Scholastic background

Before entering into our primary topic, we look at Thomas Aquinas’ view on law. In Summa Theologiae I–II, q. 90, Aquinas discusses the essence of law in general, concluding that law (1) is something which pertains to reason (a. 1, s.c.: lex est aliquid rationis), (2) is ordained to the common good (a. 2, resp.: omnis lex ad bonum commune ordinatur), (3) must be made by the whole people or the person who duly governs them, and (4) must be promulgated. He subsequently (ST I–II, q. 91) distinguishes between eternal law, natural law, human law, divine law and the law of the fomes (kindling wood) of sin. Eternal law refers to the divine providence to which all of creation is subject. It has the widest scope of all the laws, for it is that by which “God imprints on the whole of nature the principles of its proper actions” (ST I–II, q. 93, a. 5, resp.: Deus imprimit toti naturae principia propriorum actuum).Footnote ⁵ Both irrational and rational beings are subject to it, even if not in the same manner. Natural law, on the other hand, is the special participation in the eternal law by rational beings (ST I–II, q. 91, a. 3, resp.). Aquinas subdivides natural law in terms of man’s inclinations to the good: first in accordance with his nature in common with all other substances; secondly in accordance with his nature in common with other animals; and thirdly according to his unique rational nature, consisting of the natural inclination to know the truth about God and to live in community (ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2, resp.). This law is not a written law, but it is promulgated insofar as it is instilled into the minds of humans so that it can be known naturally (ST I–II, q. 90, a. 4, ad. 1). The strongest biblical basis for this notion is found in Romans 2, which mentions how the Gentiles often act according to the law naturally (Vulgate 2.14: naturaliter) despite not having the divine law revealed to them. Aquinas also explicitly refers to this Pauline passage in this context (ST I–II, q. 91, s. c.). Human law consists in turn of further human derivations from this natural law. Where it diverges from the basic principles of natural law, it ceases to be law in the normative sense but rather becomes a corruption of the law (ST I–II, q. 95, a. 2, resp.). The frailty of human judgement, however, necessitated the promulgation of the twofold divine law, consisting of the Old Law promulgated by Moses and the New Law promulgated by Christ. The former consists of moral, ceremonial, and judicial precepts, although the latter two kinds of precepts lose their place in the New Law (ST I–II, q. 108, a. 3, ad. 3). The law of the fomes consists of sensual inclinations. Whereas in animals, this inclination has the force of law in an uncomplicated manner, in humans the situation is more complex. While it is a deviation from the law of reason most proper to humans, in light of their fall, it too possesses for them the nature of a law (ST I–II, q. 91, a. 6, resp.).Footnote ⁶

This very cursory sketch leaves much of importance unsaid,Footnote ⁷ although we will have the opportunity to provide more detailed discussion of several of these laws below. For the purposes of this present article, we will limit our attention to only the natural law and the twofold divine laws. This decision is hardly arbitrary. In fact, the doctrine of these “Three Teachings” (三教 san jiao), as they were called, is found in a number of missionary writings as well as in texts by Chinese Christian converts.Footnote ⁸ The first was usually called the 性教 xingjiao (“Teaching by Nature”), and the second was (almost always) called 書教 shujiao (“Teaching by the Book”), while the third received various appellations, including 恩教 enjiao or 寵教 chongjiao (“Teaching by Grace”),  身教 shenjiao (“Teaching of the Incarnation”), and others. The present analysis of how this doctrine was articulated to Chinese audiences certainly does not claim to be exhaustive, but it nonetheless offers a substantial overview of these discussions in the relatively early period of Catholic missions in China.

Michele Ruggieri

We begin our analysis with Ruggieri’s Tianzhu shilu. The work consists of a preface followed by sixteen chapters written in the form of a dialogue between a Chinese and a Christian “monk” (僧 seng in the Chinese),Footnote ⁹ standing for Ruggieri himself. (The original Latin version, although longer, is divided differently into thirteen chapters.) While the opening chapters concern God’s existence and the possibilities of knowing Him, followed then by a treatment of creation and the afterlife, in chapter 8 we turn to the topic of the laws given by God to humanity. Here the Christian begins with a discussion of an unwritten natural law present in all humans, limiting the content of this unwritten law to just two principles: 其中只有二事: 第一條, 使人心中自知, 只有一位天主㪽當敬奉; 第二條, 使人存一推己及人之心。“In this law, there are only two commandments: the first is that we have in our heart an innate knowledge that there is only one Lord of Heaven who should be worshipped; the second is that we must harbor a mindset of ‘putting ourselves in the place of others’” (8.4). These correspond to the aforementioned natural inclinations to know the truth about God and to live in community (ST I–II, q. 94, a. 3, resp.). Of course, Ruggieri is even more immediately building upon Jesus’ summary of the Law as found in the Gospels (see Matthew 22: 37–40, Mark 12: 29–31, and Luke 10: 27). It is intriguing to consider the Latin original of this passage, for while Ruggieri correctly asserts that the Confucian classics parallel the latter principle (cf. Analects 15.24), he expresses his doubts over whether the Chinese tradition really has a notion comparable to God, floating 天 Tian as the most likely but not certain candidate. Ruggieri would eventually become convinced that Chinese did possess a notion akin to God in Tian and Shangdi, but when composing the Tianzhu shilu he silently passed over the question.Footnote ¹⁰

