The Leuven Chinese Studies, published by the Ferdinand Verbiest Institute, has just released its 40th volume, Ferdinand Verbiest, Postulata Vice-Provinciae Sinensis in Urbe proponenda: A blueprint for a renewed SJ mission in China. The book is edited by Noël Golvers.
According to the publisher, the book highlights a series of requests that Verbiest, as the China Mission’s vice provincial, issued to Superior General Giovanni Paolo Oliva in 1680. Verbiest’s requests, “which partly repeat longstanding complaints from the mission, posed again on the occasion of its centennial jubilee and at a moment when opportunities appeared limitless, yet constrained by the juridical and structural framework of the Vice-Province.”
“More than in any other document,” as the publisher notes, “these postulata show that Verbiest deserved the title of ‘pillar of the mission’, for his talent at forceful argumentation, using all possible means to strengthen the China mission’s position, especially by freeing it from the Japan Province and promoting it to the level of a full Province within within the Society of Jesus.”
The table of contents appear below. Orders are available through Verbiest.Inst@kuleuven.be . More details about the Leuven China Studies are available online at https://www.kuleuven.be/verbiest/publications/lcs.
Table of contents:
Acknowledgements (7)
1. Introduction
1.0. General presentation (9)
1.1. Codicological presentation (11)
1.2. Archival presentation (14)
1.3. Typological presentation (14)
1.4. Context and direct background (16)
1.5. Contents of the Postulata (30)
1.6. Couplet in Rome (36)
1.7. Bibliography (39)
2. Text: edition and translation (53-101, Latin/English)
3. Commentaries (103-173) [endnotes to the translation]
4. Indices (177-184) [of text and commentaries]
5. Appendices:
5.1 Translation of Latin fragments quoted in the notes (187-201).
5.2 Documents (203-227) [ The 1666 Postulata; Gabiani’s letters on the 1681 ‘Iubilaeum’ ]
5.3 Facsimile edition (229-248) [ARSI, Congr. Prov. 81, ff. 219a-l]