China's Jesuit Century

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China's Jesuit Century

Author(s): Joseph S. SebesSource: The Wilson Quarterly (1976-), Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter, 1978), pp. 170-183Published by: Wilson Quarterly

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China's J e s u i t Century

Jesuit Matteo Ricci (left)and convertHsu Kuang-chi in the early1600s.Onehundredyearslater,the workthey beganwas in ruins.

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In the long history of China's contacts with the West, onlyonce has there been a major cultural accommodation: duringthe 17thcentury, when Jesuit scholars served as key advisers on

diplomacy, science, and engineering to the imperial court at

Peking. Mutual tolerance and respect brought cultural andmaterial benefits to both East and West before Vatican insist-ence on theological orthodoxy led to a rift and to China's returnto isolation. Father Joseph S. Sebes, who served in the Jesuits'China Mission in

pre-Mao days (1940-47),visited China last

year. His essay is drawn from original research undertaken dur-

ing his tenure as a Wilson Center Fellow.

byJoseph S. Sebes, S./.

On a crisp September morning in1583, Matteo Ricci stood at the prowof a junk loaded with sheep and pigsand poultry. Portuguese Macao, itshouses built low for protection

against typhoons, slipped by asternas the vessel nosed its way up thePearl River, and the young priestwondered whether he would be afourth time rebuffed in his attemptto enter China, the Celestial King-dom. By training he was a Jesuit andthus a man of learning; but he wasalso a man of God, and it is, in asense, as a parable that his story hascome down to us.

During the middle years of the

16th century, Portuguese Jesuits ex-tended their missionary efforts toIndia and Ceylon, Malacca and theMoluccas, but the "brazen gates" ofChina refused to yield. FrancisXavier arrived in Japan in 1549 andestablished a Christian communitythat soon numbered 150,000, but hisdream of bringing the gospel to theChinese remained only a dream. Hedied on his way to China in 1552, the

yearin which Matteo Ricci was born

in the Italian village of Macerata.Stepping ashore at Chao-Ch'ing,

Ricci could not know that through

his own exertions China would fi-

nally emerge into its "Jesuit

century." Rejecting the condescen-sion of his fellow Europeansand rec-

ognizing in China a civilization more

ancient, and in some respects moreadvanced, than his own, Ricci wouldaccommodate the rites, customs, and

philosophies of the Chinese withinthe structure of his own religious be-liefs. By doing so, he would win theconfidence, and sometimes the souls,of his Chinese hosts. But the welcomeextended to this Western scholar inthe East found no counterpartamong theologians in Europe; short

years after the Jesuits' most signalsuccesses including the Emperor'sEdict of Toleration his tactful, bal-anced approach succumbed to Papalcondemnation. In the end, the Westwas to show itself incapable of ac-

cepting Chinaas a cultural equal.

Mongol and MingScholars who commonly describe

China as historically a closed societyoften forget that under the Mongols(1280-1368) and before, the

proudMiddle Kingdom was relativelycosmopolitan. Some 2,000 foreign-trading firms had offices in the T'ang

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capital of Ch'ang-an(nearSian), thenthe largest city in the world with a

population of one million, andChinese technicians supervisedpaper manufacture in cities as far

away as Baghdad. European visi-tors such as John of Montecorvino(1290) and of course Marco Polo(1271-95) - were frequent, andChinese maritime expeditionscrossed the Indian Ocean and"discovered" Africa well before

Portugal's Prince Henry sent his

ships exploring down the continent'swest coast. Therewere even elementsof religious diversity: The Jesuitswere surprised to find a Jewish

community in Kai-feng dating fromthe 12th century. Earlier, a group ofNestorian Christians had flourishedin Ch'ang-an,where they acquired a

reputation, according to one con-

temporary account, as "experts ineye diseases and diarrhea."

China's"Sinification"

Only when the new Ming dynastyfinally wrested power from the

Mongol overlords (1368) was there a

period of consolidation; the resultwas the first self-imposed isolation inChinese history. In many ways, the

Mingreaction was similar to Chinesecultural withdrawal today. Indeed,

the dynasty's first emperor, Hung-wu, fancied himself a political phi-

losopherand required each family inthe kingdom to own the Ming ta kao,a digest of his thoughts and sayings,which for a time was the most widelyread book on earth.

