That some of Europe’s most gifted men voluntarily immersed themselves in Confucian philosophy only confirmed confidence in the Chinese world's superiority.

It soon became apparent to the new arrival, an astronomer and missionary named Ferdinand Verbiest, that he had reached the Middle Kingdom at a deeply inauspicious moment in Sino-Western relations.

A year or so later, Verbiest made his way to Beijing, where he embarked upon the defense of Adam Schall, a German astronomer accused by xenophobic Confucian ministers of plotting insurrection against the emperor.

Chinese justice

The imperial verdict does not, perhaps, testify to Verbiest’s skills in advocacy: Schall was condemned to death by strangulation, while Verbiest himself was imprisoned.

Fortunately for the two northern Europeans, an earthquake in 1665 shook the emperor’s confidence in his own judgements and an amnesty secured their release. Schall, broken by his captivity, died within a year.

A little luck goes a long way

Verbiest — a better astronomer than advocate — stayed on in Beijing until 1669, when an incompetent Confucian official gave him an opportunity to win the favor of the new teenage emperor, Kangxi.

Verbiest was one of several hundred Jesuits dispatched to China as part of the proselytizing Catholic diaspora to the new, extra-European world.

On Christmas Day 1668, the president of the Bureau of Astronomy — Schall’s former accuser — published a calendar for 1669. Verbiest challenged it and volunteered to prove his superior expertise in a competitive experiment.

Two weeks and a correct prediction of the height and angle of the sun later, Verbiest became the new director of the Bureau of Astronomy. His opponent was dismissed and arrested.

By his death in 1688 — at which point he was fluent in six languages, including Chinese and Manchu — Verbiest had laboured for almost two decades on behalf of the imperial court.

Leisurely pursuits

He had drawn up calendars, built huge and elaborate astronomical instruments, as well as an observatory in which to use them, and overseen the forging of 132 large cannons (on which he eccentrically inscribed the names of male and female Christian saints), subsequently used to arm China’s city walls.

When not engaged in state projects, he was occupied in devising more frivolous knick-knacks for the emperor’s pleasure: sundials, water clocks and pumps for water features in palace gardens.

Perhaps his most innovative moment was an early attempt at an automobile, in which he strapped a boiler on to an oven, attached a paddle wheel, gears and wheels, and steam-motored around the corridors of the Forbidden City for an hour or so.

From the prison to the court

In the process, he struck up a close and affectionate working relationship with Kangxi, whose civil servant he effectively became.

By most reckonings, Verbiest was a remarkable man. To travel to the Far East and become the favourite astronomer-inventor of the Chinese emperor was, by 17th century Belgian standards, unusual. Among his immediate peers, however, his career and travels were not

St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, decreed that his followers should study the language of whichever country they operated in.

entirely exceptional.

Verbiest, like Schall, was one of several hundred Jesuits dispatched to China from the 16th century onwards, part of the proselytizing Catholic diaspora to the new, extra-European world in the wake of Columbus’s voyages of discovery, and one of a handful of these priests who won access to the heartland of imperial power.

As a firm imperial favourite, in the early 1680s Verbiest accompanied his Qing patron twice — on one trip alone with 60,000 men, 100,000 horses, a "massive equipage of drums and musical instruments" and the emperor’s grandmother — on safari in Manchuria as measurer-in-chief.

Opening China

"I was to be always at the Emperor’s side," Verbiest recorded, "so that I might make in his presence the necessary observations for determining the state of the heavens the elevation of the Pole the grade of the terrain — and to calculate with my mathematical instruments the height and distance of the mountains. He could also conveniently ask me to tell him about meteorites, and any other problems of physics or mathematics."

The Jesuit’s missionary activities were predicated on the principle of cultural adaptation. First of all, St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the order, decreed that his followers should study the language of whichever country they operated in.

He also stipulated no distinctive habit — thus enabling, at least in theory, members of the order to integrate themselves into their local environment.

Culture matters, as do manners

Second, the Jesuit order concentrated on instructing its members in the most advanced aspects of Western culture and learning, in order to be able to sell European religion as part of a complete and practical package of civilization and knowledge to potential believers.

Verbiest was one of a handful of these priests who won access to the heartland of imperial power.

Recognizing China as the sophisticated, highly literate society that it was, the Jesuits were well equipped to tackle two tasks there: First to please the Chinese by demonstrating that they were both sufficiently morally and intellectually elevated to study Chinese culture. And second, to achieve sufficient fluency in the Chinese language to convey to potential converts the merits of their own Christian culture and learning.

In 1577, the senior Jesuit in charge of the East Asian operation ordered priests to start learning Chinese. Five years later, after the Jesuits had started to learn how to observe Chinese etiquette — above all, how to kowtow — they were granted a small patch of land on the southern Chinese mainland where they would build a house and church.

Breaching the heartland

The diligent application of Matteo Ricci — the most famous Jesuit and the first to reach the Chinese capital — to the scholarship of both Europe (science, mathematics, geography, theology) and China (its language, its Confucian literature and philosophy) during the 23 years he spent in China won him an invitation to Beijing, where he lived for the last nine years of his life.

In Beijing, he established — at the very center of the Chinese world — a Catholic presence that was inherited by his successors, including the unfortunate Adam Schall.

The way things were (and may be again)

Thanks to Ricci’s linguistic brilliance and hard work, Catholic priests were no longer facing inevitable imprisonment, torture and expulsion (dead or alive) from China. Even so, the Jesuit position was always vulnerable

China was the magnetic center to which tribute offerings were inevitably brought by admirers — but radical cultural alternatives could never be envisaged.

to the jealousy of court astronomers eager to discredit their rivals as foreign traitors, as Schall painfully discovered.

But an objective assessment of the career of Ricci — and of later Jesuits whose position in Beijing was made possible by his diligence — suggests that on both material and psychological levels China emerged the victor of this East-West encounter.

The Chinese were able to enjoy the most advanced fruits of Western learning, as expounded by the learned Jesuits. Seeing some of Europe’s most gifted, erudite men voluntarily immerse themselves in Confucian philosophy could only have confirmed confidence in the superiority of the Chinese world.

How times have changed

They were also pleased to see that the external attributes of Western civilization (maps, astronomical instruments, cannon) could be safely and even usefully absorbed into the fundamentals of Chinese culture — without in any way threatening the pre-eminence of the latter.

In Chinese eyes, China was the magnetic centre to which tribute offerings were inevitably brought by admirers — but to which serious, radical cultural alternatives could never be envisaged.