in-library use, Literature Division - online
A JESUIT IN THE FORBIDDEN CITY
Matteo Ricci 1552–1610
by R. P o - c h i a Hsia
by R. P o - c h i a Hsia
Oxford University Press
on order, RPL
Ricci is to be reminded that his was
one of the most extraordinary missionary
ventures ever undertaken. Paraphrasing
St Paul in 1 Corinthians, St Ignatius of Loyola,
the founder of the Society of Jesus, wrote
in 1553: “We should become all things to all,
so that we may gain all for Christ”. In Ricci’s
case this meant first gaining a deep knowledge
of written and spoken Mandarin and
second adapting his methods to the surroundings
in which the gospel was to be preached.
When he and Michele Ruggieri, the pioneer
of the Jesuit mission, settled in the interior,
they were seen as bearers of new Buddhist
teaching from India. But after Ruggieri had
been recalled to Europe, the Society rejected
identification with Buddhism in favour of Confucianism.
Shaved heads and faces and Buddhist
robes gave way to long hair and beards
and the silk robes and four-cornered hats of
Confucian scholars. Having assumed this new
persona, Ricci set out to show, as R. Po-chia
Hsia puts it, that there were “parallels between
the sayings of the ancient Confucian classics
and the fundamental principles of a pareddown
Christianity, stripped clean of the doctrines
of original sin, the Crucifixion, and
the Resurrection”. He argued that ancient
Chinese beliefs in an omnipotent God had
been subverted by the literati and, above all,
by the introduction of Buddhism..." more