Historia Crítica

Hist. Crit. | eISSN 1900-6152 | ISSN 0121-1617

Juan Cobo, an Intercultural Bridge between the Hispanic World and China: The Dialogue between Christianity and Confucianism in the Shilu (1593)

No. 98 (2025-10-27)
  • José Antonio Cervera Jiménez
    El Colegio de México
    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6972-3897
https://doi.org/10.7440/histcrit98.2025.03

Abstract

Objective/context: This article aims to analyze the writings of Dominican missionary Juan Cobo
(c. 1547–1592), especially in his book Shilu, and to highlight his role as an intercultural mediator between China and the West, focusing on the field of philosophy. Once Cobo’s significance as an intercultural bridge
is established, it will be possible to clarify some of the key issues discussed by leading scholars in recent decades, such as the potential clash between European and Chinese thought, the possibility of meaningful
dialogue, the role of Jesuits and mendicants in the evangelization of China, and the relevance (or not) of describing the work of missionaries in China as a success or a failure. Methodology:First, the study will examine recent historiographical trends related to missionaries in China to set the context for Cobo’s work. Then, it will review the three works Cobo left behind in Manila before his untimely death: a letter in Spanish written in 1589; Beng Sim Po Cam, a book on Chinese philosophy translated into Spanish; and Shilu, his
most important work and one of the first books in Chinese to introduce the Catholic Christian religion from a rational perspective. The article will focus on analyzing selected passages from this last work, emphasizing its philosophical dimension and the challenges of translating certain terms, as well as creating a dialogue between Christianity and Confucianism. Originality: Although Cobo’s life and work have been examined by many researchers over the years, no study has thoroughly and concisely analyzed his three texts. Additionally, since most researchers who focus on missionaries in China concentrate on the Jesuits and their roles as scientists, studying a Dominican friar and the emphasis on dialogue in philosophy will address an important gap in research on Catholic missions in China. Conclusions: The book Shilu had limited circulation, and the short time Cobo had spent in contact with Chinese culture meant that the Chinese scholars for whom the work was intended could misinterpret some key philosophical and theological concepts. However, supporting some current researchers, I conclude that it is not possible to call “failure” Cobo’s attempt to build a philosophical bridge with Chinese scholars, and, in any case, his pioneering work is an outstanding example of intercultural mediation between China and the West.

Keywords: Christianity, Confucianism, intercultural mediation, Catholic missions in China, Dominicans in Asia

References

Bibliografía

Fuentes primarias

Fuentes primarias, manuscritos

Cobo, Juan. Libro chino intitulado Beng Sim Po Cam que quiere dezir Espejo rico del claro coraçon, O Riquezas y espejo con que se enriquezca y donde se mire el claro y limpio coraçon. Traducido en lengua castellana. Por fray Juan Cobo, de la Orden de Sto. Domingo. Manila, 1590. Biblioteca Nacional de

España, Mss 6040, https://bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/detalle/4175596.

Fuentes primarias impresas

Aduarte, Diego. Historia de la provincia del Santo Rosario de la Orden de Predicadores en Filipinas, Japón y China, 2 vols. Madrid: CSIC, [1640] 1962.

Cobo, Juan. 辨正教真傳實錄 (Bian Zheng jiao Zhenchuan Shilu,Auténtico registro de la discusión de la verdadera propagación de la religión ortodoxa). Manila: Imprenta de la Orden de Predicadores, 1593. Único ejemplar conservado, Biblioteca Nacional de España, referencia R/33396, https://bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/detalle/2532052

Remesal, Antonio. Historia de la provincia de S. Vicente de Chiapa y Guatemala de la Orden de Ntro. Glorioso Padre Sancto Domingo. Madrid: Francisco de Angulo, 1619.

Fuentes secundarias

Bonialian, Mariano. China en la América colonial. Bienes, mercados, comercio y cultura del consumo desde México hasta Buenos Aires. México, D. F./Buenos Aires: Instituto Mora/Biblos, 2014.

Borao, José Eugenio. “Observaciones sobre traductores y traducciones en la frontera cultural del mar de la China (siglos XVI y XVII)”. En Actas del V Congreso Internacional de la Asociación Asiática de Hispanistas, editado por Marta Muñoz, Mariona Anglada y José Miguel Blanco. Tamsui: SinoELE, 2018, 388-405.

Brockey, Liam M. Journey to the East. The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579-1724. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.

