Neo-Confucian Discourse and Catholicism

Chuang Ch'i-yuan stressed the ties between what he called "true studies of principles" (chen li-hsueh ) and broad training in astronomy,

[28] Huang Ju-t'ing, "Hsu" (Preface) to Chuang Ch'i-yuan, Ch'i-yuan chih-yen .

[29] Chuang Ch'i-yuan, Ch'i-yuan chih-yen ,6.49a-78b, 9.15a-b, 3.34a-38b.

[30] Ibid., 9.15a-15b. Ch'i-yuan also established an ancestral hall in honor of his father.

geography, military affairs, civil institutions, and ritual matters. He also emphasized the positive role that lineages, based on agnatic solidarity, played in maintaining moral values and social order in local society. In a tribute to the "great masters of li-hsueh during the Ming dynasty," Ch'i-yuan singled out T'ang Shun-chih and Hsueh Ying-ch'i as loyal sons of Ch'ang-chou who had carried on the moral teachings of Ch'en Hsien-chang (1428-1500), Wang Yang-ming, and Lo Ch'in-shun (1465-1547).^[31]

It is interesting that in his discussions of the Wang Yang-ming tradition, known as "studies of the mind," Chuang Ch'i-yuan subsumed it under the Ch'eng-Chu school of principle. Aware of Ming academic developments, Chuang was following T'ang Shun-chih and the Tung-lin partisans in their efforts to ameliorate the excesses of the Yang-ming schoolmen and to reintegrate Wang's contributions into the orthodox mainstream. Li-hsueh for Ch'i-yuan was the educational basis for distinguishing the "true Confucian" (chen Ju ) from the false one.^[32]

According to Chuang, achievements in Confucian studies should contribute to the literatus's calling as a government official. "To study," he contended, "was equivalent to government service" (chi-shih chi-hsueh ). Moral principles completed the equation. They were the content of the literatus's preparation for public office. In his examination essays for the 1610 palace examination, Chuang continually stressed the centrality of the mind and its ties to self-cultivation as the beginning point for literati commitment to statecraft (ching-shih ) and world ordering (chih-kuo ). Ch'i-yuan had culled these ideals from the Four Books, the central corpus of the Ch'eng-Chu tradition.

Chuang's conception of the role of the human mind (jen-hsin ) in Confucian moral theory included a peculiar reinterpretation of the famous jen-hsin Tao-hsin (human mind and moral mind) passage in the Documents Classic. It was a reading that neither Chu Hsi nor Wang Yang-ming had offered in their elucidation of Confucian "mental discipline" (hsin-fa ). By the late Ming this passage had been subjected to increased scrutiny as perhaps a forged part of a chapter in the Old Text Documents entitled "Counsels of Yü the Great" ("Ta Yü mo"). In examination answers dealing with this famous passage, Ch'i-yuan stressed the orthodox views of "refinement" (wei-ching ) and "singleness of purpose" (wei-i ) to "pacify the mind" (an-hsin ), but he never broached

[31] Ibid., 3.12a-13b, 3.36a-37b.

[32] Ibid., 3.34a-44b, 3.47a-48b.

the seminal issue of the "moral mind" (Tao-hsin ), the cornerstone of the orthodox position.^[33]

Moreover, in his earlier examination essays prepared for the 1606 provincial chü-jen degree, Chuang Ch'i-yuan paraphrased the famous eight-character passage, which, in the original, read: "The human mind is precarious; the moral mind is subtle." Chuang's version was: "The mind of the masses is precarious; the mind of the ruler on high is at peace." This was no covert effort to question, as others had, the authenticity of the distinction between the moral and human mind, but it also did not give the stock interpretations. The latter had long been part of the authoritative Ssu-sbu wu-thing ta-ch'üan (Great compendium of the Four Books and Five Classics), which was compiled by Hanlin academicians during the reign of the Yung-lo Emperor (1403-25) in an effort to establish the orthodox basis for the examination system.^[34]

In his provincial and palace examination essays, Chuang appealed to what he called the "true mind" (chen-hsin ) as the key to Confucian moral theory and world ordering. He regarded the "mind of Heaven" (t'ien-hsin ) and the "mind of the ruler" (chün-hsin ) as efforts to approximate the universalist aspects of the "true mind." In the 1610 palace examination, Chuang made this claim a central point of his reply to a question oriented to policy issues (ts'e ):

I have heard from colleagues that the emperor in uniting and ordering the empire must have a true mind in order to rectify the great basis [ta-pen ] [of the state]. Then he can cause his virtuous intentions to flow unobtrusively in order to preside magnanimously over the origins of order. He must have true intentions [chen-nien ] to magnify the great uses [ta-yung ] [of the state]. Then he can use laws and statutes to instruct silently in order to employ broadly the encompassing basis of order.

