Windows into China

by JOHN PARKER

THE MAURY A. BROMSEN LECTURE IN HUMANISTIC BIBLIOGRAPHY

This lectureship was endowed in December 1970 by the well- known Boston historian, bibliographer, and rare bookman Maury A. Bromsen, as a memorial to his mother, Rose Eisenberg Brom- sen ( 1 885-1 968). Its expressed purpose is "to invite annually a distinguished scholar to deliver a public lecture in the field of bibliography." The donor further stipulated that "the speaker ought to emphasize the humanistic rather than the descriptive character of his subject. The lecture should be substantively his- torical and relate to printed material and its relationship to the evolution of thought."

A committee of five scholars, appointed by the Director of the Boston Public Library and representative of the greater municipal academic community, is to advise in the selection of the annual speaker.

The lecture series, published by the Trustees of the Library, comprises the following to date:

1973 HELLMUT LEHMANN-HAUPT

The Book of Trades in the Iconography of Social Typology

1974 FREDERICK R. GOFF

The Delights of a Rare Book Librarian

*975 JAMES D. HART

New Englanders in Nova Albion: Some igth Century Views of California

1976 JACQUES BARZUN

The Bibliophile of the Future: His Complaints about the Twentieth Century

1977 JOHN PARKER

Windows into China: The Jesuits and Their Books, 1580-1730

https://archive.org/details/windowsintochinaOOpark

Windows into China: The Jesuits and Their Books, 1580-1730

Windows into China: The Jesuits and Their Books, 1580-1730

byJOHN PARKER

Delivered on the occasion of the fifth annual Bromsen Lecture April 30, 1977

BOSTON

Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston 1978

200'

Maury A. Bromsen Lecture in Humanistic Bibliography, No. 5

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Parker, John, 1923-

Windows into China. The Jesuits and their books, 1580-1730.

(Maury A. Bromsen lecture in humanistic bibliography; no. 5)

1. Missions — China — Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Jesuits — Missions — Addresses, essays, lectures. 3. Chinese rites — Ad- dresses, essays, lectures. I. Title. II. Series. BV3417.P37 266'.2'5i 77~l3l9l

ISBN O-89073-O5O-4

Copyright © 1978 by the Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston

Foreword

The Boston Public Library is pleased to present in book form the fifth annual Maury A. Bromsen Lecture in Humanistic Bibliography.

Since Boston was an important center for the China trade, it is most appropriate that one of the early lectures in this an- nual lectureship "commemorate a significant event: the five hundredth anniversary of the beginnings of a great Western pastime known as China- watching."

Dr. John Parker, Librarian, James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota, made good use of his library's rich resources in the field of early European overseas expansion in preparing his lecture, Windows into China: The Jesuits and Their Books, 1580-1730. Dr. Parker was introduced by Pro- fessor Francis M. Rogers, a member of the Bromsen Advisory Committee. Mr. Rogers, a leading Luso-Brazilian scholar and university administrator, was dean of Harvard's Grad- uate School of Arts and Sciences from 1949 to 1955 and chairman of its Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, 1947-49 and 1961-66. He has contributed ar- ticles on maritime history to learned journals and has pub-

vii

lished several books on early travels including The Travels of the Infante Dom Pedro of Portugal and Europe Informed: An Ex- hibition of Early Books Which Acquainted Europe with the East.

Dr. Parker joined the University of Minnesota library staff in 1953 as the first curator of the James Ford Bell Li- brary and has supervised the growth and development of this special collection (devoted to the history of trade and dis- covery prior to 1800), which today is a major research re- source. He is the author or editor of many publications, in- cluding From Lisbon to Calicut (1956), Tiding out of Brazil (I957)> Van Metereris Virginia, 1607-1616 (1961), Merchant and Scholars (1965), Books to Build an Empire (1965), and The Journals of Jonathan Carver (1976). We are pleased to add the 1977 Bromsen Lecture to his bibliography.

Philip J. MgNiff

DIRECTOR AND LIBRARIAN

viii

Introduction

In World War II, young Americans fanned out literally all over the globe. They returned home no longer Europocentric but aware of the other Americas, Africa, Asia, and Pacific islands.