The years of Ming "Sinification"coincided with the European explo-rations of the East. The first

Portuguesetrade mission to Chinain1514 met open hostility, as did TomePires three

yearslater when he

pre-sented himself as Lisbon's ambas-sador to Peking (he was detained inthe countryuntil his death in 1520).

The Chinese generally regardedthe Portuguese,often rightly, as littlebetter than the Japanese pirates who

periodically ravaged the kingdom'scoastline. As a result, the Portuguesefound their reception in China mark-

edly different from the hospitalityaccorded them elsewhere in the East.

In Japan, for example, Portuguesetradersand missionaries first arrived

during the Sengoku(country at war)period. They found an open societyeager to obtain Western firearms(which the Japanese turned againstthe Koreans in 1592) and tolerant ofWestern religion. Francis Xavier'slimited evangelization of the countrywas hampered more by apathy than

antipathy, and while he made someeffort to win converts from among

the new daimyo aristocracy, he con-centrated on the lower classes. There

JosephS. Sebes,S.J.,62, is professorof Far Easternhistoryat GeorgetownUniversityand a formerWilsonCenterFellow. Born in Hungary, he en-tered heSocietyof Jesus in 1934 and was assignedto the China Mission.He studied in Peking, Taming,andShanghai until 1947. After woyearsatthe GregorianUniversityin Rome, he came to the UnitedStates and re-ceived his Ph.D. in history and Far Eastern languages from Harvard.FatherSebes is the authorof TheJesuits and the Sino-Russian TreatyofNerchinsk (1962). Since 1958, he has taught at GeorgetownUniversity,wherehe was dean of the Edmund A. WalshSchool of ForeignService.The documents used in theresearch or this article arefromthe collection

of Francis A.Rouleau,S.J.

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seemed no need to seek protection in

high places.Nor was there much need for the

Jesuits to accommodate culturallyto the Japanese. The banners ofthe Shimabara rebels sported a

Portuguese legend: Louvado sea oSantissimo Sacramento',and Western

words were readily adopted: Deusufor Deus, Kirishtan for Christianmuch as the Japanese,centurieslater,adopted beisuboro (for baseball)and aisukurimu(for ice cream).Onlyafter the Sakoku (closed country)edict of 1639did the Japanese,underthe Tokugawa, retreat into an isola-

Reproduced, with permission, from Nigel Cameron, Barbarians and Mandarins: Thirteen Centuries

of Western Travelers in China. New Yorkand Tokyo: MfalkerrWeatherhitt,970.

Ricci set out forPekingin 1583. He reached t 18 yearslater,afterestablishingmissions in cities along his way.

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tion from which they would not

emerge until the arrival of America'sAdmiral Matthew Perry in 1853 andthe subsequent Meiji restoration of1868.

Architects of Accommodation

China, in the 16th century, repre-sented the opposite extreme: a closed

society in a fantastical kingdomknown to most

Europeans onlyas a

land of strange beasts and gunpow-der, of paper money and printing.Aware of Western misconceptionsand recent commercial and mission-

ary setbacks, Alessandro Valignanoused his appointment in 1573 as

Superiorof Jesuit missions in the FarEast to devise a new approach. Aman of raregifts and vision, a doctorof civil law and aide to Pope Paul IV,he realized that cultural differences

within the East could be quite aspronounced as those that divided,say, Flemings and Poles in the West.

Moving between Japan and Macao,Portugal'speninsular bastion on theChinese mainland, Valignano setabout formulating the China policyRicci would take with him to China.

Valignano believed that theChinese would respond better to ashow of respect than to self-

righteousness. Intensely proud of

their ancient culture and holding in-tellectual accomplishment in highesteem, the Chinese,he felt, would be

impressed by Jesuit scholars who ac-commodated themselves to theChinese way of life. Accordingly, heinsisted that his missionaries"Sinicize" themselves by obtainingsound knowledge of the Chinese lan-

guage and the Confucian classics-

something no European missionarieshad done before.

