Chinese Rites Controversy Research Articles

Propagating the Rosary in the Early Qing—A Case Study of del Rosario’s Comprehensive Manuscript

Studies on the Rosary in the late Ming and early Qing usually focus on works written by Jesuits and mostly stem from an artistic aspect. This article, however, shifts the focus to The True Peace of Humankind, a manuscript written by the Dominican missionary Arcadio del Rosario in the seventeenth century, the first comprehensive book on the Rosary in Chinese. It first summarizes the early-stage propagation of the Rosary in China by the Jesuits and then examines the structure and content of The True Peace of Humankind. It is noteworthy that the manuscript repeatedly uses an analogy with flowers to highlight Mary’s intercession. Dating back to the Catholic tradition in Europe, the propagation of the Rosary through analogy with flowers resembles the propagation of reciting Buddhist prayers in Chinese society. This article applies contextual studies to explore two main questions: how is del Rosario’s manuscript different from the previous texts on the Rosary written by the Jesuits? What is the significance of the manuscript in the context of the Chinese Rites Controversy?

Naples, China and the Cosmos: The Theology of an Eighteenth-Century Chinese Priest

This paper examines the correspondence of Li Zibiao (1760–1826), a Chinese Catholic priest trained in Naples who worked as a missionary in North China. Whereas existing studies of Chinese theology mainly focus on contextualisation, Li responded to persecution by thinking in global terms and de-emphasising differences between Europe and China. Using developments in casuistry and the moral theology associated with Alphonso de Liguori he was able to avoid the strictures of the Chinese Rites Controversy. His story enriches the history of indigenous clergy in China and suggests some of the roots of China's resilient rural Catholicism.

Not about religion: A reinterpretation of the Chinese rites controversy

As one of the most significant events in the history of Sino-Western interaction and that of Chinese Christianity, the “Chinese Rites Controversy” has been the subject of numerous studies from both Western and Chinese scholars since the 1980s. When interpreting the rites issue of the Controversy, most studies see the crux of it as the “religious” nature of the Confucian rites. In contrast to this dominant understanding, this article argues that both the uncritical repetition of “religious” in the modern interpretations of the Controversy and its tacitly approved validity presuppose a universal and timeless conception of “religion.” Through a method of historicisation, i.e., examining carefully in what sense “religious” and related terms such as “civil,” “political,” “superstitious,” and “yinsi,” etc. were used in the original texts of the Controversy, this article intends to show that the use of “religious” by modern authors constitutes, though to a great extent unconsciously, a hermeneutical anachronism. The root of this anachronism lies in that the use “religious” as a generic adjective defining a distinct sphere of human enterprise that can be differentiated from those “non-religious” ones is a modern invention, and could find its place in neither encompassing Christian truth nor the tianxia order, nor even the fusion of these two horizons manifested in the awareness of literati Catholics, all of which defined the context in which the rites issue was debated during the Controversy.

Jesuit Mission and Submission: Qing Rulership and the Fate of Christianity in China, 1644–1735 by Litian Swen

