Jesuit-Chinese Interaction and Collaboration in Chinese Sources

What is it about?

Over recent decades, studies on the Jesuits’ activities in China and elsewhere have been considerably facilitated by collated and published correspondence written in Western languages. In order to broaden this scholarly discussion by including more sources from the Chinese side, this article makes a modest contribution by translating and analyzing two letters from Zhu Shi 祝石 (1602–after 1689), a remnant of the Ming dynasty and a Chinese Catholic, to Lodovico Buglio (1606–1682) and Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688), two Jesuit missionaries at the Manchu court. Transcriptions of the two letters are found in the collected works of Zhu, Zhi hao hao xue lu 知好好學錄 (Records of knowing how to appreciate good learning; n.d.). Noteworthy subjects reflected in the letters include, among others, Zhu’s involvement in the translation and revision of Buglio’s Chaoxingxue yao 超性學要 (Essentials of transcendental nature studies; 1654–1677), a contemporary explanation of the obstacles facing evangelism in China, and Verbiest’s cannon-casting activities during the Revolt of the Three Feudatories (or the San-Fan War; 1673–ca. 1681). A close examination of these two letters not only broadens the understanding of the social networks of the two missionaries and provides supplementary historical details, but also calls attention to the value of correspondence between Chinese literati and the missionaries.

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