Woodstock Theological Library (WTL) has recently rediscovered among our rare book collections a 1847 reprint of Matteo Ricci’s Ji ren shi pian = 畸人十篇, which is often translated as Ten Discourses on the Man of Paradox. Here is an image of the title page which bears the imprimatur of Jerónimo José de Mata, C.M., who was bishop of Macao from 1844 to 1862.
This book, first published in 1608, is a collection of conversations Ricci had with some of the most influential intellectuals in China over Confucianism, Christianity, ethics, culture, and values. The book received a wide reception and, even if not well liked by all, gained a following. Ricci’s letter to his friend Girolama Costa attests to its influence: “A great scholar lived close to our house: he was very haughty, of great fame among them [the Confucian literati], received a continuous stream of auditors in his house, and was promoted from a minor post at court to a higher one due to his virtue. Many times he had been invited to come and visit us on account of the fame of our letters and the novel things and good doctrines we discourse on, but in two years, nobody had succeeded in persuading him to visit. I don’t know how he got hold of my [Ten Discourses on the Man of Paradox], which he liked a lot, so that he suddenly came to see me in great humility, and has already invited me to two or three banquets at his home, and he has brought his friends, many people of importance, to come and visit us. From this, Your Reverence can understand how much you can obtain with the publication of books in China.” -- from A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci 1552-1610. by R. Pol-Chia Hsia. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2010. p. 281 WTL’s copy of Ji ren shi pian is the only one in North America. Worldwide only three other copies of this version exist, one at the Bibliothèque national de France, Paris, another at the Bibliothèque interuniversitaire des langues orientales, also in Paris. The third copy is at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. WTL is grateful to our colleague Ding Ye for his help in creating the original cataloging for this book.
Entry authored by Amy E. Phillips, Rare Materials Cataloger for WTL on 8/5/2016