天學問答 - Argumentative Text Against Catholicism by Korean Scholar An Chŏngbok 安鼎福 from 1790 AD) - Part 2
This is the second part of the translation of the anti-Catholic text … The first part can be found here. A good part of the text rendered here is also translated in the reference work Sources of Korean Tradition, Volume Two: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries, edited by Yŏngho Ch’oe, Peter H. Lee, and Theodore de Bary.1 If you compare my translation with the one presented in the reference work, however, you will come to understand that I have chosen some other ways to interpret and translate certain expressions in the original Classical Chinese.
或曰彼西士之童身制行非中國篤行之士所能及也
Someone said: “The Western scholars’ principle of keeping their bodies virginally undefiled2 cannot be matched by the Chinese scholars [not even] with their sincere ways! (…)
且其知解絶人至於天度推步曆法籌數制造器皿若洞貫九重之天八十里火炮之類豈不神異
What is more, the most knowledgeable and intelligent men among them, are superior in determining the position of heavenly bodies3 and in the arithmetic on which their calendar is based.4 They make items, such as cannons, for example, that pierce through the nine layers of heaven [and have a range] of 80 li. How can [all this] not be miraculous?!5 (…)
我仁祖朝使臣鄭斗元狀啓西洋人陸若漢制火器能作八十里之火炮若漢卽利瑪竇之友
(Author’s note: At the time of King Injo’s6 reign, Chŏng Duwŏn7, envoy to China, reported in a missive about a Westerner [who went by the name of] Lù Ruòhàn,8 who would have made firearms and would be capable of producing a cannon [with a firing range] of 80 li. [This] Ruòhàn was in fact a companion of Lì Mǎdòu.)9
其國之人又能周行大地入其國則未幾而能通其言語文字測量天度一一符合此實神聖之人也旣爲神聖則烏不可信乎
The people of those countries can also travel all around the vast earth. When they enter their country [of destination], they become conversant in its spoken and written language after [only] a short while. [Their] astronomical calculations turn out to be completely accurate. These are truly miraculously sage men! And given that they are miraculously sage men, how can they not be believed?!”
曰是果然矣然以天地之大勢言之
[I] replied: “That is indeed very much true! [Let us,] however, talk about the geographical position [of the West compared to China.] (…)
西域據崑崙之下而爲天下中是以風氣敦厚人物奇偉寶藏興焉
The West’s territory is located at the foot of the Kūnlún mountains.10 For this reason, the material force circulating there like wind is so abundant, its people so majestic, and riches so abundant over there. (...)
猶人之腹臟血脉聚而飮食歸爲生人之本
It [i.e. the West] is similar to a person’s stomach, [where] the blood gathers together, eats and drinks,11 and goes back [to other parts of the body]. [The stomach thus] serves as the root for keeping the human alive. (...)
若中國則據天下之東南而陽明聚之是以禀是氣而生者果是神聖之人若堯舜禹湯文武周孔是也
China, on the other hand, is located on the Southeast of the world, and sunlight is gathered there. Therefore, the ones born edowed with that life force are indeed sagely men, such as Yáo12, Shùn13, Yŭ14, Tāng15, King Wèn16, King Wŭ17, the Duke of Zhо̄u18, and Confucius. (...)
猶人之心臟居胸中而爲神明之舍萬化出焉
[China] is like a human heart [in that] it is located in the chest and serves as the abode of reason. Manifold [wholesome] transformations come out of it. (…)
以是言之則中國之聖學其正也西國之天學雖其人所謂眞道聖敎而非吾所謂聖學也
If you consider it in these [terms], then the sagely teaching of China is sound. The “Heavenly Teaching” of the Western lands, even though it is called “the real way” and “sagely instruction” by their people, is not what we would call “sagely teaching.”
The relevant translated fragment may be found in that book (first print, 2000), on page 131.
Here 童身制 is translated as “principle of keeping their bodies virginally undefiled.” It refers, of course, to the life of celibacy to which Catholic clergymen are committed.
天度推步 is translated here as “determining the position of heavenly bodies.”
曆法籌數 is translated here as “the arithmetic on which their calendar is based.” By “their” the Western scholars (i.e. Jesuits) are meant, and the calendrical system referred to here is that of those Europeans.
For further information on the unit (or rather units, since it stood for different quantities throughout different times and states) of length 里 li, see here. I would furthermore draw the reader’s attention to the fact that in this part, a certain phrase does not seem to be very well fitting in the rest of the Chinese prose found here: 若洞貫九重之 “that pierce through the nine layers of heaven,” seems a too long an adnominal phrase modifying another nominal phrase (八十里 “80 li”), certainly if that phrase is in its turn not a main part of speech (subject / object / or the like), but rather another adnominal modifier (of 火炮 “cannon” or “cannons”). Likewise, only 若, to convey the meaning “such as” would already be sufficient, but the sentence ends with another expression that carries (in my opinion) the same meaning, namely 之類 (to be interpreted as “and the like” here). These two elements coexisting is another example of “ugly” and “hardly grammatical” Classical Chinese which, at any rate, is mainly appreciated by its terseness in expressing thoughts and events, even in prose. I venture to argue that the author, An Chŏng-bok, purposefully makes his interlocutor sound over-the-top emotional and enthusiastic, in a way that is not befitting to a Korean gentleman, by rendering his utterances in a garbled, rhythmically awkward (and thus “hardly literary”) Chinese.
King Injo (仁祖) reigned over Chosŏn from 1623 to 1649 AD.
Name in Chinese characters of this Chŏng Duwŏn: 鄭斗元
Lù Ruòhàn (陸若漢) would be the Chinese name of a Portuguese clergyman, João “Tçuzu” Rodrigues (1561/1562 - 1633 AD).
Lì Mǎdòu (利瑪竇), the Chinese name of the celebrated Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (1552 - 1610 AD)
崑崙 (Kūnlún) may be a mountain range located at the westernmost borderlands of China, or at the westernmost part of the world known to China, or may even be the legendary or mythical border of the world, beyond which civilization would not -or could not- exist.
It means that blood collects life energy in the stomach, as per the author.