Abstract
This chapter analyzes the fifth chapter of the first volume of the Qu Pi Xun Meng showing the importance of the concept of hua cheng 化成 in Zottoli’s explanation of the Roman Catholic cosmogony. At the same time, it shows the relationship between Zottoli’s own presentation of Christian teachings and the previous ones adopted by the Jesuit missionaries during the late Ming and the early Qing dynasty.
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Notes
- 1.
This term is understood by Zottoli as ‘creation’ or as ‘to create’ in a strict Roman Catholic sense, yet I have decided to render it as ‘completed transformation’ in order to emphasize its original meaning.
- 2.
It is worth mentioning that in the Zhou Yi 周易, that is where the term hua cheng 化成 derives from as I will mention subsequently, also James Legge found a possible source in order to draw a comparison with Christianity. In his introduction to the Yijing 易經 in fact he emphasized that God (that is also his translation for Di 帝 and Shangdi 上帝) is part of the processes of nature. See “Introduction”, “The I Ching”, edited and translated by James Legge, The Sacred Books of China, edited by F. Max Muller (New York: Dover, 1899), 50–53.
- 3.
The term huasheng was also used by Ruggieri in the Tianzhu shilu. See Canaris, ed., Michele Ruggieri’s Tianzhu shilu (The True Record of the Lord of Heaven, 1584), 104.
- 4.
The same term appears also in the hexagram li 離 (cohesion) and heng 恆 (long lasting). For the English version on li 離 (cohesion), see The Yi Jing: Or, Book of Changes, edited and translated by Richard Wilhelm (New York: Pantheon Books, 1961), 127.「重明以麗乎正, 乃化成天下」had been rendered by Hinton as “Sun and moon, fire and fire-using the beauty at the hinge of things, they transform and perfect all beneath heaven (hua cheng tianxia 化成天下)”. See I Ching, edited and translated by David Hinton, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), 60. For the Chinese version, see Zhu Xi, Zhouyi Yizhu, 56–57. For the English version on heng 恆 (long lasting), see The Yi Jing edited and translated by Richard Wilhelm (New York: Pantheon Books, 1961), 136. 「聖人久於其道, 而天下化成」had been rendered by Hinton as “Great sages endure on and on inhabiting the Way of moondrift constancy, and so all beneath heaven is transformed into completation (tianxia hau cheng 天下化成)”. See I Ching edited and translated by David Hinton, 64. For the Chinese version, see Zhu Xi, Zhouyi Yizhu, 60.
- 5.
For the rendering of the title into English I follow the rendering by Giorgio Strafella. See Giorgio Strafella, Intellectual Discourse in Reform Era China: The Debate on the Spirit of the Humanities in the 1990s (New York: Francis & Taylor, 2016), 137.
- 6.
Zottoli in his Cursus offers just a brief description of the hexagram yet does not provide any rendering of the text. See Zottoli, Cursus litteraturae sinicae, vol. 3, 554.
- 7.
The Yi Jing, edited by Richard Wilhelm, 97.
「觀乎人文, 以化成天下」had been rendered by David Hinton as “If you can see into the deep grain of humankind with a heron’s-eye gaze, you can transform and perfect all beneath heaven (hua cheng tianxia 化成天下)”. See, I Ching, edited and translated by David Hinton, 44. For the Chinese text, see, Zhu Xi, Zhouyi Yizhu, 50.
- 8.
Zhu Xi, Zhuzi Yulei 朱子語類 (Classified Dialogues of Master Zhu), in Zhuzi quanshu, 易十, 上繫上, 第二章. Translation by the author.
- 9.
Zottoli, Cursus litteraturae sinicae, vol. 3, 561– 601.
- 10.
Zottoli, Cursus litteraturae sinicae, vol. 3, 573, note 5, translation by the author.
- 11.
John Makeham, “Monism and the problem of ignorance and badness”, in The Buddhist Roots of Zhu Xi’s Philosophical Thought, edited by John Makeham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 314.
- 12.
