This article aims to challenge the long-standing scholarly accusations of Simone Weil’s alleged Gnostic tendencies, arguing that her thought rigorously rejects any form of ontological dualism or epistemological dichotomy, and contending to position her within the continuum of Christian thought, particularly the Catholic tradition. In the second part of the argument, I present Weil’s hermeneutical reconstruction of spiritual history and argue that her advocacy of intellectual individualism does not originate from a cryptic Gnostic perspective but rather represents an attempt to reinterpret Christ’s love in response to the profound challenges of her time. This reinterpretation may be imperfect yet possessing sincerity.

This paper aims to explore Matteo Ricci’s arguments for the existence of God in The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven and analyse their philosophical origins. Traditionally, scholars have regarded Ricci’s theory of proving God’s existence as being deeply influenced by Thomas Aquinas, particularly his “Five Ways” of proving God’s existence. However, this study seeks to further demonstrate that Ricci’s arguments not only inherit Aquinas’ ideas but also integrate other philosophical traditions, particularly those from ancient philosophy (such as Cicero and Aristotle), while following the apologetic style of 16th-century Iberian missionaries (such as Luis de Granada, O.P.).
By comparing The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven with Summa Theologiae, Summa Contra Gentiles, and Introducción del Símbolo de la Fe, this paper attempts to illustrate that Ricci’s argumentative strategy exhibits a “syncretic” character. He adopts Aquinas’ “final cause” proof, draws on Cicero’s “commonsense” argument and the rhetorical structures of 16th-century missionary writings, adapting them to fit the Chinese cultural context. Furthermore, this paper explains why Ricci’s theory of God’s existence should not be regarded as a mere imitation of Aquinas’ ideas. Instead, it represents a unique argumentative model that blends multiple philosophical and theological traditions while adapting to the East Asian cultural milieu. This syncretic approach is reflected not only in textual structure and content selection but also in the adaptation and transformation of argumentation methods. It highlights both the diversity of Ricci’s philosophical sources and the historical specificity of his apologetic style.

Taiji (太極) is a quintessential concept spanning thousands of years of Chinese history. Immersed in this ancient tradition and reflecting on his profound personal experience, Gong Yan developed Interior Taiji (太極合一靈修) as a unitive praxis, which has enriched the personal and social lives of contemporary China for over a decade. This article begins with a brief introduction to the practice of Interior Taiji. It then explores Gong’s approach to affect in the light of mystical theology, followed by a conceptualisation of the praxis of Interior Taiji and its professional ethics through medieval affect and contemporary affect theories. Finally, by considering Interior Taiji in conversation with contemporary philosophy and the thoughts of Pope Francis, I present an open horizon for Chinese Catholic theology that the boundaries of religious thought, attends to the process of integral health, and expresses the lived wisdom of the Chinese people.

“The Exodus from Egypt” was one of the people of Israel’s most direct experiences of the Lord as the rescuing God. Through this event, God not only identified the Israelites as His chosen people but also instituted the “Passover” (cf. Exo 12:14), which was to be commemorated by all generations. However, when Moses led the people of Israel on their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, the “Exodus” seemed to be quickly forgotten by them, and the Israelites continuously reminisced about what they had experienced in Egypt by rebelling, complaining, and testing the Lord. However, God not only provided everything they needed for their journey but also established another festival for them to be commemorated by all generations, which is the Feast of Tabernacles (cf. Lev. 23:41). Since then, the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles have become two important annual festivals of the Israelite people. On the one hand, these two festivals have become historical memorials; on the other hand, they symbolize the relationship between God and His people in terms of saving and being saved, of choosing and being chosen, and thus the identity of the Israelite people. The purpose of this article is to reread this tortuous process of “remembering” and “forgetting,” “revolt” and “reconciliation,” and “trauma” and “healing” in order to explore how the Israelite people interpreted their “commemoration” of the two events and defined their identity.