Spanning the years from the Manchu invasion of China to the 1724 prohibition of Christianity by the Yongzhen emperor, this book explains the rise and decline of the missionary enterprise by focusing on the relationship between the Qing ruling class and European Jesuits. Rejecting Gernet’s cultural incompatibility model, Swen focuses on the Manchu institution of booi (household).1 Consisting of masters, servants, and slaves, the Manchu household functioned as a state within a state after the conquest of China. The informal power structure and intimacy between master and bondservant/slave (booi aha) operated alongside and within the Chinese bureaucracy; even powerful ministers from booi status identified themselves first and foremost as nu cai (servant) to their masters, rather than as officials to their emperors. Elaborated during the early years of conquest to integrate war captives and surrendered Ming troops, the booi system was central to the creation of the Han military banners. The banner elites, conversant in both the languages and culture of the Manchu and Han Chinese worlds, became preeminent during the reigns of Shunzi, who took a consort from the Han banners, and Kangxi, his son, whose mother came from the eminent Tong, the most powerful clan of the Han banners.The Jesuits became booi aha when Gabriel Magalhães and Ludovico Buglio, reluctant members of Zhang Xianzong’s rebel army, became war captives of the Manchu, eventually passing into the household of the Tong and released in Beijing. The Jesuits were introduced to the imperial court through Kangxi’s maternal uncles, who were benefactors and sympathizers with Christianity. When they were placed under the Imperial Household Department, they entered the intimate power circle of the booi aha. They helped the fifteen-year-old emperor stage a successful palace coup against the powerful regent Oboi, earning his trust. Three generations of Jesuits would loyally serve Kangxi as military engineers, scientists, and diplomats; the emperor rewarded them with protection and patronage, making his reign a golden age for the Christian mission in China.This situation changed in 1722 when the fourth son of Kangxi ascended the throne in the midst of a succession struggle. A devout Buddhist and meditation master in his youth, Yongzhen refused to acknowledge the Jesuits as his booi aha, removing them from the Imperial Household Department and effectively denying them access to the center of power. Religious differences aside, the Jesuits had failed to cultivate ties to Yongzhen when he was still a prince, instead focusing their attention on two other rival princely pretenders who were purged and persecuted in the new regime. The Jesuit João Mourão, a confidant of the Ninth Prince and a bitter rival of Yongzhen, was sentenced to exile and death; other Jesuits incurred imperial wrath because of their close association with the Sounu family, prominent Manchu elites who had supported Yongzhen’s rivals.This story of historical contingency is constructed on the basis of an impressive knowledge of Chinese and Western sources, and a thorough command of scholarship in two fields—Qing history and the history of Christianity—that often fail to cross-fertilize. Most importantly, Swen has provided logical and satisfactory explanations of the key events affecting the Christian mission in the transition from the Ming to the Qing—the prominence and fall of Adam Schall (a German Jesuit astronomer) and the political background of the Calendar Case; Kangxi’s connections to the Jesuits; the politics of the Chinese Rites Controversy and the papal envoys; the issuance of the imperial certificate for missionaries; and, finally, the fall from grace under Yongzhen. Indeed, the story of the Jesuits at court is reminiscent of the rise and fall of the eminent Han banner Cao family, and the masterpiece written by Cao Xueqin, one of its descendants, The Dream of the Red Chamber, a novel with hundreds of characters—masters, servants, officials, and clerics—narrating the transience of earthly success.

From ‘Sacrificing to Ancestors’ (jizu) to ‘Reverencing Ancestors’ (jingzu): Bread of Life Christianity's Cultural Negotiation between Christianity and Confucianism for a Hybrid Identity

Among many issues associated with religious negotiation and intercultural ministry and mission in the history of Christianity in China, the most important issue involves the Chinese rite of offering sacrifice to ancestors. This issue has been closely connected to the process of the Sinicisation of Christianity in all Pan-Chinese societies, including the Greater China and Chinese diasporic communities worldwide. This paper first reviews key historical elements of the Chinese Rites Controversy (1645–1941) on ‘Sacrificing to Ancestors’ ( jizu), and then considers some details of the ‘Three Rites’ of ‘Reverencing Ancestors’ ( jingzu) as a historical development within the Bread of Life Christian Church (BOLCC, Ling Liang Tang) in Taipei and the Bread of Life Global Apostolic Network (BGAN) of nearly 600 local churches on all continents as of 2020. Through this case study, the paper argues that the BOLCC, an independent Christian church established in 1942 and a contemporary Sinophone-based Christian movement, could expand quickly by applying its intercultural ‘Ling Liang Rule’ to continue the successful culture-accommodating ‘Matteo Ricci Rule’ among the Pan-Chinese (Chinese descendants in China and beyond) by providing an ‘in-between space’ negotiating for Christianity and Confucianism to satisfy their believers’ ‘hybrid identity’. Through the Christianised Reverencing Ancestors Rites to hybridise the Confucian Sacrificing to Ancestors Rites, Bread of Life Sinophone Christians in many places of the world can simultaneously affirm their cultural ‘hybrid identity’ as both Christian and Sinophone through core cultural interactions between Christianity and Confucianism in filial piety ( xiao).

“The Ancient Rites of China”: Yan Mo on Ancestral Rites during the Chinese Rites Controversy

Abstract One of the key issues during the Chinese Rites Controversy was Chinese ancestral rites. Deeming ancestral rites idolatrous, mendicant missionaries advocated banning them; the Jesuits accommodated ancestral rites under certain conditions. The defense provided by the Jesuits focused on the ancestral rites being civil and political, and therefore not idolatrous. This article examines the views of Yan Mo 嚴謨 a lower-level Confucian Catholic literatus. Yan’s defense of the ancestral rites differs from the Jesuits in that Yan focused on the intrinsic value of ancestral rites as cultural practices, which he called “ancient rites of China.” Yan consulted Confucian canons and pointed out that performing the ancestral rites is an act of filial piety that, in the context of Chinese culture, is so embedded in the Chinese culture that the rites cannot be substituted by Christian practices such as praying the rosary or giving alms.

