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François Noël, SJ (18 August 1651 – 17 September 1729) was aFlemishJesuit,poet,dramatist, andmissionary to theQing Empire. Nöel unsuccessfully testified in support of Chinese converts toCatholicism retainingancestral veneration during theChinese Rites controversy but also opposed incorporating other elements ofConfucianism into Catholic practice. He also achieved notability for translating several Chinese texts for European audiences.
| François Noël | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wei Fangji | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 衛方濟 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 卫方济 | ||||||||
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Noël wrote his translations inLatin, in which his nameappears asFranciscus Noel. He is also known by itsanglicization asFrancis Noel. He was known to the Chinese asWei Fangji.[1]
François Noël was aFleming[2] born on 18 August 1651 inHestrud,Hainault,France.[1] He joined theJesuits at the age of nineteen on 30 September 1670 inTournai,[1] which had just been returned to France from theSpanish Netherlands two years before under the terms of theWar of Devolution'sTreaty of Aachen. He was a teacher ofgrammar andrhetoric for several years.[3] He studiedtheology,mathematics, andastronomy at theUniversity of Douai.[1]
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He wanted to join theJapan mission but by this pointChristianity (and European visitors generally) had been banned within theTokugawa shogunate for many years.[1] He nonetheless traveled toLisbon,Portugal, and left forEast Asia in January 1684. His journey was funded byMaria, theduchess ofAveiro.[1] He hoped to get passage to Japan on aDutch East India Companymission, but inMalacca he was assured by "Belgian Catholics from our cities" that this was impossible.[3]
He debarked atMacau on 9 August 1685, where the return of some shipwrecked Japanese sailors caused him to hope that trade would be resumed; this was fruitless.[4] He made hisvows ofpoverty, chastity, obedience, and thefourth vow of "special obedience" to thepope on 2 February the next year[1] and, after a final failed attempt to reach Japan,[5] finally formally joined theChina mission[1] by September 1687.[5] He is sometimes numbered among theFigurists,[6] the Jesuit missionaries who came to think that Christianity had been the ancient religion of China, brought there byNoah's sonShem.
Noël learned rudimentaryChinese on Macau and traveled to the mainland in 1687. He traveled toShanghai,[1] then part ofJiangsu and—at nearbyXujiahui—the home of the family of the influential convertXu Guangqi. After further training, he began his mission on nearbyChongming Island in early October 1688 and reported great success by August 1689:[1] 120baptized converts in Shanghai, 300 on Chongming, and 800 in regions dependent on Chongming.[5]
From there, he travelled toHuai'an andNanjing inJiangsu;Wuhe inAnhui;Nanchang,[a]Ganzhou,Jianchang (now Fuzhou), andNanfeng inJiangxi; andNan'an inFujian.[1]
A 1703 report to the Jesuit Provincial shows that Noël's work was primarily among the lower and working classes, especially to women andabandoned children, which left open the problem of how to pay for church construction and mission work without resorting to begging for alms in the manner of theBuddhistmonks.[7]
On 9 November 1701,[8] he was selected—probably through the influence of his compatriot, the Vice Provincial SuperiorAntoine Thomas[1][b]—to act as theprocurator for the China mission in an embassy concerning theChinese Rites Controversy.[1] He was to argue on behalf of the Jesuits and four Chinese bishops that theCatholic Church should continue to permit the Chinese practice withConfucian andancestral veneration after theirconversion to Christianity.[1]
Thomas's letter reached him in Nanchang on the 25th; he left on 6 December and reachedGuangzhou on 1 January.[8] He was originally to travel with José Ramón Arxó andClaude de Visdelou, but Arxó suffered accidental delays. Visdelou, meanwhile, was delayed first owing to reticence by the French mission to allow him to leave and then under various pretexts because thevisitor Carlo Turcotti (correctly) suspected his position on the question of the rites.[8] Since there was already anEnglish ship ready to sail, Turcotti replaced the pair[9] with theBavarian mathematician[10]Caspar Castner, who was already working nearby.[11]