Some of these enriched Americans returned to academic institutions resolved to change the directions and emphases of research and resultant teaching. Those interested in the overseas expansion of Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries often found their local library resources wanting. At least one such scholar in the Greater Boston area set up three special folders and thus reminded himself to look up precious rarities in other cities. One was labeled "Next trip to Providence," another "Next trip to New York," the third "Next trip to Washington." His gaze was confined to what Louis Hanke used to call the Northeastern Bibliographical Belt.

Gradually over those years, however, Greater Bostonians sensed something new going on beyond the western horizon. A great catalogue, for instance, appeared in 1950. It de- scribed the Jesuit relations and other Americana in the per-

IX

sonal library of a distinguished collector in Minneapolis, Minnesota, namely, James Ford Bell (i 879-1 961), merchant, miller, founder of General Mills — indeed, the originator of Betty Crocker — and a regent of the University of Minnesota.

The Bell Library grew with the times. Soon, New Eng- land's scholars discovered that it had acquired Martin Wald- seemiiller's Cosmographiae Introductio and, even more remark- able, the 1507 globe map published to accompany that book which named America. In 1954, the learned world learned that the Bell Library was in possession of the so-called nauti- cal chart of 1424 even as Armando Cortesao's book describ- ing it was issued in Coimbra. And in 1955 we were thunder- struck upon realizing that Dom Joao de Castro's manuscript rutter giving sailing directions from Goa to Suez was safely lodged in one of the Twin Cities.

Greater Boston's traveling researcher promptly added a fourth folder to the aforementioned set, this one labeled "Next trip to Minneapolis." And he was richly rewarded for his pains, for the James Ford Bell Library continued to ex- pand. Now devoted to the history of trade and discovery prior to 1800, it gathered in even more printed books, maps, and manuscripts which documented Europe's, and by ex- tension America's awareness of those other lands today no longer distant. Greater Boston's scholars, nay, even those of the entire world, were apprised of holdings out there in 45°n, 93°w, through a brilliantly conceived set of publications de- signed to let them know, in most enjoyable fashion, what the Bell Library was all about.

That library and the widely disseminated information con- cerning it we owe, yes, to Mr. Bell's vision and generosity. In a more realistic sense, however, we owe it all to John Parker.

As a very young man, John Parker had served in the U.S. 20th Air Force in far-off India and, later, on an extended mission in the Marianas. His personal horizons, originally

confined to his native North Dakota, had been greatly ex- tended. He returned home, finished college, matured, and in 1953 joined the staff of the University of Minnesota's library system as first curator of the James Ford Bell Library, given to the university in that very year.

By way of further introduction, those attending the lecture needed do no more than examine carefully the magnificent exhibition set up in the Boston Room of the Boston Public Library. They viewed not only the books authored in toto by Dr. Parker — doctor by virtue of a degree in library science from the University of Michigan in i960 — but also the lists of acquisitions, the newsletters, the annual volumes designed primarily as gifts to the Associates of the Bell Library whom he organized, the texts of the series of Bell Lectures which he launched, and much else besides. All of this he has done for us, that we may be familiar with the resources generously placed at our disposal in an elegant setting if we would but journey to the headwaters of the Mississippi. No other li- brarian, no other curator of whom I am aware has ever so completely made known the details of the materials of which he is custodian and which he wishes to be used by mature and budding scholars alike.

In recent years, Dr. Parker has collected Jesuit letterbooks concerning Asia, those traditionally but rather provincially catalogued in our libraries as "Jesuits. Letters from Missions. (The East)." But why should I outline their nature? In the following pages, humanistic bibliographer Jack Parker de- scribes those of the years 1580- 1730 and how they served as "Windows into China."

Francis M. Rogers

xi

i . Frontispiece of the first edition of Marco Polo's Travels (Nuremberg, 1477).

Windows into China: The Jesuits and Their Books, 1580-1730

DESPITE PROFESSOR ROGERS' very complete introduction, and the Library's flattering exhibit, there may still be some questions unanswered.

