Integration and Symbiosis: Medievalism in Giulio Aleni’s Translation of Catholic Liturgy in Late Imperial China

Abstract

This essay provides a fine-grained analysis of selected passages of Giulio Aleni (艾儒略 1582–1649)’s translation of Catholic liturgy into classical Chinese in late imperial China. It focuses on the hitherto underexplored relationships between Aleni’s resort to medieval Aristotelianism and Thomism, as well as his translation-based introduction of Catholic Eucharistic theology into China. The case studies here revolve around Aleni’s Chinese translation of Aristotelian-Thomistic hylomorphism, with a focus on his interpretation of “anima” (i.e., the soul, which corresponds largely to linghun 靈魂 in Chinese), which is a multifaceted Western concept that pertains simultaneously to Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy and Eucharistic theology. It is argued that in his overarching project of introducing Western learnings (i.e., 西學) to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century China, Aleni’s attention is centered primarily on the body-soul and form-matter relationship. This is, as understood here, motivated to a great extent by his scholarly awareness that properly informing Chinese Catholics of the Aristotelian-Thomistic underpinning of Western metaphysics enacts an indispensable role in introducing Catholic liturgy into China, notably the mystery of the Eucharist and Transubstantiation that would not have been effectively introduced to China without having the Western philosophical underpinnings already made available to Chinese intellectuals. Aleni’s use of medieval European cultural legacy thus requires more in-depth analysis vis-à-vis his translational poetics in China. Accordingly, the intellectual and liturgical knowledge in Aleni’s Chinese œuvres shall be investigated associatively, and the medievalism embodied by Aleni offers a valid entry point and productive critical prism.

1. Translating Liturgy and Christian Missionary History in China: A Historical Overview

Translating Liturgical texts, Biblical extracts, as well as intellectual treatises, has been concomitant with the emergence and development of Christianity in China.1 The cross-cultural and interreligious translation was oftentimes practised in parallel with Christian missionary undertakings in China, whose history has already spanned a total of 1400 years (Hong 2023, p. 443).2 Well before the Jesuits came to China and initiated their large-scale, institutionalized, and profoundly influential translation of cultural classics between Europe and China, some earlier Franciscan missionaries who came to the Mongol Empire in the later Middle Ages had already taken up the gauntlet to partly translate Catholic liturgy within the territory of Tartary. Their intention was primarily to communicate Biblical and theological knowledge to the foreign land that they called “Cathay” (Arnold 1999, pp. 48–57; De Gruttola 2024, pp. 202–3; De Gruttola 2025, pp. 3–4).3 The famous Christian missionary Giovanni da Montecorvino (若望·孟高維諾, 1247–1328), for instance, had introduced bits and pieces of Christian liturgy to Mongol China by translating Biblical excerpts and liturgical texts—including the Psalms and the New Testament—into the languages of the Tartary, which might be Mongolian or Uyghur (Dawson 1955, p. 227; Huc 1857, pp. 383–433; Lanciotti 1959, pp. 93–98; Kunstmann 1856, pp. 229–41; Abel-Rémusat 1829, pp. 193–98).

In this connection, it is equally worth mentioning that in even remoter past, i.e., shortly after the Nestorian mission officially began in 635 CE with the arrival of Alopen Abraham (阿羅本) in Chang’an 長安 (present-day Xi’an 西安, People’s Republic of China), some extracts from the Bible also came to be translated into Chinese—albeit typically syncretized with Buddhist (and occasionally Taoist) concepts and terms. Previous scholarship has reached the conclusion that the Nestorian translation of Christian knowledge to China was to a considerable degree instrumental to domesticating Christian theological and liturgical concepts in a fashion that caters to their target recipients in China (De Caro 2022, pp. 1–31; Deeg 2024, pp. 121–23, 139–43; Nicolini-Zani 2021, pp. 23–44; Thompson 2023, p. 355; Thompson 2024). This situation is further attested by the extant fragments of the Xuting Mishisuo Jing 序聽迷詩所經 (Sutra of Jesus the Messiah) (dated between 635 AD and 638 AD), which is generally considered as one of the oldest of the Jingjiao 景教 documents discovered in China. The Sutra of Jesus the Messiah features 206 verses that outline the basic doctrinal teachings of Christianity, whilst also containing translations of Christian liturgical terms into Chinese, which are terms evidently intended for quotidian prayers—such as Messiah, Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, Mary, and Jerusalem (Sun 2018, pp. 133–35; Sugirtharajah 2018, p. 15). A striking phenomenon in this connection, however, is that liturgical terms pertaining specifically to the Sacraments or Eucharistic theology are not conspicuously present in the Nestorian translation and introduction of Christianity into China. But the choice of Chinese words, collocations, and linguistic patterns here is characterized by an obvious tendency to bring Buddhist ritualistic terms into the Sinicizing translation of corresponding Christian counterparts (Bays 2011, pp. 4–16).4 On top of that, the magnificent Nestorian Stele (i.e., Daqin Jingjiao liuxing Zhongguo bei 大秦景教流行中國碑, erected in 781 AD) records that as early as the Tang Dynasty (618–907), when the Nestorian churches were built in Northwestern China, the settlement of Syriac Christians in China was concomitant with abridged translations of the Holy Scriptures. But unfortunately, the liturgical texts purportedly translated at that time have not fully survived the ravages of time (Foster 1939; Johnson 2017, p. 23).

The facts stated above suggest that translating Christian liturgy—i.e., the totality of acts of worshipping the Christian God according to given forms and formulas—into China has been present since the initial stage of Christian evangelization in China since the late 8th century. Also, the translation-based introduction of Christian liturgical knowledge into China has been deeply entangled with pre-existing local rituals in China—no matter whether they are Taoist, Buddhist, or Confucian—from the very inception of the Christian missionary undertaking to the dawn of the Jesuit expedition to China (Chen 2009, pp. 195–214; Wu 2018). But these predecessors in the history of translating Christian liturgy in China by no means abnegate or lessen the importance of the Jesuits. Quite on the contrary, neither the Franciscans nor earlier Nestorians endeavored to systematically translate Christian liturgy in China, and it is precisely in this respect that they differ fundamentally from the Jesuit successors, whose interreligious translation and truly conscious intercultural mediation between Eastern and Western cultures—as conducted across early modern East Asia and especially in late imperial China—were distinctly institutionalized (Casanova 2018; Golvers 2021, pp. 101–28; Farge 2012, pp. 67–81; Pieragastini 2023, pp. 561–65; Banchoff and Casanova 2016, pp. 241–45).5 Accordingly, in terms of the motivation behind the Nestorian and Franciscan translation of Christian liturgy into China, these earlier missionaries do not seem to be aimed, in the first place, to elaborate on the abstruse dogmatic and philosophical issues at the core of liturgical theology, let alone offering theologically oriented explanations and scholarly translation of liturgical notions, doctrinal terminologies, Biblical names, or concrete words for prayers that bear profound meanings.

But the apparently insurmountable task was consciously and conscientiously put into practice by the Jesuit missionaries in 16th- and 17th-century China, who distinguished themselves in composing theological tracts and treatises in classical Chinese both in much greater quantity and in a much more systematic and self-aware manner. Besides, the Jesuits also aimed—and eventually managed—to introduce Catholic liturgy through interreligious inculturation and accommodation in late imperial China; under certain circumstances, they also elaborated on comparative philosophical inter-illumination, taking advantage of their solid classical training and erudition. (Bertuccioli 2003, pp. 629–40; Dong and Yang 2025; Standaert 1999, p. 352; Standaert 2002, pp. 39–47). Additionally, scholars have also insightfully captured the fact that the Jesuit missionaries in China not only translated Catholic liturgical knowledge for practical guidance, but also introduced to China European cosmology, worldview, philosophy, theology, and science together with Christian doctrinal knowledge (Brockey 2007, pp. 1–22; Hsia 2007, pp. 39–51). Yet for the time being, more scholarly attention still needs to be accorded to the entangled relationships between Jesuit translation of Catholic liturgy and Jesuit introduction of Western metaphysics, which are two closely related groups of texts almost simultaneously translated by the learned Jesuit missionaries, but which have been studied only separately now, without being examined sufficiently vis-à-vis each other.

