The Catholic Historical Review

CONFUCIAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOSITY IN LATE MING CHINA BY Erik Zürcher* Introductory Remarks Much has been written about the relation and interaction between Confucianism and the Christian doctrine as preached byJesuit missionaries in late Ming and early Qing times, and not without reason,for since the Jesuits consciously concentrated their proselytizing effort upon the Confucian elite, they had constantly to define their own position vis- à-vis that absolutely dominant ideology. It is true that their acceptance in these circles did not depend only upon their reUgious message; many members of the educated elite admired the xiru, the "literati from the West," for their intellectual qualities and their useful new knowledge, without being attracted by their exotic religion. But even so, the first prerequisite was that this doctrine of the Lord of Heaven was essentially compatible with the Confucian world-view—that was a "cultural imperative" from which no minority religion could escape. The Jesuits accepted that imperative and made it the cornerstone of their missionary approach, not only for strategic reasons, but also because most of them sincerely admired what they regarded as the "original teachings" of Confucius and of the oldest Chinese classics transmitted by him. In their view, those teachings were excellent guidelines for social and poUtical life, and they even were held to contain clear evidence of a Chinese monotheism of the most distant past. Christianity could therefore both "complement Confucianism" (bu ru) by enriching it with a divine revelation, and restore it to its original monotheistic purity. The conclusion was clear and was drawn by all Chinese converts of the educated upper class: one could very well be- *Mr. Zürcher is professor emeritus of East Asian history in the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden. [N.B. A list of the abbreviations used in the footnotes follows the article, beginning on page 650.] 614 by Erik Zürcher615 come a Christian and yet remain a convinced Confucian. Other literati disagreed; their reactions varied from mild criticism to utter rejection. Thus, ever since Ricci published his celebrated "Substantial Meaning of the Lord of Heaven" (Tianzhu shiyi) in 1604, a critical dialogue developed between Christianity and Confucianism. On the Christian side, both missionaries and converts have produced a large corpus of apologetic and polemical treatises; the opponents—Confucian scholars and officials (and also Buddhist monks and lay believers, in response to the Jesuits' extreme hostility toward all non-Confucian religious beliefs)— have done the same. It is a fascinating kind of Uterature, but it has one serious limitation: it largely deals with doctrinal and theoretical issues, and it teaches us little about the way in which Chinese converts actually experienced and practiced their reUgion, and how that Christian, personal religiosity related to the religious dimension of Confucianism. This paper is a first attempt to fiU the gap. In our story the Jesuit missionaries will not play the main role, for the subject impUes that we shall have to focus upon the dispersed and fragmentary data found in the testimonies of native Chinese Christians. Statements made in Chinese works written by the foreign missionaries will be used only as supportive information if those texts are known to have had a wide circulation, or if those statements are quoted or paraphrased by Chinese authors. Such a self-imposed limitation is necessary, for quite a number of texts produced by missionaries are normative and prescriptive; in many cases they are free translations of European scholastic textbooks, and we therefore cannot assume that they reflect the reaUty of the reUgious Ufe of Chinese Christians. The Confucian Concept of "Orthodoxy" (zheng) There is hardly any area in which the Confucian and the Christian discourses differ so fundamentaUy from each other as they do in their definition of orthodoxy—the complex of beliefs and practices that are officiaUy established as being true, right, and binding. In the Confucian tradition that nucleus of right thought and action is caUed zheng, "correct, legitimate"; it is contrasted with the "heterodox principles" (yiduari) of non-Confucian reUgious systems, notably Buddhism and Taoism, and with sectarian cults and rituals that are regarded as potentiaUy subverting the moral order, and therefore are considered "heretical" (xie) or "Ucentious" (yin). 616CONFUCIAN AND CHRISTIAN REUGIOSITY...