You are entitled to even more information than you have been given. You may be asking what license has a landlocked midwesterner to come here to the old nesting grounds of the tall clipper ships to speak of China. Or what boldness brings a Quaker to this capital city of American Catholicism, to the very gates of Boston College, to speak of Jesuits. I will plead license born of enthusiasm for my subject, and boldness pro- ceeding from a conviction of its importance. I will speak to celebrate a time in history when East and West met for a moment of communication on a high intellectual plane — in libraries, no less, and the medium was books. And I plead the appropriateness of the subject now — three centuries later when East and West fumble for a renewal of the encounter over ping-pong tables and in banquet halls. My message is about books as part of history. I hope that is what humanistic bibliography is about.

I am honored by Dr. Bromsen and by the Boston Public

i

Library in being asked to commemorate with you a signifi- cant event: the five hundredth anniversary of the beginnings of a great Western pastime known as China-watching. It was in 1477 that Marco Polo's Travels first came off the printing press, from the publishing house of Fritz Creussner in Nurem- berg (Fig. 1). The story was by that time an old one — about 180 years old, but only with Gutenberg's invention could it become truly a public story, and this German edition was soon followed by one in Latin, at Gouda, about 1483 (the edition which Columbus read and annotated) and by subse- quent editions in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French. And finally an English edition was published in 1579 (Fig. 2). In his native city of Venice Marco Polo was called // Milione — which translates roughly, "the truth stretcher," "Mr. Su- perlative." Yet if he was not always believed, he was widely read, and no one save Columbus himself has enjoyed such prestige as a traveler and observer.

But let us not isolate him too completely from others who followed the lure of the East. John of Piano Carpini and William of Rubruck had preceded him as diplomatic emis- saries to the Great Kahn of the Mongols in the thirteenth century. And on his return westward about 1292 by way of the Coromandel Coast of India, Marco Polo crossed paths with John of Monte Corvino who was on his way to China, responding to his conviction as a Franciscan that the mission to the non-Christian world was an inherent part of the ideal of St. Francis. John of Monte Corvino was the most notable of a handful of Franciscans who in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries took on the missionizing of the Chinese. But the seed the Franciscans sowed was largely dor- mant, and in the century that preceded the first edition of Marco Polo's Travels we doubt that many in the West — even in Rome — remembered that there had been an Italian arch- bishop of Peking.

2

2. Some early editions of Marco Polo's Travels: Gouda, 1483-85; Logrono, 1529; Venice, 1533; Paris, 1556; London, 1579-

Marco Polo in print after 1477 permanently established the Western interest in China. Merchant and priest alike saw it as the field for a great harvest, and when the Society of Jesus emerged in the middle of the sixteenth century as the dominant missionary organization in Europe, China was quickly seen as a major objective. Indeed, St. Francis Xavier, the pioneer of Jesuit missions in Asia, in 1552 was on his way from India to China when he died on the island of Shang Ch'uan. He was in the company of a Portuguese merchant. The pattern was set for merchant and mission to go together, and it was to be only thirty years before the Portuguese com- mercial base at Macao would be the station from which the Jesuit mission to China would take its beginnings. It was this mission which for a century and a half gave to the West a continuing view of Chinese life and culture and politics and, most importantly, a view of the intellectual encounter between

3

the two cultures which for a time held promise of a unity — or at least of a dialogue — in philosophy, morality, and science between East and West.

In 1577 Father Martino a Sylva, procurator of the East India mission, came to Rome to seek assistance for his work in Asia. He found, among others, Matteo Ricci, a young Ital- ian Jesuit, six years in the Society, well schooled in philoso- phy, theology, and mathematics. Ricci volunteered for India, thereby interrupting his studies, which he finished in Goa, and after four years there he was assigned to the China mis- sion. China was the particular care of Alessandro Valignano, provincial for the East, and his vision from Macao of a mis- sion to China was rooted in one of the missionary concepts of the earlier Franciscans: that there must be an intellectual intercourse as a basis for conversion — a communication in the language and through the cultural concepts of the people to be converted. Roger Bacon's influence, if not directly traceable, is clearly visible in Valignano's approach. Bacon had taught that all wise humans seek truth, and when they perceive it they will accept it voluntarily. In leading people to that per- ception of truth, linguistic skills, geographical knowledge, cultural awareness, all were essential. Applying this premise, the Jesuit Valignano concluded that China, unlike the New World, was to be a field for scholars, not soldiers.

