Figurist
Encyclopedia
I Ching
The I Ching or "Yì Jīng" , also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts...
as a prophetic book containing the mysteries of Christianity,
and prioritized working with the Qing
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
Emperor (rather than with the Chinese literati) as a way of promoting Christianity in China.
Background
Since Matteo RicciMatteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci, SJ was an Italian Jesuit priest, and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China Mission, as it existed in the 17th-18th centuries. His current title is Servant of God....
's pioneering work in China in 1583-1610, the Jesuit missionaries in China
Jesuit China missions
The history of the missions of the Jesuits in China is part of the history of relations between China and the Western world. The missionary efforts and other work of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, between the 16th and 17th century played a significant role in continuing the transmission of...
worked on a program of integrating Christianity with the Chinese traditions. Ricci and his followers identified three "sects" present in China
Religion in China
Religion in China has been characterized by pluralism since the beginning of Chinese history. The Chinese religions are family-oriented and do not demand the exclusive adherence of members. Some scholars doubt the use of the term "religion" in reference to Buddhism and Taoism, and suggest "cultural...
- Confuciansim, Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, and Taoism
Taoism
Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...
. While viewing Buddhism and Taoism as "pagan" religions inimical to Christianity, Ricci's approach - predominant with the Jesuits in China throughout most of the 17th century - viewed Confucianism as, essentially, a moral teaching that was compatible with, rather than contradictory to, the Christian beliefs. The viewed Confucian rites
such as those having to do with the veneration of the dead
Veneration of the dead
Veneration of the dead is based on the belief that the deceased, often family members, have a continued existence and/or possess the ability to influence the fortune of the living...
, as essentially civil functions, meant to edify the people in virtuous morals, rather than as religious rites. On this basis the Jesuits centered their work in China on the interaction with the Chinese Confucian literati
Scholar-bureaucrats
Scholar-officials or Scholar-bureaucrats were civil servants appointed by the emperor of China to perform day-to-day governance from the Sui Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, China's last imperial dynasty. These officials mostly came from the well-educated men known as the...
, trying to convince them of their theories and consequently convert them to the Christian faith. When addressing the European public, the China-based Jesuit missionaries strove to present Confucianism, as represented by its Four Books, in favorable light - the effort culminated with the publications of Confucius Sinarum Philosophus in 1687 in Paris.
After the fall of the Ming Dynasty
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
(fall of Beijing in 1644) and the Manchu
Manchu
The Manchu people or Man are an ethnic minority of China who originated in Manchuria . During their rise in the 17th century, with the help of the Ming dynasty rebels , they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which...
conquest of the entire country (by the early 1650s), the Jesuits in China had to switch their allegiance from the Ming Dynasty to the Manchu Qing
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
, just as most of the Chinese literati eventually did. They soon found themselves working in a quite different intellectual and political environment than their predecessors during the Ming era. While in Ricci's days the Jesuits were not in a position to work directly with the emperor (the reclusive Wanli Emperor
Wanli Emperor
The Wanli Emperor was emperor of China between 1572 and 1620. His era name means "Ten thousand calendars". Born Zhu Yijun, he was the Longqing Emperor's third son...
(r. 1572-1620) largely removed himself from the public life, and rarely gave audiences to anyone, even his own Grand Secretary
Grand Secretariat
The Grand Secretariat was nominally a coordinating agency but de facto the highest institution in the Ming imperial government. It first took shape after Emperor Hongwu abolished the office of Chancellor in 1380 and gradually evolved into an effective coordinating organ superimposed on the Six...
), the early Qing emperors - Shunzhi, and in particular Kangxi
Kangxi Emperor
The Kangxi Emperor ; Manchu: elhe taifin hūwangdi ; Mongolian: Энх-Амгалан хаан, 4 May 1654 –20 December 1722) was the fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the first to be born on Chinese soil south of the Pass and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, from 1661 to 1722.Kangxi's...
- were not below dealing directly with the Jesuits and using their services for the needs of the central government. On the other hand, the Chinese Confucian thought had changed as well: the more open outlook of the late-Ming literati was replaced in the early Qing period by widespread clinging to the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy, which was endorsed by the court as well, but had been traditionally disapproved by the Jesuits as "atheistic" and "materialistic".
Accordingly, by the late 17th century the way whereby the China-based Jesuits strove to bridge the gap between China and the Christian Europe had changed as well. Instead of praising Confucius and the ideology attributed to him, many Jesuits, led by Joachim Bouvet
Joachim Bouvet
Joachim Bouvet was a French Jesuit who worked in China, and the leading member of the Figurist movement.-Biography:...
(who first arrived to China in 1688), focused on China's earliest classic, I Ching
I Ching
The I Ching or "Yì Jīng" , also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts...
