Forgive Us Our Sins: Confession in Late Ming and Early Qing China ed. by Nicolas Standaert, Ad Dudink (review)

Book Reviews 193 Forgive Us Our Sins: Confession in Late Ming and Early Qing China Edited by NICOLAS STANDAERT & AD DUDINK. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica; Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 2006. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series, LV. 268 pages. ISSN 0179-261X; ISBN 978-38050-05401 . €40.00 paperback. This volume should go a long way toward moving our understanding of Christian confession in China during the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries beyond generalities. Forgive Us Our Sins: Confession in Late Ming and Early Qing China, a collection of contributions resulting from an international workshop on “Chinese and Christian Rituality in Late Imperial China,” held in Leuven, Belgium in June of 2004, is made up of an Introduction by the two editors, three articles, and a translation of a confessional manual. The short Introduction places the articles in the context of compilation of the Handbook of Christianity in China: Volume One (635-1800) (Leiden, 2000). According to the editors of the Introduction (who were also the editors of the Handbook), they realized while compiling the Handbook that information is scarce on Christian ritual in China. Rather than wait for a study to be written and cause a considerable delay in publication of the Handbook, the editors chose to fill this gap of knowledge by later continuing efforts. The workshop on ritual which resulted in this volume is a first step in efforts to fill the gap. Eugenio Menegon’s “Deliver Us From Evil: Confession and Salvation in Seventeenthand Eighteenth-Century Chinese Catholicism,” explores in rich descriptive detail and example the sacrament of penance (confession) as taught to and practiced by Chinese Christians. Part One of the article discusses confession as a sacramental ritual. According to Menegon, the Jesuits when introducing Christian beliefs and practices to the Chinese focused on developing a sense of sin and an understanding of the importance of baptism and repentance as rituals to control sin. Early oral explanation gave way in later decades to booklets and fliers outlining the steps of the confession rite: examination of conscience, contrition, confession, and satisfaction. Through words, attitude, and action, the penitent expressed both inward contrition and an outward repentance. Part Two of the article examines how confession was experienced in the social and religious life of Christians. The sacrament was important to all Christians, whatever their social or educational level, for some as a means of moral selfcultivation and for others for protection from evil, cleansing from sin, and assurance of salvation. While Christians in urban areas were able to receive the sacrament of penance several times a year, those in isolated rural areas had to wait for whenever a priest came. Many feared dying without confessing and looked to Mary and indulgences for help in obtaining forgiveness. Menegon stresses that it was important for Chinese Christians that the rites worked; the authority the priests had over them was derived from their power to enact efficacious ritual. Five appendices follow the article proper: (1) a comparison of the Tables of Contents from the two texts on confession, Dizui zhenggui 滌罪正規 and Dizui zhenggui lüe 194 Journal of Chinese Religions 滌罪正規略 by Giuliu Aleni; (2) the Confiteor and Act of Contrition in Chinese; (3) Gaojie siyao 告 解 四 要 [The Four Essentials of Confession] translated into English; (4) the Examination of conscience from Dizui zhenggui lüe 滌罪正規略; (5) a preliminary statistical analysis and tables related to the practice of sacramental confession in China. The scope of the second article, “Buddhist chanhui and Christian Confession in Seventeenth Century China” by Erik Zürcher, is broader than the title suggests. While the main focus is chanhui 懺悔 (“confession of guilt and remorse”) compared to Christian confession, he actually examines self-examination and self-accusation in both the Buddhist and Confucian traditions. Noting that confession of sin is a part of many Buddhist rituals, Zürcher describes the chanhui rituals, in which Buddhas and bodhisattvas are invoked for help in eliminating sin and asked to transfer merit. A crucial difference with Christian confession is that in chanhui, the sins are generalized categories, never specific misdeeds, and the liturgy is a collective ceremony that produces merit shared by the whole group to help lessen karmic guilt. Zürcher briefly mentions Ledgers of...