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The newly revised Ricci Institute Library catalog at Boston College retains all data from the original, with some Advanced Search functions still under construction. For Boston College Libraries, Databases, ILL etc. see here.

 Highlights from the Ricci Institute Library Collection: The New Testament in Manchu

 

Cover

In 2012, Mark T. Riley, professor emeritus of Latin at California State University, Sacramento, donated a curious volume to the Ricci Institute, then located at the University of San Francisco. The book is roughly 26 cm tall and thread-bound in the manner of East Asian books. The partially torn title label on the outside cover reads Musei ejen Isus Heristos-i tutabuha ice hese, a Manchu-language title that translates to New Order Bequeathed by Our Lord Jesus Christ. The word that I translate as “bequeath” here (tutabumbi) recalls the Greek diatheke ‘will (left after death)’, in Biblical contexts translated into Latin as testamentum. The work is indeed a Manchu version of the New Testament. The Ricci Institute only holds one volume, comprising 72 leaves and covering the Pauline Epistles from Ephesians to Hebrews (call number BS2695.L576 1835).

As I will explain in what follows, our book was translated by one Stepan Lipoftsoff and printed in Saint Petersburg in 1835. It was the product of a remarkable collaboration involving Russian Orthodox priests, British Protestants, Balto-German aristocrats, and printers, punchcutters, and typesetters of various national origins, all while being a book in the dynastic language of the Qing empire. The book is thus a good example of the early modern transnational entanglements that are so characteristic of the Ricci Institute’s holdings.

When Professor Riley donated this volume to us, he informed us that it came from the estate of the Rev. James Stephen Morrisett, formerly professor of Biblical languages at Gardner-Webb University, Boiling Springs, N.C. It is not clear how the book came into Morrisett’s possession. The obituary of the Baptist pastor, who passed away in 1969, notes that he did so while traveling in Japan (“Dr. Morrisett…” 1969). He thus had some kind of connection to East Asia, where he might have acquired the book.

The history of the Manchu-language Bible is connected to the Catholic, Russian Orthodox, and Protestant presence in the Qing empire and later the Chinese Republic. Manchu is a Tungusic language and thus related to languages historically spoken over a vast area in Northeast Asia, including Siberia, the Russian Far East, and the three northeastern provinces of China. Since the early seventeenth century, Manchu has been written using a modified form of the classical Mongolian script. Despite bearing little similarity to Chinese in terms of morphology, syntax, lexicon, or writing system, the Manchu language became intimately associated with China when the Manchus conquered the Chinese Ming empire in 1644. The Manchus ruled under the dynastic title of Qing and greatly expanded the empire’s borders. At the height of Manchu power around 1800, the empire encompassed the Ölet and Uyghur territories in Central Asia, Mongolia, and the Pacific littoral up to the northern part of Sakhalin. It was the largest empire to be ruled from Beijing since the Mongols established the Yuan empire in the thirteenth century.

The Qing empire’s geographic extent and huge population (approximately 300 million in 1800, when Russia had about 40, Japan 30, and England 11 million) (Naquin and Rawski 1987: 107) made it a target for Christian missionaries. The Catholic order of the Jesuits had been present in China since before the Manchu conquest, continued their strategy of seeking close contacts with the empire’s elite, which now included the Manchu emperors and aristocracy. Once relations between Russia and the Qing empire were normalized in the late seventeenth century, Orthodox clergy lived and studied in Beijing, where they served the small Russian community. Protestants, meanwhile, arrived in China in the early nineteenth century. Chinese (in its many varieties) was the dominant language in both speech and writing, but the Manchu language’s politically privileged position at different points in time made it an object of interest for missionaries of various stripes.

The Jesuits translated a number of their Chinese-language Christian tracts into Manchu.  The first attempt to translate parts of the Bible was made by the French-born, Italian Jesuit Louis de Poirot (He Qingtai 賀清泰, 1735-1813). Poirot left Europe for China in 1769 and thereafter lived in Beijing until his death. His tasks eventually included translation between Latin and Manchu in the diplomatic exchange between Russia and the Qing. By 1790, Poirot had completed a translation into Manchu of large parts of the Bible and immediately thereafter began a translation into vernacular Chinese. Poirot’s translations were never published. The Manchu version remains in three manuscripts held in the archives of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Cambridge, the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg, and the Toyo Bunko in Tokyo. Of these, the copy in the Toyo Bunko is thought to be closest to Poirot’s holograph (which does not appear to be extant). The Toyo Bunko copy was acquired in Beijing (then called Beiping) by Matsumura Taro 松村太郎 (d. 1944) and entered the Toyo Bunko’s holdings in 1934. The Saint Petersburg copy is unique in having Poirot’s Chinese translation alongside the Manchu in interlinear columns (Takekoshi et al. 2021: ii).

In 1800, Poirot in Beijing met briefly with a young Russian, Stepan Vasilevitch Lipoftsoff (Stepan Vasilʹevich Lipovtsov, 1770-1841), who would become the second translator of parts of the Bible into Manchu. Presumably the pair conversed in Chinese or Manchu, as Lipoftsoff knew no other European language besides Russian (Randall 2024: 49) and there is little reason to believe that Poirot knew that language.