The present essay offers a fine-grained analysis of how Aleni’s Chinese writings on Western metaphysics facilitate the validity and credibility of his translation of Catholic Eucharistic theology in China. It argues that for Giulio Aleni (1582–1649), introducing the essentials of medieval Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy into the Catholic orbit of late imperial China is functionally conducive to his conscious and dedicated explanation of dogmatic theology—especially Eucharistic theology—to Chinese Catholic disciples. Through close reading, I will extrapolate and expound on Aleni’s joint references to medieval Aristotelianism and Thomism in his translation of the term “anima” into Chinese, which is roughly equivalent to the “soul” in English, as well as linghun 靈魂 in Chinese. In Aleni’s philosophical-theological discourse, “anima” pertains to the body-soul and matter-form relationship; meanwhile, it also concerns the metaphysical understanding of how things come into being and how movements take place. Proper awareness of this is key to understanding Transubstantiation as both a mystery and a doctrine of Catholicism. In brief, by understanding the soul as the form that gives identity to matter, and by applying the idea of “substantial change”—in the process of which the underlying reality changes but the external attributes stay the same—Aleni offers a coherent philosophical basis for how Transubstantiation can occur. Without this framework, the liturgical doctrine under translation would risk appearing as contradictory and unintelligible to its Chinese recipients. Thus, Aleni’s translation of Western metaphysics can be construed as an effort to prepare the intellectual-philosophical ground for truly understanding the theological superstructure of Eucharistic theology, which is of central heft to Catholic liturgy.

2. Contextualizing Giulio Aleni in the History of Translating Catholic Liturgy in China

An emblematic figure in the Jesuit campaign of evangelization in China, Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) focused primarily on evangelization through dialogues with Confucian scholars and intellectuals. He composed theological and philosophical works in Chinese, featuring the Tianzhu Shiyi 天主實義 (1603)—a philosophical tract of landmark significance that embodies his accommodationist strategies of introducing the essentials of Christian theology and Biblical knowledge into China (Mungello 1985; Trakulhun 2012). While the Tianzhu Shilu mentions that there are seven sacraments (七條唦㗆喕哆), it only explains baptism (矛𠴓㖷嚰) (see Ricci 2016, p. 371). Indeed, it should be fair to consider that Ricci deliberately leaves the discussion of the other sacraments to another text, namely the Tianzhu Jiaoyao (天主教要), which revolves specifically around Catholic dogma. In parallel with Ricci’s initiative, Michele Ruggieri (羅明堅 1543–1607) also composed Tianzhu Shilu 天主實錄 (The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, 1584 (Ruggieri 2023), which features extensive inputs from Ricci (Ruggieri 2023, pp. 174–75).

Nonetheless, despite their groundbreaking cultural import, neither the Tianzhu Shiyi nor the Tianzhu Shilu can be considered as liturgical per se, but they are primarily catechetical, seeing that they are intended chiefly for catechesis prior to baptism. For one thing, the two texts both lack a comprehensive introduction of sacramental and ecclesiological details; on the contrary, they center almost exclusively on intellectual persuasion among the Chinese literati, without a pronounced intention to form already baptized Christians in faith and practice. For another thing, just as Canaris (2019, p. 202) has pointed out, the scope of Ricci’s masterpiece “also encompasses topics which are not strictly a matter of dogma, such as the Ptolemaic conception of the universe and the Four Elements,” which illuminates the thematic concerns of the Tianzhu Shiyi which cannot be seen as constrained to imparting liturgical knowledge. At any rate, it should be safe to consider Ricci’s Tianzhu Shiyi 天主實義as comparable—if not equivalent—to an apologetic theological tract with distinct pedagogical and evangelistic traces: etiologically speaking, it effectively lays a doctrinal ground for concentrated translation of Catholic liturgy to take place in the next stage of Jesuit evangelization in China. So viewed, although Ricci’s opus magnum does not pivot specifically on liturgy in its intent or content, it teaches the fundamentals of Christian doctrine with laudable clarity and lucidity; it is therefore thematically aligned with basic catechetical and liturgical issues in Catholicism.6

On this issue, Qianru Ji 冀倩茹 (2024, pp. 31–39) has succinctly summarized in her unpublished doctoral thesis that during 1583 and 1724, a broad variety of liturgical books—revolving around multiple aspects of Catholic rituals and dogmatic issues in great profundity—have been either composed in or translated into Chinese. These Chinese works on liturgy, attributed to both Jesuit and Dominican missionaries, sometimes revolve around Sacrament-related topics, sometimes not. They include, above all, the Tianzhu Shilu 天主實錄 (which was published in Zhao Qing 肇慶 in 1584), whose original edition of 1584 mentions baptism, yet without any reference to confession; and regarding the absolution for sins, it is mentioned only afterwards in its revised edition, wherein doctrinal knowledge about the liturgical function of the Holy Water, as well as the crucial role of confession in expunging human sins, has been but briefly and unsystematically discussed (Ruggieri 2023, pp. 290–91). On top of that, the more central dogmatic issue of the Trinity is mentioned and slightly unpacked only decades later in the revised edition of the Tianzhu Shilu (i.e., Tianzhu Shengjiao Shilu 天主聖教實錄), as published in the late 1630s, whereas it is only hinted at in the original edition. In this connection, Ruggieri’s Tianzhu Jiaoyao 天主教要, whose revised version was published in 1605 for the first time (Dudink 2002, pp. 38–50), purports to be the first collection of Biblical excerpts in Chinese that Christian missionaries in China had ever compiled and properly made use of (Zhang 1999).7

Regarding the truly systematic and didactic translation of liturgy by the Jesuits in late imperial China, Giulio Aleni (艾儒略 1582–1649) is, without doubt, the very person of paramount importance. After arriving in China in 1610, Aleni was active in several regions, but his most enduring legacy is tied to his work in Fuzhou 福州, the capital of Fujian province, where he lived and worked from circa 1625 until his death in 1649. In Fuzhou, Aleni not only established a thriving Christian community but also became deeply embedded in local literati circles. He adapted Christian teachings to Confucian moral frameworks, wrote extensively in Chinese—including theological treatises, moral dialogues, and hagiographies—and trained Chinese catechists, helping to lay the groundwork for a lasting indigenous Church (Menegon 1994, 2019). His two treatises, Misa Jiyi 彌撒祭義 (An Explication of the Mass, completed before 1627) and Dizui Zhenggui 滌罪正歸 (Correct Rules for the Elimination of Sins, dated to 1629), are the earliest two tracts that holistically and comprehensively introduce Catholic sacramental rites and liturgy into China. Furthermore, Aleni’s 1644 work, titled Shengti Yaoli 聖體要理 (The Doctrine of the Eucharist), is a tract dilating on the theological import of receiving the Eucharist and the miraculous effects of the Host. In keeping with the theory of Transubstantiation, it defines the Eucharist as where Christ materially inheres. In Aleni’s Chinese work Xixue Fan 西學凡 (General Principles of Western Learning, completed in 1623), Aristotelianism was partly translated into Chinese, which in turn sheds fresh light on the potentiality of reading Aleni’s translation of liturgy more closely and intertextually vis-à-vis the medieval philosophical and theological sources, to which he must have referred extensively for imparting Catholic liturgy more in China with proper eloquence and cross-cultural awareness (Zürcher 1987, pp. 105–35; Lippiello and Malek 1997).

