A New Investigation into the Confucian Translations and Interpretations of Claude de Visdelou S.I.

Abstract

Claude de Visdelou, a French Jesuit missionary who arrived in China in the 17th century, was renowned for his remarkable linguistic talent and profound knowledge of Sinology. He left behind numerous Latin translations of Chinese classics, many of which were preserved in manuscript form and are currently held in Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Based on an examination of Visdelou’s life and his Latin translations of Confucian documents, such as Daxue, this paper aims to analyze the complex reasons why Visdelou openly opposed the Jesuit policy of tolerance toward Chinese rituals and was promoted by the Roman Curia for his opposition to the Jesuit’s approach. The paper also reflects on his translation activities as a personal intellectual struggle and as a means of cross-cultural knowledge construction from the perspective of Sino-Western cultural exchange history.

1. Introduction

Among the five French Jesuit missionaries who entered China in the early Qing period under the official designation of “Mathematicians to the King of France”, Claude de Visdelou (1656–1737, known in Chinese sources as Liu Ying 刘应/刘英) is renowned for his profound Sinological scholarship. Yet his translations and interpretive works on Confucian classics have so far attracted little attention from scholars. Objectively, this neglect is due to the fact that the majority of his translated works are unpublished manuscripts located in the Vatican Library (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana). The more crucial reason, however, may be that after decades of missionary work in China, he openly opposed the official stance of his religious Society and emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of Chinese rites. His unwavering support for the Curia’s ban on such rites earned him a subsequent promotion to bishop, thus evolving from a “dissident” within the Jesuits to an outright “apostate” from the Society.1 This paper, by drawing on Visdelou’s life trajectory and focusing on his Latin translations and interpretations of Confucianism preserved in the Vatican Library, aims to analyze how Visdelou, by virtue of his exceptional linguistic competence and cautious, faithful mode of translation, drew on a broad range of Chinese texts to support his opposition to the Chinese rites, and how his position over the course of his missionary career came to reflect a mixture of personal judgement and obedience.

2. The Controversial Life of Claude de Visdelou

Claude de Visdelou was born on 12 August 1656, in Trébry, a town in the Saint-Brieuc Côtes-du-Nord region of northern France and displayed exceptional linguistic talent at the age of 17 when he joined the Society of Jesus in Paris. Later, he came to China as part of a group of five “Royal Mathematicians”, along with his former fellow schoolmate Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730). In China, Visdelou was highly praised by his fellow Jesuits for his exceptional talent and diligent work ethic, noting that he still found time to study Chinese classics and language, in which he attained profound mastery.2 He conducted textual research on the historical records of various Asian peoples and authored a manuscript on Chinese history titled Histoire de la Tartarie. Jean Pierre Abel Rémusat (1788–1832), a foundational figure in European professional Sinology, praised Visdelou as “the first to discover and utilize such historical materials” after reading the manuscript.3 Letters from Bouvet, Jean de Fontaney (1643–1710), and Visdelou himself also recorded an audience with Yinreng 胤礽, the then Prince of the Qing dynasty. The fact that Visdelou’s fluent responses and his profound comprehension of the thoughts expressed in Shangshu 尚书 and Yijing 易经 earned the prince’s approval serves as an additional testament to his advanced command of Chinese and his erudition in Chinese classics. As a result, he was regarded by the Society of Jesus in China as the prime candidate for the role of procurator to report to the Pope in Rome on the various debates surrounding Chinese rites and to defend the Society’s position on this matter.4 However, beginning around 1700–1701, Visdelou started to express doubts in his correspondence that Chinese rites were idolatrous in nature. Despite efforts from his fellow Jesuits like Joseph Henry-Marie de Prémare (1666–1736) and Jean-François Gerbillon (1654–1707) to clarify that he still upheld the Society’s stance, the leader of the Chinese Mission replaced him under the pretext of “illness and other reasons” due to a significant divergence between his cognitive judgment on the nature of Chinese rites and the mainstream position of the Society (Witek 2006, pp. 105–9).5 After the arrival of Papal Legate Charles-Thomas Maillard de Tournon (1668–1710) in China in 1705, Tournon insisted on issuing a ban on Chinese rites in accordance with the Curia’s instructions, despite being fully aware of the severe consequences. Visdelou firmly supported the ban and refused to obtain the missionary license (lingpiao 领票) consequently being exiled to Macau by Emperor Kangxi 康熙 in November 1708. In recognition of his unwavering loyalty to the Pope during the Chinese Rites Controversy, the Curia first appointed him Vicar Apostolic of Guizhou 贵州 on 12 January 1708. Later, on 2 February 1709, Tournon secretly consecrated him as Bishop of Claudiopolis in his prison cell. Tournon even exempted him from the vows he had taken upon joining the Society of Jesus—an act later confirmed by the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and the Pope—allowing Visdelou to recognize only the Papal Legate as his superior and accept the episcopal office. This move aroused strong opposition from the Society of Jesus and led some Jesuits to regard Visdelou as a “traitor.” On June 24 of the same year, Visdelou was dispatched to missionary work in Pondicherry, India, where he served for 28 years until his death in 1737 (Geng 2010, p. 374; Lü 2014, pp. 141–42). Throughout his life, Visdelou remained convinced that the imperial sacrifices to God and the popular ancestral rites in China were idolatrous practices. However, his translations and research on Chinese classics6 have long been neglected by academic circles due to his status as one of the few Jesuits to oppose the Chinese Rites.