Basic training for the China mission, therefore, was prepa- ration in the Chinese language and literature, and beyond these in a close study of Chinese social values and customs. Such studies invited the conclusion that there was a place for Christianity in the system of Chinese philosophy and gov- ernment. Valignano first sent Michele Ruggieri, after he had learned some Chinese, to accompany Portuguese merchants who were allowed to attend fairs about two months each year at Canton. They were the only foreigners allowed into China. Noting Ruggieri's studious ways the Cantonese authorities

4

& Corugiant ( & per vna quafi infiniu quaniui At tbaratien, tamo difficile , tlitgfUlcfiiCmfiyi Ipcmdeno git anni ) andat alcune Volte ton It dctti

Da una del P. Michelc Ruggiew Napoletano delli;. di Fcbraio. ,,s,. daliaCiua di Suauclmio .

AVVISI DELLA C I N A.

DEL I XXXIII, E PEL LXXXIV.

0 p o fbauert to ileum an- ni auejo net potto di jlma- ctno{dtmt negottano i mcr- cantiTortugbefi) adimpa- rarcqnella forte di lingua , (Itcibiamano Mandarina , vfat* daancfli Magtftrati,

merct.Ul Torlnghcft nella Citta di CantOHe.dijcoflo d'. /»«••• tno Ottantamiglu, dour trc mcfi fanno t> loro pcrmcfju traitcncrji nc trjjfitbf.tjlmemc pi . >, (be non pofjonoalloggiarc in terra, tanta itaeaulc- la ton tbetr.-r.t qnejla genu to f»rajlitri,& no- dtmcno ptacque a Dio SignurT^o/tro,la prima vol- ta the 10 vi andai,ut inucnirem graiuiD in con- fpcAu Pliaraonis , cioi di vno di quelli , I quali cbumano Mandarini, clngoitcrnanolaCitta: tot quale bauendo io ragionato jtiune volte , C mo- ilradomift fahnreuolc.cr agcttionalogli porft vna fupphcadi poter b.ibttare nella terra, per non efjcr lecito fare i miei Sacrificij nel mare-.ey egli fjtdl it memorulc,ordtn'ido tbc mi ft defle vna picciola ca fa command ando Julio ft n j dtlla vua,cbe nef- funo mi facefjc oltraggto. ( oncorrcu.i it giotno , ejr la nolle moltifiima genie julo per vcdermi , tato tbc andauano facrndo apertnn ncllemnra, per le quali entrato vn tcrto , non so da t be (jiirito tnofjo con le jue propne mam ft fece Ire ferite in capo con vna pietra,lj>argc>ido il fjnguc per cafa, cj- rfci grida- do,cbe io to btueHofertto:& ab,pcr commouerc it popolo conlrome: ma lddto T\o)lio Signorc free riufarctl tutlo in bene , & mi dude maggior'am- mo difeguir limprefa l perctoebe bauendomi fatto chiamare it Mandarmo, dimanJommi feto haueno feritocolm , c>r rtffiondendo to dini, foggiunfetiolo credo, pcrciothe Io conofco per vn triflo. Mi trat- tenm in qutlla cafa trc mefi continomjitendo mefft publuaviaue alii Tonugbeft. remrauo tilcuii ii

SELLA CINA.

3. Letter from Michele Ruggieri published in Nuovi Avvisi del Giapone con alcuni Altri delta Cina del LXXXIII, et LXXXIV (Venice, 1586).

permitted him — and only him — to stay ashore at night, and he often spent the night in the library of the palace residence allocated to him. By day, if he was not studying he was in the streets talking to people. These visits by Ruggieri began in 1580, and, thanks to the Jesuits' commitment to regular reporting, we can trace the mission from its earliest years

This humble beginning convinced Valignano that a mis- sion in China could succeed, and he sent to India for Matteo Ricci who was to become the scholar-missionary to whom subsequent generations would look for example (Fig. 4). The China to which Ricci was summoned numbered its taxpaying males at 58,500,801. We might assume therefore a total pop- ulation somewhat equivalent to the present population of the

(Fig. 3)-

5

United States. Obviously it was not to be taken overnight by a handful of priests. But the means had been decided upon: books. Ricci wrote toward the end of his career, "we speak the native language of the country . . . study their customs and laws, and finally what is of highest importance, we have devoted ourselves day and night to the perusal of their literature."

