Illuminative Merits and Miracles: A Collection of Christian Stories from Late Ming China

Abstract

This paper centers on Lixiu yijian 勵修一鑑 (A Mirror to Exhort Self-cultivation), a collection of Catholic hagiographies and miracle tales compiled by the Confucian convert Li Jiugong 李九功 (?–1681) in Fujian over the last ten years of the Ming regime. The stories in it, whether transmitted from European sources or locally made and circulated, were intended for religious propagation. They constitute vivid evidence of how Christian beliefs and practices were exchanged, recorded, and socially fashioned into a new tradition by the missionaries and Chinese converts. A close look at the stories reveals some similar Christian and Chinese concerns about divine retribution for good and bad deeds, to certain extent in parallel with the popular trend of morality books. Traces of cross-religious appropriation are visible in telling the miraculous events, where prayers, objects, and exorcist rituals have been applied in more or less similar ways to the native traditions. They serve a twofold purpose: to prove God’s power and the superior efficacy of Christian devotions, and, to subjugate if not eliminate the multitude of religious rivals. Li’s collection on Christian morality and wonders, carefully structured and interpreted in light of his “mirror” metaphor, allows us to get a glimpse into the kind of Christian literature documenting how a collective memory was formed and shared in late Ming Catholic communities, and how Christianity gained its significant foothold in Fujian.