"Do
not act with zeal, do not put forward any arguments to convince these peoples
to change their rites, their customs or their usages, except if they are
evidently contrary to the religion and morality. What would be more absurd than
to bring France, Spain, Italy or any other European country
to the Chinese? Do not bring to them our countries, but instead bring to them
the Faith, a Faith that does not reject or hurt the rites, nor the usages of
any people, provided that these are not distasteful, but that instead keeps and
protects them."
- Extract from the 1659 Instructions, given to Monsignor
François Pallu and Monsignor Lambert de la Motte of the Paris Foreign Missions
Society by the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith
The Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural
History is a research arm of the Center for the Pacific Rim at the University of San Francisco,
a Jesuit institution in the American city that is home to the largest China Town
outside of Asia. It is named for Matteo Ricci, SJ, one of
the first Jesuit missionaries to China. There is also an adoring
group of Italians who would like to venerate this Servant of God and they
operate a website in Italian, Chinese, and English. In this brief post, I hope
to introduce you to Ricci and some of the controversy that swirls around his
work.
Padre Ricci is loved and admired still by many
Chinese Catholics and also appears in Chinese history textbooks of the post-1949
period for his intellectual and scientific achievements. Padre Ricci wrote
critical treatises and translated Western cultural classics, such as the first
six volumes of Elements of Euclid
and the Handbook of Epictetus. It was, perhaps, his cooperation with Xu Guangqi, a famous
intellectual of the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty, on the Euclidean translation
and other notable projects that made him an indelible part of Chinese history.
Xú Guāngqǐ was born in Shanghai and having achieved the highest
levels in the Imperial examinations focused on astronomy and mathematics. He
was one of the scholars of the Imperial academy who studied with Matteo Ricci.
Although he was a mathematician,
he was not familiar with and could not compute the higher level interpolations
developed by Guo Shoujing or even those of earlier Chinese mathematicians.
Scientific and mathematical knowledge had devolved during the Ming Dynasty to
the point where little was required for the Imperial examinations. Many of the
great works were lost or ignored. In this context, the feats of mathematics
brought by Ricci, along with the ability to teach coherently, made the
mathematics of Euclid
seem like a revelation.
Xu Guangqi collaborated with Ricci
to translate the first six books of Euclid's
Elements in 1607. He worked with Ricci on studies of both hydraulics and
geography. He was converted not only to Christianity but to western science and
continued to work on the mathematics and astronomy after Ricci's death in 1610.
The calendar he and Ricci had been working on successfully predicted an eclipse
in 1610 after Ricci's death. In 1629, Xu Guangqi had another chance to prove
the effectiveness of the new mathematics and calendar system. A competition was
held by the court to see which of three schools could most accurately predict
the expected eclipse. Both the traditional Chinese school and the Islamic
school joined the competition, but it was Xu Guangqi and what was called the New Method
School that won.
The emperor appointed Xu Guangqi
to reform the calendar. He continued to work with a succession of Jesuits sent
with additional materials and instruments. He was succeeded by Li Tangjing, who
finished the calendar reform.[1]
 |
| Xu Guangqi and Matteo Ricci |
In 1584, Ricci revised a short Catechism, which
was the first book printed by foreigners in China. It was originally drafted by
Padre Michele Ruggieri, who also assisted Ricci in
producing the first European-Chinese dictionary. Scholars believe that between
1583 and 1588 Michele Ruggieri collaborated with Matteo Ricci in creating a
Portuguese-Chinese dictionary, for which they developed a consistent system for
transcribing Chinese words into the Latin alphabet. While it would be several hundred
years before Zhou
Youguang introduced Pinyin, this was an early attempt to take the multiple
syllables of Mandarin and fit them into a useable system. A Chinese Jesuit Lay
Brother Sebastiano Fernandez, who had grown up and been trained in Macau, also assisted in this work. Unfortunately, the
manuscript was misplaced in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, and re-discovered only in 1934, by Pasquale
d'Elia. This dictionary was finally published in 2001.
 |
| The Map of All Countries by Ricci |
The Kangxi Emperor, at first, admired the Jesuits'
respectful and unobtrusive manner; they took the time to learn the Chinese
language well and they wore the customary silk robes of China’s elite.
In 1692, some 82 years after Ricci went to his
great reward, when Padre Thomas Pereira requested tolerance for Christianity,
Kangxi was willing to oblige, and issued the Edict of Toleration, which
recognized Catholicism, barred attacks on their churches, and legalized their
missions and the practice of Christianity by the Chinese people
However, on March 19, 1715, Pope Clement XI issued
the papal bull Ex illa die, which officially condemned Chinese rites.
The Dominicans and other itinerant orders had prevailed. To add force to his
rulings, Clement XI attached the penalty of excommunication latae sententiae
to their violations and required missionaries to take an oath on the Bible that
they would observe his instructions “exactly, absolutely and inviolably...without
any evasion.”
In return the Kangxi Emperor decreed in 1721:
Reading this
proclamation, I have concluded that the Westerners are petty indeed. It is
impossible to reason with them because they do not understand larger issues as
we understand them in China.
There is not a single Westerner versed in Chinese works, and their remarks are
often incredible and ridiculous. To judge from this proclamation, their
religion is no different from other small, bigoted sects of Buddhism or Taoism.
I have never seen a document which contains so much nonsense. From now on,
Westerners should not be allowed to preach in China, to avoid further trouble.
With such finality, the question
was not re-opened by the Church until 1939, when Pius XII, in his Propaganda
Fide, declared the Chinese rites practicable, under certain conditions.
We cannot understand the depth of
the controversy without some examination of the actual Chinese rites that were,
and continue to be, at issue. This will be the topic of a future post.
This is the first in a series.
Suggested Further Reading
Jihe yuanben,
Chinese translation of the first six books of Elements in the edition and
comment of C. Clavius, in collaboration with Xu Guangqi, Beijing 1607.
Arnold Horrex Rowbotham, Missionary and
Mandarin: The Jesuits at the Court of China. (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1942).
Pacific Rim
Report No. 32, February 2004, The Chinese
Rites Controversy: A Long Lasting Controversy in Sino-Western Cultural History
by Paul Rule, Ph.D.
[1] See http://hua.umf.maine.edu/China/astronomy/tianpage/0019bXu_Guangqi_6659w.html. Last update: September 2007 by Marilyn Shea.
[2] See http://www.artsmia.org/index.php?section_id=396.
Last visited March 21, 2012.