3. Visdelou’s Confucian Translations

Upon Claude de Visdelou’s demise, many of his manuscripts were presented to Pope Benedict XIV and deposited in the Vatican Library. The author of this paper has conducted a thorough item-by-item examination of the manuscripts attributed to Visdelou in the library that pertain to Chinese philosophy and religion, and found that the vast majority of them were transcribed by his junior confrere in the Society of Jesus—the Jesuit missionary to China Jean-François Foucquet (1663–1739). This paper presents a preliminary collation of the contents of Visdelou’s translations and expositions of Confucianism herein as follows:

1.

Visdelou translated selected chapters of The Collected Statutes of the Great Ming (Ta Ming hui-tien, i.e., Da Ming huidian大明会典) into Latin, with the manuscript catalogued as Borg. lat. 523 (folios 161–163, 167). This manuscript was transcribed by Jean-François Foucquet on 1 November 1701, when both of them were in Nanchang. The translation addresses ancestral worship rites, and based on its content, I judge that this text was rendered from Juan 95, Section Five of Mass Sacrifices 群祀 of The Collected Statutes of the Great Ming.7 During the period of the Chinese Rites Controversy, this official document of The Collected Statutes of the Great Ming came to the attention of missionaries in China, probably due to its supreme political authority and nationwide enforcement: translating its regulations concerning sacrificial rites to substantiate one’s own arguments would carry great persuasive force. Thus, not only had the Jesuit François Noël (1651–1729) cited this work in his Historica notitia rituum ac ceremoniarum sinicarum (Historical Account of Chinese Rites and Ceremonies) and Philosophia Sinica (Chinese Philosophy), both published in 1711, but the Dominican Domingo Fernández Navarrete (1618–1686) had also translated selected imperial edicts from The Collected Statutes of the Great Ming pertaining to Confucius worship rites in his work Controversias antiguasy modernas de la Mission de la gran China (Ancient and Modern Controversies of the Mission in the Great Chinese Empire), published in 1677.8

2.

Visdelou’s Latin Translation of the Nestorian Stele Inscription with annotations, manuscript number: Vat. lat. 12866 (pp. 1–168).

3.

Visdelou’s exposition on Chinese Taoism (De religione Lao Su bonziorum. De antiquorum recentiorumque virorum immortalium vitis universalium commentariorum), a separate fascicle attached to Vat. lat. 12866 (pp. 1–93). A French note is appended at the end of the text, stating that this manuscript was transcribed and compiled on Visdelou’s behalf by Jean-François Foucquet in Rome on 15 September 1736.9

4.

Visdelou’s Introduction to the Buddhist scriptures of Brahmanism in China (De perfecta imperturbatilitate/ Liber canonicus) and their doctrines (Dissertatiuncula de doctrina Brachmanica)10, two separate fascicles attached to Vat. lat. 12866 (pp. 1–265; pp. 1–503).

5.

Visdelou’s exposition on Confucius’ life and the rites of Confucius worship, a separate fascicle attached to Vat. lat. 12866 (pp. 1–646):

(1)

pp. 1–43: Kumfucii vita, a Latin biography of Confucius written by Visdelou, based on the biography of Confucius compiled by the 65th generation descendant of Confucius in the 1694 edition. It narrates Confucius’ family background and educational experience as well as his sacred personality, and compiles a chronological record of the key events in Confucius’ life from 559 BCE to 479 BCE. The text is also accompanied by numerous annotations made by the translator on Confucius’ honorific titles and the essential details of the dress in Confucius’ portraits across successive dynasties.

(2)

pp. 44–646: Visdelou’s detailed exposition on Confucian Temples and the rites of Confucius worship.

6.

Visdelou’s Latin translations of several ancient Chinese classics, transcribed by Jean-François Foucquet, are all collected in Vat. lat. 12853, with the specific contents detailed as follows:

(1)

Visdelou’s excerpted Latin translations of The Book of Songs 诗经 with annotations, covering the specific poems Chu Ci 楚茨 (pp. 1–52), Yun Han 云汉 (pp. 53–78), and an excerpt from The Rites of Zhou 周礼 (pp. 97–99). Each text is appended with the specific date of transcription by Foucquet.