This was not difficult, once the language had been learned, because of the abundance and cheapness of books published in China. Production of books from woodblock types made 1500 copies of a page an ordinary day's output from one press.

This book-oriented culture leaned more to philosophy than to science or medicine or mathematics, the latter studies hav- ing little prestige compared to ethics. Indeed, Ricci noted that persons well versed in ethics could speak with authority on any subject. Finding here a culture in which, Ricci said, "the study of letters was always more acceptable to the peo- ple than the profession of arms," he and his colleagues tuned their appeal accordingly, and after several requests and de- nials they were allowed to set up a residence at Sciauchin near Canton in 1583.

Quickly curious Chinese visitors came to the mission to inquire about the ethical system of the Westerners. They were given printed copies (in Chinese of course) of the Ten Commandments which they found a quite reasonable guide for conduct. In his letter, published in 1586, Ricci notes the Pater Noster and Ave Maria were also available in Chinese (Fig. 5). The guests remained to look over the Jesuits' library. They marveled at the bindings and workmanship expended on these tomes from Europe which they could not read. But they noted also on the shelves some Chinese books which gave them an intellectual home ground, a basis for remain- ing to discuss and debate. The bicultural library was the

6

4. Portrait of Matteo Ricci.

f,, «/f V V 1 S I

fcoCabratefoperiorediquefta Cafadi Arr.aca do,& oofaodeJUReudentadiSoauchino, po ttiTt indue a vi fiur la, per confolara, & indrlz- ura nelle noftre airioni a magcior gloria Diui na. Parorernoaqucllauolta na cinque, o fei giorni.

Di njna delT. Matteo T^tca iMace- ratefe dellt jo. dt 9(ouembre . i / t 4. da!/* Cm* dt fcantont .

1 ON tenutoqui dallanollra Re fiderrza di Sciauchino peralcn- S SJt nc co(t raccoran)inda(emi dal iHflffLtjg P-MicheleRuggiero. llCate- £#§gH< chilmochehabbtamofatto, «t ftampatoin lingua Gnefe , pet gratia del Signore, emolto benncuriio nel quale con »n dialogodi »n Gentile, flcdi »n Pa- dre di tmomjt dichiarano time lecofr ncccfla rieal Chnfhano.con buon'ordine. buona lette- ra,& buona lingua: In quello li clfatano le prin cpali fertedella Cm uV vi lonoi dieci coman- darnentidi D10. il P.trr norttr.ck I'Aue Mana.

II Confenutore mi free rare vn mappa alia manierade'noftndi Europa.raa con le mi in re, k nomi de pacu in lingua Ooc(e,& egh lo free IUm-

DEL G1AP0NF. ,9,

/lamp: r fubiro fenu riuederlo io,ne ptTire ch« u hauellr a mandart in tftampai ft lo ftima tan.

to.erregli riiirne apprelfo Hi ft It forme, & noa tuolcche » imptimaoo.lt non.qntlli che di ma noinmanoeglnaprefrntado allrperfone pift ptiaapalidcllaCiDa. La fabrica dtlla nollra catena di Schtauchino »a »«rfo il fine 1 6c (t be- ne jpicciola.nieniedimeno tuna la NobiM vie neavedrrla, lanio chenon hibhiamoripoio. Quell anno il deno Conleruatore >anio noftro fauoreuolc i ratio Lincitano,ciof Gourmaiorc di molic Cina: il chedoura aiutar non poco a fuo tempo per la propagaiioncdr II hmn,;tlio.

N01 habbiamo panto molte iribolationi , fw noadellerearcul'ati falfamentedi cole graui, a luggertione dell antico auurrfario . St J dt hu omnibuiliberauir 001 Dominui. liteius aoroi bcnediclum in fxcula .

D, vn* delP.Franeefco fabralc Por- tugbefe,di Amacanodeglt S. dt Dicembre . 1 1 i 4 .

N qurfcidaroragguaglioalli P. V.dellamiaandaiain Sciaucht- no, dondt fonodue di che nior- nai , di.po I'ellerui faio alcuni giorni.c6 quel due iioftti Padri, 1 uuah le bene piu volte mi haue

5. Letter from Matteo Ricci published in Avvisi del Giapone de gli Anni M.D.LXXXII, LXXXIII, et LXXXIV, con alcuni Altri della Cina deW LXXXIII et LXXXIV (Rome, 1586).

initial arena for intellectual engagement. And the Jesuits quickly expanded the arena with the publication of a volume on Christian Doctrine in Chinese which so pleased the provin- cial governor that he saw to its reissue and widespread distri- bution.

