Brevis Relatio (A Short Account of the Declaration of the Emperor of China on the Honours Paid to Heaven, Confucius and the Ancestors)
The Jesuits’ own account of how, on 30 November 1700, they asked the Kangxi emperor whether their understanding of the rites for Confucius and the ancestors was correct, with their statement and his answer. It is the Jesuit case in the Jesuits’ words.
The account opens by saying that a grave controversy had arisen over the Chinese rites, some holding them to be superstitious and idolatrous, while the Society of Jesus had long permitted them as merely political, and that the Jesuits at court therefore resolved to ask the emperor for an authoritative statement of their meaning. It prints the declaration they submitted, the emperor’s reply and testimonies collected from Chinese scholars.
It is the account of one party to the dispute. See the Chinese Rites Controversy.
Cited in
- 1704 to 1742, firm date