Sheng Ren in the Figurists’ Reinterpretation of the Yijing

Christian missions to China have sought to make their message more acceptable to their Chinese audience by expressing, in translations of Christian texts, Christian terms and concepts in language borrowed from China’s indigenous Buddhist, Confucian, and Daoist traditions. The Jesuits were especially renowned for their accommodation policy. Interestingly, when the Jesuit Figurists arrived in China in the early Qing dynasty, they conducted exhaustive studies on the Chinese classics, studies in which they identified Tian and Di of Chinese culture with God or Deus in Latin; their descriptions of Jesus and Adam were decorated with “chinoiserie” through their association with the Yijing and Chinese mystical legends. Each Figurist, in investigating Figurism and interpreting the Yijing, had his own identity, focus, and trajectory. The Figurist use of sheng ren was employed in this paper to distinguish each signature approach and how they explained the image of Jesus and prelapsarian Adam using the ethical emotions and virtues of a sheng ren 聖人 in their reinterpretation of the Yijing and the Dao. This also led to the European people aspiring for a more in-depth understanding and more discussion of the Yijing and the Dao.