THE ACTS OF FR. MATTEO RICCI IN CHINA: A MISSIONARY FRIENDSHIP IN DIALOGUE AND DIALECTIC

Abstract

The Acts of Fr. Matteo Ricci in China: A Missionary Friendship in Dialogue and Dialectic.

Rather than being a condescending and coercive missionary, as many later Christians did in non-Western countries during the colonial era, Fr. Matteo Ricci, S.J., approached the Chinese with humility and candidness. With humility and openness to learn, Ricci adopted the elegant Chinese classical way of living and became the Chinese people’, or at  least Confucian intellectual elites’ friends. Ricci also believed that the Chinese could become Chinese Christians in their own way, rather than became like Europeans to be Christians. In this paper, I divide Ricci’s missionary activities in China into three steps: Firstly, Fr. Ricci created a friendship through humility. Secondly, learn from the Chinese to be  accepted as a friend or intellectual-cultural “equal.” Thirdly, with mutual respect, virtuous common ground and Friendship, Ricci initiated his “missionary dialectic,” or a Communication of Christian Truth, with the Chinese people. To provide evidence, I draw from two of Ricci’s major works written in classical Chinese, i.e., Jiao You Lun, Treatise on  Friendship and Zhenzhu shi’yi, i.e., the True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven. The Treatise is Ricci’s gift to a Chinese prince introducing the commonality between the Chinese and “Western” concept of friendship , and the other one is a imagined dialogue between a Chinese gentleman and his Western Christian friend. By making my argument, my  paper should demonstrate that conflicts may be solved through mutual respect, and, through dialogues, friendship can be built between those who are very different.