Giulio Aleni, Kouduo richao, and Christian–Confucian Dialogism in Late Ming Fujian

Song Gang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138589124
• eBook ISBN: 9780429959202
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

Christian dialogic writings flourished in the Catholic missions in late Ming China. This study focuses on the mission work of the Italian Jesuit Giulio Aleni (Ai Rulüe ???, 1582–1649) in Fujian and the unique text Kouduo richao ???? (Diary of Oral Admonitions, 1630–1640) that records the religious and intellectual conversations among the Jesuits and local converts. By examining the mechanisms of dialogue in Kouduo richao and other Christian works distinguished by a certain dialogue form, the author of the present work aims to reveal the formation of a hybrid Christian–Confucian identity in late Ming Chinese religious experience.
By offering the new approach of dialogic hybridization, the book not only treats dialogue as an important yet underestimated genre in late Ming Christian literature, but it also uncovers a self–other identity complex in the dialogic exchanges of the Jesuits and Chinese scholars.
Giulio Aleni, Kouduo richao, and Christian–Confucian Dialogism in Late Ming Fujian is a multi-faceted investigation of the religious, philosophical, ethical, scientific, and artistic topics discussed among the Jesuits and late Ming scholars. This comprehensive research echoes what the distinguished Sinologist Erik Zürcher (1928–2008) said about the richness and diversity of Chinese Christian texts produced in the 17th and 18th centuries. Following Zürcher's careful study and annotated full translation of Kouduo richao (Monumenta Serica Monograph Series, LVI/1-2), the present work features a set of new findings beyond the endeavours of Zürcher and other scholars. With the key concept of Christian-Confucian dialogism, it tells the intriguing story of Aleni's mission work and the thriving Christian communities in late Ming Fujian.

CHAPTER ONE
From Literary Dialogue to Cultural Dialogism

1.1. A Generic Exploration of Dialogue

At the beginning of the collection Kouduo richao, the chief editor Li Jiubiao gives a brief summary of his approach to recording the admonitions of Aleni and other Jesuit masters in Fujian. He writes in the statement of editorial principles, “This collection started in the spring of 1630. The entries in successive years have all been provided with dates; in doing so, I have presumed to follow the model of the historical chronicles (biannian jishi 編年紀事)."¹ Clearly, Li is referring to the long tradition of historical writings in China, often embedded with Confucian ideology and moral judgments. If we read through Kouduo richao, all conversations start with a certain day in a certain month, preceded by the year of the reign of Emperor Chongzhen 崇禎 (Zhu Youjian 朱 由檢, 1611– 1644) and the season of the month, at a certain place. In other words, Li consciously applies a key element in historical narratives to a compilation which primarily consists of “motionless” conversations. Consequently, Kouduo richao shows an unusual chronological organization different from dialogue-based Confucian writings in the past but also from the majority of other Christian dialogic works produced in the late Ming period.

Li’s intentional adoption of the chronicle style deserves special attention. We may ask two questions: What could possibly be the main purpose behind this form? Was Li aware of the subtle relation between the oral (actual dialogue) and the written (reported dialogue)? A quick answer to the first question may be that the chronicle pattern can help create a realistic setting for conversational “events” to take place. The subtlety between the oral and the written can also be seen in Li’s well thought-out title: kouduo 口鐸 (oral admonition) vis-à-vis richao 日抄 (daily transcript). The former points at the actual conversations between the Jesuit masters and the convert disciples, yet the latter suggests that a reader can only “hear” their conversations again through this written text. In other words, the work is to be read as a chronological record of communicative events. Li’s treatment naturally gives rise to a remarkable hybrid style that combines analectic, chronological, and narrative components.

On the other hand, Kouduo richao is still connected in one way or another with many other late Ming Christian texts composed in the dialogue form. It follows the common format of questions and answers. It exhibits the diverse and changing voices of Aleni, his confreres, literati converts, and non-Christians in varied places in Fujian. The oral admonitions of Aleni are heard by his convert disciples (and “overheard” by the readers) in the work, but he does not speak in the voice of a dominant authority as was typical for those monologue-type kouduo texts during the early Qing period. Moreover, though the voice of a person is supposed to be expressed in accordance with that person’s social, professional, and regional identity, it would be naïve to presume that one cannot present a voice other than the original voice. As a matter of fact, Aleni and the converts in their dialogic exchanges often shift between different voices for different purposes. Hence, Kouduo richao may be defined as a “reflexive” dialogue which offers much communal space and time for all participating actors.² Mainly due to such a unique feature, the work became an exemplary piece in late Ming Christian dialogue literature.

The importance of the popular dialogue form among late Ming Christian texts has not been critically analyzed in previous scholarship. Most scholars in this field have mainly paid attention to dialogue as a medium of thought. The contents of those dialogic texts thus became the primary concern for them to develop different theoretical frameworks. However, the formal function of dialogue, especially its mechanism in constructing the paradoxical self–other relation within the late Ming intercultural context, has slipped through in-depth research. This chapter gives full attention to the previously neglected role of dialogue in late Ming Christian literature. After a generic analysis of the essential features of dialogue, I will look into the traditions of dialogue both in China and Europe and explain why there appeared a noticeable convergence of the two traditions in the late Ming. A group of early Christian dialogic works from that period, written by both the Jesuits and Chinese converts, will be analyzed. Not only did they provide a favorable environment for the compilation of Kouduo richao, but they also contributed to a unique flowering of Sino-European dialogues in the 17th century.

