CINA

CHINA. — The Chinese state (Ta Chung Hwa Min Kuo, i.e. “Great Republic of the Flower of the Middle,” with reference to the traditional designation “Empire of the Middle,” originally applied to the province of Ho-nan, which occupies a central position in China in the narrower sense) comprises, in addition to the 18 provinces that constitute China proper (3.7 million sq. km.), Manchuria (1.1 million sq. km.), declared independent in 1932 and returned to China after Japan’s defeat, Inner Mongolia (1.1 million sq. km.), Eastern Tibet (Western Tibet, which was once also under Chinese control from Lhasa, is now autonomous), Sinkiang or Chinese Turkestan (1.6 million sq. km.), as well as the island of Formosa, also lost by Japan in the recent conflict. The ties of dependence of these territories on the central government are rather fluctuating and ill-defined.

Summary:

I. Geography

II. Religions of China

III. Evangelization of China

IV. Art

V. ARTE.

I. Geography

China proper, whose coasts face the Pacific, is separated from the rest of Asia by high plateaus and mountain ranges (which accounts for its long and enduring isolation) and is itself divided into two geographically distinct zones by a series of moderate elevations that, under various names (Tsin-ling, Fu-niu-shan), extend from the K’un-lun almost to the delta of the Yangtze River. Northern China, still traversed by considerable relief in its western sector, opens to the east into a vast alluvial plain formed by the yellowish clays (lōs) carried by the rivers that cross it, some of which reach the sea (hence called Hoanghai, or “Yellow Sea,” just as Hoang-ho, or “Yellow River,” is the name of the largest of these rivers, which winds its course for 4,100 km and has shifted its mouth many times). The climate is continental, with long and harsh winters (in the Gulf of Pei-chih-li, at the latitude of Sicily, the sea freezes over) and early, scorching summers, with rains that, though not abundant, are concentrated in the hot season.

Southern China, by contrast, is a much more varied land, with mountains and hills interspersed with basins and traversed by long, deep valleys. The river network here also organizes into a vast basin, that of the Yangtze River (“River of the Kingdom of Yang”; not, as is often repeated, “Blue River”), one of the largest in the world (nearly 2 million sq. km) and one of the most navigable (it is ascended from the mouth to Ichang for about 280 km). The climate, influenced by the beneficial monsoon, is warmer and more humid.

The economy of China is essentially based on agriculture (80–90% of the population), characterized by intensive farming and small-scale ownership. The products of this activity are extremely varied; but above all, rice predominates (though China alone accounts for more than one-third of the world’s total, it does not meet domestic demand), wheat (China ranks third in the world after the USSR and the USA), tea (first in world production; though exports are relatively modest given high domestic consumption), and mulberry (100 million kg of cocoons annually). No less significant are the productions of corn, barley, millet, peanuts, sugarcane (though China must import more than half of its needs), tobacco, cotton, oilseeds, citrus fruits (which originated here), opium, etc.

All other economic activities fall short of the immense potential, including livestock (except for sericulture, already mentioned, pigs in southern China, and poultry), while meat consumption, essentially fish-based, is ensured by fishing and the spread of fish farms. Mineral resources are substantial: fossil fuels, iron, tin, and alloy metals abound, their extraction and processing having been initiated or promoted recently by foreign capital. Large-scale modern industry is still in its infancy (cotton, silk, wool, steel, etc.); handicrafts are highly developed (bronze, iron, ivory, porcelain, hardstone, textiles, etc.).

One of the most delicate problems in China’s economy is that of transportation; most roads are unsuitable for modern traffic. The network of canals, however, is excellent and navigable (the Imperial Canal, built in the 6th century, crosses the lowland for 1,300 km), connected with the Yangtze and its tributaries as well as with the Si-kiang and Kan-kiang. But the railways (which, taken together, do not equal the Italian network) are still far from being able to serve such an extensive and populous territory; aviation is slowly gaining ground (50,000 km of commercial routes). As for maritime trade, it is primarily in foreign hands (the United States and Great Britain first and foremost); the main ports are Tientsin in the north, Shanghai in the center, and Canton in the south.

In the absence of proper censuses, data on the Chinese population, all derived from estimates, must be treated with caution. Round figures suggest that within China’s domain live no fewer than 500 million people, and in China proper no fewer than 400 million. The average density of the domain is about half that of China proper; but even this latter figure results from rather disparate extremes. In the lower basin of the Yangtze, over an area equal to that of Italy, the density approaches 350 inhabitants per sq. km; in northern China the lowland counts at least 250, as does the so-called Red Basin of Szechwan. By contrast, in the southern highlands the density drops to 60 inhabitants per sq. km and even lower.

Peripheral mountain regions. The rural population probably represents four-fifths of the total; the urban population is divided among more than a hundred large cities (i.e., those with over 100,000 inhabitants each, though seven of these—Shanghai, Peking, Tientsin, Chungking, Mukden, Canton, and Hongkong—exceed one million), and at least 500 other centers with populations ranging from 100,000 to 25,000 inhabitants.

The Chinese state, which retained a monarchical form until 1912, maintained a condition of permanent instability after the proclamation of the Republic, due both to external pressures and to the prevalence of particularistic and separatist tendencies within. Recent events open a new chapter, but the transformation they foreshadow presupposes, as always in China, a necessarily long and arduous process.

| Administrative Divisions | Area in sq. km. | Population (thousands) | Density per sq. km. | Capitals and their population (in thousands) |
|--------------------------|-----------------|------------------------|---------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| 1. Anhwei | 147,600 | 22,705 | 154 | Anking 641 |
| 2. Chekiang | 93,230 | 21,776 | 234 | Hangchow 425 |
| 3. Fukien | 121,730 | 11,990 | 99 | Fuchow 408 |
| 4. Honan | 165,740 | 31,806 | 192 | Kaifeng 450 |
| 7. Hupeh | 183,870 | 24,659 | 134 | Wuchang 205 |
| 8. Kansu | 414,350 | 6,255 | 15 | Lanchow 270 |
| 10. Kiangsu | 101,000 | 36,469 | 361 | Chinkiang 75 |
| 11. Kwangsi | 109,760 | 14,255 | 68 | Nanning 1146 |
| 12. Kwangtung | 233,070 | 32,339 | 139 | Canton 107 |
| 13. Kweichow | 186,460 | 10,487 | 56 | Kweiyang 104 |
| 14. Shansi | 170,920 | 11,601 | 68 | Taiyuan 475 |
| 17. Szechwan | 406,580 | 46,403 | 114 | Chengtu 185 |
| 18. Yunnan | 383,280 | 10,853 | 28 | Kunming 1755 |
| **C. propria** | | | | |
| 19. Taiwan (Formosa) | 35,961 | 6,084 | 169 | Taipch 340 |
| 20. Antung | 59,285 | 3,214 | 56 | Antung 230 |
| 21. Heilungkiang | 183,802 | 2,469 | 13 | Peien 94 |
| 22. Hokiang | 131,608 | 1,298 | 10 | Kiamusze 41 |
| 24. Kirin | 89,651 | 5,122 | 57 | Changchun 1136 |
| 25. Liaoning | 75,625 | 12,460 | 165 | Shenyang 65 |
| 26. Liaopeh | 104,885 | 4,030 | 39 | Szepnghai 30 |
| 27. Nunkiang | 61,830 | 2,094 | 34 | Mergen 662 |
| **Manchuria** | | | | |
| 29. Chahar | 261,560 | 2,306 | 9 | Wanchuan 510 |
| 30. Jehol | 192,422 | 2,185 | 11 | Chengtch 85 |
| 31. Ningxia | 292,640 | 7,36 | 3 | Ningxia 185 |
| **Inner Mongolia** | | | | |
| 33. Chinhai | 411,760 | 1,513 | 4 | Sining 165 |
| 34. Sikang | 347,020 | 1,756 | 5 | Tatsienlu 40 |
| **Eastern Tibet** | | | | |
| 35. Sinkiang | 1,160,000 | 4,360 | 3 | Tihwa 47 |
| **Greater China** | 9,240,000 | 485,050 | 50 | |

The school of the Ssum [Sung], named after the then-reigning dynasty (960–1279). The Confucian school is known as Confucianism (v.).

Also worthy of mention are Taoism and Buddhism.

