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stition." The "perhaps" added t9 the last part of this conclusion shows the conscientiousness with which the founder acted in this matter. That the vulgar and indeed even most of the Chinese pagans mingled superstition with their national rites Ricci never denied; neither did he overlook the fact that the Chinese, like infidels in general, mixed super- stition with their most legitimate actions. In such cases superstition is only an accident which does not corrupt the substance of the just action itself, and Ricci thought this applied also to the rites. Con- sequent Iv he allowed the new Christians to continue the practice of them, avoiding everj-thing suggestive of superstition, and he gave them rules to assist them to discriminate. He believed, however, that this tolerance, though licit, should be limited by the necessitv of the case; whenever the Chinese Christian community should enjoy sufficient liberty, its customs, notably its manner of honouring the dead, must be brought into conformity with the customs of the rest of the Christian world. These principles of Father Ricci, controlled by his fellow-workers during his lifetime and after his death, served for fifty years as the guide of all the missionaries.

In 1631 the first mission of the Dominicans was foimded at Fu-kien by two Spanish religious; in 1633 two Franciscans, also Spanish, came to establish a mission of their order. The new missionaries were soon alarmed by the attacks on the purity of religion which they thought they discerned in the communi- ties founded by their predecessors. Without taking sufficient time perhaps to become acquainted with Chinese matters and to learn exactly what was done in the Jesuit missions they sent a denunciation to the bishops of the Philippines. The bishops referred it to Pope I'rban VIII (1635), and soon the public was informed. As early as 1638 a controversy began in the Philippines between the Jesuits in defence of their brethren on the one side and the Dominicans and Franciscans on the other. In 1643 one of the chief accu.sers, the Dominican, Jean-Baptiste Moralez, went to Rome to submit to the Holy See a series of "questions" or "doubts" which he said were con- troverted between the Jesuit missionaries and their rivals. Ten of the.se questions concerned the par- ticipation of Christians in the rites in honour of Confucius and the dead. Moralez's petition tended to show that the cases on which he requested the de- cision of the Holy See represented the practice au- thorized by the Society of Jesus; as soon as the Jesuits learned of this they declared that these cases were imaginary and that they had never allowed the Christians to take part in the rites as set forth by Moralez. In declaring the ceremonies illicit in its Decree of 12 Sept., 1645 (approved by Innocent X), the Congregation of the Propaganda gave the only possible reply to the questions referred to it.

In 1651 Father Martin Martini (author of the "NovuB Atlas Sicnensis") was aent from China to Rome by his brethren to give a true account of the Jf«uit8 pra^itices and permLssions with regard to the Chinese rites. This d(!legatc reached the Eternal City in 1654, and in 165.5 submitted four questions to the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. This supreme tribunal, in its Decree of 23 March, 1656, approved by Pope Alexander VII, sanctioned the practice of Ricci and his associates as set forth by Father Martini, declaring that the ceremonies in honour of Confucius and anccKtors ap7)eared to con- stitute "a purfly civil and political cult". Did this decrc* annul that of H>45? Conc<Tning this question, laid before the Holy Office by the Dominican, Father John de Poianco, tfie reply was (20 Nov., 1669) that \joih deereeH hhould remain "in their full force" and should be observed "a(cording to the questions, circumstancr*, and everything contained in the proposed doubts".

Meanwhile an understanding was reached by the hitherto divided missionaries. This reconciliation was hastened by the persecution of 1665 which as- sembled for nearly five years in the same house at Canton nineteen Jesuits, three Dominicans, and one Franciscan (then the sole member of his order in China). Profiting by their enforced leisure to agree on a uniform Apostolic method, the missionaries dis- cussed all the points on which the discipline of the Church should be adapted to the exigencies of the Chinese situation. After forty days of conferences, which terminated on 26 Jan., 1668, all (with the pos- sible exception of the Franciscan Antonio de Santa Maria, who was very zealous but extremely uncom- promising) subscribed to forty-two articles, the result of the deliberations, of which the forty-first was as follows: "As to the ceremonies by which the Chinese honour their master Confucius and the dead, the replies of the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition approved by our Holy Father Alexander VII, in 1656, must be followed absolutely because they are based on a very probable opinion, to which it is impossible to offset any evidence to the contrary, and, this probability assumed, the door of salvation must not be closed to the innumerable Chinese who would stray from the Christian religion if they were forbidden to do what they may do licitly and in good faith and which they cannot forego without serious injury." After the subscription, however, a new courteous discussion of this article in writing took place between Father Domingo Fernand(>z Navar- rete, superior of the Dominicans, and the most learned of the Jesuits at Canton. Navarrete finally appeared satisfied and on 29 Sept., 1669, submitted his written acceptance of the artic^le to the superior of the Jesuits. However, on 19 Dec. of this j^ear he secretly left Canton for Macao whence he went to Europe. There, and especially at Rome where he was in 1673, he sought from now on only to overthrow what had been attempted in the con- ferences of Canton. He published the "Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la mo- narchia de China" (I, Madrid, 1673; of vol. II, printed in 1679 and incomplete, only two copies are known). This work is filled with impassioned accusa- tions against the Jesuit missionaries regarding their methods of apostolate and especially their tolera- tion of the rites. Nevertheless, Navarrete did not succeed in inducing the Holy See to resume the ques- tion, this being reserved for Charles Maigrot, a member of the new Soci6t6 des Missions fitrangeres. Maigrot went to China in 1S3. He was Vicar Apostolic of Fu-kien, before being as yet a bishop, when, on 26 March, 1693, he addressed to the mis- sionaries of his vicariate a mandate proscribing the names T'ien and Shang-ti; forbidding that Christians be allowed to participate in or assist at "sacrifices or solemn oblations" in honour of Confucius or the dead; prescribing modifications of the inscriptions on the ancestral tablets; censuring and forbidding certain, according to him, too favourable ref(U-ences to the ancient Chinese philosophers; and, last but notleiistj declaring that the exposition made by Father Martini was not true and that consequently the approval which the latter had received from Rome was not to be relied on.

By order of Innocent XII, the Holy Office resumed in 1697 the study of the question on the documents furnished by the procurators of Mgr Maigrot and on those showing the opposite sith; brought by the repre- Sfjntativr's of the Jesuit missionaries. It is worthy of note that at this period a number of the mi.ssionaries outside the Society of Jesus, especially all the Augu.s- tinians, nearly all the Franciscans, and some Domini- cans, were converted to the practice of Ricci and the Jesuit missionaries. The difficulty of grasping the truth amid such diffen^nt representations of facts and