Mission as laboratory: Attempts to overcome competing world interpretations in Japanese translations of the early Jesuit mission

该项目的目的是在16世纪末17世纪初的日语翻译的基础上，探索耶稣会士和日本皈依者如何应对相互竞争的世界解释，以努力为信奉天主教的日本创造一个统一和谐的知识和价值观新秩序。由于耶稣会传教士采取排他性的方法来克服相互竞争的世界解释，他们必须设计一种词汇，能够传达天主教的世界观、人性和救世观，与佛教的概念形成鲜明对比，并最终能够指导行动。与日本佛教的认识竞争尤其存在于身体观念领域，在天主教中，身体观念不仅包括规范和认知观念，而且还包括洗礼、自我鞭刑和死亡圣礼等身体实践。因此，按照宗教美学的方法，该项目考察了耶稣会试图通过关注身体的概念和与之相关的实践来克服对日本世界的相互竞争的解释。该项目揭示了这些身体实践，因为日本大部分人口对基督教的接受取决于具体行动的文化翻译，这些具体行动必须符合文本和布道中的教义规定。该项目的重点是将1593-1595年专门为赴日使团编写的三部拉丁文教材翻译成日文。它们包括在Tridentine Council批准的全部知识：哲学纲要(亚里士多德的《阿尼玛》)、宗教(天主教真理纲要[天主教真理纲要])和宇宙学(德斯帕拉)。在日本，大纲，主要是天主教传单，也有传授与宗教有关的身体实践的任务。总体而言，翻译包括来自三个传统的世界解释：古希腊、后特里登丁时代的天主教和日本佛教。该项目有助于探索沃尔芬布特尔翻译手稿的内容，该手稿于2019年重新发现，与之前已知的但不完整的手稿(牛津大学马格达伦学院)不同，它包含所有三个部分。该项目从欧洲中心的角度出发，调查了天主教身体概念的实验性语言和文化翻译中的全球相互联系和背景，以及在翻译和使用《纲要》时考虑到的与早期现代日本相互竞争的世界解释的对抗。因此，该项目对从亚洲活跃的交流和接触时期形成比较概念的研究作出了新的贡献。

The project aims to explore, on the basis of Japanese translations from the late 16th and early 17th centuries, how Jesuits and Japanese converts dealt with competing world interpretations in an effort to create a new order of knowledge and values for a Catholic Japan that was to be uniform and harmonious. Since the Jesuit missionaries took an exclusivist approach to overcoming competing world interpretations, they had to design a vocabulary that could convey Catholic conceptions of the world, humanity and salvation in contradistinction to Buddhist conceptions and that could ultimately guide action. Epistemic competition with Japanese Buddhism existed particularly in the area of conceptions of the body, which in Catholicism included not only normative and cognitive conceptions but also bodily practices such as baptism, self-flagellation and death sacraments. Hence, following an aesthetic-of-religion’s approach, the project examines Jesuit attempts to overcome competing interpretations of the world in Japan by focusing on conceptions of the body and the practices associated with them. The project sheds light on these bodily practices because the acceptance of Christianity in large parts of the population of Japan depended on the cultural translation of concrete actions that had to be in accordance with the doctrinal prescriptions in the texts and sermons. The focus of the project is on the Japanese translation of three Latin language compendia, which were produced in 1593-1595 specifally for the mission to Japan. They comprise the knowledge ratified at the Tridentine Council in its entirety: compendia on philosophy (Aristotle's De Anima), religion (Compendium catholicae veritatis [Compendium on Catholic Truth]) and cosmology (De Sphaera). In Japan, the compendia, chiefly the Catholic tracts, also had the task of teaching bodily practices related to religion. Overall, the translation includes world interpretations from three traditions: ancient Greek, post-Tridentine Catholic and Japanese Buddhist. The project contributes to exploring the content of the Wolfenbüttel manuscript of the translation, which was rediscovered in 2019 and, unlike the previously known, yet incomplete manuscript (Magdalen College, University of Oxford), contains all three parts. Turning away from a Eurocentric perspective, the project investigates the global interconnections and contexts in the experimental linguistic and cultural translation of Catholic conceptions of the body and the confrontations with the competing world interpretations in early modern Japan that were taken into account in the translation and use of the compendia. The project thus makes a new contribution to research on the formation of comparative concepts from a period of lively exchange and encounters in Asia.