For a long time, the image of Western missionaries in China, especially in the minds of the general public and shengdou xiaomin, was mostly demonized. This is related to the long-standing xenophobic ideology in China, as well as to the need for domination in various historical periods. But today, we should no longer look at them with colored glasses.
It is true that some missionaries have either subjectively or objectively played the role of vanguard officials of imperialist aggression against China, but more importantly, they have brought many advanced ideas, cultures, and science and technology to China. Let's briefly review the history of Western missionaries in China, and understand the achievements of the collision of Chinese and Western cultures and the impact on China.
China seems to be very tolerant of foreign religions, whether it is Buddhism or Islam, which can take root in China. Chinese Buddhists are the largest number of Buddhists in the world, and many of the emperors and generals are also devout Buddhist practitioners. Emperor Wu of Liang sacrificed himself several times to the monastery and asked his ministers to donate money to redeem himself to the Buddha; Wu Zetian declared himself the reincarnation of Maitreya Buddha and created a giant statue of Maitreya Buddha in his own image; Li Yu, the lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty, personally made bamboo pieces for the monks to use for toilets, and also used his cheeks to check whether there were burrs...
Islam has a great influence in China, and it has become the spiritual belief of local nomadic peoples in the Western Regions and Hexi Corridor, and countless ancient countries and tribes have been worshipping Allah for generations. Compared with Buddhism and Islam, Christianity seems to have started very late in China and has little influence. Most people believe that Christianity was introduced to China in the late Qing Dynasty. In fact, Christianity was introduced to China during the Tang Dynasty.
According to historical records, the official introduction of Christianity to China was in the ninth year of the Tang Dynasty, when the missionaries came to Chang'an with scriptures, were greeted and introduced by the chancellor Fang Xuanling, and received a personal reception from Tang Taizong Li Shimin, who gave him the title of "Aroben", which means "messenger sent by God". Later generations called it "Jingjiao".
However, Jingjiao did not carry out extensive activities throughout the country, mainly because there was a struggle within Jingjiao, which only operated among high-level people and did not penetrate deeply into the people. During the reign of Emperor Wuzong of Tang, the famous "extinction of Buddhism" movement in history also implicated Jingjiao. Later, although there were still missionaries who came to the Tang Dynasty to preach, with the war at the end of the Tang Dynasty, the Jing Sect declined in China. It can be said that the spread of Jingjiao in China was accompanied by the fate of the Tang Dynasty.
During the Yuan Dynasty, due to the large number of Semu people operating in China, Jingjiao regained its vitality in China. According to the literature of Marco Polo and Western medieval scholars, there were a large number of Jing believers in China at that time, the most famous of which was the mother of Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, who instigated Lu HetianiBeji. According to archaeological excavations, Quanzhou at that time was the center of activity in southern China during the Yuan Dynasty. A large number of missionaries crossed the ocean to the Central Plains, and many Chinese Jing believers also went to Europe, making great contributions to the exchanges between China and the West at that time. Most of them participate in these activities as diplomatic emissaries of their own countries.
And Jingjiao seems to be a reincarnation, once again with the change of the fate of the Yuan Dynasty. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, a large-scale peasant uprising war broke out, and the Bishop of Jingjiao in Quanzhou, Yagbo, was killed in the turmoil, and the Jingjiao was in serious turmoil. When the Ming Dynasty was established, the "four-class" system of the Yuan Dynasty was abolished, and Jingjiao was regarded as a foreign affair. At this point, the activities of the missionaries in China were once again interrupted.
In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the country was closed to the outside world, and foreigners were resolutely forbidden to enter China without permission. During the Jiajing period, Xavier, a missionary who actively spread Christianity in South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and other places, came to Shangchuan Island in Guangdong, China, hoping to enter China as a missionary, but after being rejected, he fell ill and died on Shangchuan Island. He was like a small stone, stirring up microwaves in a pool of stagnant water, but eventually inspired a large number of European missionaries to travel far and wide to China.
Luo Mingjian is a famous missionary and translator. During the Wanli Dynasty, he came to Guangdong, China, to preach, and translated a large number of Christian scriptures into Chinese. Translated and written, the Book of the Holy Religion of God was the first Chinese book in Christianity. The book is very suitable for Chinese, the ideas in the book are very suitable for the middle way, can make people understand good and evil, and have a sense of enlightenment. Luo Mingjian also translated the Chinese classic Book of the Four Books into Latin and spread Zhu Xi's theoretical ideas in Europe. In addition, the earliest "Portuguese-Chinese Dictionary" was also written by Luo Mingjian, and its Hanyu Pinyin, which uses the Latin alphabet, has a great influence on the core content to this day.