In terms of how we know this natural law, Ruggieri later becomes a little more specific. He writes:

Aquinas had argued that natural law is derived from the fundamental principle of practical reason, bonum est quod omnia appetunt “good is that which all things seek after”, which yields the first precept bonum est faciendum et prosequendum, et malum vitandum “the good must be done and pursued, and evil must be avoided”. This is self-evident, in the same way as the proposition that the whole is greater than the part (ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2, resp.). Ruggieri somewhat simplifies by skipping over the discussion of the first principle and precept. Other subtleties of Aquinas’ doctrine do not find full reflection in Ruggieri’s text. For Aquinas; … not man’s natural inclinations as such, but the obligations derived from them as they are formulated by reason in view of the end of human life constitute the natural law”.Footnote ¹¹ As he states, omnia illa ad quae homo habet naturalem inclinationem, ratio naturaliter apprehendit ut bona “All those things to which man has a natural inclination, reason naturally apprehends them as good” (ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2, resp.). In other words, while humans possess a number of natural inclinations pertaining to their nature as substances, animals and rational beings, for these inclinations to take on the status of precepts of the natural law they require the judgement of reason that expressly determines their objects as goods to be striven after (and their contraries as evils to be avoided).Footnote ¹² Ruggieri in this context does not explicitly reprise his earlier emphasis on 理 qua “reason” (理 in the passage cited above is used in the sense of “principle” or “notion”). For example, in the first chapter, Ruggieri intelligently constructs an argument by analogy for the existence of God. On the level of human society, a foreigner could see how Guangdong Province in China is governed through a tiered bureaucratic system by which the larger administrative units answer to more centralized and elevated ones, and infer that the other provinces must be the same, and that China as a whole must be governed by a single sovereign who holds sway over the many provinces: 他𨿽未親至京師, 目見君王, 然以理度之, 誠知其有一位人君也。 “Even if he has not been to the capital and beheld the sovereign with his own eyes, by making inferences with reason, he truly knows that there is one sovereign.” [1.8]. The term 理 is here employed in the sense of “reason”, the faculty by which we can grasp reality that transcends sensory perception. In this later passage, however, it would seem that the obviousness of its principles are due more to a passive reception of the law from God, which is then how the heart can know them by itself (自知).Footnote ¹³

While reducing the complexity of the scholastic theory of natural law, Ruggieri also formulates this teaching in a manner that would resonate with his Chinese audience. Ruggieri writes in the preface of the Tianzhu shilu: 人之身體髪膚, 受扵父母, 為人子之報父母者, 皆出扵良知、良䏻, 不待學而自然親愛者也。 “Our body, hair and skin are received from our parents. As their children, we repay our parents because of our innate moral knowledge (liangzhi 良知) and our innate moral ability (liangneng 良能). Our love for our parents does not come from learning but nature”. He obviously alludes to Mengzi 7A15:

When he then states that the natural law does not need to be learned in school but is innately known, Ruggieri recapitulates the basic idea of innate moral conscience that he had expressed at the beginning of the preface.

While he does not directly compare natural law in this section to the Chinese liangzhi 良知 “innate moral knowledge” and liangneng 良能 “innate moral ability”, the explicit parallels between the Western and Chinese concepts that were subsequently drawn by Chinese converts find an anticipation here.Footnote ¹⁵ It may be noted that Ruggieri’s de-emphasis on the role of reason in formulating the precepts of the natural law also makes his exposition (whether or not that was his primary intent) somewhat closer to the Chinese understanding of liangzhi or liangneng. For in Mencius as also later in Wang Yangming, innate ability or innate knowledge are rooted in affections, or moral sense, rather (or to use relative rather than absolute terms, more) than in rational reflection. To stick to the example of filial piety used in Mengzi 7A15, that its basis is affective as opposed to rational/reflective in nature, is demonstrated clearly in the story provided in Mengzi 3A5:

As is apparent from this description, Mencius describes this awareness as rooted in primal emotions. The sweat that they exude on their faces bears witness to a feeling coming forth from the deepest recesses of their heart. Mencius does not say that the people used rational reflection to come to the conclusion that they had to bury their parents, nor does he say that reason approved of the emotional inclinations as proper moral ends. “Burying them was truly right” (掩之誠是也), but the moral intuition that realizes this is based on moral sentiments. The absence of reason as the fundamental standard distinguishes Mencius and his successors from Aquinas’ notion of natural law.Footnote ¹⁶