The Concept of the Soul During the Chinese Rites Controversy: The Example of Xia Dachang

The Concept of the Soul During the Chinese Rites Controversy: The Example of Xia Dachang

The Conflicts Among Religious Orders of Christianity in China During the 17th and 18th Centuries

Introduction. The article studies the conflicts between the Spanish Mendicant Orders (Dominican Order, Franciscan Order, etc.) as well as the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris with Portuguese Society of Jesus, which took place during the 17th and 18th centuries in China. Methods and materials. To study this issue, the author used the original historical materials recorded by Western missionaries working in China during the 17th and 18th centuries and research works by Chinese and international scholars related to the Chinese Rites Controversy as well as the process of introduction and development of Christianity in this country during the 17th and 18th centuries. The author combines two main research methods of History Science (historical and logical methods) with other research methods (systemic approach, analysis, synthesis, comparison, etc.) to complete the study of this issue. Analysis. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the struggle for faith of the peoples in the Far East, especially China, became the desirable goal of religious orders of Christianity. Therefore, during this period, Western missionaries belonging to various religious orders of Christianity, such as the Society of Jesus, Mendicant Orders, Society of Foreign Missions of Paris, etc., gradually entered this country. In the course of evangelization, the struggle for influence as well as the right to manage missionary affairs in China at that time created conflicts among Christian religious orders. It is manifested in the form of a debate about Chinese rituals. In fact, these conflicts not only caused great losses to the missionary career of contemporary Christian religious orders taking place in China but also made the relationship between China’s ruling authorities and The Holy See became very tense. Results. Based on the study of the conflicts among religious orders of Christianity in China during the 17th and 18th centuries, the article clarifies characteristics, the root and direct causes leading to this phenomenon, making a certain contribution to the study of the relationship among religious orders in the process of introduction and development of Christianity in China in particular and the history of East-West cultural exchange in this country in general in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Matteo Ricci’s Legacy for Comparative Theology

AbstractMatteo Ricci is widely recognized as the pioneering figure in East‐West dialogue, but his theology is rarely discussed in its own right. This article offers a first reading of Ricci as a serious theologian who brings Thomas Aquinas into conversation with classical Confucian texts. I demonstrate how the Riccian legacy presents a potential alternative to the two dominant methods in comparative theology: the Lockean language of toleration (which tends to devalue distinctiveness) and the multiculturalist emphasis on difference (which tends to downplay commonality). By attending to how Ricci rewrites Stoic ethics on contingency and fortune, and invents “intellect” and “will” as moral categories in China, this article locates his achievement at the theological juncture of a Thomist‐Ignatian synthesis. What results is a generous account of “pagan” virtue, an overcoming of the dichotomy between infused and acquired virtue predominant in post‐Reformation Europe, and a new conception of chief theological and cardinal virtues. Cut short by the Chinese Rites Controversy, Ricci’s legacy is yet to be recognized as a vital contribution to perennial debates in Christian theology.

The Influence of Tianxue (Heavenly Learning) on Chinese Thought in the Seventeenth Century

In the history of ideas in 17th-century China, the “heavenly learning” (tianxue) introduced by Western missionaries, in particularly the Jesuits, was a factor to be reckoned with. Without doubt it provided a fresh input to the development of post-Wang Yangming philosophy and the incubation of new insights in late Ming Neo-Confucianism, and this influence continued until the early Qing dynasty. However, while natural sciences and practical technologies (such as artillery and water conservancy) were well-received as part of the “heavenly learning,” other parts such as the “learning on the principle,” i.e., tenets of the Christian faith, conflicted with Confucianism. Due to the repercussions of the Chinese Rites Controversy in the late years of the Kangxi reign (r. 1661–1722), the public activities of missionaries in China were restricted. And when the Qing imperial court was in the process of compiling the Siku quanshu (Complete Library in Four Branches of Literature), those parts of “heavenly learning” dealing with the Christian faith were screened. To a certain degree this prevented later generations from gaining a proper overview of “heavenly learning.” Another factor that negatively impacted the study of the relationship between “heavenly learning” and Chinese traditional thought in the 17th century was that Christianity in modern China was closely associated with the invasion of imperialism in modern times. But how did the Confucianism from the late Ming to the early Qing period treat “heavenly learning”? This article summarizes the various attitudes of some Confucian scholars towards “heavenly learning” in hope of inciting further academic discussions.