Matteo Ricci, a missionary who came to China at the same time as Luo Mingjian. After coming to China, Matteo Ricci studied and became proficient in Sinology, and was praised as a "Taixi Bachelor" among the scholars. Matteo Ricci collaborated with his Chinese friend Xu Guangqi to translate and publish parts of the Original Geometry, creating many Chinese vocabulary and geometric terms that continue to be used today.
For example: week, point, line, polygon, line, curve, right angle, obtuse angle, acute angle, plane, vertical, parallel line, etc. The first world map in Chinese history, the Kunyu Map of All Nations, was also produced by Matteo Ricci, bringing the concept of "the whole world" to China for the first time. Chinese many geographical terms are also derived from this, such as: Antarctica, Arctic, Mediterranean, Sea of Japan, etc. Matteo Ricci began the chinese civil service to learn Western studies, and more than 150 Western classics were translated into Chinese published.
Arrulho, known as "Confucius of the West", was proficient in Chinese and Chinese culture. In the process of Chinese missionary work, he wrote and published more than 20 books, covering astronomy, geography, mathematics, philosophy, medicine, etc., and was an important figure in the gradual study of the West and the East at that time. During his mission in China, he mostly engaged in folk activities, and during the mission, he found a large number of Jingjiao sites and relics, and "traced the source and searched for the end" of the history of the spread of Christianity in China.
John Tang, who lived in China for forty-seven years from the late Ming Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, was the highest official missionary in China. During his time in China, he gained the trust of the Qing regent Dorgon for accurately calculating the time of the eclipse, and was enabled to revise the calendar. With his knowledge and skills in the astronomical calendar, he revised the "Constitutional Calendar" that was more accurate than the Grand Unified Calendar and the Hijri Calendar. The shixian calendar is a yin-yang calendar, and the lunar calendar that is still in use today is based on the shixian calendar. Later, he served as the supervisor of Qin Tianjian for a long time, and was called "Tongxuan Teacher" by Shunzhi.
It can be said that many missionaries in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties were not only missionaries, but also the basis for the collision of Chinese and Western cultures. It was they who brought Western culture to China and also spread Chinese culture to the West. Many scientific and technological exchanges also arose during this period. A series of artillery firearms in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the rapid development of astronomical calendars, and global geography are all the results of exchanges at this time. It has had a profound impact on both China and the West.
Unfortunately, the subsequent missionaries gradually became the ruler's pastime and specialized technicians, and were not taken seriously. Kangxi learned a lot of Western mathematics, astronomy, geography, etc. from the missionary priests, but only as a personal pastime and hobby, and prevented its dissemination to the grassroots; Yongzheng and Qianlong were mostly used by the missionaries' paintings and architectural talents, and had no interest or tendency to learn and spread Western culture.
After that, it was even more closed to the country. As missionaries' activities in China have become increasingly weak, Chinese has gradually returned to the era of ignorance of the world, and Daoguang no longer knows what the country of England is. When a large number of missionaries returned, China had been passively pulled into the global era, and also began the modern history of China's humiliation.
It can be said with certainty that China missed a major historical opportunity in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. At that time, many Western astronomy, geography, medicine, mathematics, philosophy, etc. had been introduced to China through missionaries, but for various reasons they did not have the influence they should have. On the contrary, the Chinese culture learned by missionaries in the West, such as the development of the imperial examination system into a modern official selection system, and the parliamentary system that borrows from the development of the cabinet university system, have brought about major changes in Europe and even the world. The missionaries who came to China once changed with the changing fate of the Chinese dynasty also turned the turn of their own fate into a change in the fate of Chinese culture.
The missionaries who appeared and operated in China from the Tang Dynasty onwards either subjectively or objectively played a role in communicating the cultural ties between the East and the West, and developed into the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, which triggered the trend of "learning from the West and gradually learning from the East" at that time. Unfortunately, with the short-sightedness of the rulers and the implementation of the closed policy, China did not catch up with the tide of the times, and was subsequently left far behind by Europe and the United States. When China's rulers were still dreaming of "heavenly kingdoms", they did not know that the world had begun to undergo rapid changes through the ages.
bibliography:
New Book of Tang
The Yuanshu
"Ming Shi Kao"
Draft History of the Qing Dynasty