De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas
Encyclopedia
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
) is a book based on an Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
manuscript written by the most important founding figure of the Jesuit China mission
Jesuit China missions
The history of the missions of the Jesuits in China is part of the history of relations between China and the Western world. The missionary efforts and other work of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, between the 16th and 17th century played a significant role in continuing the transmission of...
, Matteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci, SJ was an Italian Jesuit priest, and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China Mission, as it existed in the 17th-18th centuries. His current title is Servant of God....
(1552-1610), expanded and translated into Latin by his colleague Nicolas Trigault
Nicolas Trigault
Nicolas Trigault was a Flemish Jesuit, and a missionary to China. He was also known by his latinised name Trigautius or Trigaultius, and his Chinese name Jīn Nígé .-Life and work:...
(1577-1628). The book was first published in 1615 in Augsburg
Augsburg
Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...
..
The book's full title is De Christiana expeditione apud sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu. Ex P. Matthaei Riccii eiusdem Societatis commentariis Libri V: Ad S.D.N. Paulum V. In Quibus Sinensis Regni mores, leges, atque instituta, & novae illius Ecclesiae difficillima primordia accurate & summa fide describuntur
("The Christian Expedition among the Chinese undertaken by the Society of Jesus from the commentaries of Fr. Matteo Ricci of the same Society... in which the customs, laws, and principles of the Chinese kingdom and the most difficult first beginnings of the new Church there are accurately and with great fidelity described / authored by Fr. Nicolas Trigault, Flemish, of the same Society," dedicated to Pope Paul V
Pope Paul V
-Theology:Paul met with Galileo Galilei in 1616 after Cardinal Bellarmine had, on his orders, warned Galileo not to hold or defend the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus. Whether there was also an order not to teach those ideas in any way has been a matter for controversy...
). As it indicates, the work contained an overview of the late Ming
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
China's geography, politics, and culture, its philosophy and religions, and described the history of Christianity's inroads into China (primarily, the work of Ricci himself and his fellow Jesuits
Jesuit China missions
The history of the missions of the Jesuits in China is part of the history of relations between China and the Western world. The missionary efforts and other work of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, between the 16th and 17th century played a significant role in continuing the transmission of...
). The book articulated Ricci's approach for planting Christianity on the Chinese soil: an "accommodationist" policy, as later scholars called it, based on the premise of the essential compatibility between Christianity and Confucianism
Confucianism
Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...
. With some evolutionary changes, this policy continued to guide Jesuit missionaries in China for the next century.
The first major book published in Europe by an author who was not only fluent in Chinese and conversant in Chinese culture but also had traveled over much of the country, Ricci-Trigault's work was highly popular, and went through at least 16 editions in a number of European languages in the several decades after its first publication.
History of the book
The book is based primarily on "journals" written by the Italian Jesuit Matteo RicciMatteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci, SJ was an Italian Jesuit priest, and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China Mission, as it existed in the 17th-18th centuries. His current title is Servant of God....
(1552 – 1610) during his 27 years of residence of China (1583-1610). After Ricci's death his papers, written in Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, were found by his fellow Jesuits in his Beijing office. A handwritten copy was made, as well as a translation into Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
.
In 1612, the China Mission's Superior, Niccolo Longobardi appointed another Jesuit, Nicolas Trigault
Nicolas Trigault
Nicolas Trigault was a Flemish Jesuit, and a missionary to China. He was also known by his latinised name Trigautius or Trigaultius, and his Chinese name Jīn Nígé .-Life and work:...
(1577-1628), known for his good Latin writing skills, as the China Mission's procurator (recruitment and PR
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
representative) in Europe. One of his important tasks was bringing Ricci's journals to Europe and publishing them in a book form, after translating them into Latin, expanding and editing them.
He sailed from Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
to India on February 9, 1613, and started to work on the manuscript already on shipboard. Other tasks interfered during the overland section of his westward journey to Europe (via Persian Gulf
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...
