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His academic career had been launched in 1959 by his brilliant doctoral dissertation which became a classic reference on The Buddhist Conquest of China (twice reprinted in 1972 and 2007). The two volumes under review will remain his last effort of twenty years of work: they have opened for general readership the friendly conversations between Giulio Aleni ( 艾儒略 , 1589-1662), some other Jesuits and local Chinese literati. These encounters were held in various places of 福建 Fujian province between 1630 and 1640 and had been recorded by 李九標 Li Jiubiao and others to finally be published in eight juan in 福州 Fuzhou city in the mid-1640s.
The value of this publication does not come only from the translation of the Diary (Vol. 1, pp. 181-618), itself impressive because of its size! In these many pages, the conversations have no topical ordering; they just follow the calendar, but the dates and places are noted. The main pattern is a succession of questions posed by literati of various social backgrounds and answers given by the missionary. The length of the conversations vary, depending on the topic, its difficulty or its importance. But there are also entries made of stories or of homilies (or notes taken afterwards to summarize them). The complete reading of the Diary offers a vivid observation of what has been in this time the local practice of “accommodation in action”, and not only the missionary or theological theory of it—the object of later heated debates.
The scope and quality of the Introduction, pp. 1-178 (itself the size of a book!) shows the mastery with which Professor Zürcher leads the reader in better discovering the contents of the Diary. It is divided into nine sections. After presenting the Text with its problems (I., pp. 9-29) and the Scene (II.) with its geographical, social and ecclesiastical background (pp. 29-51), the Actors are introduced: first, the Missionaries (III.): Aleni, Andrzej Rudomina (1594-1632), who died quite young, Bento de Mattos (1600-1651) and Simão da Cunha (1589-1660); then, the Converts (IV.), “friends in the religion”, seventy-three in all, most of them “humble bachelors”, “local schoolmasters” from the local gentry, yet important persons in the local Christian communities (some are individually presented, pp. 77-101); and finally, the Outsiders (V.), whose questions requested some apologetic answers. The sections on Doctrine (VI.) and Communal Rituals: Holy Mass and Funerals (VII.) are perhaps the most interesting as far as the content of the conversations is concerned (pp. 106-161); both comment on some various tenets of the Christian faith, not necessarily the most important ones, but as they appear during the conversations; as such, these topics give a sketchy image of the reception of the Christian faith and life in the Christian communities in Fujian at the time. The last two sections conclude this Introduction by mentioning the ethical or social challenges present in the Christian faith (VIII. Social Aspects: marriage, concubinage, social inequality) and various questions of faith related to the ancient history of China, the importance of religion in relation to the sciences, etc.—topics that occasionally were debated in some conversations.
The ambitious publication of the Diary of Oral Admonitions , its annotated translation and, in Vol. 2, the reprint of the Chinese text (from: Nicolas Standaert and Adrian Dudink eds., 耶稣會羅馬檔案館明清天主教文獻
Yesuhui Luoma dang'anguan Ming Qing Tianzhujiao wenxian—Chinese Christian Texts from the Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus , Vol. VII, Taibei, 2002, pp. 1-594) followed by an abundant Bibliography (pp. 771-814) and an Index and Glossary (pp. 815-862) transform the whole work into a resource document for further research on early modern Christianity in China.
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