From Early Encounters to the Rites Controversy: Jesuits in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and Sino-Western Cultural Exchange

Author: Zhang Guogang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-12-01
Features: Before the Age of Discovery, Chinese Confucian culture, as represented by East Asia, stood out among the world's civilizations alongside European Christian culture, South Asian Buddhist culture, and West Asian/North African Islamic culture. Among these, the latter three civilizations had relatively close political, religious, and linguistic ties, whereas Chinese civilization possessed a relatively unique cultural character in the global cultural landscape. This is why the initial encounter between China and the West, triggered by the Age of Discovery, carried such a tumultuous historical significance. The controversy over the Chinese Rites revealed that the work of missionaries in the Far East was not about converting "heretics" or those still practicing animism or totemism, but about confronting a highly developed ancient civilization that compelled Catholicism to engage in self-cultural reflection. Whether it was Matteo Ricci's conciliatory strategy, the Jesuits' decoding of Chinese classical texts, or the critiques from the anti-Jesuit faction, all reflected the identity crisis experienced by Western civilization in the face of the unique cultural charm of traditional China. The significance of this issue far exceeded the scope of the Chinese Rites (terminology and sacrificial practices).
We can take two examples. For instance, the Chinese language issue. Genesis 11 in the Bible states that when God created humans, they all spoke the same language. Later, people collaborated to build a tower in the plain of Babel (whose ruins are said to be near the modern Iraqi capital of Baghdad) to demonstrate human power. The tower reached the heavens and was called the Tower of Babel. God, realizing the terrifying power of humanity's unity, used his magic to scatter people across the world and make them speak different languages to prevent them from communicating. Genesis is one of the Torah, the earliest canonical scriptures of Judaism, generally believed to have been compiled from four different source texts around the 4th century BCE, about a century later than Herodotus's Histories. In fact, the story of the primordial language predates even the Bible. Herodotus mentioned an experiment by an ancient Egyptian pharaoh named Psammetico to find the primordial language. The pharaoh believed that if newborn infants were isolated from the language of their time and spoke to each other, the language they spoke would be the one taught by God. Thus, he ordered that a pair of newborn twins be separated from their mother and raised by shepherds alone, with no one allowed to speak to the infants, under penalty of death. After two years, when the children were old enough to speak, the pharaoh ordered that they be deprived of food, believing that hunger would force them to speak the original language of humanity. The observers reported to the pharaoh that the infants' words resembled the word for "bread" in Scottish. The pharaoh was delighted and declared Scottish the original language of humanity. In the 13th century, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II also conducted a similar experiment, but the test subjects tragically died. In a world dominated by biblical knowledge, the search for the primordial language had long been a popular topic. For a long time after the 16th century, when Europeans came into contact with Chinese, questions about the origins of the Chinese language, whether it was the primordial language created by God, and whether it was a rational, logical, or philosophical language were hotly debated among European intellectuals.
Another example is the Chinese historical chronology issue. From the writings of Juan de Pantoja and Alvaro de Semedo to those of and, knowledge of Chinese chronology gradually spread to Europe. In the 17th century, European scholars were greatly perplexed by the fact that it was even older than the history in the Bible! Thus, controversy erupted over whether the ancient history of China contradicted the biblical chronology. The Chinese historical system introduced by the Jesuits to Europe caused an identity crisis in the Western religious and secular world, the impact of which was immense. Some doubted it, others rejected it, while others accepted it. At that time, scholars boldly proposed the hypothesis of "Adam's Predecessors" using the historical chronology of the Chinese nation. Of course, the main focus remained on reconciling the contradictions between the ancient history of China and the biblical system. Some scholars used the Septuagint to discuss issues such as the "age of the world." The Septuagint could harmonize the historical chronology of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Chinese with the biblical timeline. Additionally, the moral philosophy of Confucius, which underwent rapid changes in European society during the 17th and 18th centuries, was enthusiastically embraced by Enlightenment figures like Leibniz and Voltaire.
