Pictorial Perspective: The Sinicization and Dissemination of Christian Stories Through Tianzhu Jiangsheng Chuxiang Jingjie During the Late Ming Dynasty

Tianzhu Jiangsheng Chuxiang Jingjie 天主降生出像经解 was published to justify the “complementing Confucianism and replacing Buddhism” strategy and to establish illustrative Christian storytelling that preserves the design and art style of Nadal’s Evangelica historiae imagines, thus marking an important step in Sinicizing and disseminating these Christian narratives to Chinese audiences during the Late Ming period. From this perspective, this article explores Giulio Aleni’s decisions when writing Jingjie, particularly focusing on compilation by replication, re-compositing, and re-design to preserve Western Christian storytelling while incorporating necessary Chinese elements. It further clarifies Evangelica historiae imagines and Vita D.N. lesu Christi as the primary visual and storytelling references, respectively. A map of Jerusalem was included as it relates to Chinese historical documentation. Moreover, through this exploration, Jingjie is further compared with Evangelica historiae imagines and Song Nianzhu Guicheng 诵念珠规程 to examine the transformation of Christian stories through Chinese and Western imagery, thus distinguishing two different transformation approaches to Chinese Christian storytelling (i.e., the retelling of Christian stories for Chinese audiences), serving as a complement to prior related studies.