a BRIEF RESPONSE ON THE CONTROVERSIES OVER SHANGDI, TIANSHEN AND LINGHUN.

396 Pages·2021·10.706 MB·English

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN
COMPARATIVE GLOBAL HISTORY
A Brief Response on the
Controversies over Shangdi,
Tianshen and Linghun
Edited by
Thierry Meynard
Daniel Canaris
Palgrave Studies in Comparative Global History
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·
Thierry Meynard Daniel Canaris
Editors
A Brief Response
on the Controversies
over Shangdi,
Tianshen and Linghun
By Niccolò Longobardo
Editors
Thierry Meynard Daniel Canaris
Sun Yat-sen University Xue-Heng Institute for Advanced
Guangzhou, China Studies
Nanjing University
Nanjing, China
ISSN 2662-7965 ISSN 2662-7973 (electronic)
Palgrave Studies in Comparative Global History
ISBN 978-981-16-0450-8 ISBN 978-981-16-0451-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0451-5
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Cover illustration: portrait of Longobardo, seventeenth century (probably not authentic
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Preface
In any cross-cultural dialogue, translation plays a crucial role in under-
standing the key concepts and ideas of the other culture. Such a dialogue
does not take place in a vacuum devoid of self-interest and motivation.
WhenChristianmissionariesconductedtheirfirstexaminationsofChinese
intellectual traditions, they were not dispassionate observers, but wished
to determine whether equivalents to the Christian concepts could be
found in Chinese thought. They believed that by identifying analogues
they could facilitate the transmission of Christianity among the Chinese
whowouldseethattheirtraditionalcultureisnotignoredorcontradicted
but enriched by this new religion.
Such a path is risky because no exact conceptual match can ever be
found between two disparate cultures. Indeed, when Francis Xavier first
arrived in Japan, he was advised by his interpreter to translate the Chris-
tianGodasDainichi 大日,whichliterallytranslatesto“GreatSun”,butit
turnedoutthatthiswasnoneotherthanaBuddhistdeity,thusconfusing
his Japanese interlocutors. After this embarrassment, the Jesuit mission-
aries in Japan were cautious about conceptual translations of Christian
doctrine, preferring phonetic loans.
DespitethesewarningsfromJapan,thethreeco-foundersoftheChina
mission, Michele Ruggieri (1543–1607), Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) and
Alessandro Valignano (1539–1606), persisted in developing a strategy
of cultural accommodation in China to make Christianity seem more
accessible to locals. Ricci’s influential Chinese-language work, The True
v
vi PREFACE
Meaning of the Lord of Heaven (Tianzhu shiyi, 1603), explained God,
angel and soul as equivalent to the Chinese terms Shangdi 上帝, tian-
shen 天神 and linghun 靈魂 respectively. But Ricci did not intend equiv-
alence as a strict identity or pure commensurability. For example, the
meaning of God in Christianity is not exhausted by the Chinese concept
of Shangdi nor, conversely, is the meaning of Shangdi exhausted by the
Christian concept of God. Ricci expressed this limitation in terms of the
theologyofhistime:theancientChinese,likethephilosophersofGreco-
Roman antiquity, knew through natural reason the existence of Shangdi,
and could even offer Him due worship, but they did not necessarily have
accesstothefullrevelationoftheincarnationofGodinJesus-Christ.Only
withthispremisecanRicci’saxiombecorrectlyunderstood:“Shangdi and
God are different in name only” (上帝與天主, 特異以名也).1
After Ricci’s death, the Sicilian Niccolò Longobardo (1565–1654)
became the most formidable opponent to his method. Ironically, Ricci
had hand-picked him to succeed him as Superior of the China mission,
a position which he held until 1622. Overall, Longobardo spent
over six decades in China, conducting missionary work in Guangdong
(Shaozhou), Beijing, Nanjing, Zhejiang (Hangzhou) and finally Shan-
dong (Ji’nan). During his tenure as superior, his crisis management skills
were tested when for the first time in the Ming dynasty the Catholic
Church was faced with official prohibition. One of his lasting contribu-
tions was to send the Flemish Jesuit Nicolas Trigault (1577–1628) to
Europe as procurator to raise funds and recruit personnel for the China
mission. Trigault successfully elevated the profile of China mission in
Europe by publishing Ricci’s journals in a Latin translation and securing
independencefortheChinamissionfromtheJapaneseprovinceasaVice-
Province. He returned to China with a large library of Western books,
whichservedasbasisforthemissionariesandChineseChristianstotrans-
lateintoChinesemanyworksofmathematics,astronomy,philosophyand
theology.