Taoism, or *tao chiao* (where the European reader should note that the *a* in the diphthong *ao* is nearly mute), a term that gained currency during the 2nd century BCE, is, etymologically, the religion of the *tao*. The *tao* is one of the vaguest concepts imaginable and can signify, depending on context, "way," "perfect manner of governing or obeying," "principle," "absolute," "mode of conception," "method," "manner of being or acting," and so on. Western authors, in their translations, speak of *Logos*, God, reason, nature, way, providence, etc. For the Chinese, the founder of Taoism (v.) is Lao-tze [Lao Tzu], a figure from the 6th–5th century BCE, upon whom the most improbable legends have accumulated. The reason for this attribution lies in the fact that he is said to have been the redactor of the first Taoist work, the *Tao tê ching* or *Book of the Principle and its Action*, which some recent scholars have sought to date to the early or mid-4th century BCE, though since it is cited by authors of the 5th–4th centuries BCE, it must belong to an even earlier period. It was this book that served as the foundation for the further development of the entire system. It seems, however, that Lao-tze found the doctrine already sufficiently formulated in the archives of the Ceu [Chou] dynasty, which began in the 11th century BCE, according to this phrase from the *Literary Index of the Han*: “The Taoists originated from the archivists,” i.e., the annalists and astrologers of the Ceu. The texts speak of it as a doctrine not originally Chinese, then current in India, which suddenly spread to China. It could only have been a Chinese adaptation of the Indian *Upanishads*, i.e., “texts of arcane doctrine,” which contain reflections on the Supreme Being, the self, and the world, the oldest of which date to the period 800–500 BCE. Before Lao-tze, there were pre-Taoist teachers who taught Taoism but left no writings; some names of these pre-Taoists are known.

Lao-tze appears to have accepted, like Confucius, the ancient religion with its sacrifices, its cult of ancestors, and its systems of divination. What is certain is that he neither condemned nor recommended these things. He contented himself with drawing attention to the *tao*, hoping that in this way man would conform to it and thus attain perfection in his moral life.

The concise and obscure texts of Lao Tzu, one or two centuries later, were developed in magnificent language by Lieh Tzu and Chuang Tzu, who are considered the greatest exponents of Taoism and the deepest thinkers of China. Chuang Tzu’s ideas are generally lofty, and the beauty of his style ensures that he is read with pleasure by the Chinese of all ages. For him, life is an illusion, a continuous transformation and succession of new forms. Famous is the anecdote of the butterfly. “Once,” he says, “I, Chuang Tzu, dreamed I was a butterfly, fluttering happily and unaware that I was Chuang Tzu. Then I awoke and found myself to be Chuang Tzu. But I no longer knew whether I was Chuang Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I was Chuang Tzu.”

Soon a certain antagonism arose between the followers of Confucius and those of Lao Tzu, leading to a struggle between the two schools until the 3rd century B.C., when the Confucian books were burned and Confucianism entered a period of eclipse, while Taoism triumphed for a time. Emperor Shih Huang-ti, who unified China in the 3rd century B.C., and his ministers were Taoists, as evidenced by their search for the elixir of immortality, which was then in vogue. Even toward the Christian era, the emperors remained favorable to Taoism. When the classical books were rediscovered in the 2nd century A.D., Taoism began to decline. Under the influence of Chang Tao-ling (b. 34 A.D., d. ca. 165), Taoism devoted itself to alchemy, magic, the search for the elixir of immortality, incantations, and talismans—all of which enabled the Taoist priests, or *tao-sze*, to live for centuries at the expense of the ignorant and credulous populace. Taoism’s ruin was completed with the arrival in China of Buddhism, from which it continually borrowed many elements.

Temples and monasteries began to be built in which the *tao-sze* could even take wives until the 10th century. Heaven and Earth were then spoken of, and a pantheon almost as complete as that of Buddhism was introduced into the cult. From then on, one religion or the other was favored at court, or both were persecuted. This seesaw lasted until the 12th century, when Chu Hsi cast discredit on both religions and succeeded. Since then, Taoism and Buddhism have sought to coexist, borrowing and lending ideas and methods of action at the people’s expense.

Popular Taoism today is a mixture of gross superstitions, inseparable from the cult of countless idols, the study of alchemy, and the practice of astrology. In its popular form, it has deities for every force of nature and for everything that in one way or another can be an object of human knowledge. There are deities for every illness, from demonic obsession to toothache; for every organ of the human body; for birth and death; for wealth and happiness; for old age; for commerce and war; for mountains, rivers, and lakes; for heaven and hell; for the sun, moon, and stars; for roads and thunder—in short, for everything. Many of these gods can be seen in Taoist temples. In addition to guarding these temples, the *tao-sze* have the duty of performing incantations and exorcising demons, driving them from houses or streets thought to be infested. They are also often invited to funerals or processions to obtain rain or fair weather. These functions cannot take place without frenzied shouting and discordant instrumental music. All *tao-sze*, and even local deities, are subordinate to the “Celestial Master,” a title conferred in 748 on Chang Tao-ling.

descendants, in which some Westerners, quite ignorant of religious matters, have used blasphemous language to describe the "pope" of the Taoists. It is admitted that incantations directed to the "Celestial Master" have extraordinary efficacy. Taoist doctrines are contained in an extremely voluminous collection called the "Taoist Canon," which comprises 1,504 works in 1,120 small volumes. The influence of Taoism on the Chinese nation today seems quite weak, only the common people being more or less imbued with these doctrines.

Buddhism, or *fu chiao*, is the religion of *Fu*, a term anciently pronounced *Bud*, hence *Buddha*. According to a constant Chinese tradition, the emperor Ming of the Later Han dynasty (58–75 AD) is said to have seen in a dream "a golden man," a statue sixteen feet high and surrounded by a halo. The scholar Fu Yi explained to him upon waking that this figure was the Buddha. Following this dream, the emperor is said to have sent envoys to seek Buddhist preachers, two of whom, Kāśyapa Matanga and Dharmarakṣa (or Gobharana), brought and translated the *Sutra of the Forty-Two Sections* and other Buddhist texts, arriving in Loyang, Honan, in the years 65, 67, or 68 AD. This legend was accepted by all, including Catholic missionaries around the Renaissance, who further supposed that the emperor had sent ambassadors to India to bring back the religion then preached by the apostle St. Thomas, though they returned only with Buddhism. However, in 1910, Professor Henri Maspero demonstrated that the dream and the traditions connected with it were a pious fraud invented at the end of the second century AD (*H. Maspero, Le songe et l'ambassade de l'empereur Ming. Étude critique des sources*, in *Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient*, Hanoi 1910, pp. 95–130). There is good evidence that Buddhist infiltrations already existed in the lower Yangtze basin in the first century BC, or even earlier. Perhaps the legend arose from the official recognition of Buddhism around 65–68 AD.

The new religion, though patronized by the emperor, did not initially make rapid progress. Almost all its preachers in the first centuries were foreigners in China. They courageously set about translating and adapting texts into Chinese, a task greatly assisted by a Parthian prince, a certain Parthamasirin, who arrived in China in 148 AD and was known to the Chinese as An Shih-kao. In the fourth and fifth centuries, Buddhism entered a period of great prosperity. By 335 AD, there were already 42 monasteries in the capital alone, and in 381 AD it is said that nine-tenths of the inhabitants of northwest China were Buddhists. By the end of the fourth century, a series of emperors began to embrace the religion themselves. Then began the pilgrimages to India undertaken by the most pious Chinese Buddhists, who brought back legends, manuscripts, and diverse information. The most famous of these pilgrims is Fa Hsien, who departed in 399 and returned in 414.

Over the centuries, Buddhism in China experienced periods of rise and decline, often facing severe persecutions, while at other times some emperors, having abdicated, retired to live a more secluded life in monasteries. Its apogee was reached in the tenth and twelfth centuries, when the religion not only became popular but also exerted a great literary influence.

Today, Buddhism in China, with its polytheism, incantations, and superstitions, arouses little enthusiasm. The pagodas are often abandoned, dirty, and neglected. Monks are held in low esteem, being nearly always ignorant and often immoral and opium smokers. Even nuns occupy a very low place in the public’s estimation. In 1840, all the nunneries in the cities of Suchow in Kiangsu and Foochow in Fukien were suppressed for immorality.

