Confucius and Cicero Roma Sinica
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Confucius and Cicero Roma Sinica Mutual Interactions between Ancient Roman and Eastern Thought Edited by Andrea Balbo and Jaewon Ahn Advisory Board Michele Ferrero, Lee Kangjae, David Konstan, Fritz-Heiner Mutschler, Carlo Santini, Alessandro Schiesaro, Aldo Setaioli, Stefania Stafutti Volume 1 Confucius and Cicero Old Ideas for a New World, New Ideas for an Old World Edited by Andrea Balbo and Jaewon Ahn The publication of this volume was made possible through the financial support of the Dipar- timento di Studi Umanistici (University of Turin) as well as of Seoul National University and the scholarly direction of the Société Internationale des Amis de Cicéron (SIAC, Paris). ISBN 978-3-11-061660-6 ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-061680-4 ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-061700-9 ISSN 2512-840X This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2019 Andrea Balbo and Jaewon Ahn, published Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston This book is published with open access at www.degruyter.com Cover image: Collage of two manuscripts – manuscript handscroll of Du Yu‘s Critical study of Spring and Autumn Annals and Zuo Zhuan, 7-8th century, located at the Fujii Saiseikai Yurinkan Museum, Kyoto, Japan, and Illuminated manuscript of Cicero‘s Epistolae ad familiares, BL Kings MS 23, f. 1, 17th century, digitised by the British Library. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com TableofContents RomaSinica and Confucius and Cicero: extending the boundaries and constructing relationships 1 A General perspectives Fritz-Heiner Mutschler ComparingConfucius and Cicero: Problems and Possibilities 7 B Aphilosophical approach Tongdong Bai(白彤东) The Private and the Public in the Republic and in the Analects 29 Graham Parkes Confucian and Daoist, Stoic and Epicurean. Some Parallels in Ways of Living 43 Jungsam Yum(염정삼) Mind, Heaven, and Ritual in the Xunzi 59 C Keytexts; translating Confucius intoLatin MicheleFerrero The Latin translations of Confucius’ Dialogues (Lun Yu). Acomparison of key concepts 73 Jaewon Ahn (안재원) Is Confucius aSinicus Cicero? 109 VI TableofContents D Keyconcepts: philosophy,literatureand culture Christian Høgel Humanitas: Universalism, equivocation, and basic criterion 129 Stéphane Mercier Becoming human(e): Confucius’ Wayto仁and the Imitation of Christ in Yi Byeok’s Essence of Sacred Doctrine (聖敎要旨; Seonggyoyoji) 141 Kihoon Kim (김기훈) Pietas in proSextoRoscio of Ciceroand Confucian 孝 (xiao) 155 Stefania Stafutti “Be modest and avoid wastefulness”:table mannersand beyond from Confucius to Xi Jinping 171 E Afinal consideration Yasunari Takada (高田 康成) Ciceroand Confucius: Similitude in Disguise 189 General bibliography 201 Index of names, main concepts and texts 211 Editors and Contributors 215 Roma Sinicaand Confucius and Cicero: extending the boundaries and constructing relationships This volume marks the official birth of the new De Gruyter series Roma Sinica: Mutual Interactions between AncientRoman and Eastern Thought.¹ This series² aims to cover agap in scholarlypublishing on the relationships between Ancient Greek and Roman culture and Chinese, Korean, and Japanese thought, and to draw amore precise picture of these connections,focusing on subjects such as philology, literature, philosophy, politics. In fact,the number of studies on the historical features of the contacts between Ancient East and West has grown in recent years, as testified by certain works.³ However,evenifweare sat- isfied with our level of knowledge of historicaland economic connections,we cannot saythe same for the history of thoughtinits various facets.For instance, ancient evidence about connections among ancient Roman, Greek, and Chinese authorsisvery poor.But,inthe XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, the Jesuit fathers, such as Ricci, Intorcetta, and Longobardi, described and discussed in manypas- sages of their books the thoughtofChinese philosophers and writers by using their ownculturalmemoriesascultivated Western men. These writers were well-versed not onlyinChristian textsand the Vulgate, but alsoinCicero, Sene- ca, Plutarch, and manyother ancient authors. They read ‘their’ China, ‘their’ Korea, and ‘their’ Japan with the eyes of men deeplyrooted in their culture, mak- ing comparisons – implicit or explicit – between Confucius, Meng Zhou, and Roman writers.Moreover,they composed their books in Latinand had thus to develop effective linguistic strategies to allow Western readers to understand Eastern thought. This fact