Admittedly, one may potentially detect a secondary place for rational reflection also in Mencius’ ethical theory,Footnote ¹⁷ but determining its precise status is much debated and would probably not have been perceived as its defining feature by Ruggieri. The case may be different for Giulio Aleni, who addresses this question in a context different from his explicit treatment of natural and divine law and which thus can be mentioned here. In his Xingxue cushu 性學觕述 (A Brief Introduction to the Study of Human Nature), 6.3, Aleni writes:

Aleni combines two passages from the Mengzi as part of this argument. In the former passage (6A7), Mencius reflects on what all humans share. Our outer sensory organs, our mouths, ears, and eyes, all have common preferences. They all react positively to the cooking of Yiya, the music of master Kuang, and the beauty of Zidu. Mencius then follows up: 至於心, 獨無所同然乎?心之所同然者何也?謂理也, 義也。 “Should hearts prove to be an exception by possessing nothing in common? What is it, then, that is common to all hearts? Reason (li) and righteousness (yi)”.Footnote ¹⁹ While Mencius here may imply but does not make explicit a sharp differentiation between the heart-mind 心 and the sensory organs, instead focusing on the fact that like the latter, it too finds a common expression among all humans, in Mengzi 6A15, to which Aleni seamlessly turns in the second half of the cited passage, Mencius distinguishes more clearly between the organs of the ears and eyes, which cannot “think” (思), and the organ of the heart-mind, which can. Following the greater part of himself (大體), i.e. the heart-mind, a person becomes a great man (大人). Following only the sense organs, the smaller part of oneself (小體), one becomes a petty person. Aleni ends by introducing his phrase 體, combining his favoured term 性 with Mencius’ 大體, showing his identification of Mencius’ concept with his own notion of intellective nature. At the same time, Aleni’s identification should not be accepted without qualification. For instance, it is very questionable whether Mencius’ li 理 can be properly translated into “reason”, as D.C. Lau does.Footnote ²⁰ This would be an isolated usage in the Mengzi. Moreover, the concept of si 思 does not appear to be used in opposition to relying on moral feelings. On the contrary, the contexts in which the term is used suggest rather that it refers to bringing to consciousness one’s true but all-too-often submerged authentic moral feelings. In Mengzi 6A6, we find the following assertion: 仁義禮智, 非由外鑠我也, 我固有之也, 弗思耳矣。 “Humaneness, righteousness, ritual propriety, and wisdom are not infused into us from the outside. We certainly possess them, but we don’t bring them to mind” (authors’ translation). The preceding context describes how the four virtues are found in our hearts,Footnote ²¹ and Mencius, by saying 弗思, is here lamenting that we allow these feelings to become lost. (An analogous interpretation can mutatis mutandis easily be made of 6A17.) These passages do not justify understanding si as “rational reflection” conceived independently from relying on moral affections.

Thus, we can say that for Mencius reason lacks the same primacy of position as in Aquinas’ thought. At the same time, Ruggieri’s omission of the emphasis on reason, which accommodates the Mencian position, is not without basis in Scripture. Paul, in Romans 2, states that the Gentiles “demonstrate the work of the law written on their hearts, their conscience bearing witness for them” (Romans 2.15 Vulgate: ostendunt opus legis scriptum in cordibus suis, testimonium reddente illis conscientia ipsorum). Paul here speaks only of the “heart” and does not appeal to something equivalent to “reason”. Here one may potentially see an idea, albeit one expressed only in nuce, corresponding more to the Chinese understanding of liangzhi as developed in the School of the Heart (心學).Footnote ²²

Ruggieri next discusses the giving of the divine law (lex divina), divided into the Old Law and the New Law. He describes the promulgation of the Old Law by Moses as follows: 先時規誡者, 乃默示乎人心, 不䏻使人盡知。故天主復作次之規誡, 令一道士曉諭普世。 “As the first law was revealed silently to people’s hearts, it could not be fully known by people. Thus, the Lord of Heaven sent another law through a priest to make it known to the whole world.” (8.16; see also 8.5). The formulation deserves comment. The remark that humans needed a written law because they could not completely know the law silently promulgated in their hearts has a basis in Aquinas’ claim that the divine law was necessary on account of the incertitude of human judgement especially when it comes to the particulars of human action (ST I–II, q. 91, a. 4, resp.). The comment that a priest (i.e. Moses, named at 8.12) gave the law to all peoples is not only incorrect from a biblical standpoint but also different from what Ruggieri wrote in the Latin text: Secunda lex a Deo lata scripta dicitur … et populo quondam a Deo electo … promulgata/“The second law given by God was said to have been written … and was proclaimed to a people once chosen by God.” (8.12). The change is plausibly explained by Canaris: “The notion that there was a ‘chosen people’ unknown to the Chinese prior to the establishment of the Christian law would perhaps have been rather unsettling for the Chinese and very difficult for Ruggieri to explain”.Footnote ²³ The Christian then explains how this second law was too cumbersome and that humans kept sinning according to it, so that the Lord of Heaven had to transform into a manFootnote ²⁴ and give them a third law, lighter for people to bear (8.16).