Because of his opposition to Ricci’s accommodation policy, Longob-
ardo has remained a rather controversial figure in Jesuit historiography
and, we could even say, a repressed voice. For sure, he was not the first
to cast doubt on Ricci’s attempt to harmonize ancient Confucianism and
1MatteoRicci,TheTrueMeaningoftheLordofHeaven,ed.ThierryMeynard(Boston:
Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2016), 100.
PREFACE vii
Christianity. Jesuits in Japan and China had already started investigating
the matter, and a great deal of letters and reports were written for or
against the Chinese terms. Longobardo’s own report stands out because
itwasdiscussedbytheJesuitsinaspecialconferenceheldfromDecember
1627 to January 1628 at Jiading, in Zhejiang province. Today only the
firstpartofthisreportisextant,butitclearlyshowsLongobardo’ssystem-
aticrefutationofRicci’sreadingofConfucianism.Longobardo’sposition
achieved some success at the conference, which decided to discontinue
the use of Shangdi to designate God, but eventually the Jesuits rallied
behind Ricci’s position out of fear that abandoning Ricci’s accommo-
dations would compromise his legacy. The situation became even more
complicated in 1630s with the arrival of the Dominicans and Francis-
cans in China, who started to voice opposition to the Jesuits’ tolera-
tion of Confucian ritual practices in Chinese Christian communities. In
order to shield the Jesuits from further criticism, in the 1645 the vice-
provincialofChina,FranciscoFurtado(1589–1653)orderedtheburning
of Longobardo’s report.
Fortunately, Longobardo’s treatise survived the suppression through
the efforts of Dominican and Franciscan missionaries. An original
Portuguese manuscript in Longobardo’s own hand is still extant, as
well as a manuscript translation in Latin (1661) by Antonio de Santa
María Caballero (1602–1669), but neither the Portuguese nor Latin
manuscriptshaveneverbeenpublisheduntilthispresentedition.Instead,
Longobardo’s report became notorious through three printed transla-
tions: the first was published in Spanish (1676) by Domingo Navarrete
(1610–1689), the second in French (1701) by Louis Champion de Cicé
(1648–1727) and the third in English (1704) by the Churchill brothers.
Both the French and the English translations are based on the Spanish
which is itself based on the Portuguese.
Although Longobardo’s original report only made passing remarks to
these rituals, these translations sought to martial Longobardo’s report
as further evidence in the broader controversy over rites in honour of
Confuciusandancestors.TheignominyoftherevelationthatRicci’sown
successor so vehemently disagreed with Ricci’s position no doubt played
an important role in the papal condemnation of the Jesuits’ missionary
practices in 1704. The report acquired also a great recognition beyond
the Catholic Church, because the Protestant philosopher Leibniz (1646–
1716) examined and refuted it in The Natural Theology of the Chinese
viii PREFACE
(Discours sur la théologie naturelle des Chinois, 1716). For this reason,
Longobardo’s report was even included in Leibniz’s complete works.
In 2002, Li Wenchao and Hans Poser published an edition of The
Natural Theology of the Chinese, which included the French version of
Longobardo’s report used by Leibniz.2 In this edition, they added some
annotationsonsomefiguresandChineseconceptsmentionedbyLongo-
bardo. Although they compared the French translation with its Spanish
source text, they did not consult the Portuguese and Latin manuscripts.
