The Interpretation of Tang Christianity in the Late Ming China Mission

The Interpretation of Tang Christianity in the Late Ming China Mission
Author: Matteo Nicolini-Zani
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2023-04-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004535853

The book contains the first annotated English translation of the Correct Explanation of the Tang “Stele Eulogy on the Luminous Teaching” (1644) by the Jesuit Manuel Dias Jr. and other late Ming Chinese Christian sources interpreting the “venerable ancestor” of the Jesuit mission, namely, the mission of the Church of the East in Tang China. Based on this documentation, the book reconstructs the process of “appropriation” by Jesuit missionaries and their Chinese converts of ancient traces of Christianity that were discovered in China in the first half of the seventeenth century, such as the Xi’an stele (781) and other Christian relics

The Interpretation of Tang Christianity in the Late Ming China Mission

The Interpretation of Tang Christianity in the Late Ming China Mission
Author: Matteo Nicolini-Zani
Publisher: Brill
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-02
Genre: China
ISBN: 9789004534582

Based on the translation of the Correct Explanation of the Tang "Stele Eulogy on the Luminous Teaching" (1644) by the Jesuit Manuel Dias Jr. and other late Ming Chinese Christian sources, the book reconstructs the process of interpretation and "appropriation" of the Xi'an stele and other ancient Christian relics by the Jesuit missionaries and their Chinese converts.

Jingjiao

Jingjiao
Author: Glen L. Thompson
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2024-02-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1467467138

A balanced, accessible, and thorough history of Jingjiao, the first Christian church in China Many people assume that the first introduction of Christianity to the Chinese was part of nineteenth-century Western imperialism. In fact, Syriac-speaking Christians brought the gospel along the Silk Road into China in the seventh century. Glen L. Thompson introduces readers to the fascinating history of this early Eastern church, referred to as Jingjiao, or the “Luminous Teaching.” Thompson presents the history of the Persian church’s mission to China with rigor and clarity. While Christianity remained a minority and “foreign” religion in the Middle Kingdom, it nonetheless attracted adherents among indigenous Chinese and received imperial approval during the Tang Dynasty. Though it was later suppressed alongside Buddhism, it resurfaced in China and Mongolia in the twelfth century. Thompson also discusses how the modern unearthing of Chinese Christian texts has stirred controversy over the meaning of Jingjiao to recent missionary efforts in China. In an accessible style, Thompson guides readers through primary sources as well as up-to-date scholarship. As the most recent and balanced survey on the topic available in English, Jingjiao will be an indispensable resource for students of global Christianity and missiology.

Christian Heretics in Late Imperial China

Christian Heretics in Late Imperial China
Author: Lars Peter Laamann
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2013-05-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134429983

Following the prohibition of missionary activity after 1724, China's Christians were effectively cut off from all foreign theological guidance. The ensuing isolation forced China's Christian communities to become self-reliant in perpetuating the basic principles of their faith. Left to their own devices, the missionary seed developed into a panoply of indigenous traditions, with Christian ancestry as the common denominator. Christianity thus underwent the same process of inculturation as previous religious traditions in China, such as Buddhism and Judaism. As the guardian of orthodox morality, the prosecuting state sought to exercise all-pervading control over popular thoughts and social functions. Filling the gap within the discourse of Christianity in China and also as part of the wider analysis of religion in late Imperial China, this study presents the campaigns against Christians during this period as part and parcel of the campaign against 'heresy' and 'heretical' movements in general.

Literary Representations of Christianity in Late Qing and Republican China

Literary Representations of Christianity in Late Qing and Republican China
Author: John T. P. Lai
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2019-03-27
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004394486

Literary Representations of Christianity in Late Qing and Republican China contributes to the “literary turn” in the study of Chinese Christianity by foregrounding the importance of literary texts, including the major genres of Chinese Christian literature (novels, drama and poetry) of the late Qing and Republican periods. These multifarious types of texts demonstrated the multiple representations and dynamic scenes of Christianity, where Christian imageries and symbolism were transformed by linguistic manipulation into new contextualized forms which nurtured distinctive new fruits of literature and modernized the literary landscape of Chinese literature. The study of the composition and poetics of Chinese Christian literary works helps us rediscover the concerns, priorities, textual strategies of the Christian writers, the cross-cultural challenges involved, and the reception of the Bible.

