II
The Jesuits of the last generation of the sixteenth
century had directed
their efforts toward the develop-
ment of a
policy and program that would help them
to penetrate the Chinese mainland
and establish rela-
tions with the highest
levels of cultivated society. On
the basis of their experiences at Macao,
the Jesuits
under Valignano's leadership decided to pursue a policy
of
“accommodation,” or cultural compromise. It was
in
this conciliatory spirit that the Jesuits began to study
seriously Chinese
language, customs, and learning.
Matteo Ricci, an Italian priest, appeared
on the
Chinese mainland in 1583, established cordial relations
with
Chinese officials and scholars, and ultimately
made his way to the imperial
court in Peking.
Ricci resided at Peking from 1601 to his death in
1610. During that decade
he won the confidence of
the Ming Emperor and the Confucian literati
through
his gracious and dignified bearing, his polite and intel-
ligent absorption in Chinese learning,
and his sincere
and sophisticated efforts to explain Western science
and
Christian teachings in terms that could be appreciated
and
understood by the learned and tolerant. While
writing of Western thought
and religion in Chinese,
Ricci composed a manuscript history of the introduc-
tion of Christianity to China. His
Italian text, and
references from his Journals, were
translated into Latin
by Father Nicolas Trigault while on a sea voyage
from
China to Europe. Trigault published Ricci's work in
five books
under the title De Christiana expeditione
apud
Sinas... (Rome, 1615). This account was quickly
accepted
throughout Europe as the official, best in-
formed, and most recent exposition on China and the
progress of
Christianity there. Within a few years after
its appearance, translations
were issued in French,
German, Spanish, and Italian. The first and the
last
of Ricci's books deal with China; the others are mainly
concerned
with the history of the mission.
Ricci, unlike Mendoza, was a close student of China's
thought and religions.
Since he lived in China at a time
when Buddhism and Taoism were
degenerating, his
works exhibit forthright scorn for them. Especially
repellent are Buddhist practices which appear to be
devilish parodies of
Christian rites. The “delirium” and
“ravings” of the Taoists about Lao-Tze he attributes
to the inspiration of the devil. Confucianism, the offi-
cial thought of the literati, is much more to
Ricci's
taste. Confucius he sees as the equal of the best pagan
philosophers of antiquity and superior to many of them.
The emphasis in
Confucianism upon morality, ration-
alism,
public order, and teaching by precept and ex-
ample appeal to Ricci as being in accord with Christian
principles. He points out further that the Confucianists
have no idols,
believe in one God, and revere the
principle of reward for good and
punishment for evil.
The Chinese literati convinced Ricci that Confu-
cianism was not a competing faith but rather a set of
moral
precepts which was used for the proper govern-
ment and general welfare of the state. Ricci was also
led to believe
that Confucianism “could derive great
benefit from Christianity
and might be developed and
perfected by it” (Gallagher, p. 98).
It was Ricci's sim-
plistic presentations of
early Confucianism, uncompli-
cated by the
subtleties of later exegesis, that led several
generations of Jesuits to
believe that China could best
be won by close study of the Confucian
Classics, by
alliance with a native literati devoted to its moral
precepts, and by conversion of the leading lights of
the realm and the
emperor himself to Christianity. To
the Jesuits at home such a program
seemed congenial
and likely, for it paralleled closely the
educational,
social, and conversion policies that they were then
following in Europe.
The Jesuit successors of Ricci in China included a
number of mathematicians
and scientists who contin-
ued to advance the
cultural mission. Reports on their
progress began to appear in Europe at
mid-century.