The Spanish, French and English versions are generally accurate and
provide a correct understanding of Longobardo’s views; however, there
areomissionsandsomeseriousmistakes.Forexample,theSpanishversion
claims that the Ming dynasty Compendium on Nature and Principle
(Xingli daquan) was written 2500 years before, and the same mistake
is repeated in the French and English versions. In fact, the Portuguese
and the Latin manuscripts more accurately report that it was composed
200 years before. This may appear a minor mistake but it had a consid-
erable influence on Leibniz who was led to believe that the Compendium
on Nature and Principle and all the philosophy contained therein was
conterminous with ancient Confucianism.
AnotherimportantadvantageofthePortugueseandLatinmanuscripts
is that they include the Chinese characters corresponding to the Chinese
terms and citations discussed by Longobardo. These characters, which
are absent from the printed versions, are crucial for reconstructing how
Longobardocritiquedandutilizedhissources.In2017,PanFeng-chuan
conducted a systematic textual analysis of Longobardo’s Chinese cita-
tions, which she mostly traced to theCompendium on Nature and Prin-
ciple.3 However, our own study shows that the quotes from the Four
Books correspondtotheSectionandSentenceCommentariesandCollected
Annotations on the Four Books (Sishu zhangju jizhu) by Zhu Xi.
Using the English version of 1704, in 2017 Li Tiangang published a
general overview of Longobardo’s report in which he thoroughly anal-
ysed its influence in the formation of the European idea of “Chinese
2Leibniz,DiscourssurlathéologienaturelledesChinois,ed.LiWenchao&HansPoser
(Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2002).
3PanFeng-chuan潘鳳娟,“LongHuaminLunZhongguozongjiaodejidianwentifanyi
chutan龍華民《論中國宗教的幾點問題》翻譯初探”[APreliminaryInvestigation toNiccolò
Longobardo’s Account on China], in Zhexue yu wenhua 哲學與文化 [Monthly Review of
Philosophy and Culture] 522 (November 2017): 29–43.
PREFACE ix
religion”.4 However, Longobardo does not discuss Chinese religion as
such, but only Chinese terms. The association between the report and
“religion” was first introduced by the French translation, which changed
its title to Treatise on Some Aspects of the Religion of the Chinese (Traité
sur quelques points de la religion des Chinois). But this title misleadingly
projects into Longobardo’s report concerns which emerged only eighty
years later.
This new annotated translation of Longobardo’s report into English
buildsuponthisincreasedscholarlyattentiontoLongobardo’scontrarian
presence in the China mission. The existing English translation by the
Churchill brothers is quite outdated in its language and does not provide
anyscholarlyapparatusfornavigatingLongobardo’scomplexandattimes
confusinginterweavingofNeo-Confucian,scholasticandhumanistideas.
In our annotations, we have endeavoured to identify to the best of
our ability Longobardo’s European and Chinese sources. Chinese terms,
figures and places are all rendered wherever possible with Hanyu pinyin
and Chinese characters to ease readability.
Since Longobardo’s autograph Portuguese manuscript is mutilated,
this English translation is based on the Latin manuscript, which is more
readable and better preserved. This Latin text was transcribed by Claudia
von Collani and revised by Daniel Canaris and Thierry Meynard. Due to
theimportanceofthePortuguesemanuscript,thetextwastranscribedby
EmanueleLandiandrevisedbyMárioS.deCarvalho,bothfromCoimbra
University, Portugal. Using their transcription, we have compared the
Latin with the Portuguese texts and indicated meaningful differences.
Our edition is introduced with four essays which serve to introduce
the historical and intellectual context of Longobardo’s report. Claudia
von Collani provides a very detailed analysis of the texts produced by
the missionaries on the Terms Controversy. An important protagonist in
this debate, mentioned by Longobardo himself, is João Rodrigues Tçuzu
(1561–1633), a key figure in the connection between the missions of
Japan and China. While in Japan, he commenced research on Chinese
language,historyandthought.Buthewasalsodivisivebecausehepressed
upon the China mission his own reading of Confucianism. In China he
interviewedChineseChristiansandconcludedthattheirunderstandingof
4Li Tiangang 李天纲, “Long Huamin dui Zhongguo zongjiao benzhi de lunshu ji
yingxiang 龍華民對中國宗教本質的論述及其影響,” in Xueshuyuekan 學術月刊 49, no. 5
(2017): 165–84.