The "true mind" was the origin of world ordering and the key to the realization that "only by knowing the reason why heaven is heaven, can one know the reason why the ruler is the ruler.".^[35]

Chuang Ch'i-yuan's reversal of usual interpretations of the human mind vis-à-vis the moral mind, at first sight ingenious, could be seen as an idiosyncratic twist within the flowery prose of an examination essay.

[33] Ibid., 4.2a-3b, 10.3a-11a, 10.12a-14a, 10.18a-19b. Cf. de Bary, Neo-ConfucianOrthodoxy , p. 8, and my "Philosophy (l-li ) versus Philology (K'ao-cheng )."

[34] Chuang Ch'i-yuan, Ch'i-yuan chih-yen , 10.43a. See also the Ssu-shu ta-ch'üan for annotations to Chu Hsi's famous preface to the Doctrine of the Mean , pp. 1a-8a, where he explicitly addresses the orthodox position on the moral and human mind.

[35] Chuang Ch'i-yuan, Ch'i-yuan chih-yen , 10.12a, 10.27a-29a, 11.3b, 10.3a-5b. We should note that there is no locus classicus for the phrase chen-hsin .

But, intriguingly, several of the key phrases in Ch'i-yuan's examination answers derived from his earlier essays on Catholicism and what he termed its ideal of the "true mind." He gleaned these views from the writings of the Jesuit Father Diego de Pantoja (d. 1618), who came to China in 1599. According to Chuang, Pantoja had outlined the main doctrines of Catholicism in a work entitled Seven Victories (Ch'i-k'e ), which outlined Christian methods for guarding against the seven deadly sins.^[36]

Exactly how Chuang Ch'i-yuan came into contact with Catholicism in general and Father Pantoja in particular is unclear. The influence of the Jesuits in this period was not pervasive. But a significant group of southern literati during the later Ming—including Li Chih, Hsu Kuang-ch'i (a native of Shang-hai County in nearby Su-chou Prefecture), among others—had taken Jesuit teachings very seriously, particularly in the natural sciences. Moreover, Catholic efforts to establish an equivalence between the "ruler on high" (t'ien-chu ) in the Confucian Classics and the God of the Christians were unquestioned until Matteo Ricci's death in 1610. Ch'i-yuan came to maturity while efforts to accommodate Christianity were at their peak.^[37]

Chuang's sympathetic discussion of Catholic doctrines is all the more remarkable when we consider his position in Ch'aug-chou society and within his lineage. An upholder of Confucian orthodoxy Ch'i-yuan was still able to enrich his interests in li-hsueh with Jesuit teachings. Remarkably, he sympathized with Pantoja's efforts to integrate the Catholic notion of a supreme deity into Confucian discussion of the Four Books and Five Classics:

The Analects and Doctrine of the Mean discuss nature and external necessity. The Poetry and Documents [Classics] record imperial decrees. What more is there to add? People of our age all know there is a Heaven, but they do not all know the reason why Heaven is Heaven. If Heaven had no ruler, then there would only he the present moment, motionless and stagnant, dream-like without the mysterious spirit, and that's all . . .. The reason why Heaven is Heaven is because there is a ruler there. In the teaching of the Heavenly Ruler [that is, the Christian God], one stops at preserving the true

[36] Ibid., 2.46b-48b. Pantoja's work, according to Chuang Ch'i-yuan, was entitled "Ch'i-k'e hsi-shu" (Western book on the seven victories). See also Liang, Chung-kuo chin san-pai-nien hsueh-shu-shih , pp. 31-39, and Gernet, China and the Christian Impact , pp. 28, 30-32.

[37] See Bernard, "Philosophic Movement," for an overstated account of possible links between late Ming intellectual trends and Jesuit influence, particularly among the Tung-in partisans. See also my Philosophy to Philology , pp. 47-48, 62-63, 184.

mind, refrains from false intentions, grasps the unity of self and others, and gleans the unified origins of old and new. One must first realize that one's mind itself contains the [Heavenly] Ruler, before he can reverently worship the Heavenly Ruler [God]. This is what the Western teacher Father Pantoja has ordered.^[38]

The extent of Chuang Ch'i-yuan's acceptance of Pantoja's ecumenical efforts is unclear. He did, however, praise the "seven victories" over sin as doctrinally superior to anything the Buddhists had to offer. In addition, he integrated the Catholic notion of the "true mind" and "the reason why Heaven is Heaven" into his successful essays for the 1610 palace examinations. At the very least, Chuang had elucidated the Neo-Confucian theory of mind using the Christian notion of the "true mind," not the "moral mind" (Tao-hsin ). Interestingly, his replacement of Tao-hsin with chen-hsin did not represent a break with the orthodox tradition. In fact, neither he nor his examiners seem to have found anything controversial in his examination essays.^[39]