This varied and oft-insightful volume is the product of a conference hosted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2017. The conference brought together scholars from a range of disciplines to explore the historical encounter of the Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP) and Chinese society. The conference itself marked a sort of coming of age for the subject. While a dedicated group of international scholars has spent decades plumbing the depths of the MEP's Rue de Bac archives, the society has largely remained marginal in English-language scholarship on Chinese Catholicism and Catholic missions, this despite MEP leaders being responsible for almost a quarter of all Catholics in China around the turn of the twentieth century. The conference represented an important first step towards rectifying this shortage of recognition. This volume is yet another.
The volume is divided into three sections, along with an introduction, conclusion and appendix. Ji Li's helpful introduction argues that MEP missionaries remain an untapped resource for understanding the entanglements of Catholic localisation in China and French imperial ambitions; the MEP unites the overlapping historiographies of ecclesiastical history, French imperial history and Chinese history. These overlapping visions are then paired with a rough chronology to form the three sections of the book. Part i focuses on the role of MEP and the process of cultural accommodation in the seventeeth and eighteenth centuries. On the whole, this section takes on a more textual approach with essays that explore the way notable MEP Fathers and their Chinse co-labourers participated in the adaptation and production of texts which had a long-lasting impact on Chinese Christianity. Barriquand (ch. i) provides a nuanced exploration of Jean Basset's important philosophical work, and Chen (ch. ii) investigates the relationship between Basset's translated Gospels and an oft-attributed Gospel harmony. Kang and Wu's essay (ch. iii) outlines the impact of the MEP missionary Joachim Enjobert de Martiliat through his far-reaching Rules for virgins. This eighteenth-century text was an influential attempt to standardise shouzhennü (Chinese Catholic virgins’) practice by adjusting similar Dominican practices to the Chinese context.
Part ii focuses on the interaction between evangelisation and imperial expansion in the early to the mid-nineteeth century. Jean-Paul Wiest (ch. iv) employs his extensive knowledge to chart the early growth of Catholicism in Guangdong and the papally-appointed role that the MEP played in overseeing the ‘spiritual awakening’ of the province (p. 86). Wiest helpfully shows that many of the successes of the MEP were built upon Chinese Catholic expatriates who had returned to catechise their villages during the Kangxi emperor's ban on Western missionaries. Masson's lengthy French-language essay (ch. v) explores the interlocking histories of the French religious protectorate in China and the martyrdom of the MEP priest Auguste Chapdelaine. France's imperialistic policy positioned it as the protector of all Catholics in China and turned his death into a casus belli for entry into the Second Opium War. Likewise, it allowed MEP leaders to benefit disproportionately from subsequent war reparations.
Part iii explores how these imperialist policies bloomed and then broke down under nationalist pressures in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Xiang (ch. vi) reconstructs the real estate empire constructed by the MEP bishop Guillemin in Southern China. Notably, she draws attention to the way Guillemin and others violated government regulations about land ownership by employing local strategies of evasion. Likewise, Zhao's essay (ch. vii) is a detailed exploration of archival sources that painstakingly reconstructs the MEP educational presence in Kangding before and during the Republican period. Yet, tensions and changes in China were not the only challenges facing MEP Fathers in this period. Guo's French-language essay (ch. viii) explores contestations within the early field of French sinology through the libel case of the MEP Father Paul-Hubert Perny. The volume is interestingly drawn to a close. Rather than offer a summary or synthesis, Ernest P. Young's conclusion offers four biographical anecdotes which draw out the themes of the collection in an entertaining and personalist fashion. Following this, MEP Father Jean-Paul Charbonnier's appendix provides a twenty-three-page chronological narrative of MEP activity in China.
As with almost all edited volumes, this collection has its highs and lows. While offering valuable insights, Chen's and Xiang's contributions get bogged down in archival conundrums. Likewise, the inclusion of two French-language pieces – while perhaps fitting for a book on a French society – slightly undercuts the stated goal of advancing MEP scholarship in English. These small critiques aside, the highs of the volume make up for any deficit. Li's editorial introduction masterfully frames the importance of studying the MEP. Likewise, the contributions from esteemed scholars like Young, Wiest and Charbonnier condense decades of experience and provide a valuable starting place for future research. The volume would be a valuable addition to the bookshelves of advanced graduate students, scholars of Christianity in China, or any library with a focus on modern East Asian history.