Of the ten schools of Buddhism, that of *dhyāna* or contemplation, little known in India and introduced into China in the sixth century by Bodhidharma, seems to have absorbed nearly all the others. It aims to intensify interior life through calm, meditation, and prayer. Several Chinese thinkers, who disliked the popular cult of images, belonged to this school in the past.

One branch of this school is Amidism, where it is not rare to find good souls who, with pagan lips, pray fervently with almost Christian formulas. It is within this sect that one may hope the true God has prepared souls of good will to be guided by His grace. Here one finds a Savior, though not a Redeemer, and the idea of salvation in a "pure land"; here one finds an intense life of prayer, long, humble, ardent, sincere, and especially beautiful acts of contrition and love. Every good Amidist must, every morning at dawn, turn toward the West.

CHINA – Chinese perspective drawing of the Hua-Shan temple.

To adore with hands joined, to recollect oneself and invoke Amida. Moreover, he must make an act of contrition, turn from evil to good, and express the desire to be reborn in the Pure Land. He must do all this with reverence, thinking that Amida is present. Although assured of his salvation through invocation of Amida, the Amidist must remain humble and pure, for salvation is truly assured only by invocations made at the moment of death. Then one must make ten invocations from the depths of the heart. Only thus will Amida manifest himself, appear, console the soul, and receive it into his Pure Land. If, instead of Amida, Jesus is invoked, the Amidist’s prayer is often perfectly orthodox; here and there a few errors may still need correction, but overall it is a sincere prayer that cannot fail to move the heart of the true God.

One may judge from this prayer of a believer:
“Behold, invoking Amida and commending myself to Him, I place my trust in His name. Knowing that, by virtue of His vow, He has compassion on all who suffer, I formulate before Him my repentance and my desire. I now confess with sorrow all my ignorance and all my rebellions, all the sins I have committed in deed, word, and thought. And I desire that at the last hour of my life all obstacles that might oppose my rebirth in the happy land and my vision of Amida face to face may be destroyed.”

And here is a moving hymn in its brevity:
“Hail, Amida, savior of the world, great father of mercies! With all my heart and in all sincerity I ask You to grant me rebirth in the Pure Land. By virtue of Your vow and because of Your great mercy, deign to free me from all bonds. Deign to reflect in the heart that I open to You, as the moon is reflected in clear water.”

Rarely does a non-Christian Chinese with religious feelings content himself with only one of these three religions; not infrequently he is Confucian and Taoist, Confucian and Buddhist, or perhaps even Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist, according to the formula dear to every good Chinese: “the three religions make but one.”

Now a brief account will be given of the other religions represented in China (for Christianity, V. below). Maritime trade sufficiently explains the presence of Muslims in several coastal cities from the mid-eighteenth century onward. The history of the penetration of Islam into China, however, is linked to the military movements and deportations of the Mongol era. Only in the second half of the twelfth century do we see Islam firmly established in numerous Chinese ports. Many Muslims occupied important positions at the Chinese court or as scientists. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, Muslim astronomers from Arabia worked on the Chinese calendar. Their astronomy was not replaced by European astronomy, represented by the famous Jesuit Johann Adam Schall von Bell, who arrived in 1634.

The first certain mention of Manichaeism in China, having arrived from Persia, dates to 694. For a long time Manichaeans practically tied their fate to that of the Uigurs, whose princes were favorable to Manichaeism. As the power of their protectors declined, so too did they move toward their end. Up to the twelfth century, small numbers of them are found in Chekiang and Fukien under the name of the “Mim chiao,” a name that was forbidden by the first emperor of the Ming dynasty and later passed to the Jews of Kaifeng.

No Chinese document attests the arrival of the Jews in China before A.D. 1000. Since they do not eat the sinews of animals in memory of Jacob (Gen. 32:24–32), the Chinese called their religion “the religion of those who remove the sinews.” According to a Chinese stele erected by the Jews in 1480, as early as 1163 the city of Kaifeng in Honan would have had a synagogue. Another synagogue is said to have been erected in Hangchow in Chekiang. Several Jewish families lived in Kaifeng at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Matteo Ricci (v.) became aware of them in the last days of June 1605 when one of these Jews, believing Ricci to be a fellow believer, visited him in Peking. In 1607 Ricci sent a Chinese temporal assistant, António Leitão, to Kaifeng to obtain more information. These Jews were not rediscovered until October 1704 by the Jesuit Giovan Paolo Gozani, who informs us that they had preserved the Pentateuch in thirteen scrolls without Masoretic pointing, and a large number of other Old Testament books.

III. Evangelization of China.

I. Before the thirteenth century

Setting aside the legend, now critically inadmissible, of the preaching of St. Thomas the Apostle in China, it is historically certain that in 635 Christianity, in the form of the Nestorian heresy, first appeared in the capital of the Middle Kingdom, then called Ch’ang-an (today Sian in Shensi). This is attested by the famous stele of that city, carved on 4 February 781 and discovered in the early months of 1625, which still exists.

The upper part bears a magnificent cross and beneath this title: “Stele of the propagation in China of the luminous religion, come from the Great Qin,” that is, from the eastern Mediterranean, perhaps Persia. The stele, inscribed in Chinese and in ancient Syriac (Estrangelo), contains an expository part on religious doctrine, a historical part narrating the fortunes of Nestorianism in China from 635 to 781, and about seventy titles and names of Western missionaries in Estrangelo.

The doctrinal section treats the following topics: one God in three Persons, immutable, eternal, creator, pure spirit; the creation of the world and of man in a state of innocence; original sin; the Incarnation of the Lord from a Virgin, manifested by a star; Jesus, called Messiah, who fulfills the prophecies, founds the Church, preaches the eight Beatitudes, dies on a cross (?), ascends to Heaven with the just, and leaves the New Testament; Baptism, the sign of the Cross, prayer with the face turned toward the east; finally, priests who wear beards and tonsures, profess poverty, recite the Divine Office for the living and the dead, and celebrate Mass once a week.

Received with great demonstrations of respect by the court, the missionaries soon spread the “good news” even into the most remote regions, erecting churches and monasteries. They appear to have been almost exclusively foreigners and monks or nuns; very few testimonies allude to Chinese Nestorians or suggest their existence. Around the middle of the 9th century, these Nestorians seem to have numbered almost a thousand.

Upon their arrival, with the evident assistance of the indigenous people—though pagans, Buddhists, and especially Taoists—they set about translating or adapting into Chinese some of the 530 Christian books they had brought with them. Several of these works, translated between the years 635–700, were not rediscovered until 1908. Among them are a Life of Jesus the Messiah, a Treatise on Monotheism, the Gloria in excelsis Deo according to the form used in Eastern Syria, and a kind of Litany of the Saints (P. M. D'Elia, Nel XIII centenario dell'arrivo dei nestoriani in C., in Civ. Catt., 1936, 1, pp. 203 sq.; 304 sq.).

The decree of 845, which destroyed Buddhism, also destroyed Nestorianism. By 980 it was reported that the Christians of China had perished in one way or another and that their churches had been destroyed. Thus, around the year 1000, this branch of Nestorianism originating from Persia died out. However, in the 11th–13th centuries, a revival of the same movement occurred, this time originating from the Churches of High Asia.

Strong Nestorian communities were found in the northern provinces of China, among non-Chinese tribes such as the Uigurs, a Turkish tribe of Inner Mongolia; the Ongpüt or White Tartars, another Turkish tribe; the Naimans of the Altai Mountains; and especially the Kereit, of whom as many as 200,000 are said to have converted along with their leader in 1007. Several Christian princesses from this branch later became wives of Mongol Khans. From the north, these Nestorians subsequently moved southward. Marco Polo encountered them in the north, center, and south between the years 1275–92.

In recent years, numerous relics of these Christian communities have been discovered, including medals, crosses, and in particular Christian tombs and sarcophagi, often bearing brief Syriac inscriptions and one or more carved crosses. Between the 7th and 13th centuries, many foreign transcriptions appear, which are nothing more than Christian names, such as Luca, Paolo, Giovanni, Giacomo, Sergio, Carlo, Zosimo, Giorgio, and others. In 1933, even the last descendants of these ancient Christians were found among the Erküt tribe, who inhabit the southeastern corner of the Ordos region; even today, their rites preserve traces of Baptism, Confession, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction.

