K'ung-Tzu or Confucius?: The Jesuit Interpretation of Confucianism

Rule, Paul A. (1972) K'ung-Tzu or Confucius?: The Jesuit Interpretation of Confucianism. PhD thesis, Australian National University.

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Abstract

This thesis attempts to trace and place in context the developing interpretation of Confucius and Confucianism propounded by the Jesuit missionaries in China during the period of the old mission, from its inception c. 1580 to its collapse after the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773. The Jesuit interpretation of Confucianism was rooted in the Jesuit missionary experience throughout the world, but, more immediately, arose as a response to the peculiar problems experienced by Jesuits in the Far East from the time of Francis Xavier on. Xavier and his successors were confronted by the same pressures of language and culture that had marked and to some extent frustrated earlier intrusions of foreign religions into China-Buddhism, the Nestorian Christians of the T'ang, Judaism and Islam, as well as the Franciscan missionaries of the 13th, and 14th, centuries. Problems of translation and finding equivalent terminology, the Chinese tendency to syncretism and the difficulty of finding an acceptable social role, had demonstrated the necessity of assimilation to Chinese culture.

Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BP Islam. Bahaism. Theosophy, etc
Divisions: Jesuitica
Depositing User: JHI Africa
Date Deposited: 10 Jun 2015 11:14
Last Modified: 10 Jun 2015 11:14
URI: http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/189

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