On "Combining Confucianism With Catholicism"

In the late sixteenth century, large number of Jesuits entered China to spread theChristian faith. In these Jesuits, Matteo Ricci Combined Catholic doctrine withtraditional Chinese Confucian culture creatively, which should be regarded as a typicalexample in Chinese Jesuits. The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven is one of the mostimportant historical materials which analyzed Chinese Missionary thought of MatteoRicci. Based on era background of Ricci writing The True Meaning of the Lord ofHeaven,the article tries to discuss Missionary strategy of “combining Confucianism withCatholicism” which The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven have showed,revealthoughts reference and historical revelation provided to heterogeneous cultural exchangeby this strategy.Firstly, the article examine the era background which The True Meaning of the Lordof Heaven emerged.In the late Ming Dynasty,the European sailors discovered the NewWorld,opened up new sea-lane，Jesuits entered China to spread the Christian faith.Atthat time,the Chinese generally took the attitude of exclusion to foreign religion. In orderto cater to the Chinese community, Ricci put on Confucian clothes, wore Confucian caps,learned Chinese, to narrow the distance with Chinese.In addition, Ricci recognized thatthe scholar official class in dominance hierarchy is the mainstream stratum of Chinesesociety. Therefore, Ricci boned up on studying the Confucian classics, made friends withscholar official widely, thus wrote the book The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven.The second chapter examines the missionary strategy of “combining Confucianismwith Catholicism” which The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven shows. It mainlyincludes three aspects: agreed and echoed the Confucianism of Pre-Qin, refuted andcriticized Neo Confucianism, denied and excluded of Buddhism and Taoism. Ricciquoted from the ancient Confucian classics, to illustrate the Catholic doctrine, to seek similarities between traditional Chinese Confucian culture and Catholic doctrine. Riccitook this opportunity to criticize and negate the ideas that defied Catholic doctrine whichexisted in Neo Confucianism and Buddhism, Taoism ideology, to seek recognition andacceptance of scholar-officials level of the literati Catholic, so as to promote the widedissemination of the Catholic Church in the Chinese society, especially in the upperclass.The third Chapter examines the historical influence of The True Meaning of theLord of Heaven. The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven provided an effective practicemodel between Christianity and Confucianism culture exchanges, which also provided anew paradigm for the dissemination and exchanged between different cultures. This partis mainly the analysis of the model and the model effect.