The Jesuit reading of Confucius : the first complete translation of the Lunyu (1687) published in the West

685 Pages·2015·4.646 MB·English, Chinese

by  Confucius, Confucius., Meynard, Thierry

i
The Jesuit Reading of Confucius
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004289789_001
ii
Jesuit Studies
Modernity through the Prism of Jesuit History
Edited by
Robert A. Maryks, Boston College
Editorial Board
James Bernauer S.J., Boston College
Louis Caruana S.J., Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Rome
Emanuele Colombo, DePaul University
Paul Grendler, University of Toronto, emeritus
Yasmin Haskell, University of Western Australia
Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Pennsylvania State University
Thomas M. McCoog S.J., Fordham University
Mia Mochizuki, New York University Abu Dhabi and
Institute of Fine Arts, New York
Sabina Pavone, Università degli Studi di Macerata
Moshe Sluhovsky, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jeffrey Chipps Smith, The University of Texas at Austin
VOLUME 3
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/js
iii
The Jesuit Reading of Confucius
The First Complete Translation of the Lunyu (1687)
Published in the West
By
Thierry Meynard, SJ
LEIDEN | BOSTON
iv
Cover illustration: Portrait of Confucius, Preface of the Philosophus Sinarum, cxvi (illustration 9).
This research has received the financial support of the Research Program fund in the humanities and
social sciences of the Ministry of Education of China [14YJA720005].
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Confucius.
The Jesuit reading of Confucius : the first complete translation of the Lunyu (1687) published in the
West / by Thierry Meynard, SJ.
pages cm. -- (Jesuit studies, ISSN 2214-3289 ; volume 3)
Chinese text with the Latin translation of the Lunyu and its commentaries, and their rendition in mod-
ern English, with notes.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-28977-2 (hardback : acid-free paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-28978-9 (e-book) 1. Jesuits--
China--Intellectual life--17th century. I. Meynard, Thierry. II. Confucius. Lun yu. III. Confucius. Lun
yu. English. IV. Confucius. Lun yu. Latin. V. Title.
PL2477.M49 2015
181’.09512--dc23
2015008867
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering
Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities.
For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 2214-3289
isbn 978-90-04-28977-2 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-28978-9 (e-book)
Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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ContentCsontents v
Contents
Contents v
Acknowledgments vii
List of Illustrations ix
Introduction 1
I The Genesis of the Sinarum Philosophus and its Prototypes 2
II The Interweaving of Different Chinese Sources 19
III Editorial Choices in Translating the Lunyu 50
IV The Jesuit Reading of the Lunyu and the Image of Confucius 57
V The Life of Confucius and his Portrait 71
VI The Reception of the Lunyu through Two Derivative Works 79
Conclusion: Classics in the Global Age 86
Concerning this Edition 89
Trilingual Edition of the Lunyu, with Notes 93
The Life of Confucius, Father of Chinese Philosophy 603
Appendix. Ming Edition of the Lunyu jizhu with References in the Sinarum
Philosophus 627
Vocabulary 629
Bibliography 635
Index 641
vi Contents
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AcknowAlcekdgnmowenltesdgments vii
Acknowledgments
From 1999 to 2003, while still a young Jesuit in training, I studied Chinese phi-
losophy at Peking University. One day, I received an unexpected request from
an academic research center: to translate some Latin texts edited by Leibniz
into Chinese. Later on, I was even more surprised to find out that these texts
had been written in China by the Jesuits more than three hundred years ago.
While these kinds of texts are important for the history of the transmission
and influence of Chinese thought in the West, most of them are only available
in Latin. In 2003, I started to read the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, in par-
ticular, the Latin version of the Daxue. First at Fordham University, New York,
and then at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, I prepared a trilingual edition
of the Daxue and commentaries in Chinese, Latin, and English. I also translat-
ed the preface of Sinarum Philosophus, which provides the first systematic ac-
count for a Western audience of the different schools of Chinese philosophy.
This was published in 2011 as Confucius Sinarum Philosophus (1687): The First
Translation of the Confucian Classics, by the Institutum historicum Societatis
Iesu in Rome.
From 2009, I began to study the Latin version of the Lunyu, a much longer
text than the Daxue. Two students in Latin from Poznań University visited Sun
Yat-sen University and helped me with the translation of some parts of the
Latin text: Maria Karnowska worked on chapters 13 and 14, and Otylia Stefańska
on chapters 8, 15, and 19. For a couple of years, I offered Latin classes for stu-
dents at Sun Yat-sen University based on the Latin version of the Lunyu, and I
王格
benefited a great deal from these class discussions. Wang Ge , a doctoral
student at Sun Yat-sen University, read my entire translation and notes, and
made very useful comments on how the Jesuit translation of the Lunyu fitted
with the traditional interpretation of the text in China and also how it brought
some new perspectives to the text.
In February 2010, at the invitation of Professor Anne Cheng, I gave a lecture
at College de France, entitled “The First Translation of the Lunyu (La première
traduction des Entretiens).” I subsequently published two papers derived from
this lecture, one in 2010 in English and Chinese in Chinese Cross-Currents, Ma-
cao, and another published in 2011 in Etudes Chinoises, Paris. Marye Moran and
Alexandra Hawkins helped in polishing the English text.
I obtained a digital document of an early version of the translation of the
Lunyu from Giuseppe Portogallo, Fondazione Intorcetta, which I was able to
compare with the text of Sinarum Philosophus. On the basis of my English
translation of the “Life of Confucius,” which has already been published in my
viii Acknowledgments
previous book, I offer here a comparison with two other versions, analyzing
how the Jesuits made some important changes as they became more knowl-
edgeable about the texts of ancient China.
I express here my deepest gratitude to colleagues and students who have
supported this endeavor. The Institutum historicum Societatis Iesu has kindly
allowed me to reuse my translation of the “Life of Confucius,” to which I have
made some minor corrections. Professor Paul Rule very carefully reviewed an
earlier draft of the book and, being very learned in Latin and Chinese, made
useful comments. I am also thankful to Robert A. Maryks, professor of Boston
College and editor of the Jesuit Studies series at Brill, for his encouragement
and advice.
List of ILlilsuts otrfa Itlilounsstrations ix
List of Illustrations
1 Portrait of Zhang Juzheng 38
2 First page of the Lunyu in the Commentary of Zhang Juzheng (1672 Edition by
朱 锋台
Zhu Fengtai , British Library) 41
3 Portrait of Prospero Intorcetta 44
4 First page of the Lunyu in the Sapientia Sinica (Zi-ka-wei) 48
5 Portrait of Philippe Couplet 52
6 First page of the Lunyu, BNF Manuscript 55
7 Cover page of the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus 58
8 First page of the Lunyu in the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus 91
9 Portrait of Confucius, Preface of the Philosophus Sinarum, cxvi 614
10 First page of the Biography of Confucius in the Philosophus Sinarum 618
11 Ming Edition of the Sishu jizhu – Lunyu 2.6–8 621
12 Lunyu 1.2 with the Commentaries both by Zhu Xi and Zhang Juzheng 625
x List Of Illustrations