Behind the Façade of the Rites Controversy: The Intriguing Contrast of Chinese and European Theism

The Chinese rites controversy of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries has been often studied, but hitherto mostly as a quasi‐linguistic‐and‐technical dispute between the followers of Matteo Ricci, the legendary founder of the Jesuit China mission, and his many different enemies in the Catholic Church. In reality the involved debate was much more complex than that at every turn. To show this and more, this article takes a close look again at how and why Chinese terms and customs came to figure in Ricci's proselytising work in China, how they were challenged both inside and outside the Jesuit China mission, how the Chinese reacted and why, and what the debate revealed about the intriguing contrast of Chinese and European theism.