslims in local practices empowered them to elevate and honour Islamic traditions within a predominantly non-Muslim society.

An Analysis of Jesuit Missionary Aleni’s Interpretation of Aristotelian Theory of Perception: Based on Xingxue Cushu in Late Ming China

An Analysis of Jesuit Missionary Aleni’s Interpretation of Aristotelian Theory of Perception: Based on Xingxue Cushu in Late Ming China

Religion and Sexuality: Reading the Sixth Commandment (“You Shall Not Commit Adultery”) in the Context of Late Ming China

This article examines concubinage in late Ming China through Foucaudian discourse analysis of sexuality in order to explore different responses to the Sixth Commandment by the Jesuits and Chinese literati. It will be interdisciplinary and conducted by way of philology, sexuality studies, feminist studies, cross-cultural criticism, and inter-religious dialogue. Topics include the relationship between religion and sexuality, concubinage in late Ming China, the Jesuits’ attitude towards concubinage, and the case study of the Confucian Catholic Wang Zheng’s struggle. A cross-cultural study of the Six Commandment not only illustrates the complex interaction between religion, sexuality, and gender but also presents early encounters of the Chinese and Christian cultures and the dialogues between them.

The Interaction and Clash of Ideas between Matteo Ricci and the Taizhou School

This article explores the interactions between the Taizhou school and Jesuit missionaries during the late Ming dynasty. It reveals the intellectual exchanges between these influential groups in fields such as philosophy and religion and their significance in spreading Western knowledge to the East. The article begins by introducing the complete process of exchanges between Taizhou school representatives like Jiao Hong, Li Zhi, Zhu Shilu, Tang Xianzu, Xu Guangqi, and Jesuit missionaries including Matteo Ricci. It delves into how these interactions influenced the development of their respective thoughts and academic theories. The exchange between the two groups was not a perfect fusion and was filled with contradictions, conflicts, and struggles, particularly on issues such as human nature and cosmology. By studying this process of exchange, we can understand how the intellectual elite of late Ming China accepted and reflected upon Western thought. It also reveals how Western intellectuals used this exchange to comprehend and appreciate Chinese philosophy and culture.

Creation and the Great Parent: The Thought of Yang Tingyun, a Chinese Christian in Late Ming China

The paradigm shift from missiology to the study of the Chinese indigenous context has driven scholars in the area of Christianity in late imperial China to the Chinese reactions to the Catholic missions, either positive or negative. As an influential yet controversial model, Jacques Gernet's approach to Chinese responses to Catholicism in late imperial China has been recognised as an essentialist analysis of both Christianity and China, which are treated in that approach as two confrontational and monolithic entities. This article, by contrast, explores the dynamics of Chinese Christians' reception of Christian teaching by focusing on the interiorisation of creation theology in Yang Tingyun, one of the earliest Chinese Catholics in Late Ming China. While accepting the Christian idea that God created the world out of nothing ( ex nihilo), Yang has to respond to the cosmogonic discourses advocated by Song Confucians, who exerted considerable influence on Confucianism in the Ming dynasty. Moreover, his way of expounding the Great Parent, Dafumu, as the Creator and Sustainer further shows an active engagement with both the Christian idea of creation and Chinese traditional discourses of cosmology and ethics. Approaching this concept of the Great Parent will provide a window into Chinese Catholic theology in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 1

How Should the Dragon King Memorialize the Jade Emperor? Margins of Political Thought in Late Ming China

A vast array of “vernacular” novels from late imperial and modern China feature well-edited official documents such as decrees, edicts, and memorials. The present study argues that these long-overlooked official documents offer unique access to creative political ideas that would otherwise be inaccessible to us. Using Xiyou ji 西遊記 (The Journey to the West) as a case study, this article initiates a critical dialogue between histories of documents, print culture, knowledge dissemination, vernacular novels, and political thought. The study begins with an exposition of the Ming regulations governing the formatting and representation of official documents. Tracing how the civil service examinations familiarized the reading public with documentary formatting, it then details how anonymous producers of various editions of the novel problematized the emperor's two bodies on documentary margins. It concludes by providing examples from Manchu manuscripts and Lu Xun's novels, suggesting that the methods explored here may be applied to further studies beyond Sinitic texts and the late imperial period.