3. Translating “Anima”: Traces of Aristotelianism and Thomism

The soul is an essential concept and category of Western metaphysics, one that Aleni could not shy away from when communicating Catholic liturgy and Eucharistic theology to Chinese intellectuals. In Catholic Eucharistic theology, the soul is the form of the human being, namely, it makes a body human; the doctrine of hylomorphism, which is fundamental to the Aristotelian understanding of the relationship between the soul and body, informs how scholastics understood Transubstantiation. However, the Transubstantiation per se is a divine mystery, and the soul as the form of the body is considered as demonstrable by natural reason. Understanding the essence of the soul is thus indispensable for understanding Christian liturgy, since the liturgy is by and of itself functionally subservient to delivering the human soul from the original sin in the process of worshipping God. Chazelle (2012, p. 238), for instance, has concluded that “Christians who consume the incarnate body and blood in the Eucharist unite their own physical bodies with Christ’s, and this unison means hope for both the salvation of their souls and the restoration of their flesh to immortality and incorruption.” This is ultimately in line with Pascasius Robertus’s contention in De corpore, which was a landmark work on the medieval European development of Catholic doctrine regarding the Eucharist:

Denique non, sicut quidam uolunt, anima sola hoc mysterio pascitur, quia non sola redimitur morte Christi et saluatur, uerum etiam et caro nostra per hoc ad inmortalitatem et incorruptionem reparatur.

(Pascasius 1969, De corpore 19; ed. Paulus 1969 CCCM 16, p. 101)

Finally, it is not, as some claim, the soul alone that is nourished by this mystery; for it is not the soul alone that is redeemed and saved by the death of Christ, but the body as well is through this restored to immortality and incorruption.

(translation mine)8

Along this line, although I will initially elaborate on Aleni’s explication of what the soul is in my following discussion, whilst also illustrating Aleni’s multiple references to medieval European knowledge in expounding form-matter and body-soul relationship, I must emphasize that my landing point is how Aleni’s writing about the soul untimely paves the way for his translation and introduction of Eucharistic theology into China, wherein his writing about the soul includes how the soul is a substantial form, how the soul gives life, and how the soul can be immaterial, enduring, as well as present in many places sacramentally without being divided.

3.1. Echoes with Medieval Aristotelianism

The very beginning of Aleni’s Xingxue Cushu 性學觕述 (A Brief Introduction to the Study of Human Nature, 1623–1646) clearly states that this tract is dedicated to introducing to Chinese readers the medieval Aristotelian understanding of how changes and movements in the world take place. But the Aristotelian traces here are distinctly entangled with scholastic acumen; meanwhile, the discussion of the nature and features of the soul is also central to Aleni’s “transwriting” of Western metaphysics in this treatise. Aleni’s Xingxue Cushu 性學觕述, as Zhu (2024, p. 577) has pointed out, “mainly follows two volumes of the Cursus Conibmrecensis (1592–1606), namely the Coimbra commentaries on the De anima (i.e., On the soul) and the Parva naturalia (i.e., Short Treatises on Nature), but it was rewritten as an adaptation of the source books resulting from interaction with Chinese literati.” My following discussion will reveal that Aleni’s metaphysical approach to the soul is by no means devoid of theological import. He repeatedly highlights the immortality of the soul, the soul’s ultimate origin from God, the soul’s rationality, as well as the soul’s moral responsibility, all of which are fundamentally consistent with Catholic soteriology and Eucharistic theology.

As a matter of fact, there has been a substantial amount of research on Aleni’s Xingxue Cushu 性學觕述 vis-à-vis Western theories of the soul, which has recently incorporated such issues as Aleni’s re-interpretation of “Aristotelian theory of perception” (Q. Zhao 2024a), Aleni’s “argumentation strategy on the concept of common sense” (Q. Zhao 2024b), Aleni’s radiating influence on the spiritual life of the Manchu Prince Depei (Pan 2024), Aleni’s translation-mediated comments on the Chinese and Western notions on the (de)similarities between the human and divine (Haskell 2021), as well as how Catholic works in late Ming and early Qing China tackle the evolution of the body-soul relationship (Wang 2021), including the part played by Buddhist philosophy in the process (W. Zhao 2024) in addition to Confucianism (Che 2024). Nonetheless, there is a dearth of scholarly investigation into Aleni’s theory of the soul and human nature in relation to his liturgical translation of Eucharistic theology. The associative reading of the philosophical façade and theological-missionary kernel of Aleni’s works bespeaks the innovation of the present essay and its unique contribution in illuminating the rarely studied aspects of Aleni’s liturgical translation activities.

The first section of Xingxue Cushu 性學觕述, titled Shengjueling Sanhun Zonglun 生覺靈三魂總論 (An Overview of the Three Souls: Vegetative, Sensitive, and Intellective, as translated by Meynard and Pan 2020, pp. 84–85), begins as follows, where Aleni’s reference to Aristotle’s four-causal accounts of natural change is conspicuous, wherein natural changes are defined as locomotive, qualitative, and substantial. Aristotle’s theory of the soul is, to all intents and purposes, a direct application of his four causes, considering that the soul explains what life is, why a body functions as it does, and how it becomes a unified, purposeful whole. This point is detectable from the inception of Aleni’s Xingxue Cushu 性學觕述:

(Aleni 2011, vol. I, p. 138)

西土窮理之學，論宇內諸物，悉繇四所以然而成。一曰造，一曰為。一曰質。一曰模。造與為皆在物體之外。而質與模則在物內。合成其物者也。

The Western learning about the investigation of principles (i.e., metaphysics) explains all things under heaven as being constituted by four types of “so-therefores” (i.e., causes). The first is creation (efficient cause), the second function/making (i.e., final cause), the third matter (i.e., material cause), and the fourth form (i.e., formal cause). Creation and function (or making) are both external to the physical object, whereas matter and form are within the object. Together they constitute the thing.

(translation mine)9

Here, Aleni draws directly on the Aristotelian theory of the four causes to introduce metaphysics. The four Chinese terms, i.e., zao 造 (creation), wei 為 (making), zhi 質 (matter), and mo 模 (form), here correspond respectively to the components of Aristotle’s causal framework. According to the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, the four causes are explanatory principles that enter non-accidentally into the understanding of why a thing exists or changes. They are the “material cause,” “formal cause,” “efficient cause,” and “final cause.”10 According to Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics, “the material cause is that out of which something comes to be, or what undergoes change from one state to another; the formal cause, what differentiates something from other things, and serves as a paradigm for its coming to be that things; the efficient cause, the starting-point of change; the final cause, that for the sake of which something comes about” (Reece 2019, pp. 213–14).

Furthermore, the sentences 而質與模則在物內 (matter and form are within the object) and 合成其物者也 (together they constitute the thing) can both be related to Eucharistic theology, which heavily relies on Aristotle’s hylomorphic (matter-theory) theory that is obviously present here. The Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation believes that during consecration, the substance of bread and wine (i.e., their form) is converted into the Body and Blood of Christ, whereas the accidents—i.e., that which appears to the senses, like color, taste, and weight—remain the same. Put differently, the bread before consecration is equal to the matter (e.g., flour and water) plus the abstract form of breadness; but after consecration, the form is replaced by Christ’s body and blood, but the matter (e.g., accidents) remains unaltered. In this sense, understanding that matter and form—just as Aleni has written—constitute the nature of a thing, is crucial to explaining the mystery of the Real Presence of Christ’s substance in the Eucharist.

