Espionage, Adultery, and Witchcraft: Rumor and Imagination Transplant in the Anti-Catholic Persecution of Late Ming China

Abstract

Catholic missionaries have suffered numerous persecutions since their arrival in Ming China in 1583. Rumors which functioned either as the causation or as the main content of the accusations against Catholic missionaries played a vital role in the rise and development of anti-Catholic movements in Late Ming China. In terms of the contents, these rumors can be divided into three categories: rumors accusing missionaries of conducting espionage activities in China, rumors accusing missionaries of having sexual misconducts with local women, and rumors accusing missionaries of performing sorceries. Besides, different images of missionaries were created in these rumors, including spies dispatched by Portuguese from Macau, human traffickers, children-eaters, adulterers, sorcerers, and heretics. The initiation, circulation, and manipulation of these rumors and the construction of different negative images of Catholic missionaries are not only products of the imagination transplant mechanism, but also attempts of anti-Catholic opponents to “stigmatize” missionaries and construct the heterodox-teaching image of Catholicism.