「夫婦有別, 則父子親; 父子有親, 則君臣敬; 君臣敬, 則朝廷正; 朝廷正, 則王化成。」
“If a couple acts in accordance with their own natures, father and son maintain their hierarchy, if they do, ruler and subject are reciprocally respecting each other, if they do it, the court acts rightly, if all this would be done, the ruler’s commendable virtue would be accomplished (hua cheng 化成)”. Zhu Xi, Zhuzi yulei, 96:77. Translation by the author.
- 13.
For the English version, see, I Ching, edited and translated by David Hinton (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), 64; The Yi Jing edited and translated by Richard Wilhelm, 136. For the Chinese version, see, Zhu Xi, Zhouyi Yizhu, 60.
- 14.
Taiping yulan 太平御覽 (Imperial readings of the Taiping Era), edited by Xia Jiaqin 夏劍欽 and Huang Xunzhai 黃巽齋 (Shi Jia Zhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe, 1994).
- 15.
Taiping yulan, 人事部四十二, 敘聖, 334.
- 16.
“The I Ching”, edited and translated by James Legge, 239, modified.
- 17.
Kangxi Zidian 康熙字典 (The Kangxi Dictionary ) (Shanghai: Dianshizhai, 1889), 一. I added the punctuation since it lacks in the original text.
The same passage comes from the classical text Shuo Wenjie zi 說文解字 (Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters), a dictionary produced during the during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–189) and authored by Xu Shen 許慎 (58–148), even though in the original text the term great origin (da shi 大始) is substituted by the term tai shi 太始 (the Ultimate Origin). See Song Yong Pei 宋永培, Shuo wen, yu shanggu hanyu ciyi yanjiu 《說文》與上古漢語詞義研究 (The Shuowen and the Ancient Meaning of Chinese) (Chengdu: Bashu shushe, 2001), 216; 230.
- 18.
Translation by the author.
- 19.
Jared Ortiz, “You made us for yourself”: creation in St. Augustine's Confessions (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016), 3. Here I did not engage with Augustine's complex theories on the creation out of nothing given the narrow scope of this monograph. For a more holistic and comprehensive reflection on Augustine's cosmological and cosmogonic theories, see Gillian Clark, “Deficient causes: Augustine on creation and angels”, in Causation and Creation in Late Antiquity edited by Anna Marmodoro and Brian D. Prince (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 220–236; Kari Kloos, Christ, Creation, and the Vision of God: Augustine’s Transformation of Early Christian Theophany Interpretation (Boston: Brill, 2010); Natale Joseph Torchia, Creatio Ex Nihilo and the Theology of St. Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Polemic and Beyond (New York: Peter Lang, 1999); Emanuele Samek Lodovici, Dio e mondo: relazione, causa, spazio in S. Agostino (God and the World: [the Concepts of] ‘Relationship’, ‘Cause’ and ‘Space’ in Saint Augustine[’s Works]) (Rome: Edizioni Studium, 1978). Augustine is representative of an important Catholic tradition on cosmology and on creation ex nihilo; however, the Catholic discourse on theology and cosmology, especially during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, has been widely studied recently and it draws different Catholic perspectives on the study of the cosmos. For a more detailed analysis on this issue, see William Graham Lister Randles, The Unmaking of the Medieval Christian Cosmos, 1500–1760: From Solid Heavens to Boundless Æther (London: Routledge, 2016); Max Wildiers, The Theologian and his Universe: Theology and Cosmology from Middle Ages to the Present (New York: Seabury Press, 1982); Evelyn Edson and Emilie Savage-Smith, Medieval views of the cosmos (Oxford: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, 2004); Marie-Thérèse d'Alverny, “Le Cosmos symbolique du XIIe siècle” (“The Symbolic Cosmos of the 12th Century”), Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age, vol. 20, (1953), 31–81; Paul M. Blowers, Drama of the Divine Economy: Creator and Creation in Early Christian Theology and Piety (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). For a more general perspective on Christian cosmology, see Sean M. McDonough, Christ as Creator. Origins of a New Testament Doctrine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Creation ex nihilo: Origins, Development, Contemporary Challenges, edited by Gary A. Anderson and Markus Bockmuehl (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017); Theologies of Creation: Creatio Ex Nihilo and Its New Rivals, edited by Thomas Jay Oord (London: Routledge, 2014).