In the years preceding his depar-ture for China, Ricci underwent in-tensive training in Chinese language,

manners, and customs- so success-

fully that grammatical errors in his

diary reveal a man more at homewith Chinese than with his native

tongue. When he arrived in Chao-

ch'ing, he adopted a Chinese name

(LiMa-tou)and donned the robesof aBuddhist bonze to indicate that hewas a man of God. (He later switchedto Mandarindress, when he realizedthat it

conveyed higher status.)Valignano's cultural-accommoda-tion approachwas marredby none ofthe paternalism common among hisWesterncontemporaries. In essence,his message to his aides was: BecomeChinese. Equally simple was his

strategy:Work rom the top down.As

scholars, the Jesuits had a naturalaf-

finity with the literati and educatedofficials, whose influence would af-ford the missionaries a measure of

protection.The task facing Matteo Ricci, Val-

ignano's first emissary, was a diffi-cult one. The country itself wasenormous and uncharted (the firstreliable atlas of China would be pro-duced by the Jesuits in 1717) adandof perhaps 150 million inhabitants,dispersed over 3.5 million squaremiles and torn by conflicting strainsof Confucianism. From the first,Ricci adapted himself to the Chinese

way, performing the kowtow to offi-cials (three kneelings and nine pros-trations) and carefully stressingscholarship over religion to avoidconflicts with Chinese sensibilities.*

Ricci had studied under Italy'scel-

*Ricci made it clear to the Chinese that in the

sphere of ethical action and social and politicallife, Confucianismwas a sound doctrine,whichin all essentials agreed with Christianity.How-ever, therewere manysuperstitiouselements inConfucianism as a result of Sung neo-Confucianist

teachings.In its

simplestterms,

Ricci sought to restore the earlier, 'pure"Con-fucianism, while condemning the adulteratedlater version, which, unfortunately, had beenofficial doctrinefor600 years.


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ebrated Christopher Clavius, calledthe Euclid of the 16th century, andwas himself an accomplished math-ematician, astronomer, and cartog-rapher. To complement his skills, hehad broughtwith him an assortmentof scientific and astronomical de-vices as well as prisms, clocks, andother evidences of Western technol-

ogy. Impressed by his devotion, tact,and

abilityand fascinated

byhis in-

struments (as the Chinese would befascinated by my Polaroid camera400 years later), the bureaucrats andliterati of the southern provincestook kindly to Ricci and providedhim with land for a house andchurch.

Tongueand Brush

Though still far from Peking, theadministrative center in the north,

Ricci had nevertheless secured afoothold, and as he established mis-sions in the southern cities, he calledfor reinforcements to man them. Be-tween the late Ming and early Ch'ingdynasties that is, from around 1590to 1680- more than 600 Jesuitswould undertake the hazardous andoften fatal passage from Europe toChina. Only 100 actually made it."All the rest," wrote one survivor,"had either been destroyed by ship-

wreck, illness, or murder, or cap-tured by pirates or other robbers."Meanwhile, Ricci made his waythrough the provinces toward Pe-

king. It would take him 18 years.With his preaching and scholarly

writing with "tongue and brush"asthe Chinese put it- Ricci at everystop made the acquaintance of thelocal elites and spoke to them of sci-ence and philosophy, hoping thesewould lead to higher things. One

Jesuit later noted that Ricci used thesecular aspects of his training as akind of oil "wherewith to grease the

wheels of affairs that they might rollmore softly."

And softly they rolled indeed. Hsu

Kuang-chi, later to become Grand

Secretary to the Emperor, was bap-tized in 1597.His power and learningproved invaluable to the Jesuitcause. Through Hsu's efforts, otherinfluential Chinese - such as LiChih-tsao and Yang T'ing-yun, bothof whom became

presidents of theSupreme Court embraced Chris-

tianity.Thekey to Ricci 's success lay in his

learning and consummate tact. Herefused to condemn ancestor wor-

ship, adopted a Chinese term, T'ien-chu (Lord of Heaven), for God, and

adapted the liturgy to China. Awarethat the Chinese, like the Europeans,mingled superstition with or-

thodoxy, he showed the same toler-

ance in this regard that Romeshowed to Europeans. Moreover,in-

T'ien-chu[Lordof Heaven],theChineseRites' term or God.

