The Spirit and the Flesh in Shandong, 1650-1785

In the spring of 1738, Fr. Bernardino Bevilacqua was hustled out of Shandong to the quiet uproar over his sexual seduction of young Chinese converts. Fr, Alessio Randanini followed him to Macau in 1741. Among Christians living in Shandong and southern Zhili provinces during the years 1650-1785, the spirit and the flesh lived in constant tension as the aspirations of the spirit (faith, hope, love, devotion, mercy and piety) contended with the passions of the flesh (hatred, jealousy, lust and pride). This book tells the human story of the introduction of Christianity to a provincial region in China where European missionaries shared the poverty and isolation of their Chinese flocks. Their close personal relationships led to intellectual and pastoral collaboration, suppression, an underground church, imprisonment, apostasy and martyrdom ans well as peasant secret society affiliations, self-flagellation and sexual seduction. In the remote villages of this region, the missionaries and their converts lived out their pious aspirations and eternal damnations under the darkening sky of growing anti-Christian policies from the capital.