It should further be noted that Ruggieri in the Chinese text simplifies the complexity of why God had to give several laws. In chapter 7 of the Vera et Brevis Divinarum Rerum Expositio, which deals with the promulgations of the divine laws, we are told (8.3):

This prepares the discussion of how God first provided humans with the innate natural law, then with the second law given by Moses, and finally with the third and most perfect law given by Christ. God did not present the most consummate expression of divine teaching right away, but waited until humans were ready to accept it. This is expressed also later in the Latin text in the context of explaining why Christ’s New Covenant came as late as it did (9.10):

This type of explanation, namely that people required time and preparation before they could receive the fulfilment of the Law, goes back to the very early Christian literature. The first of the two extracts cited above uses the language of accommodation, equivalent to what is also termed condescendence. The success of a teaching is determined not simply by its own internal coherence and power, but by its appropriateness for the level of the audience. The person in the higher intellectual or spiritual position must lower him/herself to meet recipients at a level where they can comprehend the teaching, and gradually lead them upwards in insight, a point expressed already in 1 Corinthians 3: 2 and Hebrews 5: 12. And in the Patristic tradition, we find a fully developed theology of divine condescendence (Greek: synkatabasis; Latin: condescensio), in which God’s providing humanity first with the Old Testament and then with the New Covenant established through Christ was interpreted as God lowering himself to our human level, training us with the less spiritually advanced Old Covenant before we were ready to receive the new one.Footnote ²⁵ We find this notion as well in Aquinas, the more direct source for Ruggieri. See for example ST I–II, q. 91, a. 5, resp., ST I–II, q. 98, a. 2, ad 1, ST I–II, q. 106, a. 3, resp., and ST I–II, q. 107, a. 1, resp., which all employ, following Pauline precedents, the language of the Old Law as a pedagogue for children requiring tutoring before they could receive the New Law. The phylogenetic development of humanity at large is understood on the model of ontogeny.

The theme of divine condescension is omitted in the Chinese text. Thus, for instance, the analogy of God as a doctor is rewritten as follows (9.10):

Here, the Lord of Heaven hoped that the second law or the Old Covenant would have sufficed, but when He perceived that they kept sinning without repenting, He had no choice but to incarnate and promulgate the third law. We lack here the notion that the second law was in its deepest sense a propaedeutic for the coming of Christ. Ruggieri knew with Aquinas that the divine law was something that could not be grasped let alone practised readily by untutored souls. And yet Ruggieri may have wished not to emphasize the idea that it required many millennia of collective moral and spiritual training to receive the New Covenant lest it be potentially counterproductive for the end goal of making converts. So instead, he insists on the aspect of the teaching which concerns the lightness of the law. In the preface of the Tianzhu shilu (pp. 6–7), Ruggieri highlights the point that the law is manageable and not overly burdensome. But here too we have a strategic reduction of nuance. Aquinas, it is true, asserted that the New Law was less burdensome than the Old Law, but only as it concerns the external works which the Old Law prescribes in abundance through its ceremonial precepts. Aquinas qualifies this, however, by conceding that in terms of the interior works (i.e. that virtuous deeds should be performed with pleasure) the New Law is more demanding (ST I–II, q. 107, a. 4, resp.), which is what allows us to consistently see how the New Law required the maturation brought about by its predecessor. But on this distinction the Christian in Ruggieri’s dialogue is completely silent. Ruggieri has de-emphasized the intellectual and moral demands of the New Law in order to make it more palatable to his intended audience. In so doing, he himself engages in a form of accommodation to the level of his readership.Footnote ²⁶

We can next turn to the content of the New Law. As the Christian states to his Chinese interlocutor, it consists of eleven articles on the Lord of Heaven, the Ten Commandments and the three special teachings (i.e. the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience), and the sacraments (10.2). The eleven articles listed in turn reflect most of the contents of the Apostles Creeds.Footnote ²⁷ This follows Aquinas’ designation of the New Law as primarily a law of faith (lex fidei), consisting secondarily in moral and sacramental deeds (ST I–II, q. 107, a. 1, ad. 3). We are not told here explicitly that some of these credal statements cannot be demonstrated by reason. Instead, the Christian makes the threatening assertion that anyone who rejects even one of these articles will go to hell. The Chinese interlocutor is made to express his assent to the Christian’s words, but we know that in reality the Chinese were not so easily persuaded. Ricci wisely omitted or de-emphasized a number of these articles of faith in his Tianzhu shiyi, although he did include a fuller list of such articles in his Tianzhu jiaoyao.Footnote ²⁸