This article re-evaluates the historical and theological identity of the East Syriac Church, also called the “Church of the East”—historically known in East Asia as “Jingjiao” (景教: the “Luminous Religion”)—by challenging the conventional and often misleading label of “Nestorianism.” Through an interdisciplinary analysis of Syriac historiography and fragmentary manuscripts from Turfan, the author argues that the term “Nestorian” is an exonym and a pejorative label coined within the Roman Empire, which fails to reflect the agency and intellectual foundations of the “Church of the East.”
The first half of the paper examines the institutional and historiographical independence of the East Syriac Church within the Sasanian Empire. By analyzing the texts of the oriental synods and the works of Barḥadbshabbā, specifically The Cause of the Foundation of the Schools, the study demonstrates that the community’s lineage was constructed not around Nestorius, but around Theodore of Mopsuestia, called “the Interpreter”. This “Theodorian” Teaching brought to the churches in the Persian Territory a theology that focused on historical interpretation of the Bible and progress through the temporal world, and the School of Nisibis inherited this legacy in a subjective and creative manner that was very distinct from the Christological preoccupations of the Roman Churches.
The second half provides some evidence for the transmission of these teachings and their subsequent cultural adaptation in Central Asia. By examining Sogdian and Middle Persian translations of the Psalms discovered in Turfan, the author highlights the replacement of traditional “allegorical” interpretation of Septuagint headings with new “Theodorian” headings that reflect a historical interpretive framework and new “Canons” rooted in a new environment. Furthermore, linguistic analysis of these fragments—such as the use of the Sogdian term əktānī (evoking karmic “deeds”) and the Middle Persian ethical dualism of kirbakkar (“Good-doer”) and bazzakkar (“Evil-doer”)—reveals a sophisticated process of “subjective adaptation.”
The paper concludes that the East Syriac Church/Jingjiao should be understood not as a heretical offshoot of Roman Christianity, but as the culmination of the “Eastern” trajectory: a community that integrated Theodorian teaching into its ancient foundations, fostered internal growth, and resolutely adapted its religious practice to the Persian, Sogdian, and Chinese cultural spheres.

In recent times, the “inconsistency” of Pauline epistles has been a focus of the discussion once again. A brief review of the research history in the 20^th century reveals that “inconsistency” is not a new issue but probably a challenge that Paul had to face during his lifetime. As an ardent admirer of Paul, St. John Chrysostom did his best to refute all claims of “inconsistency” in Pauline epistles. On the one hand, St. John Chrysostom was a staunch defender of the coherence of the Pauline epistles, both in terms of their formal coherence as a codex and in terms of the coherence of their content, based on factors of time, intention, and the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, St. John Chrysostom also defends and praises Paul’s diversity, even giving positive connotations to adjectives that have traditionally carried a negative meaning. St. John Chrysostom’s argument is also strictly circumscribed. In short, Pauline diversity is expressed by Paul’s motivation of saving mankind, the example of Christ’s kenosis, the context of the kerygma, and the selected material and style that form the content of Pauline epistles.

This article explores the possibility and relevance of engaging Thomas Aquinas’s moral reflection in the Summa Theologica through a transcultural dialogue with Confucian thought to face contemporary crisis. It opens by examining the ongoing debate on whether Confucianism is best understood as a Virtue Ethics or a Role Ethics. Then it turns to Huang Yong’s work, which draws parallels between Aristotle, Aquinas, and Zhu Xi. Huang defends an interpretation of Confucianism as a form of Virtue Ethics, rooted in human nature and moral cultivation, and argues that Zhu Xi offers a model closer to the “ideal type” of Virtue Ethics than Aristotle. The interest of Zhu Xi’s reflection is indeed to put relational abilities and dispositions at the foundation of moral reflection. This is also what Li Yong establishes, although relying on Mencius and Aquinas.
Interestingly, all the thinkers mentioned share a fundamental trust in the phenomena of tradition. The commentarial practices of Neo-Confucianism and Scholasticism embody a hermeneutical ethics that enables intergenerational transmission and innovation in moral reflection. This can also be observed in Aquinas’s definition of virtue, examining both its transcultural and teleological foundations. In this sense, transcultural Virtue Ethics, built on the bridging of Scholasticism and Confucianism, as exemplified by several commentators, advocates for the pursuit of moral knowledge that integrates rational, emotional, and spiritual dimensions across philosophical traditions.

