Includes Latin transcript of: ARSI, Jap. Sin. 158, "Controversiae variae: 1668–1698" ; ff. 51-61v: P. Adr. Grelon SJ. 1a via Cum nota authent. P. Lud. Da Gama, 10 dec. 1668.

Utrum ieiunantes Sinici volentes ad fidem converti obligandi sint ad solvendum ieiunium eique renuntiandum antequam baptismum suscipiant? nec ne? = "Whether Chinese fasters who want to convert to Christianity are obliged to break and renounce the fast before baptism?"

Summary:
From the beginning of the China mission, the Jesuits famously sought to accommodate Christianity to local culture by accepting practices such as the veneration of ancestors. The attempt by some Jesuits to tolerate Chinese vegetarianism is less known but deserves attention because of its cultural, anthropological and religious implications. The controversy which erupted in 1668 between the Jesuits Prospero Intorcetta (1626–96) and Adrien Grelon (1618–97) during the Canton Conference reveals two radically different understandings of the role of vegetarianism in Chinese society, as well as divergent implications for the Christian community. We shall first contextualise the controversy, the relevant documents in the Jesuit archives in Rome (ARSI), and the main arguments that were presented for and against the baptism of those who practise vegetarianism. Since recent scholarship has largely focused on the tenets of accommodation, we decided to translate the text of Grelon, an opponent of accommodation on the question of fasting, followed by the transcription of the original Latin text.

Local access dig.pdf. [Meynard-Fasting.pdf]

JapSin I, 103
Yongding linian zhanliri fa 永定歷年瞻禮日法.
By Bo Yingli 柏應理 (Philippe Couplet).
One juan. Chinese bamboo paper in one volume. No date or place of publication.

The cover bears the title and a Latin inscription: “Dierum festorum | Kalendarium perpe | tue fixum.”

1. A perpetual calendar of the feasts of the year.
2. The fixed feasts according to the Western calendar.
3. The feasts which fall on certain days of the week.
4. The ten great movable feasts of the year according to the Western calendar.
5. The feasts according to the Datong calendar 大統曆.

Cf. Pfister, p. 310, no. 5; Couplet, p. 39.

Source: Albert Chan, S.J., Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, p. 154.

“The author of these sermons probably is the Chinese Jesuit brother and catechist Lu Xiyan 陸希言 (1630-1704), also called Dominique…..[he] is known as the author of a collection of sermons held during an ecclesiastical year on Sundays (Zhounian zhuri kouduo 週年主日口鐸) and on feasts (Zhounian zhanli kouduo 週年瞻禮口鐸)…. Also the presence of some ‘Jesuit’ feasts points to a Jesuit as the author. Possibly it was the Chinese priest André Ly who in 1747 rearranged the original version.”

“[Mss.] contains the text of short daily sermons given on 374 successive days. These sermons are meditations on the Gospel readings of the Sundays and main feasts during a year. On weekdays, if there was no main feast, the sermon continued with further explaining the Gospel reading of the preceding Sunday or feast. These 374 sermons appear to cover the period 18 January 1690 – 27 January 1691. That it concerns the year 1690 is clear from the fact that the text mentions several times that the Incarnation took place 1690 years ago….” Cf. Ad Dudink & Nicolas Standaert, Chinese Christian Texts Database (CCT-Database). N.B. The above note applies to the BnF (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris) mss. Chinois 7406-7407.