Matteo Ricci (9 page)

Ruggieri had returned from Macao in the meantime with sufficient silver to pay their debts and to keep the mission going for another six months at least. The money enabled the missionaries to enlarge their house with the addition of six rooms and a small chapel. Now there was room to accommodate twelve people, including servants, interpreters, and novices living with the Jesuits, and to receive visitors in suitable style. After the publication of the map of the world, which had made the Jesuits known all through the province, playing host had become a full-time job. The visitors now included
shidafu
and
guan
passing through Zhaoqing in order to pay their respects to the governor, as well as the ambassadors of Cochin China en route to Beijing who left some pieces of silver and sticks of incense as gift for those monks of a Western religion.

They all admired the two-story house built in the European style and examined the map, the paintings, and the books, including the new volumes full of pictures of Italian cities that Ruggieri had just brought from Macao. In order to entertain their guests, the Jesuits had to learn what Ricci called the “courtesies,” the greater and lesser rituals required in order to receive figures of high rank in accordance with protocol. They learned that the most common form of greeting involved no physical contact and that Western customs like embracing or kissing the hand were wholly unacceptable. Respect was shown by joining the palms and the long sleeves of the robe at chest height as though in prayer and then raising and lowering them before the guest, who replied with the same gesture, while repeating the Chinese equivalent of “please,” an expression Ricci transcribed as “
zin zin
.”
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It might also be necessary to bow or to kowtow, bending your forehead to the ground once or more times, depending on the circumstances. The Jesuits learned to offer their visitors tea,
cha
in Chinese, a beverage still unknown in Europe and mentioned by Ricci for the first time in his writings, calling it “
cià
” and describing it as a hot infusion made from dried leaves that the Chinese drank all the time and offered immediately to their guests. It was “conducive to a good disposition and digestion,” and the Jesuits were soon in the habit of drinking it like the Chinese.

Mandarins calling at the residence would present a “book of visits” containing polite remarks or short poetic compositions as well as a list of the gifts for the host. Custom required every visit to be returned within three days, but it was sufficient to send your own book if this proved impossible. Appreciation for gifts was to be shown in the form of objects of equivalent value, but any considered excessively valuable could be given back.

The gifts that Ricci prepared for his calls on the most important figures were above all celestial and terrestrial globes of iron and copper that he constructed himself and copies of his map, objects that served to transmit Western culture and science and that helped him to initiate an invaluable form of communication. In showing the terrestrial globes to the Chinese, Ricci knew that he was revealing to them for the first time the fact that the earth was round, something accepted in the West but still unknown in China. In accordance with the most ancient cosmology (the
Gai Tian
, or theory of the “celestial hemisphere”), most Chinese were in fact still convinced that the earth was flat and square and was surrounded by the semispherical dome of the sky, in which the sun, the moon, and the planets were set. In actual fact, different cosmological hypotheses had been put forward in Chinese antiquity, and the idea that the earth was round had been developed in a theory dating back at least to the fourth century
bc
known as the
Hun Tian
, or the theory of the “celestial sphere,” which described the heavens as “an egg, as round as a ball for an arbalest,” and the earth as “the yolk of the egg.”
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Few men of learning were familiar with this theory in the Ming era, however, and of those who knew of it, few regarded it as better grounded than the others developed in the course of Chinese history.
22

The reactions to his gifts provided Ricci with an easy way to assess the recipients’ knowledge and discover how far science had developed in China. His initial contacts and learned conversations with scholars led him to believe that the country was lagging far behind Europe in the sciences, and he found it quite natural to teach some elementary astronomy and mathematics to those showing the most interest. His only regret was that he had few books to consult in case of necessity, but he drew consolation from the reflection that in such a particular situation, “even the little [remembered] is worth a lot.”
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Proceeding step by step, Ricci thus endeavored to explain to some literati the structure of the universe as described by Ptolemy, with the round earth in the center of the cosmos and the planets and stars set in the crystalline spheres. He was pleased to see that his first lessons aroused great curiosity, and his knowledge was much admired. With an understandable bias that led him to underestimate Chinese knowledge without having examined it in depth, he came to believe that he had earned the reputation of a great scientist.

“And with these things never before seen or heard in China, and with the account of the course of the stars and the planets and the earth in the middle of the universe, the fathers were given great credit and he was regarded as the greatest mathematician in all the world, due to how little they knew of all those things.”
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Religion in China: Heaven, the Gods, and the Name of God

The question of the form of religion practiced by the Chinese was the first the Jesuits needed to address if they were to undertake their missionary work in full awareness of the situation. The answer was neither simple nor unambiguous, as numerous cults and doctrines with a varied pantheon of gods coexisted in the Middle Kingdom. It was no easy matter for a foreigner to identify the religions served by the monasteries, the large and small temples, the pagodas, and the simple altars erected by the roadside and dedicated to lesser divinities and the guardian spirits of places and towns.

Religion played a very different role in China from the West, and the separation of spiritual and temporal power taken for granted by Europeans did not exist. Chinese culture drew no distinction between the immanent and the transcendent, so a creator of the universe and supreme lawgiver that was distinct from the earthly world was therefore inconceivable. The only permanent reality for Chinese thinkers was the Tao, or Way, an indefinable mystical principle regarded ever since the earliest times as the origin of all natural phenomena, together with
qi
—“flow” or “vital energy”—a combination of energy and matter that permeated and animated the entire universe. The Chinese saw the heavens and the earth as closely connected and as influencing one another, with earthly well-being dependent on man’s ability to achieve harmony with the heavens. This view was wholly alien to Aristotelian philosophy and Scholasticism, according to which heaven and earth were separate and different in nature, one the natural home of God and the other of man.

