Dulia or Latria: Revisiting the Catholic Missionaries’ View on Guishen in Late Ming and Early Qing

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article engages with the notion of guishen 鬼神 (lit. ‘spirits’) in early modern Catholic works. The author tackles an important topic that has been widely discussed in recent scholarship (Nicolas Standaert, The Interweaving of Rituals Funerals in the Cultural Exchange between China and Europe, 2008; Thierry Meynard S.J., Dawei Pan, A Brief Introduction to the Study of Human Nature: Giulio Aleni, 2020; Thierry Meynard and Daniel Canaris, eds., A Brief Response on the Controversies over Shangdi, Tianshen and Linghun. By Niccolò Longobardo, 2021). The notions of angels and spirits have been crucial for Catholic missionaries in China who engaged with them very carefully, as noted by the author, debating them in contrast to or in continuity with different ru 儒 schools of thought.

 

It would be very important for the author to focus more initially on the pre-Han notions of guishen 鬼神. What did they mean? How did ‘sacrifices’ work? What relevance did pre-Han debates had on later discourses during the late Ming dynasty and early Qing dynasty, especially against the novel Catholic debates? How did Confucian and Buddhist scholars adopt those notions in favor or against Catholic doctrines?

 

The author has done a good job of engaging with some of those debates, but some important issues are still lacking. As shown by Elisabetta Corsi (Elisabetta Corsi. “Our Little Daily Death: Francesco Sambiasi’s Treatise on Sleep and Images in Chinese.” In: Europe–China: Intercultural Encounters (16th–18 Centuries). Luís Filipe Barreto. Lisboa: Centro Científico e Cultural de Macau 2012: 79–96), Fr. Francesco Sambiase/Sambiasi S.J. (Bi Fangji 畢方濟, 1582–1649), in his shuihua erda 睡畵二答 (“Two answers on sleep and images”) engaged also with the notions of images, spirits, and visions. Missionary-scholars like Sambiase, among others, re-interpreted Aristotelian notions discussing it against Confucian, neo-Confucian, and Buddhist debates on the nature of the soul, spirits, and the perception of mental and physical images. Regrettably, this discussion is lacking in this article, and I would recommend the author engage with it more systematically.

 

There is also an important longue durée perspective that shall be taken into consideration, including also works like the Qu pi xun meng 取譬訓蒙, (Using Parables to Instruct the Ignorant Children, 1869–1870) by Fr. Angelo Zottoli S.J. (Chao Deli 晁德蒞, 1826–1902), see Antonio De Caro, Angelo Zottoli, a Jesuit Missionary in China (1848 to 1902): His Life and Ideas (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), 82–138. Zottoli engaged extensively with the notions of angels and spirits, providing interesting insights into Catholic cosmology and cosmogony in Chinese.

 

The article also engages, at least partially, with the so-called Chinese rites controversy. This part has not been fully presented by the author and he/she would need to include recent literature on the topic (among many others, I suggest Standaert, Nicolas (2018). "Chinese Voices in the Rites Controversy: The Role of Christian Communities". In The Rites Controversies in the Early Modern World. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill).

 

Sometimes, some quotations are too long (p. 6) and would need to be further reduced or paraphrased. In addition, the English would need to be heavily polished and revised since, at times, it hampers the comprehension of various arguments.

 

In general, the author has done a good job presenting the notion of guishen 鬼神 in the works of several important Catholic missionaries in China, from Ricci to Caballero. However, the author would benefit from extensively revising the paper by looking at recent scholars on the topic and, at the same time, providing further arguments discussing the relevance of Aristotelianism, the longue durée relevance of those debates, and the Ming-Qing debates on pre-Han notions on soul, spirit and ‘immortal/supernatural’ beings.

 

The author should not feel discouraged, since the article is already at a very good stage, but it would need further work in order to make its statements more valuable for current scholarship given the numerous scientific publications on the topic. I also advise for extensive English proofreading which would benefit the comprehension of the article.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I  strongly suggest having this article proofread by a native English scholar, as it occasionally presents challenges in comprehension and fluency.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking time to review this manuscript, I really appreciate it!

