I have read some of his books and found that they differ from recent scholars on many points but have an underlying resemblance to such ancient works as the Suwen,4 Zhoubi,5 Kaogong,6, and Qiyuan.7 So, it seems to me, what is spoken in truth does not contradict the truth. In self-examination and obedience to conscience he is most careful and strict with himself. He is what the world calls a “lofty teacher,” and none among the Confucian scholars is more worthy of credence than he.
The mind and heart of man are the same in East and West, and reason is the same. What differs is only speech and writing. When this book appeared it was written in the same language as ours, refined and civilized, and thus could serve to open the mind for instruction. Since the purpose of the book was to promote peace and well-being, to espouse sound doctrine and improve morals, it is certainly no trifling piece, nothing to be taken lightly or to be put in the same class as the works of earlier philosophers.
My friend Mr. Wang Mengbu has reprinted this book in Hangzhou, and I have presumed to write a few words for him. Not that I would dare to publicize a foreign book in order to spread unheard-of ideas, but I am mindful of the fact that we are all under the Majesty of Heaven and owe Him homage. Perhaps, too, there are things in it that we have been accustomed to hearing but have failed to act upon, and which may now prompt us to reexamine ourselves. Moreover, it may make some contribution to our study and practice of self-cultivation.
[“Tianzhi shiyi,” Tianxue chuhan, p. 1]
XU GUANGQI: A MEMORIAL IN DEFENSE OF THE [WESTERN] TEACHING
In the fifth lunar month of 1616, the scholar-official Shen Que, vice president of the Ministry of Rites in Nanjing, initiated an anti-Christian movement by submitting a memorial to the Wanli emperor. Shen, who was disturbed by the success of the Jesuit missionaries in making converts in Nanjing, voiced his criticisms of the Jesuit missionaries in this and two other memorials to the throne in 1616 and 1617. Xu Guangqi, who had just been reinstated in his post as revisor in the Historiographical Institute in Beijing, responded with a memorial defending the Jesuit missionaries. The following excerpt from Xu’s memorial demonstrates a number of salient features about Xu’s thinking. It reveals, first of all, that he was deeply committed to the new teaching and willing to risk political recrimination in defending it. Second, it shows that Xu believed Christianity to be in basic harmony with the teachings of the ancient sages of China (i.e., Confucianism). Third, it reveals an anti-Buddhist strain that was pervasive in the writings of Chinese Christians. Although the Jesuits also expressed anti-Buddhist sentiments, many (not all) Confucian literati drew from more traditional Chinese grounds in criticizing Buddhism. Finally, the excerpt reveals China’s lack of knowledge of European history. There is a naïveté in Xu’s portrayal of European history and in his exaggeration of the positive effects of Christianity in European history.
Because the teaching of the men from afar [i.e., Christian missionaries from Europe] is most correct, and because your humble servant knows from experience that it is right, he earnestly begs to memorialize the throne, to the end that blessings may last forever and peace may be handed on to all generations.
Your servant saw in the Beijing Gazette that the Ministry of Rites in Nanjing has brought charges against the Western tributary state official Pang Diwo (the Jesuit missionary Diego de Pantoja, 1571–1618) and others. The contents [of the charges] say that their doctrine has infiltrated [China] to such an extent that even among the upper classes there are those who believe it, including one, it alleges, who has dared to be an astronomer, as well as scholars who have been misled by this doctrine. The charges refer to “upper classes” and “scholars” in an anonymous manner because the ministry officials feared that they would be implicated and so named no names. However, your servant is one of these unnamed figures.
Your servant has studied principles with these tributary officials and [has aided in] printing many of their books. Thus, your servant is one of “those who believe in [this teaching].” Furthermore, I have studied calendrical methods under them and at various times have prepared memorials [on this subject] and submitted them to Your Majesty. Consequently, when the charges speak of an “astronomer,” they are referring to your servant. If the tributary officials are found guilty, how would your servant dare to hope that the ministry officials might somehow not speak [of my association with them] and so in this way escape?