Another example attesting to Aleni’s concordance with medieval Aristotelianism is his agreement with the theory of “universal ensoulment,” i.e., the idea that all living beings—plants, animals, and humans—possess a soul appropriate to their nature, with the soul being understood as the animating form that gives life, structure, and function to their bodies. Admittedly, universal ensoulment was standard Catholic doctrine at the time, systematically inherited from the Middle Ages, and this can be detected from the preface to Aleni’s Xingxue Cushu 性學觕述:

(Aleni 2011, vol I, p. 131)

自造物主生天地人物，莫不各有當然之則 … 世固知人靈而物蠢矣，人貴而物賤矣，從未聞以生魂、覺魂、靈魂判草木禽魚與人之界者，聞之自西士利西泰始。其言曰: “世界之魂有三品。下曰生魂，草木者是，扶草木以生長，及枯萎，魂亦消滅焉。中曰覺魂，禽獸者是…”

Since the Creator produced heaven, earth, human beings, and things, they all follow their own principle. … It is known that human beings are sensible whereas things are insensible; human beings are worthy, whereas things are worth less. Yet it was never known until Matteo Ricci that the difference between plants, birds, and fishes on the one hand, and human beings on the other, lies in the vegetative soul, the sensitive soul, and the intellective soul. Ricci argues that souls are divided into three categories. The lowest one is the vegetative soul pertinent to plants, which enables plants to grow; when the vegetative soul vanishes, plants wither. The advanced one is the sensitive soul, pertinent to birds and beasts…

(edited and translated, Meynard and Pan 2020, pp. 70–71)

Here, Aleni obviously chimes in with Aristotle’s contention that the plants and animals are inherently equipped with souls, which is traceable from his De anima in both its ancient Greek original and its Latin version that Aleni must have referred to, i.e., the Coimbra commentaries on the De anima:

Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis, Societatis Jesu,

In tres libros de Anima, Aristotelis Stagiritae

(Collegium Conimbricense Societatis Iesu 1612, p. 37)

ἔοικε δὲ καὶ ἡ ἐν τοῖς φυτοῖς ἀρχὴ ψυχή τις εἶναι: μόνης γὰρ ταύτης κοινωνεῖ καὶ ζῷα καὶ φυτά·καὶ αὕτη μὲν χωρίζεται τῆς αἰσθητικῆς ἀρχῆς, αἴσθησιν δ᾽ οὐθὲν ἄνευ ταύτης ἔχει.

(De anima, ed. Hicks, Aristotle 1907, Book I, Chapter V, Lection XIV, pp. 46–47)

Videntur autem & id principium, quod inest in plantis, anima quædam esse. Hæc enim sola communis est & plantis & animalibus. Atque hæc quidem à sentiendi principio separator, sine autem ipsa nihil est propsus, quod habeat sensum.

(De anima, from early print, p. 37, Text 95)

It seems, moreover, that the principle present in plants is a kind of soul. For this alone is common to both plants and animals. And this is indeed distinct from the principle of sensation; yet without it, there is absolutely nothing that possesses sensation.

(translation from Latin mine)

3.2. Echoes with Thomistic Scholastic Philosophy

As Aleni’s metaphysical-theological treatise continues, Aristotelian and Thomistic thoughts further come to the fore, notably in ways illuminating Eucharistic theology:

造復有二，有大小焉，有公私焉。大者公者，即天地大主。為造化之宗。萬有之原也。小者私者，為寰宇物品。或能自傳其類，或能助物以傳其類。自傳者如人畜草木等。助傳者如天地日月星辰等。此皆可稱為造作也。

Creation (or efficient causality) is again of two types: there are great and small, public and private forms. The great or public one is the supreme Lord of Heaven and Earth, the source of transformation and the origin of all beings. The small or private ones are worldly things; some can reproduce their own kind, some assist others in reproducing their kind. Self-replicating things include humans, animals, plants, etc.; those that assist reproduction include heaven, earth, sun, moon, stars, etc. All these can be called “causers” or makers (i.e., efficient causes).

(translation mine)11

Most conspicuously, this paragraph is in line with the Aristotelian theory of universal ensoulment, since Aleni here confirms the existence of souls in natural (or more-than-human) existence, like the plants and celestial bodies. Equally significantly, Aleni here also distinguishes between the primary efficient cause (i.e., the dazhe gongzhe 大者公者, which refers ultimately to God and the Heavenly Lord in Aleni’s theological discourse) and the secondary efficient causes (i.e., the xiaozhe sizhe 小者私者, which means natural beings that either reproduce or enable reproduction). This is evidently in tune with Thomistic metaphysics, wherein God is defined as the first and ultimate cause (i.e., tiandi dazhu 天地大主, i.e., “the supreme Lord of Heaven and Earth”; zaohua zhizong 造化之宗, i.e., “the source of transformation and the origin of all beings”), being universal and sustaining. By contrast, the myriads of creatures are defined as secondary causes that act by and only by participation; accordingly, they are also hierarchically subordinate to God the Creator. This example indicates that in Aleni’s translation and explanation of Western cosmology, especially the Aristotelian four-cause theory, the pious veneration and apotheosizing of the Christian God insinuates itself into the discourse. The aggrandizement of the Christian God alongside Aleni’s explanation of Western metaphysics has a salient liturgical dimension; it is here that Aleni embeds the worship of God—which is central to Catholic liturgy—into the illustration of philosophical concepts.

Seen from another perspective, this situation is also consonant with Aquinas’s qualification of God as the “causa prima” (primary cause) in his Quaestiones disputatae de potentia Dei, where God is designated as both the source and sustainer of all beings, from which all creations emanate, and to which they ultimately return: “Deus autem est causa prima nullo modo causata’ (God is the first cause, in no way caused by anything else) (Aquinas 1953, Quaestiones disputatae de potentia Dei, q. 7 a. 4 s. c. 2). Thomas Aquinas’s original is worth quoting here, which stands in mutual illumination with Aleni’s translational exposition of the theory of Creation:

Deus non solum universalem providentiam de rebus corporalibus habeat, sed etiam ad res singulas eius providentia se extendat.

God not only exercises universal providence over corporeal things, but His providence also extends to individual things.

(Aquinas 1953, Quaestiones disputatae de potentia Dei, q. 6., a. 6, co)12

As illustrated above, both Thomistic and Aristotelian elements can be extrapolated from the fundamental tenets of Aleni’s Xingxue Cushu 性學觕述. Similarly, in the opening paragraph of Xingxue Cushu 性學觕述, what emerges to be increasingly salient is not Aristotelianism or Thomism per se, but Thomistic scholasticism merged into the Aristotelian framework:

(Aleni 2011, vol. I, p. 138)

質者物之材料，乃有形諸物所用以成就其體者也。質者有二。一元質。一次質。元質是造物主自生天地之初，備為千變萬化之具。此質非天非地，非水非火，非陰非陽，非寒非暑，非剛非柔，非生非覺，而能成天地水火陰陽寒暑剛柔生覺之種種也。蓋凡物皆有生息，有變滅，而元質則不生不變，常存不亾。為造化基，萬象所共，庶類所同者。…… 乃受生於造物主，開闢天地之初者也。

Matter (zhi 質) is the material of things; it is that by which all visible things achieve the completion of their substance. There are two kinds of matter: one is prime matter (yuanzhi 元質), and the other is secondary matter (cizhi 次質). Prime matter is that which the Creator (zaowuzhu 造物主) produced at the beginning of heaven and earth, prepared as the basis for the myriad transformations and changes. This matter is neither heaven nor earth, neither water nor fire, neither yin nor yang, neither cold nor heat, neither hard nor soft, neither living nor sentient—yet it can become heaven and earth, water and fire, yin and yang, cold and heat, hardness and softness, life and sentience, and all such things. Indeed, all things have life and transformation, generation, and destruction, while prime matter is not born, does not change, and eternally exists without perishing. It is the foundation of creation, shared by all phenomena and common to all beings. … It received its existence from the Creator at the very beginning of the formation of heaven and earth.

