Chinese Voices in the Rites Controversy: Travelling Books, Community Networks, Intercultural Arguments by Nicolas Standaert (review)

The so-called Chinese Rites Controversy constitutes a field not yet really explored. The reasons are manifold: a forbidden subject until 1939, the lack of access to archives and sources, and so on. Therefore, at the beginning of the twenty-first century we still have no monograph on the subject.

The aim of a comprehensive monograph can be achieved only by many small steps, and Standaert’s book is such an important step. It consists of many small puzzles, for example, the names of many Chinese Christians. He describes a situation which did not too often occur in the history of missions outside of Europe, namely the involvement of the people who were to be missionized. After the debates inside the Society of Jesus in the time shortly after Matteo Ricci’s death, the two legations to Rome by the Dominican Juan Bautista Morales and Martino Martini, and with decisions from the Holy Office first in 1645 and later in 1656, the missionaries in China had obtained two different models of how to deal with the Rites (veneration of Confucius and the ancestors). The first model judged the rites as being idolatrous while the second viewed them as signs of respect and as an important part of the Confucian state philosophy. The Mandate of the Vicar Apostolic Charles Maigrot (1655-1730) of Fujian of 1693, however, brought the question to a new level, namely to that of the European public. His questions to Rome concerned not only the Confucian Rites, but also the terminology, namely whether tian 天, shangdi 上帝, and other names could also be permitted as names for God or if only tianzhu 天主, Lord of Heaven, was appropriate. Maigrot forbade all but tianzhu. The Mandate was brought to Rome secretly and started a long discussion within the Holy Office. A papal legate was sent to China, arriving there in springtime 1705, and was invited to the Court in Beijing.

In the meantime, when the Jesuits in Europe came to know about the newly started controversy, they initiated counteractions. Old manuscripts were printed and presented (most of them in 1700) to the European learned public, which took great interest in the debate, to such an extent that the Curia forbade the publication of printed materials without their explicit permission. In this debate the Jesuits started a new line of defense, namely Chinese themselves should be asked their opinion about the meaning of their own Rites. The question of the Rites touched the very heart of Confucianism. If attending the Rites were forbidden for Christians, then Christianity would fall into the category of heterodoxy and become a suspicious sect, which was unacceptable for righteous people or men with official functions (the so-called Mandarins). A prohibition would be an obstacle for many Chinese to embrace Christianity, many people and theologians thinking their souls would be eternally lost.

This strategy started in Beijing under the guidance of the vice-provincial of the Jesuits in China, Antoine Thomas (1644-1709). With the help of Chinese Jesuits, he organized the collecting of signatures and expertise of Chinese. The most important collection of documents came from the Imperial Court itself. The Jesuits there used their networks with Chinese courtiers, scholars, and members of the Imperial family to conduct “interviews” about their opinions. The first and highest Confucian scholar, however, was the Kangxi 康熙 emperor himself, who was given an official petition in the Manchu language on November 30, 1700, where he was asked to provide the meaning of the Rites, terms, and the tablets jing tian 敬天. His answer in Manchu was translated into Chinese and published in the so-called Beijing Gazette. A Latin translation of the document was sent to Pope Clement XI in Rome. Later, the imperial declaration was printed in Manchu, Chinese, and Latin, together with the text of the ten interviews and a...