Writing World History in Late Ming China and the Perception of Maritime Asia, written by Elke Papelitzky

Writing World History in Late Ming China and the Perception of Maritime Asia, written by Elke Papelitzky

Anna Maria Van Schurman’s Chinese Calligraphy

Calligraphy is an understudied aspect of the reception of Chinese art in early modern Europe. Chinese visitors to Middelburg (1601) and Amsterdam (1654) first demonstrated it as a cultural practice. Other written samples circulated in the Dutch Republic, an emporium for Chinese goods. This article focuses on a previously unknown participant in this exchange: Anna Maria van Schurman, Europe’s first female university student, who had mastered various Asian scripts and was expected to try her hand at Chinese and Japanese. In 1637 Andreas Colvius sent her samples of East Asian calligraphy to copy ‘by her own hand’. This exchange makes possible a transcultural study of the calligraphic gift. Via the popular writings of Matteo Ricci, Van Schurman’s correspondents may have learned about the role of calligraphy in fostering social relationships in late Ming China. Some of the visual and material qualities of East Asian writing must have made it look like a fitting tribute to a female European scholar of high profile and, in being exchanged as a gift, calligraphy acquired new meanings even while remaining illegible. In seventeenth-century China and Europe, the friendly exchange of calligraphy expressed new forms of sociability.

Matteo Ricci's Depictions of Alexander the Great in Late Ming China☆

AbstractThis article primarily focuses on the origin, the earliest dissemination and the accommodation of European Alexander texts in imperial China by Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552–1610). After providing an overview of the Chinese Alexander traditions, it first examines the sources of inspiration for Ricci's choice of Alexander as the prominent historical figure in his booklet on friendship, and then explores the reason for and implications of Ricci's allegorical translation of Alexander as Lishan 歷山 in Chinese. The remainder of the article analyses the cultural accommodation and literary tradition of each European exemplum of Alexander anthologized in Ricci's writings, from Jiaoyou Lun 交友論 (Treatise on Friendship) to Jiren Shipian 畸人十篇 (Ten Discourses of the Man of Paradox). The article shows that all Ricci's accounts of Alexander are mainly derived from the European Medieval and Renaissance Alexander tradition and were adapted in China by the strategy of cultural accommodation.

FRIENDSHIP AND HOSPITALITY: THE JESUIT‐CONFUCIAN ENCOUNTER IN LATE MING CHINA. By DongfengXu. SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021. . Pp. xii + 276. Hardback, $95.00; Paperback, $32.95.

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 49, Issue 1 p. 103-103 Short Reviews of Recent Publications: East Asia FRIENDSHIP AND HOSPITALITY: THE JESUIT-CONFUCIAN ENCOUNTER IN LATE MING CHINA. By Dongfeng Xu. SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021. . Pp. xii + 276. Hardback, $95.00; Paperback, $32.95. First published: 24 April 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16348Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume49, Issue1Special Issue: Unique Approaches to Christianity in Africa and BeyondMarch 2023Pages 103-103 RelatedInformation

Seeing as Worldmaking: Ten Views of a Lingbi Rock and Yogācārin Epistemology in Late Ming China

This paper examines Wu Bin’s (c. 1543–c. 1626) Ten Views of a Lingbi Rock (1610) from the perspective of Buddhist epistemological notions in seventeenth-century China. In studying a series of gazes focusing on a single object—a stone with a very complex surface—my discussion posits an act of excessive seeing as a process of making worlds. I take a theoretical cue from contemporaneous intellectual discourses, especially those that flourished with the revival of Yogācāra Buddhism in late Ming China. This paper will show how an art object comes into being in perceivable worlds interconnected by the individual’s sensory experiences. My study aims to inquire into the role of illusion as sensory experiences, phenomenological processes, and even notions of soteriological efficacy beyond formal artistic devices. To that end, this paper is the first attempt to situate Ten Views of a Lingbi Rock alongside Buddhist thoughts and artmaking.