For the revisions, I revised and responded one by one according to the suggestions：

The article engages with the notion of guishen 鬼神 (lit. ‘spirits’) in early modern Catholic works. The author tackles an important topic that has been widely discussed in recent scholarship (Nicolas Standaert, The Interweaving of Rituals Funerals in the Cultural Exchange between China and Europe, 2008; Thierry Meynard S.J., Dawei Pan, A Brief Introduction to the Study of Human Nature: Giulio Aleni, 2020; Thierry Meynard and Daniel Canaris, eds., A Brief Response on the Controversies over Shangdi, Tianshen and Linghun. By Niccolò Longobardo, 2021). The notions of angels and spirits have been crucial for Catholic missionaries in China who engaged with them very carefully, as noted by the author, debating them in contrast to or in continuity with different ru 儒 schools of thought.

 

Comments1: It would be very important for the author to focus more initially on the pre-Han notions of guishen 鬼神. What did they mean? How did ‘sacrifices’ work? What relevance did pre-Han debates had on later discourses during the late Ming dynasty and early Qing dynasty, especially against the novel Catholic debates?

 

Response 1: Thank you for pointing this out. I agree with this comment. However, because the influence of pre-Han Dynasty Chinese guishen thought on the missionaries was very limited, its acceptance was still motivated by a refutation of Neo-Confucianism, which was considered to have deviated from Confucian orthodoxy under the influence of Buddhism. I therefore deal with the interpretation of pre-Han Dynasty Chinese guishen thought and its influence on the missionaries in a footnote. I have done some supplements to emphasize this point. In Chapter 1, page 2-3, paragraph 4, line 70, 72, I added two footnotes (5, 6) to explain the concept of guishen pre-Han Dynasty, as well as to elaborate on the operation of their sacrificial rituals and to illustrate their influence on Ming and Qing missionaries.

As below：

Footnote 5: It is important to note the different connotations of guishen before the Han Dynasty. Generally speaking, ancient Chinese people's understanding of guishen mainly originated from ancestor worship and nature worship, which were the primary aspects of primitive religion. According to the definition in Shuowen Jiezi说文解字: "people become gui after they die."(鬼，人所归为鬼。) "Shen, heavenly spirits that bring forth all things." (神，天神引出万物者也。)They believed that the source of all things was shen, and that after death, people became gui. Similarly, Liji礼记 states: "Mountains, forests, rivers, valleys, hills, which can produce clouds, bring rain, and show strange phenomena, are all called shen."(山林、川谷、丘陵，能出云为风雨，见怪物，皆曰神。)"All living things must die, and upon death, they return to the earth; this is what is meant by gui."(众生必死，死必归土，此之谓鬼。) The former illustrates the ancient Chinese's simple animistic view that everything in nature has spirits, while the latter explains their understanding of death through the concept of gui. In contrast, Confucius, representing the ancient Confucian influenced by the humanitarian spirit of the Spring and Autumn period, did not advocate the worship of guishen but emphasized their influence on real-world politics. Although he never neglected the rituals for guishen, he stressed the relationship between these rituals and real life, particularly the practice of filial piety. Therefore, Confucius's rituals for guishen actually embodied the continuation of filial piety towards deceased ancestors. He believed that during the ritual process, the living developed a sense of reverence under the observation of the deceased, which guided their behavior. This led to the educational goal of "being cautious in the end and pursuing the distant past"(慎终追远) thus promoting a moral and harmonious society.(民德归厚矣)

Footnote 6: I It should be noted that missionaries selectively accepted ancient Chinese thoughts, especially the concept of guishen. In order to counter the atheistic tendencies of Neo-Confucianism, Ricci founds some spiritual existences similar to Western spirits in ancient Chinese classics. He also uncovered traces of natural theology in the "Four Books and Five Classics"(四书五经) to refute Neo-Confucianism. Ricci used the Chinese term Shangdi to express the Christian God, guishen to refer to angels, and hun to explain the soul. In his view, the existence of these three concepts in Chinese classics proved that ancient Chinese were not atheists and that they had a genuine understanding of the existence of God, angels, and souls as spiritual entities. However, it is important to note that these understandings and interpretations were greatly influenced by Ricci's own elaborations. For example, although Shangdi was worshipped as the supreme deity as early as the Shang Dynasty, ancestor gods actually played a more significant role in people's daily lives, and their religious practices were dominated by ancestor spirits. Confucius's attitude towards guishen was more complex. On one hand, Confucius emphasized respect and rituals for guishen, considering social foundations to be based on "the people, food, mourning, and sacrifices" (民、食、丧、祭). On the other hand, he advocated a strict boundary between humans and spirits, as reflected in "The Master did not speak of strange phenomena, physical exploits, disorder, or spirits" (子不语怪、力、乱、神), seemingly intending to replace beliefs in guishen with rationalism. It is evident that missionaries like Ricci also noticed the contradictions within ancient Chinese beliefs in guishen. Therefore, when interpreting Chinese guishen thoughts, they deliberately set aside the contradictions between Chinese and Western thoughts, focusing instead on their points of convergence.