Differences in matters of ethics were much less sharply drawn than differences in knowledge of the sciences. On the mission wall hung a world map, very probably that of Abra- ham Ortelius, dated 1570. It was so different from Chinese concepts of world geography that it brought forth either laughs of ridicule or profound attitudes of inquiry. Father Ricci was asked to explain this Western concept of the earth, and he did it with a map containing Chinese text. Deferring

8

to their assumptions about China's importance in the world, he shifted his prime meridian so China could be near the center of the earth (Fig. 6). It was a small thing, moving imaginary lines to accommodate the viewer's cast of mind, but it is indicative of the Ricci method. The text on the map explained the shape and size of the earth — and the religious and ethical beliefs dominant in the various regions. Again, the governor was so pleased that he had many copies of the map made as gifts to other officials and friends. Thus had the mission (with Chinese help) addressed the local literati at their strong point, ethics, and their weakness, science, while recognizing and using the Chinese tradition of gentleman and scholar as state official to get the message into the hinter- land. This brought visitors from a distance, providing possi- bility for the spread of missions to other places.

This is not to say that there were no difficulties. Western ideas were definitely a threat to Buddhists and other in- trenched religions, and these groups as often as not had the ear of the local officials. But when in 1589 Sciauchin became no longer hospitable, Father Ricci and Father Almeida had a place to go. They had an invitation from the lieutenant

6. Matteo Ricci's world map.

governor of Sciahcheu, and in 1595 a mission was settled at Nanciam. The books and maps had done their work. Ricci frequently noted that the Chinese were not much for listening to sermons. They wanted it on the printed page. He was glad to do it their way. And as the Westerners moved inland they became more Chinese in their ways, identifying themselves with the literary and governing class by wearing beards, Chinese dress, and hats appropriate to their scholarly callings.

In Nanciam Ricci was greeted with great ceremony by the officials and by dignitaries of ancient lineage. He made pres- ents of globes and clocks which were very popular. More im- portant, he made it the occasion for presenting his first book written in Chinese, his Treatise on Friendship, which found im- mediate approval, and again was published and distributed at official expense, giving it wide currency — even at Peking it became known (Fig. 7) . And Peking, of course, was Father Ricci's objective.

Always patient, ever optimistic but cautious, Ricci was not immune to overestimating his chances for success, and in 1598 he made an attempt to establish himself in Peking, but the capital city was not ready for him yet. Still, the failure was instructive in his quest for knowledge of China. His own geographical observations convinced him of Marco Polo's error in postulating the great nation of Cathay to the north of China. Ricci now was sure that Cathay and northern China were one. This was a major revision in Western think- ing about China. Obviously, it was not only the Chinese who had something to learn about the world's geography. So he proceeded to Nanking — compiling a glossary of Chinese words along the way, and making a revision of his world map for a local official upon his arrival.

Undismayed by his failure, Ricci tried again in 1601, and this time he and his colleagues were accepted by the emperor — largely through Ricci's mathematical and mechanical tal-

10

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8. Pages from Chi Ho Tuan Pen (Euclid's Elements) translated by Ricci and Ciu Paul (reprint).

ents, particularly in repairing clocks, giving him access to the royal palace almost at will. Shortly the mission was aug- mented by the arrival of Father Gaspare Ferreira who came by boat and was shipwrecked in the river at Peking. "It was only by the grace of God," said Ricci, "that they saved an elegantly bound set of eight volumes of the Holy Bible from the Plantin Press . . . they were placed on a table in the Church and the people reverently knelt and kissed them, giving thanks to God for preserving them. . . ." The impact upon non-Christian Chinese who saw this reverence for books was not lost on Father Ricci.