2. The first contacts and the first mission (13th–14th centuries)

In 1206, the immense Mongol Empire began to take shape, at one point extending from Mongolia and China to Dalmatia and the Adriatic. Innocent IV conceived the idea of establishing contact with the Mongols to convert them or at least to secure their alliance with the Crusaders against the Muslims, whom they would have been able to attack from the rear. For this purpose, in 1245 he sent as papal legate one of the first companions of St. Francis of Assisi, Giovanni da Pian di Carpine, near Perugia, who became the first traveler to journey to the Far East by land. After his mission failed, he returned to Europe two years later and wrote his Historia Mongolorum. The mission of the French Dominican André de Longjumeau, sent in 1249 by St. Louis, King of France, to the Mongol emperor who was said to have converted to Christianity, likewise met with no better success; two years later, he too returned to Europe. The mission of the Flemish Franciscan William of Rubruck, who departed in 1253 and returned in 1255, also yielded very modest results. None of these three remained in China.

The honor of having initiated the first Catholic mission in the Middle Kingdom belongs to the Italian Franciscan Giovanni da Montecorvino, who was the first to arrive in China by sea. Having probably landed at Zaiton, i.e., Quanzhou in Fujian, where Arab merchants converged, he must have reached Khanbaliq, the city of the Khan, our Peking, in the early months of 1294, shortly after the death of Kublai. In the same year as his arrival, he reconverted to the Catholic Church Prince Giorgio of Tendu and with him a good number of his subjects from Nestorianism, and the following year he baptized one of the prince’s sons. A large and beautiful church was erected by the prince in honor of the Most Holy Trinity, probably in the province of Suiyüan. However, when the prince died in 1298, his brothers, fanatical Nestorians, led the people back to their former errors.

In the first eleven or twelve years, JOHN administered more than six thousand baptisms, and between 1298 and 1318 he built three churches in Khânbalk. About forty boys aged seven to eleven were being trained in the study of Latin, chant, and liturgy. For them JOHN translated the New Testament into Uighur and copied the Psalter, the Breviary, and liturgical hymns.

When Clement V, then at Poitiers, learned of these good tidings in 1307, he had six Minorites consecrated bishops so that they in turn might go and consecrate JOHN, the first archbishop of Khânbalk and patriarch of the Far East. Four of the elect were Italians, one a German, and one a Provençal, who was later replaced by a fifth Italian. They set out in the autumn of 1307; three died in India during the journey, while the other three continued on to Khânbalk, where they probably consecrated Archbishop JOHN in 1313. He promptly established the episcopal see of Zaiton, which was subsequently held by the three bishops who had consecrated him. Other friars were sent to Hangchow in Chekiang and to Yangchow in present-day Kiangsu. Unfortunately, despite what is sometimes claimed to the contrary, these bishops never had true successors in their sees.

Between 1325 and 1328 Blessed Odoric of Pordenone is seen in Khânbalk; he returned to Italy to recruit about fifty new Franciscan missionaries, but death overtook him at Udine on 14 January 1331. The fifty Franciscans nevertheless departed with the new legate, Fra' JOHN de' Marignolli, who arrived in Khânbalk in the first half of August 1342 and stayed only three or four years. Returning to Avignon in 1352, he strongly recommended the mission to Innocent VI, who would gladly have sent more bishops to China. But at that point the zeal for missions began to wane, and no further missionaries were sent. Then came the great revolution of 1368, which replaced the Mongol dynasty with the Chinese Ming, and all the heroic work of the Franciscans perished.

Several indications have led a number of modern Sinologists to believe that the native element was very scant, to say the least nonexistent, among both the Nestorians and the first Catholics in China. There had been, in the 7th–9th centuries, about a thousand Nestorian monks and nuns, but among them there were very few Chinese. By the 14th century there were barely 30,000 Catholics, and these were largely non-Chinese. The history of Christians in primitive and medieval China is not the history of a Christian China, but the history of foreign Christians living in China; and these foreign Christians disappeared in the storm of 1368. For two long centuries, 1368–1583, the history of the Catholic Church has practically nothing to record in China. The Middle Kingdom shut itself off ever more completely and became almost entirely isolated from the rest of the world. Then China and the world became, in the language of Confucius, “all under Heaven,” the borders of one coinciding sufficiently with the borders of the other.

3. Foundation of the Modern Missions (1583–1635)

The young Society of Jesus soon gave China a leading figure, Francis Xavier, a remarkable strategist and leader, Alessandro Valignano, a patient pioneer, Michele Ruggieri, and an intelligent and devoted executor, Matthew Ricci, who firmly planted the Church in that vast land.

Francis Xavier, in contact with the Japanese in 1549–51, saw the necessity of converting Japan through China. In August 1552 he was on the island of Sancian, some ten kilometers from the mainland and a little over a hundred from the city of Canton, waiting for a favorable chance to land on the opposite shore; but on the night of 3 December 1552 death overtook him and he prophesied that his brethren would reach the place where he could not go. This last will of the Saint Valignano (v.), who on 6 September 1578 first arrived in Macao, where the Jesuits had had a residence with an attached church since 1565, and decided to bring over from India some young Italian fathers to apply themselves exclusively to the study of the Chinese language and customs.

The man ROUGIER, FÉLIX (v.). It has been said of him that he was the precursor of Matthew Ricci, and this is true provided one does not think that he was the only or the first precursor. He was rather the last of a long line, but the most successful. In fact, within the space

For 30 years, from Xavier (1552) to Ricci (1585), no fewer than 25 Jesuits, 22 Franciscans, 2 Augustinians, and 1 Dominican—some of them more than once—with perseverance and indomitable courage knocked, but in vain, at the impenetrable gates of China. Ruggieri arrived in Macao around 20 July 1579 and immediately set about studying Chinese, without books and with teachers he could not understand. While he continued this arduous study, the Portuguese of Macao, first once, then twice a year, traveled to Canton for a fair that lasted several weeks. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ruggieri went there four times between March 1580 and April 1582. Meanwhile, he wished to have a companion in study and for this purpose repeatedly asked Valignano to send him a young fellow student from Macerata who was then in India.

As a result, on 7 August 1582, Matteo Ricci (v.) disembarked in Macao and began the study of Chinese. After eleven months of intense study, both of them—on 26 September 1583, the true date of the birth of modern missions—proceeded to the city of Shiuhing or Sciaochin, seat of the viceroy of the province of Kwangtung, and established themselves there. In November 1588, Ruggieri was sent by Valignano to Rome to prepare a papal embassy to the emperor of China. He accomplished this mission, then retired to Salerno, where he ended his days on 11 May 1607. Matteo Ricci, for his part, between 1583 and 1601 founded five residences from south to north, as far as Nanking and Peking, where he entered triumphantly in 1601 and remained until his death (11 May 1610). Within China in 1583 he found no Catholics, not even distant descendants of those baptized by the Franciscans of the 14th century; at his death he left about 2,500 under the care of 16 missionaries, half of them Chinese. Already on 12 November 1603, Valignano wrote: “This mission of China has reached such a point that it seems more a miracle than a human achievement.” (P. D’Elia, *Ponti Riccione*, II, Rome 1949, p. 264, note 4).

Very early the Jesuits concerned themselves with the indigenous element. The first two Chinese who became religious began their novitiate with the Jesuits on 1 January 1519, when there were only about 80 Christians in the interior of China. To these, who were Macanese, were added, while Ricci was still alive, six others equally Macanese and one Sino-Japanese. Two of them had studied philosophy, all except one Latin, and one had received the tonsure, which proves that they were preparing for the priesthood, to which, however, they did not attain, because the General of the Order, for reasons of prudence, forbade them access to the altar.

In their almost impatient desire to have a numerous indigenous clergy soon, the Jesuits, not supported as we are by the experience of nearly four centuries, foreseeing and even exaggerating the difficulties the Chinese would have in learning Latin, and desiring on the other hand that many already intellectually formed scholars might be ordained priests without too many supplementary studies, asked and in 1615 obtained from the Holy See permission to substitute literary Chinese for Latin in the celebration of Mass, the recitation of the Breviary, and the administration of the sacraments. In reality this privilege was never put into practice, because Rome hesitated before a project of such magnitude and practically drew back, despite the repeated insistence of the Jesuits that continued throughout the 17th century.