How can the Gospel be better spread in China so that the Chinese people can better understand and accept Christianity? This is a question that countless missionaries and Christians in China have pondered and worked on since Matteo Ricci. The “Chinese Rite Controversy” had a significant impact on the development of the Church in China. Although the dispute eventually subsided after the intervention of the Holy See, it did not disappear completely. This article discusses the arguments and objectives of missionaries in the mid-19^th century regarding the use of Chinese classical terms Tian and Shangdi to refer to God. There was no right or wrong in the views of the two sides, but only a manifestation of their responsibility and love for the local church. This paper specifically analyzes the dialogue between the Lazarist Bishop Joseph-Martial Mouly and Bishop Emmanuel-Jean-Francois Verrolles of the Missions étrangers de Paris (MEP) on this issue, reflecting their concerns in the mission in China and examining the significance of their theology of inculturation and missionary strategy.

The question of “when does the human person begin to exist” is one of the most important issues in the Church’s teachings on bioethics. Aristotle first proposed the doctrine of delayed hominization, arguing that the embryo initially possesses a vegetative soul and a sensitive soul but, since its external limbs have not yet formed, it lacks a human form and, consequently, a human soul—that is, a rational soul. According to Aristotle, the male embryo attains full human existence after forty days, while the female embryo requires ninety days. Building on Aristotle’s embryology and philosophical framework, Thomas Aquinas shifted the focus of the question “when does a human being begin to exist” from the physical formation of the body to the moment of “the infusion of the soul.” He emphasized the instant when “God creates and infuses the soul into the human body,” thereby establishing the concept of “delayed ensoulment.” Influenced by this theological system, the Church’s initial stance on abortion applied only to “formed” embryos. Consequently, the stage from the zygote to the early embryo faced a crisis regarding which ethical and moral standards should be applied. In its document Donum Vitae: Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith suggests that “from the moment of conception, the human person is to be respected and treated as a person.” However, the phrase “treated as a person” implies that Church authorities have not fully resolved the dilemma of when ensoulment occurs, a dilemma arising from the “delayed process of adultization.” If we return to the Genesis account of how God created human being “in the beginning” and the Israelites’ understanding of the concept of human “existence,” might this help us move beyond the Greek philosophical notion of human being as a composite of body and soul? Could it allow us to define human existence in terms of the relationship between human being and God at the very beginning of His creation? At the same time, can the different perspectives on “human being” offered by Greek philosophical thought and Hebrew culture help in understanding and defining the “personhood” of human being?

Angels serve as intermediaries between humanity and God, yet the operation of angelic intellect and the nature of angelic knowledge have received insufficient scholarly attention. Because angels lack matter, angelic intellect acquires knowledge through internal intuition of itself, and angelic knowledge is characterized by its interiority, requiring no external input. Confronting the divine-human tension inherent in angelic intellect, Aquinas clarifies the identity of understanding and being in the perfection of intellect by positioning the specificational character of angelic intellect's operation and the intellect's "supernatural natural desire," thereby establishing an ontological boundary between the created and the uncreated. This intuitive and interior conception of intellect constitutes a distinctively characteristic epistemological framework within Thomism.

