Bridging Cultures: A Comparative Study of Early Catholic Missionaries’ Chinese Proverb Collections

For early Christian missionaries, Chinese proverbs were an invaluable resource for learning the language, understanding the culture, and carrying out religious evangelization. While existing research has predominantly focused on collections of Chinese proverbs by Protestant missionaries, Catholic missionaries’ efforts in gathering Chinese proverbs preceded those of their Protestant counterparts and hold significant linguistic, historical, and cross-cultural value. This study begins by tracing the emergence of Catholic missionaries’ interest in Chinese proverbs and then presents a comparative analysis of three representative collections compiled by Joseph de Prémare (1666–1736), Paul Perny (1818–1907), and Joseph Van Oost (1877–1939): Catholic missionaries from different orders and historical periods. It examines the compilation structures, purposes, Chinese proverbs selected, and interpretive approaches in their works, tracing the evolution of Catholic missionaries’ Chinese proverb collections. The study interprets this evolution in relation to the Catholic Church’s missionary strategies and the personal evangelization philosophies of the missionaries themselves. This research demonstrates the diverse cultural engagement practices of Catholic missionaries in China from the 18th to the early 20th century, offering new insights into the interaction between Catholicism and Chinese culture during this period.