“ALL FRIENDS’ THINGS ARE COMMON”: FROM MATTEO RICCI’S ONE HUNDRED MAXIMS ON FRIENDSHIP (1595) TO PREACHING CHRISTIANITY IN MING CHINA

In late 16th century a small Jesuit mission penetrated China and after a while successfully reached the Peking court of Ming Emperor Wanli. Scholars contemplating the factors contributing to this remarkable success, try to decipher the know-how of Italian preacher Matteo Ricci, who managed to steer the company into the capital against the opposition of the ruling “eunuchs’ party”, local xenophobia and traditional aversion to the “red-haired devils”. Interestingly, the West had all but ignored a small treatise written by Ricci while still in Nanchang, which widely circulated among the educated circles of Ming China. Meanwhile Dell’ Amicizia was not simply the first piece ever written by a European in Chinese, but a prized item in several prominent Chinese encyclopedias and literary collections. The article looks at the origins of this essay, the circumstances in which it was written, the structure of the treatise, and the extent of its spread. Based on the most popular maxims of European philosophical thought, from classical antiquity to a collection of Latin aphorisms compiled by André de Resende, the work, included in the official compendia, was later purged from them by the Manchu officials. The article retells a little hoax perpetrated by Ricci to ensure Dell’Amicizia was presented in the best possible light. The author argues that, by choosing a neutral subject rooted in cultural basics, Ricci was able to appeal directly to a common denominator, one both humane and intellectual, and in doing so not only demonstrated his right to interact with the Chinese cultural elite as a literary peer, but also showed that representatives of both civilizations had much more in common than previously thought.

Matteo Ricci, Dell’Amicizia, Jesuits, teologia accomodativa, missions, Jesuits in China, Christian missiology, aphorisms compendia