What contributed most to the success of the Jesuit missionaries in China was the reform of the calendar. This was for the Chinese a political instrument of high value; tributary kingdoms that accepted it obtained the protection of China, while those that rejected it were considered rebels. The scientific rules on which it was founded had long since been lost, so that it was compiled empirically and was therefore not free from serious errors.

One of the reasons why Ricci was able to go to Peking was precisely the hope that he would be capable of effecting this much-desired reform. Conscious, however, of his lack of scientific preparation, as early as 1595 and then again in 1605 and 1608 he asked the superiors in Rome for a genuine astronomer. Meanwhile, in 1609, Galileo constructed the telescope with which he began the series of his sensational discoveries, which he published in March 1610. Among Galileo’s closest friends was a German scientist, Johann Schreck, Latinized as Terentius, who became a Jesuit and went to China, remaining always an admirer of the great Tuscan astronomer. A young Piedmontese scientist, Fr. Antonio Rubino, who had gone as a missionary to India, informed the missionaries in China of the discoveries in turn. Already in 1615, which at that time represented remarkable speed, Fr. Emmanuel Diaz the Younger, in a pamphlet on *Questions of Astronomy*, made known to the Chinese on the last page of the work the telescope and the discoveries made with II.
Following new and ever more insistent requests from Peking to Rome for genuine astronomers, on 16 April 1618 there embarked at Lisbon for China, among others, the Milanese Giacomo Rho, the Bohemian Wenceslaus Pantaleon Kirwitzer, a convinced Copernican, the Austrian Johann Alberich, and two Germans, Johann Schreck, already mentioned, Schall von Bell (v.). On this occasion the first telescope seems to have arrived in China. Schreck, concerned about the projected calendar reform, with ever more pressing insistence, made urgent appeals to Galileo, from whom he sought scientific aid that he deemed decisive for the longed-for reform. From 1616 to 1623 these requests multiplied. After a distinctly negative reply from Galileo, Schreck then turned to Kepler, who in December 1627 replied in detail to all the questions and sent his works.

The missionaries were not officially entrusted with the calendar reform until 1629, on which they worked

They were especially RHO and SCHALL, who, assisted by about a dozen good scholars, in the space of almost five years published a collection of about 150 volumes of mathematical books. On 28 Feb. 1634 the first calendar according to Western methods was presented to the Emperor. SCHALL’s work VERBIEST (v.) and other distinguished scientists. From that time forward the president of the astronomical office was always a Jesuit, and after 1773 a missionary, even in times of persecution down to about the middle of the 19th century.

4. Progress outside and inside the court (1635–1700)

Thanks to the imperial favour enjoyed by the Jesuit astronomers, the Church made marvellous progress. The 2,500 Catholics of 1610 had become 5,000 by 1615, 13,000 in 1627 and 38,200 in 1636. Fr PROSPERO INTERCETTA estimates that from 1583 to 1650 some 150,000 baptisms were administered. Shortly after the middle of the 17th century the annual increase of Christians was about 10,000. Between 1651 and 1664 no fewer than 105,000 baptisms were administered by all the missionaries then working in China. In 1664 about thirty Jesuit missionaries had succeeded in opening 42 mission stations, 159 churches and a large number of private chapels. By about 1670 the total number of Catholics had risen to 274,000 and by 1700 it reached 300,000.

But more important than the numbers is the quality of these Catholics. Several of them belonged to the highest society of 17th-century China. Already in the time of RICCI, who had grasped the exact method, there were truly eminent men: PAOLO SIÙCOMAKCHI [HSU KUANG-CH’I] (1562–1633), the most illustrious man the Chinese Church ever had, baptised about 15 Jan. 1603, who introduced Christianity into his native Shanghai in 1608; rising to the highest posts in social and political life, even becoming Chancellor of the Empire, he was, in RICCI’s words, the chief pillar of the Church in China; IGNATIO CHIIUTTEASU [CH’U T’AISU] (1549–1611), son of the greatest scholar of the time, baptised on 25 March 1605, who, becoming an enthusiastic admirer of RICCI’s learning and virtue, set about proclaiming it everywhere and thus smoothing his path wherever he went; LEONE LICEZZO [LI CHIH-TSAO] (1565–1630) of Hangchow in Chekiang, who made rapid progress in the study of Western sciences which he then spread in China, baptised by RICCI in March 1610, a few weeks before his own death; MICHELE IAMTIMIUM [YANG TING-YÜ] (1557–1627), likewise of Hangchow, baptised in 1611. In 1636 among the Catholics there were 14 superior officers, 10 doctors and more than 300 licentiates. Many others, among the greatest scholars and most influential members of the government, though not reaching baptism, sympathised with the missionaries and admired the purity and loftiness of Christian doctrine. It is certain that RICCI and some of his collaborators and successors exercised an enormous and truly exceptional influence on the highest society of 17th-century China: scholars, magistrates, prefects, provincial governors, viceroys, ministers of the two capitals, princes and persons who approached the Emperor.

The Jesuits also penetrated indirectly into the court. In 1626 they baptised ACHILLE PAMPAITIENSCU [P’ANG T’IEN-SHOU], who later became Chancellor of the Empire and commander-in-chief of all the naval and military forces of the last claimant to the throne of the MING. Through him Christianity reached the court. In 1636, 140 princes of the imperial house, 40 members of the court and from 70 to 80 ladies of the palace had been baptised. Later, in 1647, both the natural mother and the legal mother of the claimant to the throne, IOMLI [YUNG LI], received baptism under the names respectively of Maria and Elena, and with them also the Empress Anna and the heir-apparent, to whom the symbolic name of Constantine was given. In 1650 Achilles and Helena sent the Polish Jesuit MICHELE BOYM to Rome bearing letters to the Pope and to the General of the Order requesting the dispatch of more missionaries of the Society. ALEXANDER VII did not reply until the end of 1655, by which time Helena had been dead four years, and the replies of the General ALEXANDER GOTTIFREDI never reached their destination because BOYM, who was carrying them, died in 1659 before he had completed half his journey.

Meanwhile the work of European astronomy continued under ADAM SCHALL and FERDINANDO VERBIEST. Amid their scientific labours, both never lost sight of their apostolate. SCHALL would no doubt have brought the Gospel to the light for the Emperors CHIOMCEM [CHUNG CHENG] and SIOCENCE [SHUN CHIH], respectively the last sovereign of the MING and the first of the TS’ING, had not their premature deaths prevented II. SCHALL was succeeded in 1666 by VERBIEST, who enjoyed intimate friendship with the Emperor CAMSCI [K’ANG HSI], perhaps the greatest of the Chinese emperors. For five months he instructed the monarch in Western sciences and with them in Christian doctrine, which the Emperor was disposed to embrace.

Indeed, CAMSCI, satisfied with the treaty of Nerchinsk negotiated by the Jesuits FRANCESCO GERBILLON and TOMASSO PEREIRA, by which on 6 Sept. 1689 peace was restored between the Tsar and the Son of Heaven, on 22 March 1692 issued the first decree of religious liberty: from then on all his subjects might follow the Christian religion and all missionaries might preach it within his vast dominions. This decree crowned a century of Christian penetration.

5. Internal and external difficulties (1632–1840)

GREGORY XIII, at the request of the Portuguese government, in 1585 granted the Jesuits the exclusive privilege of evangelising China and Japan. Hence it is explained why during the years 1583–1631 there were no missionaries in China other than Jesuits. In 1600 CLEMENT VIII revoked this privilege, though obliging missionaries bound for Portuguese Asia to sail from Lisbon. In 1608 PAUL V removed this restriction for the mendicant Orders, and in 1633 URBAN VIII removed it for all religious indiscriminately. Finally in 1673 CLEMENT X extended this concession even to secular clergy.

Thus it came about that on 2 Jan. 1632 two Italian Dominicans, ANGELO COCCHI of Fiesole and TOMASSO SERRA of S. Maddalena, arrived in Fukien. After the second was killed by pirates, COCCHI asked for and obtained another companion, JOHN BAPTIST MORALES, who arrived in Fukien on 2 July 1633 in the company of the Franciscan ANTONIO CABALLERO of S. Maria. After COCCHI’s death in Nov. 1633, the following year there arrived another Dominican, Fr FRANCESCO DIEZ, and another Franciscan, FRANCISCO ALAMEDEN de la Madre de Dios.