1.1.1. Dialogue as a Hybrid Literary Genre?

In generic analysis dialogue often creates difficulty. It is not considered an independent “genre,” for it “tends to blur, and bridge, the modern distinctions between fiction and non-fiction, orality and literacy, or poetry, prose, and drama.” Dialogue in this sense may be called a “fundamentally hybrid genre,” which “spans not only what modernity has described as ‘literature’ and ‘philosophy’, but also rhetoric, ethics, social history, and pedagogy.”³ Such a hybrid nature makes it difficult to put dialogue into any clearly defined literary genre. As a result, many critics prefer descriptive characterizations of dialogue. Bakhtin, for example, developed in the 1920s the concept dialogism based upon the fundamental difference between the novel and poetry. In his Discourse in the Novel, he claims that the novel is dialogic in nature when compared to the monological unity and singular language of poetry.⁴ This characterization leads to another Bakhtinian concept, heteroglossia, meaning the diversity of social voices interplaying with each other through different speeches or utterances in a novel.⁵ Though the two terms have little to do with the dialogue genre itself, they reveal an epistemological mode of human existence.

In the past few decades, there has been an increasing interest in dialogue that goes beyond literary concerns. It is partly because we realize that we live in a globalizing world, where any thought, speech, or activity is more likely than before found in a communicative situation. The term “dialogue” can be applied to a variety of personal or cultural exchanges. Understandably, it is safe to say that dialogue “has gone from a minor literary form, representing a type of intellectual activity, to being a defining human activity.”⁶ The medium for dialogue can be spoken or unspoken. The exchange can be both individual and collective. Moreover, especially in fields such as literature, religious studies, and philosophy, scholars have found that dialogue indeed played an important role in the history of human civilization. As far as literary criticism is concerned, the culture of dialogue in Renaissance Europe has attracted much attention in recent scholarship. An impressive number of dialogic works in the 16th century have been singled out and studied.⁷ Not only did critics carefully make distinctions of national characteristics of dialogue, but they also identified various social-historical factors that might have affected the evolvement of this genre.⁸ Theories on dialogue emerging in this period also received particular attention.⁹ Consequently, dialogue has been shown to be one of the most popular genres in Renaissance Europe, representing various aspects of public and private life.

Generally speaking, the major function of a dialogue is to represent an ongoing exchange of views between interlocutors speaking a variety of social, professional, and regional languages. In this respect it can be defined as “a unity of diverse voices.”¹⁰ In most cases, the diverse voices are exchanged in a casual, flexible manner, to the extent that informality becomes the first generic characteristic of a dialogue. It is clearly present throughout the Kouduo richao, in which Aleni and his convert disciples engage in impromptu conversations anywhere and anytime. In his preface, Lin Yijun indicates that Master Ai’s instructions are mainly short conversations, not lengthy lectures or sermons.¹¹ The informal style is also appreciated by Li Jiubiao, who says that the instructions of Aleni are “not as detailed as are books that consist of a sequence of chapters and sections, but they all are as marvelous as fragments of jade and gold.”¹² This distinct feature, as I will discuss later, serves as an integral part in both Chinese and European dialogue traditions.

Another noteworthy generic element of dialogue should be its potential to use a limited number of formal configurations to accommodate a broad range of subjects. On the one hand, unlike a treatise or a narrative, the interlocutors involved in a dialogue can switch subjects freely with little concern of thematic coherence. For example, at the beginning of Kouduo richao, in a conversation among Aleni, Liu Liangbi 劉良 弼, and Li Jiubiao, four unrelated topics are discussed. First, Aleni argues that a true friend can help one face one’s own faults. He then gives a mild criticism of Liu's improper way to adore a book without reading it. When Li joins in the conversation and asks about the reliability of God’s blessing, Aleni answers with a story from the Bible on Jesus rescuing Peter from falling into the Galilee Sea.¹³ Finally, after hearing that Lin Yijun lost a son recently, Aleni comforts him by telling another story on Job and suggests that Lin follow Job's example.¹⁴

On the other hand, literary embellishment is seldom seen as the top priority in a dialogue. Li Jiubiao ends his preface by saying, “As regards literary style I have just opted for clarity and perspicuity, and I have not cared about the artistic quality of the text.”¹⁵ It is likely that Li wants to be modest in this case, but he certainly sees his work differently from those stylish compositions of belles lettres. The two characteristics – episodic structure and less emphasis on literary style – not only set dialogue apart from other literary genres, but they also increase the difficulty for critics to offer a clear definition of the form. However, its formal “deficiencies” inform us that dialogue is not supposed to present a complex plot or systematic thinking. It tends to thrive on the diversity of voices that may head toward anywhere but a clear resolution.

Though the above characteristics provide dynamic variables of a dialogue, as seen in Kouduo richao, one still can grasp a hidden unity through several constant factors. From a critical standpoint, any completed dialogue, whether realistic or constructed, takes place in a certain context so that the dialogists can engage in a chain of conversations. It explains why dialogue is defined as “an act of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter One: From Literary Dialogue to Cultural Dialogism
• Chapter Two: Aleni, Fujian Mission, and Kouduo richao
• Chapter Three: Practical Investigations of Heaven and Earth
• Chapter Four: Spiritual and Moral Cultivation of Man
• Chapter Five: Salvation before the Eyes: Objects, Images, and Liturgies
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index and Glossary
• Chinese Summary