Matteo Ricci at the Court of Beijing

In 1602 the Jesuit Diego de Pantoja, who had entered China from the Portuguese town of Macau, wrote from Beijing that in twenty years no more than five or six priests of his order had got into the country, and that they had long looked for a way to reach the emperor with a gift (Pantoja, Letter of 1602, Purchas 12, p. 332). In May 1600 Matteo Ricci, Pantoja and a Chinese Jesuit brother left Nanjing by boat with two clocks, three oil paintings of Christ and of the Virgin, and a finely bound breviary (Pantoja, Letter of 1602, Purchas 12, pp. 336–338). A eunuch who collected the emperor’s tolls detained them on the way and took some of their goods (Pantoja, Letter of 1602, Purchas 12, pp. 339–346).

After six months the emperor asked for the clocks, and the party reached Beijing on 24 January 1601 (Ricci and Trigault, De Christiana expeditione 4.12 (pp. 405–407)). Pantoja reports that the emperor was delighted with the paintings and clocks and had four eunuchs taught to tend them, but did not receive the Jesuits himself and had their portraits painted instead (Pantoja, Letter of 1602, Purchas 12, pp. 348–351). The official responsible for foreigners held them under guard for about three months and petitioned for them to be sent away; the emperor did not answer, and they rented a house and kept an allowance from the court (Pantoja, Letter of 1602, Purchas 12, pp. 353–355).

Ricci wrote a catechism in Chinese meant chiefly for readers outside the church; the Jesuit account says that it argued from natural reason more than from Scripture, quoted the ancient Chinese books, and refuted the sects of China except the school of Confucius (Ricci and Trigault, De Christiana expeditione 5.2 (pp. 488–489)). The same account says that the yearly offerings to ancestors seem free of idolatry and “perhaps” of superstition, and adds that Christians would do better to give alms instead (Ricci and Trigault, De Christiana expeditione 1.10 (pp. 107–108)).

It also tells of the Chinese scholars who joined the Jesuits. Xu Guangqi of Shanghai visited the Jesuit house at Nanjing in 1603, read the catechism in manuscript through the night and was baptized, as Paul, before he went home (Ricci and Trigault, De Christiana expeditione 4.19 (pp. 471–473)). The next year he took the highest degree at Beijing (Ricci and Trigault, De Christiana expeditione 5.3 (pp. 492–493)), and he urged that a book of European science be published (Ricci and Trigault, De Christiana expeditione 5.7 (pp. 510–511)). Ricci’s preface to their Chinese Euclid, dated 1607, says that he explained the text aloud while Xu wrote it down (Jihe yuanben, Ricci’s preface). Xu’s preface calls mathematics the least part of Ricci’s learning, the greatest being to cultivate the self and serve Heaven, and says he publishes the lesser first because it is easier to believe (Jihe yuanben, Xu Guangqi’s preface). In 1616, when the Board of Rites accused the Jesuits, he told the emperor in a memorial that he was one of those who believed their books (Xu Guangqi, Memorial of 1616, Chinese Repository 19, pp. 118–119).

Ricci died in Beijing on 11 May 1610 (Ricci and Trigault, De Christiana expeditione 5.20 (pp. 612–614)), and the emperor granted land for his grave (Ricci and Trigault, De Christiana expeditione 5.21 (pp. 616–626)). For the later dispute over these rites, see the Chinese Rites Controversy.