- 20.
Kangxi Zidian, 44.
- 21.
Kangxi Zidian, 44.
- 22.
Translation by the author.
- 23.
For the rendering of the term, refer to Makeham, “Monism and the problem of ignorance and badness”, 312–313.
- 24.
See James A. Benn, Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism (Manoa: University of Hawaii Press, 2007), 308.
- 25.
This translation had been suggested by Gregory Schopen. See Gregory Schopen, Figments and Fragments of Mahayana Buddhism in India (Manoa: University of Hawaii Press, 2005), 147.
- 26.
James A. Benn, Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism (Manoa: University of Hawaii Press, 2007), 308; adjusted. See also: Fojiao dacidian 佛教大辭典 (Great Dictionary of Buddhism), edited by Ren Jiyu 任繼愈 (Nanjing: Jiangsu Guji Chubanshe, 2002), 401.
- 27.
See 「天主化生天地」 “God created the Heaven and earth”. Matteo Ricci, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, translated by Douglas Lancashire and Hu Guozhen, edited by Thierry Meynard (Chestnut Hill, MA: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2016), 168. Moreover in the original version of Michele Ruggieri's catechism, Ruggieri used huasheng 化生 in the sentence「化生萬物」 see: Canaris, ed., Michele Ruggieri’s Tianzhu shilu (The True Record of the Lord of Heaven, 1584), 104. In addition, in the revised version of Ruggieri's catechism this is changed to hua cheng. See Canaris, ed., Michele Ruggieri’s Tianzhu shilu (The True Record of the Lord of Heaven, 1584), 287.
- 28.
Pan, “The Chinese-Jesuit metaphysical debate about Ultimacy”, paper presented at Università la Sapienza di Roma, in Rome on May 30, 2013. Retrieved at http://www.uniroma1.it/sapienza/archivionotizie/chinese%E2%80%93jesuit-metaphysical-debate-about-ultimacy (consulted on May 8, 2019), 20. translation modified.
- 29.
Pan Feng-chuan, “The Chinese-Jesuit metaphysical debate about Ultimacy”, 25.
- 30.
For information and a general view on this key Jesuit movement in China, see, Michael Lackner, “Jesuit Figurism,” in China and Europe: Images and Influences in Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, edited by Thomas H. C. Lee (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1991), 129–150. Furthermore, key figures among the Jesuit figurist movement such as Fr. Joachim Bouvet S. J. (Bai Jin 白晋, 1656–1730) and Fr. Jean-François Fouquet S. J. (Fu Shengze 傅聖澤, 1665–1741) frequently discussed the Zhou Yi and they compared the doctrines in the Yijing with the ones in the Bible. In this case, as suggested by Richard S. Smith, they had been influenced by the Chinese Christian scholar Shao Fuzhong’s 邵輔忠 (jinshi 1596) treaty Tianxue shuo 天學說 (On the Heavenly Learning) drew comparisons between the Book of Changes and Catholic doctrines. See Richard J. Smith, The I Ching: A Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 171–179. For the original version of the Tianxue shuo, see, Shao Fuzhong 邵輔忠, Tianxue shuo 天學說 (On the Heavenly Learning) (Beijing: Beijing daxue zongjiao yanjiusuo, 2000).
- 31.
Sophie Ling-chia Wei, “Trans-Textual Dialogue in the Jesuit Missionary Intra-Lingual Translation of the Yijing”, PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 2015, 84.
Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations, retrieved from: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1161 on July 11, 2018.
- 32.
