Rooted in Hope: China – Religion – Christianity Vol 1

Festschrift in Honor of Roman Malek S.V.D. on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday

Barbara Hoster, Dirk Kuhlmann, Zbigniew Wesolowski, Barbara Hoster, Dirk Kuhlmann, Zbigniew Wesolowski

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351672771
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This Festschrift is dedicated to the former Director and Editor-in-chief of the Monumenta Serica Institute in Sankt Augustin (Germany), Roman Malek, S.V.D. in recognition of his scholarly commitment to China. The two-volume work contains 40 articles by his academic colleagues, companions in faith, confreres, as well as by the staff of the Monumenta Serica Institute and the China-Zentrum e.V. (China Center). The contributions in English, German and Chinese pay homage to the jubilarian's diverse research interests, covering the fields of Chinese Intellectual History, History of Christianity in China, Christianity in China Today, Other Religions in China, Chinese Language and Literature as well as the Encounter of Cultures.

History of Christianity in China Geschichte des Christentums in China

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XU GUANGQI, DISCIPLE OF THE LUMINOUS TEACHING

A STUDY OF THE “STONE INSCRIPTION FOR THE CHURCH OF THE LUMINOUS TEACHING” (JINGJIAOTANG BEIJI) AT JIANGZHOU, AROUND 1632

MATTEO NICOLINI-ZANI

To the most dear Fr. Roman,
who first introduced me
to the research on Chinese Christianity
and always encourages me by lovelingly calling me
“my last Chinese-Italian Nestorian monk.”

Many know Xu Guangqi 徐光啟 (1562–1633) as a great Chinese scientist, mathematician, astronomer and agronomist.¹ Fewer know him as the Christian convert baptized in 1603 with the name Paulus, who became “la magior colonna”² (the greatest pillar) of Christianity in late Ming China, as he was defined by Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) and Nicolas Trigault (1577–1628). Even fewer have heard of him as he defined himself at least twice in his writings, namely, “disciple of the Luminous Teaching” (jingjiao houxue 景教後學). “Luminous Teaching” (jingjiao 景教) was one of the names of Christianity during the Tang dynasty (618– 907), as witnessed by the famous “Nestorian” stele (Da Qin jingjiao liuxing Zhongguo bei 大秦景教流行中國碑, lit., “Stele of the Propagation of the Luminous Teaching from Da Qin in China”) that was fortuitously unearthed in Xi’an in 1623.

Xu Guangqi calls himself “jingjiao houxue” once in the colophon of the short work Tuiyan zhengdao lun 推驗正道論 (Tracing Back the Orthodox Way), “composed by Wang Yiyuan 王一元 [Alfonso Vagnone, 1566–1640], hao 號 Taiwen 泰穩, Jesuit of the Extreme West, and edited by Xu Guangqi, hao Xuanhu 玄扈, of Yunjian 雲間, disciple of the Luminous Teaching.”³ This work was composed in 1609 or 1610 by Vagnone and edited by Xu Guangqi after the spring of 1625, when the discovery of the “Nestorian” monument in Xi’an was first mentioned. The second time Xu introduces himself as “jingjiao houxue” is in the colophon of the collection of poems Shengjiao guijie zhenzan 聖教規誡箴 贊 (Exhortations of the Holy Teaching), “composed by Xu Guangqi of Wusong 吳淞, disciple of the Luminous Teaching.”⁴

We know that after the discovery of the Xi’an Christian monument, Xu Guangqi was not the only Chinese convert to apply this name to his new Christian identity. The Fujianese brothers Stephanus Li Jiubiao 李九標 (d. 1646?) and Thomas Li Jiugong 李九功 (d. 1681) are two well-known examples.⁵ Similarly, from 1625 and up to around 1660, some Christian churches were renamed as jingjiaotang 景教堂 (churches of the Luminous Teaching).⁶ To my knowledge, these are the churches of Fuzhou 福州,⁷ Jinjiang 晉江, and Wenling 溫陵 (the ancient name of Quanzhou 泉州) in Min 閩 (later called Fujian 福建); Jiangzhou 絳州 in Shanxi 山西; Hangzhou 杭州 in Zhejiang 浙江, and even Beijing 北京 during the late Ming. A certain number of Jesuit books were printed by these jingjiaotang, as we see from their title pages.

