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Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology
How the Jesuit accomodation to internal events in China laid the foundation for modern study of China in the West. First published as Studia Leibnitiana, Supplementa 25 (1985) by Fritz Steiner Verlag. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
- GenresHistory
408 pages, Paperback
First published October 28, 1985
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January 5, 2019
What a pleasant surprise to finally sit down to read a long-intended-to-read book to find it absolutely captivating! (Well, not totally, I confess to having skipped through a few short sections where the philosophical and religious details became less interesting to me than the other subject matter covered).
I can heartily recommend this book to anyone seriously interested in Chinese history and the origins of Sinology, which made me wish I had read it when I first bought it. The title (Curious Land) misled me, and only when one actually starts reading it do you find that 'curious' in this context refers to how China was viewed in the 17th century (the focus of the book) as "the object of 'curious' (i.e. painstaking, detailed and skillful investigation" (p. 354). Even the subtitle is a bit misleading (Jesuit Accommodation and The Origins of Sinology) as the Jesuit issue of 'accommodation' (which was a very hot and emotional topic in the 17th century) is only one element of the many discussions that comprise this book. The reviewer on the back cover was sincere when he/she wrote that "The ideal reviewer would need the talents of a philosopher, a theologian and a sinologue ... the book is compulsively readable." I am a sinologue and I did find it compulsively readable.
When the Jesuits arrived in China, they immersed themselves in studying their new home diligently. This entailed years of study, learning the language, watching and recording (in order to better convert). One of the themes of Professor Mungello's excellent study is the lives and work of a dozen or so of the most famous--Ricci, Semedo, Magalhaes, Martini, Kircher, Bouvet and Le Comte. This work by far surpasses any other book on these early Jesuit Fathers in China that I have read (and there have been many) perhaps because it is so well researched and footnoted, their lives examined and their impact and work not only recorded but analysed and commented on and linked back to events in Europe.
These early sinologists recorded their observations on geography, culture, history, religion, dress, and food, but were fascinated primarily by the Chinese language and those elements in Chinese philosophy they found compatible with the teachings of Christianity. Their curiosity sparked the curiosity of the elite intellectuals of Europe, who were also fascinated by the language to the extent that several tried to link it with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics or as one of the roots of (if not THE root of) the 'Universal Language' of the Old Testament before the incident at Babel that lost mankind the ability to communicate in a common language. The story of these pundits and their workings with Chinese is worth reading the book alone and as someone who has spent 30 years learning Chinese at the pace of a tortoise, caused me many moments of laughter as one after another claimed to have found the key (the key!) to conquering the language in just days or weeks (so even "an unlearned female or child" could be taught it in a few days). These early pundits based in Europe were a different breed from the early Jesuits in China, and are referred to as proto-sinologists, not having the advantage of living in China and studying both the spoken AND the written language, but their fascination and work does give them claim to have been amongst the early scholars of Chinese studies.
The question of religion was the sticky one, and was aided by the 1625 discovery of the famous Nestorian monument known as the 'Nestorian Stele' which now rests in the 'Forest of Steles' in Xi'an, China. (I've seen this stele in person many times, and we have a rubbing of it in Singapore's Asian Civilisations Museum.) It was erected in China in 781, then buried most likely in 845 to protect it from an anti-foreign-religions wave sweeping China that year, to be found by construction workers 780 years later. One of the first foreigners to see it was the Jesuit Father Semedo. Its text records the history of the Nestorian (or Assyrian Church) in China from its arrival in 631 and its basic doctrines. Here was proof that Christianity had once existed in China. Please read this marvelous volume if you are interested in the storm it created and how its discovery contributed to the problem of the 'Jesuit Accommodation' that condemned the Jesuits by a vote of 144 (in favour of censure) to 46 (opposed) by the Sorbonne in 1700. (Of course politics was involved, too--France was asserting its right over a diminished Portugal in 1700, which makes for an excellent side story.)
