The Kangxi Emperor’s Comment on the Papal Decree
The emperor’s written response, in 1721, to the papal ruling against the Chinese rites. He judges that the Westerners do not understand Chinese matters and says that they should no longer be allowed to preach in China.
The excerpt is a few sentences long. Having read what it calls “this proclamation”, which the sourcebook identifies as the papal decree against the rites, the emperor writes that Westerners are petty, that none of them is versed in Chinese works, that their religion seems to him no different from small sects of Buddhism or Taoism, and that from now on they should not be allowed to preach in China, to avoid further trouble. It is the emperor’s answer in his own terms to a decision taken in Rome about the customs of his empire. See the Chinese Rites Controversy.
Cited in
- 1704 to 1742, firm date