| The Seven Victories over the Seven Capital Sins is an ethical work written by Diego de Pantoja,a missionary who came to China in the late Ming Dynasty,on Moral Cultivation in view of the prevailing moral problems in the society at that time,in order to disseminate Christian ideas and adopt policies adapted to Confucianism.The spread of Western learning in the late Ming Dynasty and the gap between moral problems and NeoConfucianism in the late Ming Dynasty made Chinese intellectuals begin to seek ways to solve moral problems from Catholics who could "fill Confucianism".In order to implement adaptation strategies,missionaries also began to pay attention to moral cultivation.There are totally different purposes between China and the West.The Seven Victories over the Seven Capital Sins have been published.In the contradiction between Confucianism and Christianity,The Seven Victories over the Seven Capital Sins finds the common ground between them and combs the common ground further into a unique theory of moral cultivation,which neither makes Confucian scholars resentful nor violates Christianity doctrine;when the contradiction between the two sides cannot be reconciled.The Seven Victories over the Seven Capital Sins maintained a firm Christian position and made choices,but it did not completely exclude Confucianism,but transformed or absorbed Confucianism.Because of this analysis of commonness and contradiction,this paper calls this kind of "communication" between Confucianism and Christianity as "interaction",rather than "complementing Confucianism","combining Confucianism" and "super-Confucianism" as other scholars call it.The interaction between Confucianism and Christianity embodied in The Seven Victories over the Seven Capital Sins mainly includes three aspects: Firstly,"selfish desire" is an important viewpoint in Chinese traditional thought,while in Christian tradition,evil is caused by "original sin".The contradiction between the two originates from the difference between "shame culture" and "guilt culture".The Seven Victories over the Seven Capital Sins carries out the adaptation strategy,adopts the Confucian concepts of "public" and "private",properly integrates the Confucian theory of selfish desire and evil with the Christian theory of original sin and evil,and gives a new interpretation of the way of evil formation;it not only inherits Confucius’ concept of "self-restraint",but also gives full play to it and adheres to the way of atonement through good deeds.Secondly,because the author Diego de Pantoja is a Catholic missionary,when confronted with the contradiction between "human relations" and "God",The Seven Victories over the Seven Capital Sins chose to ignore "family ethics" and emphasize "the position of God",believing that "human should love" is the first God,and through the criticism of "concubinage" and "spiritual and flesh duality".The inheritance of the theory transformed the Confucian filial piety and,according to the Christian doctrine,chose the "friend" as the focus of the discussion.Thirdly,when referring to the two opposite and unified concepts of "pushing oneself and others" and "loving others as oneself",The Seven Victories over the Seven Capital Sins reconstructs the Confucian "relationship between oneself and others",weakens the concept of "group",and points out that "seeking good fortune" is the necessary goal.Finally,it gave a Christian interpretation of Confucius’ benevolence,pointing out that the basis of benevolence lies in "loving God","benevolence" should love the spirit of "I" better than the body of "I",and emphasized "loving enemies".When Chinese social morality is facing "reborn",the ethical value of The Seven Victories over the Seven Capital Sins is abundant,which can provide people with a way of self-cultivation.Its advantages and limitations are beneficial to the development of comparative study of Chinese culture and the improvement of Chinese moral cultivation system. |
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