, which Bouvet viewed as the oldest written work in the world, containing "precious vestiges from the remains of the most ancient and excellent philosophy taught by the first patriarchs of the world". The Figurists maintained the belief of the early Jesuit missionaries in China that China's ancient religion, now almost lost, was connected to the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Figurist tenets
The Figurists often disagreed with each other but there were three basic tenets on which they could agree:1. The Issue of Chronology
The first aspect that all Figurists agreed upon was the belief that a certain period in the Chinese history does not belong to the Chinese only but to all of mankind. The Jesuits furthermore believed that Chinese history dated back before the Flood
Flood
A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water...
and was therefore as old as European history. This made the Figurists believe that the two histories were equal in religious importance.
2. The Theory of Common Origin with Noah
Noah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
After the great Flood, Noah’s son Shem
Shem
Shem was one of the sons of Noah in the Hebrew Bible as well as in Islamic literature. He is most popularly regarded as the eldest son, though some traditions regard him as the second son. Genesis 10:21 refers to relative ages of Shem and his brother Japheth, but with sufficient ambiguity in each...
moved to the Far East and brought with him the secret knowledge of Adam in original purity. Thus the Figurists believed that you could find many hidden allusions to pre-Christian revelation in the Chinese classics.
Bouvet also thought that Fu Xi, the supposed author of the I Ching
I Ching
The I Ching or "Yì Jīng" , also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts...
, as well as Zoroaster
Zoroaster
Zoroaster , also known as Zarathustra , was a prophet and the founder of Zoroastrianism who was either born in North Western or Eastern Iran. He is credited with the authorship of the Yasna Haptanghaiti as well as the Gathas, hymns which are at the liturgical core of Zoroastrianism...
and Hermes Trismegistus
Hermes Trismegistus
Hermes Trismegistus is the eponymous author of the Hermetic Corpus, a sacred text belonging to the genre of divine revelation.-Origin and identity:...
, really the same person: the biblical patriarch Enoch
Enoch (ancestor of Noah)
Enoch is a figure in the Generations of Adam. Enoch is described as Adam's greatx4 grandson , the son of Jared, the father of Methuselah, and the great-grandfather of Noah...
.
3. The Revelation of Messiah
The Figurists determined that the shengren (聖人), or sage, was in fact the Messiah
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
. This proved in the minds of the Figurists that for example the birth of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
was foreshadowed in the Chinese classics as well.
Joachim Bouvet
Joachim Bouvet
Joachim Bouvet was a French Jesuit who worked in China, and the leading member of the Figurist movement.-Biography:...
in particular focused his research on I Ching
I Ching
The I Ching or "Yì Jīng" , also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes and Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts...
, trying to find a connection between the Chinese classics and the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. He came to the conclusion that the Chinese had known the whole truth of the Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
tradition in ancient times and that this truth could be found in the Chinese classics.
Opposition to the Figurists
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. In China, there was an anti-Western group of Chinese literati and officials. Some Chinese scholars doubted the idea that God was already part of the Confucian tradition. When Foucquet
Jean-François Foucquet
Jean-François Foucquet, also Jean-François Fouquet , was a Burgundy French Jesuit and scientist who was active in the Jesuit China missions. He published the Tabula Chronologica Historiæ Sinicæ . Foucquet, a Figurist, endeavoured to show that the Book of changes anticipated the coming of...
rejected the official Chinese history, he was angrily rejected by the Chinese and consequently ordered back to Europe.
In Europe there was also an anti-Jesuit group in the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
. The Figurist idea was seen as an especially dangerous innovation because it elevated the Chinese classics at the expense of Christian tenets. In other words, the Roman Catholic Church did not accept the idea that the Chinese classics could be of importance to the Christian faith. (see: Chinese Rites controversy
Chinese Rites controversy
The Chinese Rites controversy was a dispute within the Catholic Church from the 1630s to the early 18th century about whether Chinese folk religion rites and offerings to the emperor constituted idolatry...
)
Influence and failure of the Figurists
Because of the overwhelming opposition to the Figurists, they were unable to publish any of their works during their lifetimes, except for Foucquet who got his major work published in 1729. However other aspects hampered the Figurists. There was no generally accepted concept for their research. Translations of texts from Chinese to LatinLatin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
or the other way around took a long time. Most importantly, the Figurists did not agree among themselves. When the Catholic Church forbade the Rites and the Chinese started to persecute Christians, the Figurist mission faded along with it to become a mere footnote in the history of the Christian mission in China.
Representatives
- Joachim BouvetJoachim BouvetJoachim Bouvet was a French Jesuit who worked in China, and the leading member of the Figurist movement.-Biography:...
(1656–1732)Mungello (1989), p. 358 - Joseph-Henri-Marie de Prémare (1666–1735)
- Jean-François FoucquetJean-François FoucquetJean-François Foucquet, also Jean-François Fouquet , was a Burgundy French Jesuit and scientist who was active in the Jesuit China missions. He published the Tabula Chronologica Historiæ Sinicæ . Foucquet, a Figurist, endeavoured to show that the Book of changes anticipated the coming of...
(1665–1741) - Jean-Alexis de Gollet (1664–1741)