, Persia, and Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
) and his negotiations with the Jesuit leaders in Rome; but he managed to complete his work by 1615, when the book was published in Augsburg
Augsburg
Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...
in 645 pages, plus introductory and index material. Trigault's preface was dated January 14, 1615.
French, German, Spanish, and Italian translations followed within the next six years.
Ricci's original Italian text was not published until the appearance of the Opere storiche del P. Matteo Ricci, S.J (Historical Works of Fr. Matteo Ricci, S.J.) in two volumes in 1911 and 1913. This edition, prepared by
the Italian Jesuit historian Pietro Tacchi Venturi, contained Ricci's original text, under the title Commentarj della Cina (Commentary on China), as well as Ricci's letters from China. However, Venturi's lack of knowledge of Chinese made it necessary for Fr. Pasquale d'Elia (1890 - 1963) to produce another, better annotated edition of Ricci's manuscripts (known as Fonti Ricciane) some 30 years later, in the 1940s. Notes provided by d'Elia (who had been a Jesuit missionary in China himself) contained the standard (Wade-Giles
Wade-Giles
Wade–Giles , sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for the Mandarin Chinese language. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Wade during the mid-19th century , and was given completed form with Herbert Giles' Chinese–English dictionary of 1892.Wade–Giles was the most...
) transcription and Chinese characters for the Chinese names and words that appeared in Ricci's (and Ricci-Trigault's) text in Ricci's original transcription.
Excerpts from De Christiana expeditione appeared in English in Purchas his Pilgrimes
Samuel Purchas
Samuel Purchas , was an English travel writer, a near-contemporary of Richard Hakluyt.Purchas was born at Thaxted, Essex, and graduated at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1600; later he became a B.D., and with this degree was admitted at Oxford in 1615. In 1604 he was presented by James I to the...
in 1625, under the title "A discourse of the Kingdome of China, taken out of Ricius and Trigautius, containing the countrey, people, government, religion, rites, sects, characters, studies, arts, acts ; and a Map of China added, drawne out
of one there made with Annotations for the understanding thereof".
A complete English translation of the Latin text, by the Jesuit Louis J. Gallagher
Louis J. Gallagher
Louis J. Gallagher, SJ was an American Jesuit, known for his educational and literary work.-Biography:Born in Boston, Louis J...
was published in the USA in 1942, with the preface and imprimatur
Imprimatur
An imprimatur is, in the proper sense, a declaration authorizing publication of a book. The term is also applied loosely to any mark of approval or endorsement.-Catholic Church:...
of the Archbishop of Boston Richard J. Cushing. It was reprinted in 1953.
The standard Ricci-Trigault's Latin edition, as well as most translations, are divided into five large sections ("books"). Book One is encyclopedic overview of the late-Ming China as seen by Ricci during his 27 years of living in the country, interacting with people of all walks of life, and reading Chinese literature. The other four books describe, in chronological order, the story of the Jesuit China missions
Jesuit China missions
The history of the missions of the Jesuits in China is part of the history of relations between China and the Western world. The missionary efforts and other work of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, between the 16th and 17th century played a significant role in continuing the transmission of...
before, during, and for a few years after, Ricci's "expedition" into China.
China in Ricci's book
While the encyclopedic scope of De Christiana expeditione... can be compared to that of The Travels of Marco PoloThe Travels of Marco Polo
Books of the Marvels of the World or Description of the World , also nicknamed Il Milione or Oriente Poliano and commonly called The Travels of Marco Polo, is a 13th-century travelogue written down by Rustichello da Pisa from stories told by Marco Polo, describing the...
, or Juan González de Mendoza
Juan González de Mendoza
Juan González de Mendoza was the author of the first Western history of China to publish Chinese characters for Western delectation. Published by him in 1586, Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres del gran reyno de la China is an account of observations several Spanish travelers...
's Historia ... del gran reyno de la China (1585), its content reveals the author's much closer familiarity with China's language, culture, and people than that of the 13th-century Venetian traveler or of his contemporary Mexican bishop, on the basis of both Ricci's personal experiences and his studies of Chinese literature.