The English ship departed on 14 January 1702 for Macau, which it reached on the 21st and left on the 24th.[11] It traveled toBatavia in theDutch East Indies (nowJakarta,Indonesia), where unbalanced cargo and heavy weather required a 17-day delay.[11] On the journey around theCape of Good Hope, it was again held up for almost a month because of unfavorable winds.[11] After a 43 day wait onSaint Helena owing to fear of a new European war, the ship passed through two storms to theAzores and through a collision offCalais toLondon, which it reached on 4 October.[11] The Jesuits met and presumably lobbied various ambassadors while in London, as well as the directors of theEast India Company.[11] They crossed into France on the 31st, had an audience withPhilip V ofSpain atAix, and passed fromMarseille toGenoa on 15 December; they finally reached Rome on the 29th or 30th.[11]
In Rome, the pair scheduled audiences, lobbiedcardinals, prepared their documents, and attended sessions at theHoly Office.[12] They metCardinal Fabroni, the secretary of theCongregation for the Propagation of the Faith on 10 January 1703 andPope Clement XI two days later.[12] On the 14th, they gave Fabroni the first round of documents: an overview, a dossier of verified testimony, books byDe Rocha andAlenio, and a 1664 anti-Christian pamphlet byYang Guangxian whose complaints proved that the Jesuits were mentioning Jesus'scrucifixion to the Chinese.[12] Some of these were rejected on various grounds, and they were forced to hire a lawyer surnamed Ursaia to present them in the proper format around March.[12] TheFranciscanGiovanni Francesco Nicolai da Leonessa had been opposing them before their arrival; on 10 March he was joined by theMEP missionaryArtus de Lionne.[12]
Despite the Noël and Castner's efforts negotiating the Roman bureaucracy over the next two years, the voluminous Chinese testimony—including an official pronouncement by theKangxi Emperor—on the respectful but not worshipful nature ofChinese veneration, and the pains the Jesuits undertook transmitting it around the French mission inNanjing (which supposedly intercepted it under orders fromBishop Maigrot),[13] there is no evidence that the Roman court ever weighed any of the Jesuit evidence.[13] Instead, despite the pope's kind words,[14] the decision had already been reached well ahead of its formal proclamation:Charles-Thomas Maillard de Tournon had been namedlegate for China and the East Indies on 5 December 1701 with the specific instructions to disallow further practice of Chinese rituals by Christians there;[15][16] he was givenpapal-like supremacy over the clerics there and, on the 27th, consecrated as thetitularpatriarch of Antioch,[15] making him the notional head of the churches across most of Asia. He left for the Qing Empire aboard the French shipMaurepas on 9 February 1703, only weeks after Noël's arrival, and disallowed the Jesuit leniency towards to theMalabar rites while he waited out themonsoon season inPondicherry.[15] By 1704, Noël and Castner were forbidden from publishing their arguments, although their opponents were printing their treatises in great volume, and correspondence and treatises shipped from China were confiscated atLivorno.[14] Noël seems to have accepted that there was little to be done or been otherwise occupied for the rest of the year.[14] Castner continued his lobbying, assisted after 26 February 1704 byJean-François de Pélisson, who arrived with further documentation from the Jesuits in China.[14]
On 20 NovemberPope Clement XI'sdecreeCum Deus Optimus... ruled almost completely against the Jesuits,[17] formalizing a ban on both the rites and further discussion of the topic. Christians could not refer toGod as天 (tiān, "Heaven" or "the sky") and their churches could not display the imperial plaque ordering parishioners to "Revere Heaven" (敬天,Jìng Tiān).[17]Tournon was to prepare more detailed regulations to avoid "every hint of pagan superstition",[17] and the decree was worded legalistically and carefully—"hall or temple", "sacrifice or offering"—to limit any chance the Jesuits might evade or limit its application.[18]
Noël returned east in 1706, traveling—at Castner's insistence—not viaGoa and through theStraits of Malacca but aroundTimor; this route proved faster and subsequently became standard for journeys between Europe andMacau.[10] They arrived on 22 July 1707,[10] finding thelegateTournon under arrest in Macau[15] and the entire mission in chaos. The sickly Tournon had arrived at Macau in April 1705[19] and Beijing on 4 December,[20] insisting on the incompatibility ofConfucianism andRoman Catholicism.[21] His first imperial audience the same month had been diplomatic and held out hope forpermanent relations between China and thePapal States;[20] his second, on 29 June 1706, had found the emperor displeased that any controversy had arisen over the Jesuits' accommodation of rites he had personally verified as secular[22] and, in any case, necessary for Chinese society.