This essay describes and analyzes the passages where Rev. Li Ande (1693–1774) in his Journal mentions the French MEP missionary and Bible translator Jean Basset (1662–1707). It was Fr. Basset who had taken the young Li Ande from his home in Shenxi to Sichuan and started the education of the boy. More than fourty years after Basset’s death, Rev. Li Ande wrote in his Journal about Fr. Basset and his works, altogether mentioning him around 30 times. The present study analyzes the Latin appellations by which Li Ande respectfully names his mentor Basset, the impact of Basset’s short catechism, Basset’s role in the social acceptance of Catholicism in Sichuan, and his Chinese translation of the New Testament. Finally, Basset’s polite attitude also was praised by Li Ande. The essay highlights the missionary heritage of Fr. Basset as it was described, evaluated, and continued by Li Ande.

In biblical revelation, the Holy Trinity and Christ’s mode of existence primarily are characterized by continuous outgoing movement, self-emptying (kenosis), or decentralization. This dynamic forms the foundation of the Church’s missionary outreach. The Church’s very nature should manifest and historically continue the mode of existence of the Trinity and Christ. Yet, this is often not the case. Even today, forms that are inconsistent with or opposed to this nature persist within the Church, such as self-centeredness. This attitude severely hinders the Church’s self-realization in her mission of evangelization. Therefore, the Church needs to be reformed. Following the path of Vatican II, Pope Francis proposes synodality as the direction and solution for this reform. This article primarily explores how synodality, on the one hand, renews our understanding of the Church by integrating what the Church is with what the Church does, and on the other hand, concretely enables the Church to more closely resemble the decentralized nature of the Holy Trinity and Christ—that is, to realize its essential missional existence.

During a research project aimed at understanding emerging trends in the Church in China, young Catholics emphasised the importance of fraternal ecclesial communities for faith development. They often refer to Christ as “Elder Brother Jesus,” echoing early Church Fathers’ views of Christ as the Brother who adopts believers into divine Fraternity through baptism. This concept resonates with Chinese cultural values. The thesis suggests that this Christological approach can help develop an ecclesiology of the Church as the Fraternity of Christ, aligning with the Acts of the Apostles and emphasising synodality based on Fraternity, as highlighted by the phrase “You are all brothers” (Mt 23:8).

In recent years, there has been a growing body of literature examining the concept of “union with Christ” in Pauline texts, offering various proposals and interpretations aimed at providing a coherent explanation of this concept within Paul's epistles. This article critically evaluates three recent works that attempt to explicate Paul’s notion of “participation in Christ”: Blackwell's Christosis, Gorman’s Inhabiting the Cruciform God, and Macaskill’s Union with Christ in the New Testament. The evaluation is conducted based on the following criteria: theosis, the definition of participation in Christ, the distinction between Creator and creation, and the thematic centrality of participation in Christ within Paul’s thought. Finally, this study explores whether the theme of participation in Christ occupies a central position in Pauline theology and suggests potential avenues for further research, particularly regarding the relationship between sacraments, rituals, and the theme of participation in Christ.

This paper takes Augustine’s Tractate 46 on the Gospel of John as its core text and argues that “the Incarnation” is not merely a doctrinal tenet within his theological system, but constitutes a “central interpretive para-digm” that permeates his historical engagement, theological construction, and exegetical practice. This paradigm can be operationally defined through three interrelated dimensions: divine condescension and accommodation, the sanctification of material media, and the union of Head and body. Within this framework, the paper first reconstructs the historical context of Tractate 46, revealing how Augustine maps the multiple controversies of the North African Church onto the textual figures of the parable—the “hireling” as a response to Donatist purism, the contrast between the Good Shepherd's self-sacrifice and the hireling's flight as a counter to Pelagian depreciation of grace, the “wolf” as the spiritual adversary threatening the flock, and the “doorkeeper” as an occasion for safeguarding Trinitarian orthodoxy. Second-ly, it analyzes how Augustine, centering on the Incarnation, organically inte-grates the doctrines of election, Christology, Trinitarian theology, and eccle-siology into a coherent theological whole. Finally, it explores how his exe-getical method—including his Christological reconfiguration of the patristic tradition, his use of an “incarnational rhetoric,” the principle of pastoral ac-commodation, and his semiotic theory—translates this paradigm into con-crete interpretive practice, while establishing clear boundaries for polyse-mous interpretation through the rule of faith and the principle of charity. The findings demonstrate that viewing the Incarnation as an interpretive para-digm effectively bridges the gap between historical criticism and theological logic prevalent in current scholarship on the Tractates, revealing Augustine’s dynamic methodology that integrates apologetics, exegesis, and pastoral care, and illuminating the inner unity and theological depth of his thought.