It was believed in China that the emperor, the supreme authority known as the Son of Heaven, ruled by divine mandate, with the task of organizing society so as to ensure harmony between the celestial and terrestrial worlds. As a regulator of society and the universe, the emperor was responsible for promulgating the calendar drawn up every year by the imperial astronomers
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and for celebrating propitiatory rites in accordance with the dictates of the established schedule and ceremonial protocol. Month after month, he performed an elaborate liturgy in the Palace of Light, a pavilion inside the imperial palace, following a path that symbolized the movements of the sun in the course of the seasons and entering a different room every new moon to call for good harvests and to lay down rules of conduct guiding agricultural activities. Twice a year, at the winter solstice on December 23 and at the spring equinox on March 21, he went to the Temple of Heaven in a solemn procession with offerings to the heavens, the earth, the moon, and other lesser divinities.

If the worship of heaven was an exclusive prerogative of the emperor and was forbidden to anyone else on pain of death, the
guan
and
shidafu
practiced rites dedicated to a variegated pantheon of national and local divinities recognized by the state. These forms of worship, together with those practiced by the peasants to other minor divinities, constituted a widespread “popular religion.” Every town was protected by a divinity to which new officials paid homage on taking up their posts in the local administration, and every region had its own specific divinities, often associated with rivers, mountains, and natural phenomena, or with the spirits of eminent figures of the past who were venerated by the people and in whose honor celebrations were organized on special occasions by the literati and wealthy merchants. For scholars, religion was above all intertwined with the observance of rites and had nothing to do with devotion to a unique and personal deity like the god of Christianity. For the common people, as in the West, religion consisted above all in seeking the protection of divinities and patron saints.

In addition to the rituals codified by the state, other forms of devotion were widely practiced in China, where family ancestors were worshiped by every member of the population regardless of class. Ricci observed that there was a small altar in every home with small tablets of wood bearing the names of forebears, upon which members of the family, especially the eldest son, would place offerings of food and would burn scented incense on special anniversaries. Dating back to very ancient times, the cult of ancestors was the form of devotion most deeply rooted in Chinese culture. It had coexisted with all the forms of religion developed throughout the empire’s long history and reflected the importance always attached to the past in Chinese thinking. Ricci did not regard it as a form of superstition or idolatry but indeed as performing the positive function of teaching “children and the ignorant”
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respect for their ancestors and filial devotion.

Peculiar to the literati was the cult of Confucius, considered the protector of the bureaucratic class and the model of a good official. In the simple and evocative temples dedicated to Master Kong, his statue as an authoritative elder with a long beard and serene smile welcomed visitors in the middle of the main courtyard. The
shidafu
would go there on particular occasions, including the anniversary of the master’s birth, September 28, as well as every full moon and new moon, to bring offerings of food, burn incense, and listen to celebratory music.

Ricci considered the rites dedicated to Confucius to be secular ceremonies, and Confucianism, which he described as the “sect of literati,” to be not incompatible with the Christian doctrine. It was in fact not a religion and had no priests. It was a philosophy focusing on ethics and social life, which found its source of inspiration in the ancient world but ignored the supernatural and took no particular interest in a life after death.

The need for spirituality and the yearning for a transcendental world found expression in the two most important religions practiced in China, namely Buddhism and Taoism. Better organized and more authoritative, the former dated back to the Indian master Siddhartha, who lived in the fifth century
bc
and became known as the Buddha, or “enlightened one.” Imported from India, Buddhism had spread from the first century
ad
on, assuming typically Chinese characteristics over the years. It was deeply rooted in the social fabric, and Buddhist temples were to be found throughout the empire, together with the typical pagodas housing relics of Buddha, a Chinese variant of the original Indian stupa.

Buddhist doctrine was not monolithic but ramified in a variety of schools that differed from one another but shared some fundamental conceptions, such as the idea of life as suffering, the origin of suffering as desire, and the end to suffering and final salvation, or nirvana, as attainable by leading a righteous life and renouncing the satisfaction of worldly desires. Some schools envisaged the existence in the afterlife of a paradise and a place of punishment comparable to the Christian purgatory, from which release could be obtained after the purging of guilt. Buddhists believed in the transmigration of the spirit after death and the reincarnation of every individual in another living being, whose animal or human form would depend on one’s conduct in the previous life. Ricci described the Buddhist doctrines as “a Babylon so intricate that none can truly understand or explain it.” He made no effort from the very outset to conceal his disdain for a religion that worshipped not only the Buddha but also a series of lesser divinities, and he condemned it implacably as a “sect of idols.” It was, however, precisely Buddhism that constituted a potential obstacle to the spreading of the Christian message by virtue of the complexity of its doctrine and its deeply rooted and widespread presence in China, as well as certain similarities it had to the Catholic religion.

As Ricci learned from Chinese texts, the country’s three million Buddhist monks took vows of chastity, sincerity, poverty, nonviolence, and abstinence from fermented beverages. However, in much the same way as the Catholic clergy in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, few of them actually obeyed these precepts. Many had wives and children and led corrupt lives. Nearly all of them came from poor families, had entered the priesthood as children driven by need, and were mostly devoid of culture. Ricci described the bonzes as “the lowest and most depraved people in China,” and his judgment was shared by the literati, who regarded Buddhist and Taoist monks as occupying the lowest rungs of the social ladder, even though the wives and concubines of dignitaries would often turn to them in search of comfort and favors from the deities. Ricci’s negative judgments and generalizations about bonzes and the Buddhist culture were largely preconceived, as the Jesuit had not studied this doctrine of Indian origin and its canonical writings in depth and had no direct acquaintance with any of its more authoritative followers. As we shall see, he was to meet very learned and open-minded Buddhist monks and believers during his long stay on Chinese soil and to engage in peaceable discussions with them. On the other hand, there were also bitter clashes with certain other monks and scholars.