[23] Tournon—still generally uninformed on the details of the situation[20] — had deferred to the "great expert" Maigrot, whose analysis had prompted Rome's reversal, and the emperor agreed to receive him at the newsummer palace at Rehe (nowChengde).[24] Maigrot had already been summoned from Fujian[18] and was interviewed on 2 August 1706.[25] Despite having lived in China since 1684,[21] he proved so grossly ignorant — he knew onlyFuzhounese[26] and requiredDominique Parrenin to translate the emperor's questions.[24] He claimed to have read theFour Books but was unable to remember two characters from them by heart;[24] he had not even readMatteo Ricci'sChinese catechism;[27][18] and he could read only one of the fourChinese characters on the plaque behind the emperor's head[26] but presumed to lecture the patron of theKangxi Dictionary on the permissible meanings of the character天;[22]—and stubborn[28] that he had finally been expelled from the country on 17 December[25] and Christian missionaries required to receive an imperial permit (票,piào) attesting to their support of "the method ofMatteo Ricci" and their willingness to remain in China for the rest of their lives.[29][25] Finally receiving notice ofCum Deus Optimus...,[29]
Tournon had ordered asummary and automaticexcommunication of any Christian permitting Confucian rituals fromNanjing on 25 January 1707;[15] on 7 February, he had further issued instructions concerning thepiao examination—again on pain of excommunication[29] — that precluded its ever being approved.[18] Enraged, the emperor finally had him arrested and deported on 13 June,[30] with thePortuguese then holding him underhouse arrest for their own reasons.[31]
About half of the missionaries then in China joinedMaigrot andTournon in exile.[32] At the emperor's insistence, a second embassy was dispatched to Rome to overturnCum Deus Optimus... and Maigrot and Tournon's various rulings in 1706; this was apparently lost at sea.[31] Unable to secure a residence permit without fear ofexcommunication, Noël joined a third embassy. (He has sometimes been said to have been specifically requested by theKangxi Emperor, although this seems unlikely.)[17]
Noël departed for Europe from Macau on 14 January 1708 on thePortuguese shipBom Jesus de Mazagão das Brotas with the Jesuits José Ramón Arxó and António Francesco Giuseppe Provana and the Chinese convertLouis Fan.[10] Traveling viaBatavia andBahia,Brazil, they arrived inLisbon in September and in Rome by February the next year.[10] En route, he sent a letter ahead to the pope imploring:[33]
It is all up with this once flourishing mission now collapsing, and rushing to certain ruin, unlessYour Holiness should please theemperor of the Chinese by a swift response, and graciously agree to his requests regarding the Chinese rites so long in dispute.
Clement supported Tournon completely.[34] Adecree from theHoly Office was issued on 25 September 1710 upholding all of his rules and condemnations.[34] The embassy may have been enjoined from sending the Kangxi Emperor any notice of that fact, since he never learned the fate of either of his embassies; in 1716, he resorted to providing open letters (the "Red Manifesto")[17] to passing European merchants to try to ascertain their fate.[35] (Noël, however, was not one of those individually listed for the merchants to search for.)[17]
Noël then appears to have moved toPrague, in theAustrian Empire'sKingdom of Bohemia (now theCzech Republic). There, he published mathematical and astronomical observations fromIndia andChina[36] andlectured on mathematics at the Jesuit-staffedCharles-Ferdinand University.[10] He also publishedLatin translations ofclassic Chinese texts[37] and works onSinology which he had worked over for decades.[10] Noël's translations were banned in thePapal States andHoly Roman Empire, but were praised byDu Halde in hisDescription of China.[10][38] They were difficult to acquire in France and western Europe but were among the most influential Jesuit works in Germany and eastern Europe,[39] where they inspired works byJohann Benedikt Carpzov,[40]Wilhelm von Leibnitz, andChristian Wolff,[10] the latter of whom lost his position at theUniversity of Halle because of his immoderate praise ofConfucius and admission that the Chinese had been able todistinguish between right and wrong without exposure to Christianity. Noël'sHistorical Notices—which aimed to reopen the Chinese rites issue—does not seem to have been formally banned but was almost immediately suppressed.[41] It seems likely that its claimed papalimprimatur was that whichClement had granted to publish findingsbefore his 1704 decision;[41] on 19 March 1715, he issued thebullEx Illa Die... repeating in stronger terms his condemnations and the incompatibility of Chinese ritual with Catholicism.