Lipoftsoff had entered the seminary in Kazan in 1783 and later joined the eighth Orthodox mission to Beijing, which set out in 1794 and returned to Russia in 1807 (Walravens 1977-78: 65). In Beijing he studied Manchu with Ikengge, who had worked as a language teacher for the Russian Orthodox mission since about 1780 (Mende 1972: 216n7). In 1808, after his return to Russia from Beijing, Lipoftsoff was appointed Chinese and Manchu translator at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Saint Petersburg. He remained at this post until his death.

The translation of the Bible into Manchu that was carried out in Russia only ever concerned the New Testament. A translation was first begun sometime before 1816 in Irkutsk—an important center for Russian relations with East Asia—whence the governor in that year sent a partial translation of the Gospel of Matthew to the recently established Russian Bible Society in Saint Petersburg. The translation had been carried out by one of the governor’s interpreters. A member of the Bible Society—probably Lipoftsoff—was then asked to continue the work, but he could only take up the work with some delay. In 1821, Robert Pinkerton (1784-1859), a Protestant missionary and one of the founders of the Bible Society, sent the first chapter of the Gospel of John, in Lipoftsoff’s translation, to Jean-Pierre Abel Rémusat (1788-1832), the holder of Europe’s first professorship of Chinese and Manchu in Paris. Rémusat deemed the translation to be exact, even elegant (Mende 1972: 216n6). The following year, the translation of the Gospel of Matthew was completed. The transcriptions of proper names were made uniform across the Manchu, Kalmyk, and classical Mongolian versions of the scriptures (Mende 1972: 216), presumably because all three languages were written using related scripts. A Kalmyk Gospel of Matthew had already been printed in 1815, and a literary Mongolian Lord’s Prayer in 1818. Now, also the Manchu Gospel of Matthew was handed over for printing.

Printing a Manchu book in Europe was initially not a trivial task. While Manchu was routinely printed in the Qing empire using the East Asian technology of woodblock printing, European printers used movable type. Printing Manchu using movable type posed some challenges, as the letters of a Manchu word are connected, with each letter having a different shape depending on its position in the word. Louis-Mathieu Langlès (1763-1824) and Firmin Didot (1734-1846) first cast a Manchu type in Paris in the late 1780s. Langlès considered this type a major technological breakthrough, of which he was very proud (Söderblom Saarela 2020: ch. 8).

The type used for the 1822 publication of the Manchu Gospel of Matthew was a different set. There was already some experience with printing scripts of this type in Saint Petersburg, as evidenced by the earlier publications of Kalmyk and classical Mongolian Christian texts. The Kalmyk type dated from 1813 and the classical Mongolian one from 1818. The pioneering Mongolist scholar Isaak Jacob Schmidt (1779-1847), Rev. John Paterson, and an unnamed “very clever, ingenious” and “self-taught German” created the Kalmyk type, but matters are a little bit unclear regarding the classical Mongolian type. Hartmut Walravens speculates that the Balto-German aristocrat and Russian official Paul Schilling von Canstadt (1786-1837) created the type in 1817 with the help of the designer Friedrich Gass. The initially overly Manchu-looking type would later have been modified under Schmidt’s guidance for the 1818 printing of the classical Mongolian Lord’s Prayer (Walravens 2015). The fact that Schilling appears to have initially created a Mongolian font that was somewhat of a Manchu-Mongol hybrid is indicative, perhaps, of the fact that there was already a precedent for Manchu typography, unlike for Mongolian.

It appears that the 1817 type contained all the Manchu letters and would thus have been possible to use for printing a Manchu book. Yet when the time came to print the Manchu Gospel of Matthew, a different font was made. Schilling was responsible for this one as well. The new set, smaller than the first, was cut in Leipzig by Johann Schelter in 1819 (Walravens 2012: 412) and paid for by the British and Foreign Bible Society, which had been founded a little over a decade earlier. Five hundred and fifty copies were printed and stored at the premises of the Asmus, Simondsen & Co. bank for later use; a small number were sent to the British and Foreign Bible Society and to scholars in Asia and Europe. Lipoftsoff finished the translation of the entirety of the New Testament in 1826, but because of the Russian authorities’ suppression of the activities of the Bible Society, the rest was not printed (Mende 1972: 217).

In 1832, the British and Foreign Bible Society decided to try again with publishing the Manchu New Testament. To this end, they enlisted the help of George Barrow (1803-1881), a colorful character who by the age of eighteen allegedly already knew eight spoken European languages and was later said to be able to read the Bible in thirteen languages. Barrow went to work studying Manchu in London using Lipoftsoff’s Gospel of Matthew as well as the Manjuristic publications of the Paris-based scholars, including the works brought to print by Langlès. Barrow claimed to make swift progress in the language and soon set out for Saint Petersburg.