(translation mine)13

This extract is a typical synthesis of Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy. While it discusses zhi 質 (the matter) as the material out of which physical things are made, it also specifies that zhi 質 (the matter) can be divided into two types. The first is yuanzhi 元質 (the original matter or “prima materia”); the second is cizhi 次質 (the secondary matter or particularized substances). By the same token, it further defines yuanzhi 元質 as the primordial and undifferentiated matter that is created by the zaowuzhu 造物主 (the Creator). This means that the yuanzhi 元質 is unchanging, imperishable, and shared by all beings, which is distinctly redolent of Aristotle’s theory of hylomorphism that concerns the relationship between matter (i.e., ὕλη in ancient Greek) and form (i.e., εἶδος in ancient Greek). In principle, Aristotelian hylomorphism contends that objects are compounds consisting of matter and form. It considers that the prima materia should be strictly distinguished from the actualised, composite beings, whilst also holding that “actuality limits potentiality in the physical world by carving into discrete element”—that is, “actuality (essence or organising principle) puts physical limits on the amorphous reality of pure potentiality (matter)” (Britton 2012, p. 148). Concluded in nuce, Aristotelianism holds that there is a limit regarding the extent to which the prima materia can turn into actualised specific things.

In Aleni’s philosophical-theological discourse, however, it is obvious that the Thomistic and Aristotelian layers are interlaced and mutually facilitating each other. For example, yuanzhi 元質 here is described as created by God “at the beginning of heaven and earth” (i.e., zi shengtiandi zhichu 自生天地之初), which indicates that God’s existence is defined by Aleni as ontologically anterior to the genesis of the universe—both logically and chronologically. This is a distinctly medieval scholastic-Thomistic statement, one that is epistemologically consistent with the Christian theological doctrine of creation from nothing, i.e., ex nihilo. Just as Aquinas has noted in his Summa Theologiae, “Deus in esse res produxit ex nullo praeexistente sicut ex materia” (God brought things into being from nothing pre-existing as matter) (Summa Theologiae, I. 46. 2. 2; translation mine; cf. Soars 2021, pp. 950–66). Aleni’s contention and Aquinas’s theory here both articulate the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, a foundational principle in Catholic theology. It affirms that God alone is the source of all being, creating not by shaping pre-existing material, as human artisans do, but by calling things into existence from nothing. Albeit not a liturgical text itself, this doctrine informs the Catholic liturgical imagination, since worship constantly acknowledges God as the Creator of heaven and earth, whose power and will sustain all things. This Thomistic argument has indirect but vital implications for Eucharistic theology: God, who creates being ex nihilo, is also the one who can bring about a substantial change in the elements of bread and wine, making them truly the Body and Blood of Christ. Analogically speaking, the metaphysical truth expressed in the Thomistic discourse, as echoed by Aleni, also provides a philosophical and theological foundation for Catholic sacramental and liturgical life.

4. From Translating Hylomorphism to Translating Eucharistic Theology

But for Giulio Aleni, what is the significance of his translation of Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy of the soul regarding his translation of Catholic Eucharistic theology into China? As illustrated above, Aleni’s intellectual preparation in Aristotelian-Thomistic psychology gave him a stable metaphysical framework for articulating the nature of the human soul, its rationality, immortality, and relationship to the body. In the Aristotelian-Thomistic schema, the soul is the forma corporis (i.e., the substantial form of the human body), and it can receive grace and understanding of immaterial realities through both reason and faith. This dual capacity is essential for explaining how the Eucharist, though materially appearing as bread and wine, could be comprehended as the true Body and Blood of Christ through the faculties of the rational soul informed by divine revelation. Based on the Aristotelian four-causal theory and Thomistic cosmology of the Creation ex nihilo, Aleni proceeds to a more detailed illustration of what “anima” is in the Chinese language, extending the form-matter relationship to the body-soul relationship, thereby moving from the metaphysical issues to the theological discussion. In my view, this can be viewed as intellectually in preparation for his writing about the Eucharist and Transubstantiation:

(Aleni 2011, vol. I, p. 140)

性字之用甚寬，雖然不靈之物亦恆有之。如言藥性，性苦性甘，性冷性熱。如論水火金石，亦雲剛柔燥濕諸性。則性義且大不同也。如言人之性氣，則又兼人之稟氣而言矣。若夫言靈性，言天性，非雲造物主所賦人義理之性乎？魂字亦然。魂者，生活之原。加以生字，則指草木所以能生長養育。加以覺字，則指禽獸所以能觸覺運動。加以靈或神字，則指人所以能明理推論之源也。總之人以靈神肉軀二者而成。一為內，一為外。一為神，一為形。一為魂，一為魄。 一為頑，一為靈。一為主，一為僕。一為貴，一為賤。一為小體，一為大體。如此論之其內神大體，或為之靈性。指其靈明之體，本為人之性也。或謂靈之魂，以別於生覺二魂也。

The use of the term xing (性, nature) is exceedingly broad; even non-sentient things are often said to possess it. For example, we speak of the nature of medicines—some bitter, some sweet, some cold, some hot. Or when discussing water, fire, metal, and stone, we refer to their various natures—hard, soft, dry, moist. Thus, the meaning of “nature” varies significantly across contexts. When we speak of human nature (xingqi, 性氣), it also includes a person’s temperament or innate vital energy. But when we speak of spiritual nature (lingxing, 靈性) or heavenly nature (tianxing, 天性), are we not referring to the rational and moral nature bestowed by the Creator upon humanity? The term hun (魂, soul) is similar in function. Hun refers to the origin of life. If we add the word sheng (生, life) to it, it refers to that by which plants are able to grow and be nourished. If we add the word jue (覺, sensation), it refers to that by which animals are capable of perception and movement. If we further add the word ling (靈, spiritual) or shen (神, divine/intellectual), it refers to that by which human beings are capable of understanding principles and engaging in reasoning. In summary, the human being is composed of two aspects: spirit and flesh. One is internal, the other external. One is spirit, the other form. One is hun, the other po (魄, the corporeal soul). One is dull, the other bright. One is master, the other servant. One is noble, the other is base. One is the lesser part, the other the greater part. In this mode of analysis, the inner spiritual component, the greater part, is referred to as the spiritual nature (lingxing, 靈性). It denotes the luminous and rational principle, which is truly the human nature. Some call it the rational soul, to distinguish it from the vegetative and sensitive souls.

(translation mine)

In this paragraph, Aleni begins by elucidating the layered meanings of the term xing (性, nature) in the Chinese language, taking xing (性) as the Chinese equivalent to the European concept of “natura” (nature). He initially distinguishes between three concepts, i.e., the “natures” of inanimate things (bitter, cold, hard, moist), the dispositional or vital nature of humans (xingqi, 性氣), and the rational nature which aligns with the Christian concept of the rational soul. Aleni then analyses hun (魂 the soul) in its threefold expression, including the shenghun 生魂 (life soul), i.e., the vegetative life in plants; the juehun 覺魂 (sensational soul), i.e., the sensitive life in animals; and the linghun/shenhun 靈魂/神魂 (rational soul), i.e., the reason and understanding in human beings. On top of that, Aleni presents a dualistic schema of the human being, which consists of the dichotomous complementarity between the inner and the outer; the spiritual and physical; the noble and the base; the master and the servant; and ultimately the soul and the body. This discourse, as it features the unity of opposites, culminates in the affirmation that the rational soul (i.e., the juehun 覺魂) is the true human nature.14 By comparison, this is also resonant with the Thomistic anthropological theory that the rational soul is the substantial form of human beings—a tenet that is embodied most manifestly in Thomas Aquinas’s Quaestiones disputatae de anima (composed in around 1266–1267 during Aquinas’s second Parisian regency), which synthesizes Aristotle’s De anima with Christian theological commitments and argues that the soul is the substantial form of the body, hence not separate from the body:

Vnumquodque sortitur speciem per propriam formam. Sed homo est homo in quantum est rationalis. Ergo anima rationalis est propria forma hominis. Est autem hoc aliquid et per se subsistens cum per se operetur: non enim est intelligere per organum corporeum, ut propatur in III De anima. Anima igitur humana est hoc aliquid et forma.