 

Comments 2: How did Confucian and Buddhist scholars adopt those notions in favor or against Catholic doctrines?

 

Response 2: Thank you for pointing this out, but the discussion of this part of the paper is not the focus of this paper and therefore needs to be dealt with in a separate article. But it can be simply stated that on the reactions of Chinese Confucians and Buddhists. As we have revealed above, the ancient Chinese ritual respect for guishen was motivated by the practice of filial piety. Therefore, the Chinese Confucians' critique of the Catholic idea of guishen was mainly based on its predominantly destructive effect on traditional Chinese rituals, and this rebuttal can be taken as a kind of cross-examination of the Catholic faith under cultural centrism with a firm adherence to the Chinese tradition. However, this kind of rebuttal based on cultural centrism is relatively fragile, and it is difficult for the two sides to develop a more efficient critique of other civilizations while adhering to the position of their respective cultural traditions. Similarly, for Chinese Buddhists, when they found that the missionaries united with Confucianism in order to exclude and interpret the strategies and attitudes, their counterattack was to start from breaking the "fragile" alliance between Confucianism and Buddhism, just as the monk FeiYin TongRong费隐通容 at the end of the Ming Dynasty objected to Ricci's opinion that the so-called guishen have a beginning and no end, and believed that all things in the world (including the guishen) had no beginning and no end, and that this view was in line with the Confucian concept of the oneness of all things万物一体 and the unity of all beings with Buddha nature.众生皆具佛性

 

Comments 3: The author has done a good job of engaging with some of those debates, but some important issues are still lacking. As shown by Elisabetta Corsi (Elisabetta Corsi. “Our Little Daily Death: Francesco Sambiasi’s Treatise on Sleep and Images in Chinese.” In: Europe–China: Intercultural Encounters (16th–18 Centuries). Luís Filipe Barreto. Lisboa: Centro Científico e Cultural de Macau 2012: 79–96), Fr. Francesco Sambiase/Sambiasi S.J. (Bi Fangji 畢方濟, 1582–1649), in his shuihua erda 睡畵二答 (“Two answers on sleep and images”) engaged also with the notions of images, spirits, and visions. Missionary-scholars like Sambiase, among others, re-interpreted Aristotelian notions discussing it against Confucian, neo-Confucian, and Buddhist debates on the nature of the soul, spirits, and the perception of mental and physical images. Regrettably, this discussion is lacking in this article, and I would recommend the author engage with it more systematically.

 

Response 3: Thank you for pointing this out. I agree with this comment. I've revised the conclusion and added a few things to try to address this. In Conclusions, page 14, paragraph 3, line 442-509, I have distinguished three positions of missionaries introducing Western angelology and correlated them with the three stages of Catholic propagation outlined by Nicolas Standaert. The conclusions also resonate with the interpretative methods of missionaries revealed by Corsi in her article on François Noël’s Shuihua erda睡画二答. This is intended to facilitate the reader's understanding of the characteristics of the dissemination of angelology in China during the Ming and Qing periods.

 

Comments 4: There is also an important longue durée perspective that shall be taken into consideration, including also works like the Qu pi xun meng 取譬訓蒙, (Using Parables to Instruct the Ignorant Children, 1869–1870) by Fr. Angelo Zottoli S.J. (Chao Deli 晁德蒞, 1826–1902), see Antonio De Caro, Angelo Zottoli, a Jesuit Missionary in China (1848 to 1902): His Life and Ideas (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), 82–138. Zottoli engaged extensively with the notions of angels and spirits, providing interesting insights into Catholic cosmology and cosmogony in Chinese.