For the jingjiao church at Jiangzhou Paul Xu Guangqi wrote an inscription, which bears the title Jingjiaotang beiji 景教堂碑記 (Stone Inscription for the Church of the Luminous Teaching) with no date, but datable to around 1632. Differently from most of the Christian works by Xu Guangqi, this text is one of the few whose authorship has never been doubted. It is significant that Wang Zhongmin 王重民, perhaps the most skeptical among the scholars who edited Xu’s texts, included the inscription for the jingjiao church at Jiangzhou among the few religious work contained in his collection.⁸ Curiously enough, however, no scholar has yet undertaken to study it carefully and translate it into a Western language. Even Wang Xiaochao 王曉朝, who included and translated several works by Xu Guangqi into English in his book Christianity and Imperial Culture, in the case of the inscription for the jingjiao church at Jiangzhou only reproduces the Chinese text without supplying an English translation.⁹

In western literature I found only three scholars who made short references to the inscription. Paul Pelliot mentions the Jiangzhou inscription twice in his posthumous work on the Xi’an Christian inscription. In a footnote he writes that “vers 1630, Siu Kouang-k’i [Xu Guangqi] composa pour l’église que les frères Han venaient de faire construire à Kiang-tcheou [Jiangzhou] une inscription 景教 堂碑 King-kiao-t’ang-pei [Jingjiaotang bei], dont le texte nous a été conservé aux ff. 7–10 du Hi tch’ao tch’ong tcheng tsi [Xichao chongzheng ji 熙朝崇正集].”¹⁰ A few pages ahead, he writes:

Il y a en effet un autre texte […] où Siu Kouang-k’i mentionne la découverte de l’inscription de Si-ngan-fou: c’est son inscription rédigée vers 1630 pour l’église de Kiang-tcheou, et dont le texte nous a été conservé dans le Hi tch’ao tch’ong tcheng tsi. Il y parle du christianisme prêché en Chine avant Ricci, et ajoute qu’“on le connaît par l’inscription des T’ang trouvée en [l’année] koueihai [guihai 癸亥] de [la période] t’ian-k’i [tianqi 天啓] par des gens qui creusaient la terre au Kouan-tchong [Guanzhong 關中] (c’est-à-dire à Si-nganfou).”¹¹

Wang Xiaochao says that the Reading Notes on the Inscription of the Luminous Religion, as he translates the title, “talk about the Nestorian mission in China.”¹² Erik Zürcher in a footnote of his last major work on Li Jiubiao’s Kouduo richao 口鐸日抄 (Diary of Oral Admonitions, ca. 1640) points out that the inscription is “much inspired by the famous Nestorian inscription of 781.”¹³

The occasion for asking Xu Guangqi to compose an inscription was the construction of a residence for the missionaries with a church at Jiangzhou, which was financed by “two second-degree graduates from the Han 韓 family,” namely Han Yun 韓雲 (zi Jingbo 景伯), juren 舉人 in 1612, baptised as Stephanus (Étienne), probably before 1620, and Han Lin 韓霖 (zi Yugong 雨公, hao Yu’an 寓菴, ca. 1600–1649), juren in 1621, baptised as Thomas by Aleni in Jiangzhou in 1620. The network of the Jiangzhou community, which after the visits of Aleni and Trigault respectively in 1620 and 1625 was entrusted to Vagnone (with Giacomo Rho helping for five years, 1625–1630), was centered around the Han family.¹⁴ After passing the juren examination, Han Lin made the acquaintance of Xu Guangqi, and this friendship was most probably the reason for having the inscription for the church at Jiangzhou composed by Xu Guangqi. Xu reports the first steps of the Catholic mission in Jiangzhou in the following terms:

Recently a few virtuous men [i.e., the missionaries] travelled around Qin 秦 [Shaanxi 陝西 province] and Jin 晉 [Shanxi 山西province], where local prominent gentlemen invited them to reside. In Jiang 絳 [Jiangzhou 絳州] of Jin, there were indeed two second-degree graduates from the Han 韓 family, whose deep and sincere trust led them to plan to build a residence [for the missionaries] and to provide their co-practitioners of the Way with simple accommodations. So they selected a place in the southwestern part of the city and financed the construction, furnishing rooms with several pillars. For that reason they then wrote to me at a distance of several thousand li to commission me [to compose] an inscription.¹⁵

But a deeper study of the inscription composed by Xu Guangqi for the church at Jiangzhou reveals that it is more than a simple memorial.¹⁶ It is an extremely valuable document that further witnesses to the “strategy” of both the Jesuits (in particular Giulio Aleni [1582–1649],¹⁷ and Manuel Dias jr. [1574–1659]) and the Chinese converts (in particular Li Zhizao 李之藻¹⁸ [1565–1630], and Xu Guangqi) to emphasize how Tang Christianity was a distinguished ancestor of the Catholic mission. It is one of the elements that reveal a “Jesuit appropriation” of Tang Christianity, as I call it, which quickly developed and spread in the Jesuit milieus in China and Europe after the discovery of the Xi’an Christian stele in 1623.¹⁹ The discovery of the eighth-century stone was indeed a major historical event for the Jesuit missionaries in China, who for several decades had been engaged in the process of trying to ease the closed door of Chinese culture open. This was an opportunity they could not miss. It was particularly meaningful because, “as tangible evidence of the antiquity of Christianity, […] the monument was the ideal prop for converting the people of China, who would generally be less likely to revere a teaching that could be considered a novelty.”²⁰

We know that Xu Guangqi himself, soon after the discovery of the Xi’an monument, made one or more editions of the text of the inscription, perhaps with notes and commentary, asked a stone facsimile to be made, with the probable aim of spreading the text through a large number of rubbings,²¹ and supported the first partial translation of the stele into Portuguese.²² Unfortunately, we do not have Xu’s edition and commentary of the Xi’an stele. What we have, are two works that mention extensively the discovery of the 781 stele and its content. The first is a short dissertation on iron crosses (Tie shizi zhu 鐵十字著, 1627).²³ The second is the Jingjiaotang beiji (Stone Inscription for the Church of the Luminous Teaching) to which this essay is devoted.

Written to answer the question why the doctrine preached by the scholars from the West had not been heard long before, Xu Guangqi’s inscription gives arguments for the evidence that “the Heavenly Teaching (tianjiao 天教) existed in China for over a thousand years” on the basis of the discovery of the Tang stele. Xu is therefore one of several Chinese converts who identified the Catholic religion brought to China by Matteo Ricci and his Jesuit brothers, which was known in those years as the “Heavenly Studies” or “Heavenly Doctrine” (tianxue 天學), with the “Luminous Teaching” (jingjiao 景教) that had entered China during the Tang dynasty.²⁴ Li Zhizao was the first to make this identification in his writings: “The tianxue was called jingjiao during the Tang dynasty. It was introduced into China in the ninth year of the Zhenguan 貞觀 period (635). It already has a history of one thousand years.”²⁵

Xu Guangqi opens his inscription in a classical way, namely with the summary of the introduction of Christianity in China by Matteo Ricci, who through his books “introduced [the Chinese] to the knowledge of the Brilliant Lord (Mingzhu 明主), speaking [of Him] with subtle language and introducing them to the good qualities of his doctrine, so that lear...