In addition, the Figurists, in particular Fr. Joachim Bouvet S. J. strongly believed that the system of the Zhou Yi (especially according to the Xiantian tu 先天圖, the Earlier Heaven Chart [of Hexagrams], by Shao Yong 邵雍, 1011–077) had a mystical significance similar to the binary mathematical system created by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) as suggested by Richard J. Smith, “denoting the idea that God (represented by the number one) had created everything out of nothing (0)” See Richard J. Smith, The I Ching. A biography, 178. Concerning the Earlier Heaven Chart [of Hexagrams], see Guo Yu 郭彧, “shaoyong xiantian tuguaxu laizi liting zhi guabianshuo” 邵雍先天圖卦序來自李挺之卦變說 (“How the Xiantian tu by Shao Yong derives from the Guabianshuo by Liting”), Zhouyi yanjiu 周易研究, vol. 3 (1996), 19–24. For an account of Shao Yong’s philosophy and his approach to the Zhou Yi, see Sources of Chinese Tradition, edited by Theodore de Bary, Wing-tsit Chan and Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), 515–520. For a detailed account of the relation between Leibniz’s system and Chinese philosophy and his personal awareness of the Zhou Yi, see Franklin Perkins, Leibniz and China. A commerce of Light (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
- 33.
See, Nan Huairen 南懷仁, Kunyu tushuo; Kunyu waiji 坤輿圖說; 坤輿外紀 (Illustrated Explanation of the Entire World; Record of the Foreign World) (Beijing: Zhong Hua, 1985).
- 34.
Nan Huairen, Kunyu tushuo, 152–153.
- 35.
Wei, “Trans-Textual Dialogue in the Jesuit Missionary Intra-Lingual Translation of the Yijing”, 85 adjusted.
- 36.
Wei, “Trans-Textual Dialogue in the Jesuit Missionary Intra-Lingual Translation of the Yijing”, 85.
- 37.
For the rendering into English of the title, see Qiong Zhang, Making the New World Their Own. Chinese Encounters with Jesuit Science in the Age of Discovery (Boston: Brill, 2015), 363.
- 38.
Ai Rulue 艾儒畧, Zhifang waiji 職方外紀 (Records of Regions beyond the Jurisdiction of the Imperial Geographer) (Shanghai: Shanwuyinshu, 1936), Chapter 5, 129.
- 39.
Ai rulue 艾儒畧, Sanshan lunxue 三山論學 (Discussions on the Doctrine at Sanshan) in Tianzhujiao dongchuan wenxian xubian 天主教東傳文獻續編, (Documents of the Diffusion of Catholicism into East. Continuation) edited by Wu Xiangxiang 吳相湘, (Taipei: Xuesheng shuju, 1966), 482.
- 40.
Translation by the author.
- 41.
I follow literally the English translation by Pan Feng-chuan. See Pan Feng-chuan “The Chinese-Jesuit metaphysical debate about Ultimacy”, paper presented at Università la Sapienza di Roma, in Rome on May 30, 2013. Retrieved from http://www.uniroma1.it/sapienza/archivionotizie/chinese%E2%80%93jesuit-metaphysical-debate-about-ultimacy (consulted on May 8, 2019), 26. Pan mentions the Chinese version in a footnote while the English rendering is in the main body, I decided to present the Chinese text before the English rendering for the sake of clarity and consistency.
- 42.
Song Gang, “Learning from the other: Giulio Aleni, ‘Kouduo richao’, and late Ming dialogic hybridization”, PhD dissertation, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 2006, 154. For a more comprehensive perspective on the same text see Song Gang, Giulio Aleni, Kouduo richao, and Christian-Confucian dialogism in late Ming Fujian (Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2019).
- 43.
Song, “Learning from the other”, 156.
- 44.
Song, “Learning from the other”, 157.
- 45.
Song, “Learning from the other”, 158.
- 46.
Pan Guoguang 潘國光, Tianshenhui ke 天神會課 (Lessons in the Assembly of the Angels), (Beijing, 1739), 36. Manuscript preserved at Austrian National Library, Sin. 174. The same manuscript is also preserved at the National library of France, Département des manuscrits. Chinois 6946.
- 47.
See Simon Ditchfield, “Catholic Reformation and Renewal,” in The Oxford Illustrated History of the Reformation, edited by Peter Marshall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 182–183. See also, David Mungello, The Spirit and the Flesh in Shandong. 1650–1785, (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 80. See Liam Matthew Brockey, Journey to the East (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2009), 147.
- 48.