Who Can Revive Buddhist Ordinations? Explaining the Eminence of Guxin Ruxin in Late Ming China

Guxin Ruxin 古心如馨 (1541–1616) is credited with the revival of monastic ordinations, which ranks among the major breakthroughs of the late Ming Buddhist renewal. Despite the long-standing ban on ordination ceremonies, he managed to win the trust of fellow monastics, attract local patrons, and eventually gain imperial approval. This paper aims to unravel the reasons that this Vinaya master was recognized as legitimate by contemporaries and descendants, focusing on two key episodes in his hagiographies. In the first of them, Guxin Ruxin had a vision of Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī transmitting monastic precepts to him, whereas in the second one his identity as a reincarnation of Upāli was revealed through a miracle he performed during the restoration of Porcelain Pagoda in Nanjing. The research has shown that the second account was a later interpolation designed on the basis of the hagiography of another prominent monk, Xuelang Hong’en 雪浪洪恩 (1545–1607). By contrast, the first of the narratives, although heavily laden with the elements of local lore, could be a reflection of real experience. The inspiration Guxin Ruxin drew from it might explain his commitment to the cause of Vinaya revival and the ensuing charisma.

A Thomistic Defense of Creationism in Late Ming China

Creationism is an important feature of Christianity but seems very foreign to Chinese philosophy. This paper examines an early attempt at introducing a metaphysical account of creationism in Huanyou quan (1628) by the Portuguese Jesuit, Francisco Furtado, and the Chinese scholar, Li Zhizao. It investigates the sources drawn from the works of Thomas Aquinas and reconstructs the choices made by the two authors in their translation. Finally, it suggests that Thomistic creationism bears similarities with Chinese philosophy.

Anthologies of Writings by Dong Qichang “Huachanshi suibi” from the Chinese Collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, Russian Academy of Sciences

The paper concentrates on the description of a written monument of Chinese aesthetic thought - the anthology “Notes from the Cabinet of Chan Painting” by the politician, artist, calligrapher and art theorist of the end of the Ming era (1368-1644) Dong Qichang (1555-1636). Two woodblock printed editions of this anthology dated 1720 and 1911 are preserved in the Chinese collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences and so far remain understudied. The paper considers the possible translations of the title of the book into the Russian and English languages, investigates the history of different publications of the monument, describes the formal features of block books, and conducts a comparative analysis of existing editions. The discovered textual discrepancies between different editions of the anthology make it clear that in the Qing era (1644-1912) “Notes” experienced the harmful influence of the “literary inquisition”, not having escaped the fate of many works of the Ming era. A textual and comprehensive analysis of several fragments shows that the earlier edition of 1720 has greater completeness and integrity. In addition, even a formal examination of the monument makes it possible to identify a whole range of historical problems, not related directly to aesthetic thought, which can be studied with the use of the “Notes” as a source. Such issues include the historyof art collecting by Chinese nobles, the socio-economic and political development of late Ming China, the relationships between the Ming Empire and the Manchus, the problem of censorship in the Qing era, etc.

Espionage, Adultery, and Witchcraft: Rumor and Imagination Transplant in the Anti-Catholic Persecution of Late Ming China

Catholic missionaries have suffered numerous persecutions since their arrival in Ming China in 1583. Rumors which functioned either as the causation or as the main content of the accusations against Catholic missionaries played a vital role in the rise and development of anti-Catholic movements in Late Ming China. In terms of the contents, these rumors can be divided into three categories: rumors accusing missionaries of conducting espionage activities in China, rumors accusing missionaries of having sexual misconducts with local women, and rumors accusing missionaries of performing sorceries. Besides, different images of missionaries were created in these rumors, including spies dispatched by Portuguese from Macau, human traffickers, children-eaters, adulterers, sorcerers, and heretics. The initiation, circulation, and manipulation of these rumors and the construction of different negative images of Catholic missionaries are not only products of the imagination transplant mechanism, but also attempts of anti-Catholic opponents to “stigmatize” missionaries and construct the heterodox-teaching image of Catholicism.

