Friendship and Hospitality: The Jesuit-Confucian Encounter in Late Ming China by Dongfeng Xu

Friendship and Hospitality: The Jesuit-Confucian Encounter in Late Ming China, authored by Dongfeng Xu, focuses upon On Friendship, the first text written by Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) in classical Chinese to procure friendship and hospitality from Confucian literati. All chapters are accordingly tasked to study certain aspects of the text.

Chapter 1 illuminates the Ignatian spirituality underlying the Jesuit missiology of accommodation, and highlights the problematic idea of the human "self" versus God in the Ignatian spirituality. Chapter 2 canvases how Ricci adapted both pagan and Christian writings of friendship to the Confucian culture of the time. Chapters 3 and 6 attend to the Confucian side of the encounter, and analyze respectively the historical, cultural, and textual basis of the so-called Confucian Sino-centrism which Ricci tried to accommodate, and the varying ways in which Confucian literati responded to the Jesuits. Chapters 4 and 5 investigate the impact of Ricci's new world map on the Ming empire, and present one significant component of Ricci's mission that remains underexplored by the scholarship to date, viz., the auxiliary, yet decisive role of Western science and technology in the mission.

Despite having exhibited such a panoply of historical details surrounding the text of On Friendship, the central argument of the book is not as historical as it appears to be. Hovering over all historical investigations of the encounter are postmodern philosophical theories of "the other" and "the difference" constructed by Levinas and Derrida. Throughout all the chapters of this book, Xu utilizes these postmodern theories as the sword of Damocles to scrutinize, critique, and, in more than a few cases, condemn the absolutist self-concepts of Jesuits and Confucians evidenced by their historical encounter, which concepts the author unrelentingly characterizes as "narcissistic" (p. 47), "Machiavelian" (p. 72), "chauvinistic" (p. 98), or hegemonic (p. 118). The final conclusion of the book is dialectical, and complies with the spirit of deconstruction heralded by those cited postmodern thinkers: on the one hand, Xu argues, notwithstanding the Jesuit accommodation of Confucian culture was undergirded by their narcissistic devotion to the absolute truth of Christian belief, the actual unfolding of Ricci's mission proves the opposite. In other words, for any kind of rapport to take place, Jesuits had to take in the difference of the accommodated alterity, and hence, had to admit that there exists something impossible and unruly beyond the presumed totality of Christendom. On the other hand, Confucians did utilize a variety of intellectual tactics to absorb the evidently advanced Western science and technology brought in by Ricci's mission, and tried to maintain the complete truth of Confucianism. However, the reformation of the calendar mandated by Ming emperors (chapter 5) and the response of some Confucian literati to revive the ancient theistic Confucianism (pp. 167–175) particularly prove that the other takes an equal, if not predominant, role to the self in any hospitality offered by a cultural host. Although the twofold conclusion confirms that the values of the other, as uncovered by postmodern theories, is a de facto result of the historical encounter, Xu highlights that amid the process of the encounter, the absolutist One self-concepts of Jesuits and Confucians have led to "the oppression and repulsion of many deemed to be different and other to the ideal of the One" (p. 178). The author therefore urges readers to take precautions against the seemingly inviting and charming idea of "one history, one culture, or one civilization" which is "completely free from or exclusive of alterity," since the strife that arises from the desire of constructing such an idea is "dangerous and detrimental" (p. 179), and causes "so many troubling moments for the missionary friendship promoted by the Jesuits and the hospitality displayed by the Confucians" (p. 180).

If the postmodern theories are treated as tenable interpretive lenses, I appreciate that the author's consistent utilization of them succeeds to reveal certain aspects of the encounter history which has not yet been sufficiently studied. The following are some examples.

First, the author carefully analyzes the concept of human self versus God as the wholly other in Ignatius's thought, and explains the fundamental motivation of the Jesuit mission to eliminate the individuation of all human fellows (including the missionaries themselves) so as to achieve the divine union of all the world with God. Accordingly, the inclusion of classical liberal arts in Jesuit education also aims to "aid our fellow men to the knowledge and love of God and to the salvation of their souls" (p. 73), and hence, succumbs to the authority of orthodox theology. Although quickly dismissing the Ignatian elimination of the differing human self as impossible (pp. 34–37) and Ricci's utilitarian treatment of pagan authors as Machiavelian (p. 72), the author's analysis evinces the innermost spiritual origin of Ricci's mission in China.