As for the moral content of the New Law, Aquinas considers it to have been taken over from the Old Law – the judicial precepts of the latter, on the other hand, lose their binding force over individuals and the ceremonial precepts are abolished (ST I–II, q. 108, a. 3, ad. 3)Footnote ²⁹ – and insofar as he considers the various moral precepts of the Old Law reducible to the Decalogue (ST I–II, q. 100, a. 3), the Christian’s elevation of the Ten Commandments as the moral core of the New Law also makes sense. We also find Ruggieri carefully framing the Ten Commandments in such a way as to accommodate Chinese sensibilities. Notably, Ruggieri emphasizes that the Fourth Commandment, on honouring one’s parents, begins the seven commandments that deal with human relationships.Footnote ³⁰ He writes: 中之苐四條者, 當親敬長。此事甚重, 是以占乎六條之先。盖天主令世人和睦, 况人倫之至親者, 莫過扵父母, 是以當孝順也。 “The fourth commandment teaches that you must love and revere your parents. Since this commandment is extremely important, it goes before the other six. Since the Lord of Heaven orders people to be in harmony and no human relation is more important than that which we have with our parents, we must practice filial piety” (14.2).Footnote ³¹ Ruggieri also makes clear that the scope of the fourth commandment is not limited strictly to children, but also includes the relationship between a student and teacher, or between a servant and master (14.3). Later texts of missionaries and converts, however, will emphasize further the political dimension of the fourth commandment as requiring obedience from subjects to government officials and the sovereign.Footnote ³²

Similarly, in the discussion of the fifth commandment we find Ruggieri adapting his presentation to Chinese philosophy, although in this attempt, unlike in his treatment of the fourth commandment, his approach would turn out to be much less widely followed, indeed, it would be contradicted outright by later missionaries.

Ruggieri writes in Tianzhu shilu 14.4:

In claiming that the difference between humans and animals is “slight”, Ruggieri is clearly alluding to Mencius:

Ruggieri evidently includes a reference to this passage in the present context insofar as Mencius speaks of 人倫 “human relationships” as being one of the main differences between humans and animals (cf. 舜明於庶物, 察於人倫 “Shun was clear about the multitude of things and observant of human relationships”). Ruggieri sees the aim of the second table of the Decalogue – to promote a functional and harmonious society – as consonant with Mencius’ idea of upholding normative human relationships, and thus he alludes to this overlapping concern in his discussion of the second section of the Decalogue.Footnote ³³ The problem, however, is that Mencius’ own words, namely that the difference between humans and animals is “slight”, seem to contradict plainly what Ruggieri had argued beforehand in the discussion on human versus animal souls: 故僧言人之魂𤫊, 大異乎禽獸者如此。 “Therefore, I say that human souls are very different from those of animals”. In Ricci’s Tianzhu shiyi, the Chinese scholar is persuaded by the Christian to reject Mencius’ claim, saying: 吁 ! 今吾方知, 人所異於禽獸者, 非幾希也。靈魂不滅之理, 甚正也, 甚明也。 “Well! Now I know for the first time that the ways in which man differs from the birds and beasts is not slight. The teaching concerning the indestructibility of the soul is very just and very clear.” (§ 168).Footnote ³⁴ Implicit here is also a tacit correction of Ruggieri.Footnote ³⁵ In the revised edition of the Tianzhu shilu, the Tianzhu shengjiao shilu 天主聖教實錄 “The True Record of the Holy Religion of the Lord of Heaven”, revised by Manuel Dias, Jr., Gaspar Ferreira and João Monteiro and published around 1640, the characters 幾希 “slight” are changed to 極甚 “exceedingly great”.Footnote ³⁶

The two case studies above show that Ruggieri’s attempts to accommodate Chinese values and philosophical perspectives in his discussion of the Decalogue did not meet with uniform success. There is a further complexity of a more general nature to note. It seems likely that the Chinese would find it counterintuitive to reduce all the ethical commandments of the Decalogue merely to divine instruction. Aquinas himself acknowledges that most of the precepts of the Decalogue belong already to natural law (such as “Honour your father and your mother”, “You shall not kill”), while others (such as “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”) require additional divine instruction (ST I–II, q. 100, a. 1, resp.). Ruggieri’s earlier comments on innate filial piety discussed above can be taken to imply that at least the fourth commandment is reducible to the natural law. However, this wider issue is unfortunately not discussed by Ruggieri.

The promotion of the path of religious life as the surest way to heaven does not deny the moral respectability and legitimacy of married life in the secular world, but the Christian is also unambiguous concerning the former’s superiority over the latter: 人若棄其財色, 專一奉事天主者, 尤勝乎娶妻求財之輩矣。 “Those who renounce wealth and sexual desire and dedicate themselves to serving the Lord of Heaven are greatly superior to those who marry and seek wealth” (15.5). The self-authorizing nature of the claim is unmistakable. When the Chinese continues to ask about the sacraments, the Christian responds that it is difficult to explain them in a few words, and so he mentions only baptism. In the Latin text, all seven sacraments are enumerated and each briefly described, but already the worry is expressed that one who has not yet converted will have difficulties understanding them. Ruggieri evidently determined, again in the spirit of accommodation, that a fuller treatment would go beyond what his readers were equipped to receive.