(2)

Visdelou’s complete Latin translation of Daxue 大学 with annotations (versio Capitis Librorum/ Classicorum quod Ta hio seu/magna scientia inscribitur, pp. 217–85), transcribed by Foucquet in Rome on 1 June 1736.

(3)

Visdelou’s translation of the Rites and Music section from The New Book of Tang 新唐书 (Juan 13, Treatise 3) by Ouyang Xiu 欧阳修and other scholars (pp. 289–312).

(4)

Visdelou’s excerpted translation of Er Ya: Shi Tian (尔雅·释天 Explaining the Heavens) for the purpose of explaining the meaning of “Heaven 天” (pp. 313–28).

(5)

Visdelou’s excerpted translation of content from Zhang Huang 章潢’s Imperial Compendium of Books and Illustrations 图书编 (Juan 6, 7 and 8), including General Discussion on Zhou Dynasty Sacrificial Rites to Heaven and the Earth Altar 周祀郊社总论 (pp. 329–34), General Chart of Ancient Sacrifices to Heavenly Deities with explanations 古祀天神总图 (pp. 335–54), and A Discrimination Between Sacrifices to Heaven and to the Supreme Ruler 祀天祀帝之辨 with explanations and illustrative diagrams (pp. 355–65).

(6)

Visdelou’s exposition on the textual history of the compilation and the contents of various chapters of The Book of Rites (De 礼 li 记 ki seu commentariis de officiis, pp. 420–49).

(7)

Visdelou’s excerpted translation of relevant provisions under the headings of “sacrifice 祭祀” and “sacrificial offering 祭享” from the Great Qing Code 大清律例 (pp. 457–91). The text is appended with a notation indicating that it was revised by Visdelou himself in 1719. Based on textual research of the translation content, I verify that this text was rendered from the Rites Code section of The Great Qing Code with Sub-statutes (Juan 16), which is included in the Imperially Commissioned Complete Library of the Four Treasuries 钦定四库全书.

(8)

Visdelou recorded that on the 21st day of the 11th lunar month in the 44th year of the Kangxi 康熙 reign (5 January 1706), he accompanied Bishop Tournon to Beijing for an audience with the Emperor. There he learned that the Emperor had bestowed inscribed plaques upon seven distinguished Confucian scholars from Fujian 福建 (septem illustres philosophi) and that these plaques were to be hung in the memorial shrines dedicated to these seven scholars.11 Visdelou subsequently provided Latin translations of the inscriptions on these seven plaques (pp. 505–30). The inscriptions he addressed in sequence are as follows:

For Li Tong 李侗: “Jing zhong zheng qi 静中正气” (Integrity Cultivated in Stillness).

For Zhen Dexiu 真德秀: “Li ming zheng xue力明正学” (Upholding Orthodox Learning with Resolve).

For Cai Chen 蔡沉: “Xue chan tu chou 学阐图畴” (Elucidating the Diagrams and Theories Through Scholarship).

For Yang Shi 杨时: “Cheng Shi Zheng Zong 程氏正宗” (Orthodox Successor to the Cheng School).

For Luo Congyan 罗从彦: “Ao Xue Qing Jie 奥学清节” (Profound Scholarship and Pure Moral Integrity).

For Cai Yuanding 蔡元定: “Ci Yang Yu Yi 此阳羽翼” (Wing and Pillar of the Ziyang School).

For Hu Anguo 胡安国: “Shuang Song Xue Bai 霜松雪柏” (Integrity of Pine and Cypress Amid Frost and Snow).

He appended notes explaining the function of such plaques in China and the meanings of Confucian concepts such as “daoxue 道学” (the Learning of the Way), “lixue 理学” (Neo-Confucianism), “zhengxue 正学” (Orthodox Learning), and “shengxue 圣学” (Sacred Learning). At the same time, he characterized this act of bestowing plaques as the Chinese emperor’s public endorsement of idolatry (because it involved building halls for popular veneration of important figures) and his affirmation of Neo-Confucianism, which Visdelou regarded as atheistic. Appended at the end of the text is a hand-drawn illustration depicting Fu Xi 伏羲, Yao 尧, Shun 舜, Yu 禹, Cheng Tang成汤, King Wen 文王, King Wu 武王, the Duke of Zhou 周公 and other ancient sages converging upon Confucius. It also includes a verbatim transcription of the original Chinese text of the imperial edicts issued by the Kangxi Emperor on 5 January 1706, which ordered the summoning of Chang Shu 常舒, Minister of the Court of Lifan Yuan 理藩院尚书, to his presence to receive the imperial instructions: the Emperor bestowed the plaques upon the shrines of the ancient Confucian scholars of Fujian 福建, a plaque inscribed “Yong Dian Da Chuan 永奠大川” (Securing the Great Rivers for Eternity) upon the Temple of King Yu 禹王庙 in Sichuan 四川 and a plaque bearing the phrase “Wen Jiao Xia Yi 文教遐宜” (Cultural Education Flourishing Far and Wide) upon the charity schools 义学 in Guizhou 贵州.