In fact, your servant for many years has studied with and learned from these [Western] tributary officials, and I know that they are most honest and solid. There is nothing whatsoever about them that is dubious. Truly, they are all disciples of the sages. Their way is very correct, their discipline strict, their learning very broad, their knowledge superior, their affections true, and their views very stable. In their own countries, there is not one in a thousand who is so talented, nor one in ten thousand who is so outstanding, and for this reason they were included among those who came east tens of thousands of li.
Now in their countries, men of the church all cultivate personal virtue in order to serve the Lord of Heaven. They heard that in China [the adherents of] the teachings of the sages also all cultivate personal virtue and serve Heaven. Because of this correspondence of principles, they [braved] hardship and difficulties and toiled through dangerous and unsafe places in order to share their truth with our truth, hoping to make everyone good, to the end that they will declare that Heaven-on-High loves men.
This teaching has as its basic tenet serving the Lord on High; to save the body and soul is the most essential principle, while one’s practice should consist in loyalty, filial piety, love, and compassion. The way to begin is to choose good and repent, and the way to advance and improve is to confess and reform. True blessing in Heaven is the glorious reward of doing good, while eternal retribution in hell is the bitter recompense of doing evil. . . .
Why is it that it has been eighteen hundred years since Buddhism came east, but worldly customs and men’s hearts have not yet changed? It is because their words seem right, but they are wrong. Those who advocate the Chan Buddhist sect have amplified the thoughts of [the Daoists] Laozi and Zhuangzi, [making them] abstruse and impractical. Those who practice yoga use spells and incantations that are perverse and contrary to reason. Furthermore, they desire to place the Buddha above the Lord-on-High, which is contrary to the intent of the ancient kings and sages. It causes men not to know what to follow or what to depend on. What will cause men to be utterly good is the teaching of serving Heaven transmitted by the tributary officials. Truly it is what can benefit the civilizing influence of government, aid the arts of the Confucians, and correct the law of Buddhism.
Now there are more than thirty countries in the West, and they have accepted and practiced this teaching for a thousand and several hundred years, right up to the present time, great and small living together in harmony, superior and inferior at peace with each other. The borders are not guarded, and the rulers of the states are all of the same family. Throughout all the countries there are no swindlers and liars, and they have never had the custom of licentiousness or theft. On the roads they do not pick up things that are dropped, and at night they do not lock their gates. As for revolt and rebellion, not even once has there been such a thing or such people. Indeed, there has never even been talk or writing about it. . . .
Your Majesty has supported these [Western] tributary officials for seventeen years and displayed great kindness toward them. There has been no way for these tributary officials to repay you. They tried their best to let Your Majesty know their Way and their loyalty, but to no avail. Since your servant knows them, if I were to remain silent and not speak, I should be guilty of dissimulation. For this reason, despite my ignorance, I state the case, begging Your Majesty to graciously accept it, and issue a special memorial. . . .
Your servant dares to brave Heaven’s majesty. With great fear and trepidation I await your orders.
The seventh lunar month of the forty-fourth year of the Wanli
reign [August 12–September 10, 1616]
[Pianxue shugao 1: 21–28, 36—GK, DM]
YANG GUANGXIAN’S CRITIQUE OF CHRISTIANITY
Literati opposition to Christianity increased in the late seventeenth century. The growing opposition was only partly a reaction to the initial success of Christianity in attracting disciples. The collapse of the native Ming dynasty and the conquest of China by the Manchus in 1644 caused a slight shift in the direction of Chinese culture. The rulers of the new Qing dynasty embraced a conservative form of Confucian philosophy, while the Chinese literati recoiled from the experimental syncretism of the late Ming in a defensive return to Confucian tradition. Consequently, a foreign teaching, such as Christianity, faced greater obstacles than previously.