In his book, Ricci gives a brief overview of China's history and geography. He talks about its industry and agriculture, explaining the use of bamboo, coal mining and distribution system, tea production and drinking, and the lacquer
Lacquer
In a general sense, lacquer is a somewhat imprecise term for a clear or coloured varnish that dries by solvent evaporation and often a curing process as well that produces a hard, durable finish, in any sheen level from ultra matte to high gloss and that can be further polished as required...
technology. He describes Chinese architecture, music and theater (both of which he didn't liked too much), and the annoying to Ricci practice of long banquet
Banquet
A banquet is a large meal or feast, complete with main courses and desserts. It usually serves a purpose such as a charitable gathering, a ceremony, or a celebration, and is often preceded or followed by speeches in honour of someone....
s, accompanied by theatrical performances. He tells the reader about using seals for signature and about highly valued writing implements
Four Treasures of the Study
Four Treasures of the Study, Four Jewels of the Study or Four Friends of the Study is an expression used to denote the brush, ink, paper and ink stone used in Chinese and other East Asian calligraphic traditions...
; about artistically painted fans
Fan (implement)
A hand-held fan is an implement used to induce an airflow for the purpose of cooling or refreshing oneself. Any broad, flat surface waved back-and-forth will create a small airflow and therefore can be considered a rudimentary fan...
(whose role of a culture item in China he compares to that of gloves in his contemporary Europe) and about surprising similarity between Chinese and European furniture (both regions use chairs, tables, and beds, unlike most of other regions of Eurasia). He concludes his generally appreciative description of China's material culture with the thought that "One may gather from what has been said that there are numerous points of advantageous contacts between ourselves and the Chinese people."
When talking about Chinese language, Ricchi gives a brief overview of Chinese writing system, and the great distance between the Classical language used for writing and the spoken language - as well as of the fact that the written language was at the time shared by China, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Ryukyu Islands
Ryukyu Islands
The , also known as the , is a chain of islands in the western Pacific, on the eastern limit of the East China Sea and to the southwest of the island of Kyushu in Japan. From about 1829 until the mid 20th century, they were alternately called Luchu, Loochoo, or Lewchew, akin to the Mandarin...
, Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
, and Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
(Cochin), providing a medium for contact between the countries of the region
Sinosphere
In areal linguistics, Sinosphere refers to a grouping of countries and regions that are currently inhabited with a majority of Chinese population or were historically under Chinese cultural influence...
.
He comments on the variety of Chinese dialects
Sinitic languages
The Sinitic languages, often called the Chinese languages or the Chinese language, are a language family frequently postulated as one of two primary branches of Sino-Tibetan...
, as well as on the existence of the Guanhua (the predecessor of Modern Standard Chinese), which he thought to be universally known to the educated classes throughout the empire.
Ricci pays a lot of attention to China's education system and the Imperial examination
Imperial examination
The Imperial examination was an examination system in Imperial China designed to select the best administrative officials for the state's bureaucracy. This system had a huge influence on both society and culture in Imperial China and was directly responsible for the creation of a class of...
mechanism serving to form the scholar-bureaucrats
Scholar-bureaucrats
Scholar-officials or Scholar-bureaucrats were civil servants appointed by the emperor of China to perform day-to-day governance from the Sui Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, China's last imperial dynasty. These officials mostly came from the well-educated men known as the...
ruling class of the empire, as well as to the system of state administration. He notes that unlike European monarchies of the day, the Ming Empire prohibited all male relatives of the emperor from occupying any official post, or even from leaving their fiefs without permission, and greatly disapproves the use of eunuchs - "a meager looking class, uneducated and brought up in perpetual slavery, a dull and stolid lot" - in the administration of the state.