To summarize, we can observe the many subtle attempts that Ruggieri has made to render his account of the natural and divine laws as accessible as possible to the Chinese. While carefully omitting a number of details found in Aquinas – the reasons for which we have considered in detail – he still offers a robust and substantial account of this doctrine. We should also add that Ruggieri does not use the familiar terms of subsequent Christian writings to refer to these laws. But the depth of his analysis and presentation surpasses many other later discussions. To these we now turn.

Yang Tingyun

Born in Hangzhou to a well-to-do and educated family, Yang Tingyun was a life-long Confucian in terms of most of his basic mores, but this does not mean that he did not feel the need to turn to other religious sources of meaning. His retirement from his official career in 1609 was followed by two years of intense devotion to Buddhism. In 1611, however, an impactful encounter and debate with Jesuits invited by leading convert Li Zhizao (李之藻) convinced him of the truth of Catholicism. (Yang had met Ricci in Beijing close to a decade before, and while he would later describe the encounter as positive and inspiring, he did not convert at that time.) He converted in 1612 after taking the painful step, demanded by the missionaries, of parting with his cherished concubine.Footnote ³⁷ Yang proved to be a most reliable convert. During the anti-Christian persecutions of 1616–17, which were instigated by the Nanjing Ministry of Rites Shen Que 沈㴶 and led to the arrest and returning to Macao of many missionaries, Yang personally sheltered several Jesuits including Aleni, with whom he developed a close friendship and collaboration. In 1621 he published his first major work defending Christianity, the Daiyi pian 代疑篇 (“Resolving Doubts”), which was followed in the same year by the Tianshi mingbian 天釋明辨 (“Distinguishing Clearly Between Christianity and Buddhism”).Footnote ³⁸ Yang subsequently wrote Daiyi xupian 代疑續篇 “Supplement to Resolving Doubts” shortly before his death in 1627, and the work was published posthumously in 1635.

Our analysis of Yang’s thoughts on the Three Teachings will be rather selective. In the Daiyi pian, towards the beginning of the second of two juan, Yang writes:

Yang describes the transition from the period of harmony with the natural law to the era of moral decay which called for the coming of Christ. While in missionary texts such as those by Ruggieri, Vagnone, Aleni, and others, this story of the gradual forgetting of the natural law is recounted according to biblical chronology, here Yang uses the Chinese chronological framework of the Three Dynasties (Xia, Shang, Zhou) representing moral uprightness, followed by moral decadence. Here also, Yang does not mention the Teaching by the Book, although he does in the Tianshi mingbian, where he mentions all three of the teachings (the last under the name 恩教). In the Daiyi xupian, he explicitly acknowledges that the Catholic doctrine of the three stages of moral teaching culminating in the Incarnation represents an important difference from traditional Confucianism.Footnote ⁴⁰ In the Tianshi mingbian he elaborates further on the natural law, writing: 天教以賦畀之良知, 良能爲性, 教人類受衷。原有明德, 不教而知趨避, 上古之人皆有之。 “The Teaching of Heaven [i.e. Catholicism] considers the bestowed innate knowledge and innate ability to be our nature, teaching humankind to receive their moral sense. Originally there was illustrious virtue; without instruction people knew what to pursue and what to avoid; the people of high antiquity all possessed it”.Footnote ⁴¹

What is important about these two extended passages is the direct association of the natural teaching with the Chinese notions of liangzhi and liangneng, which as discussed above was only hinted at in Ruggieri’s Tianzhu shilu. We find this link made explicit also in the Dake wen 答客問 (“Answering the Guest’s Questions”), published ten years after Yang’s work in 1631 by the then 23-year-old Chinese convert Zhu Zongyuan 朱宗元 (1609–60).Footnote ⁴² This work attempts to demonstrate the fundamental unity of early Confucianism and Catholicism, and the 性教 xingjiao is directly equated, albeit without more than minimal elaboration, with liangzhi and liangneng.Footnote ⁴³ In none of these writings do we find – indeed, we should not realistically expect to find – any reflection on the potentially significant differences between Aquinas’ notion of natural law and these Chinese concepts. We find here an interesting case where Western and Chinese concepts are associated, but we ourselves should be cautious before following them wholesale. In this context, we may also observe that other Chinese, instead of trying to fit the Catholic doctrine of natural law with Chinese concepts, attacked it as incoherent. For example, the Buddhist master Ouyi Zhixu 藕益智旭 criticized the aspect of the theory whereby the original good nature comes from an external source, namely God, on the grounds that this deprived morality of its true inner source, and he further deemed it inexplicable that the Lord of Heaven would then allow this supposedly perfect nature to degenerate or fall into temptation by the devil.Footnote ⁴⁴