 

Response 4: Thank you for pointing this out. I agree with this comment. Indeed, in Qu pi xun meng 取譬训蒙, Fr. Angelo Zottoli provides a very specific discussion on angels. However, as this text belongs to the late Qing period, it falls outside the scope of this paper, which focuses on the late Ming and early Qing periods. Nevertheless, some of Zottoli's viewpoints can still help in understanding the effectiveness of early Jesuit accommodation strategies. I will address this point in the conclusions, page 14, paragraph 2, line 467-473, I added about zottoli's continuation of accommodation strategies to show the importance of this strategies in communication across cultures.

 

As follow: Overall, the adaptation strategies employed by these early Jesuits still hold significant value when reassessed today. For example, during the late Qing Dynasty, Jesuit Angelo Zottoli (1826-1902) continued to use adaptation strategies in propagating Catholic doctrines. Despite adaptation no longer being the only option in his era, Zottoli's choice echoed the early Jesuits' method of using Confucian terminology to explain Catholic doctrines. This indicates that even nearly a century later, Confucian terminology continued to play an important role in the dissemination of Western knowledge., see Antonio De Caro, Angelo Zottoli, a Jesuit Missionary in China (1848 to 1902): His Life and Ideas ,Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, pp. 82–138.

 

 

Comments 5: The article also engages, at least partially, with the so-called Chinese rites controversy. This part has not been fully presented by the author and he/she would need to include recent literature on the topic (among many others, I suggest Standaert, Nicolas (2018). "Chinese Voices in the Rites Controversy: The Role of Christian Communities". In The Rites Controversies in the Early Modern World. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill).

 

Response 5: Thank you for pointing this out. I agree with this comment. I have included some discussions on the Chinese-Western Rites Controversy in the article and cited research from contemporary scholars.

First, in Chapter 1, page 4, paragraph 1, line 90-93, I added “And it is well known that the Chinese had the custom of ancestor worship since the Shang dynasty, and it can even be said that this belief in ancestor spirits as the object of worship has been a key link in maintaining the patriarchal social system of ancient China for thousands of years.” to explain the importance of sacrificial rituals in ancient China, to lay the groundwork for the subsequent introduction of the discussion on the Chinese-Western Rites Controversy.

 

Second, in chapter 2, page 7, paragraph 1, line 202, I added a footnote (25) to further explain Pantoja and Vagnone continued to follow Ricci's adaptation strategy even after realizing the differences between Chinese and Western views on spirits. Here I cite Erik Zürcher 's conceptualization of Chinese cultural imperative, as well as Standaert 's suggestion of Chinese Catholicism's response in the face of Chinese cultural imperative.

Footnote 25: This relates to the " This relates to the "Chinese cultural imperative" mentioned by Dutch scholar Erik Zürcher, According to Zürcher, any foreign marginal religion cannot establish itself in China unless it actively adapts itself to align with Chinese orthodoxy. Confucianism is considered "orthodox" in religious, ritual, social, and political senses, whereas anything else is considered "heterodox." To avoid being labeled as "heterodox," "heretical," or a subversive sect, a marginal religion must prove that it stands on the side of orthodoxy. See Erik Zürcher. 1994.Jesuit Accommodation and the Chinese Cultural Imperative. in The Chinese Rites Controversy: Its History and Meaning, ed. David E. Mungello.Nettetal: Steyler Verlag. pp. 31-64.When the Jesuit missionaries first arrived in China, they quickly realized that no other marginal religion could hope to develop in China without conforming to Chinese tradition. Therefore, to take root in China, Catholicism had to adhere to the "cultural imperative" of Confucian tradition. Standaert suggests that 17th-century Chinese Catholicism demonstrated a typical response to the "cultural imperative" by: 1) an emphasis on congruity and compatibility between the minority religion and Confucianism; 2) the notion of complementarity, that is, the foreign creed serves to enrich and fulfill the Confucian doctrine; 3) the tendency to ground the foreign doctrine in historical precedent, sometimes reaching back to the very beginning of Chinese civilisation; and 4) the adoption of Chinese mores and rituals. See Nicolas Standaert. 2018. Chinese Voices in the Rites Controversy: The Role of Christian Communities. In The Rites Controversies in the Early Modern World. The Netherlands Leiden: Brill.p.62.”

 

Third, in chapter 3, page 10, paragraph 1, line 311, I added a footnote (38) to complement the latest academic research on the subject.