Li Zhizao 李之藻, Huanrong jiaoyi 圜容较義 (On the sphere and the volume), (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1991) Introduction 序, 二 (translation by the author). The same passage is also present in a collection of works of Li Zhizao, Xu Guangqi and Yang Tingyun. See Mingmo Tianzhujiao sanzhushi wenjianzhu: Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao, Yang Tingyun lunjiao wenji 明末天主教三柱石文箋注: 徐光啟, 李之藻, 楊廷筠 論教文集 (Catholic Documents of Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao, Yang Tingyun. An exposition of Three Great Late Ming Thinkers in China), edited by Li Tiangang 李天綱 (Hong Kong: The Logos and Pneuma Press, 2007), 161.
- 49.
I adopt the English translation of the title proposed by Nicolas Standaert. See, Nicolas Standaert, Yang Tingyun, Confucian and Christian in Late Ming China: His Life and Thought (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 70.
- 50.
Mingmo Tianzhujiao sanzhushi wenjianzhu, 258.
- 51.
Mingmo Tianzhujiao sanzhushi wenjianzhu, 261.
- 52.
Standaert, Yang Tingyun, Confucian and Christian in Late Ming China, 109.
- 53.
For a detailed account on Yang’s cosmogony, see Standaert, Yang Tingyun, Confucian and Christian in Late Ming China, 109–116.
- 54.
For the original text in Chinese text, see Fu Fanji 傅汎際 and Li Zhizao 李之藻,
Huanyou quan 寰有詮 (An Introduction to the Cosmos), Sikuquanshu cunmu congshu 四庫全書存目叢書 (Collections of books listed in the section of surviving titles of Siku quanshu) (Tainan: zhuangyan wenhua shiye youxian gongsi, 1995), vol. 94, 1–189.
- 55.
This is the rendering into English suggested by Pan. See Pan Feng-chuan, “The Chinese-Jesuit metaphysical debate about Ultimacy”, 27.
- 56.
This is the rendering into English suggested by Qiong Zhang. See Zhang, Making the New World Their Own, 153.
- 57.
For a rendering into English of the original text, see, Aristotle, “On the heavens”, The complete works of Aristotle.The revised Oxford translation, edited Jonathan Barnes, translated by John L. Stocks (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), vol. 1, 447–511.
- 58.
This had been pointed out already by Qiong Zhang with further details on the commentaries. See Zhang, Making the New World Their Own, 153.
- 59.
Pan Feng-chuan, “The Chinese-Jesuit metaphysical debate about Ultimacy”, 27.
- 60.
See Fu Fanji and Li Zhizao, Huanyou quan, vol. 94, 19.
- 61.
Zottoli, Cursus litteraturae sinicae, vol. 1, 830.
- 62.
「問, 萬物受造之後, 又須天主時時保存否?答, 須天主時時保存。如瞬息不保存, 即萬物將歸於無有矣。故時時保存。無異時時再造也。」 (Q: After the myriad things were created, did the Lord of Heaven need to preserve them constantly? A: The Lord of Heaven must preserve the myriad things at every moment. If they were not preserved for a very short moment, everything would have vanished. It is similar to create them all again (zai zao 再造) every moment.) See Zottoli, Qu Pi Xun Meng, vol. 1, juan 5, 13.
- 63.
For a brief analysis of the role of time in the Catholic interpretation of Creation, see Kenneth Baker, Fundamentals of Catholicism: God, Trinity, Creation, Christ, Mary (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983), vol. 2, 130–133. For a recent analysis of Creation, especially in Genesis 1:1–19, see Ratzinger, “In the Beginning”: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, 1–39. For a general analysis of the doctrine of Creation see Matthew Levering, Engaging the Doctrine of Creation: Cosmos, Creatures, and the Wise and Good Creator (Ada: Baker, 2017), 29–192.
- 64.
