<i>Christianity and Cultures: Japan & China in Comparison 1543–1644</i> (review)статья из журнала
Аннотация: Reviewed by: Christianity and Cultures: Japan & China in Comparison 1543–1644 Paul A. Rule Christianity and Cultures: Japan & China in Comparison 1543–1644. By M. Antoni J. Üçerler, S.J. [Bibliotheca Instituti Historici Societatis Jesu, Vol. 68.] (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu; published in collaboration with the University of San Francisco, the Ricci Institute, and the Macau Ricci Institute. 2009. Pp. xlvi, 410. €60,00. ISBN 978-8-870-41368-7.) The study of Christianity in China and Japan for institutional and other reasons has generally taken place in mutual isolation; hence the great value of the comparative survey provided by this volume. It is appropriately based on a conference held at the end of 2006 in Macau, the place where the two Jesuit missions (in this period they were mostly Jesuit enterprises) interacted and from which they were controlled. [End Page 404] However, one conclusion that a China specialist would most likely reach from a study of this rich and rewarding collection of papers is that the two fields have more divergences than commonalities. Some of this no doubt derives from language differences and translation difficulties. Worship may mean in English extreme respect—as in the “with my body I thee worship” of the old marriage rite—but when used to translate Chinese bai or to describe ancestor rituals in a theological context, it begs the question. Chinese rituals—especially Confucian rituals, when seen through Japanese eyes, at least as presented here—are necessarily idolatrous, and the issue is seen as whether idolatry may be tolerated. This was never the case in China, where the issue was precisely whether they were idolatrous, and, as Matteo Ricci concluded, the people were certainly not idolatrous and perhaps not even superstitious, a position not reversed until in 1704 the Holy See determined otherwise. A valid question is whether the Buddho-Confucian syncretism so common in Japan is the source of this apparent confusion. There are so many original and stimulating contributions in the collection that it is impossible to do them justice individually. However, a few may be singled out for comment. William Farge’s study of “translating religious experience” through Japanese translations of Christian works in Latin points to an extremely fruitful area for further investigation, of Chinese Christian literature as well as Japanese. However, in China at least, the aim was always adaptation rather than translation (as shown in Li Sher-shiueh’s contribution to this volume), and the Latin is not as intellectualist as Farge argues. Asami Masakazu’s study of Antonio Rubino’s defense of the Jesuit position on Chinese Rites is long overdue. However, it suffers from some misconceptions about Rubino and the theological issues. Amongst the cultural issues covered in this collection are artistic exchanges. Painting and sculpture are discussed but not, unfortunately, architecture and music, which are little explored. Macau is again and appropriately the focus. Thomas Lucas, in his commentary on this section of the book, points to the irony of a probable fourteenth-century European influence on the Guanyin/Kannon imagery of mother and child in China and then Japan. He might have added the further irony of a considerable export trade in porcelain figurines of madonna and child from China to Europe, the Philippines, and the New World. The last substantial chapter, by Timothy Brook, is perhaps the most thought-provoking. Brook asks whether what was called Xixue in China or “Western learning” should rather have been labeled Europaeology, by analogy with Sinology. At stake is the basic question of universality of values and [End Page 405] knowledge. Joseph Needham states that the fundamental clash was not between East and West, but between a universalizing science, which the Jesuits, as good Renaissance scholars, upheld, and an equally universalizing Chinese science. This is not to deny the problem of restricted cultural horizons, but teaching Western philosophical and scientific paradigms was not necessarily cultural imperialism. Rather, it was, in intention at least, a “fusion of horizons” in Hans Georg Gadamer’s terms. Christianity and Cultures advances such a fusion. Paul A. Rule Ricci Institute, University of San Francisco La Trobe University, Australia Copyright © 2011 The Catholic University of America Press
Год издания: 2011
Авторы: Paul Rule
Издательство: The Catholic University of America Press
Источник: The Catholic historical review
Ключевые слова: Chinese history and philosophy
Открытый доступ: closed
Том: 97
Выпуск: 2
Страницы: 404–406