Footnote 38: The report by Caballero caused a great stir in Rome and was exploited by the long-standing opponents of the Jesuits, the Jansenists, as a means to criticize the moral decay of the Jesuits and to undermine Jesuit directives and Portuguese patronage. see Blaise Pascal, The Provincial Letters of Blaise Pascal, trans. Thomas M'Crie, ed. O. W. Wight (New York),1866, 197–199, in 柯修文 (Daniel Canaris) .2023. Li Andang guanyu Yesuhui rujia shiying celüe guandian de yanbian利安当关于耶稣会儒家适应策略观点的演变(Caballero’s Views on the Jesuit Accommodation of Confucianism)，Xixue dongjian yanjiu西学东渐研究, vol. 13, pp. 40–60.

 

Fourth, in chapter 3, page 13, paragraph 3, line 433-440, I added something about other scholars' research in this area.

As follow: As Daniel Canaris points out, Caballero had only a superficial understanding of the Chinese rituals of ancestor worship and Confucian rites, viewing them mostly from a Catholic perspective. Furthermore, the ancestor worship rituals that Caballero observed in Muyang 穆阳 do not represent all of China. Canaris points out that Chinese rituals are complex and have rich regional characteristics in practice. For example, even during the late Ming period, the ritual guidebook Jiali家礼 by Zhu Xi, which held authoritative status at the time, was criticized for offending some local customs.

 

Fifth, in chapter 4, page 15, paragraph 1, line 493-509, In the concluding section, I have added a discussion on the Chinese and Western rituals of sacrifices to guishen, supplementing the studies of some scholars on the subject.

As follow: So how should we handle the debates over guishen in the Sino-Western dialogues during the Ming and Qing dynasties? Li Tiangang offers an interesting perspective by distin-guishing between the "teachings of Confucius"(周孔之教) and the "doctrine of Confucius and Mencius"(孔孟之道) in the Confucian tradition. He points out: "The former empha-sizes a religious life characterized by ritual sacrifices, while the latter focuses on an ethical realm exemplified by discussions on human nature and morality. The former advocates practical implementation, while the latter is considered abstruse and empty talk. The former reaches the grassroots populace, while the latter is limited to the scholar-official class."  Building on this, Li Tiangang suggests that we should rethink the historical research on Sino-Western exchanges during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Besides fo-cusing on the debates between scholar-officials and missionaries on philosophical prin-ciples, we should also pay attention to the dialogues between Christianity and Chinese folk beliefs. As Meynard pointed out, the debate over guishen between China and the West may not be about their essence, but rather about the roles guishen play in rituals.  From the debates about guishen and angels, we can still see the space and foundation for dialogue between China and the West, namely their reflections on transcendent forces.

 

Comments 6: Sometimes, some quotations are too long (p. 6) and would need to be further reduced or paraphrased. In addition, the English would need to be heavily polished and revised since, at times, it hampers the comprehension of various arguments.

 

Response 6: Thank you for pointing this out. I agree with this comment. With regard to the excessively long quote on page 6 mentioned in the review comments, I have deleted what is not very relevant to the article and reinterpreted it, in page 6, paragraph 2, line 187-191. And I've reworked and revised the entire paper.

As follow: After clarifying that angels are spiritual entities, Vagnone began systematically introducing the functions of the Western angels. In Chapter 7 in vol. 4, he mentioned the topic of honoring angels and pointed out that since people are protected by angels, so they should not only physically honor the angels but also deeply appreciate their blessings from the bottom of their hearts. (以心虔诚信爱，以言笃实称誉，以行恭慤敬事，无间无怠)

In addition, I have thoroughly revised and polished the English presentation of the paper and added a number of studies by modern scholars, in order to be able to better participate in the current stage of scholarly discussion on this issue.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Upon reviewing the manuscript on how Catholic missionaries integrated different concepts within the Chinese context during the Ming and Qing dynasties, I commend the author for the scholarly contribution. The article focus on a less explored area, examining how missionaries dealt with the concept of guishen 鬼神 in Chinese, which touches upon the core issues of religious beliefs and reflects the complexity of the cultural exchanges between China and the west. The author's historical perspective on different missionaries' understanding of guishen reveals the process of concept integration, which is of high academic value.

However, to further enhance the quality and standardization of the article, I propose the following suggestions:

1, The title of the article should more accurately reflect the research content. It is suggested to change the title to: "Angel or Matter: Revisiting the Catholic Missionaries’ View on Guishen in Late Ming and Early Qing."

