Confucian Catholics' Worship Ceremony

The transcripts of Cunpu Pian and Yuanli Lun,two Chinese works in the Ming and Qing dynasties,are now collected in the Vatican Library.These two transcripts mainly deal with Chinese etiquette of ancestor worship and Confucius worship.Based on punctuation and collation of Cunpu Pian and Yuanli Lun,this paper tries to show the conflicts and contradictions between Catholicism and Chinese traditional Confucianism in the Late Ming dynasty.For the texts of Cunpu Plan and Yuanli Lun,some systematic discrimination,proofreading and analysis will be given by use of some valuable reference books.By combining other works during the Chinese Rites Controversy,the apologetics thoughts of the author will also be rendered some analysis with the aim to reflect the awkward attitude and contradictory situation in the collision between Chinese and western culture,and to do some tentative work for the documents during the Chinese Rites Controversy.Original documents play a fundamental role in scholarly research,and only by constantly exploring new documents,can the academic research continue to make progress on the predecessors' studies.Transcripts of Cunpu Pian and Yuanli Lun are exhibited for the first time,which certainly has a certain ground-breaking significance.The research content is concretely listed as following:In the preface part,the research significance and literature review will be introduced.On the basis of the analysis of the background and the author,the second chapter contains a comprehensive analysis of two articles,focusing on the writing psychology and embarrassment of the authors.Through the text content,the third chapter will offer a specific analysis of the method of "adapting Christianity to Confucianism" and "adapting Confucianism to Christianity" by missionaries and Confucian Catholics and present the controversy on the Confucius and ancestor worship.The fourth chapter,as the conclusion part,through detailed textual research,this paper proposes that the nature of the two articles is apologetics,focusing on ancestor worship and Confucius worship.As a Confucian Catholic,the author tries to defend the survival of Catholicism in China through two articles in support of Matteo Ricci missionary route,hoping to find a balance between Catholicism and Chinese cult.Through the words the author uses,it can be found that two articles may be designed for the people against China's etiquette.Finally,the punctuation and collation of Cunpu Plan and Yuanli Lun,as well as the transcripts of Cunpu Plan and Yuanli Lun are presented in the appendix part.With a complete structure and a proper point embodied in Cunpu Plan and Yuanli Lun,the author,as a Catholic,tries to analyze Chinese Confucianism etiquette from a Christian standpoint,which may lead to some partiality.This paper mainly analyze the two texts from the perspective of hermeneutics so as to understand the Confucianism thoughts filtered,quoted,and projected into the articles due to his/her needs.As a matter of fact,the social environment,religious position,and Confucianism attainments of the author strongly affect his interpretation of cult.Because of author's position of Catholics,his exclusion of Buddhism and Taoism is also a research point of this thesis.As for me,hermeneutics can provide a broader room for Christians' texts research.This paper argues that for a Confucian Catholic,he should not only be involved in Catholic texts,but also in the context of Chinese culture to spread the Gospel interpreting the Confucian tradition under the authority of Catholic doctrine.Meanwhile,this paper also tries to show the heated debate,and the dilemma identity of Confucian Catholics trough the data textual research method,eventually represents the embarrassing condition of all the Confucian Catholics during the collision between Chinese and western culture and the stance of Confucian Catholics in Chinese Rites Controversy,and the view of Confucian etiquette and the contradictions between Buddhism and Catholicism.This paper hopes that the research can provide some new materials to the whole research of Chinese Rites Controversy for the future,and objectively reveal the Chinese voices of Chinese Rites Controversy.