Editing ancient Christian texts in bilingual volumes, preferably with a critical apparatus, is a continuously evolving process that the Institut des Sources Chrétiennes has been tackling for over eighty years. Four aspects of this challenge are examined here: the guidelines of the series, the teaching of ecdotics, the technical resources and media, and the importance of edito-rial decision-making.

What does it mean to produce a scholarly edition of an ancient text? The article approaches the question from a comparative perspective, setting Western and Chinese philological traditions in dialogue on problems they share. Proceeding in three stages, it traces a path from the simplest editorial situation to the most complex, where competing traditions reflect the succes-sive interventions of distinct communities of interpretation. At each stage, it first examines the difficulties that confront editors: attribution and authentic-ity, transcription and translation, the treatment of variants, and, in some cas-es, the progressive dissolution of the notion of a stable original; before brief-ly introducing the methods developed to face these problems. Rather than advocating for a single approach, the article suggests that the tools devel-oped by the history of philology in different fields are valuable but not uni-versally applicable, and that editors might use and adapt them case by case. In conclusion, a scholarly edition may be recognized by the transparency and accountability of the reasoning and sources it makes available to its readers.

This article explores Augustine’s unique perspective on corporeality as con-structed between Neoplatonism and Christian faith, focusing on his reflections on the relationship between body and soul. While Augustine inherits the Neo-platonic emphasis on the soul’s transcendence, he firmly rejects the notion which the Neoplatonic holds that the body is the source of shame or a prison for the soul. Influenced by Christian doctrine, Augustine contends that the body’s mortality originates not from any inherent flaw but from original sin. The body, in his view, is not only a good creation of God but also an necessary condition for the beatitude that human beings are to attain in the eschaton. The human person is constituted by body and soul together, forming a complete unity. From the perspectives of existentialism, ethics, and epistemology, this article analyzes Augustine’s multifaceted understanding of corporeality—as a mark of death, a trigger of desire, yet also a medium for intellectual and divine contemplation. Ultimately, author argues that Augustine’s concept of the spiritual body within the framework of resurrection and eschatology transcends the Platonic tradition of the soul’s superiority, laying a profound foundation for a theological anthro-pology grounded in the unity of body and soul.

This paper reexamines the concept of theosis, deification, by placing Athanasius’s On the Incarnation and John Behr’s patristic Christology in dia-logue with Bernard Stiegler’s pharmacological view of technics. For Athana-sius, theosis primarily refers to the Incarnation of the Word of God, in which God became man, an initiative of God’s that enables us to be deified. Ex-panding on this, Behr connects the Incarnation with Christ’s sacrifice, argu-ing that human beings become “fully human” only by uttering our fiat to die and live in Christ in response to the Incarnation and the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.
The study contrasts this patristic vision with contemporary technologi-cal attitudes, influenced by transhumanism, that often treat finitude as a de-fect to be eradicated. While transhumanism seeks artificial transcendence, this paper finds that the account of technics in the Greek myth counterintui-tively requires a sense of shame (aidos) and, according to Stiegler, a sense of finitude. This paper argues that the awareness of human finitude is the es-sential threshold for genuine deification, both from a patristic view and as a constitutive element of being human within modern philosophical frame-works of technics.

