Sages from the West: the Story of Matteo Ricci and His Fellow Jesuits
(利玛窦: 促进西学东渐的第一人)
6 min read
In the mid-sixteenth century, Jesuits—members of the Catholic Church’s Society of Jesus—first attempted to establish a mission in China. In 1552, St. Francis Xavier reached Shangchuan Island (上川岛), off China’s southern coast near Macau (澳门). That same year marked both the death of Francis Xavier and a turning point for the Jesuit mission in China, which stalled for nearly three decades. Yet, in that very year, another legendary missionary was born in Italy: Matteo Ricci (利玛窦).
At the time, Catholic missionaries had repeatedly failed to establish a foothold in China because of the Ming court’s strict control over its borders. Gradually, the Jesuits realized that a colonial approach would not succeed in sophisticated Asian societies. Instead, they adopted a strategy of cultural accommodation, believing that the Church must be “Indian in India, Japanese in Japan, and Chinese in China.”
In 1582, Ricci arrived in Macau and began studying Chinese. His remarkable linguistic talent soon distinguished him, and he became the Jesuits’ leading candidate to venture inland. Traveling northward, Ricci established Catholic communities in Shaozhou (韶州), Nanchang (南昌), Nanjing (南京), and finally Beijing (北京), where he arrived in 1601. The two maps below, adapted from Jonathan Spence’s The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, trace Ricci’s journey from Italy to Macau and then to Beijing.
To win China for Christ, Ricci and his fellow Jesuits immersed themselves fully in Chinese life: they wore Chinese clothing, spoke and wrote Chinese, ate Chinese food, cultivated friendships with Chinese scholars, and lived among the local population. In return, many Chinese admired the Jesuits’ respect for local culture and became more receptive to their teachings.
Although not the first Western missionary in China, Ricci was certainly the most influential—not only in establishing a lasting Catholic presence, but also in promoting East–West cultural and intellectual exchange. In 1998, Life magazine named Matteo Ricci one of the 100 Most Important People of the Past 1,000 Years.
Ricci’s expertise in Western science, especially astronomy, combined with his mastery of the Chinese language and customs, granted him access to China’s elite scholarly circles. He used scientific knowledge to make his religious message more accessible and credible. Recognizing that Chinese intellectuals were deeply rooted in Confucianism, Ricci emphasized parallels between Christian teachings and Confucian ethics. By focusing on shared moral values rather than direct conversion, he encouraged Chinese scholars to view Christianity as compatible with their own traditions.
Ricci was truly a Renaissance man. He is best known for creating the Great Map of Ten Thousand Countries (坤舆万国全图; image below), which placed China at the center of the world. He also collaborated with Xu Guangqi (徐光启)—a Ming official and early Catholic convert—to translate Euclid’s Elements, a foundational work of geometry, into Chinese. The top image, from the Villanova University Digital Library, depicts Ricci meeting Xu Guangqi.
During his years in Beijing, Ricci authored several influential works in Chinese, including The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven (天主实义, 1603), Twenty-Five Sayings (二十五言, 1605), The First Six Books of Euclid (欧几里得前六书, 1607), and Ten Essays by an Extraordinary Man (畸人十篇, 1608).
Ricci and his fellow Jesuits were equally active in transmitting Chinese knowledge to Europe. When China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matteo Ricci was published in Latin in 1615, it was widely regarded as the first accurate and comprehensive portrayal of China available to Europeans. Several Confucian classics, including the Great Learning (大学), were also translated into Latin. These works circulated among Europe’s educated elites and later contributed, at least in part, to the development of secular political thought distinct from theocratic rule.
Following Ricci’s example, other Jesuits entered China. Among the most notable were Johann Adam Schall von Bell (汤若望), a German Jesuit; Ferdinand Verbiest (南怀仁), a Flemish Jesuit; and Giuseppe Castiglione (郎世宁), an Italian Jesuit.
Schall von Bell arrived in China in 1622 and distinguished himself as an astronomer. After the Manchu conquest established the Qing dynasty in Beijing in 1644, he became an adviser to the Shunzhi Emperor (顺治皇帝). Owing to his expertise, he was tasked with translating Western astronomical works and reforming the Chinese calendar according to Western astronomy. He was later appointed director of the Imperial Astronomical Observatory.
Verbiest, an accomplished mathematician and astronomer, arrived in China in 1658. While serving at the court of the Kangxi Emperor (康熙皇帝), he oversaw the reconstruction of the Beijing Observatory. He became a close confidant of Kangxi, who frequently sought his instruction in geometry, philosophy, and music.
Castiglione entered China in 1715 and served as a court painter under three Qing emperors—Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong (康熙, 雍正, 乾隆). By adapting European painting techniques to Chinese themes and aesthetics, he created a distinctive fusion style. A section of his monumental handscroll One Hundred Horses (百骏图), nearly eight meters long and now housed in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, is shown below. Castiglione also played a leading role in designing the Western-style palaces of the Old Summer Palace, Yuanmingyuan (圆明园).
By the time of Ricci’s death in 1610, there were perhaps 2,500 Christians in China, and the Jesuit mission continued to expand. This success stemmed largely from the Jesuits’ policy of cultural accommodation. Later missionaries from the Franciscan, Augustinian, and Dominican orders were less willing to adapt to Chinese customs. By the late seventeenth century, the Vatican had grown uneasy with Jesuit practices such as using Shangdi (上帝) and Tianzhu (天主) to refer to God, and permitting ancestral rites and sacrifices to Confucius. In 1704, Pope Clement XI formally banned these practices. The Kangxi Emperor responded by prohibiting Catholic missions in China, and Catholicism in China never fully recovered from the conflict.
In pursuit of their evangelical mission, the Jesuits shared Western scientific knowledge with Chinese elites. Given the Chinese tradition of deep respect for learning, this exchange proved highly effective—not only in establishing a foothold for Christianity, but also in opening Chinese intellectual horizons to Western science. Until the Jesuit order was suppressed by the Pope in 1773, approximately 173 Western scientific works—primarily on astronomy and mathematics—were translated into Chinese. Collectively, the Jesuits’ scientific contributions had a greater long-term impact on China than their religious efforts. They were largely responsible for introducing Western science to China in the early modern era. After the loss of this intellectual bridge in 1773, China drifted into deeper isolation while the West continued to advance rapidly in science, technology, and the humanities.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Macau—a Portuguese colony from 1557 to 1999—served as the Jesuits’ primary staging ground for missions into China. Because it was not subject to the same restrictions as the mainland, Macau became a crucial center for missionary preparation. In 1603, the Jesuits built the St. Paul’s Cathedral in Macau. Although destroyed by fire in 1835, its façade still stands today as the Ruins of St. Paul’s (left image below), now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Jesuits’ enduring presence in Macau remains evident in the many schools they founded, which continue to form the backbone of the city’s primary and secondary education system. One of these institutions bears Matteo Ricci’s name (right image below).
In 1939, Pope Pius XII officially authorized Chinese Catholics to observe ancestral rites and participate in ceremonies honoring Confucius. This position was further affirmed by the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), which proclaimed that native traditions could be incorporated into Church liturgy, provided they were compatible with Christian spiritual principles.
Photo credit: Baidu.com