The Objectionable Li Zhi: Fiction, Criticism, and Dissent in Late Ming China Edited by Rivi Handler-Spitz, Pauline C. Lee, and Haun Saussy. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020. vii+281 pp. $30.00.

The Objectionable Li Zhi: Fiction, Criticism, and Dissent in Late Ming China Edited by Rivi Handler-Spitz, Pauline C. Lee, and Haun Saussy. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020. vii+281 pp. $30.00. - Volume 6 Issue 1

IV—Moral Knowledge and Empirical Investigation in Late Ming China

AbstractThis essay begins to explore the philosophical grounds on which Chinese literati thinkers came to legitimate, and in some cases value, alternative ways of life in the early modern era (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). In this essay I examine arguments from two such scholars, the flamboyant iconoclast Li Zhi 李贄 (1527–1602) and his lifelong friend, the historian and classicist Jiao Hong 焦竑 (1540–1620), to show how this interest in the empirical world led them away from their commitments to moral universalism and toward an appreciation of the diversity and plurality of human moral values.

The Catholic Four-Character Classic (Tianzhu shengjiao sizi jingwen 天主聖教四字經文): A Confucian Pattern to Spread a Foreign Faith in Late Ming China

En The generation of missionaries which followed Ricci's method after his death in the 17th century, continued to work among the Chinese literati, producing a variety of religious, philosophical, and scientific treatises. Yet, the Jesuits, including Ricci himself, did not neglect the instruction of new converts through simpler text (doctrinae), devised to teach the Christian dogmas in a language that could be easily recited by those who could read, and memorized by the flock. One of the most well-known missionaries of the post-Ricci generation was the Italian Giulio Aleni (1582-1649), active in the southern provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian between the 1620s and 1649. Aleni was not only interested in converting the literati, but also tried, with the help of Chinese Christians, to build a strong local church at the popular level. Among his numerous works in Chinese, one which certainly bears witness to this evangelical effort at the grass root level is a booklet entitled The Four-Character Classic of the Holy Religion of the Lord of Heaven (Tianzhu shengjiao sizi jingwen, original ed. 1642; revised 1663 ed.). For whom was this Christian primer written? How was it used in religious education? How did it compare with similar texts in other religious traditions of China? These are questions I will try to answer in this essay. It La generazione di missionari che segui il metodo di Ricci dopo la sua morte nel corso del Seicento continuo a lavorare tra i letterati cinesi, producendo una varieta di trattati religiosi, filosofici e scientifici. Tuttavia, i gesuiti, compreso lo stesso Ricci, non trascurarono l'istruzione dei nuovi convertiti attraverso testi piu semplici (doctrinae), ideati per insegnare i dogmi cristiani in un linguaggio che potesse essere facilmente recitato da coloro che sapevano leggere, e memorizzato dai fedeli. Uno dei missionari piu noti della generazione post-Ricci fu l'italiano Giulio Aleni (1582-1649), attivo nelle province meridionali di Zhejiang e Fujian tra gli anni 1620 e 1649. Aleni non era solo interessato a convertire i letterati, ma cerco anche, con l'aiuto dei cristiani cinesi, di costruire una chiesa locale a livello piu popolare. Tra le sue numerose opere in cinese, una che certamente testimonia questo sforzo evangelico e un libretto intitolato Il Classico dei Quattro Caratteri della Santa Religione del Signore del Cielo (Tianzhu shengjiao sizi jingwen, ed. originale 1642; ed. riveduta 1663). Per chi fu scritto questo abbecedario cristiano? Come veniva usato nell'educazione religiosa? Come si compara con testi simili in altre tradizioni religiose della Cina? Queste sono domande a cui cerchero di rispondere nel mio saggio.