The final words of the patriarch Jacob to his twelve sons are generally considered as “Jacob's Blessings” (cf. Genesis 49:1-28). However, upon careful examination of the text, readers will notice that the eldest son Reu-ben, along with Simeon and Levi, did not receive their father's ‘blessing’ (cf. Genesis 49:3-7). These utterances could even be characterized as “curses.” In fact, textual criticism reveals traces of “hesitation” in different ancient manuscripts regarding the distinction between ‘blessing’ and “curse.” Con-cerning the eldest son Reuben, the word  , repeated twice in Genesis 49:3b, carries ambiguous meaning: on one hand, it can be negatively trans-lated as “excessively, too much” on the other hand, it could be interpreted positively as “extraordinary, outstanding, excellent.” The ancient Aquila ver-sion translates this noun as the adjective “excessive, extreme,” carrying a negative connotation. Regarding the instructions concerning Simeon and Levi, the opening word of Genesis 49:7 plays a crucial role: both the Maso-retic Text () and the Septuagint (ἐπικατάρατος) attest to the meaning “cursed” while the Samaritan Pentateuch employs , meaning “exalted”—suggesting their anger was commended and received Jacob's “blessing.” Be-yond this, the key term  (cf. Gen 49:10) in the prophecy concerning the fourth son Judah remains controversial: the Septuagint translates it as “the one who is reserved” (τὰ ἀποκείμενα αὐτῷ); the Vulgate interprets it as “the one who is sent” (qui mittendus est); while the Samaritan Pentateuch em-ploys the form  . The interpretation of “the one who is to come” plays a decisive role in the entire text. Furthermore, the fate of Joseph, Jacob's be-loved son, is summarized by the term ‘blessing’ (), even being regarded as “the chosen one among his brothers” (cf. Gen 49:26) and subsequently called “the foremost among his brothers” (cf. Deut 33:16b). If Reuben, Sim-eon, and Levi truly received their father’s “curse,” then which of Jacob’s specially “blessed” sons—Judah (cf. Gen 49:8-12) or Joseph (cf. Gen 49:22-26)—ultimately inherited the birthright? This article aims to clarify the critical issue of Jacob’s “blessings” and ‘curses’ through comparative and critical analysis of different textual versions. It involves not only the in-terpretation of the entire “Joseph narrative” (cf. Gen 37-50) but also the un-derstanding of the composition of the Pentateuch: “Jacob’s blessings” (Gen 49) and “Moses’ blessing” (Deut 33) form a relationship of beginning and end echoing each other.

This article takes the “Call of the King” meditation in St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises as its central focus and examines its significance for Christian identity formation and spiritual life within the context of con-temporary society. It begins by analyzing the crisis of identity brought about by postmodern individualism, consumer culture, and the decline of collec-tive ideals, arguing that modern individuals increasingly struggle to form stable life commitments oriented toward an ultimate horizon of meaning. Through an examination of the text of the Spiritual Exercises and relevant scholarship in Ignatian studies, the article demonstrates that the “Call of the King” is not primarily a summons to a particular status, role, or office, but rather an invitation issued by the risen Christ, calling individuals into a rela-tionship with him and participation in his mission. Drawing upon both theo-logical and psychological perspectives, the study further explores the dy-namic structure of call and response and its relationship to the formation of personal identity. It argues that the identification fostered by the “Call of the King” is not a form of religious projection grounded in “imaginary identifi-cation”, but rather a “symbolic identification” centered on responding to Christ’s mission. Such identification enables individuals to transcend the framework of self-realization and, through the Christic process of the imita-tion of Christ, to attain a more mature and integrated identity.

“Negative theology” originated in Greek philosophy, where it was ini-tially applied primarily to ontology and metaphysics. After being systemati-cally developed by Philo of Alexandria, it became a theological method for expressing the attributes of God and mystical experiences. The Apostolic Fathers neither entirely rejected Greek philosophy and Hellenized Jewish thought nor accepted them uncritically; rather, they adopted a strategy of discernment through reflection and transformation through dialogue. Regard-ing "negative theology", they maintained a relatively cautious stance and, within the framework of biblical revelation, limited themselves to using cer-tain negative adjectives to illustrate the transcendence of God's divinity.