Ricci finds it "a source of regret that [the Chinese] do not get rid themselves" of the complicated and time-consuming ceremonies
Ceremony
A ceremony is an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin.-Ceremonial occasions:A ceremony may mark a rite of passage in a human life, marking the significance of, for example:* birth...
used to express relations between superiors and inferiors, or even between friends.
Ricci's view of Chinese religions
Ricci's attitude to China's beliefs and religious (or civic) rites is nuanced. He disparages the Buddhism and TaoismTaoism
Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...
as the "unnatural and hideous fiction of idol worship", while viewing the teaching of Confucious as moral, rather than religious in nature, and perfectly compatible with - or even complementary to - Christianity.
Buddhism
Ricci refers to Chinese Buddhism as the "sect ... known as Sciequia [释迦牟尼, Shijiamouni, Shakyamuni] or Omitose [阿弥陀佛, Amituo Fo, AmitābhaAmitabha
Amitābha is a celestial buddha described in the scriptures of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism...
]", and is aware of it being brought from India - supposedly, after an emperor
Emperor Ming of Han
Emperor Ming of Han, , was second emperor of the Chinese Eastern Han Dynasty.He was the second son of Emperor Guangwu. It was during Emperor Ming's reign that Buddhism began to spread into China. One night, he is said to have dreamed of a golden man or golden men...
had a prophetic dream in 65 A.D.
Ricci discerns in Buddhist beliefs a number of concepts that he views as influenced by Western thinking: the Buddhist concept of transmigration of souls is similar to that of Pythagoras
Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...
, and even the Chinese Five elements are nothing but a "foolish" extension of the western Four elements
Classical element
Many philosophies and worldviews have a set of classical elements believed to reflect the simplest essential parts and principles of which anything consists or upon which the constitution and fundamental powers of anything are based. Most frequently, classical elements refer to ancient beliefs...
. Furthermore, the Jesuit author
notices a number of similarities between Buddhist and Christian practices: teaching of rewards and punishments in afterlife, existence of monasticism and appreciation of celibacy
Celibacy
Celibacy is a personal commitment to avoiding sexual relations, in particular a vow from marriage. Typically celibacy involves avoiding all romantic relationships of any kind. An individual may choose celibacy for religious reasons, such as is the case for priests in some religions, for reasons of...
, close similarity between Buddhist chanting and Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...
, ecclesiastical statuary and vestments, and even existence in the Buddhist doctrine of "a certain trinity
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
in which three different gods are fused into one deity". Ricci explains these similarities by hypothesizing Christian influence on the Buddhism, as transmitted by Indians to Chinese in (supposedly) 1st century AD, in particular because of the preaching of Bartholomew the Apostle in northern India.
Ricci thinks that perhaps the emperor
Emperor Ming of Han
Emperor Ming of Han, , was second emperor of the Chinese Eastern Han Dynasty.He was the second son of Emperor Guangwu. It was during Emperor Ming's reign that Buddhism began to spread into China. One night, he is said to have dreamed of a golden man or golden men...
's dream in 65 AD - or just "reports about the truths contained in the Christian Gospel" - called him to get Christianity into the country - but, alas, "the Chinese received a false importation in place of the truth they were seeking".
Taoism
Ricci gives a brief account of the Tausu (道士, Daoshi) - the followers of Lauzu (LaoziLaozi
Laozi was a mystic philosopher of ancient China, best known as the author of the Tao Te Ching . His association with the Tao Te Ching has led him to be traditionally considered the founder of Taoism...
), and their books "written in rather elegant literary style". He mentions their three main gods
Three Pure Ones
The Three Pure Ones also translated as the Three Pure Pellucid Ones, the Three Pristine Ones, the Three Divine Teachers, the Three Clarities, or the Three Purities is the Taoist Trinity, the three highest Gods in the Taoist pantheon. They are regarded as pure manifestation of the Tao and the...
- which, to him, like the "Buddhist trinity" he had mentioned earlier, is in indication of the "father of lies
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
" persevering at "his ambitious desire of divine similitude".
