小人物的大历史: 清初四川天主教徒徐若翰个案研究的启示

Abstract

This article compares four rare Chinese Christian texts held in several libraries in Europe and America. By using a number of other relevant sources on the Catholic Church in late imperial China, it reconstructs the life stories of an obscure Chinese convert from Sichuan in the early Qing period, whose name was identified as Johan Su. In this micro-historical study, I will reveal how Su assisted Jean Basset (1662─1707), a missionary from the Missions étrangères de Paris, in their first Chinese translation of the New Testament. He further compiled a Gospel Harmony by himself, thereby leaving an unnamed yet significant work for the later generations, particularly the Protestant biblical translations initiated by Robert Morrison and his peers in the early 19th-century. Along his journey from Sichuan to Guangzhou and Macau, Su not only was involved in the intense contests among the Catholic orders in China, but also served as a Chinese secretary of the papal legate Carlo T. Maillard de Tournon (1668─1710) during his exile in Macau. Moreover, Su in one of his unsent letters expressed a voice of “the most humble one in the Church” in defense of Tournon, and meanwhile cast severe criticisms at the despicable acts of the Jesuits. His descriptions thus completely overturned the idealistic “Western scholar” image cherished by the Jesuits since the late Ming period. To recover the remarkable life of this “small figure” can enrich our understanding of some previously untended subjects and remind us of their particular value in supplementing and rewriting the macro-history of the Catholic Church in late imperial China.