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stead of contesting Confuciandoc-trine,Ricciused it as a complementto Christianity,stressing the com-monelements n both.

Ricci's insight into Chinese at-titudes was apparently boundless.Thefirst booktranslated romLatininto Chineseby the Jesuits was notthe Bible or the Livesof the Saintsbut a compilationof selections rom

Cicero's On Friendship friendshipbeingoneof the fivebasicConfucianrelationships.And when Ricci wasasked odrawa mapof theworld,heensuredhis fame throughoutChinaby informingheChinese or thefirsttime of the existence of manyothercivilizednations.Moreover, y plac-ing Chinaat the map's center, hereinforced pandered o, some said)theChinese onceptionof theMiddleKingdom sliterallyandfiguratively

the centerofcivilization.The ForbiddenCity

Peking,as Ricci found it in 1601,was a city of 700,000and the nervecenter of empire, connected to therest of Chinaby the Chichou andHuit'ung canals and by a web ofroadscreatedby the Mongols. f theJesuitswanted riends nhighplaces,it was here among the mandarinsandtheconcubines hattheywereto

be sought.The techniquesthat hadwon Ricci friendshipand respect nthe provinces, along with severalthousandconverts,servedhim wellin theForbiddenCity.

The Wan-li Emperor was fasci-natedby Ricci'sgifts and scientificinstruments, which included apearl-studded ross, a world atlas,severalringingclocks, and a clavi-chord.TheEmperor'sunuchs,natu-rally enough,were unable to repairthe clocksor play the clavichord, oRicciwas askedto remain n theim-perialcapital as he hadhoped.The

tacit understandingromthe begin-ning seems to have been that theJesuitswould serveas technicalad-visers to the Emperor; he Chinese,in turn,wouldtoleratethe presenceof Jesuitmissionariesas longas theforeigners' services were deemeduseful.

Converts uring histimeincluded14 mandarinsof the first class, a

cross sectionof intellectualsof aca-

demic standing (10 Doctors, 11Licentiates, nd 300 Bachelors),140membersof the imperial amily,and40 of theEmperor'sunuchadvisers.Whennews of this astoundingprog-ress was reported n Europe,manyWesternersntertainedhopesof theconversion f theEmperor ndspokeof a "Chinese Constantine." TheJesuits in China,however,did nottake such talkseriously, or as one of

them notedwryly,"Inorderto con-verttheEmperoro Catholicism, oumust first find a loophole in theCatholicmoralityof sex that wouldallow him to keep his 200 con-cubines."

Meanwhile, Ricci continued tosupervise missionary work in theprovinces. More Jesuits enteredChina,sustaining missions in Soo-chow, Nanchang,and Nanking.Bythe time of Ricci's death in 1610,

therewere13 Europeanmissionariesin China, several native Jesuitbrothers, and some 50,000 Chris-tians. Within 30 years, 31 mis-sionarieswere serving a congrega-tion of nearly150,000,with missionhouses, colleges, schools, andchurches scattered throughoutChina.

Master of MysteriesFor the remainder f the 17thcen-

tury, Ricci's successors NicholasLongobardo, astronomer AdamSchall, and the all-purpose Fer-


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Verbiest' observatoryatop Peking'seasternwall (1687).The restof the wallhas since beenrazed,but this section remains.

dinand Verbiest - carried on hiswork,upholding the orthodoxyof theChinese Rites as Ricci 's method ofcultural accommodation came to becalled- while continuing to serveChina's Son of Heaven as technicaladvisers. In 1613, after a mistake bythe imperial Board of Astronomy in

forecasting an eclipse, the Jesuitsunder Schall were given the task of

revising the Chinese calendar to

bringit into

conformitywith the

earth's orbit and rotation. As a resultof the success of this project, theJesuits were rewarded with key

positions in the Calendrical and As-tronomicalBureaus. Both Schall andVerbiest became official court as-tronomers. Schall was honored, inaddition, with the presidency of theBoard of Mathematics and the im-

pressive title of Master of Universal

Mysteries. These positions were ofsome importance, given the signifi-cance the Chinese attached to dates.

