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Luther was first recognized in China in the first half of the nineteenth century. Missionaries and Chinese intellectuals formed the two routes publicizing his work and his ideas in China. However, Luther's reception in China was not a holistic copy from the West, but a reshaping process which was greatly influenced by the context of Chinese history and culture. This article explores how Luther was accepted and how his image developed within this historical context from 1840 to the present day, namely how he was perceived as a negative 'divider,' Catholic 'evil destroyer' and Protestant 'great reformer,' a positive 'great reform model,' and an 'enemy of the working and peasant classes.' Today a multiple, tri-dimensional, and more comprehensive perspective on Luther exists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sin constitutes one of the most important concepts of Christian theological thought and is one of the core issues of Christian doctrine. Due to the difference in the understanding of the concept of sin between Christian and Confucian cultures, it became a major obstacle to Chinese understanding of Christian thought. When integrating the Catholic concept of sin into the Chinese cultural horizon, a simple literal translation is not enough. Translators need to conduct an in-depth cross-cultural translation. Dizui Zhenggui (Correct Rules for the Elimination of Sins), elaborated in China in the late Ming Dynasty by the Jesuit Giulio Aleni (1582-1649), was an early work in Chinese, that introduced the Catholic concept of sin and made a useful exploration of the Chinese translation and introduction of this concept. This article analyzes Dizui Zhenggui and finds that its author, Aleni, adopted the strategy of supplementing the literal translation through exposition. In doing so, he borrowed classic expressions from both European Christian books and Confucian books and used them, along with supplemental rhetorical discussions, to translate and introduce this concept. Such cross-cultural translations have had a major impact on later Catholic Chinese books. Studying the cross-cultural translation strategy of Dizui Zhenggui gives an insightful glimpse into the early attempts to pass on the core ideas of Catholicism in the East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the French Catholic missionaries' property acquisitions in late imperial China. It traces the historical trajectory leading up to the construction of the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Guangzhou and the purchase of real estate in the neighborhood surrounding it. It argues that while colonialism contributed greatly to the creation of a real estate empire, the mission's adoption of pragmatic methods as an economic player helped in the process, but by doing so the mission largely ignored regulations regarding church property acquisition both from the Chinese government and Sino-French agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]