Andrzej Maryniarczyk, “Philosophical creationism: Thomas Aquinas’ metaphysics of Creatio ex nihilo”, Studia Gilsoniana, vol. 5, no. 1 (2016), 234. For a more detailed analysis, see: Gaven Kerr, Aquinas and the Metaphysics of Creation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019) and Gilfredo Marengo, Trinità e creazione: indagine sulla teologia di Tommaso d’Aquino (Trinity and Creation: an Investigation on Thomas Aquinas' Theology) (Rome: Città Nuova Edizioni, 1990). For more comparative perspectives, see Rahim Acar, Talking about God and Talking about Creation: Avicenna's and Thomas Aquinas' positions (Boston: Brill, 2005); Tyler R. Wittman, God and Creation in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018); Michael J. Dodds, The One Creator God in Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Theology (Washington: CUA Press, 2020).
- 65.
Maryniarczyk, “Philosophical creationism”, 252.
- 66.
For an analysis of the arguments adopted by Thomas Aquinas see Andrzej Maryniarczyk, “Philosophical creationism”, 252–265.
- 67.
Vivian Boland, Ideas in God According to Saint Thomas Aquinas: Sources and Synthesis (Boston: Brill, 1996), 325.
- 68.
Thomas Aquinas strongly rejected, in fact, the possibility that the world could be eternally created. For a concise analysis of this philosophical and theological position, see Peter Van Veldhuijsen, “Richard of Middleton contra Thomas Aquinas on the question whether the created world could have been eternally produced” in The Eternity of the World: In the Thought of Thomas Aquinas and His Contemporaries, edited by Jozef B. Wissink (New York: Brill, 1990), 69–81.
- 69.
Baker, Fundamentals of Catholicism, vol. 2, 132. Moreover, this topic has been widely discussed by scholars especially concerning the strict sense of creation out of nothing. For a comprehensive analysis of this debate, see Creation ex nihilo Origins, Development, Contemporary Challenges, edited by Gary A. Anderson and Markus Bockmuehl (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017). For a philosophical discussion of the concept of creatio ex nihilo, see Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, Creation Out of Nothing: A Biblical, Philosophical, and Scientific Exploration (Leicester: Baker, 2004), 197–218. For scientific arguments on the creatio ex nihilo, see Copan and Craig, Creation Out of Nothing, 219–248.
- 70.
Baker, Fundamentals of Catholicism, vol. 2, 132–133.
- 71.
More recently, this term has been adopted in theoretical physics supporting the “Steady State Theory”. According to this theory matter has not been created as some point in the universe but there is a stationary universe where matter is constantly created and re-created. For a general understanding of this theory, see Hans Schwarz, Creation (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2002), 34–36. For the original article supporting this argument, see Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold, “The Steady-State Theory of the Expanding Universe”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 108, (1948), 252–270.
- 72.
Nico Vorster, Created in the Image of God: Understanding God's Relationship with Humanity (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2011), 47.
- 73.
Michael D. Gibson, “The Beauty of the Redemption of the World: The Theological Aesthetics of Maximus the Confessor and Jonathan Edwards”, The Harvard Theological Review, vol. 101, no. 1 (2008), 64. For a more detailed analysis of Maximus the Confessor's cosmology and theology, see Torstein Tollefsen, The Christocentric Cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
- 74.
Refer to Maximus the Confessor, On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, edited and translated by Nicholas Constas (London: Harvard University Press, 2014), 2 vols. The text had been translated partially also by Andrew Louth. See, Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor (London: Routledge, 1996), 91–178.
- 75.
Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 156.
- 76.
Baker, Fundamentals of Catholicism, vol. 2, 133–136.
- 77.
Baker, Fundamentals of Catholicism, vol. 2, 136. See also Ignatius Loyola, The Spiritual Writings, edited by Mark Mossa (Woodstock: Skylightpaths, 2012), 51.
- 78.
In a contemporary interpretation of the concept of re-creation, Joseph Blenkinsopp offers the idea that “re-creation” is part of a common pattern in the Genesis: the creation of the world and humans (creation), the disturbance of the order (un-creation) and finally the beginning of a new order and covenant (re-creation). See Joseph Blenkinsopp, Creation. Un-creation. Re-creation (New York: T&T, 2011), 16–19.
- 79.
Zhu Xi, Zhuzi Yulei, 14: 157–160.
- 80.
John Berthrong, “Zhu Xi’s Cosmology”, Dao Companion to Neo-Confucian Philosophy, edited John Makeham (Boston: Springer, 2010), 161.