Second, the author does a great service of clarifying how Ricci's new world map (viz., the so-titled "Complete Map of All Ten Thousand Countries on Earth," p. 115), as well as the related Western science and technology, destabilized the Sino-centric world view of Confucian literati in the late Ming period. Ricci deliberately positioned China near the center of the map so as to accommodate the cultural expectation of his host. However, the decentering import of the map is so visible that has engendered a variety of reactions from its Confucian beholders including a sheer rejection of the map, a conditional acceptance of it, and the religious conversion to Christianity because of it.

Most interestingly, the author explains that Confucian literati took two views, one of "Chinese origin of Western learning" (西學中源) and another of "Chinese base, Western function" (中體西用), to conditionally absorb the destabilizing impact of Ricci's map. The former perspective deems that the real origin of Western science and technology is in the teaching of ancient Chinese sages, but they just got lost in the barbarian world during the tumultuous times of Chinese history, which were eventually brought back by Jesuits. The latter view states that with Confucianism as the unchangeable core of Chinese culture, Western science and technology can be freely utilized by Chinese people as the "function" of the core, which by no means diminishes the dominant normativity of the core. Being convinced by postmodern theories, Xu still deems such reactionary tactics of Confucian literati as nothing more than manifesting their hegemonic Sino-centrism which aims to keep missionaries "servile and subordinate to China" (p. 152). Nevertheless, as being well-known among scholars of modern Chinese history, "Chinese base, Western function" is also the guiding principle of the so-called Self-Strengthening Movement led by Confucian governmental-officials during the Qing dynasty (1636–1912) in the late nineteenth century. These Confucians intended to import Western science and technology to modernize the military and economy of China while keeping the Confucian state ideology intact. Xu's work illuminates that such a principle had a much earlier emergence in ancient Chinese history, and hence, can be seen as a pattern of reaction from Confucian literati to similar historical situations.

Third, Xu's introduction of the rather obscure Confucian, Wang Qiyuan's (circa 16–17) thought is eye-opening. Wang accused Ricci of usurping the ancient Confucian term "Lord-on-High" (上帝) to translate the Christian God, and reinterpreted Confucianism as a theistic religion resting upon the revelation of the genuine indigenous Chinese God, viz., the Lord-on-High (pp. 168–175). Such a reinterpretation is clearly incongruous with the mainstream nontheistic metaphysics of Neo-Confucianism in the late Ming period, and hence, can be seen as a peculiar fashion of Confucian reaction to Jesuits. Wang rejected Christianity via reconstructing a theistic Confucianism in light of Christianity, which is rather similar to the endeavor of religionizing Confucianism by Kang Youwei (1858–1927) and the religious movement of Indonesian Confucianism under Kang's influence. For Xu, Wang's reconstruction furnishes futher evidence of Christianity decisively reshaping the self-concept of its cultural host. For savvy intellectual historians, Xu's work reveals that given the span of almost three centuries between the two aforementioned figures, religionizing Confucianism per Christianity can also be seen as a pattern of reaction of Confucians to the theistic foreign religion.

With its contributions appreciated as such, there are controversial aspects of the book as well. Notably, almost all the thinkers and historical materials addressed by the book are critiqued except Levinas and Derrida. This makes readers wonder whether Xu treats the cited postmodern theories as more than tenable interpretive lenses of history. Xu clinging to postmodernism is actually so tenacious that Xu proclaims that this encounter with history is "nothing other than totalization in the sense of who had the authority and power over the other, or who was the host, the hegemon, or the master" (p. 160). I'll offer three critiques to this one-dimensional reading of history as follows.

First, to scholars of comparative philosophy or religion dedicated to uncovering nuances of thought in each compared tradition, the most controversial trait of the book is that it does not distinguish Confucianism as a scholarly tradition from a tradition of state ideology in imperial China. This makes the author interpret Confucian classics via the sole lens of power struggle in the realpolitik wrung out by two totalitarian regimes (viz., Ming China vs. Roman Catholic Church). The author accordingly fails to heed that there are compelling differences among Confucian scholars about how to conceive of the relationship between civilization and barbarism, and these differences derive from the fact that there are higher order discourses in Confucianism (such as metaphysics and ethics) the interpretive possibilities of which transcend, and in certain potential ways, rectify the realpolitik.

