From the Debate over the City God to the Transformation of Cosmology
口鐸日抄 (Kouduo Richao) and the Introduction of the Catholic Concept of God in Late Ming
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8135058 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Shiyu Wang (0009-0004-8062-4223, Peking University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 102 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-15 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/rel17010102 |
| OpenAlex | W7124276585 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 2 |
This paper takes the interaction between late-Ming Jesuits and Chinese City God (chenghuang, 城隍) worship as a case study, employing the “Great Tradition/Little Tradition” framework to examine the confrontation between “humans-becoming-gods” and “God-creating-angels”. It argues that the Confucian Great Tradition integrated popular beliefs through using the divine way to implement moral instruction (shendao shejiao, 神道設教), maintaining state–religion unity and a monistic cosmology. By contrast, Catholicism, centered on monotheism and a transcendent God, reallocated mystical power from imperial and local deities to the Christian God, thus implicitly reconstructing traditional Chinese knowledge systems under an apparent compromise. The article concludes that Catholicism in late Ming China signified not merely religious transmission but also the penetration of a transcendent God-concept and a dualistic cosmology dividing the otherworldly from the this-worldly into China’s this-worldly monistic cosmology, thereby clarifying the intellectual tensions revealed by the Jesuit encounter with Chinese cosmology
China · Christianity · Monism · Monotheism · Mysticism · Power (physics · Religious pluralism · Worship · Chinese history and philosophy · Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond · Japanese History and Culture
| Highly cited | No |
|---|