Adapting Catholicism to Confucianism: Matteo Ricci’s Tianzhu Shiyi / Yu Liu.
Extract: The European Legacy, 2014, Vol. 19, No. 1, 43–59.
DOI: 10.1080/10848770.2013.860718.
Includes bibliographical notes (p.56-59.

ABSTRACT: Tianzhu Shiyi (The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven) is the single most important proselytizing work of Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), the legendary founder of the early modern Jesuit China mission. Controversial since the early seventeenth century, it has been both praised and condemned for Ricci’s claim of a monotheistic affinity between Catholicism and Confucianism. Ricci’s gesture of friendship to Confucianism won him many Chinese friends and posthumously made him famous or notorious in Europe, but as this essay contends, it was never more than a tactical cover for him during his lifetime. Since the real purpose of his cultural adaptation was his unobtrusive engagement with the ancient Chinese philosophical idea of tianren heyi (humanity’s unity with heaven), what is ultimately so instructive about Tianzhu Shiyi is the light cast on Ricci’s intricate relationship with his Chinese friends and on the ironic twists and turns of his complex legacy.

The European legacy, toward new paradigms : journal of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas / sponsored by the European Cultural Foundation.

Local access dig.pdf  [Liu-Adapting Catholicism to Confucianism.pdf]

Introduction / D. E. Mungello -- New trends in the historiography of Christianity in China / Nicolas Standaert -- Confucian and Christian religiosity in late Ming China / Erik Zurcher -- Bringing Christ to the nations : shifting models of mission among Jesuits in China / Jean-Paul Wiest.
Book reviews: Japan and Christianity: Impacts and responses (Breen & Williams) / Robt. T. Rush -- Christianity in China from the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Daniel H. Bays) Jean-Paul Wiest -- Jesuit missionary letters from Mindanao, vol. II: Zamboanga-Basilan-Joló Mission (José Arcilla) / R. K. Edgerton.
Dig.pdf. local access [CathHistRev.pdf]

Indexed (perhaps erroneously) also as Tianzhujiao Rujiao tongyi kao 天主教儒教同異考—cf. Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, vol. 1, p. 433.

本书据1715年抄本排印.
明末淸初耶稣会思想文献汇编 = An expository collection of the Christian philosophical works between the end of the Ming dynasty and the beginning of the Qing dynasty in China ; 第37册.

Local access dig.pdf. in folder: [Andrew Chung Series].

"....Zhang also wrote the Tianjiao mingbian 天教明辯, the manuscript of which (in twenty volumes) is still to be found in the library of the Beitang in Beijing. The preface he wrote for this book is dated 1711 (Kangxi 51). The book was too voluminous and never came to see the light. Instead Zhang Xingyao made an abridgement in three parts, to which he gave the title Tian Ru tongyi kao 天儒同異考 (A study on the difference between Catholicism and Confucianism). The three parts are:

1. The Catholic religion is in harmony with Confucianism.
2. The Catholic religion adds something new to Confucianism.
3. The Catholic religion excels Confucianism.

The preface by the author is dated 1702. The introductory note (bianyan 弁言), however, was written in 1715, when Zhang Xingyao was 83 sui. So we know that Zhang was born in 1633 (Chongzhen 6)."
Source: Albert Chan, SJ, Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, pp. 53-55.

Full bibliographic details see Ad Dudink & Nicolas Standaert, Chinese Christian Texts Database (CCT-Database).
Local access dig.pdf. [Zhang-Tian Ru tongyi kao.pdf]

"...the final version of this pamphlet was by the hand of Li Zubai, a Christian official in the Astronomical Bureau (baptised by Schall in 1622). It gave a clear testimony of the Jesuit interpretation of Confucianism and stated (rather for the first time) that the Chinese are descendants of Adam and Eve."-- Cf. Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, vol. 1, p. 514.

Cover illustration: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Rac. Gen. Or. III-213 (12)
本书据许之渐1664年序本排印.
明末淸初耶稣会思想文献汇编 = An expository collection of the Christian philosophical works between the end of the Ming dynasty and the beginning of the Qing dynasty in China ; 第39册.

Local access dig.pdf. in folder: [Andrew Chung Series].