Another aspect of Yang’s exposition that deserves special comment is his application of the framework of the Christian theology of history to the world of ancient China. As the Daiyi pian says, because the natural teaching was in full force during the period of remote antiquity, people all revered Heaven and had no need of the Incarnation. Erik Zürcher remarks as follows on Yang’s motives for making this argument: “Thus by this mixture of Confucian positivism and Christian ideas about natural theology, China’s unbaptized but virtuous souls were saved, as was her face”.Footnote ⁴⁵ Yang had a strong interest in deploying the theology of natural law to allow for the salvation of the early Chinese sages. Moreover, in the passage cited from the Tianshi mingbian, we should appreciate the additional reference to 衷 zhong. Yang alludes to the Book of Documents, “Announcement of Tang” (湯誥): 惟皇上帝, 降衷于下民。 “The august high God has conferred (even) on the common people a moral sense (zhong 衷)”. By the reference to 明德 mingde “illustrious virtue”, Yang also clearly alludes to the Great Learning, here expressing the idea that at this time all under Heaven was in a state of peace and harmony (天下平 tianxia ping). A society governed by the natural law is thus, in Yang’s eyes, a society in conformity with the Confucian moral ideal. Yang’s evoking of mingde in this context can also recall Wang Yangming, who used mingde to explain the intertwined concepts of liangzhi and “nature endowed by Heaven” (天命之性).Footnote ⁴⁶

It is fitting that Yang as a Chinese would not only make more direct connections between natural law and the Chinese notions of liangzhi and liangneng, but would also apply this idea to ancient Chinese history. Yang too aims to demonstrate the deep commonalities between Confucianism and Catholicism, and for him emphasizing natural law is a most effective way to highlight the common moral source of these two traditions.

Giulio Aleni

We will end our discussion with Giulio Aleni, whom we have already addressed in part above. One of the most respected missionaries in China, he was called “Confucius from the West” (西來孔子 Xilai Kongzi) even during his lifetime. He first entered China in 1613 and went on to write over 20 Chinese works.Footnote ⁴⁷ We will here focus on the presentation of the Three Teachings in Aleni’s 1635 Tianzhu jiangsheng yinyi 天主降生引義 (“Introduction to the Incarnation of the Lord of Heaven”) and 1642 Tianzhu shengjiao sizijingwen 天主聖教四字經文 (“Four Character Classic of the Sacred Teaching of the Lord of Heaven”), Sizijingwen for short.Footnote ⁴⁸ The former text forms one of a three-part instalment of works by Aleni on Christ and the incarnation, the other two being Tianzhu jiangsheng yanxing jilüe 天主降生言行紀畧 (“Brief Record on the Speeches and Conducts of the Incarnated Lord of Heaven”, 1635) and Tianzhu jiangsheng chuxiang jingjie 天主降生出像經解 (“Illustrated Explanations on the Incarnation of the Lord of Heaven”, 1637).Footnote ⁴⁹ The title of the Sizijingwen of course nods to the Sanzijing 三字經 (“Three Character Classic”), the famous Confucian children’s primer putatively composed by Wang Yinglin 王應麟 of the late Song dynasty. Aleni’s Catholic catechism for children continues, with reduced complexity, the basic framework found already in Ruggieri’s work. The Sizijingwen was published in the later stage of Aleni’s Fujian mission and seven years before his death. Its intended audience is certainly one factor that contributes to the simplification and condensation of this rich teaching, which is found in more detail in the Tianzhu jiangsheng yinyi. Both texts, however, share the commonality of introducing the doctrines of natural and divine law in the context of broader discussions of Sacred History.Footnote ⁵⁰ We should also note that these are the not only places that Aleni discusses this theory. For instance, in the second juan of the Kouduo richao 口鐸日抄 (“Diary of Oral Admonitions”), a series of notes chiefly compiled by convert Li Jiubiao 李九標 which records conversations between Chinese converts and Aleni (and other missionaries) between 1630 and 1640, Aleni explains very succinctly the doctrine of the Three Teachings, referring to them as the 性教 xingjiao, 書教 shujiao, and 寵教 chongjiao respectively.Footnote ⁵¹

In the Tianzhu jiangsheng yinyi, Aleni speaks of the original unblemished goodness of human nature before the Fall: 人性初畀, 極為純善, 備有原義諸德。規誡之條, 銘在人心, 不待人教, 自明趨避, 謂之性教。 “When human nature was first bestowed, it was moral to the utmost, furnished with original righteousness and all the virtues. The instructions of the commandments were inscribed on the human hearts, and not requiring external human teaching people spontaneously knew what to pursue and what to avoid. This is called the natural law (xingjiao)” (p. 4).Footnote ⁵² The language of pursuing (趨) and avoiding (避) recalls the earlier-cited first precept of the natural law, bonum est faciendum et prosequendum, et malum vitandum “the good must be done and pursued, and evil must be avoided”, but like Ruggieri, Aleni does not dwell explicitly on the function of reason in coming to this knowledge. In the Sizijingwen, mentioning the creation of Adam and Eve, Aleni similarly but more simply writes: 命以性教, 為善避惡。 “God provided commandments by means of the Teaching by Nature (i.e. the natural law)”.Footnote ⁵³ The content of this law is expressed as 上愛天主, 下愛世人。 “Above, [one must] love the Lord of Heaven – and below, [one must] love mankind”,Footnote ⁵⁴ which corresponds to the summary of natural law provided by Ruggieri. The natural law did not prevent men from sin, and once the accumulation of sin had reached an unbearable level, God was compelled to send the Flood. 2,512 years after the Deluge, humanity forgot the natural law,Footnote ⁵⁵ requiring God to commission Moses with the first of the divine laws.

