Of the many systems of religion in the world, but few are based upon the teachings of one person. The reputed founders of some of them are not known in history with any certainty, and of others—as in the case of Buddhism—have become almost as shadows among a great throng of imaginary Buddhas or other beings which have sprung from the fancies of the brain and become incorporated into the systems, although the original teachers may indeed have been historical.
Confucius is a clear and distinct historic person. His parentage, place of birth, public life, offices, work and teaching, are well known and properly authenticated. He used the pen freely, and not only compiled, edited and transmitted the writings of his predecessors, but composed an historical and interpretative book. He originated nothing, however, but on the contrary disowned any purpose of introducing new ideas, or of expressing thoughts of his own not based upon or in perfect harmony with the teaching of the ancients. He was not an original thinker. He was a compiler, an editor, a defender and reproclaimer of the ancient religion, and an exemplar of the wisdom and writings of the Chinese fathers. He felt that his duty was exactly that which some Christian theologians of to-day conscientiously feel to be theirs—to receive intact a certain "deposit" or "system" and, adding nothing to it, simply to teach, illuminate, defend, enforce and strongly maintain it as "the truth." He gloried in absolute freedom from all novelty, anticipating in this respect a certain illustrious American who made it a matter for boasting, that his school had never originated a new idea.[1] Whether or not the Master Kung did nevertheless, either consciously or unconsciously, modify the ancient system by abbreviating or enlarging it, we cannot now inquire.
Confucius wan born into the world in the year 551 B.C., during that wonderful century of religious revival which saw the birth of Ezra, Gautama, and Lao Tsze, and in boyhood he displayed an unusually sedate temperament which made him seem to be what we would now call an "old-fashioned child." The period during which he lived was that of feudal China. From the ago of twenty-two, while holding an office in the state of Lu within the modern province of Shan-Tung, he gathered around him young men as pupils with whom, like Socrates, he conversed in question and answer. He made the teachings of the ancients the subjects of his research, and he was at all times a diligent student of the primeval records. These sacred books are called King, or Kiō in Japanese, and are: Shu King, a collection of historic documents; Shih King, or Book of Odes; Hsiao King, or Classic of Filial Piety, and Yi King, or Book of Changes.[2] This division of the old sacred canon, resembles the Christian or non-Jewish arrangement of the Old Testament scriptures in the four parts of Law, History, Poetry and Prophesy, though in the Chinese we have History, Poetry, Ethics and Divination.[3]
His own table-talk, conversations, discussions and notes were compiled by his pupils, and are preserved in the work entitled in English, "The Confucian Analects," which is one of the four books constituting the most sacred portion of Chinese philosophy and instruction. He also wrote a work named "Spring and Autumn, or Chronicles of his Native State of Lu from 722 B.C., to 481[4] B.C." He "changed his world," as the Buddhists say, in the year 478 B.C., having lived seventy-three years.
Primitive Chinese Faith.
The pre-Confucian or primitive faith was monotheistic, the forefathers of the Chinese nation having been believers in one Supreme Spiritual Being. There is an almost universal agreement among scholars in translating the term "Shang Ti" as God, and in reading from these classics that the forefathers "in the ceremonies at the altars of Heaven and earth ... served God." Concurrently with the worship of one Supreme God there was also a belief in subordinate spirits and in the idea of revelation or the communication of God with men. This restricted worship of God was accompanied by reverence for ancestors and the honoring of spirits by prayers and sacrifices, which resulted, however, neither in deification nor polytheism. But, as the European mediæval schoolmen have done with the Bible, so, after the death of Confucius the Chinese scholastics by metaphysical reasoning and commentary, created systems of interpretation which greatly altered the apparent form and contents of his own and of the ancient texts. Thus, the original monotheism of the pre-Confucian documents has been completely obscured by the later webs of sophistry which have been woven about the original scriptures. The ancient simplicity of doctrine has been lost in the mountains of commentary which were piled upon the primitive texts. Throughout the centuries, the Confucian system has been conditioned and greatly modified by Taoism, Buddhism and the speculations of the Chinese wise men.
Confucius, however, did not change or seriously modify the ancient religion except that, as is more than probable, he may have laid unnecessary emphasis upon social and political duties, and may not have been sufficiently interested in the honor to be paid to Shang Ti or God. He practically ignored the God-ward side of man's duties. His teachings relate chiefly to duties between man and man, to propriety and etiquette, and to ceremony and usage. He said that "To give one's self to the duties due to men and while respecting spiritual beings to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom."[5]
We think that Confucius cut the tap-root of all true progress, and therefore is largely responsible for the arrested development of China. He avoided the personal term, God (Ti), and instead, made use of the abstract term, Heaven (Tien). His teaching, which is so often quoted by Japanese gentlemen, was, "Honor the Gods and keep them far from you." His image stands in thousands of temples and in every school, in China, but he is only revered and never deified.
China has for ages suffered from agnosticism; for no normal Confucianist can love God, though he may learn to reverence him. The Emperor periodically worships for his people, at the great marble altar to Heaven in Peking, with vast holocausts, and the prayers which are offered may possibly amount to this: "Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name." But there, as it seems to a Christian, Chinese imperial worship stops. The people at large, cut off by this restricted worship from direct access to God, have wandered away into every sort of polytheism and idolatry, while the religion of the educated Chinese is a mediæval philosophy based upon Confucianism, of which we shall speak hereafter.
The Confucian system as a religion, like a giant with a child's head, is exaggerated on its moral and ceremonial side as compared with its spiritual development. Some deny that it is a religion at all, and call it only a code. However, let us examine the Confucian ethics which formed the basis and norm of all government in the family and nation, and are summed up in the doctrine of the "Five Relations." These are: Sovereign and Minister; Father and Son; Husband and Wife; Elder Brother and Younger Brother; and Friends. The relation being stated, the correlative duty arises at once. It may perhaps be truly said by Christians that Confucius might have made a religion of his system of ethics, by adding a sixth and supreme relation—that between God and man. This he declined to do, and so left his people without any aspiration toward the Infinite. By setting before them only a finite goal he sapped the principles of progress.[6]