7.

Visdelou’s Latin translation with annotations of The Canon of Yao 尧典 from Yu Shu 虞书 (The Book of Yu) in The Book of Documents 尚书, manuscript catalogued as Vat. lat. 12854 (pp. 1–681). A colophon is appended at the end of the text, indicating that Visdelou himself completed this section of the translation manuscript in 1709.

8.

Visdelou’s excerpted Latin translations with annotations of such chapters as Jiao Te sheng 郊特牲 (The Special Victim in the Suburban Sacrifice), Sacrificial Methods 祭法, Sacrificial Rites 祭仪 and The Unity of Sacrifices 祭统 from The Book of Rites 礼记, manuscript catalogued as Vat. lat. 12852 (pp. 1–619). The translation was completed in 1710 and later collated and transcribed by Jean-François Foucquet.

All the Latin translations of Confucian classics by Visdelou preserved in the Vatican Library exist only as manuscripts. A small number of these were written in his own hand with a neat and elegant script, while the vast majority were transcribed and preserved by Jean-François Foucquet, whose handwriting is far more hasty and often harder to decipher. Furthermore, due to the extensive coverage of numerous Confucian classic texts and the immense volume of these translations, systematic and in-depth research has not been devoted to these manuscripts. This paper intends to draw on the judgments on Confucianism revealed in Visdelou’s Confucian translation manuscripts and combine them with his life experience in order to analyze the underlying reasons of such views.

4. Claude de Visdelou’s Confucian Views

Visdelou’s philological and text-based attitude toward Confucian texts can be seen as opening the way for the later European tradition of professional Sinology. It is important and illuminating to situate Visdelou’s translation activity and his studies of Chinese rites and history within the broader renewal of philological approaches to ancient texts in Europe at the time. When engaging with Chinese classics, he consciously distinguished his different roles as a reader, a translator, and a commentator (involving subjective interpretation and creative reworking within his personal research). He valued the original form of documents carried by Eastern languages, thus proactively mastering languages such as Manchu and Chinese to study the texts. In translation, he aimed to present the original meaning accurately and concisely, allowing the text to “speak for itself,” while presenting his personal interpretations of the relevant Confucian literature in separate writings.

4.1. As a Reader and a Translator: A Concise and Prudent Translation Approach

Visdelou’s selected translations of the Five Classics 五经, especially his complete translation of Da Xue 大学, reveal a consistent translation approach that corresponded to his Confucian views. For instance, he adopted transliteration for all proper nouns such as book titles and personal names. Following the phonetic system developed by Lazarus Cattaneo (1560–1640) and Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), and retaining existing translations from previous Jesuits, Visdelou specifically added grammatical suffixes indicating genders to the Latinized transcriptions of important historical Chinese figures and deities. For example, the masculine suffix “-us” frequently appears at the end of nouns such as King Wen 文王, King Wu 武王, Confucius 孔子, and Zengzi 曾子 to denote males. This enabled their more systematic integration into the inflectional grammatical system of Western languages.

Specifically, regarding the translation of Confucian concepts, a defining characteristic of Visdelou’s translation principle markedly differed from former Jesuits in China: his renderings are concise, and he largely avoided the cross-cultural analogies frequently employed by earlier Jesuits like Matteo Ricci and Philippe Couplet (1623–1693). For example, he rendered “Mingde 明德” literally as clara virtus (bright virtue); transliterated “Shangdi 上帝” directly as xam ti-tus; and translated “Tianzi 天子” literally as coeli filius (son of heaven). On one hand, this seems to faithfully preserve the original features of Chinese terms. This prudent translation and introduction method that emphasized the otherness of the target culture was also consistent with his views and critical stance on the essence of Chinese Rites. On the other hand, Visdelou’s Confucian translations seem to have functioned primarily as personal exercises for his own study of Chinese texts and culture, with no apparent intent for formal publication to the Western readership.