- 81.
Matteo Ricci, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, edited by Edward Malatesta (Taipei: The Ricci Institute, 1985), § 3.
- 82.
David Mungello, The Catholic invasion of China (London: Littlefield, 2015), 46.
- 83.
Ricci, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, § 3.
- 84.
See 「罷德肋為聖三之原始。」 Because the Father (Ba-de-le 罷德肋) is the source (yuanshi 原始) of the Holy Trinity. See Zottoli, Qu Pi Xun Meng, vol. 1, juan 5, 13.
- 85.
On the legitimation of power and authority by Christ and within the Roman Catholic church see Mark Chapman, “Authority” in The Routledge Companion to the Christian Church, edited by Gerard Mannion, Lewis S. Mudge, (New York: Routledge, 2008), 497–510; Adam Hood, “Governance” in The Routledge Companion to the Christian Church, 536–549; Richard A. Schoenherr, “Power and Authority in Organized Religion: Disaggregating the Phenomenological Core.” Sociological Analysis vol. 47, (1987), 52–71; John Niles Bartholomew, “A Sociological View of Authority in Religious Organizations.” Review of Religious Research, vol. 23, no. 2 (1981), 118–132; Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016); Hans Hummer, Visions of Kinship in Medieval Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
For a general view concerning the concept of authority in Europe with reference also to religious authority, see Leonard Krieger, “The Idea of Authority in the West”, The American Historical Review, vol. 82, no. 2 (1977), 249–70; Augusto Del Noce, The Crisis of Modernity, edited and translated by Carlo Lancellotti (Toronto: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2014), 118–156.
Still, there are several notable examples that are clearly portraying the ruler as being associated to a God-like figure. For example, Godfrey of Viterbo (1120 circa – 1196 circa), writing about Henry VI ( 1165-1197), said “Filius illorum deus es de prole deorum” (You are a God from divine lineage), suggesting also that “in his veins flowed the blood of Jupiter”. See Kai Hering, “Godfrey of Viterbo: Historical Writing and Imperial Legitimacy at the Early Hohenstaufen Court” in Godfrey of Viterbo and His Readers: Imperial Tradition and Universal History in Late Medieval Europe, edited by Thomas Foerster (London: Ashgate, 2015), 62. For other examples represeting the earthly ruler as a godly figure in the Eastern Roman tradition, refer to Herbert Hunger, Prooimion: Elemente der byzantinischen Kaiseridee in den Arengen der Urkunden (Vienna: Böhlau, 1964). For an overview on secular and sacred from the Middle Ages to the early modern era, refer to Sacred and Secular in Medieval and Early Modern Cultures: New Essays, edited by Lawrence Besserman (Boston: Springer, 2006); The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing: Sites, Objects, and Texts, edited by Barbara S. Bowers and Linda Migl Keyser (London: Routledge, 2016).
- 86.
For an introduction to the theory of the two swords, see Otto Friedrich von Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle Age (Union: Lawbook Exchange, 2002), 9–21; especially 16–18.
- 87.
See Dante Alighieri, the Divine Comedy, edited and translated by Mark Musa (New York: Penguin, 1985), vol. 2, 174 (Purgatorio XVI, vv. 106–114).
For the original version, see
Soleva Roma, che ‘l buon mondo feo,
due soli aver, che l’una e l’altra strada.
facean vedere, e del mondo e di Deo.
L’un l’altro ha spento; ed è giunta la spada.
col pasturale, e l’un con l’altro insieme.
per viva forza mal convien che vada;
però che, giunti, l’un l’altro non teme:
se non mi credi, pon mente a la spiga,
ch’ogn’erba si conosce per lo seme.
Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia, edited by Giovanni Fallani and Silvio Zennaro (Rome: Newton and Compton, 2010), Purgatorio XVI, vv. 106–114.
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De Caro, A. (2022). The Fifth Chapter of the Qu Pi Xun Meng and Zottoli’s Main Cosmogonic Ideas. In: Angelo Zottoli, a Jesuit Missionary in China (1848 to 1902). Christianity in Modern China. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5297-4_6
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