By this time he had been twenty years in China and under- stood the love of books which characterized the Confucianist ideal in which the highest order of mankind was the scholar- gentleman. To meet them on their ground he published some twenty-six tracts in Chinese on various moral and ethical subjects, in some instances with prefaces by Chinese scholars and converts. Here was an alliance of Christian and Confu- cian intellectuals, exploring the condition of mankind in an ethical context. And there was literary and scientific collab- oration: Ricci and a Chinese friend, Ciu Paul, produced a Chinese edition of Euclid's Elements, the Chinese scholar's preface giving credit to a great Western scholar, Christoforo Clavius, Ricci's old mathematics teacher back in Rome.

Was it the message — Christianity — or was it the media — books and learning — which made Ricci's study the stopping place for innumerable Chinese visitors? Clearly, he would not want the media separated from the message. The success of his method became evident at his death in 1610. His tomb outside Peking was a gift from the emperor.

The Society of Jesus used Ricci's death as an occasion for a major effort to arouse Catholic Europe to the importance of what they were about in China. Nicolas Trigault, a Flemish Jesuit, was sent home to recruit money and men for the mis-

12

9. Nicolas Trigault's edition of Ricci's journal (Augsburg, 1615).

sion. He did not waste his time aboard ship, but used it to translate Ricci's journal — the most complete and penetrating account of China written to that time. It was published as De Christiana Expeditione apud Sinas Suscepta ... at Augsburg in

13

D V E

LE TTE RE

ANN VE

DELLA CINA

del i 6 io. c del j 6i i.

SCRITTE A L M. R. P."

CLAVDIO ACCLVAVIVA Generale dclla Compagnia di GIESV.

t>al Tadrc l^jcolo Trigaut delta, ntedeftma CompAgm* di GIESF.

'IN MILANO;

^cr Thtr.di Pacitico Ponno,& Gio.Bamfta Piccaglia, Scampaton Archicpifcopah. MDCXV,

io. A typical Jesuit publication reporting on the Chii mission.

1 6 1 5? and in nine subsequent editions within the next eight years, including translations of it into French, German, Spanish, and Italian (Fig. 9). Even the English preacher Samuel Purchas (no lover of Jesuits) selected portions of it for his Purchas his Pilgrimes, in 1625. While the book did its work well, Nicolas Trigault bent the ears of young Jesuits, seeking new workers for a field in which he forecast a rich harvest.

Trigault's book, of course, was not the first news the young Jesuits had of China. At the risk of reciting what may be familiar to many, I would digress for a moment to point out that from the 1550s, immediately upon the travels of St. Francis Xavier to Asia, a program of publication had de- veloped within the Society whereby missionary residences reported to the provincial for the East, who then incorporated these letters in a sort of annual report for the province, send- ing it on to the general of the Society who saw to its publica- tion in Europe. Other letters were written back to friends and colleagues in Europe, and these too found their way into the Liter ae Annuae (Fig. 10). From the 1570s onward there was a fairly regular flow of publications covering India, Ja- pan, and subsequently China. The North American counter- parts of these Jesuit letters, beginning in 1632, are known as Jesuit Relations.

In the area east of the Cape of Good Hope the letters came from Ethiopia on the west to Japan on the east. Such for ex- ample was the scope of Fernao Guerreiro's collections of let- ters, issued from 1603 to 161 1, including in 1607 the story of Bento Goes's incredible journey into northern China from India by a central Asian overland route (Fig. 11). So to get back to Nicolas Trigault, by the time he published Ricci's memoirs the audience was very alert to what the Eastern mis- sion was all about.

A young Rhinelander named Adam Schall was all ready

15

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beata,

1 1 . Page from Fernao Guerreiro, Relagam Annual das Cousas que fizeram os Padres da Companhia de Iesu nas partes da India Oriental . . . (Lisbon, 1607).

to go before Trigault got to him. The second edition of Ricci's memoirs was not yet in print when the general of the Society had on his desk a letter from Schall who was still in his novi- tiate. Well educated in mathematics and philosophy, Schall knew what skills were needed in the China mission. Three years after he wrote the letter he was in Macao, and two years later in Peking. When he presented himself to the offi- cials there it was with a list of books on mathematics and astronomy which he had brought with him. He also demon- strated his skills with astronomical instruments, and the door began to open. He predicted eclipses with the greatest accu- racy. He studied the sources on Asia's geography, seeking a less hazardous route for missionaries coming to China. And he went out to Sianfu and did the work of an ordinary mis- sionary, during which time he translated the Lives of the Saints, among the earliest of some twenty-seven books he would write in Chinese, some of them in collaboration with Chinese scholars.