Ricci also gives the story of the "present reigning lord of heaven" Ciam (Zhang) having usurped that position from the previous Lord, Leu (Liu) and mentions "those who have been taken bodily into heaven
Xian (Taoism)
Xian is a Chinese word for an enlightened person, translatable in English as:*"spiritually immortal; transcendent; super-human; celestial being"...
". Elsewhere, this Ciam is described as "the original high priest" of Taoism (possibly referring to Zhang Daoling
Zhang Daoling
Zhang Ling , style name Fuhan , was an Eastern Han Dynasty Taoist hermit who founded the Way of the Celestial Masters sect of Taoism, which is also known as the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice....
).
Confucianism
On the other hand, he feels that the teaching of ConfuciusConfucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....
is moral, rather than religious in nature, and is perfectly compatible with - or even complementary to - Christianity.
Occult practices
Ricci strongly criticizes alchemy, fortune-telling, palmistry, astrology, and geomancyFeng shui
Feng shui ' is a Chinese system of geomancy believed to use the laws of both Heaven and Earth to help one improve life by receiving positive qi. The original designation for the discipline is Kan Yu ....
as "absurd superstitions" of the heathens.
Ricci is annoyed by the "addiction" of many educated Chinese to alchemy (aiming either at prolonging life, or at converting base metals into silver), particularly so because a number of people he met came to him for a wrong reason: hoping to learn the secret of converting mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
into silver. This belief, as Ricci himself explained, was based on the observation that the Portuguese bought a lot of mercury in China, exported it, and brought silver back into the country.
De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas may have been the first book to tell Europeans about feng shui
Feng shui
Feng shui ' is a Chinese system of geomancy believed to use the laws of both Heaven and Earth to help one improve life by receiving positive qi. The original designation for the discipline is Kan Yu ....
(geomancy
Geomancy
Geomancy is a method of divination that interprets markings on the ground or the patterns formed by tossed handfuls of soil, rocks, or sand...
). Ricci's account tells about feng shui masters (geologi, in Latin) studying prospective construction sites or grave sites "with reference to the head and the tail and the feet of the particular dragons which are supposed to dwell beneath that spot". Ricci compared the "recondite science" of geomancy with that of astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
, viewing it as yet another superstitio absurdissima: "What could be more absurd than their imagining that the safety of a family, honors, and their entire existence must depend upon such trifles as a door being opened from one side or another, as rain falling into a courtyard from the right or from the left, a window opened here or there, or one roof being higher than another?"
Editions available
- De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu (1617) - original (Trigault's) Latin text on Google Books
- A discourse of the Kingdome of China, taken out of Ricius and Trigautius, containing the countrey, people, government, religion, rites, sects, characters, studies, arts, acts ; and a Map of China added, drawne out of one there made with Annotations for the understanding thereof, and A continuation of the Jesuites Acts and observations in China till Ricius his death and some yeers after. Of Hanceu or Quinsay. (excerpts from De Christiana expeditione, in English translation) in Purchas his PilgrimesSamuel PurchasSamuel Purchas , was an English travel writer, a near-contemporary of Richard Hakluyt.Purchas was born at Thaxted, Essex, and graduated at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1600; later he became a B.D., and with this degree was admitted at Oxford in 1615. In 1604 he was presented by James I to the...
, Volume XII (1625), Chapters VII and VIII. The two preceding chapters, V and VI, also contain related Jesuit accounts. Can be found in the full text of "Hakluytus posthumus" on archive.org. The book also appears on Google Books, but only in snippet view. - Gallagher (1953). China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matteo Ricci, Random House, New York, 1953. English translation of Trigault's Latin by Louis J. Gallagher. (Only snippet view on Google Books)
- Pasquale M. d' Elia, Matteo Ricci. Fonti ricciane: documenti originali concernenti Matteo Ricci e la storia delle prime relazioni tra l'Europa e la Cina (1579-1615), Libreria dello Stato, 1942 - Ricci's original Italian text (not published until the early 20th century)