Sages from the West—the Story of Matteo Ricci and his Fellow Jesuits
(利玛窦–促进西学东渐的第一人)
In the mid-16th century, Jesuits, members of the Society of Jesus of the Catholic Church, first attempted to establish a mission in China. In 1552, St. Francis Xavier reached the Shangchuan Island (上川岛) off the coast of Southern China near Macau (澳门). The year 1552 marked the passing of Francis Xavier, yet another legendary missionary, Matteo Ricci (利玛窦), was born in Italy that year. After Xavier’s passing, the Jesuit’s pursuit of a mission in China stalled for nearly 30 years.
By this time, Catholic missionaries had been trying but unsuccessful to establish a mission in China because the Ming court had strict control over its borders. The Jesuits had realized that a colonial approach would not work in sophisticated Asian cultures, and the church must be “Indian in India, Japanese in Japan, and Chinese in China.”
In 1582, Ricci arrived in Macau and started studying Chinese. Ricci’s amazing linguistic talent for Chinese made him the first choice to be sent north into China. On his way north, Ricci established Catholic communities in Shaozhou (韶州), Nanchang (南昌), Nanjing (南京), and finally Beijing (北京) in 1601. In order to win China for Christ, Ricci and his fellow Jesuits became Chinese in all things—wore Chinese clothing, spoke and wrote Chinese, ate Chinese food, made Chinese friends, and lived among Chinese people. In return, the Chinese people found the Jesuits’ acceptance of the local culture commendable and became open to their faith. Though not the first, Ricci certainly was the most influential Western missionary in China in not only establishing a Catholic presence but also in promoting east-west cultural exchange. In 1998, the Life Magazine selected Matteo Ricci as one of the 100 Most Important People of the Past 1000 Years.
Ricci’s expertise in Western sciences, especially astronomy, and his mastery of the Chinese language and customs enabled him entrée into China’s elite class. He used astronomy to make his religious message more palatable to the Chinese. Moreover, knowing that the Chinese elite class was steeped in Confucianism, he emphasized parallels between Christianity and Confucian ethics, focused on shared values rather than conversion, and helped Chinese intellectuals view Christianity as compatible with their own traditions.
Ricci was truly a Renaissance man. He became renowned for the creation of the Great Map of Then Thousand Countries (坤舆万国全图, image below), which showed China at the center of the world. He also collaborated with an early convert and Ming official Xu Guangqi (徐光启) to translate Euclid’s Elements, a foundational geometry text, into Chinese. The feature image, from the Villanova University Digital Library, depicts Ricci meeting with Xu Guangqi.
During his years in Beijing, Ricci wrote several books in Chinese, including the Secure Treatise on God (天主实义, 1603), the Twenty-Five Sayings (二十五言, 1605), the First Six Books of Euclid (欧几里得前六书, 1607), and the Ten Essays on the Extraordinary Man (畸人十篇, 1608).
Ricci and his fellow Jesuits were also active in transmitting Chinese knowledge to Europe. When the book China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matteo Ricci was published in Latin in 1615, it was considered as the first book that introduced China systematically and correctly. Several Confucian classics, including the Book of Great Learning (大学) were translated into Latin. These translated works spread throughout the educated elites and thinkers and were later credited for influencing the development of secular governance as distinct from theocracies in Europe.
Other missionaries went to China following Ricci’s footsteps. Most notable among them were Johann Adam Schall von Bell (汤若望), a German Jesuit; Ferdinand Verbiest (南怀仁), a Flemish Jesuit; and Giuseppe Castiglione (郎世宁), an Italian Jesuit.
Von Bell, who started missionary work in China in 1622, was an astronomer. He became an adviser to the Qing Emperor Shunzhi (顺治皇帝) after the upstart Manchurian army established the Qing court in Beijing in 1644. Because of his astronomy knowledge, he was asked to translate Western astronomical books and reform the Chinese calendar based on Western astronomy. He was also appointed the director of the Imperial Astronomical Observatory.
Verbiest, an accomplished mathematician and astronomer, reached China in 1658. While serving in the court of the Qing Emperor Kangxi (康熙), he was asked to lead and rebuild the Beijing Observatory. He became close friends with Kangxi, who frequently requested his instruction in geometry, philosophy, and music.
Castiglione entered China in 1715 and served as a court-appointed artist under three Qing emperors—Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong (康熙, 雍正, 乾隆). By adapting his European painting style to Chinese themes and taste, he created a unique fusion of the two traditions. The image below shows a section of Castiglione’s monumental handscroll-painting, One Hundred Horses (百骏图). This nearly eight-meter long painting is now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei (国立故宫博物馆). Moreover, he led the design of the Western style palaces in the Old Summer Palace, Yuanmingyuan (圆明园).
By the time of Ricci’s death, there were perhaps 2500 Christians in China and the Jesuit mission continued. The Jesuits achieved this success party due to their “Chinese in China” strategy. They were followed by Franciscan, Augustinian, and Dominican missionaries, who were not as accommodating to Chinese customs as the Jesuits. By late 17th century, Vatican became uneasy about the Jesuits’ practice of Chinese customs, such as using Shangdi (上帝) and Tianzhu (天主) for God, and allowing sacrifices to Confucius and ancestors. In 1704, Pope Clement XI banned these practices. The Qing Emperor Kangxi (康熙皇帝) was not happy with Clement’s decree and in response banned the Catholic missions in China. Catholicism in China was never the same after this conflict.
In pursuit of their evangelical goal, the Jesuits offered to share their scientific knowledge with the Chinese elites. Because of the Chinese tradition of deep respect for knowledge, this jesture greatly appealed to the Chinese, helping to not only establish a foothold for the Church but also open up some Chinese minds to Western sciences. Until the Pope dismissed the Jesuit order in 1773, about 173 titles of Western scientific works, mainly on astronomy and mathematics, were translated and introduced to China, opening a window of new learning for the Chinese. On balance, the Jesuits’ scientific influence in China was probably more important than their religious legacy. Thus, Jesuits were largely responsible for the earliest introduction of the Western science to China in the modern period. However, with the loss of this bridge to Western knowledge after 1773, China fell deeper into isolation while the West was making great progress in science, technology, and humanities.
In 1939, Pope Pius XII authorized Chinese Catholics to observe ancestral rites and participate in ceremonies in honoring Confucius. The Second Vatican Council (1962 – 65) further proclaimed that native traditions could be admitted into the liturgy of the church, as long as they were in harmony with the spirit of the liturgy.