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From the Ricci Method to Léon Wieger's Remedies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
Informing the Superior General of the Society of Jesus that the cornerstone of the Jesuit mission in China – that is, Father Matteo Ricci – had passed away on 3 May 1610, Father Pasio wrote:
Fu servito Nostro Signore di chiamare al paradiso il buon P. Matteo Ricci, tanto antico nella Cina, e che accreditò molto la legge di Dio e la Compagnia con la sua santità, prudentia e patientia, aprendo il cammino agli altri Padri in quella folta selva di gentilità.
Approximately three centuries later, a man whom Father Delattre unhesitatingly called “our indefatigable Sinologist” – Father Léon Wieger – also died on Chinese soil.
1. Archivio della Pontificia Università Gregoriana, vol. 292, 214.
2. Father Léon Wieger's work was widely known and admired during his life time. But since the 1950s, although his work on China remains an essential tool for Sinologists, both his life and his writings have been largely ignored. Until the day when a more substantial homage to him appears, I hope that the pre sent historical sketch will rescue this great Sinologist from oblivion.
3. This account is from the Chinese philosopher Li Chih (1527-1602).
4. See Le Palais de mémoire de Matteo Ricci, a study of mnemonics written by the Jesuit and republished by Payot in 1986.
5. P. Brucker, S. J., La Compagnie de Jésus, 1521-1773, Paris, 1919.
6. J. Gernet, China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures, trans. Janet Lloyd, Cambridge, 1985.
7. Cited by Paul Pelliot, Les Influences européennes sur l'art chinois au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siècle (Imprimerie nationale, 1927).
8. The Lazarist missionary T. Pedrini, born in Rome in 1671, was presented to the Emperor Kang Xi in 1710 and was assigned the task of maintaining the instruments and building new ones (spinets, harpsichords, guitars). There remains an organ that was moved in approximately 1880 to the old Jesuit church in the Forbidden City. Pedrini died in Beijing in 1746 after having lived for over thirty years in the Forbidden City. His legacy as a composer includes twelve "Sino-Italian sonatas" (opus 3) that were rediscovered in 1934. He is also thought to have written cantatas that are conserved in the Bei jing Archives.
9. Jean Lacouture, Jésuites, une multibiographie, vol.1, Les Conquérants, Paris, 1991.
10. Missions des Jésuites de France, Chine, Ceylan, Madagascar, 1931-32.
11. Feng Shui, "wind and water," a form of geomancy that studies propi tious sites for building cities, houses and tombs.
12. The second Chinese rites controversy would not have time to break out. The questions that Wieger asks are the same as those that were debated in the eighteenth century. The Chinese had indeed observed an eclipse coinciding with the period during which the Flood took place. Rome was highly embar rassed by these antediluvian beings and claimed that its astronomy was supe rior to that of the Chinese (whence Father Ricci's demonstrations before the Emperor). However, Father Gaubil calculated that the eclipse had taken place in 2220 B.C., Father Fréret in 2154, and Father Amiot in 2155. It was thus nec essary and reasonable to suppose that the Chinese had come into being signif icantly earlier than 2220.
13. The same pattern was to recur in the 1980s and 1990s; Confucius was rehabili tated and his name used indiscriminately as an ingredient in a series of edito rial recipes whose taste and secrecy stimulate the appetite as much as a hundred-year egg.
14. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Novissimia Sinica (1697/99) and Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese (1716), both contained in Writings on China, trans. Daniel J. Cook and Henry Rosemont, Jr., Chicago, 1994.
15. Etiemble, L'Europe chinoise, Paris, 1988, vol. 2, p. 256.
16. Xian sheng, "born first," or "gentleman."
17. Missions des Jésuites de France, Chine, Ceylan, Madagascar 1911.
18. Li Pai (701-762) was one of the greatest poets of the Tang dynasty.
19. The Ming dynasty lasted from 1368 to 1644.
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