Each thing receives its species through its proper form. But man is man insofar as he is rational. Therefore, the rational soul is the proper form of a human being. Now, this [soul] is also a subsistent thing by and of itself, since it operates through itself; for understanding is not an activity performed through a bodily organ, as is shown in Book III of De Anima. Therefore, the human soul is both a subsistent thing and a form.

(Aquinas [1268–1272] 1996, Quaestiones disputatae de anima, vol. I, ll. 176–83; translation mine)

In this Thomistic quote, the “forma hominis” (form of human being) is defined unambiguously as “anima rationalis” (the rational soul), which betokens Aleni’s integration of Aristotelian hylomorphism into the Christian doctrinal discourse. On the one hand, Aleni’s translation here stresses that each being has its specific nature by virtue of its form, and that for human beings, that form is the rational soul, whereas on the other hand, it also emphasizes that the defining trait of a human is rationality, as rooted in the soul. Aleni’s vision of human-soul relationship is evidently aligned with Aquinas’s theory, notably because it also stands in harmony with the following quote from Aquinas’s Summa contra gentiles, which reveals that the linking of body and soul in the human person makes humanity a bridge between the material and spiritual orders. This is a key Thomistic theme that pinpoints the inseparability between body and soul, as well as the unity between form and matter:

Est igitur accipere aliquid supremum in genere corporum, scilicet corpus humanum aequaliter complexionatum, quod attingit ad infimum superioris generis, scilicet ad animam humanam, quae tenet ultimum gradům ingenere intellectualium substantiarum, utex modo intelligendi percipi potest.

(Aquinas [1878] 1961, Summa contra gentiles, vol. 13, p. 68)

One must therefore consider something supreme within the category of bodies, namely the human body, which is evenly composed and reaches up to the lowest level of the higher category—that is, the human soul, which holds the lowest rank in the order of intellectual substances, as can be understood from its manner of knowing.

(translation mine, cf. Sweeney 1999, p. 164)

At this point, it is palpable that Aleni’s Chinese interpretation of Western learning at the start of his Xingxue Cushu 性學觕述 centers predominantly on form-matter and body-soul relationship. Here, Aleni espouses the Aristotelian theory that the soul is the form of the living body—it is a set of capacities that actualize the body to perform life functions (such as nutrition, sensation, and reasoning in humans). But at the same time, he also turns against the fundamentalistic Aristotelian notion that the soul cannot exist apart from the body, debunking the misconception that the soul can exist as a separate substance. In its stead, he embraces the Thomistic cosmological view that the soul is the substantial form of the human body, the rational soul is immortal, and the soul can exist apart from the body after death. On this matter, Aleni further writes about the Christian doctrinal teaching that the soul does not die, despite the physical annihilation of the body. In the following extract, most remarkably, Aleni contextualizes the metaphysical theories about the soul vis-à-vis the ritualistic-liturgical practices of qidao fengji 祈禱奉祭 (i.e., prayers and sacrifices), where Aleni’s subjective and conscious transition from writing about Aristotelian-Thomistic hylomorphism to the clarification of Catholic liturgical issues would appear to be explicit:

以追遠祭祀之典，證其靈䰟不滅。試觀人於父母旣歿，無不追慕如生，或獻物如在，或祈禱以免其冥苦。若膺一命，必以恩及泉壤爲榮。設使神䰟與身俱滅，縱我致禮，誰爲知者受者? 是爲之祈禱奉祭，祗屬虛僞，而古今大典、萬國眞悃，盡爲可廢也已。

The rituals of ancestral worship prove that the soul is immortal. It is observed that, after their parents have died, people still admire them as if they were alive, or offer sacrifices as if their parents were present; others pray for their parents to escape from the pains after death. If they are knighted, they consider it a badge of honor to have their late parents knighted as well. If the soul were to decay along with the body, who would be the one to know and receive the sacrifice? A corollary of this is that prayers and rituals would be disingenuous, and the solemn rituals practiced in ten thousand countries throughout history should be completely abolished.

(Meynard and Pan 2020, pp. 144–45)

Here, to persuade Chinese disciples of the Catholic theological understanding of the soul, Aleni initially refers to the prayer and sacrifice that are also locally and indigenously practiced in ancient China. He then claims, by logical deduction, that if the souls (without being stained by deadly and irredeemable sins) were not immortal, then the devotions to the ancestors via the ritualistic agency of sacrifice would be completely in vain, since it is impossible to conduct bilateral communication with dead souls. In terms of Aleni’s strategy of spreading Catholic doctrinal teaching in China, this extract is a vivid witness to his pragmatic mutual illumination between Chinese and Catholic rites, which is intended to justify the Catholic fundamental theory about the soul. But this cannot be achieved without Aleni’s highly systematic introduction of Western metaphysics in the first place. The same holds true also in the following extract from his Sanshan Lunxue Ji 三山論學紀 (The Learned Conversations in Fuzhou):

(Aleni 2011, vol I, p. 222)

人之生從何來，死歸何去？其受生也，天主必降之靈性，命之遵守義禮，毋負賦畀初意。…… 人死則形骸歸土，乃其靈性不滅，必復命於天主，各聽審判。

From where does human life come, and to where does it return in death? When a person receives life, God must bestow upon them a rational soul, commanding them to uphold righteousness and virtue, and not to betray the original purpose granted to them. … When a person dies, the body returns to the earth, but the rational soul does not lessen or perish—it must return to God and await judgment.

(translation mine)

This passage reflects key elements of Thomistic-Aristotelian anthropology and Eucharistic theology. By distinguishing between the perishable body (xinghai 形骸) and the immortal soul (lingxing 靈性), it echoes the hylomorphic view that the soul is the form of the body and survives death. Aleni’s theory concerning the soul’s origin in God and its moral vocation—zunshou liyi 遵守義禮 (to observe justice and ritual)—also aligns with Aquinas’s teaching that the rational soul is ordered toward God as its end. Its post-mortem return to God for judgment underscores a teleological framework central to both Thomistic ethics and Eucharistic theology, in which the soul is prepared for union with God through grace. Thus, the text resonates with the Eucharistic vision of life as a return to the Creator, sanctified through moral fidelity and sacramental participation. In a further step, the foundational doctrine of Catholic Eucharistic theology is saliently present in the following extract from Aleni’s Misa Jiyi 彌撒祭義 (The Meaning of the Sacrifice of the Mass), wherein Aleni’s expounding of the liturgy clearly reflects elements of the Aristotelian-Thomistic vision of form-matter and substance-accident, albeit in a culturally adapted, metaphor-rich, and highly symbolic form (see also You and Ji 2023, p. 13):

(Aleni 2011, vol. I, p. 374)

以台為加襪略吾主受難之山；十字架是吾主所負以救世；而石則吾主之身體也。三層潔白之布，則指吾主最潔之聖軀。彩繡台帷 之設，吾主種種至德之全也。帳幔之懸，謂人日日戴吾主而不知，如隔一帳。使誠心專奉，便可覿(音滌)面現前矣。燭用黃蠟， 取其純潔之體純潔之用也。…… 又燭有蠟體，有綿心，有火光，三者成一。試思之，豈非吾主降生之肉軀，藏人之靈魂於其體中。 又以天主之性，合人之性，而加以光瑩。三者成吾主耶穌一體三位，以照萬世乎。

The altar represents Mount Calvary, where our Lord suffered; the cross is what our Lord bore to save the world; and the stone is the body of our Lord. The three layers of white cloth signify the most pure and holy body of our Lord. The embroidered veil of the altar symbolizes the fullness of all our Lord’s virtues. The hanging curtain indicates how people encounter the Lord daily yet do not recognize Him, as if separated by a veil. But if one devoutly and sincerely worships, one may see Him face to face. The candles are made of beeswax, chosen for their purity in substance and function … Furthermore, the candle has a wax body, a wick at its center, and a flame—three in one. Consider this: is it not like our Lord taking on human flesh, with a soul enclosed in that body, and with the divine nature united to human nature, shining forth as radiance? These three—body, soul, and divinity—form one Lord Jesus, a single person, shining upon the world for all time.

