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A few weeks I read a The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800. A fair proportion of the book discussed the introduction of Roman Catholicism into China during the late Ming period (early 17th century) down to the denouement of the rites controversy. Because China and the West had developed on different intellectual tracks for 2,000 years before this meeting of the minds, so to speak, the Jesuits had to grapple with the fact that details of translation were of great import. For example, they introduced the neologism Lord of Heaven to distinguish their monotheistic god from the traditional Chinese concepts of Lord on High and Heaven (the personal and impersonal forms of the divine respectively). The missionaries were worried about conflations within the Chinese mind between the new religion and their preexistent supernatural beliefs; an issue emphasized by the repeated lack of distinction by locals between the exoteric aspects of Roman Catholicism and Pure Land Buddhism. Speaking of which, the Jesuits regularly utilized realistic European paintings of religious scenes, individuals and events, in their attempt to impress & imprint upon the natives the sensory pageantry of Counter-Reformation Catholicism. But they had to cease displays of the Madonna with the infant Jesus because Mary was often assumed to be a rendering of Guan Yin, a bodhisattva of compassion. Now reading T’ang China I stumble upon a passage where the author points to scholars who suggest that the evolution of the male bodhisattva Avalokitesvara into Guan Yin and the associated imagery was influenced by Nestorian Christianity’s depiction of Mary! It is not surprising that crypto-Christians in Japan cloaked their Mary veneration within devotions to the Japanese variant of Guan Yin.
The possibility that Guan Yin might be phylogenetically related to Mary mother of Jesus is only that, a possibility. Alternatively, it seems plausible that both serve as a specific focus for relatively universal cognitive reflexes easily evoked in most contexts. Nevertheless, it would be richly ironic if the Jesuits turned away from excessive attention to Mary because of a confusion with Guan Yin because the latter had integrated aspects of Mary into her persona and presentation in the first place! From the outside as an irreligious person the often vacuous assertions of religious liberals that all faiths manifest the same truths actually makes some sense; but whereas the religious would interpret the truth as a transcendent supernatural one the materialist would simply give the nod to universal human psychological propensities intersecting with generic exogenous inputs (e.g., you look upon the star filled sky and feel a sense of awe). All that being said, to many religious people the specific name given to these cognitive constructs is very, very, important. In the days of yore when religion was simply an extension of tribal custom & tradition adherence to the name of a god was a cultural marker. All men are fundamentally human, variations upon the theme, but in a patrilineage which specific man you are descended from (at least notionally) determine all aspects of your social relations. Similarly, which god to which you bend the knee is critical in determining your circle of kin and fictive kin. The basic building blocks are psychologically universal, but the specific twists are socially functional, leveraging other cognitive tendencies in the process (conformity and xenophobia). Remember, the last of the pagan philosophers quipped that the Christians of the time were killing each other over one letter, i, whether one adhered to the doctrine of homoiousia or homoousia. Though to be fair, the difference was over the weighty matter of whether the three aspects of the Trinity were of similar or same substance…whatever that means.
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Catholic missionaries made universal use of the fact that Mary tends to be confused/assimilated to pre-existing pagan deities. In America, existing Pachamama cults were repackaged in the Marianist tradition, and the many Mary cults witness that it worked. I dont understand what is the problem that Ming period Chinese should see their Goddess of the Sea in Mary. It should have made acceptance of Christianism much easier.
The Catholic church sent an extraordinary group of Jesuits to convert the Far East (starting with Father Ricci), and we should be very careful not to misunderstand their actions and teachings.
“Catholic missionaries made universal use of the fact that Mary tends to be confused/assimilated to pre-existing pagan deities.” Well, she is one, isn’t she?
” Well, she is one, isn’t she?”
A protestent in our midst! I think I’ll say the rosary later.
Well pagan is a of a bit silly term, as once incorporated in syncretic Christianity she becomes Christian. As Razib points out there are “universal cognitive reflexes”: probably the need for a female Mother God. I get the impression the Earth, and/or Gaia is seen as female to the adherents of environmentalist religiosity.
Mary’s position in folk Catholicism does rightly appall intellectual protestants, as she should be merely human whilst Jesus is part of the Trinity, the single god, as is God The Father and the other chap. Some folk Catholics see the mother as almost like married to the Father. Blasphemy to Presbyterians.
Still intellectual protestantism is nonsense anyway since they still have the Trinity – a big ole intellectual compromise.
I, being cultural catholic, prefer Catholicism ( or High Anglicaism etc.) as the music, buidlings, and atmosphere are more refined than a protestant barn. The Tridentine is even better.
Similar in substance, is quite different than same substance. Same substance would make you of the same being, but behind the scenes ( as if substance were the code that made you up).
Catholic missionaries made universal use of the fact that Mary tends to be confused/assimilated to pre-existing pagan deities. In America, existing Pachamama cults were repackaged in the Marianist tradition, and the many Mary cults witness that it worked. I dont understand what is the problem that Ming period Chinese should see their Goddess of the Sea in Mary. It should have made acceptance of Christianism much easier.
you really need to be careful in comparing the indigenous religion of the new world with ming and manchu china. a moment of reflection (try it, it’s good for you, take your medication if you need to) will remind you that the chinese were in the position of rejecting european ambassadors as beneath them until around 1800. the jesuits encountered a civilization as old and sophisticated as their own, in any attempts to acculturate christianity they rightly feared that their own ideas would be absorbed and transmuted into a form of chinese religion, rather than the chinese adopting a form of christianity. the peoples of the new world were under iberian domination and the roman catholic church was fused with temporal power. not so in china, where catholicism had to find acceptance as one cult among many cults. as an example of what might have happened there were probably around 1 million manichaeans in china during the early years of the ming, but today all that remains is the cult of the moni buddha. the jesuits didn’t know, but there had once been a substantial nestorian christian community in china as well which had been absorbed by the time the catholics were on the scene.
Just like da vinci code………
The armenian “Pagan” goddess Anahita has been appropriated as virgin Mary and is still being worshipped that way.
Kjs,
Well many people would link the Virgin Mary, and particularly when she is depicted holding the infant Jesus, as being a depiction of the Egyptian Isis and infant Horus – and even more so when she is depicted as a Black Madonna?!
Another irony is that the reason there was a “Nestorian” church in China, was because their founder Nestorius refused the veneration of Mary and so got booted East of the Empire.
The Church then and still does call Mary the “mother of God” (theotokos, “bearer of God”, in Greek). Nestorius preferred to call her “Christotokos” – which seems like an honorific, until one realises that it is designed to co-opt the familiar term and to remove the whole point of the thing.
Another irony is that the reason there was a “Nestorian” church in China, was because their founder Nestorius refused the veneration of Mary and so got booted East of the Empire.
my understanding is that the church of the east/persian church doesn’t even claim that they are nestorians. it’s confusing….
Guan Yin =/= Tian Hou.
No confusion, j.