III
The Jesuits were meanwhile faced with a crisis of
their own, the Rites
Controversy. In its origins this
bitter struggle within the Catholic Church
can be
traced to Ricci's view, which stressed the idea that no
essential conflict existed between Confucianism in its
pristine form and
the tenets of Christianity. The origi-
nal
doctrines of Confucius, according to Ricci, taught
monotheism and possibly
even contained a primitive
knowledge of Jehovah. Corruption of ancient
Confu-
cianism had taken place over the
centuries as was
clearly demonstrated by the growth of Taoism and the
successful introduction of Buddhism into China.
Father Nicolas Longobardi, the Jesuit successor of
Ricci at Peking, was
himself skeptical that the ancient
Chinese had knowledge of the true God.
The Domini-
can and Franciscan missionaries,
who began to evan-
gelize in south China in
the 1630's, were hostile to
“accommodation” in any
form. They branded all the
Chinese sects as idolatrous, and initially made
no seri-
ous efforts to study the language or to
understand
Chinese civilization. The two methods of evangelizing
quickly came into conflict, as each group embarrassed
and outraged the
other. It was not long before the issue
was joined in Europe as well as in
the East.
At first the controversy raged over the question as
to whether or not the
ancient Chinese had a conception
of the true God. Soon this debate led to
the more
practical question of the Chinese term best suited to
render
in its full significance the Christian conception
of God, a problem that
the Jesuits had earlier resolved
in Japan by introducing the Latin word Deus into
Japanese. But in China, where the Jesuit
linguists knew
that new terms could not so readily be added to the
language, and where the Jesuits held that there already
existed a primitive
conception of Jehovah, the question
of terminology could not be so adroitly
handled. A host
of other Christian terms, “soul” and
“spirit” for exam-
ple,
could not easily be given Chinese equivalents that
would carry with them
the overtones that these words
and concepts necessarily must have for
believers. To
the Dominicans and Franciscans the Confucianists for
all
their learning were simple atheists or agnostics who
taught a materialistic
doctrine inimical to the Christian
faith. They were particularly outraged
when the Jesuits
permitted their Christian converts to continue per-
forming ancestral rites. The Jesuits,
following the logic
of their original position, held that these rites were
social
and political rather than religious ceremonies.
The controversialists first appealed to Rome for an
opinion in 1645. Pope
Innocent X took a position that
was critical of the Jesuit policies. But in
1656, Pope
Alexander VII took a benign attitude on the question
of the
“Chinese rites” and granted that they should
be
permissible under certain conditions. The Domini-
can, Domingo Fernández Navarrete, then assumed
leadership
in the struggle against the Jesuits. In China,
where he was superior of the
Dominican mission from
1664, Navarrete gathered a mass of data relating
to
the “terms” and “rites”
questions. On the basis of these
he prepared two imposing and authoritative
volumes
called Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos
y religiosos
de la Monarchia de China (Rome, 1674). While it
was
a powerful attack upon the Jesuit position, Navarrete's
book was
also an excellent compilation of observations
on Chinese life, customs, and
practices.
At this juncture the authorities in Rome became
understandably confused and
disturbed over the Rites
Question. The Congregation of the Propaganda
in
Rome decided to include the China question among
the problems of
general missionary activity and proce-
dure
then under investigation. The learned of Europe
were consulted and began to
take sides on the question.
The Missions
étrangères in Paris, which had increas-
ingly become critical of the Jesuit
effort to dominate
the mission field, urged the Holy See to dispatch
an
Apostolic Vicar to China. Charles Maigrot, sent to
China in this
capacity, stood firmly in his mandate of
1693 against the practices being
followed by the
Jesuits. In Europe the Jansenists joined forces with
those who denounced the Jesuit practices in China. The
faculty of the
Sorbonne in 1700 condemned the view
advanced by the Jesuit, Louis Le Comte,
that the
primitive Chinese had practiced morality while the rest
of
the world still lived in corruption. The Rites Con-
troversy, as it became involved with the Jesuit-Jansenist
debate, threatened to produce an irreparable split
within the Church.
In a dramatic effort to investigate and resolve the
controversy, Pope
Clement XI sent a special legate to
China in the person of Charles de
Tournon, Patriarch
of Antioch. The De Tournon legation arrived at
Canton
in 1705 to begin its investigation. The atmosphere
blackened
quickly when, in 1706, De Tournon roundly
denounced the Chinese, including
the emperor, as
atheists. Opposed on all sides for his ignorance and
intolerance, the legate was condemned and arrested
by the Chinese. De
Tournon died in China in 1710
without retracting. In Europe the Papacy
forbade
further controversy, and in 1715 issued the constitution
ex illa die which clearly condemned the Jesuit position.
Controversy nonetheless continued, both in Europe and
China,
until a strong papal pronouncement,
ex quo
singulari, was issued in 1742 requiring the Jesuits in
China to
take a special oath to abide by the papal
decisions.