The growing obstacles were epitomized in writings by Yang Guangxian (1597–1669), whose intensity of feeling against Christianity stemmed as much from the sincerity and devotion of his Neo-Confucian beliefs as from xenophobic prejudice against a foreign teaching. Yang was particularly harsh in his criticism of one of the most prominent Jesuit missionaries in seventeenth-century China, Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1592–1666). Father Schall had not only been very successful in supervising calendrical work in the Chinese Bureau of Astronomy in Beijing but also had been unusually close to the youthful first Manchu ruler, the Shunzhi emperor (r. 1644–1661). Xu Guangqi was as devout a Confucian as Yang Guangxian, but while Xu believed that Confucianism and Christianity were in harmony, Yang believed that they were in irreconcilable conflict and that the adoption of Christianity by Chinese would necessarily diminish the way of the ancients (i.e., Confucianism).
Yang succeeded in having Schall and the other Jesuits dismissed from the Bureau of Astronomy and he was appointed in their place to oversee the astronomical work. He lacked the mathematical skill to lead this effort, however, and in spite of the assistance of Muslim astronomers, he could not respond effectively when the Jesuits challenged the validity of his calendar. When the Kangxi emperor disbanded the regency and assumed personal control of the government in 1668, Yang was removed form the Bureau of Astronomy and the Jesuits were reappointed in his place. Yang died in disgrace soon afterward, but the intensity of his anti-Christian views persisted among the literati.
YANG GUANGXIAN: I CANNOT DO OTHERWISE (BUDEYI)
Beginning in 1659, Yang Guangxian wrote a series of attacks on Christianity that were collected and published in 1665 under the title Budeyi (I Cannot Do Otherwise). One of the most effective charges that he made was to cast Jesus as a rebellious figure. By doing so, Yang was attempting to damage the Christians in the eyes of the throne and Chinese scholar-officials by showing them to be a subversive sect akin to other notorious and outlawed quasi-religious sects, such as the White Lotus Society. In this same light, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was criticized by Yang for being an immoral woman who conceived Jesus by having sexual relations with a man other than her husband, Joseph.
In [the Jesuit Father] Adam Schall’s own preface one can read that [the Christian scholars] Xu Guangqi and Li Zhizao both understood that they could not dare publicly to give offense to Confucian norms. Adam Schall’s work says that one man and one woman were created as the first ancestors of all humankind. He was not actually so bold as to make the contemptuous assertion that all the peoples in the world are offshoots of his teaching, but according to a book by [the Christian scholar] Li Zubo,8 the Qing dynasty is nothing but an offshoot of Judea; our ancient Chinese rulers, sages, and teachers were but the offshoots of a heterodox sect; and our classics and the teachings of the sages propounded generation after generation are no more than the remnants of a heterodox teaching. How can we abide these calumnies! They really aim to inveigle the people of the Qing into rebelling against the Qing and following this heterodox sect, which would lead all-under-Heaven to abandon respect for rulers and fathers. . . .
Our Confucian teaching is based on the Five Relationships (between parent and child, ruler and minister, husband and wife, older and younger brothers, and friends), whilst the Lord of Heaven Jesus was crucified because he plotted against his own country, showing that he did not recognize the relationship between ruler and subject. Mary, the mother of Jesus, had a husband named Joseph, but she said Jesus was not conceived by him.
Those who follow this teaching [Christianity] are not allowed to worship their ancestors and ancestral tablets. They do not recognize the relationship of parent and child. Their teachers oppose the Buddhists and Daoists, who do recognize the relationship between ruler and subject and father and son. Jesus did not recognize the relationship between ruler and subject and parent and child, and yet the Christians speak of him as recognizing these relationships. What arrant nonsense! . . .
[The Jesuit Father] M. Ricci wished to honor Jesus as the Lord of Heaven (Tianzhu) who leads the multitude of nations and sages from above, and he particularly honored him by citing references to the Lord-on-High (Shangdi) in the Six Classics of China, quoting passages out of context to prove that Jesus was the Lord of Heaven. He said that the Lord of Heaven was referred to in the ancient classical works as the Lord-on-High, and what we in the west call “the Lord of Heaven” is what the Chinese have spoken of as “the Lord-on-High.” [According to Ricci] the Heaven (Tian) of the blue sky functions as a servant of the Lord-on-High, which is located neither in the east nor in the west, lacks a head or stomach, has no hands or feet, and is unable to be honored. How much less would earthbound land, which a multitude of feet trample and defile, be considered something to be revered? Thus Heaven and Earth are not at all to be revered. Those who argue like this are no more than beasts able to speak a human language.
