Event

Please join us for the next lecture in the EALC Speakers' Colloquium. 

When Christianity was introduced to China in the Ming and Qing dynasties, translations of sacred texts and biblical figures were employed as the medium of proselytization. The Jesuit-translators’ translations have their own lives, drawing the parallels between Chinese mythological figures and the image of Jesus Christ. The making of Jesus in the hands of the Jesuit Figurists revealed their intention of establishing a communal space between Christianity and Chinese history and culture.

Different from the previous Jesuits in the Late Ming Dynasty, the Jesuits Figurists in the Early Qing Dynasty, including Bouvet, Foucquet, and Prémare, followed the Hermeticism tradition and associated the numbers, images, and interpretation in the Yijing 易經 (the Book of Changes) with the stories in the Old Testament for proselytization in China. In the Figurists’ re-interpretation of the Yijing, the Yijing was Christianized and infused with the types of Jesus Christ. In addition, the emergence of Jesus was also paralleled with Chinese mythological creatures, with a new Chinese image of Jesus in the hexagrams, in Confucian ethical emotions, and in missionary vernacular novels.

Each Figurist, in investigating Figurism and interpreting the Yijing, had his own identity, focus, and trajectory. Their making of Jesus also led to the European people aspiring for a more in-depth understanding and more discussion of the Yijing and the Dao.

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Sophie Ling-chia Wei is an Associate Professor in the Department of Translation at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. She received her PhD from Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania in 2015. Her research interests include Jesuits’ and Protestant missionaries’ translations of Chinese classics. She recently authored Chinese Theology and Translation: The Christianity of the Jesuit Figurists and their Christianized Yijing published by Routledge in 2020. She also co-edited The Newly Edited Song Long Yuan’s Commentaries on Daodejing 《道德經舊注精編》published by Shanghai Joint Publishing in 2020. Her article, “In the Light and Shadow of the Dao–Two Figurists, Two Intellectual Webs” in Journal of Translation Studies was awarded Joint Runner-up of the Martha Cheung Award for Best English Article in Translation Studies by an Early Career Scholar in March 2020. She was also awarded Young Researcher Award for the year 2021-22 by CUHK.