2, The abstract is overly lengthy; it is recommended to reduce it by at least half to highlight the core arguments of the research.

3, The keywords "Late Ming and Early Qing" are not closely related to the content of the article; it is suggested to replace it with more appropriate terms.

4, The use of terminology in the paper is not uniform, for example:

a) The author uses guishen (Line 4, 68, 69 etc.), Chinese spirits (Line 21, 153, 158 etc.), ghosts and spirits (Line 37, 38, 74 etc.), spirits and ghosts (Line 299, 300, 310 etc.), gods and spirits (Line 305), spirits and gods (Line 374) to express the same term.

b) In Line 15以儒化耶 is translated as Confucianize the Christian God, but in Line 494, it is translated as Sinicizing Christianity

c) The pinyin juan in Line 189 etc. is totally unnecessary.

it is suggested to standardize the expression of key concepts.

5, Chinese concepts should be annotated with Chinese when they first appear such as guishen in Line 4 instead of in Line 14.

6, Conceptual nouns should be in italics rather than quotation marks, e.g. “Li” in Line 89 may be changed to Li

7, It is recommended to use traditional Chinese characters rather than simplified.

8, It is required to use endnotes instead of footnotes.

9, Correct obvious typos and grammatical errors in the text, such as changing 天人和一 to 天人合一 in Line 86; "faith core" to "core faith" in Line 133 and removing the hyphen from "Late Ming-Early Qing" in Line 134.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The quality of English is fine, but there are still some obvious typos and grammatical errors, see the comments above.

Besides, please check again to avoid some ambiguous sentences, such as line 13-14, 78 etc 

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking time to review this manuscript, I really appreciate it!

For the revisions, I revised and responded one by one according to the suggestions：

Comments1: The title of the article should more accurately reflect the research content. It is suggested to change the title to: "Angel or Matter: Revisiting the Catholic Missionaries’ View on Guishen in Late Ming and Early Qing."

Response 1: Thank you for pointing this out. This manuscript is to sort out the attitudes and views of the Ming and Qing missionaries towards guishen from the issue of worship, therefore I think there is some significance in the main title of this manuscript with the two modes of ritual, namely latria and dulia. And with regard to the reference to the sub-title mentioning the modification of guishen, which I have adopted.

Comments 2: The abstract is overly lengthy; it is recommended to reduce it by at least half to highlight the core arguments of the research.

Response 2: Thank you for pointing this out. I have made changes to the abstract as per your comments.

Comments 3: The keywords "Late Ming and Early Qing" are not closely related to the content of the article; it is suggested to replace it with more appropriate terms.

Response 3: Thank you for pointing this out. I've used Chinese Catholicism instead of Late Ming and Early Qing.

Comments 4: The use of terminology in the paper is not uniform, for example:

1. a) The author uses guishen(Line 4, 68, 69 etc.), Chinese spirits (Line 21, 153, 158 etc.), ghosts and spirits (Line 37, 38, 74 etc.), spirits and ghosts (Line 299, 300, 310 etc.), gods and spirits (Line 305), spirits and gods (Line 374) to express the same term.
2. b) In Line 15以儒化耶is translated as Confucianize the Christian God, but in Line 494, it is translated as Sinicizing Christianity
3. c) The pinyin juan in Line 189 etc. is totally unnecessary.

it is suggested to standardize the expression of key concepts.

5, Chinese concepts should be annotated with Chinese when they first appear such as guishen in Line 4 instead of in Line 14.

6, Conceptual nouns should be in italics rather than quotation marks, e.g. “Li” in Line 89 may be changed to Li

7, It is recommended to use traditional Chinese characters rather than simplified.

8, It is required to use endnotes instead of footnotes.

9, Correct obvious typos and grammatical errors in the text, such as changing 天人和一 to 天人合一 in Line 86; "faith core" to "core faith" in Line 133 and removing the hyphen from "Late Ming-Early Qing" in Line 134.

Response 4: Thank you for pointing this out. I have systematically made changes to the article regarding the conflation of some terms.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article improved significantly, and the author has done a great job revising it. Congratulations! I would still recommend further English proofreading, due to some minor inaccuracies. The article now is well-referenced, is clearer, and provides an important contribution to Sino-European discourses on angels and 'spirits'. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

 I would still recommend further English proofreading, given some minor inaccuracies. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking time to review this manuscript, I have revised some of the inaccuracies in the text.