闢邪集

Pì xié jí 闢邪集

A Collection on Refuting Heresy

A one-juan late-Míng Buddhist-Confucian anti-Christian polemical treatise by Zhōng Shǐshēng 鍾始聲 (zì Zhènzhī 振之; the lay name of Ǒuyì Zhìxù 蕅益智旭, 1599–1655) under which he wrote his anti-Jesuit polemical work. Introduced by a preface from Dàlǎng 大朗 (another of Zhìxù’s self-designations — so the author and preface-writer are the same person signing under different names), and closed with a postface (bá 跋) by Chéng Qǐyòng 程啟用 (= Chéng Zhìyòng 程智用 zì Yòngjiǔfǔ 用九甫, Hsīnān 新安 layman). The primary constituent text is the Tiān xué chū zhēng 天學初徵 (“First Testing of the Heavenly Teaching” — i.e., the first investigation of Christianity). Not to be confused with Xú Chāngzhì’s 徐昌治 1639 Pì xié jí 闢邪集, a separate and much larger anti-Christian anthology that circulated outside the Buddhist canonical collections and is therefore not part of the Kanripo corpus.

About the work

A one-juan anti-Christian polemical treatise, J23 B120. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted. The text presents as a dialogue between Zhōng (= Zhìxù) and a visiting guest who has been recently converted to Catholicism and wishes to discuss its teachings. The guest, noting that Zhìxù has spent thirty years “refuting Buddhism and Daoism and guarding the Sage Path” (pì Shì Lǎo xián shèng dào 闢釋老閑聖道), proposes that the newly-arrived Western Teaching — which also rejects Buddhism but venerates Confucianism — might be an ally in Zhìxù’s project. Zhìxù responds by systematically rejecting this framing and presenting a sustained fourteen-point-plus critique of Christian doctrine:

1. On the nature of God: the Christian Creator-God (Tiānzhǔ 天主) must be either formed or formless — but both options lead to incoherence within the Christian framework, given the claim that God created time and space.
2. On theodicy: if the Creator-God created everything including evil, the origin of evil is inexplicable; if He can prevent evil but does not, He is not omnibenevolent.
3. On Lucifer: the Creator-God’s allegedly granting Lucifer great power before knowing (or knowing) he would become evil makes God either unwise or unkind.
4. On the persistence of evil: Lucifer’s continued presence in the world after condemnation to hell is inexplicable.
5. On the creation of the troublesome “three enemies” (the flesh, the world, the devil): a benevolent Creator would not create what he cannot remove.
6. On the Ten Commandments: the notion of a divinely-dictated set of commandments resembles the popular Hàn-era “heavenly-writings” fraud (fēngshàn tiānshū 封禪天書) — used by demagogues, not by legitimate heavenly teaching. 7-14. Further points on the Incarnation, the Atonement, the distribution of salvation, the claimed monopoly of Christian worship, etc.

The cumulative argument: Christianity fails not only by Buddhist standards but by the Confucian standards that its Jesuit propagators claim to embrace. Zhìxù’s rhetorical strategy aligns his Buddhist position with classical Confucianism against the claimed Confucian-Christian alliance.

Abstract

See Zhìxù’s person note for the master’s full biography. The Pì xié jí is one of Zhìxù’s more distinctive works, combining:

• Engagement with contemporary Catholic missionary activity (the Jesuit mission to China, active from Matteo Ricci’s 1582 arrival onward, was by the 1640s a significant cultural presence).
• Classical Chinese philosophical argumentation, drawing on Confucian and Buddhist ontological categories.
• Zhìxù’s own integrative position that sees Chán-Buddhist awakening as the true fulfilment of Confucian wisdom, and therefore resists the Jesuit attempt to reshape this integration around a Christian theism.

Zhōng Shǐshēng 鍾始聲 = lay name of 蕅益智旭 Zhìxù. Zhìxù published under his lay name for works directed at non-monastic audiences (especially works engaging Confucian and anti-Christian controversies), reserving the monastic name 智旭 for primarily-Buddhist doctrinal works.

Dàlǎng 大朗 = Buddhist monastic-name also used by Zhìxù, particularly in his youth (Shì Dàlǎng 釋大朗 per DILA).

Chéng Zhìyòng 程啟用 / 程智用: Hsīnān 新安 (modern Huīzhōu 徽州 in Ānhuī) layman; zì Yòngjiǔfǔ 用九甫; hào Mèngshì 夢士 (“Dream-Gentleman”). One of Zhìxù’s lay Buddhist associates, serving as the evaluator / postface-writer for the Pì xié jí. The catalog’s form 啟用 and the text’s form 智用 appear to refer to the same person under slightly different name-forms.

Dating: the received text is undated. Internal evidence — the “thirty-some years” since Zhìxù’s age-12-13 ideological commitment — suggests composition between 1640 and 1655 (Zhìxù’s death), most likely in the mid-to-late 1640s when Zhìxù was at the peak of his mature productive period. notBefore 1640, notAfter 1655 is a defensible bracket.

Translations and research

• Zürcher, Erik. 1997. “The Jesuit Mission in Fujian in Late Ming Times: Levels of Response.” In Development and Decline of Fukien Province in the 17th and 18th Centuries, ed. E. B. Vermeer. Brill. Standard context for the late-Míng anti-Christian polemic, including Zhìxù’s role.
• Mungello, D. E. 1985. Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology. Stuttgart: Steiner.
• Standaert, Nicolas (ed.). 2001. Handbook of Christianity in China: Volume One: 635–1800. Brill. Comprehensive coverage.
• Gernet, Jacques. 1985. China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures. Cambridge. Engages Zhìxù’s and other anti-Christian polemics.
• 釋聖空 Shì Shèng-kōng. Various studies on Zhìxù’s corpus; extensive Chinese secondary literature.

Other points of interest

The Pì xié jí is one of the most intellectually serious Chinese anti-Christian polemics of the late Míng — combining a Buddhist master’s philosophical sophistication with a keen awareness of the rhetorical situation (the Jesuit appeal to Confucian alliance against Buddhism). The text’s point-by-point argumentative structure and its willingness to engage Christian theological claims on their own terms distinguish it from more superficial anti-Christian writings of the period.

Zhìxù’s dual position as an acclaimed Pure-Land master and an active anti-Christian polemicist reflects the complex late-Míng situation of Chinese Buddhism’s simultaneous internal consolidation and external defence against Western Christian missionary activity. His argumentative framework — that Christianity’s claimed Confucian alliance is specious, and that genuine Chinese-classical thought aligns with Buddhism rather than with Christian theism — would continue to inform later Chinese Buddhist responses to Christianity.

Links

• CBETA
• Broader contextual work (not in Kanripo): Xú Chāngzhì’s 1639 Pì xié jí 闢邪集 — the anti-Christian anthology circulating outside the Buddhist canonical collections, of which Zhìxù’s text is part of the intellectual context.
• 鍾始聲 DILA
• Kanseki DB