Alvaro Semedo, a Portuguese Jesuit, published at
Madrid
in 1642 a work on the empire of China in
which he pays far greater
attention to secular affairs
than Ricci had. He also gives the text of and
explana-
tory notes for the Nestorian
monument found at Sianfu
in 1625. He informs Europe about the wars
being
fought between the Ming and the Manchus. More
material on the
calamitous events taking place in north
China was provided with the
publication of Father
Martin Martini's De bello
Tartarico historia (Rome,
1654). In the following year
Martini published his
Novus Atlas Sinensis (Amsterdam), the first
scientific
atlas and geography of China and one that remains
a
standard reference work. In 1658 Martini published
at Munich his Sinicae historiae, the first history of
China
written by a European from Chinese annals. In
the meantime Father Michel
Boym had returned to
Europe to announce in 1654 the conversion to Chris-
tianity of members of the expiring
Ming family and
court. Far more important for European science and
thought was the publication of Boym's Flora
Sinensis
(Vienna, 1656), a work comparable in intellectual
merit to Martini's Atlas.
The Jesuits also published Latin translations of
selected Confucian
Classics. Prospero Intorcetta issued
the translation by Ignatius da Costa
of the Ta Hsüeh
(“Great
Learning”) in his Sapientia sinica
(Goa, 1662).
At Paris in 1673, Intorcetta published his own transla
tion of the Chung yung (Doctrine of the Mean). Four-
teen years later a group of French Jesuits headed by
Philippe
Couplet published the Confucius Sinarum
Philosophus (Paris) and dedicated it to King Louis XIV.
It
contains translations of the Classics previously pub-
lished as well as the Lun Yü
(“Analects”). Francisco
Noël in his Sinensis imperii libri classici sex (Prague,
1711)
republished the earlier translations and added
to them his own version of
the Meng-tzu (“Mencius”),
the
Hsiao ching (“Filial
Piety”), and the Hsiao
hsüeh
(“Moral Philosophy for
Youths”), a small work of inter-
pretation by Chu Hsi (1130-1200) that was then used
in China for
elementary instruction in the Classics. The
Classics selected by the
Jesuits for translation were
those which had been given new prominence by
Chu
Hsi and the Neo-Confucianists of the orthodox school
then dominant
in China.
While the Jesuits provided scholarly treatises and
translations of the
Confucian Classics, the merchants
and diplomatic emissaries of Europe
supplied by their
accounts a less sophisticated and a more
impressionistic
documentation on China and its people. The Dutch,
who
had been sailing directly to the East since 1595,
became particularly
aggressive in the 1620's as they
sought to secure a monopoly of the trade
with China.
In connection with these efforts they established a fort
and settlement in southern Taiwan in 1624. But with
the dynastic troubles
that swept China, Dutch hopes
for an expanded trade were quickly
disappointed. Once
the Ch'ing dynasty took over at Peking, the Dutch
tried
to negotiate directly at the capital. But the embassies
sent to
Peking in 1656, 1667, and 1685 produced few
concrete results, and so no
further efforts were made
to establish legitimate trading relations with
China.
The Dutch produced a number of independent ac-
counts of China that were published in Europe be-
tween 1644 and 1670. Isaac Commelin issued a collec-
tion of early Dutch travel accounts in
1644 that was
followed two years later by the publication of William
Bontekoe's Journal. These reminiscences paint a pic-
ture of the Chinese that is far different
from the glow-
ing and adulatory image of an
ancient, rational society
created by the Jesuits. To the Dutch observers
the
Chinese were sinister, devoid of all virtue, and experts
in
treachery. The Dutch emissary, Johann Nieuhof, in
his account of the
embassy of 1665, presents a more
balanced view of China based both on the
Jesuit writers
and his own experiences. Olfert Dapper, a Dutch phy-
sician, compiled in Holland the reports of
the second
Dutch embassy to Peking, and in 1670 issued an ency-
clopedic compendium on China gleaned
from the em-
bassy descriptions and a wide range
of other sources.
His book, entitled Atlas
Chinensis in its English trans-
lation, is often erroneously attributed to Arnoldus
Montanus. The Dutch accounts share a distrust of the
Chinese
and a skeptical view of China's vaunted civili-
zation. The Dutch also provided Europe with its first
comprehensive descriptions of the Chinese island of
Taiwan, and of the
widespread ruin produced on the
mainland by the dynastic wars.