With the arrival of these new missionaries, already in 1634 the too-famous question of the Chinese Rites (v.) broke out in public, a controversy that was to last until 1742 and find its ultimate solution only in 1939. The missionaries divided into two opposing camps: the Jesuits on one side and the Franciscans and Dominicans on the other. CAMSCI felt wounded when he saw an authority different from his own and foreign to his nation interfering in the affairs of China against his own will.

The difficulty did not diminish with the arrival in the Far East of the first Apostolic Vicars. FRANCISCO PALLU, PIETRO MARIA DE LA MOTTE LAMBERT and later IGNAZIO COTTOLENDI, founders of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, on 9 Sept. 1659 were respectively

Vicar Apostolic of Tonkin, of Cochinchina and of Nanking, and at the same time administrators of five provinces in the south-west, four in the south-east and five in the centre, north and north-east of China. The first two arrived in the East in 1664 and 1662 respectively, while the third died in India in 1662.

Thus, after the arrival of the first Augustinians in 1650, there also arrived in China in 1684 Pallu, appointed Vicar Apostolic of Fukien, and his successor in that office, Carlo Maigrot. With Maigrot there begins a more acute phase of the Rites Controversy, which led to a new examination in Rome and the dispatch to China of two legates, Carlo de Tournon and Ambrogio Mezzabarba, who further irritated the Emperor Kangxi, who could not understand how foreigners, ignorant of the language and history of China, could presume to pass judgment on the meaning of certain texts and the age-old customs of the country.

Little now remained before the persecution. And the persecution, strongly influenced by that in neighbouring Japan, whether openly violent or covert and insidious, practically extended from the first decline of the 18th century to about the middle of the 19th, killing missionaries and Christians and destroying not a few churches. To these evils was added in 1773 the suppression of the Society of Jesus throughout the world and therefore also in China, where, during less than two centuries (1583-1773), no fewer than 472 Jesuits had worked, some of whom had been truly eminent men in various fields. To replace the Jesuits in Peking in some measure, the Lazarists were called, who arrived in 1784. But the persecution continued. The total number of Catholics between 1800 and 1850 seems to have been between 200,000 and 250,000. During this time there were probably fewer than 40 European missionaries and about 80 Chinese priests in the country. Without a new turn, the Church in China would probably have perished.

6. The international turning-point (1840-1900)

The turning-point came. On 5 June 1840 the Imperial Commissioner of Canton, wishing to suppress the opium trade, which was in the hands of the English, threw into the sea more than 20,000 chests of the drug. This was the pretext for an immediate war, which, naturally, was won by the English. On 29 Aug. 1842 China was forced to sign the first modern international treaty, soon followed by others with America and France. On the occasion of the treaty with France, which was watching for an opportunity to replace Portugal as the protecting power of the Missions, a double decree was issued, one in 1844 permitting the Chinese to follow the Catholic religion, and the other in 1846 abolishing the ancient penalties against Catholics. The Church, taking advantage of this state of affairs, began to live in the open.

As has been seen, there remained in China only a few Franciscans, not many Lazarists, a few Franciscans of the Third Order, and a certain number of members of the Paris Foreign Missions. Restored by Pius VII in 1814, the Society of Jesus resumed its place in China in 1842, and precisely in the neighbourhood of Shanghai and later of Sienhsien. With the treaties, hospitals, orphanages and refuges were opened, and for the first time it became possible for religious women to work. The first were the Daughters of Charity, who arrived at Macao in 1847 and shortly afterwards at Ningpo. The following year the Sisters of St Paul of Chartres arrived at Hong Kong, which had been ceded to England.

The killing of a French missionary, Auguste Chapdelaine, in 1856, and a somewhat rough treatment meted out by the Chinese to some English sailors, provided France and England, with the tacit consent of the United States and Russia, with the pretext to take action against China and to force it in 1858 to sign the Treaties of Tientsin with the four Powers mentioned. The entry of Anglo-French troops into the capital in 1860 forced China to sign the Convention of Peking, by which it was obliged to open its doors to foreigners. Between 1861 and 1869 China had to sign other treaties with Prussia, Denmark, Holland, Spain, Belgium, Italy and Austria. In these the principle of religious freedom was sanctioned, the edicts against Christians were abrogated, and protection was promised to Catholic missionaries furnished with a French passport. Thus, with the tacit consent of the other Powers and especially of the Holy See, the practice was introduced—though not the right—of regarding France as the protecting power of the Missions, a practice which continued undisturbed and often very profitable for the Church for about twenty years, from 1860 to 1880. In this way the legal status of the Church in China changed.

This made possible the arrival of new missionaries. The first members of the young Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions of Milan arrived at Hong Kong in 1858. The Scheut Fathers arrived in 1865 and soon took charge of Mongolia. After an interruption of more than a century, the Augustinians returned to Hunan in 1879. The seminary of SS. Peter and Paul, newly founded at Rome, sent its first members to Shensi in 1885. The first German Fathers of the Society of the Divine Word of Steyl arrived in 1879 and from 1882 onwards began work in Shantung. The Trappists also founded a monastery at Yang-kiaping, in present-day Hopei, in 1883. Finally, a new development, lay teachers also arrived: the Christian Brothers at Hong Kong in 1870 and the Marist Brothers at Shanghai in 1893. Following the missionaries came the women missionaries: the Canossians at Hong Kong in 1860, the Helpers of the Holy Souls at Shanghai in 1867, the Sisters of Providence of Portieux at Mukden in 1875, the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary at Chefoo in 1886 and the Dominicans in Fukien in 1889. Finally the Carmelites also founded a house at Shanghai in 1869.

But persecutions were not lacking, both in the years 1890-1910, at the time of the Trappist uprising (T’ai P’ing), and during the Tientsin massacre of 1870 and especially in 1900, at the time of the so-called Boxers.

7. The magnificent flowering of the 20th century (1900-49)

With the new times, old China has collapsed for ever. In 1905 the ancient examination system collapsed, and with it the ancient Confucian culture. Schools multiplied, from elementary to university level. In 1911 the age-old monarchy collapsed, and China, under the impulse of Sun Yat-sen, the herald of the Three Principles, became a republic. In the family the seclusion of women ended; they not only studied and attended universities, but did not hesitate to enter political life.

This collapse of the old and the need for the new facilitated the expansion of Catholicism. First of all, the number of Catholics increased rapidly. In 1900 they were 742,000; the first million was reached in 1907, the second in 1921, and the third in 1938; the statistics for 1947-48 put them at 3,275,000, to which must be added about two hundred thousand catechumens.

The number of foreign missionaries also increased. In 1900 they were 886 and belonged to ten institutes. In 1946-47 they were 3,066 and belonged to 37 foreign institutes, of which 26 had one or more territories exclusively reserved to them; to these, all priests, must be added 421 lay brothers. After modern schools were opened to girls after 1905, the Sisters were able to work not only in orphanages, hospitals, dispensaries, clinics of every kind, but also in the field of education with girls’ schools and colleges. Thus the number of women’s missionary institutes rose from 10 in 1900 to 59 in 1946-47, with as many as 2,046 members.

To this army of Christ, which came from abroad, must be added another, no less considerable, composed of priests and nuns from the country itself. After the first two Chinese who entered the Society of Jesus on 1 January 1591, Gregorio Louenzao [Lo Wen-tssu] (v. LO WEN-TSSU), a Dominican, was the first Chinese priest (1656) and the first Chinese bishop (1685). The first Chinese Jesuit was ordained in Rome around 1670; three other Chinese Jesuits were ordained in China by Louenzao on 1 August 1688. Among the 472 Jesuits who worked in the Middle Kingdom between 1583 and 1773, 81 were Chinese, of whom 48 were priests. Even greater is the proportion among the Lazarists: out of a total of 593 members from 1697 to 1911, as many as 195 were Chinese, all priests except for eight. In Szechwan alone, the missionaries of the Paris Foreign Missions between 1781 and 1821 brought 46 young Chinese to the altar. Between 1732 and 1888, 106 Chinese studied at the College of the Holy Family, founded in Naples by Matteo Ripa, and were ordained to the priesthood. These Chinese priests, who numbered barely 15 around the mid-18th century, rose to 140 a century later, then to 400 in 1900, and further to 1,369 in 1929 and 2,527 in 1946–47. In this rapid development of the Chinese clergy, two dates are of particular importance: 26 October 1926, when Pius XI wished to consecrate with his own hands in St Peter’s the first six Chinese bishops of modern times, and 18 February 1946, when Pius XII, for the first time in the history of the Church, elevated to the cardinalate a true son of China.

