Rites Controversy

4 Key excerpts on "Rites Controversy"

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  Embassies to China

  Diplomacy and Cultural Encounters Before the Opium Wars

  • Michael Keevak(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  But not all his col- leagues agreed, and the matter was eventually directed to Rome for an authoritative decision. These debates have come to be known as the Chinese “rites contro- versy,” which remains one of the most daunting and confusing chapters in the entire history of East-West relations because of its level of hysteria and an almost insurmountable quantity of material to digest (Standaert 2001, 680–88). Far from being a dispute between Rome and Beijing, however, it was by and large a European phenomenon that was understood and THE Rites Controversy 93 judged according to distinctly Western prejudices and preconceptions. Rome produced a series of verdicts that were often inconsistent, with any one decision seeming to depend on which side had brought forth the evidence that was then being reviewed. A great deal of research and analysis was eventually carried out, but as it consisted almost entirely of Western sources, it, too, was decidedly biased and one-sided. Some testi- mony from Chinese converts was also collected and sent to Rome, but this data was largely ignored (Standaert 2012), and even an intervention from the emperor himself, who attempted to argue that Ricci was right, had fallen on deaf ears. Another key aspect of the debate was linguistic, and Ricci had intro- duced similarly controversial measures to deal with the problem of how to express Christian terminology in a Chinese context. The first sticking point was how to translate the word for God, since while there were plenty of divine or semi-divine deities and powers in the Chinese tradition, as well as an “emperor on high” (shang di) and an abstract concept of heaven (tian), there seemed to be nothing like the Western monotheistic notion of a single, all-powerful creator God.

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  Friars, Nobles and Burghers – Sermons, Images and Prints

  Studies of Culture and Society in Early-Modern Europe - In Memoriam István György Tóth

  • Jaroslav Miller, László Kontler, Jaroslav Miller, László Kontler(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Central European University Press

    (Publisher)

  The condemnation of certain rites concerning the honor of Confucius and ancestors as superstitious and incompatible with Christianity by Rome is an often-told, and yet incomplete story. The extant sources are simply too vast, the theological debates too intricate, and the rival personal net-works too complicated for the Chinese Rites Controversy to receive the definitive treatment it deserves. Suffice to say for our purposes that the enemies of the Jesuits were, in the end, not the Buddhist monks of China, but rival missionary orders from Europe, in particular, the Dominicans and the Missions Étrangères of Paris. The essence of their dispute is this: the friars and the French fathers objected strenuously to the cultural per-meability of the Jesuits and the imprecise frontier between culture and religion, China and Europe. They attacked, among other things, the per-sona of the Jesuit-mandarin as the anti-thesis of the true missionary. From that profound mistrust of an unstable Jesuit persona sprung the rest of the disputes: disagreement over the translations of Chinese terms, rejection of a Confucian–Christian synthesis, and the privileging of correct unbending Quatrième centenaire de l’édit de Nantes , ed. Guy Saupin et al. (Rennes: 1999), pp. 445–450. 232 FRIARS, NOBLES AND BURGHERS—SERMONS, IMAGES AND PRINTS doctrines over variations in ritual practices. Between 1705 and 1720, be-tween Jesuit self-defense and a chorus of attacks, the crisis spun out of control, culminating in 1720 when Clement XI published Ex illa die , for-bidding Chinese converts to practice the condemned rites. After several audiences with the papal legate Mezzabarba, dispatched to salvage the China Mission from the ruins left by the earlier and disastrous papal lega-tion led by Tournon in 1705/6, Kangxi was finally exasperated by the intrigue and discord between the religious orders.

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  Available until 23 Dec |Learn more

  The Interweaving of Rituals

  Funerals in the Cultural Exchange between China and Europe

  • Nicolas Standaert(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • University of Washington Press

    (Publisher)

  The second set of questions was related to the ceremonies in honor of Confucius and the cult of ancestors, which comprised such forms of piety as prostrations, or kowtowing, incense burning, the serving of food, and so on, in front of the corpse, grave, or commemorative tablet. Here the ques-tion was whether Christians should be forbidden to participate in these acts, or if these ceremonies should be regarded as gestures of piety, or at least as not being contrary to Christian belief, and therefore should be tolerated. The mis-sionaries could take still a third position: while condemning some features, they could permit converts to perform the rites with modifications and hope that the Christian conscience would eventually abandon or still further modify them. These questions received a wide variety of answers that can be classified in two approaches. The first, to which most Jesuits adhered, called the “Ricci method,” christian versus superstitious rituals 165 was based on accommodation to the Confucian elite culture. Ricci and most of his successors defined these rituals not as idolatrous but as “civil” and “polit-ical” ones, and thus acceptable. They also opted to use Chinese terms from the classics for key theological terms such as God. The other approach, followed mainly by Dominican and Franciscan friars, considered the rites as supersti-tious and the chosen terms as not representing the Christian God. The con-troversy began when the first Dominicans reported directly to Rome what they had observed of Jesuit actions. These and subsequent interventions resulted in several Roman instructions in 1645, 1656, and 1669, but the discussion would eventually remain localized, within China. The conflict between the two visions intensified when Charles Maigrot (1652–1730), of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (Missions Etrangères de Paris, or MEP) and Vicar Apostolic of Fujian, launched an indictment of the rites in his mandate of 26 March 1693.

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  Meaning and Controversy within Chinese Ancestor Religion

  • Paulin Batairwa Kubuya(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  controversy all about, and what implications did it have for the appraisal of ancestor rites per se?

  What is known as the Chinese rites controversy started when the first Dominican and Franciscan friars, who entered South China (Fujian) from Manila, met Christians who, alongside their faith, also held some ceremonies for their ancestors and partook in a form of ritual said to be in honor of Confucius . In the missionaries’ eyes, these rites amounted to superstition and idolatry. The Chinese converts explained that they were not, and justified their assertions by the fact that the rites had been allowed by the missionaries’ Jesuit predecessors. The controversy began when the friars, unconvinced by the explanation, reported the facts directly to Rome. The report portrayed the rites as superstitious. To this was added some doubt regarding the accuracy of the Chinese terms chosen to translate the Christian term for God. This sufficed to ignite a complex controversy that Nicolas Standaert summarizes as follows:

  … These and subsequent interventions resulted in several instructions in 1645, 1656 and in 1669, but the discussion would eventually be localized, within China. The conflict between the two visions intensified when Charles Maigrot (1652–1730), of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (Missions Etrangères de Paris, or MEP ) and Vicar Apostolic of Fujian, launched an indictment of the rites in his mandate of 26 March 1693. From that time the Holy See became involved in a juridical process of extraordinary complexity, while Jesuits ’ books about China became the subject of stormy debates and condemnations at the Sorbonne in Paris. The deliberations of a commission of cardinals in Rome resulted in the decree Cum Deus optimus of 20 November 1704, forbidding the use of tian and shangdi while approving tianzhu for the concept of God, and forbidding Christians to take part in sacrifices to Confucius or to ancestors . This condemnation was repeatedly confirmed in 1707, 1715, 1721, and 1742.76

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