PRÉMARE, JOSEPH HENRI DE

Missionary and sinologist; b. Cherbourg, July 17, 1666; d. Macau, Sept. 17, 1736. He was admitted into the Society of Jesus on Sept. 17, 1683, and departed for the mission to Middle China in 1698, where he labored principally in the province of Guangxi. Prémare was confined with his fellow missionaries to Canton after Emperor Yongtching forbade further Christian proselytizing. Another imperial edict exiled him to Macau. In his banishment he studied the language and literature of China, and his success in appreciating their subtlety and beauty is shown in his major work, Notitia linguae sinicae (Malacca 1831; Eng. tr. J. G. Bridgman, Canton 1847). Here he explains the rules for the use of the Chinese vulgar (siao shue ) and literary (wen tchang ) language. He also translated several pieces of Chinese poetry, including the Chinese tragedy L'orphelin de la maison de Tschao (1731). The Jesuit Joachim bouvet proposed a theory of figurism, holding that Chinese characters suggest allusion to Christian mysteries. Prémare defended it in Vestiges choisis des principaux dogmes de la religion chrétienne, extraits des anciens livres chinois (Paris 1878). J. B. du Halde has published some of Prémare's letters in Lettres édifiantes et curieuses (Paris 1711) and Description de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise (Paris 1735; Eng. tr. E. Cave, 2 v. London 1738–41). Others are to be found in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

Bibliography: l. pfister, Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les Jésuites de l'ancienne mission de Chine 1552–1773, 2 v. (Shanghai 1932–34). c. sommervogel et al., Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, 11 v. (Brussels-Paris 1890–1932; v. 12, suppl. 1960) 6:1196–1201. m. eder, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 8:721.

[j. s. schwarz]