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) 39/3
Shengci gushi 生祠故事.
Compiled by Mathias Xia 夏瑪第亞.
Manuscript, five folios. One volume. 24 x 14 cm.

The cover has only the inscription: “贛州夏相公 (Xia xianggong of Ganzhou).”

Source: Albert Chan, SJ, Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, p. 41.

JapSin I, (38/42) 39/2
Shengci yuanyou ce 生祠緣由冊.
By Mathias Xia 夏瑪第亞.
Manuscript, eleven folios. One volume. Chinese bamboo paper. 24 x 14 cm.

Mathias Xia wrote this treatise on the origin of the shrine in honor of a living person at the request of Francesco Saverio Filippucci (cf. 39/1).
The opening paragraph describes the origin of the shengci: when a government official had performed exceptional acts of benefit to the public, the people in order to show their gratitude erected a building in which they set up a tablet with the name and age of the official and on the first and fifteenth day of the month they would come together and pay him honor with incense and candles. In some cases they would even make a statue of the official. After his death the building was changed into a xianxianci 先賢祠 (memorial hall). New commemorative ceremonies would then begin. According to Xia, these were only ceremonies for the dead; they were by no means sacrifices to a deity. Xia then goes on to explain the nature of the shengci and cites different cases from the history of China.
At the end of the treatise there is an inscription which says: “This final copy is being made on the night of the twenty-ninth day of the tenth month in the twenty-fifth year of the Kangxi reign (14 December 1686) and I will send it to your reverence as was requested."

Source: Albert Chan, SJ, Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, pp. 40-41.