In summary, through three centuries of cultural contact and exchange between China and Europe from the late Ming Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty (1500-1800), traditional China as a supplementary factor shook the Western world system represented by the Bible. Here, "traditional China" as an independent cultural entity participated in the construction of Western modernity. In later years, the Chinese factor gradually faded and even disappeared, but the imprint of this "initial encounter" remained deeply rooted, continuing to influence Western perceptions of China to this day. If we focus on the "transmission" aspect for now and temporarily ignore its consequences, then the cultural exchange between China and Europe during the 16th to 18th centuries can be seen as a history of communication primarily mediated by Jesuits in China, with auxiliary channels including other missionaries, merchants, and envoys. This period of Sino-Western interaction unfolded alongside Europe's global conquest, but it was also based on a relatively equal footing, without involving sovereignty or political interests. The image of European colonizers had not yet become clear along the Chinese coast. European merchant ships and warships sailed to China's shores, but unknown Western warships dared not rashly disturb China. At this time, Europeans, awed by China's long-standing reputation, sought peaceful trade and repeatedly sent missions to secure greater trading benefits, but in most cases, their efforts were unsuccessful. The Chinese showed little interest in distant foreigners, merely guarding their own coastlines and a few ports for annual trade with European merchants and merchants from tributary states, watching them carry away shiploads of silk, tea, porcelain, and lacquerware with a sense of benevolence. Chinese merchants and port officials, faced with Europeans who were vastly different in language, dress, and appearance, were perhaps not much moved by their curiosity beyond routine duties. In contrast, European envoys to China were fascinated by the country's landscapes, flora, fauna, and customs, recording many observations and comments during their journeys to and from the capital. These accounts became a catalyst, rekindling the romantic sentiments and boundless imagination of Europeans about China, following Marco Polo's travels. Even European travelers who had not visited China but had only been in its vicinity rushed to present their hearsay impressions of China to European readers, satisfying both their own curiosity and that of their fellow Europeans who had never been to the East. Amplifying this were the shiploads of Chinese goods—porcelain, silk, lacquerware, tea—landing in Lisbon, Antwerp, Amsterdam, or London, showcasing a dazzling, colorful China that could be seen, touched, felt, and tasted. Thus, the beauty, wealth, and power of China had already deeply impressed the Europeans by the 16th century, and it was rumored to be a culturally advanced nation.
In the late 16th century, learned and respected Jesuits arrived in China and announced to their European colleagues that they had witnessed the true civilization and prosperity of China. On top of the image of a materially advanced China that dazzled the European masses, they presented an image of a China with a high level of spiritual civilization that excited European intellectuals. The limitations of envoys and merchants were that they could not deeply explore China or reside there long, nor could they understand its language or appreciate its cultural artifacts. The Jesuits, with their extraordinary creative spirit, overcame China's resistance to foreign cultures by partially aligning Catholicism with Confucianism to gain the respect and recognition of Chinese scholars, and by tolerating certain Chinese rituals and customs to avoid being seen as opponents or disruptors of Chinese social order and law. In an era where foreigners were more feared than welcomed, they became the only foreign group permitted to move freely within China. This privilege, combined with their proactive approach to learning Chinese and its culture, not only allowed them to achieve greater missionary success and influence in China than other religious orders but also made them pioneers in introducing Chinese culture to Europe and vice versa, serving as the primary medium for Sino-Western cultural exchange during the late Ming and early Qing periods.
However, the activities of the Jesuits were almost entirely shadowed by the controversy over the Chinese Rites. While their methods of adapting to Chinese culture brought them great honor, they also burdened them with the heavy weight of the controversy. Thus, this period of Sino-Western cultural exchange, mediated primarily by Jesuits, was deeply marked by the Rites Controversy. In fact, as the Rites Controversy was suppressed, this Sino-Western cultural exchange also stagnated. By 1775, when the decree dissolving the Jesuits reached Beijing, this direct encounter between China and the West had come to an end. In October 1793, the last Jesuit in China, Jean-Baptiste Jartoux, died, symbolically closing the curtain on the Jesuit-led Sino-European exchange. Around the same time, the arrival of the British envoy Lord Macartney in China seemed to pick up the thread of Sino-Western interaction in terms of timing, but in reality, it was the prelude to a new story of exchange with a fundamentally different nature.