ПОТЕРЯННЫЙ В ПЕРЕВОДЕ: МАТТЕО РИПА И ЕГО РОЛЬ В СПОРЕ О КИТАЙСКИХ РИТУАЛАХ

The activity of the Catholic missionary Matteo Ripa is placed here in the context of the Chinese rites controversy (CRC), a religious dispute regarding Christian tolerance of Chinese ancestral worship rituals. I trace the distortions in the literature by analyzing three versions of Ripa’s memoirs entitled Giornale. Contrary to a widespread view, Ripa was neither a Jesuit nor a professional artist. Ripa took an active part in the CRC and opposed the members of the Jesuit Order. Ripa’s memoirs, written upon his return from China, have become a truly real weapon in the struggle between Catholic organizations. The Jesuits prepared the first publication of Ripa’s Giornale (1832) that started shaping the image of Ripa. The editors removed all criticisms of the Jesuit activity in China. Additional distortions arise from the simplified and accessible English-language edition of Giornale (1844) that introduces Ripa as a traveling artist. I study the discrepancies between the versions of Giornale to conclude that misrepresentations of Ripa activity and position are related to his role in the CRC. Suggestion is drawn that the main reason for the distorted image of Matteo Ripa in academic literature was not Jesuit’s desire to change the text and the Ripa’s role in the CRC, as the interest of readers in a shortened and more exciting version of the Giornale of 1844. And the well-publicized activities of the Jesuits in the East contributed to the association of Ripa with this order.

For the record: The Canton exile of the missionaries (1666-1671) by the Polish Jesuit Szpot Dunin

The Chinese Rites Controversy definitively shaped the history of Christianity in China. When some missionaries were exiled in Canton from 1666 to 1671, they sought to resolve their disagreement on whether certain Confucian rituals could be practiced by Chinese Christian converts but their differences ended up even more entrenched. In his unpublished history of the China mission covering the period from 1640 to 1700, the Polish Jesuit Tomasz Ignacy Szpot Dunin (1644-1713) gives an account of the discussions held in Canton. His account not only reveals previously known materials but also offers new insights on the Controversy.

On the first step of “Chinese Irrationality”: early Christian definition of Buddhism as a useless doctrine in late Ming China

It is usually acknowledged that since Colonialist times, Asian ways of thinking were described as weak, irrational, immoral, and thus different and inferior to western ones (see Said). However, this secular—not religious—definition of weakness was already fully in display during the second half of the Seventeenth and early Eighteenth century, when missionary materials became easily available and the “Chinese rites controversy” blew up, overturning Jesuit appraisal of Confucian wisdom. What we want to show in this article is that seeds of this deprecation are already apparent in Ricci's accommodation method, which is evident when we focus on the rejection of Buddhism rather than the more renowned appreciation of Confucianism. In a quite neglected Jesuit text composed in late Ming China, i.e. Posthumous Disputes (Bianxue yidu 辯學遺牘), we can read a Christian rejection of Buddhist pillars based on perfectly secular probative arguments, instead of aspects we could assume as typically Christian, namely the power of revelation, grace, love, miracles and spirituality. Buddhism is to be expelled from China because of its irrationality, illogicality and uselessness. Buddhist doctrine completely lacks empirical verification. Furthermore, Buddhist principles are against the good ruling of a country. According to our opinion, this description of Buddhism already discloses the reasons for the later rejection of all Chinese ways of thinking—Confucianism included—which we used to date to the late Enlightenment and particularly the Colonialist epoch, as for instance in Hegelism and Kantism.

Rethinking the Rites Controversy: Kilian Stumpf'sActa Pekinensiaand the Historical Dimensions of a Religious Quarrel

The Chinese rites controversy (c.1582–1742) is typically characterized as a religious quarrel between different Catholic orders over whether it was permissible for Chinese converts to observe traditional rites and use the termstianandshangdito refer to the Christian God. As such, it is often argued that the conflict was shaped predominantly by the divergent theological attitudes between the rites-supporting Jesuits and their anti-rites opponents towards “accommodation.” By examining the Jesuit missionary Kilian Stumpf'sActa Pekinensia—a detailed chronicle of the papal legate Charles-Thomas Maillard de Tournon's 1705–6 investigation into the controversy in Beijing—this article proposes that ostensibly religious disputes between Catholic orders consisted primarily of disagreements over ancient Chinese history. Stumpf's text shows that missionaries’ understandings of antiquity were constructed through their interpretations of ancient Chinese books and their interactions with the Kangxi Emperor. The article suggests that the historiographical characterization of the controversy as “religious” has its roots in the Vatican suppression of the rites, which served to erase the historical nature of the conflict exposed in theActa Pekinensia.

