Chapter 95. Confucius and the Making of a State Orthodoxy

Kongzi (traditionally 551–479 BCE), latinised as Confucius, was a disappointed minor official in his lifetime. Within four centuries he was the patron sage of an empire, and from 1313 to 1910 his canon was memorised by every candidate for office. This chapter follows that transformation through his teaching, the rival heirs Mencius and Xunzi, the Han state religion, Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucian orthodoxy and the modern quarrel over whether Confucianism is a religion at all. Throughout, the doctrine’s political function stays in view, from the duty of ministers to the right to depose a ruler.

A minor official of Lu

The translator’s introduction to the Hackett Analects is cautious about biography. Most traditional details come from Sima Qian’s Record of the Historian (c. 100 BCE), “much of which clearly consists of legend and literary invention”. From the Analects itself we learn that Confucius was a native of Lu, of humble means, and a member of the shi, “the lowest of the three classes of public office holders” [Analects, with selections from traditional commentaries, #40662, Introduction, “The Age of Confucius”]. He belonged to the ru, specialists “concerned with transmitting and preserving the traditional rituals and texts of the Zhou Dynasty”. Lu was the fief of the Duke of Zhou’s descendants and “preserved Zhou culture more or less intact” [#40662, n. 7]. Power in Lu had been usurped by the “Three Families”, whose use of royal rites appalled Confucius as “a transgression against the very structure of the cosmos” [#40662]. On his career the introduction is plain:

“Confucius himself probably never held anything more than minor posts in his lifetime, failing to realize his ambition of being employed at a high level, under a virtuous ruler, so that he could put his vision into practice. He did, however, gather around himself a fairly sizeable group of disciples, some of whom managed to obtain high governmental posts after the Master’s death” [#40662, Introduction].

The sources disagree on when the West coined the Master’s name and the word “Confucianism”. The Analects translator says the latinised “Confucius” was “bestowed upon him by Jesuit missionaries in the 18th century” [#40662]. Archer says the term “Confucianism” “is of Western origin and not found in the writings of Chinese scholars prior to the latter part of our seventeenth century, when the Jesuits began to use it. Ju-chiao is the Chinese term, historically” [Archer, Faiths Men Live By, #55131, earlier edition, ch. 4 n. 1]. Both agree that the label is a Jesuit construct imposed on what Chinese called the “scholar-teaching” (ju-chiao).

The Way of Zhou: ritual, humaneness and the gentleman

The Analects introduction reads Confucius as a religious reformer who saw his age as fallen. The ideal was the Golden Age of the sage-kings and the early Zhou: “The Zhou gazes down upon the two dynasties that preceded it. How brilliant in culture it is! I follow the Zhou” (3.14). The ideal ruler acted by wu-wei: Shun “made himself reverent and took his [ritual] position facing South, that is all” (15.5). Decline meant empty externals. Filial piety had become mere feeding (“even dogs and horses are provided with nourishment”, 2.7), and the conformist “village worthy” was “the thief of Virtue” (17.13). On human nature there is one saying: “By nature people are similar; they diverge as the result of practice” (17.2) [#40662].

Archer analyses the moral vocabulary. Jen (ren) is “an inward and spiritual love for all mankind, of which i … what is right to do, is the outward and visible manifestation”. Li “has a root and a flower”: its root is sincerity and reverence, and its flower is “rites and ceremonies, harmonious social relationships, and good government” [#55131, ch. 3, “Ceremony”]. The golden rule appears in negative form in Analects 15.23. Mitchell Heisman quotes it as “Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you” [Heisman, Suicide Note, #38252, Part II].

Mencius and Xunzi: the right to depose and the crooked stick

The two Warring States heirs divided over human nature, and their division had political consequences. The Analects introduction notes that the distinction between “internal” and “external” goods “begins in the commentarial tradition with Mencius”. Internal goods are the Confucian virtues, “which have moral value and can be sought after and attained through human effort”. External goods, “such as wealth, fame, or longevity”, are “ultimately outside of human control” [#40662, n. 8, citing Mencius 7:A:3].

Archer lists Mencius’ political doctrines: “The people are Heaven’s great concern”; “the state is born of the people and on occasion may be modified or overthrown by them”; and rulers, as Heaven’s agents, should “see according as the people see”, for if they “outrage the benevolence and righteousness proper to their nature and their office, they may be deposed” [#55131, ch. 4, “Mencius: Major Doctrines”]. Mencius thus directed the system “toward democracy by his theory that the welfare of the people is the end of government … and that unjust rulers may be overthrown by rebellion morally justified” [#55131, ch. 4]. Archer nonetheless calls Mencius’ exaltation of the individual “harmful to religion”.

Xunzi took the opposite view. In Archer’s summary, man is “a ‘crooked stick’ in need of straightening”, and “eliminating prayer, providence, spirits, divination, and the supernatural, he placed man fundamentally upon his own resources” [#55131, ch. 4, “Hsün-tze”]. The politics of the student followed: the Analects introduction notes that Xunzi taught Hanfeizi and Li Si, “the two Legalists thinkers who helped the first Emperor of Qin unify China in 221 b.c.e.” [#40662].

