François Noël (1651–1729) and his Latin translations of Confucian Classical books published in Prague in 1711

0453002 - OÚ 2016 RIV CZ eng J - Journal Article
Liščák, Vladimír
François Noël (1651–1729) and his Latin translations of Confucian Classical books published in Prague in 1711.
Anthropologia integra. Roč. 6, č. 2 (2015), s. 45-52. ISSN 1804-6657
Institutional support: RVO:68378009
Keywords : François Noël * Confucian classics * Latin translations
Subject RIV: AA - Philosophy ; Religion

The first acquaintance of Europe with Confucianism is contributed to Jesuits working in China in the 16th to 18th centuries. At the beginning was the translation of introduction to Da xue 大學 into Latin, published in Rome (Italy) in 1593. However, the first translation of the Confucian classic books, which attracted significant attention, was Confucius Sinarum Philosophus (Confucius, the Chinese philosopher), published in Paris in 1687. This publication has contained the annotated translation of three of Four Books of the Confucian canon. It is important, that new translation of the mentioned books was published in Prague in 1711. The author was François Noël (1651–1729), a Belgian (Flemish) poet, dramatist and Jesuit in China. His Sinensis Imperii Libri Classici Sex (Six Classics of Chinese Empire) has contained a new translation of the first three of the Four Books and added the Mencius (Mengzi 孟子). He also included in this book the Classic of Filial Piety (Xiao jing 孝經), one of the Thirteen Classics, as well as the Small Learning (Xiao xue 小學), a collection of texts put together for children by Zhu Xi 朱熹. The translations are divided up in small, numbered sections like the Chinese original. Noël’s work appears to be a serious attempt at a scholarly presentation of the ancient text, perhaps in deliberate contrast to the aims of the Jesuits who composed their Confucius Sinarum Philosophus half a century before.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0255541