JapSin I, (38/42) 41/4
Cao gao 草稿 (chaobai 抄白).
By Yan Mo 嚴謨.
Manuscript, five unnumbered folios and cover page. Chinese bamboo paper, one volume. 24.3 x 14.3 cm.

The cover bears the title: Cao gao with chaobai (copied from correspondence) written in small characters. An inscription (three lines) reads: 此本煩為寄上李老師 (Please present this to Li laoshi). The Latin inscription reads: “Scriptus Ien Pauli.”

Folio 4 contains a letter from Yan Mo to Simão Rodrigues in which he informs him that the Christians of Zhangzhou have been without sacraments for a year owing to the prohibition of the Chinese Rites. “Because of this we feel that we are in hot water or in fire!” He greatly hopes that the Jesuits in Beijing will do something to check the influence of the two religious orders. At the end he says that the Li shi tiaowen has been more fully developed at the request of Monteiro.
From the above letter we know the family name of Yan Mo’s brother-in-law was Cai 蔡, though this was not mentioned in the letter to Monteiro. Now, in the Cao gao 草稿 ([38/42] 41/2a) there are three Christians mentioned with the family name Cai, namely Petrus, Theophilus and Ludovicus. Probably one of these is the brother-in-law of Yan Mo, mentioned in the letter to Rodrigues.

On folio 5, in a discussion of the honor given to Confucius there is a statement that reads: “This reply, collected to satisfy the inquiry of Li laoshi, has been revised.” Seemingly the discussion was directed against the treatise Bianji by Francisco Varo, O.P. (cf. Jap-Sin I, [38/42] 40/5). For Yan Mo it was hard to understand why anyone should object to giving Confucius the title of shengren 聖人 on the grounds that this was the title given only to saints of the Catholic Church. Yan Mo would retort that the title shengren had been given to Confucius long before the missioners came to China. It had merely been borrowed from the Chinese as the title for a saint of the Catholic Church. According to him, therefore, calling Confucius shengren had nothing to do with religion, since the meaning of this title differed so greatly from that of saints as used in the Catholic sense.

Source: Albert Chan, SJ, Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, pp. 66-67.

JapSin I, (38/42) 41/2a
Caogao 草稿.
By Yan Mo 嚴謨and five other Christians from Zhangzhou 漳州 (Fujian).
Handwritten copy, one folio and one and one-half line (Arabic numbers: 1–2). Chinese bamboo paper. 22.9 x 14.4 cm.

The cover bears the title in Chinese and a Latin inscription: “Scriptum Yen Pauli.”

From this letter we know that on Easter Sunday when the faithful gathered together at the church, Ma laoshi 馬老師 (i.e., Ma Xi’nuo 馬西諾, Magino Ventallol O.P., 1647–1732) made the announcement that Charles Maigrot, the bishop in Fujian, had persisted in forbidding the Chinese Rites and had refused the sacraments to Christians who would not yield to his mandate. The letter that Yan Mo wrote to Maigrot was considered an offence to the bishop. Michael, a nephew of Yan Mo, who was ill and was eager to go to confession, was refused the sacraments until he had promised to write against the writing of Yan Mo, which Michael had helped to copy. Yan Mo then goes on to say that he had been able to read some of Michael’s clarifications on the Bianji of Francisco Varo, altogether over twenty paragraphs. He then writes in his own defense “lest people may think that there is disagreement between uncle and nephew and thus lessen my authority.” He laments the absence of the Jesuits and is afraid that in case of illness there will be no priests who will give sacraments to the sick. He eagerly hopes for the return of Monteiro.

Source: Albert Chan, SJ, Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, pp. 64-65.