Before the last world war, nearly 1,000 students of philosophy and theology and more than 5,000 boys educated in minor seminaries and apostolic schools ensured the future of this Chinese clergy. The first Congregation of exclusively Chinese virgins, that of the Presentation Sisters, was founded in Shanghai in 1855; today, these exclusively indigenous Congregations number about sixty. The Chinese religious women who belong either to one of these exclusively indigenous Congregations or to those which, alongside Western sisters, also accept Chinese women numbered 4,735 in 1946–47.

Modern times have accelerated, but did not create, the movement for Catholic education; suffice it to recall the College of St Ignatius at Zikawei, near Shanghai, founded as early as 1850. It is certain, however, that during the 20th century, male and female schools of every level have multiplied wonderfully. Higher education for secular students, both Catholic and non-Catholic, is provided in three universities: Aurora University, founded in Shanghai in 1903 and run by French Jesuits; the Catholic University of Peking, founded in 1925 by American Benedictines but transferred in 1933 to the Society of the Divine Word; and the University of Tientsin, run by French Jesuits, which became a university in 1947 but whose origins as an institute of higher studies go back to 1922. In 1946–47, about 4,500 students attended these three universities, including some fifty priests and more than 400 pupils in the female section of Aurora, run by the Religious of the Sacred Heart. Moreover, in 1947–48, China had 189 colleges of higher or secondary studies with a Catholic student body of 7,350 and a non-Catholic one of 39,698. Two thousand primary schools were attended by about 60,000 Catholic and 136,000 non-Christian pupils. Counting all other schools, there was a school population of about 320,000 boys attending nearly 4,450 different schools.

Ecclesiastically, China has been divided into dioceses and archdioceses since 1946, the former now numbering 108 and the latter 20. Of these, 21 are in the hands of the Chinese secular clergy, who are entrusted with the major cities: Peking, Nanking, Mukden, Shanghai, and soon, no doubt, Canton. In addition, two dioceses are entrusted to Chinese Lazarists and one to indigenous Franciscans. Furthermore, one diocese entrusted to French Jesuits has as its bishop a Chinese Jesuit; one entrusted to Dutch Lazarists has as its bishop a Chinese Lazarist; and two dioceses entrusted to German Verbitists have hitherto had Chinese Verbitist bishops. Altogether, therefore, there are 33 Ordinaries of Chinese nationality, 28 of whom hold the episcopal character.

The French protectorate of the missions, which asserted itself between 1860 and 1880, in time became rather harmful to the Church and objectionable to other powers. Thus, under pressure especially from Germany and Italy, it has long since fallen into desuetude. Today the Church admits that every nation has the right to protect its own nationals wherever they may be, but not the subjects of other nations, which annuls every protectorate as it was understood in the late 19th century. This French protectorate had already several times, in 1881, 1886, and 1918, prevented China from having normal diplomatic relations with the Holy See. But in 1922, without asking anything of France, Pius XI established the Apostolic Delegation and appointed the first Delegate, who in 1924 convened the first Plenary Council in Shanghai, whose acts, approved by Rome in 1928, were published in 1929 (I. Antoniutti, *Il primo sinodo cinese*, in *Il pensiero missionario*, I [1929], pp. 182–94). In May 1942, Japan sent a representative to the Holy See. China, then at war with Japan, could not but take the same step. Thus, as early as February 1943, China sent a plenipotentiary minister, to which the Vatican responded in 1946 by sending an internuncio. This time France remained silent.

The Church in China already bears the seal of the divine. It is the mother of 62 blesseds, all martyrs. Of these, 19 were beatified by Leo XIII in 1889, 1893, and 1900; 14 by Pius X in 1929; and 29 by Pius XII in 1946. Among these blesseds are six European bishops and thirteen European priests, four Chinese priests, one European layman, seven European nuns, seven seminarians, eight catechists, nine Chinese Christians, two virgins, and two widows. They were martyred between 1648 and 1900.

Beyond these, many others gave their lives for the faith and await the glory of the altars.

In particular: T. M. Gentili, *Memorie di un missionario di domenicano della C.*, 3 vols., Rome 1887-88; H. Havret, *La Stèle chrétienne de Si-ngan-fou*, 3 vols., Shanghai 1895-1902; J. Tobar, *Inscriptions juives de K'ai-fong-fou*, 1912; J. de la Servière, *Histoire de la mission du Kiangnan*, 2 vols., 1914; A. Jahn, *Die katholischen Missionen in Indien, China und Japan. The Organisation und das portugiesische Patronat vom 15. bis 18. Jahrhundert*, Paderborn 1915; B. Martinez, *Historia de las missiones Augustinianas en China*, Madrid 1918; J. Brucker, *La Compagnie de Jésus. Esquisse de son Institut et de son histoire*, Paris 1919; J. M. Planchet, *Documents sur les martyrs de Pékin pendant la persécution des Boxers*, 2 vols., Peking 1922-23; id., *Le cimetière et les oeuvres catholiques de Chala, 1610-27*, 1918; O. Maas, *Die Wiedereröffnung der Franziskanermission in China in der Neuzeit*, Münster in W. 1926; B. M. Biermann, *Die Anfänge der neueren Dominikanermission in China*, 1927; P. M. D'Elia, *Catholic Native Episcopacy in China. Being an Outline of the Formation and Growth of the Chinese Catholic clergy (1300-1926)*, Shanghai 1927; id., *The Catholic Missions in China. A short sketch of the History of the Catholic Church in China from the earliest records to our own days*, 1913-14; *J. Fonti Ricciane. Documenti originali concernenti Matteo Ricci e la storia delle prime relazioni tra l'Europa e la C. (1570-1615)*, 3 vols., Rome 1942-49; id., *Contributo dei missionari cattolici alla scambiovecolo conoscenza della C. e dell'Europa*, in *Le missioni cattoliche e la cultura dell'Oriente*, 1913, pp. 27-109; id., *L'istituzione della gerarchia episcopale e dell'internunziatura in C.*, in *Studia Missionaria*, 2 (1946), pp. 1-31; id., *La nuova C.*, in *L'Università*, 1 (1946), pp. 1-17; id., *Galileo in C. Relazioni attraverso il collegio Romano tra Galileo e i Genuiti scienziati missionari in C. (1610-40)*, Rome 1947; K. S. Latourette, *A History of the Christian Missions in China*, London 1929 (with very rich bibliography); A. Van den Wyngaert, *Sinica Franciscana*, 4 vols., Quaracchi: I, 1929; II, III, IV, 1942; A. C. Moule, *Christians in China before the year 1550*, London 1930; L. Pfister, *Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les Jésuites de l'ancienne mission de Chine (1525-1773)*, 2 vols., Shanghai 1932-34; A. Vath, *Johann Adam Schall von Bell S. I.*, Cologne 1933; H. Bernard, *Aux portes de la Chine*, Tientsin 1933; id., *Le p. Mathieu Ricci et la société chinoise de son temps*, 2 vols., 1937; N. Gubbles, *Trois siècles d'apostolat. Histoire du catholicisme au Hu-kwang depuis les origines 1587 jusqu'à 1870*, Paris 1934; A. B. Duvigneau, *S. Thomas a-t-il porté l'Evangile jusqu'en Chine?*, Peking 1936; P. Y. Saeki, *The Nestorian Documents and Relics in China*, Tokyo 1937; G. Messina, *Cristianesimo, buddhismo, manicheismo nell'Asia antica*, Rome 1947. For recent statistics: *Annuaire de l'Eglise catholique en Chine*, 1948; Zi-ka-wei, Shanghai 1948. Pasquale M. D'Elia.

IV. Art

The origins of Chinese artistic civilization are to be sought in prehistoric times.

Up to the 7th century AD, the period known as the Six Dynasties, the most important event was the introduction of Buddhism into China (1st century AD); it entered art around the beginning of the 5th century and especially influenced sculpture, both in highly decorated votive steles and in the images of shrines, now largely lost, where the figure is rendered with an original stylization. The first appearances of indigenous painting types also date from this period, known only through later copies. From 618 to 906, during the T’ang period, Chinese art reached its highest peak and spread widely beyond national boundaries. Sculptures depicting mainly deities (Bodhisattvas, Buddhas, Kuan-yin, etc.) broke free from conventionalism and assumed a new expressiveness revealing an inner sentiment. Fine examples of this period in Italy are the stone sculptures, recently restored, formerly in the Gualino collection and now in that of the Bank of Italy in Rome.