Two criteria support this judgment: first, most of his translations were excerpted, seemingly focusing on chapters that interested him or core textual passages he needed to cite when discussing Chinese Rites Controversy. Even in his only complete Latin translation of Daxue, there were omissions. For instance, the omission of “to renovate the people 新民” from the opening “Three Cardinal Principles 三纲领” and the omission of “The Canon of Emperors states: ‘To cultivate one’s noble virtues to the fullest’ 帝典曰：‘克明峻德。’” from the first section of the Commentaries 传一章. Such unintentional omissions in translation suggest that the translator did not conduct multiple rounds of revision on his manuscript. Second, unlike the approach adopted by his Jesuit predecessors in their publications such as Sapientia Sinica (1662) and Confucius Sinarum Philosophus (1687), Visdelou did not employ exegetical methods such as “interpreting the Classics through history texts” (yi shi zhu jing以史注经) and “interpreting the Classics through the Classics themselves” (yi jing zhu jing 以经注经) to insert personal explanations addressing potential comprehension difficulties for Western readers (e.g., the dynasties, significant deeds, and identities of historical figures like King Wen 文王, King Wu 武王, and Meng Xianzi 孟献子).

Visdelou’s translations contained very few annotations, and occasional marginal notes mostly served to indicate the specific documentary sources of certain sentences. Therefore it is quite rare that Visdelou appended three relatively long endnotes to his Great Learning 大学 translation: i. Clarifying the concept of “Dao 道” in the Chinese intellectual tradition. Visdelou transliterated this concept as “道 Tao” and his understanding of the Confucian “Dao” distinctly differs from early Jesuits who equated it with ratio (reason) or regula (rule), emphasizing instead its “practical” (praxis) dimension; ii. Pointing out the presence of syllogisms in the Great Learning text similar to ancient Greek philosophical thought, namely the moral doctrine of self-cultivation → family regulation → state governance, and the rationality of the Confucian idea of extending from oneself to others; iii. An explanation of the Great Learning title, stressing that a more accurate translation should be “the great art” rather than “the great learning”, because Confucian “learning” (xue 学) is not entirely limited to speculation, with its most important aspect lying in practice and action (Vat. lat. 12853, pp. 284–85). This tripartite division is likewise a characteristic feature of Aristotelian ethics. Earlier Jesuits, such as Alfonso Vagnone (1568–1640), and even Visdelou’s contemporary François Noël, had already recognized this affinity between Chinese and ancient Greek philosophy. Visdelou’s annotation demonstrates the continuity of this interpretive approach across different generations of the Jesuit mission in China.12

His translations deliberately maintained a distance from “commentary”, seemingly aiming to highlight the original meaning of each Chinese classic or the translated passages, allowing these Chinese texts to speak for themselves and present themselves to European readers. This emphasis on the original form of Chinese source material closely aligns with the scholarly approach that emerged in Europe with the advent of professional Sinology in the 18th century; that is, the European scholars specializing in Far Eastern cultures should master the relevant Eastern languages and be able to read and cite primary source materials in their original languages.

In addition, Visdelou maintained a high degree of consistency in his translation of Confucian concepts. Unlike the prevalent practice of “one term with multiple translations” in the Confucian translations of Jesuit missionaries in China during the 16th-17th centuries (Luo 2016, p. 16), Visdelou had developed a clear “one term, one translation” style. There was only one occasional exception: for the term “junzi 君子” (gentleman) in Daxue, Visdelou successively used three translations: sapientes (wise men), vir probus (honest men), and vir honestus (respectable men). This variation can be attributed to two factors. First, it was related to the Chinese texts and reference materials he used for translation. For example, Confucius Sinarum Philosophus was largely based on the annotations of Zhu Xi 朱熹 and Zhang Juzheng 张居正 and Jesuit translators would select different Latin terms corresponding to the changing connotations of “junzi 君子” in different passages (sometimes referring to ancient sage-kings, other times to individuals with perfected moral cultivation). Visdelou’s translations were presumably connected to this. Second, judging from Visdelou’s choice of translations for “junzi 君子”, whenever this term was interpreted as “(ancient) kings” in the Chinese exegetical tradition, he tended to render it as “wise men” (sapientes, maybe intentionally emphasized the ancient Greek concept of philosopher-kings governing the state), clearly defining the Confucian “junzi 君子” based on personal moral cultivation and wisdom rather than social status. A corresponding approach was evident in his translation of “xiaoren 小人” (petty men): except when the exegetical notes explicitly indicated that “xiaoren 小人” meant “the common people” in a given context, Visdelou consistently translated it as improbus (morally inferior men) in other passages.