(translation mine)

Here, the candle on the altar of Sacrament is described as consisting of a wax body, a cotton wick, and a flame; the three constituents are united in oneness. This tripartite representation of the candle, if analysed vis-à-vis Aleni’s Chinese works on body-soul and form-matter relationship, would appear to be solidly grounded in and in tune with Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy. Allegorically speaking, the wax (lati 蠟體, literally meaning the body of the wax) corresponds to the level of matter; the wick (mianxin 棉心, literally meaning the cotton core of the wax) corresponds to the level of the “soul” and inner structure; lastly, the flame (houguang 火光, literally meaning the light of the fire) corresponds to the animating and actualising principle. This analogical illustration of the candle can be considered as a poetic rendering of soul as “forma corporis,” in the sense that the soul can actualize the body and give it life. Seen through this lens, this analogy is also elevated to a theological level that conspicuously mirrors Christ’s Incarnation as a synthetic integration of the body, the human soul, and the divine nature.

More conspicuously, the altar stone in Aleni’s discourse here is compared to God’s body, and the three white linens are described as signifying God’s most pure body. The interpretation of Eucharistic elements as symbolic representations of Christ’s body is likewise redolent of Thomistic symbolic theology as well, which uses physical signs to point to invisible realities. While the text does not explicitly use Thomistic terms like substantia or accidens, it echoes the sacramental principle in Aquinas: visible elements are used by God to communicate invisible grace. On the top of that, the hanging veil means that people bear God daily without knowing, as if separated by a veil, which reflects of sacramental realism: Christ is truly present, inhering in the Host on the altar of Sacrament although it is veiled. This chimes in with Aquinas’s saying that Christ is present sub specie panis, i.e., under the appearance of bread, which resonates with the Thomistic emphasis on the real but hidden presence of God in the sacramental bread, and which is also premised upon the distinction between accidents (veil/appearances) and substance (Christ’s body):

Si vero tempore passionis quando sanguis Christi erat ex corpore effusus, fuisset hoc sacramentum ab aliquo apostolorum perfectum, sub panis specie fuisset solum corpus Christi ex sangue, sub speciebus autem vini fuisset solus sanguis Christi.

(Summa Theologiae III, q. 76, a. 2, cf. Filip 2009, p. 433)

But if, at the time of the Passion, when the blood of Christ had been poured out from His body, this sacrament had been celebrated by one of the apostles, under the species of bread there would have been only the body of Christ without the blood, and under the species of wine there would have been only the blood of Christ.

(translation mine)

Una ratio est, quia tria sunt in hoc sacramento: unum quod est sacramentum tantum, aliud quod est res tantum, aliud quod est sacramentum et res. Sacramentum tantum sunt species panis et vini, res tantum est effectus spiritualis, res et sacramentum est corpus contentum. Si ergo consideremus sacramentum tantum, sic bene competit ut corpus signetur sub specie panis, sanguis sub specie vini, quia signatur ut indicans refectionem spiritualem; sed refectio est proprie in cibo et potu, ideo et cetera. Item si sumatur ut res et sacramentum, ad hoc competit quod illud sacramentum est rememorativum dominicae passionis. Et non potuit melius significare quam sic, ut significetur sanguis ut effusus et separatus a corpore.

(Aquinas 2018, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Cap. XXVI, lect. 4)

One reason is because there are three things in this sacrament: one is the sacramentum tantum, another is the res tantum, and another is the sacramentum et res. The species of bread and wine are the sacramentum tantum, the res tantum is the spiritual effect, the res et sacramentum is the contained body. If therefore we consider the sacramentum tantum, it is properly befitting that the body should be signified under the species of bread and the blood under the species of wine because it is signified as something indicating spiritual refreshment, but refreshment is proper to food and drink…. Likewise, if it is understood as res et sacramentum it is rememorative of the Lord’s passion. And, [the passion] couldn’t have been better signified than this: that the blood be signified as shed and separated from the body.

(translation mine, cf. Filip 2009, p. 434)

Likewise, Aleni in his Kouduo Richao 口鐸日抄 (Daily Notes of the Missionary’s Preaching) even accentuates the nourishing function of the Eucharist for human corporeal existence. This is predicated on the doctrine that corpus Christi is in the host—in other words, what inheres in the bread on the altar is the substance that physically subsists human life, rather than merely a symbolic representation of Christ:

聖體者何意乎？斯益有三，不可不知也。一曰愛，一曰表，一曰養。養者，五穀以養肉軀，耶穌聖體以養吾之靈魂。…… 聖體知降臨也，比與吾之靈魂，渾合而為一。何養如之？

What is the meaning of the Holy Eucharist? It has three great benefits, which must not be unknown. First is love, second is symbol, and third is nourishment. As grains nourish the body, so the Holy Body of Jesus nourishes our soul. … When the Holy Eucharist descends, it unites with our soul and becomes one with it. What nourishment could be greater than this?

(Aleni 2014, Kouduo Richao, pp. 697–98)

This passage, once again, draws directly on Aristotelian-Thomistic anthropology and Eucharistic theology by presenting the Eucharist (shengti 聖體)—which is the source of nourishment of the soul—in analogy with how food nourishes the body. Within the Thomistic framework, the soul is the substantial form of the body; it is responsible for life, intellect, and spiritual orientation toward God. Just as physical food sustains the material body, the Eucharist (i.e., Christ’s real presence) sustains and perfects the rational soul, which seeks union with its divine end. The text’s claim that corpus Christi “unites with our soul to become one” (i.e., 比與吾之靈魂，渾合而為), moreover, resonates with Aquinas’s teaching that the Eucharist brings an intimate communion between the soul and Christ, effecting spiritual transformation. Thus, the Eucharist becomes not merely symbolic but metaphysically efficacious, in that it offers divine life to the soul as its proper nourishment and fulfillment. The very same idea can also be quarried from Aleni’s Shengti Yaoli 聖體要禮 (Essential Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist):

(Aleni 2011, vol. II, p. 352)

聖體為何?

慾領聖體，當先知聖體為何。蓋聖體非他，即吾主耶穌降生之元體也。昔吾主在世嘗論眾曰：自天降來真糧可盡，活世命者即我體也。至於受難前夕，將歸天國與人類相離。宗徒不忍別。吾主慾慰其心。暨後諸奉教者。乃取酒餅二物。以巳全能大德化成巳聖體聖血。令宗徒食之, 曰此即我體，將為爾輩受難。此即我血, 將為爾輩流下，以洗萬民之罪。

既誦耶穌所定經語於其上，則麥酒之體化為吾主體血與在天無二。雖其麥酒之像色仍存，猶如屏障外掩實不復有麥酒之性質也。…… 西方風俗多以麥為常用之糧。吾主立此大禮。即借飲食養身之物。藏其體血以養靈魂，使人便於領受。

What is the Holy Eucharist?

Before receiving the Holy Eucharist, one must first understand what it truly is. The Eucharist is nothing other than the very body of our Lord Jesus, who took flesh and came into the world. In the past, while our Lord was on earth, He once spoke to the people, saying: “The true bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world is my body.” On the eve of His Passion, as He was about to return to the Kingdom of Heaven and be separated from humanity, the apostles could not bear the thought of parting. Wanting to comfort their hearts—and, later, the hearts of all who would believe—our Lord took bread and wine. By His divine power and authority, He transformed them into His own body and blood. He gave them to the apostles to eat, saying: “This is my body, which will be given up for you. This is my blood, which will be poured out for you, to cleanse the sins of all people.”