Despite the turmoil of the ensuingcenturies, the

directorshipof the

Board of Astronomywould remain inthe hands of a European priest until1838. It was from this office that the


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Jesuits exerted their considerable

leverage on Chinese affairs. Interest-

ingly, the section of the Peking wallthat housed Schall's observatory isthe only part of the wall that has notbeen torn down by the Communist

government.Other Jesuit activities included

mapmaking, translating, and metal-

casting. The works of Galileo andEuclid were rendered into Chinese,and Joannes Terrent us' Explanationof Wonder nstruments, a treatise onmechanical engineering, achieved acertain vogue. Later,the Jesuits wereto surveythe whole of China,produc-ing, in 10years, the CompleteAtlasofthe Empire,the first map of China to

incorporate latitude and longitude.For the Ming dynasty, the Jesuits de-

signed iron cannon to help stem theManchu tide, overcoming religious

scruples by taking the advice of con-vert Li Chih-tsao:

If they propose to make warriors of you,make use of the title as the tailor does theneedle, which is of no use to him but to

pass his threadthrough; when the stuff issewn and the garment finished, he leaves

it, having no longeroccasion for it.

The simile was an appealing one,and we find the Jesuits taking uptheir needles again, now in the ser-

vice of the Manchus, who succeededthe Ming emperors in 1644. TheJesuits also served as doctors andambassadors and wrote on everyconceivable subject from algebra to

zoology. Verbiest invented a boatand a car poweredby steam and pub-lished 20 volumes on astronomy. Theremarkable convert Hsu Kuang-chiwrote a Thesauruson Agriculture n60 volumes, most likely with the helpof an enormously popular Western

invention eyeglasses .Under the great Manchu ruler

K'ang-hsi, the Jesuit century reached

its pinnacle. A masterly, extraordi-

narily intelligent ruler from adoles-cence, with a shrewd insight intohuman behavior, K'ang-hsi would

occupy the Dragon Throne for 60

years. He had been tutored by Ver-biest, as his father had been tutored

by Schall, and he trusted the Jesuits

implicitly.

A GratefulEmperor

Whenthe Yellow River overflowedits banks, it was to the Jesuits heturnedwhen it came time to disbursethe funds for flood relief, for K'ang-hsi was only too aware of corruptionamong his own officials. When he fellill from malaria, he turned to the

priests forquinine, the newly discov-ered drugknown in China as Jesuit'sbark. It was K'ang-hsi who commis-sioned the fathers to map his empire,

and it was he who appointed JesuitIgnaz Kogler to the Board of Rites,the first European to hold that keyposition.

For these and other services,

K'ang-hsi was grateful. The work ofthe Jesuit missionaries culminatedin 1692 with his famous Edict of Tol-

eration, which at once removed

Christianity from the list of "obnox-ious religions" and accorded it "in-

digenous" status (as had been done

with Buddhism many centuries be-fore). The Jesuits profess "no disor-

derly or disturbing tenets," K'ang-hsi declared, "neither do they allurethe people with treacherous doc-trines nor provoke disturbances with

strange theories." The Edict was fol-lowed in 1700 by the Emperor's"Declaration" approving the Jesuit

interpretation of the Confucianclassics, thereby ratifying the Jesuit

position with regard to the Chinese

Rites. If the Pope had shown as muchtolerance as K'ang-hsi indeed, if hehad simply refrained from "provok-


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FromCameron, arbarians nd Mandarins

Theyoung EmperorK'ang-hsi.

ing disturbances with strangetheories" the Jesuit century mighthave run longer.

Published in Paris

Therole of the Jesuits in China wasclearly a pivotal one- that of trans-

lating the cultures of East and West,one to the other. This mediatingposition is perhaps best symbolizedby the Treaty of Nerchinsk, whichthe Jesuits helped to arrange withRussia in 1689. With its official textin Latin, the treaty represents thefirst accord between China and aEuropean power. Other accom-plishments included the introduc-

tion of higher mathematics into theMiddle Kingdom (Chinese mathe-matics had declined after the intro-

duction of the abacus in the 13th

century) and the technique of per-spective drawing. The paintings ofJesuit Giuseppe Castiglione were so

highly regardedthat they came to bethought of as Chinese art treasures,and as such Chiang Kai-shek tookthem to Taiwan when he fled fromthe mainland in 1949.