The Jesuit Giambattista Tolomei (1653–1726): Cardinal and Philosopher

This article sets out what is known of the life of Giambattista Tolomei (1653–1726), sometime rector of the Jesuit school in Ragusa (Dubrovnik), of the Collegio Romano, and the Collegio Germanico, cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, philosopher, theologian, bibliophile, and philologist. Tolomei’s life intersected a series of significant events in the church’s history and that of the Society of Jesus: on-going conflict with Jansenism, the Chinese Rites controversy, significant innovations in the Society’s intellectual curriculum, and its renewed incorporation within the upper echelons of the Roman Curia. Tolomei played a key part in all those developments, and his role in what transpired is explored here—placed in context to establish his significance to the Society’s history in the early eighteenth century and beyond.

Behind the Façade of the Rites Controversy: The Intriguing Contrast of Chinese and European Theism

The Chinese rites controversy of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries has been often studied, but hitherto mostly as a quasi‐linguistic‐and‐technical dispute between the followers of Matteo Ricci, the legendary founder of the Jesuit China mission, and his many different enemies in the Catholic Church. In reality the involved debate was much more complex than that at every turn. To show this and more, this article takes a close look again at how and why Chinese terms and customs came to figure in Ricci's proselytising work in China, how they were challenged both inside and outside the Jesuit China mission, how the Chinese reacted and why, and what the debate revealed about the intriguing contrast of Chinese and European theism.

Chinese Atheism in the Mémoires de Trévoux: a Cultural Project against the Existence of a Perfect Atheism

In the first decades of the eighteenth century, the Society of Jesus was busy changing its interpretation of the Chinese world and denying the possible existence of a society of atheists. To safeguard the Chinese mission, the Jesuit Antonio Provana claimed that European cultural models could not be used in order to interpret China, and that the voices and purported beliefs of the Chinese should be reported on their own terms. The same refusal to interpret Chinese culture through the interpretative schemes that European cultures had inherited (largely from the ancient Greeks or Romans) also filled the pages of the Jesuit journal Mémoires de Trévoux between 1701 and 1719, the period analyzed in this contribution. My article in this special issue argues that, due to the extreme rhetorical caution necessary to the Jesuits in France during the third phase (1700) of the Chinese rites controversy, the Mémoires de Trévoux pursued a cultural policy intended to deny the existence of any atheism whether in a single individual or in a whole nation. This departure from a Eurocentric perspective, as well as the denial of atheism in any form, became themes that forcefully reappeared during the Enlightenment.

Revelation or Reason? Two Opposing Interpretations of the Confucian Classics during the Chinese Rites Controversy

Revelation or Reason? Two Opposing Interpretations of the Confucian Classics during the Chinese Rites Controversy

Puebla de los Ángeles, entre China y Europa. Palafox en las controversias de los ritos chinos

Entre los siglos XVI y XVIII se desarrolló la versión católica de la Misión China. Uno de sus procesos es el conocido entre los historiadores como controversia o querella de los ritos chinos, pero que por su complejidad conviene nombrar en plural, controversias. Se trató de varios debates que tuvieron lugar en Europa, Asia y América sobre cómo se debía evangelizar el Reino del Centro. En estas controversias, participó Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, obispo de la Puebla de Los Ángeles en Nueva España (1640-1648) y quien nunca viajó a China. ¿Por qué lo hizo? ¿Cuáles fueron sus representaciones de la Misión China? ¿Nos encontramos ante la construcción de una temprana esfera pública global o una proto/pre esfera global de movimiento de ideas? A partir de las preguntas anteriores planteamos el siguiente ensayo.

Christianity and Empire: The Catholic Mission in Late Imperial China

Reflecting on the theme of ‘Empire and Christianity’, this article compares two periods in the Catholic mission to China. The first period, between 1583 and 1800, was characterized by the accommodation of European missionaries to the laws, culture and customs of the Chinese empire during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The work of the Jesuits, in particular, demonstrated a method of evangelization in which Christian teachings could be accommodated to the political realities of Late Imperial China as exemplified by the work of Matteo Ricci, Ferdinand Verbiest, Tomas Pereira, Joachim Gerbillon and many generations of Jesuits and missionaries of other religious orders. The Chinese Rites Controversy, however, disrupted this accommodation between Christianity and empire in China. Despite tacit toleration in the capital, Christianity was outlawed after 1705. After the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, Catholicism in China became increasingly indigenized. In 1842, after the defeat of the Qing empire by the British in the First Opium War, the prohibition of Christianity was lifted. Both Catholic and Protestant missionaries entered China, backed by Western diplomatic and military power. This led to the confrontation between China and Christianity, culminating in the 1900 Boxer Uprising. A concerted effort to indigenize Christianity in the early twentieth century ultimately failed, resulting in the separation of Christianity in China from global Christianity after 1950.