Figurist

Figurism was an intellectual movement of Jesuit missionaries at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, whose participants viewed the I Ching as a prophetic book containing the mysteries of Christianity, and prioritized working with the Qing Emperor (rather than with the Chinese literati) as a way of promoting Christianity in China.

Since Matteo Ricci's pioneering work in China in 1583–1610, the Jesuit missionaries in China worked on a program of integrating Christianity with the Chinese traditions. Ricci and his followers identified three "sects" present in China – Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. While viewing Buddhism and Taoism as "pagan" religions inimical to Christianity, Ricci's approach – predominant with the Jesuits in China throughout most of the 17th century – viewed Confucianism as, essentially, a moral teaching that was compatible with, rather than contradictory to, the Christian beliefs. They viewed Confucian rites, such as those having to do with the veneration of the dead, as essentially civil functions meant to edify the people in virtuous morals, rather than as religious rites. On this basis the Jesuits centered their work in China on the interaction with the Chinese Confucian literati, trying to convince them of their theories and consequently convert them to the Christian faith. When addressing the European public, the China-based Jesuit missionaries strove to present Confucianism, as represented by its Four Books, in favorable light – the effort culminated with the publications of Confucius Sinarum Philosophus by Philippe Couplet (Paris, 1687).

After the fall of the Ming Dynasty (fall of Beijing in 1644) and the Manchu conquest of the entire country (by the early 1650s), the Jesuits in China had to switch their allegiance from the Ming Dynasty to the Manchu Qing, just as most of the Chinese literati eventually did. They soon found themselves working in a quite different intellectual and political environment than their predecessors during the Ming era. While in Ricci's days the Jesuits were not in a position to work directly with the emperor (the reclusive Wanli Emperor (r. 1572–1620) largely removed himself from the public life, and rarely gave audiences to anyone, even his own Grand Secretary), the early Qing emperors – Shunzhi, and in particular Kangxi – were not above dealing directly with the Jesuits and using their services for the needs of the central government. On the other hand, the Chinese Confucian thought had changed as well: the more open outlook of the late-Ming literati was replaced in the early Qing period by widespread clinging to the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy, which was endorsed by the court as well, but had been traditionally disapproved by the Jesuits as "atheistic" and "materialistic".

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