From burned books to state religion

The first emperor, Archer writes, “ordered most of the Confucian Classics burned, because, he said, they blocked the way of progress” [#55131, ch. 4]. The Analects introduction dates the burning to 213 BCE, and its chronology says that by the first century BCE “a syncretic form of Confucianism becomes the state religion” [#40662, “Traditional Chronology”]. Peter Stanford tells the same story in his Romanian-language survey. The Qin policy proved unpopular, and once the Han replaced the emperor, Confucian principles were popular again. The Han dynasty “lasted until 220 AD and confirmed Confucianism as a religion” by raising Confucius to perfection (“a confirmat confucianismul ca religie”). Stanford also notes that the Analects line “What joy to welcome friends from afar” opened the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He quotes Confucius: “He who rules his state on a moral basis will be supported by the people, as the pole star is surrounded by all the other stars” [Stanford, 50 de idei … Religie, #77349, “Confucianism”].

Zhu Xi and the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy

After an eclipse by Buddhism under the Sui and Tang, Confucianism was “officially revived in the Song Dynasty by the so-called ‘neo-Confucian’ school”. Zhu Xi’s “Four Books”, with his commentary, “became the basis of China’s civil service examination, and were therefore memorized by every educated Chinese person from 1313 until the last nationwide exam in 1910” [#40662, Introduction]. The translator warns that Zhu Xi “read quite a bit of anachronistic Buddhist metaphysics into the Analects” [#40662].

Archer presents Chu Hsi (1130–1200) as the “great Chinese monistic rationalist”. The universe is matter (chi) and law (li), but “the ‘matter’ (chi) of Chu Hsi seems to have been in its primordial form pure spirit”, which law sets rotating to produce yang and yin and the five agents [#55131, ch. 4, “Chu Hsi’s Theory of the Universe”]. Politically, “Chu Hsi raised Confucianism again to the place of pre-eminence and made it the state religion. Every other faith was required to recognize it by erecting in their temples and mosques and on their altars tablets of loyalty to the emperor” [#55131, ch. 4]. Through the examinations, religious orthodoxy and bureaucratic recruitment became one institution.

Religion or philosophy?

Archer answers that Confucius was religious. “He recognized invisible Power and powers—Heaven and the spirits. He felt that Heaven ‘knew him,’ had entrusted him with his mission, and would sustain him against his enemies”, and “he commended sacrifice as the chief method of approach to Heaven and the spirits” [#55131, ch. 4]. The Analects introduction likewise reads the text as “a powerful religious and moral vision” [#40662].

Archer also documents the opposite reading. Tsai Yuan-p’ei held that Confucianism “was not even a religion”, and the La Jeunesse radicals under Chen Tu-hsiu “opposed not only all religions but religion itself” [#55131, ch. 4]. Politics drove the swings. In reaction against Christian missions, Confucius “was elevated on December 31, 1906, by Imperial Rescript, to equal rank with Heaven”. Yuan Shih-k’ai restored sacrifice in 1914 as part of his ambition “to make himself emperor”. In 1948–49 Wing-tsit Chan found Confucian temples used as barracks and “a garbage dump”, and the Communist government then abolished the national holiday for Confucius [#55131, ch. 4].

Confucian orthodoxy had practical effects beyond the court. Tarique Qayumi’s chapter in Toledo-Pereyra’s surgical history states that “according to Confucian teaching, the human body is sacred and therefore it cannot be dissected”, so Chinese medicine remained “traditionally noninvasive” [Toledo-Pereyra (ed.), Vignettes on Surgery, History and Humanities, #34844, ch. 4 “Ancient Far East”]. In Korea, Octavian Simu reports, “Confucianism rejected the shamanic rituals” (“confucianismul a respins ritualurile şamanice”) [Simu, Şamanismul, #48977], a conflict taken up in the Korea chapter of this Part.

Heisman: Confucianism and early Judaism

Mitchell Heisman draws the most pointed comparison in the library. After noting that “the creation of the Jews began with a decree of ‘supernatural’ law”, he writes:

“Of the major religions, Confucianism might be the closest analog to early Judaism. It is not simply because Confuscius’s golden rule, ‘Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you’ (Analects 15:23), is virtually identical to Hillel’s; versions of the same golden rule can be found in nearly all the major religions. Judaism and Confucianism both emphasize ancestral wisdom as a guide for living in this world. They both emphasize behavior more than belief” [Heisman, Suicide Note, #38252, Part II].

Elsewhere Heisman states that “original Judaism is more about behavior in this world than belief” [#38252, Part II].

Key points

• Confucius (traditionally 551–479 BCE) probably “never held anything more than minor posts”, but his disciples gained office after his death (#40662).
• The sources disagree on when the Jesuits coined the Western name: late seventeenth century for “Confucianism” (Archer) or the eighteenth century for “Confucius” (#40662). The Chinese term is ju-chiao.
• His teaching restores the Way of Zhou, preserved in Lu: ritual with a “root and a flower”, inner ren, sincere filial piety, and the negative golden rule (15.23).
• Mencius separated internal from external goods and, in Archer’s account, held that rulers who outrage righteousness “may be deposed”. Xunzi’s pupils became the Legalists of Qin.
• The Han made a syncretic Confucianism the state religion, Stanford says until 220 CE. Zhu Xi’s Four Books governed the examinations from 1313 to 1910.
• Archer argues Confucius was religious (“Heaven ‘knew him'”), while Chinese modernists denied that Confucianism was a religion. Its state status rose and fell with politics from 1906 to 1949.
• Heisman calls Confucianism “the closest analog to early Judaism”: both emphasise ancestral wisdom and behaviour over belief.