Painting assumed great importance precisely during the T’ang dynasty. Nourished by great masters such as Wu Tao-tzŭ and Wang Wei, true founders of sacred and landscape painting, and inspired in content by the great Indian religious cycles, it was based essentially on line and drawing, ignoring the problems of colour and chiaroscuro that were alive in western Chinese art. Yet the most splendid Chinese pictorial production came during the three following epochs—the Five Dynasties, the Sung and the Yüan—which are grouped together for the identity of style and technique. Execution on paper or silk benefited from exceptional skill, and the harmonious use of glazes, especially in the so-called Southern school, contributed to that refinement. Flowers, birds, fantastic animals and imaginary architectures were the recurring subjects. Among the most celebrated artists are Chu Hsi, Kuo Hsi, who favoured white and black, Emperor Hui Tsung, and the delicate landscapists Ma Yüan and Hsia Kuei. Parallel to painting, ceramics reached its highest splendour in this period through the perfection of glazes, the variety of decorative solutions, and the preciousness of colours (azure, purple, ivory, pearl grey) whose harmony is exemplary.

Once this lofty experience had concluded, an era of decline began to take shape in Chinese art. During the long Ming dynasty, the pure forms of the T’ang period congealed into an increasingly invasive mannerism in which the demand for external grace and pleasantness prevailed. For this reason, the Ming period produced the greatest number of objects of the so-called minor arts, from lacquer to inlays, ivories, textiles and enamels often imitating forms already widespread in Japan. The use of kaolin, known together with feldspar in the Sung period, was greatly expanded, determining the historical origin of the famous Chinese porcelain,

The main center of diffusion was Ching-te chen. Tributary to the earlier ceramics in forms and decorations, it drew motifs also from painting and textile art and was more exuberant in its ever-brilliant and vivid colors. The dating of Ming objects is facilitated by the imperial marks often applied, and cataloguing generally follows the names of the emperors who fostered this craft. Chinese porcelain continued to maintain an extremely high level throughout the entire Ts’ing dynasty (from 1644 to 1912), while painting and sculpture declined into tired repetitions of ancient forms. The infiltration of a Western idiom into the forms of Chinese art is recent, but its fruits have not been significant.

Architecture occupies a place of its own in Chinese art, having preserved unchanged throughout the course of its civilization the simple constructive module, varied only by vague and subtle ornamental solutions. The extensive use of wood, the considerable importance given to the roof—an essential element in the stylistic economy of every building—the gracefulness of decorations, and above all the integration of structures within the landscape setting, form the distinctive characteristics of Chinese architecture. The religious architecture followed the same canons, with a greater simplification of motifs, except for some singular buildings such as the Temple of the Cycle in Peking and the rare surviving temples near imperial tombs.

V. Arte cristiana

I. The origins

The Jesuit GIOVANNI DA ROCHA (1565-1623), a missionary in China, had composed a book on the Rosary and wished to popularize it with suitable illustrations. At that time, some copies of the famous illustrated book of the Gospels, compiled by Fr. HIERONYMUS NADAL, rich in 130 fine plates largely due to the Roman painter B. PASSERI and engraved in Antwerp, had reached China.

Fr. DA ROCHA gave the book to a skilled Chinese painter, who translated the engravings into Chinese. The translation failed to conceal the European character of the compositions.

In some way connected with that iconographic cycle are six silk paintings discovered by B. LAUFER at Sain (Shenn). Similar efforts were made by the Jesuit GIULIO ALENI in 1633 in his Chinese work Explanation of the Gospel through Images, and by the Jesuit JOHANN ADAM SCHALL VON BELL in 1640 in the Chinese work Prints Offered to the Emperor. It is highly probable that the movement initiated by the Jesuits produced two images of the Blessed Virgin from the 17th-18th centuries; the first is preserved in the Field Museum in Chicago and clearly derives from a copy of the Madonna of St. Mary Major; the second, with more Chinese features, is preserved in the British Museum in London. It is also worth recalling the artistic activity carried out by the Jesuits at the court of Peking and mentioning the brothers G. CASTIGLIONE (1688-1766), ATTIRET (1702-68), and Fr. SICHELBERTH (1708-80). They adopted the Chinese style, and their paintings were highly esteemed and sought after. However, no sacred works by them have yet been identified. C. COSTANTINI had searched in vain for them in the museum of the Imperial Palace in Peking. A few years ago, two unsigned paintings were discovered in a country house outside Peking, which, due to their stylistic features, are certainly by CASTIGLIONE: they depict St. Michael the Archangel and the Guardian Angel. Yet the initiative of the Jesuits did not take root. In the countryside, where local craftsmen had to be employed, only a few examples of churches in Chinese style were built. But the major centers sought to lend prestige to the religion with buildings imitating traditional European styles and with prints imported from Europe. At Tung-lu, near Paoting, in a Madonna—a rare exception in modern Christian painting—a naive artist at the beginning of this century depicted the Madonna as a Chinese empress.

Given the recent encouraging development of Catholic missions in China, it was time to consider the problem of art and to seek to Christianize China’s most noble art.

8. New movement in favor of Chinese Christian art

C. COSTANTINI, who arrived in China as Apostolic Delegate in 1922, was struck by the impression that the ancient Chinese world had collapsed with the empire, but that, through a profound travail and the excesses of exacerbated nationalism, a new China was being prepared.

In this crisis of reform and growth, he believed that in a country possessing the dignity of a great and ancient art, Christian art too must align itself with the new trends by utilizing local forces, and this also for reasons of missionary methodology. Without doubt, Chinese art, with its spiritual character, was admirably suited to interpret Catholic thought and to satisfy the demands of the liturgy. On the other hand, this demonstrated that the Catholic religion was not a foreign religion. It was, however, necessary to reinforce theory with practice. In 1925, the Benedictine architect D. ALBERTO GRESNIGT came to China. He mastered the spirit of Chinese art and drew up the plans and supervised the construction of the fine Catholic University of Peking, the regional seminaries of Hong Kong and Kaifeng, the church of the Disciples of the Lord in Suanhawa, and attended to other minor works, using in his buildings elements of traditional Chinese art but imbuing them with a new Christian soul.

Also of great interest is what has been achieved in the field of painting. In 1929, the painter CHEN SUAN-TU, who possessed expert skill in drawing according to the good Chinese tradition and the ability to render things with a vivid sense of spirituality and poetry, after reading the Gospels and viewing some works by good Christian artists at the Apostolic Delegation, where he had been invited, painted and presented to the Delegation a silk panel depicting the Virgin adoring the Child.

This delightful Chinese image constitutes the starting point of the new Chinese Christian painting. Having become a Christian and baptized with the name of Luke, he was appointed professor of art at the Catholic University of Peking and gathered around him a family of Christian painters, in whom the innocence of the primitives shines forth. Chinese art offered the sacred subject a form full of delicate spirituality, and the sacred subject offered Chinese artists a new, elevated, luminous, and powerful theme, capable of creating a true renewal of ancient Chinese art. The painting school of Peking University immediately became a hotbed of new ideas and activities. Exhibitions were held in Xi’an and Peking, which achieved flattering success. Alongside the name of Luke Chen, mention must be made of two notable painters, the Manchu prince PU CH’IN and CHANG-SEN-TZ’U, who also treated sacred subjects. Among the pupils of Luke Chen, one may note WANG-SU-TA, LU HUNG-NIEN, MING-YUAN, and HSU CHI-HUA; the latter died in the prime of life in 1937. Nor should it be surprising that Chinese Christian painting appears suddenly mature: Chinese artists were masters of a pictorial language already refined by a poetic sense of things and by the habit of interpreting religious subjects; their painting was in some way already ready for Christian baptism. Traditional Chinese art, stirred by contact with naturalistic currents from the West, easily rediscovered itself in the sacred subject and joyfully took refuge in the iconographic forms of ancient religious art.

We are still at the early experiments of a most hoped-for rebirth, but these first blossoms are enough to make us look with sure confidence to a springtime of Christian art arising in the distant horizons of the Far East. - See Plates CVII-CVIII.