Furthermore, through a sentence-by-sentence comparison, it is found that the source text for Visdelou’s complete Latin translation of Daxue was the Imperially Authorized Lectures on the Four Books: Daxue 日讲四书解义·大学 (1677) from the Kangxi reign, as it shows a high consistency with the original text in terms of paragraph and sentence segmentation, editorial arrangement of commentary, and conceptual as well as semantic interpretation. Visdelou’s source text choice differs from the practice of other Jesuit missionaries before his time, who mostly selected annotated editions of the “Four Books 四书” by Zhu Xi 朱熹 or Zhang Juzheng 张居正, whose editions more widely accepted and circulated among Chinese literati at that time. But Visdelou’s use of the Imperially Authorized Lectures on the Four Books as a source text reflects a tendency shared by his contemporaries Joachim Bouvet and François Noël, and thus points to an emerging Jesuit approach to the interpretation of the classics in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This may be related to the fact that during the early stage of Visdelou’s mission in China (i.e., 1693–1699), he mainly worked in the Beijing Vicariate, where he maintained close ties with the Qing court 清廷, undertook numerous tasks for it, and thus had facilitating access to the Qing court–approved instructional texts. Additionally, previous research has shown that Bouvet, who also belonged to the Beijing Vicariate at that time, similarly drew on imperial textbooks such as the Imperially Authorized Lectures on the Four Books 日讲四书解义 and the Imperially Authorized Lectures on the I Ching 日讲易经解义 (1683) to elaborate on the views of “contemporary Confucianism” (von Collani 2015, p. 36).

4.2. As a Commentator and Author: A Resolute Critic

Visdelou’s concerns regarding the Chinese Rites are scattered throughout the marginal annotations in his numerous Confucian translation manuscripts. For instance, in his translation manuscript of Daxue 大学, the only in-text annotation appears right after the line from the Book of Songs 诗经: “When Yin had not yet lost its multitudes, it could be matched with God. Take warning by the example of Yin; the sovereign decree is not easy to hold.” For he who gains the multitudes gains the state, and he who loses the multitudes loses the state. (诗云：”殷之未丧师，克配上帝。仪鉴于殷，峻命不易。”道得众则得国，失众则失国。 Translation of James Legge.) Visdelou appended a specific annotation to the phrase “could be matched with the God 克配上帝”, clarifying that this expression, found in the Book of Songs, refers to the earliest Chinese imperial tradition in which the sovereign offered a bull as a sacrificial offering in state ritual ceremonies to Heaven and the founding ancestors (chay ti-tus, i.e., jiao di郊禘). He remarked that this custom was not exclusive to any individual ruler, but was common to all Chinese rulers, including the reigning emperor of his time.13 This annotation was intended to criticize the rulers of all Chinese dynasties for their public and persistent idol worship.

The most significant reflection of Visdelou’s understanding of Neo-Confucianism, and the rationale behind his assertation that “Chinese emperors know nothing of the true God” and “continuously and publicly propagates atheism”, can be found in his annotations to the translation of the imperial edict issued in the 44th year of the Kangxi reign (1705), which conferred plaques upon seven distinguished scholars from Fujian (Vat. lat. 12853—Ex Garula Sinica). In the extensive Note 2 attached to the translation of the edict, Visdelou, on the one hand, systematically sorted out the contentions of Neo-Confucianism regarding the Dao Tong 道统 (Orthodoxy of the Dao) and Xue Tong 学统 (Orthodoxy of Learning). It is evident from this that his understanding of Li 理 (Principle) as the origin of the world was highly analogous to that of his former Jesuit Niccolò Longobardo, who regarded it as materia prima (prime matter).14 On this basis, Visdelou concluded that all Neo-Confucianists were atheists. On the other hand, in response to Kangxi emperor’s extraordinary promotion of Neo-Confucian doctrine, exemplified by his bestowal of honorific plaques upon seven Neo-Confucian scholars as a mark of imperial endorsement, Visdelou clearly pointed out that the issuance of this imperial edict of commendation constituted a public and unreserved affirmation of atheism.

The practices of Kangxi Emperor should not be judged by us, but he exalted the doctrines of the founders of atheism to such a height that he claimed these founders had thoroughly studied Heaven and nature and attained a profound understanding of them. This claim is essentially a public and unabashed acknowledgment of atheism.

[…] Most notably, when the Chinese Emperor met with Charles-Thomas Maillard de Tournon (Turnonio), Bishop of Antioch, at that time, he openly declared that the ‘Xam Ti 上帝’ of China was one and the same as the God of Christians (Deus). Nevertheless, he used the eulogies mentioned earlier to praise these seven propagators and disciples of atheism, referring to the doctrines of some among them as correct and true. Yet the entire foundation and core tenet of such doctrines is that is Xam Ti none other than Li 理 (Principle) itself, and he proclaimed that Xam Ti or Li served as the guiding principle of the entire empire.