Since this controversial trait is so structural to the methodology of the book, one case of comparison suffices to put it in relief. Quoting ancient Confucian classics such as the Book of Rites and the Spring and Autumn Annals, the author interprets the "rite of hospitality" conducted by an emperor to their subjects and annexed states as implying nothing beyond the possibilities of "domination and submission" (p. 107). However, scholars of comparative philosophy who aim to highlight the distinction of Confucianism from Western thought interpret the same Confucian classics in fundamentally different ways. For them, what remains essential to the rite of hospitality is the absorbing capability of ancient China as an open civilization which did not aspire to wield its own Oneness in order to swallow up many alien components. Instead, it aspired for an organic "harmony" via which many components co-thrived without any "uniform" pattern imposed from the top down. For instance, Shuchen Xiang, one of the younger generation among the addressed comparative philosophers, argues that "The metaphysics which underlies the concept of harmony is best understood through an organic paradigm in which the whole is not a thing but the coherence and responsiveness between the parts and between the parts within the whole," and "in sum, historical China was a porous and dynamic organism which was enriched by the many peoples and cultures which it embraced."¹ For Xiang, the perception of historical China as a totalizing monolithic unity is the result of misapplying the Western dualistic conception of civilization versus barbarism in the Chinese context.

The point I made in the last paragraph is not that I agree with the alternative interpretation of Confucian classics and Chinese history offered by those comparative philosophers. The author indeed furnishes historical evidence for the totalitarian tendency in the thought of certain Confucian scholars and in certain governmental policies. However, what I try to dispute is that all the historical evidence is tasked by the author to confirm the postmodern theories of power struggle between the self and the other, which theories have by no means succumbed to an equal treatment of scrutiny and critique. Therefore, what the book consequently presents about the encounter is not a history, or should I say, at least not the whole picture of it, but a thought experiment or mental exercise which applies un-scrutinized postmodern theories into interpreting bits and pieces of human history.

Second, this method of confirming preestablished theories via whatever mustered evidence leads to the author's unfortunately self-contradictory presentation of classical thinkers. For instance, the author cites Aristotle's idea of friendship as "within the two bodies, there is only one mind" (p. 5) to highlight the "Western concept of friendship: similarity fosters friendship" (p. 66). This citation underscores that Ricci's emphasis of the same over the difference in his mission has its classical origin. However, in order to indicate how Ricci misquoted the "pagan authors" via grafting and inserting words to serve his mission, the book also concludes that "these (pagan) authors seem to see friendship to be an asymmetrical and nonreciprocal relation in which the other, deemed to be beyond the subject's immediate and secured knowledge, remains infinite and singular" (p. 83). Clearly, such a conclusion runs counter to the previous interpretation of Aristotle and the so-called Western concept of friendship. I believe if Xu did not take the confirmation of postmodern theories, as well as its resultant sweeping critique of Christians and Confucians, as the single focus of the book, Xu would notice this contradiction and try to serve readers with a better interpretation of the pagan authors.

Third, the lack of rational criticism toward the quoted postmodern thinkers is evidenced by the fact that the author has not realized that the difference between these thinkers are significant enough to invalidate the entire interpretive lens by which the author presents and critiques Christian and Confucian totalitarianisms. While presenting Levinas's elevation of the ethical status of the other in the act of hospitality, Xu states that "[Levinas] insists at the same time that a dwelling or home remains a necessary condition for hospitality. To welcome the Other, one has to begin with some kind of commerce, because it is impossible to welcome the guest when the host has no base and is empty-handed" (p. 101). However, different from Levinas, "such a view of hospitality, according to Derrida, amounts exactly to conditional hospitality, a type of hospitality based on economy and exchange within a realm where the Other is appropriated by the Same" (p. 101). What Derrida intends is "to take away the fundamentals of the host: his or her home, community, city and even state" (p. 101). Evidently, only under Derrida's more radical view toward the priority of the other over the host, the Christian friendship offered by Jesuits and the Confucian hospitality offered by Confucian literati, as demonstrated by the historical materials presented by the book, can be ethically judged as outright oppressive and repulsive. However, if Levinas's view is adopted, the Christian friendship centering upon the love of the Christian God and the Confucian hospitality committed to the unity of Confucian civilization are nothing more than implying the necessary condition for any act of friendship and hospitality: either of the two sides just needed a base to extend their inviting hands from. This does not mean that Levinas would not critique the historical materials of the encounter presented by the author, but this does imply that the probability for these materials to survive the postmodern ethical scrutiny is much higher. Nevertheless, there is no argument in the book about why Derrida's alternative view to Levinas ought to be approved, and Xu simply adopts Derrida's more radical postmodern theory and delivers the very harsh critique toward the encountering Christians and Confucians.

In conclusion, the adoption of postmodern theories as an overarching interpretive principle does generate fine research on under-explored aspects of the encounter of Christianity and Confucianism in late Ming China. However, since the principle has been utilized uncritically to critique the ethical nature of the two encountered traditions, readers will wonder who turns out to be palpably oppressive among the three major characters of the book: Is it the Jesuits, the Confucians, or the postmodernists?