Once the words that Jesus instituted were spoken over the bread and wine, the substance of wheat and wine was changed into the true body and blood of our Lord, indistinguishable from the Lord who is in heaven. Although the outward appearance of bread and wine remains—like a veil that conceals what is within—the substance of bread and wine no longer exists. In the customs of the West, wheat is the staple food. Our Lord, in establishing this great sacrament, made use of ordinary food and drink to hide His body and blood, to nourish the soul just as food nourishes the body, thus making it easy for people to receive Him.

(translation mine)

In this excerpt, Aleni explains the mystery of the Eucharist through the prism of matter-form and body-soul framework, which, as demonstrated beforehand, he had previously introduced to Chinese readers before translating liturgical texts systematically. Here, he identifies the Eucharist (shengti 聖體) as “none other than the original body of our Lord Jesus who became incarnate”(吾主耶穌降生之元體), claiming unambiguously that what appears as bread and wine is in substance the true body and blood of Christ. To articulate this transformation, Aleni resorted to the Thomistic principle of Transubstantiation. He clarifies that “once the words established by Jesus are pronounced over them, the substance of the bread and wine is changed into the Lord’s body and blood, identical with that in heaven” (既誦耶穌所定經語於其上，則麥酒之體化為吾主體血與在天無二). Aleni further writes that “the appearances of bread and wine remain” (其麥酒之像色仍存), which externalizes his awareness of the distinction between substantial form and accidental properties.

Aleni’s metaphysical vision, which can be massively extracted from his works on cosmology and the soul, conveys the doctrine that myriads of beings are composed of inner substance and outward appearance, just as humans are formed of body and soul. For him, as much as the soul (linghun 靈魂) is the animating form of the body, the Eucharist also contains the living presence of Christ to “nourish our soul” (養吾之靈魂), in spite of the materially visible appearance of the Eucharist as bread and wine. By embedding Eucharistic theology within this broader metaphysical and anthropological system, Aleni offers a coherent theological vision that is supposedly more comprehensible for Chinese intellectuals of his time, since his poetics of missionary translation is evidently intended to bridge philosophical and theological issues in cross-fertilization. The same holds true in the following paragraph from Shengti Yaoli 聖體要禮 (Essential Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist), wherein Aleni expounds the miracle of the Eucharist and the dogma of the Trinity in like manner:

(Aleni 2011, vol II, p. 354)

聖體超異

夫聖體為即耶穌之元體，則活體也。凡聖血與吾主耶穌聖魂其中巳無不全，及三位一體，俱無不備 … 為夫一聖體，而天主三位俱赫赫臨下。則古今最尊最貴莫聖體。

The Miracle of the Eucharist

Now, the Eucharist is the very body of Jesus — it is his living body. Within it are truly and fully present his Most Precious Blood and his holy soul, along with the entire Trinity, without anything lacking… In this one Holy Eucharist, all three Persons of the Divine Trinity are gloriously present. Thus, from ancient times to the present, nothing has been more exalted or more precious than the Eucharist.

5. Conclusions

In the discussion above, I have illustrated some examples of Giulio Aleni’s resort to medieval Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy in translating Catholic liturgy into China. In his translation-based intermediation between cultures, Aleni has integrated the fundamentals of medieval European metaphysics and cosmology into his grand project of fostering Sino-European interreligious communication. This takes place on the joint levels of promoting Sino-European intellectual dialogue and interfaith mutual illumination. For one thing, medieval European philosophical thoughts (i.e., Aristotelianism and Thomism) are obviously inherited by Aleni; for another thing, the mainstream European thoughts also stand symbiotically in harmony with the new context of imparting Catholic doctrinal teachings in late imperial China. In Aleni’s poetics of translation, integrating Thomism and medieval Aristotelianism is not subservient to demonstrating the cultural ascendency, superiority, uniqueness, or untranslatability of Western learnings; it rather aims primarily to introduce Western learnings as objectively and systematically as possible among Chinese men of letters, with a view to reaching an epistemological common ground between China and Latin Europe, so that Western learnings and Chinese learnings can join force synergistically in Aleni’s missionary discourse. In so doing, the Jesuit missionaries also fulfilled the goal of introducing Eucharistic theology and Catholic liturgy in China via Chinese as an Asian vernacular, but not necessarily Latin.

In this connection, I have particularly highlighted the functional role of translating Western metaphysics (i.e., hylomorphism, which ultimately revolves around body-soul and form-matter relationship) in Aleni’s introduction of Eucharistic theology on Chinese soil. Most remarkably, the so-called Renaissance humanism was on the rise across Europe in Aleni’s lifetime, and Aristotelianism, which is grounded in rigorous logical deduction rather than empirical studies of specific phenomena, was inexorably in decline in the West. But this period of drastic ideological transfer still witnesses Aleni’s dedicated adherence to the mainstream medieval knowledge throughout his endeavor of fostering dialogue between Chinese and Western philosophical thoughts. Admittedly, the Jesuits were primarily translating scholastic treatises that were in largely agreement with Thomistic theology; and the “medieval theology” which pervades Jesuit evangelization in China was also the official theology of the post-Tridentine Church, which suggests that the theology under Jesuit translation is not only medieval in origin, but also an inextricable part of their early modern worldview. Yet at any rate, seeing the status quo that the study of medievalism in the West is largely heedless of the profound imprints of the Latin Middle Ages beyond Europe, capturing and elaborating on the ubiquitous traces of medieval Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy in Aleni’s liturgical translation in China paves new ways for investigating medievalism, broadly construed, from a wider and more productive trans-Eurasian perspective. This invites more philosophically and theologically oriented exploration into the sustaining vivacity—as well as manipulative use—of medieval European philosophy in diverse contexts of postmedieval interreligious encounter alongside the Jesuit missionary undertaking beyond Europe. Translating Catholic liturgy offers a valuable entry point in this regard, seeing that liturgy is, by and of itself, precisely where philosophical and theological issues are deeply interlaced, and the interlacement is further complicated in the convoluted processes of intercultural mediation through translation. This requires more dedicated research that integrates codicological, historical, and literary critical approaches.

Lastly, I would like to emphasize that the literary-ideological consonances between Aleni’s works and specific extracts from medieval Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy are a meaningful topic to explore. Indeed, it is indisputable that Aleni’s translations are not directly from the Summa Theologiae, but the distinct echoes between Aleni and the pre-entrenched medieval philosophical-theological tradition gesture toward to potentiality of reconsidering medieval Aristotelian-Thomistic literature as “world literature”—i.e., texts that are “actively present within a literary system beyond that of its original culture” (Damrosch 2003, p. 4). My analysis in the present essay has revealed that in Aleni’s poetic practice, medieval Aristotelian-Thomistic literature functions not only in “mirroring and reflecting an unchanged meaning” in the dogmatic theological sense, but also in “refracting it, in a prismatic process that can add new highlights and reveal new facets in a classic text” (Damrosch and Pike 2009, p. xxv). More precisely, the translated versions of Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy in Chinese historically enacted an indispensable—albeit hitherto insufficiently studied—role in engulfing the chasm between Jesuit introduction of Western intellectual-scientific knowledge into late imperial China and the Jesuits’ highly erudite and serious exposition of Catholic theological concepts, which would not have been accomplished without the cornerstone of properly introducing medieval Aristotelianism and Thomism in the first place. Bearing this in mind, I have tentatively exemplified the transition between translating hylomorphic philosophy to imparting Eucharistic theology within Aleni’s literary œuvres. This is expected to be applied to kindred Jesuit scholars in late imperial China in further depth and breadth, in the hope of according more scholarly attention to the sustaining impact of medieval Western learnings that infiltrates into the core of Jesuit missionary sinology, as well as the central heft of liturgical translation in the Jesuit campaign of Sino-European intercultural mediation and Christocentric evangelization in the early modern world.