金石盟──〈御製天主堂碑記〉與清初的天主教

The Nan-t'ang Imperial Commissioned Stele and Christianity in the Early Qing

藉著清初不同群體的人如何解讀順治皇帝的〈御製天主堂碑記〉，本文分析當時欽天監中的傳教士、儒家士人與滿洲皇帝所處的權力場域如何影響當時的天主教和曆法。在這個三角關係中，由於其他歷史行動者的意志和策略，使得在監的傳教士難以在帝國體制內同時合法化其曆算和宗教；儒家士人則宣稱滿洲皇帝的合法性來自儒家學統；而滿洲皇帝則藉著分開曆法與宗教、傳教士與士人，同時接收了由儒家傳統與西方曆法所提供的合法性。三方的結構性位置直接反應在「紀念碑」意義的形塑； 亦即反應在傳教士與儒士如何固定〈御製天主堂碑記〉的意義，以界定皇帝與自己的關係。雖然西洋傳教士與滿洲皇帝的關係迭有起伏，十七、八世紀的曆算學卻一直在這個結構性的關係中開展。

This paper investigates how different parties read The Nan-t'ang Imperial Commissioned Stele bestowed by the Shunzhi emperor in 1657. In the inscription of the stele, Shunzhi expressed his appreciation to Adam Schall for his contributions in setting up the calendar for the Qing Empire. At the same time, however, he demonstrated an apathetic attitude toward Christianity. Receiving the stele as a gift to the Nan-t'ang church, Schall and Christians believed that Shunzhi was a patron of their religion. Otherwise, they reasoned, the emperor would not have conferred the gift. To anti-Christian literati like Yang Guangxian, the emperor had declared himself an inheritor of the Confucian sage tradition and showed no sympathy to Christianity whatsoever in the inscription. While Yang focused on the content of the inscription, Schall emphasized the materiality and the symbolic meaning of the stele as an imperial gift. These different readings of the stele revealed the dilemma the Christian priests faced: they could not be imperial bureaucrats serving the Chinese emperor while performing the role of a priest under the jurisdiction of the Pope. By separating calendar and Christianity, the Manchu emperor, however, received the legitimacy that both the Confucian literati and Christian astronomers had provided.