authorizes us to investigate the modality,the features https://www.degruyter.com/dg/newsitem/279/neue-open-accessprojekte-in-den-alter tumswissenschaften-fr-de-gruyter- The directors of the series areAndrea Balbo (University of Turin) and Jaewon Ahn (Seoul Na- tional University). The Advisory Boardincludes Michele Ferrero (BeijingForeign Studies Univer- sity); LeeKangjae (Seoul National University); David Konstan (New York University); Fritz-Heiner Mutschler(em. Technische Universität Dresden); Carlo Santini (Former professor of Latin Lan- guageand Literatureatthe University of Perugia); Alessandro Schiesaro (University of Manches- ter);Aldo Setaioli (em. University of Perugia); Stefania Stafutti (University of Torino). Our bibliography does not aim to be exhaustive and stresses morerecenttexts. Afterthe clas- sic Ferguson (1978), we can refer, for instance, to Leslie/Gardiner (1996), Mutschler/Mittag (2008), and to the very recentMichelazzi(2018), asurvey of the most important sourceson the topic seen from ahistorian’spoint of view,and Renger (2018). OpenAccess. ©2019, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110616804-001 2 RomaSinicaand Confucius and Cicero and the history of this culturalreception. With Roma Sinica,wehope to build a meaningful contribution to the composition of this history.Morethanjust aser- ies, Roma Sinica sets out to open new perspectivesincomparative studies, taking amultidisciplinary approach within the humanities and offering scholars inter- ested in this field an opportunity to exchangeideas, to discuss their work, and to have it published by apublisherasprestigious as De Gruyter. The first step of this project was the international conference held in Turin on September 5-6th, 2017,with the title, “Confucius and Cicero: new ideas for an old world, old ideas for anew world.” The organizers approachedtwo pivotal figures of Eastern and Western civilization from an unusual angle. While Latin Jesuit sources seem more frequentlytobring together Seneca and Confucius, pa- pers in this volume have taken original approachestosearch out connections be- tween the twothinkers thatare not always so clear. The volume opens with an introductory section whereFritz-Heiner Mutschler (Comparing Confucius and Cicero:Problems and Possibilities)addresses the sub- ject of the conference, examining in depth the meaning and value of an inquiry into the opportunities and limits of the comparison between Cicero and Confu- cius. His concluding remarks are worth noting: “The comparison between Con- fucius and Ciceromay not be without pitfalls, but if it is done with circumspec- tion and caution towards hasty conclusions it can teach us much, not onlyabout the two individuals but also about the two cultures to which they belong.” The second section creates, as it were, the philosophical background from which acomparison between Confucius and Cicerocan develop. Tongdong Bai (ThePrivate and the Public in the Republic and in the Analects)draws acompar- ison between Plato’s Republic and Confucius’ Analects,two essential texts of po- litical philosophyinWestern and Eastern Culture, exploring which model can better account for the conflict between the privateand the public spheres.G. Parkes (Confucian and Daoist, Stoic and Epicurean. Some Parallels in Ways of Liv- ing)looks for possible opportunities of comparison between the philosophical ideas of the Stoics,Epicureans,and Daoists. Parkes’ perspective devotes great attention to modernproblems of ecology and the survival of the Earth. Jungsam Yum(Mind and Ritual in the Xunzi)carefullyexplores the meaning of Li 禮,rit- ual, going beyond Confucian boundaries in order to encounter Xunzi’sthought. The third section dealswith problems of translating Confuciusinto Latinas ameans of making his thought accessible to Western readers. M. Ferrero(The Latin translations of Confucius’ Dialogue – Lun Yu –.Acomparison of key con- cepts), in an extensive and rich paper,examines the translation choicesofkey Chinese conceptsinto Latin proposed by Ruggieri, Couplet,Zottoli, Cheung, and othertranslators from the end of XVIthcentury. Jaewon Ahn (Is Confucius aSinicus Cicero?) reflects on the character of the Latintranslations of some Chi- RomaSinicaand Confucius and Cicero 3 nese treatisesinthe Confucius SinarumPhilosophus sive Scientia Sinensis,pub- lished by order of Louis XIV in Paris in 1687. His conclusion supports the signifi- cant role playedbythis book in the reception of Chinese cultureinthe West. The fourth section tackles the problem of examining some key concepts which are of great importance both in Ciceronian and in Confucianthought,