Search Results (4)

A fundamental question when comparing Western and Chinese traditions is what if any similarities exist between the key metaphysical concepts Being and Non-Being and you 有 and wu 無. We find an inspired solution in the oldest preserved translation of the Laozi, the “Liber Sinicus Táo Tě Kīm inscriptus, in Latinum idioma Versus.” This 18th c. Latin translation by a Jesuit Figurist makes a particularly fascinating argument for the equation of Being and you 有 and Non-Being and wu 無. Essential to this is recognizing Non-Being as a type of Being that more closely matches the Laozi’s term wu 無. From this starting point, the translator fuses the three cosmogonies of chapters 1, 40, and 42 to reveal a Daoism-inflected trinitarian theology where Non-Being (wu) and Being (you) become terms to express the complex relationship of the three divine Persons. This effort to connect Daoism and Catholicism both has great historical value and also may serve as a resource for articulating East Asian forms of theology. Full article

In the translation history of late imperial China, the Jesuit enterprise played a significant role in translating Western scientific knowledge, a role they performed in tandem with proselytization. The Jesuit Figurists’ re-interpreting and re-writing of the ancient Chinese classics pivoted on symbols, figures, and Chinese characters. The father at the helm of this journey, Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730), embarked on his own Figurist path, navigating by the symbols, figures, and Chinese characters from the Yijing. His followers Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare (1666–1736) and Jean François Foucquet (1665–1741) continued on this track, each further developing his own interpretation of the Dao. Here I will present and explore Foucquet’s journey of the Dao and his presentation of the Christian God and Jesus Christ as Daoist sages by investigating his Chinese, French, and Latin manuscripts that discuss his reinterpretation of the Dao in the Chinese classics, especially the Yijing and Daodejing. In these manuscripts, Foucquet adopted typological exegesis and exhibited his inheritance of the Confucian-Christian-Dao synthesis from his senior Bouvet; he also identified the Dao as Deus and the Oneness of the Dao as the unity of the Holy Trinity. This micro-historical case study of Foucquet’s interpretation of the Dao shows how his navigating the strait between the Scylla and Charybdis of the emperor and the Holy See factored into his trajectory of interpreting the Dao; it also demonstrates that in response to being challenged by his own brothers in the Catholic Church, he cleaved to typological exegesis and Confucian-Christian-Dao synthesis. The significance of this paper lies in that the early understanding of the Dao was manipulated, especially among the Figurists, both as a tool for proselytization and as a bridge to link the East with the West. Full article

Christian missions to China have sought to make their message more acceptable to their Chinese audience by expressing, in translations of Christian texts, Christian terms and concepts in language borrowed from China’s indigenous Buddhist, Confucian, and Daoist traditions. The Jesuits were especially renowned for their accommodation policy. Interestingly, when the Jesuit Figurists arrived in China in the early Qing dynasty, they conducted exhaustive studies on the Chinese classics, studies in which they identified Tian and Di of Chinese culture with God or Deus in Latin; their descriptions of Jesus and Adam were decorated with “chinoiserie” through their association with the Yijing and Chinese mystical legends. Each Figurist, in investigating Figurism and interpreting the Yijing, had his own identity, focus, and trajectory. The Figurist use of sheng ren was employed in this paper to distinguish each signature approach and how they explained the image of Jesus and prelapsarian Adam using the ethical emotions and virtues of a sheng ren 聖人 in their reinterpretation of the Yijing and the Dao. This also led to the European people aspiring for a more in-depth understanding and more discussion of the Yijing and the Dao. Full article

Yijing benzhi 易經本旨 (original meaning of the Yijing, 1774) constitutes a unique piece of Christian literature produced by the Chinese Catholic believer Lü Liben 呂立本 in the Qing period. Following in the footsteps of Jesuit missionaries such as Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730), Lü represents a rare Chinese voice of the Figurist interpretation of the Yijing by claiming that ancient Chinese sages had received and recorded God’s divine revelation in this venerated Chinese classic. Focusing on his narratives of Christ’s Passion, this paper examines the ways in which Lü interprets the symbolic meanings of the trigrams/hexagrams and deduces their theological connotations in light of Catholic thought. The interweaving of religious devotion, tradition and experience underpinned a creative re-interpretation of the Passion narratives, which strives to sustain the faith of Chinese Catholic communities in the context of the Qing prohibition and persecution of Christianity. Full article