Barrow collaborated with Lipoftsoff, who in the meantime had made changes to his translations. Barrow wrote to his employers in England: “I have derived great benefit from this man, who though in many respects a most singular and uncouth being speaks Mandchou gallantly, with the real pronunciation of Pekin…soft and melodious” (Darlow 1911: 45). To what extent Barrow was qualified to pass such judgment is questionable, however, as he had himself never been to China.

Since Lipoftsoff held a Russian government position, he was reluctant to be too closely associated with the printing project, which had already been shut down once by the authorities. In consequence, Barrow took charge of the project, which occupied him for two years.

Barrow faced several challenges. The already-printed Gospels of Matthew had been lost in an inundation of the river Neva, which had also damaged the Manchu type that was stored at the same location. The type had to be cleaned of grime and rust. Barrow also had to procure paper fit for a Chinese-style publication in the Qing court language at a reasonable cost. Eventually, Schilling was able to source it from two private firms. The printer Schulz & Beneze was to print the new edition, but lacked experience with the Manchu language. According to Barrow, the manpower at his disposal consisted of “two rude Esthonian [sic] peasants, who previously could barely compose with decency in a plain language in which they spoke and were accustomed to” (Briner 1929). Even after Barrow had given them instruction, the printshop was only able to produce one sheet of text per day. Some typos nevertheless remained, e.g., alci instead of ilaci ‘third’ on 53b of our book. To make matters worse, Lipoftsoff’s corrections to his earlier translations had been written in a spidery hand that Barrow could only read with great difficulty.

Yet in the summer of 1835, Barrow and his collaborators were able to complete the printing of all of the Manchu New Testament in eight volumes. A thousand copies were made. The goal was to use it for mission work in the Qing empire, where Barrow proposed to travel himself via Mongolia (he was confident he could learn enough Chinese in Kiakhta before crossing the border). As the Russian authorities would only agree to grant Barrow a travel permit as long as he did not bring the books with him, this plan was dead in the water. The edition was instead sent to London for later use. In 1843, a few copies were distributed to Manchus, unclear where. In 1850, a few copies were sent to China. More followed in 1852, but the ship that carried them sank off Java. The Manchu type was sent to China the following year in view of producing a bilingual, Manchu-Chinese edition. The Gospels of Matthew and Mark were published in China in 1859, with the 1850 Delegates’ Version used for the Chinese-language portion of the text. Some copies were used in the Amur region of Manchuria and in Kamchatka in 1869. A third edition was produced photolithographically in 1911, this time to serve the mission in the Ili region of Xinjiang, where Manchu-speaking troops had been stationed since the Qing conquest of the region in the mid-eighteenth century. Finally, the 1835 edition was reprinted again in 1929 for use in the region. Only this last edition reproduced the Pauline Epistles, judging by Erling von Mende’s description. This 1929 reprint, however, was not stitch-bound, which allows us to identify the Ricci Institute copy as stemming from the 1835 edition (Mende 1972: 220-21).

With some notable exceptions, most research on Lipoftsoff’s Manchu New Testament has concerned its origins and publication history. A lot of work remains to be done.

By Mårten Söderblom Saarela, Special Collections Librarian.

With thanks to Mark Mir (Ricci Institute, Boston College), Song Gang (University of Hong Kong), and Elvin Meng (University of Chicago).

24 February, 2025.

References

Briner, U. 1929. “The Manchu New Testament.” The Chinese Recorder. Sep. 1.: 570-73.

Darlow, T. H. 1911. Letters of George Borrow to the British and Foreign Bible Society. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

“Dr. Morrisett Dies While Touring Japan.” 1969. Forest City Courier. Apr. 28.

Mende, Erling von. 1972. “Einige Bemerkungen zu den Druckausgaben des mandjurischen Neuen Testaments.” Oriens Extremus 19.1/2: 215-21.

Naquin, Susan and Evelyn S. Rawski. 1987. Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Randall, Ian. 2024. “George Borrow (1803–1881) in St Petersburg and the Scriptures in Manchu.” Journal of European Baptist Studies 24.1: 41-63.

Söderblom Saarela, Mårten. 2020. The Early Modern Travels of Manchu: A Script and Its Study in East Asia and Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Takekoshi Takashi 竹越孝, Qi Can 斉燦, Yu Yating 余雅婷, and Chen Xiao 陳暁. 2021. Man-Kan gappekiban koshin seikei no kenkyū 満漢合璧版『古新聖經』の研究 [Studies on the Manchu-Chinese interlinear, bilingual edition of Guxin Shengjing]. Tokyo: Kobun shuppan.

Walravens, Hartmut. 1977-78. “S. V. Lipovcov: A Little Known Russian Manchurist.” Manchu Studies Newsletter, nos. 1-2: 65-74.

Walravens, Hartmut. 2012. “Anzeige einer von der Regierung neuerworbenen Sammlung Orientalischer Werke. Die Sammlung Schilling von Canstadt im Asiatischen Museum in St. Petersburg, 1830.” Monumenta Serica 60: 407-31.

Walravens, Hartmut. 2015. “The St. Petersburg Mongolian Type.” Rocznik Orientalistyczny 68.2: 213-24.