[According to this edict] the Chinese nation clearly demonstrates two aspects: on one hand, atheism is openly regarded as a sound doctrine; on the other, all ancient Chinese sages and wise men, especially Confucius, should be considered proponents of atheism (Vat. lat. 12853, pp. 524–27, translation of the author).15

Visdelou also criticized the Kangxi Emperor for ordering the compilation of annotations to Confucian classics in his own name, presumably referring to the Imperially Authorized Daily Lectures on the Four Books, and for thereby disseminating what he deemed a pernicious doctrine throughout the empire, one that amounted to an explicit promotion of atheism. He used this as evidence to prove that all Chinese emperors from antiquity, including Kangxi, did not know the true God.

These remarks undoubtedly marked Visdelou’s open alignment against the stance of his own Society. Previously, in late 1700, at the request of Jesuits in China such as Claudio Filippo Grimaldi (1638–1712), the Kangxi Emperor had issued a written instruction in his supreme imperial authority as testimony, clarifying that the Chinese rites of sacrificing to Heaven and worshipping Confucius were merely social customs and not contrary to Catholic doctrines. Visdelou’s criticism here of the Kangxi Emperor for his ignorance of the true God undoubtedly implied that the testimony the emperor had provided for the Jesuit missionaries in China during the Chinese Rites Controversy was invalid. Furthermore, Visdelou’s resolute stance against Neo-Confucianism and Chinese rites left an indelible impression on Kangxi Emperor. Two years after Visdelou had been exiled from China, when the Kangxi Emperor perused Joachim Bouvet’s manuscript on Yi Jing 易经, he still cited Visdelou as a negative example to issue a warning, stating: “Having read Bojin（博津 i.e., Joachim Bouvet）’s quotations, I find them exceedingly verbose. If in the future people like those of the Yan Dang 严党 (i.e., Charles Maigrot) and Liu Ying 刘英 (i.e., Claude de Visdelou) emerge, we will inevitably be left without a single word to reply to each and every point. Henceforth, if you fail to exercise due caution, even I shall find no means of extrication.” (First Historical Archives of China 1996, p. 725).

4.3. The Controversial Identity: Bishop of the Curia vs. Traitor of the Society

Visdelou’s relevant remarks and his firm endorsement of Bishop Tournon’s issuance of the ban on Chinese rites left his affiliated Society caught in a dilemma amid the Chinese Rites Controversy, and he was consequently regarded as a traitor of the Society. In recent years, academic research on internal dissent within the Society of Jesus has revealed that instances of noncompliance, in which some Jesuits defied or departed from the official positions of their Society since the beginning of the 16th century. As a religious order emphasizing strict military-style discipline, the Society of Jesus has in fact consistently employed sophisticated managerial methods and strategies to mediate internal divergences, and even leveraged the existence of dissenting voices to refine its capacity to manage the coexistence of contradictions in its internal life. It is for this reason that many dissidents were ultimately not expelled from the Society, and Visdelou was one such case. According to Sabina Pavone, after being exiled from China and reassigned to missionary work in Pondicherry, India, Visdelou continued to oppose the local Malabar Rites there, maintaining the same harsh critical attitude toward his Society’s accommodation policy as he had in China. In his correspondence during this period, he repeatedly stated that opposing ritual controversies had become a matter of his conscience (Pavone 2012, p. 950). Faced with the choice between obeying the unified stance required by the Society and following his own rational and conscientious judgment, Visdelou clearly chose the latter. This choice was also reflected in the fact that both the Society of Jesus and Visdelou began to draw a clear line between themselves from 1708, when Visdelou was appointed bishop. While no documents have been found to prove that Visdelou formally withdrew from the Society of Jesus—even in the Oraison funèbre de Monseigneur de Visdelou Jésuite, évêque de Claudiopolis, vicaire apostolique en Chine (Funeral Oration for Monseigneur de Visdelou, Jesuit, Bishop of Claudiopolis, Apostolic Vicar in China) written by Father Norbert, Visdelou was still defined as a Jesuite (Norbert 1742, p. 7)—such affiliation seemed merely nominal. From 1708 onward, Visdelou’s name no longer appeared on the Society’s internal membership list. Had it not been for his Sinological works earning him recognition and acclaim from later Sinologists such as Jean Pierre Abel Rémusat, and the large number of epistolary reports he wrote during his missionary work in India being properly preserved by the Curia, his missionary career in India during the latter half of his life would likely have been completely erased from history. Furthermore, Visdelou never resided in a Jesuit residence during his service in Pondicherry. He initially resided at the seminary of the Paris Foreign Mission Society and later moved to the local Capuchin house, where he remained until his death.