Statecraft and Intellectual Renewal in Late Ming China

Statecraft and Intellectual Renewal in Late Ming China
Author: Catherine Jami
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2021-07-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004482970

This is the first comprehensive work on one of the key figures in early Chinese-Western relations. Xu Guangqi was one of the first promoters of Western science in China, worked together with the Jesuit Matteo Ricci on translations of Western science, was one of the first Chinese converts, a high-ranking statesman, organizer of a major calendar reform, introduced Western weapons into the Chinese army, etc. etc. His astonishingly multifarious activities are now for the first time pieced together within their (Chinese and Western) social, intellectual and cultural context. The result is a composite profile of this complex figure that is solidly anchored in Chinese (and Western) primary sources A major achievement.

Encounters Between Chinese Culture and Christianity

Encounters Between Chinese Culture and Christianity
Author: Jingyi Ji
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2007
Genre: China
ISBN: 3825807096

Tracing encounters between Chinese culture and Christianity, Jingyi Ji (*1962 in Beijing) displays vividly how Chinese Christians interpret Christianity in their context. The book involves both Chinese and Western philosophy and theology and will be of interest not only for theologians but also for all those exploring the interaction between Chinese and Western culture.

The Encounter of Chinese and Western Philosophies

The Encounter of Chinese and Western Philosophies
Author: Benoît Vermander
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2023-09-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3110799200

Vermander revisits the encounter between Chinese and Western philosophy while unfolding questions about the way "comparative philosophy" is conducted today. In the vulgate of intellectual history, "Western thought" has constructed a substantialist view of reality that puts "relations" and "processes" into a subordinate position. The same view explains for the primacy given to the autonomy of individual beings. In contrast, according to the same vulgate, Chinese thought has been stressing the fluidity of all phenomena and forms of life to best adapt to their overarching patterns. The critique of these representations is a preliminary for tackling the following question: in today’s context, what style of cross-cultural philosophical engagement should be imagined and fostered? Cross-cultural philosophical dialogue is indeed indispensable to the revival of philosophies that could be both local and genuinely dialogic. The first two chapters focus upon the dominant model propounded by Western sinologists when it comes to comparing the Western philosophical tradition with the Chinese one. The third chapter shifts to Chinese narratives about local, comparative, and global philosophies, notably assessing its self-positioning vis-à-vis Western authors, topics, and concepts. Chapter 4 offers a general reading of ancient Chinese classics, alternative to the one that presently dominates the landscape described in Chapters 1 to 3. Chapter 5 harnesses the results and insights already gathered, offering a blueprint as to the way to positively draw upon different philosophical traditions to engage common questions and pursue shared endeavors. A last chapter presents four cases of ongoing transcultural philosophical dialogues and the promises they bear, while the conclusion recapitulates the journey and opens further perspectives. Once it develops outside pre-formatted narratives, the web shaped by our philosophies and wisdoms suggests the outlines of a world that we could inhabit together.

Global Entanglements of a Man Who Never Traveled

Global Entanglements of a Man Who Never Traveled
Author: Dominic Sachsenmaier
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2018-05-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 0231547315

Born into a low-level literati family in the port city of Ningbo, the seventeenth-century Chinese Christian convert Zhu Zongyuan likely never left his home province. Yet Zhu nonetheless led a remarkably globally connected life. His relations with the outside world, ranging from scholarly activities to involvement with globalizing Catholicism, put him in contact with a complex and contradictory set of foreign and domestic forces. In Global Entanglements of a Man Who Never Traveled, Dominic Sachsenmaier explores the mid-seventeenth-century world and the worldwide flows of ideas through the lens of Zhu‘s life, combining the local, regional, and global. Taking particular aspects of Zhu‘s multiple belongings as a starting point, Sachsenmaier analyzes the contexts that framed his worlds as he balanced a local life and his border-crossing faith. At the local level, the book pays attention to the intellectual, political, and social environments of late Ming and early Qing society, including Confucian learning and the Manchu conquest, questioning the role of ethnic and religious identities. At the global level, it considers how individuals like Zhu were situated within the history of organizations and power structures such as the Catholic Church and early modern empires amid larger transformations and encounters. A strikingly original work, this book is a major contribution to East Asian, transnational, and global history, with important implications for historical approaches and methodologies.