The contribution of the Jesuits in

China to European culture was noless spectacular. The missionariesdetermined, for example, that the

Cathay of medieval times was thesame as Renaissance China, endingseveral centuries of fruitless explora-tion for a land that did not exist. ALatin version of the works of Con-fucius was published in Paris, and in1684 Jesuit Philippe Couplet pre-sented to the Pope more than 400

newly translated Chinese works

along with a young Chinese scholar,Michael Shen Fu-tsung. "A little

blinking fellow," as King James II of

England remembered him, Shenlater studied at Oxford and cata-

logued the Chinese manuscripts inthe Bodleian Library.

As European interest in Chineseculture grew, so did the market forchinoiserie. Lacquered furniture and

glazed procelain became common inthe drawing rooms of Western

Europe. Oriental stone bridges andpagodas graced the gardens at Kew.More important, Chinese ethics and

political philosophy exerted tremen-dous impact on such Westernphilos-ophers as Voltaire, Rousseau, andLeibnitz. To the Europeans, theJesuits were the first Sinologists; tothe Chinese, they were the first Oc-cidentalists.

And yet, beneath these outward

signs ofamity

and accord, an under-current of disquiet was running bothin China and Europe. On the Chineseside, the conservative elite remained


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suspicious of the Jesuits and envious designs, many in Europe accused the

of their influence at court. Yang Jesuits of "selling out" Western

Kuang-hsien, who for a time re- superiority, while they attacked the

placed the Jesuit Adam Schall on the priests for accepting high Chinese

Board of Astronomy, was typical. In office - even when it was clear, as

a treatise called Pu-te-I [I could not one scholar has noted, that the

do otherwise], he stated that he Jesuits enjoyed the honors but not

"would rather have no good calendar the emoluments of such positions,than have foreigners in China," add- With the arrival in China in 1632 of

ing "it is exactly because of their ex- the Franciscan and Dominican men-

cellent instruments andexcellent dicant

friars,and with the transfer of

weapons that they are a potential Chinese missionary work to the au-

enemy." thority of the Vicars Apostolic (theFearful of the literati, with whom Pope's emissaries in China), the most

the Jesuits were associated, and of violent phase of the European reac-

such dissident sects as the White tion against Ricci's work corn-

Lotus or Red Eyebrows, some con- menced.

servative Chinese regarded Chris- To understand the ensuing

tianity as similarly subversive. Be- "Chinese Rites" controversy, a brief

fore K'ang-hsi's Edict of Toleration, explanation of the politics of theol-

persecutions of Catholic converts ogy is necessary,

periodically swept through the prov-

inces, and while they were usuallyChristian Rivalries

brought to heel by the Emperor's During the late 15th century, the

swift intervention - the Jesuits had competing claims of Portugal and

foreseen such eventualities - they Spain to the fruits of their global ex-

sometimes reached into Peking itself . plorations threatened to spark a

At one point, the onetime imperial major European conflict. Pope Alex-

favorite, Adam Schall, together with ander VI successfully defused the

some of his Chinese colleagues, was issue in 1493 with his bull Inter cae-

arrested and sentenced to undergo tera, which divided the newly discov-

the ling ch'ih, a lingering death by ered lands between the two nations,

slicing. The persecution abated only giving Spain most of the Americas

when, in 1665, on the day of Schall 's (except Brazil), and Portugal most of

scheduled execution, a violent earth- the Far East (except the Philippines),quake shook Peking. It was inter- The result, for a time, was a virtual

preted as a sign of cosmic displeas- Portuguese monopoly on trade and

ure, and Schall was released. Not missionary activity in the East,

until the Tangshan earthquake of By the early 17th century, how-

1976 would tremors of such mag- ever, it had become clear to the

nitude again shake the region (they Papacy that the herculean task of

were given a similar interpretation converting Cathay and the Indies to

by many Chinese). Christianity was beyond the re-

sources of tiny Portugal. In 1622, theThe Rites Controversy Congregation for the Propagation of

