JapSin I, (38/42) 39/1
Ganzhou tang Xia xianggong shengming Madiya hui Fang laoye shu 贛州堂夏相公聖名瑪第亞回方老爺書.
By Mathias Xia 夏瑪第亞.
Manuscript, one volume. Chinese bamboo paper. Three folios. 24 x 13 cm.

The covers bears the title and a Latin inscription: “de aedibus | quae | erigitur viris in | memoriam | auctore Hia Mathia | de Kancheu in | Kiamsi.”

Since the note in Portuguese says that Xia lived at the church of Can cheu (Ganzhou 贛州), it seems quite certain that this old scholar was a catechist. Fang laoye, to whom this letter is addressed, is Francesco Saverio Filippucci (1632–1692), whose Chinese name was Fang Jige 濟各 (zi 以智). Twice he had been Provincial of Japan: from December 1680 to December 1683, and from 1690 to 6 January 1692; he has also been Visitor of China and Japan (1688–1691).
The letter is a reply to Filippucci’s request for the history of the shengci 生祠 (shrines in honour of a living person). Xia excuses himself for not being able to say very much because he has lost all his books in the civil war. All he could do, was to do his best to write what he knows about the subject. He mentions the shrine built in honor of the notorious Ming eunuch Wei Zhongxian 魏忠賢 (fl. 1624) and he quotes as his authority the Mingchao tongji 明朝通紀.

In the later part of his letter Xia severely criticizes Buddhism and Daoism. He praises Ricci highly as the only hero who dared to challenge the Buddhists. He eagerly requests Filippucci to write a book in refutation of Buddhism or, failing this, to write to Verbiest in Beijing and let the latter prepare a memorial to the throne to expose the iniquities of the Buddhists with the hope that Buddhism will be abolished in China.
There is no date in this letter, but from the Shengci yuanyou ce 生祠緣由冊 (Jap-Sin I, 39/2), at the end of which Xia gives the date of Kangxi 25 (1686), we can safely say that this letter must have been written shortly before 1686.

Source: Albert Chan, SJ, Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, pp. 39-40.

JapSin I, (38/42) 40/9a
Jisi wenda 祭祀問答.
By Hong Yinajue (Ignatius) 洪依納爵, Zhu Ximan (Simon) 朱西滿 and Yang Boduolu (Peter) 楊伯多綠.
Manuscript, folios 101–119. Chinese bamboo paper, one volume. 24.5 x 14.5 cm.

The cover bears a Portuguese inscription: “Sobre as controversias.” The first folio bears the title in Chinese. The upper margin bears a Latin inscription: “Tractatus datus P. Intorcettae a Christianis in Ham cheu de Che kiam sub titulo ci su uen ta.”

At the end of the manuscript there is a letter addressed to Bai laoshi 白老師 by the same authors. Among the Jesuit missioners of this time there were two who had Bai for their family name in Chinese, namely, Johann Grueber 白乃心 (1623–1680) and Joachim Bouvet 白晉 (1656–1730). Since neither of them had ever been missioners in Hangzhou, it is hardly possible that either of them was the person to whom the letter was addressed: “Since your Reverence left us several years ago we have often thought of your Reverence. When will your Reverence be back with us in Hangzhou and give us another chance to listen to your teaching?” I am of the opinion that the recipient may have been Philippe Couplet whose Chinese name was Bai Yingli 柏應理 (1642–1693) and who was a missioner for some time in Zhejiang.
The content of the letter is substantially the same as that of the manuscript. It is interesting to note that the scholars had been asked by Intorcetta whether the Jesuit missioners had allowed Catholics to burn paper money or to read sacrificial odes or to perform other superstitious practices. Their reply was that such things had never happened nor had such things ever appeared in their writings. However, at the end of the letter they gave the information that in Jinhua 金華 (i.e., Lanqi 蘭谿) a certain Mr. Zhu had claimed to have heard something different and had tried to lead the faithful to change the rules. According to our three scholars this way of acting could not be tolerated.

Source: Albert Chan, SJ, Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, pp. 57-58.

Letters of a Peking Jesuit : the correspondence of Ferdinand Verbiest SJ (1623-1688) /  [edited by] Noël Golvers.

Introduction and commentary in English; letters in various languages, chiefly Latin and Portuguese.

Revised and expanded version of the edition entitled Correspondance de Ferdinand Verbiest, edited by Henri Josson and Léon Willaert; published Brussels : Palais des Académies, 1938.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 949-962) and indexes.

Together with Verbiest’s printed works, this correspondence is the most direct witness of his rich life and activities (1623-1688). It covers the 43 years between his first application for the Indies (1645) and his farewell to the Kangxi Emperor (28.01.1688). Side by side with the copies of his astronomical drawings and eclipse maps, inventoried in F. Verbiest and the Chinese Heaven (2003), these letters reveal a wide-ranging network of contacts, within China and with Europe. The topics are as many and various as the 55 correspondents are different, spanning the whole spectrum from the Jesuits in Moscow to Pedro II in Lisbon, from the Franciscans in Shandong to Pope Innocentius XI and the Cardinals of CPF in Rome.  The topics are related to his successive positions in the Jesuit hierarchy in China, his work as an engineer and ‘astronomer’ for the Court and his international diplomatic interventions, with the Jesuit mission in China as the central argument. Verbiest appears in his letters as a very engaged personality, with strong (but carefully outed) convictions and a wide outlook, which comprises the Peking and European Courts, together with Manila, Goa and Siam in one vision. This edition of 134 letters from and to Verbiest replaces that of Henri Bosmans (ed. by H. Josson and L. Willaert), publ. in Brussels in 1938. It is a critical revision of the formerly known 80 items, with a restitution of the original Chinese transcriptions (due to A. Dudink), all extended with 54 new items, mostly from the Ajuda archives (Lisbon), the latter putting especially the Chinese scene in the focus. Two major documents are added (dated 1661 and 1681), which reflect his talents as a polemic writer; also in various other letters he unfolds scriptorial talents, combined to a sharp sense of observation. All this makes this pluri-linguistic corpus (mainly in Latin and Portuguese) to a first hand testimony of the Jesuit mission in China during the restoration from its crisis (1665-1669) to its apogee, of which many dramatic moments and aspects are revealed by the author, who was the main agent in this process.

Tomás Pereira : obras / coordenação, Luís Filipe Barreto ; tradução de latim para português, Arnaldo do Espírito Santo ; leitura, transcrição e notas, Ana Cristina da Costa Gomes, Isabel Murta Pina, Pedro Lage Correia.
Portuguese and Latin.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Local access dig.pdf. [Pereira Obras.pdf]