Pavone also points out in her research that during his thirty years as bishop in Pondicherry, Visdelou engaged in fierce conflicts with local Jesuit missionaries who adopted cultural accommodation policy to Hindu rites. He still chose to uphold the Curia rather than obey the Society of Jesus that had admitted him as a young man, and even undertook the task of collecting local information opposing the Jesuits. The Curia still preserves a large number of letters he sent from India to the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith between 1736 and 1737, which were subsequently forwarded to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Pavone 2012, pp. 955–57). In addition, Visdelou’s ethnic identity as a French bishop was an important reason why the Jesuit Province of India, which fell under the jurisdiction of the Portuguese Padroado, refused to obey his instructions. The act of French priests supporting the Apostolic Vicariate system to resist the Portuguese Padroado, aiming to strive for and safeguard French interests in Asia, had already been a common practice in China (Yan 2003, pp. 176–80)16, and Visdelou was precisely one of its key participants. For Visdelou, his opposition to both the Chinese Rites and the Malabar Rites carried not only theological and moral significance—rooted in fidelity to doctrinal truth and the dictates of individual conscience—but also concrete political implications. More ironically, Visdelou, who was marginalized by the Society of Jesus for the rest of his life, won recognition and trust from the Curia precisely for his noncompliance with the Jesuits.

5. Conclusions

Claude de Visdelou’s opposition to Chinese ritual sacrifices and his condemnation of imperial promotion of Neo-Confucian thought made him a dissident within the Jesuit mission in China. His attainment of the Curia’s trust and episcopal promotion indicate that his views found a receptive audience in Rome. More broadly, his case illustrates the diversity of opinion within the Society of Jesus over the Chinese rites question and the moral as well as practical difficulties individual missionaries encountered in balancing institutional obedience with engagement in the diverse cultural contexts of East Asia. This was particularly true in the era of colonial expansion following the Age of Discovery: when the national interests of their home countries became entangled in missionary work, an intricate web of conflicting obligations of obedience, coupled with the voice of conscience in missionaries’ hearts, exacerbated the difficulty for overseas missionaries to reconcile hierarchical obedience relationships. The principle of obedience and the uniqueness of the supreme authority thus manifested a dynamic of different autonomous choices in response to individual rational thought and conscientious judgment.

The numerous Latin manuscripts of Chinese classics translated by Visdelou which are preserved in the Vatican Library cover a wide spectrum of content: they include not only Confucian canonical texts represented by the Four Books and the Five Classics, but also legal documents such as The Great Ming Code 大明法典, The Great Qing Code and Regulations 大清律令 and Kangxi’s imperial edicts, historical and sub-canonical texts like The New Book of Tang 新唐书 and Imperial Compendium of Books and Illustrations 图书编, and even monographs on Chinese Taoism and Buddhism. These works fully exemplify the breadth of his scholarship and extensive engagement with Chinese culture, as well as his exceptional linguistic prowess. His prudent and fact-based translation style was also consistent with his position as a minority opponent of Chinese rites within the Jesuit mission in China, against the broader backdrop of the Chinese Rites Controversy. Some of these translations, such as sections of The Great Ming Code 大明法典, later served as documentary evidence from Chinese sources for him to substantiate his opposing arguments. The selective translation of Chinese writings across a wide range of genres in accordance with their own needs reveals that Jesuit missionaries in China during the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty period, whether they adopted accommodation policy or opposed Chinese rites, would, in their cross-cultural translation and interpretation of Confucian classics and thoughts, artificially construct “fictional equivalences” between the “names” and “essences” of conceptual symbols across different cultural systems in response to the demands of their historical context. In doing so, their translation and interpretation endeavors became a means of ideological contention and even of vying for the right to speak on Chinese issues. A shared underlying logic can be discerned in the opposition to Chinese rites represented by figures such as Visdelou and Tournon: rooted in Christianity’s self-definition as a universal religion, they categorized all non-Christian cultures as local knowledge. Such missionaries all held a preconceived conception of the “proper name” of religion—namely, fixed definitions of true and false religion, superstition and the true God. In their encounter with indigenous beliefs (new realities), their resolve to uphold Christianity as a universal religion drove them to attempt to subsume all such new discoveries under the framework of their own faith. Yet they would only judge the degree of “truthfulness” of these discoveries by cross-referencing and retroactively verifying them against theological doctrines. Those aspects of the “new realities” that failed to conform to the “proper name” of their religion were immediately labeled as “heresy” or “idolatry”, prohibited and restricted; an attempt was even made to sever them from the organic whole of their original cultures and discard them entirely.

How to confront the genuine differences inherent in local knowledges, turn such differences into meaningful dialogue with the Other, and collectively reflect on how to endow the construction of a global knowledge order with cross-cultural validity, thereby enabling universality to coexist within the myriad concrete realities of locality? Reflection on this issue stands as a profound lesson bequeathed to later generations by the Chinese Rites Controversy of the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as by the translations of Chinese learning into the West produced by missionaries in China such as Michele Ruggieri (1543–1607), Philippe Couplet, François Noël, and Claude de Visdelou.