Heaven is the great origin of all events, things, and principles. When principles (li) are established, material-force (qi) comes into existence. Then, in turn, numbers are created and from these numbers, images begin to take form. Heaven is Principle within form, and Principle is Heaven without form. When shape comes in to its utmost form, then Principle appears therein; this is why Heaven is Principle. Heaven contains all events and things, while Principle also contains all events and things and, as a result, when one seeks the origin of things in the Supreme Ultimate (Taiji) it is only what we call Principle. Beyond principle there is no other principle, and beyond Heaven there is no other Heaven [i.e., Lord of Heaven].
[Budeyi, in Wu Xiangxiang, Tianzhujiao tongjuan wenxian xubian, pp. 1090–1122—DM, JDY]
ZHANG XINGYAO AND THE INCULTURATION OF CHRISTIANITY
Faced with growing opposition in the late seventeenth century, Christianity attracted less eminent disciples than previously. Nevertheless, outside the capital of Beijing there were regional pockets where talented literati converts in Fujian, Zhejiang, and Shandong provinces carried forward the difficult task of intellectually reconciling Confucianism and Christianity. They carried the process of accommodation to a deeper level, called “inculturation,” in which Christianity was not simply reconciled with Confucianism but assimilated into Chinese culture to become a creative force. These Confucian Christians are less well known than earlier literati adherents, such as the Three Pillars referred to above, because of the official suppression of Christianity, which began in the early years of the eighteenth century and intensified thereafter. In addition, the situation was aggravated by the Chinese Rites Controversy emanating out of Rome, over whether it was permissible [as Ricci had said] for baptized Chinese to honor their ancestors with the traditional rites. The effect of all of this was for the government to suppress writings by the Chinese Christian literati. Works continued to be written and circulated in very limited circles, but for the most part these were never published and have been preserved only in libraries and archives in China and Europe. Notable among these late seventeenth-century writings were works by a leading literatus of the Hangzhou Christian community named Zhang Xingyao (1633–1715 + ).
Earlier Chinese Christians had attempted to reconcile Confucianism and Christianity by quoting passages from the Five Classics
and Four Books that appeared to confirm that the essential ideas of Christian teaching had been present in China from antiquity. Zhang was an accomplished historian, who in addition to citing passages from the classics, drew upon his knowledge of both history and Cheng-Zhu teachings in attempting to inculturate Christianity in China. He wrote several works, most of which have remained in manuscript.
AN EXAMINATION OF THE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE LORD OF HEAVEN TEACHING [CHRISTIANITY] AND THE TEACHING OF THE CONFUCIAN SCHOLARS
This work first appeared in 1702 and was revised over the next thirteen years. The last preface was written in 1715, when Zhang Xingyao was eighty-three years old. Unlike the times nearly a century before, when Xu Guangqi wrote his memorial, the political and cultural atmosphere had turned against Christianity, and Zhang’s words are a forceful expression of personal hope and religious faith.
It is clear in the China of my day that the Lord of Heaven (Tianzhu) [of the Western missionaries] is the same as the Lord-on-High (Shangdi) [of Chinese antiquity]. Since the time of the Yellow Emperor (a legendary figure dated from 2697 B.C.), officials worked together to make sacrifices to the Lord-on-High. Thereafter the words in the classics were all there for anyone to see. Thus Xue disseminated the Five Teachings [of paternal rightness, maternal compassion, friendship of an elder brother, respect of a younger brother, and filial piety of a child], and false teachings did not develop. Sagely wisdom throve; social customs were pure and beautiful. How could things have been better?
Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2 Page 23