Confucius in Dutch-Made Learned Journals

Abstract

In August 1687, the Nouvelles de la République des lettres was the first learned journal in Europe to announce the publication of Confucius Sinarum philosophus (1687). The advertisement for the book informed the reader that Philippe Couplet’s translation ‘can be found in Amsterdam at Henry Desbordes’, who, not coincidentally, also happened to be the publisher of the Nouvelles.1 Many journals followed with announcements and reviews of the Confucius translation. A month later, the Histoire des ouvrages & de la vie scavans published the first full review and, in December, the Bibliothèque universelle et historique discussed the work in depth.2 Evidently, the subject interested other European countries as well; in October, the Philosophical transactions of London paid considerable attention to the book, followed by Le journal des sçavans of Paris in January 1688. Leipzig’s Acta eruditorum, Monatsgespräche from Halle, and Parma’s Giornale de’letterati soon joined the ranks.3 In the panoply of books discussed by early modern erudite periodicals, Confucius Sinarum philosophus held a special place.4 The work was by no means an early modern ‘best-seller’, as it was never reprinted nor fully translated into even (for the time) the most obvious European languages such as French, German, or Dutch. However, the appearance of numerous reviews soon after publication suggests that the work nevertheless had a considerable impact on the learned European world. In fact, although erudite periodicals reviewed hundreds of publications each year, the Jesuit translation of Confucius was the only book published in 1687 that was discussed by every major journal. In this single act, the learned journals demonstrate clearly how Europe became increasingly preoccupied with China during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. These broadly available publications brought the Middle Kingdom to the fore as an intellectual phenomenon, in part because