“China too has its Aristotle”: the Zhongyong 中庸 “Sinarum Scientia Politico-Moralis” and the Jesuits’ Fascination with Confucius”

The translation of the Chinese Four books served to learn and teach the Chinese language but above all, to fully understand the culture of the Chinese intellectuals. On December 10, 1593, Matteo Ricci wrote that he was asked to translate the Four books into Latin so as to formulate a new catechism. The reading of the Four books was fundamental to capture Chinese thought and to address the common features and cross-cultural concepts between two distant geographical, cultural and social environments. In the Four books, and, as a whole in the Five Classics, Matteo Ricci uncovered numerous passages that support “the truth of our faith”. The paper provides an excursus of the Jesuits’ translation of the Four books, from Matteo Ricci to Prosper Intorcetta, with particular emphasis on the Sinarum scientia politico-moralis.