An excellent bibliography, index of Chinese characters for the Wade-Giles transliterated Chinese, and footnotes make this a wonderful resource. (Moreover, I discovered the reason why so many paintings from the Renaissance on include an ape. Read the book for the answer.) For me, this was a case of learning not to judge a book by its title. (And I'll never look at that Nestorian Stele with the same eyes again).
I can heartily recommend this book to anyone seriously interested in Chinese history and the origins of Sinology, which made me wish I had read it when I first bought it. The title (Curious Land) misled me, and only when one actually starts reading it do you find that 'curious' in this context refers to how China was viewed in the 17th century (the focus of the book) as "the object of 'curious' (i.e. painstaking, detailed and skillful investigation" (p. 354). Even the subtitle is a bit misleading (Jesuit Accommodation and The Origins of Sinology) as the Jesuit issue of 'accommodation' (which was a very hot and emotional topic in the 17th century) is only one element of the many discussions that comprise this book. The reviewer on the back cover was sincere when he/she wrote that "The ideal reviewer would need the talents of a philosopher, a theologian and a sinologue ... the book is compulsively readable." I am a sinologue and I did find it compulsively readable.
When the Jesuits arrived in China, they immersed themselves in studying their new home diligently. This entailed years of study, learning the language, watching and recording (in order to better convert). One of the themes of Professor Mungello's excellent study is the lives and work of a dozen or so of the most famous--Ricci, Semedo, Magalhaes, Martini, Kircher, Bouvet and Le Comte. This work by far surpasses any other book on these early Jesuit Fathers in China that I have read (and there have been many) perhaps because it is so well researched and footnoted, their lives examined and their impact and work not only recorded but analysed and commented on and linked back to events in Europe.
These early sinologists recorded their observations on geography, culture, history, religion, dress, and food, but were fascinated primarily by the Chinese language and those elements in Chinese philosophy they found compatible with the teachings of Christianity. Their curiosity sparked the curiosity of the elite intellectuals of Europe, who were also fascinated by the language to the extent that several tried to link it with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics or as one of the roots of (if not THE root of) the 'Universal Language' of the Old Testament before the incident at Babel that lost mankind the ability to communicate in a common language. The story of these pundits and their workings with Chinese is worth reading the book alone and as someone who has spent 30 years learning Chinese at the pace of a tortoise, caused me many moments of laughter as one after another claimed to have found the key (the key!) to conquering the language in just days or weeks (so even "an unlearned female or child" could be taught it in a few days). These early pundits based in Europe were a different breed from the early Jesuits in China, and are referred to as proto-sinologists, not having the advantage of living in China and studying both the spoken AND the written language, but their fascination and work does give them claim to have been amongst the early scholars of Chinese studies.
The question of religion was the sticky one, and was aided by the 1625 discovery of the famous Nestorian monument known as the 'Nestorian Stele' which now rests in the 'Forest of Steles' in Xi'an, China. (I've seen this stele in person many times, and we have a rubbing of it in Singapore's Asian Civilisations Museum.) It was erected in China in 781, then buried most likely in 845 to protect it from an anti-foreign-religions wave sweeping China that year, to be found by construction workers 780 years later. One of the first foreigners to see it was the Jesuit Father Semedo. Its text records the history of the Nestorian (or Assyrian Church) in China from its arrival in 631 and its basic doctrines. Here was proof that Christianity had once existed in China. Please read this marvelous volume if you are interested in the storm it created and how its discovery contributed to the problem of the 'Jesuit Accommodation' that condemned the Jesuits by a vote of 144 (in favour of censure) to 46 (opposed) by the Sorbonne in 1700. (Of course politics was involved, too--France was asserting its right over a diminished Portugal in 1700, which makes for an excellent side story.)
An excellent bibliography, index of Chinese characters for the Wade-Giles transliterated Chinese, and footnotes make this a wonderful resource. (Moreover, I discovered the reason why so many paintings from the Renaissance on include an ape. Read the book for the answer.) For me, this was a case of learning not to judge a book by its title. (And I'll never look at that Nestorian Stele with the same eyes again).
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