Manufacturing Confucianism
Subtitle: Chinese traditions & universal civilization
By: Lionel M. Jensen.
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Durham
Language: eng
Number of pages: 444
Subjects: Jesuits -- China; Confucianism; Confucianism -- Relations -- Christianity; Philosophy, Confucian; China -- Civilization -- Western influences
Description: Could it be that the familiar and beloved figure of Confucius was invented by Jesuit priests? In Manufacturing Confucianism, Lionel M. Jensen reveals this very fact, demonstrating how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Western missionaries used translations of the ancient ru tradition to invent the presumably historical figure who has since been globally celebrated as philosopher, prophet, statesman, wise man, and saint.

Challenging both previous scholarship and widespread belief, Jensen uses European letters and memoirs, Christian histories and catechisms written in Chinese, translations and commentaries on the Sishu, and a Latin summary of Chinese culture known as the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus to argue that the national self-consciousness of Europe and China was bred from a cultural ecumenism wherein both were equal contributors.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [379]-420) and index.