On 10 June that year, Noël sought approval to return to China[41] although he was 64 at the time. He was denied permission.[2] He died on 17 September 1729 inLille,France.[41]
Noël published hisMathematical and Physical Observations Made in India and China (Latin:Observationes Mathematicae et Physicae in India et China Factae) at theCharles-Ferdinand University's press inPrague,Bohemia (now theCzech Republic), in 1710.[36]
Noël's effort to translate the Chinese classics was a generally scholarly one, aiming to present it more correctly on its own terms than previous Jesuit editions like theConfucius Sinarum Philosophus had,[42][40][43] but it was still an exercise undertaken in order to furthermissionizing among the Chinese.[44] The preface to hisSix Chinese Classics ends with the admonition that the reader should bear theChristian life in mind while reading the volume'sChinese teachings and the hope that the work would assist in makingChrist the cornerstone to every life.[45] The Jesuits initially focused on translatingConfucian classics, rather thanBuddhist scriptures or theTaoist canon, because of its greater importance inChinese officialdom under theMing andQing.[44] Theworks ofMencius were not originally translated becauseMatteo Ricci disliked Mencian interpretations of the other classic texts, particularly his strong condemnation ofcelibacy asunfilial.[46]
Noël published hisSix Classic Books of the Chinese Empire (Sinensis Imperii Libri Classici Sex) at the same press the next year,[37] although his manuscripts show he had been working on them since at least 1700.[10] The six classics were theGreat Learning (Latin:Adultorum Schola orDoctrina),[47] theDoctrine of the Mean (Immutabile Medium),[48] theAnalects (Liber Sententiarum),[49] thecollected works ofMencius (Memcius),[50] theClassic of Filial Piety (Filialis Observantia),[51] and theLesser Learning (Parvulorum Schola).[52][43] Each of the first four are completely new translations prefaced byZhu Xi'scommentaries (t 四書集注,s 四书集注,Sìshū Jízhù).[42][40] Each of the last three were the first European translations of the works.[42] All were rather fairly freely translated from the editions established by Zhu Xi; his preface states the works are "not, so to speak, what the Chinese wrote but, I hope, what they really meant".[42][c] For example, the first lines of theDoctrine of the Mean were rendered "TheLaw ofHeaven is nature itself; the tendency of this nature is theway of acting correctly; the direction of this life is a right discipline of life, or the right precepts for living."[42][d]
At the same time, he published hisThree Treatises on Chinese Philosophy (Philosophia Sinica Tribus Tractatibus).[55] Its three sections deal with "On Knowledge of the First Being or God among the Chinese" (De Cognitione Primi Entis seu Dei apud Sinas), "On the Ceremonies of the Chinese for the Dead" (De Ceremoniis Sinarum erga Denunctos), and "On Chinese Ethics" (De Ethica Sinensi).[55] Unlike earlier Jesuit works, it does not claim that theNeo-Confucianism ofZhu Xi and others was aBuddhist corruption ofConfucianism; it treats it as an organic development although still cautioning that its vague terms should not be used in reference to theChristian God.[10]
Finally, in the same year, he also publishedHistorical Notices of Chinese Rituals and Ceremonies in the Veneration of Deceased Parents and Benefactors.[56] It expands on the topic of the second hisThree Treatises, with many more citations from Chinese works.[41] Combativelypolemical in describing an understanding ofChinese ancestral veneration that is compatible withCatholicism, it claimed a papalimprimatur for its publishing but was almost immediately suppressed.[41]
He published hisLittle Poetic Works (Opuscula Poetica) atFrankfurt in 1717.[57] Its four parts comprise aLife of Jesus Christ under the Name of Divine Love (Vita Jesu Christi sub Nomine Divini Amoris);[58]Marian Letters (Epistolae Marianae);[59] aLife of St Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Jesuits (Vita Sancti Ignatii de Loyola Societatis Jesu Fundatoris);[60] and several tragedies (Tragoediae), includingPhilotas,[61]Herod (Herodes),[62]Love (Amor),[63]Lucifer,[64]Accianus,[65] andHenry (Henricus).[66] An appendix includes the comedyBlind Sight (Caecus Videns).[67]
He also published a popular theology textbook.[2]
