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

Author: Zhang Guogang
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Features: Before the Age of Discovery, the Confucian culture of East Asia, represented by China, along with the Christian culture of Europe, the Buddhist culture of South Asia, and the Islamic culture of West Asia and North Africa, were the most representative forms of civilization in the world. Among these, the latter three civilizations had relatively close ties in politics, religion, and language, while Chinese civilization possessed a relatively unique cultural character in the global cultural landscape. Therefore, the initial encounter between China and the West, triggered by the Age of Discovery, was so historically tumultuous. The controversy over the Chinese Rites revealed that the work of missionaries in the Far East was not to convert "heretics" or those still practicing animism or totemism, but to confront a highly developed ancient civilization that forced 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 of 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 issues, sacrificial issues). We can take two examples. For instance, the Chinese language issue. Genesis 11 of the Bible states that when God created humans, they all spoke the same language. Later, people worked together to build a tower on the plain of Babylon (whose ruins are said to be near the modern city of Baghdad in Iraq) to demonstrate human power. The tower reached the heavens and was called the Tower of Babel. God, realizing the terrifying power of humanity united, used his magic to scatter people across the world and make them speak different languages to prevent them from communicating with each other. Genesis is one of the Torah, the earliest canonical holy books 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 is even older than the history of the Bible. Herodotus mentioned an experiment by an ancient Egyptian pharaoh to find the primordial language. A pharaoh named Psammetico, who ruled later in ancient Egypt, believed that if newborn infants were not influenced by the language of their contemporaries and spoke to each other, the language they spoke would be the one taught by God. Therefore, the pharaoh ordered that a pair of newborn twins be separated from their mothers 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 primordial language. The result was that observers reported to the pharaoh that the infants' words were similar to the word "bread" in Scottish. The pharaoh was delighted and declared that Scottish was the primordial language of humanity. Emperor Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire in the 13th century also conducted a similar experiment, but unfortunately, the test subjects died. In a world dominated by biblical knowledge, the search for the primordial language was a popular topic for a long time. For a long period 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 hot topics of discussion among European scholars. Another example is the Chinese historical chronology issue. From the writings of Juan de Paredes and Alvaro de Valdes to those of Johann Adam Schall von Bell and Ferdinand Verbiest, knowledge of Chinese chronology gradually spread to Europe. The greatest puzzle for European scholars in the 17th century was that it was even older than the history in the Bible! Thus, controversy arose over whether the ancient history of China contradicted the biblical chronology. The ancient Chinese historical system introduced by the Jesuits to Europe caused an identity crisis in the Western religious and secular world about the world they knew, and the shock was immense. Some doubted it, some rejected it, and some accepted it. At that time, scholars courageously proposed the hypothesis of "Adam's Predecessors" using the historical chronology of the Chinese nation. Of course, the main focus was still 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 chronology. Additionally, there was the issue of Confucian moral philosophy. In the rapidly changing European society of the 17th and 18th centuries, Confucian moral philosophy also inspired the enthusiastic praise of Enlightenment figures like Leibniz and Voltaire. In summary, through three centuries (1500-1800) of cultural contact and exchange between China and Europe from the late Ming to the early Qing period, 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 modern civilization. In the years that followed, the Chinese factor gradually receded and even vanished, but the imprint of this "initial encounter" was always so profound, continuing to influence Western perceptions of China to this day. If we focus on the "transmission" aspect for now and temporarily ignore the consequences of transmission, then the cultural exchange between China and Europe in the 16th and 18th centuries can be seen as a history of exchange primarily mediated by Jesuits in China, with other missionaries, merchants, and envoys serving as auxiliary channels. This period of Sino-Western interaction unfolded alongside Europe's process of 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 far and wide, including to the coast of China. Unknown Western warships, wary of the reputation China had long cultivated, dared not rashly interfere with China and instead sought peaceful trade with China, repeatedly sending delegations to seek greater trade benefits, but largely without success. The Chinese showed little interest in distant foreigners and merely guarded their own coastline and a few ports, conducting annual trade with European merchants and merchants from tributary states, watching with a somewhat benevolent attitude as they shipped away boatloads of silk, tea, porcelain, and lacquerware. Chinese merchants and port officials, faced with Europeans who were vastly different in language, dress, and appearance, were perhaps not much moved by curiosity beyond their routine duties. In contrast, European envoys to China were deeply fascinated by the country's landscapes, flora, fauna, customs, and traditions, recording many observations and comments during their journeys to and from the capital. They became the catalysts that rekindled the romantic feelings and boundless imagination of Europeans about China, following in the footsteps of Marco Polo's Travels. Even European travelers who had not visited China but had only been in the surrounding regions rushed to present their hearsay impressions of China to European readers, satisfying both their own curiosity and that of their fellow Europeans who had not yet set foot in 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, and vibrant China that could be seen, touched, felt, and tasted. In this way, the beauty, wealth, and power of China had already deeply penetrated the hearts of 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 could witness the true civilization and prosperity of China. From then on, they added to the image of China as a land of material wealth that dazzled the European masses with its advanced civilization, stirring excitement in European intellectuals with its high level of spiritual civilization. The limitations of envoys and merchants were that they could not delve deeply into China or stay long-term, nor could they understand the Chinese language or appreciate Chinese artifacts. The Jesuits, however, overcame China's resistance to foreign culture with their extraordinary creativity by partially aligning Catholicism with Confucianism to win the respect and recognition of Chinese scholars, while also 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 and enthusiastic efforts to learn the Chinese language and 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 in a comprehensive and in-depth manner. They also served as pioneers in introducing Western culture to China, acting as the primary mediators of Sino-Western cultural exchange during the late Ming and early Qing periods. However, the activities of the Jesuits were almost entirely shrouded in the shadow of the controversy over the Chinese Rites. Their methods of adapting to Chinese culture brought them great glory but also the heavy burden of the controversy, leaving an indelible mark on this period of Sino-Western cultural exchange. In fact, as the controversy over the Chinese Rites was suppressed, this period of 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-Western interaction. Around the same time, the British envoy Lord Macartney visited China, and from a chronological perspective, it seemed to continue the thread of Sino-Western exchange. However, this was truly the prelude to a new story of interaction with a fundamentally different nature.