Chinese compass : how the Jesuits created and spread the myth / Thierry Meynard and Yijing Zhang

Published in Journal of Jesuit Studies vol. 13 issue 1 

Also available through Boston College Libraries

Abstract:
The compass is now widely acknowledged as one of China’s four great inventions, alongside paper, printing, and gunpowder. Simon Winchester emphasized this in his 2008 biography of Joseph Needham, titled Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China. However, it was actually seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries who first credited China with inventing the compass. This paper examines how the Jesuits constructed this historical narrative and reveals their complex attitudes toward this attribution. The Jesuits held a nuanced view: while they recognized the compass as evidence of China’s historical excellence in science and technology, they also maintained that Western modern science had ultimately surpassed Chinese achievements. In their assessment, China’s most significant contribution to civilization was not technological but philosophical—specifically the influence of Confucian thought on Chinese culture and society. The Jesuits argued that Confucian philosophy contained universal wisdom valuable even to Western societies.

The Jesuit Longobardo’s interpretation of the Neo-Confucian concepts of li and qi

Published in Religions 2025, 16(12), 1559

Abstract:
This article addresses the most important translation issue in the first philosophic and religious dialogue between Europe and China: is there a Chinese equivalent for the Christian concept of God? We approach the question from the perspective of comparative philosophy. We start by examining the historical and theoretical context in which the Jesuit Niccolò Longobardo developed his disagreement with Matteo Ricci regarding the question as to whether the Confucianism is an atheism. We then analyse the interpretation that equates li and qi, respectively, with the Aristotelian notions of accident and prime matter. After showing how Longobardo reduces neo-Confucianism to Presocratic atheism in an Aristotelian manner, we propose an alternative perspective that can reconcile Christianism and neo-Confucianism with regard to the concept of first cause.