Less understandable is the Euro- the Faith {Propaganda Fide) was es-

pean reaction to what the Jesuits tablished to coordinate the work ofwere accomplishing in China. Al- European missionaries abroad,

ways slow to slough off imperialist Thus, in China, there appeared the

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first challenge to Jesuit hegemony as added, had made it possible for intel-missionaries from the Church'sother lectuals and high-rankingofficials toorders arrived to spread the faith. embrace the faith, for among theThe cracks would widen when the upper classes Confucian observancesVicars Apostolic of the Propaganda were as much a matter of good citi-Fide took titular control over all mis- zenship as of religion. Abandoningsionary operations in China. the Rites, they concluded, would

To the newly arrived mendicant force such higher-ups the backbone

friars, as well as to some Jansenist- of the Chinese Church- from theinfluenced PropagandistVicars, Ric- faith. It should be noted that the

ci's accommodating approach to Jesuits themselves drew the line onChinese culture - the so-called some of the Rites (certain burialChinese Rites- appeared idolatrous practices, for example, were forbid-and intolerable. The friars, unaware den), but they never tried to forceof Chinese feelings about bare feet, their positions on others. The Jesuitwere horrifiedby paintings depicting attitude was best expressed by a con-Christ and the Apostles wearing temporary who wrote: "There isshoes. They attacked traditional danger [to orthodoxy] in admittingChineseobservances in honorof Con- the Rites, but a greater danger in

fucius, ancestors, and the recently suppressing them."

dead, and charged the Jesuits with . WT wfailure to preach "Christ the An Uneasy

TPeace

crucified." (The Jesuits, mindful of The infighting among the compet-Chinese aversion to violence, had ing missionaries quickly grew morestressed "Christthe glorified.") virulent, and when the friars in 1645

The critics didn't stop there. They submitted the dispute to Rome, thecondemned Jesuit adoption of PropagandaFide issued a decree con-Chinese dress and manners, refused demning the Rites. The Jesuits im-to accept the Chinese name for God, mediately appealed, and in 1651,and contended that Confuciuswas in after apprising the Propagandaof nohell. (Friar Domingo Navarrete less than 42 distortions in the friars'

proved this with a syllogism: All in- petition, won a decree permitting thefidels are in hell. Confucius was an Rites. No attempt was made to rec-infidel. Therefore Confucius is in oncile the contradictory pronounce-hell.) Finally, when the Jesuits re- ments, and for a time an uneasyfused to abandon their ChineseRites, peace reigned. Unknown to the

they were accused of disobedience, Jesuits, however, the friars and theand after K'ang-hsi's Declaration Vicars Apostolic continued to pressapproving the Rites, of having "ap- their case in Rome, to which end the

pealed to Caesar"for rulings on mat- Vicar of Fukien had engaged theters better left to God. crafty papal lobbyist Charmot.

The attitude of the newcomers The Jesuits were lulled by a falsethreatenedto undermine the work of sense of security. When they finallya century, and the Jesuits fought defended themselves in severalback hard. They had studied China lengthy written arguments to thefor

manylifetimes,

they argued,and Vatican,

amongthem, the famous

looked upon the Chinese Rites as to- PekingXylograph it was too late. Forkens of respect, not homage to false the Popehad decided in 1701 to send

gods. Cultural accomodation, they a legate to Chinato settle the matter.


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From Cameron, Barbarians and Mandarins.

"The Westerners are small indeed,"wrote an older,embitteredK'ang-hsi.

His choice for the mission was a

French bishop, Charles ThomasMaillarddeTournon.

The End of the Affair

De Tournonarrived in China in1704, scarcely a decade after theEdict of Toleration and only fouryearsafterK'ang-hsis Declarationnfavorof the ChineseRites. In a fewweeks, however,he was well on hisway to undoinga century'swork.Ayoungman of 34 (the Popehad not

consideredthe Chineserespect forage) who lackeddiplomaticexperi-ence,a manofnervous emperamentand Jansenist endencieswho madeupin strongopinionswhathe lackedin tact,de Tournonwas an unhappychoicefor such a mission.He wasre-ceivedpolitelyby theJesuits,but hisarrival pelleddisaster.