He was destined to be the cogwheel between the science of East and West for some thirty years. He was called by the emperor, through the Board of Rites, to reform the Chinese calendar. It was a monumental task. They were not asking for a European calendar. It was their calendar, and it was based on days divided into 100 time units, twelve months of 29 or 30 days, each of which began with a new moon. The beginning of the year depended upon the decision of the emperor. All of this was harnessed to the apparent move- ment of the sun and the actual movement of the moon. The whole fabric of Chinese life — marriages, plantings, foreign policy — all looked to propitious times as defined by the calen- dar. And because of recurring errors in calculation, it was out of adjustment, just as the Western calendar had been in the time of Copernicus. Nowadays among us a similar prob- lem would bring forth a federal grant to the Massachusetts

17

Institute of Technology to set up a Center for Calendar Studies. So it was in seventeenth-century China. Students were set about making translations of European texts while Father Schall and his colleagues made translations and wrote books of their own. One of his books was a treatise On the Telescope (Fig. 12). All of this was done amidst ceaseless snip- ing from Chinese and Moslem astronomers who had their own methods and conclusions to sell. And there was some- thing near to sniping from some Jesuit colleagues who saw here a pit involving Western truth becoming the servant of Chinese superstition. The story of his work and of his success is told by Schall in his memoirs, published in his Historica Narratio, Venice, 1665, which contains a portrait of him wearing his insignia of an official of the first rank (Fig. 13).

These studies forced Schall, and all who followed him in his work, into reckoning time from remote Chinese history. It was necessary to deal with the continuity of a government which proceeded apparently on high ground right through the universal flood of Scriptural record. Such researches car- ried back to Europe had a profound impact there. The chief carrier of this thunderbolt to Europe's intellectuals was Mar- tino Martini's Sinicae Historiae, first published in 1658. With a mastery of Chinese and ten years' experience there Father Martini found the beginning of the Chinese chronicle of rulers to be 2952 B.C. (Fig. 14). The Biblical deluge was gen- erally dated some six centuries later. Here were Chinese books of history asking questions of Europe's fundamental assumptions about its religious authority for its view of his- tory. Europe's best minds, alas few if any of them reading Chinese, went to work on the problem, and worked for more than a century, equating early Chinese emperors with Adam, or one of the sons of Noah, or otherwise trying to square Chinese and Hebraic-Christian histories. An engagement of the mind, indeed!

18

13- Portrait of Adam Schall in his Historka \arratio (Venice, 1665).

lis corrumperent- bed tuecua lectorum voiato jun- to i do$ certiora feqaamur.

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14. Martino Martini's beginning of the history of China, Sinicae Historiae (Amsterdam, 1659).

While China's past was under debate in the West, its fu- ture was under siege in the north. From 1624 on the Literae Annuae had frequently mentioned the military incursions of the Manchus. By 1644 China had a new dynasty — and it too had need for a calendar, so Adam Schall rode out the revo- lution and stayed on as director of the Institute of Astronomy.

This change in dynasty was the source of the most fre- quently published single book on China in the seventeenth century. Martino Martini had preceded his Sinicae Historiae with a history of the Tartar conquest, first published in Ant- werp by Plantin in 1654, and in twelve other editions of the same year — in five languages and in six cities, including one

21

! ^ftgrn. Tartars', JutSk L&W ciurtu*. ana Vifrtst hau'clrc. mOkcs>

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15. Martini's History of the Tartar Wars (London, 1654).

in London (Fig. 1 5). The ancient lineage of both the Chinese and the Tartars stands out in the first sentence: "The most ancient nation of Tartars in Asia . . . had been the enemy of the empire of China for above four thousand years." For all they had overthrown a government friendly to the Jesuits, the Tartars enjoyed a good reputation with Martini. They were called more cheerful than the Chinese. They were kind to prisoners, and as they advanced they invited into their care persons oppressed by the previous emperor. There is little but blood, movement of troops, and intrigue in the text. To some editions Martini added information lately received from China in which he reports the mission being well treated by the conquerors, even being assisted in building new churches. And in the English edition he took the oppor- tunity to plug his next book, an Atlas of China.