Several points in Aleni’s account of Moses’ giving of the law deserve mention. First, in the Sizijingwen, Aleni, analogous to Ruggieri in the Tianzhu shilu, speaks of Moses “notifying all people” (出示普世) of this law.Footnote ⁵⁶ In order not to offend Chinese sensibilities or raise questions that would be too complicated to answer, Aleni has altered the biblical text and avoided mentioning the privileged status of the Jewish people. Tangentially, we find that this alteration of the biblical story is also reflected in the writings of converts. For example, Wang Zheng 王徵 (1571–1644) reports in his 1628 Weitian airen jilun 畏天愛人極論 (“Ultimate Discussion on Fearing Heaven and Loving Human Beings”) that the Jesuit Diego de Pantoja (Chinese name: Pang Diwo 龐迪我) explained to him about the Ten Commandments, 令普世遵守 “[The Lord of Heaven] enjoined all people of the world to abide by them”.Footnote ⁵⁷ In the aforementioned Dake wen of Zhu Zongyuan we find the same expression regarding the giving of the Decalogue.Footnote ⁵⁸ Noteworthy, however, is that in the Tianzhu jiangsheng yinyi, Aleni more elaborately mediates this reductive simplification with acknowledgement of the special status of the Jewish people in a way that does not risk offending Chinese readers. Presenting the Mosaic law (which here, unlike in the Sizijingwen, he calls 經教, p. 5) as being given to all people such that everyone was restored to moral sense and only considered serving the Lord of Heaven and Earth as the consummate teaching (皆惟以奉天地之主為至教, p. 5), Aleni describes how the true transmission of this teaching was subsequently lost through the increase of languages and heresies (異端). Only the country of Judea (如德亞國) preserved the “true tradition of Heavenly Learning” (天學真傳). The special status of the Jewish people is thus delicately presented as the result of their effort in preserving a universal teaching, not as something determined from the outset by God to the exclusion of other nations.

On the substance of the Mosaic law, Aleni speaks in the Sizijingwen of its threefold division into commands involving serving God (事主), loving humans (愛人) and governing the country well (善政治國). Clark comments that “Aleni has condensed the Ten Commandments from ten to three”.Footnote ⁵⁹ Eugenio Menegon writes: “This somewhat modified form of the Commandments is interesting especially in its third point: it sounds more like a Confucian preoccupation, than a Christian one!”.Footnote ⁶⁰ One should surely not exclude the Confucian resonance here, but more precisely, Aleni alludes to the division of the Old Law (including but not limited to the Ten Commandments) into ceremonial, moral, and judicial precepts (cf. ST I–II, q. 99). In the Tianzhu shilu, Ruggieri similarly refers to this tripartite division (8.5):

In having the Ten Commandments stand in for the moral precepts, Ruggieri accords with Aquinas’ claim that all the moral precepts of the law are reducible to the Ten Commandments (ST I–II, q. 100, a. 3).

We are told that after another 1,550 years, 世違書教, 皆相從惡 “That generation turned against the Teaching by the Book – and everyone followed evil”.Footnote ⁶¹ This prepares the transition to the Incarnation, interpreted in the Tianzhu jiangsheng yinyi as God using the wickedness of humans as an occasion for utmost goodness (pp. 16–17). At the age of 31, Jesus went out into the world and spread his teaching (出世敷教), and we are informed that between his Resurrection and Ascension he laid down “the bureaucracy of Holy Church – and the moral laws of God’s kingdom” (聖教政治, 神國法度), including the position of the pope and the line of priests, and established the seven sacraments. At this point in the Sizijingwen Aleni does not go into much detail, although it should be noted that he actually mentions all the sacraments by name, which Ruggieri had abstained from doing in his Chinese text. After a discussion of eschatology, however, Aleni then ends with the moral duties that we can learn from the sacred writings (神書 shenshu). Here we come closest to an elaboration of the New Law. Like Ruggieri, the content of this law is moral and sacramental, baptism and Eucharist playing a prominent role on the latter front. Consistent with Aquinas, following Christ’s teaching includes, on the moral level, living in accordance with the basic principles of the natural law (愛主愛人 “love the Lord and love persons”) and observing the Ten Commandments (守十誡命). We are also told to overcome the Seven Deadly Sins (克罪七宗).Footnote ⁶² Other lesser admonitions, for example, to attend daily mass and pay attention to the sermon, are included in this concluding section.

Aleni’s Tianzhu jiangsheng yinyi and Sizijingwen are fine examples of the further exposition of this doctrine to broader Chinese audiences. We have noted substantial continuity with earlier such attempts, and also some additional forms of subtle accommodation.