The Jesuits had preparedmate-rials for de Tournon to help himmake an

equitabledecision on the

Ritescontroversy.What heydid notknowwas thathehad comenotasanarbiter but as a promulgatorof a

papaldecree.Unfortunately,he de-cree hadnotyet beenpublished,andde Tournondid not know its con-tents. Nevertheless, in Nanking in1707,after heEmperorhadenjoinedhim fromdiscussingthe subject,deTournon ssued his own decree acondemnationof the ChineseRites.The Popewas forced to upholdhislegate.

Angeredat the

insult, K'ang-hsiexpelledthe FrenchmanromChina."Reading his proclamation," e de-clared, "I have concludedthat theWesterners re small indeed. ... Itseems their religion is no differentfrom other small, bigoted sects ofBuddhism r Taoism." n the wakeofthe legate's departure, the wholestructure of accommodation be-tween Chinaandthe Westcollapsed.

The Jesuitcenturyhad ended.Al-

thoughthe Jesuitswould remain ormany yearsin Chinaas technicians,painters,architects,and musicians,they had lost both their capacitytoact as protectorsof provincialmis-sionsand their nfluenceas a linkbe-tween East and West. When theEdict of Tolerationwas effectivelyrevoked n 1707,the missionariesnChina again experienced severepersecution now without imperialprotection.And as the Jesuits suf-

fered at the hands of the Chinese,theysuffered oo at the handsof thepopes,who in 1715 and 1742reiter-ated the ban on the ChineseRitesandin 1773 uppressedheSocietyofJesus altogether.The sentimentsofthe last survivorsmay be gatheredfrom the words of the FrenchJesuitAmiot,who,aftersurveying heruinof his order and the destructionoftheChinamission, eft thisepitaph:

Goawaytraveler,congratulatehedead,condole heliving,pray orall,

marvel,andbe silent.

The Wilson Quarterly Winter 1978

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REFLECTIONS: EBES

POSTSCRIPT

There have been five major periodsof contact between China and theWest in recorded history. ThroughScythian and Persian intermediaries,Greeks and Romans carried oncommerce with the Chinese, thoughthe relationship never rose above

bargaining over prices for Chinese

silk. Later, in the 7th century A.D.,dissident Christian groups settled inthe Middle Kingdom, but thismovement too came to an end as theCrescent of Islam divided East andWest. During the Middle Ages, thenations of Europe sought to engagethe Mongols in an alliance againstthe Moslem infidel. Embassiesmoved back and forth (Mongol mis-sions appeared in Rome in 1248 andlater in

England),but fear of

Mongolexpansion eventually overcame thedesire for joint action. Then in the16th and 17th centuries, Catholic

priests, led by the Jesuits, followed

Portuguese traders to the East, andfor more than a century maintainedclose links with the imperial court at

Peking. Finally, beginning with the

OpiumWarsin 1839, European pow-ers gained a foothold in China thatlasted until a new period of official

isolation began in 1949 with the vic-tory of MaoTse-tung.Of these five contacts, only one

the "Jesuit century" represented aserious Western attempt to engagethe Chinese as equals. In the 16th

century, the doors of self-imposedcultural isolation were opened alittle by Ricci 's method of culturalaccommodation, but it took a

century and a decade more to throwthem wide open. That this congenialexchange lasted, at its height, only afew short years enhances, rather

than diminishes, its importance. Theexperience shows that, while mutualaccommodation is possible, it is also

very difficult.The century of "unequal treaties"

that ended in 1949 left China ex-

ploited, humiliated, unstudied and

groaning under an inferiority com-

plex (how else can one explain, asSimon Leys has noted, the solemnmobilization of 800 million people todenounce a

"punycharlatan" like

filmmaker Antonio Antonioni?). To-

day, almost three decades later, for-

eign tourist groups and official vis-itors are permitted to "bringtribute"or take guided tours, but the im-mense and varied universe of Chinaremains as mysterious and isolatedas it was during the Ming dynasty.

Is there a possibility of reaching anew accommodation today? If so,how long will it take? I cannot an-

swer these questions, but if there isany lesson to be learned from theJesuit accomplishment of four cen-turies ago, it is that nothing will beachieved until Westernersaccept theChinese as cultural equals.


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China's Jesuit Century

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