Busquets, Anna. “Primeros pasos de los dominicos en China: llegada e implantación”. Cauriensia 8 (2013): 191-214.

Carrillo, Rubén. Las gentes del mar Sangley. México, D. F.: Palabra de Clío, 2017.

Cervera, José Antonio. Tras el sueño de China. Agustinos y dominicos en Asia Oriental a finales del siglo XVI. Madrid: Plaza y Valdés, 2013.

Cervera, José Antonio. Cartas del Parián. Los chinos de Manila a finales del siglo XVI a través de los ojos de Juan Cobo y Domingo de Salazar. México, D. F.: Palabra de Clío, 2015.

Chan, Albert. “A Note on the Shih-lu of Juan Cobo”. Philippine Studies, n.° 37 (1989): 479-487.

Cheng, Anne. Historia del pensamiento chino. Barcelona: Bellaterra, 2002.

Ch’en, Ching-ho. The Chinese Community in the 16th Century Philippines. Tokio: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1968.

Chia, Lucille. “Chinese Books and Printing in the Early Spanish Philippines”. En Chinese Circulations. Capital, Commodities, and Networks in Southeast Asia, editado por Eric Tagliacozzo y Wen-Chin Chang. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011, 259-282.

Chu, Pingyi. “Trust, Instruments, and Cross-Cultural Scientific Exchanges: Chinese Debate over the Shape of the Earth, 1600-1800”. Science in Context 12, n.° 3 (1999): 385-412.

Crewe, Ryan Dominic. “Pacific Purgatory: Spanish Dominicans, Chinese Sangleys, and the Entanglement of Mission and Commerce in Manila, 1580-1620”. Journal of Early Modern History 19, n.° 4 (2015): 337-365.

Cummins, J. S. A Question of Rites. Friar Domingo Navarrete and the Jesuits in China. Cambridge: Scolar Press, 1993.

Dunne, George H. Generation of Giants, the Story of the Jesuits in China in the Last Decades of the Ming Dynasty. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1962.

Elizalde Pérez-Grueso, María Dolores, ed. Repensar Filipinas. Política, identidad y religión en la construcción de la nación filipina. Barcelona: Bellaterra, 2009.

Folch, Dolors. “Biografía de fray Martín de Rada”. Revista Huarte de San Juan, Geografía e Historia, n.° 15 (2008): 33-63.

Folch, Dolors. Martín de Rada. Científico, misionero y embajador de las Filipinas en China. Quezon City: Vibal Foundation, 2022.

Gernet, Jacques. Primeras reacciones chinas al cristianismo. México, D. F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989.

González Valles, Jesús, ed. Cuatro siglos de evangelización (1587-1987), rutas misioneras de los dominicos de la provincia de Nuestra Señora del Rosario. Madrid: Huellas Dominicanas, 1987.

Han, Qi 韩琪. 中国科学技术的西传及其影响 [La transmisión occidental de la ciencia y la tecnología de China y su influencia]. Shijiazhuang: Hebei Renmin Chubanshe, 1999.

Hart, Roger. Imagined Civilizations: China, the West, and Their First Encounter. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.

Hsia, Florence C. Sojourners in a Strange Land. Jesuits and their Scientific Missions in Late Imperial China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Jami, Cathérine y Delahaye, Hubert, eds. L’Europe en Chine. Interactions scientifiques, religieuses et culturelles aux xviième et xviiième siècles. París: Collège de France, 1993.

Knauth, Lothar. “El inicio de la sinología occidental. Las traducciones españolas del Ming Hsin Pao Chien”. Estudios Orientales, n.°12 (1970): 1-21.

Liu, Jeeloo. “The Status of Cosmic Principle (li) in Neo-Confucian Metaphysics”. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 32, n.° 3 (2005): 391-407.

Liu, Limei. Espejo rico del claro corazón. Traducción y transcripción del texto chino por fray Juan Cobo. Madrid: Letrúmero, 2005.

Martínez Esquivel, Ricardo. “Misión Sangley. La cristianización entre los chinos de Filipinas en el cambio del siglo XVI al XVII”. Estudios de Asia y África 53, n.° 1 (2017): 35-64.

Ollé, Manel, ed. Rico espejo del buen corazón (Beng Sim Po Cam), de Fan Liben, traducido por Juan Cobo hacia 1590. Barcelona: Península, 1998.

Ollé, Manel. La invención de China. Percepciones y estrategias filipinas respecto a China durante el siglo XVI. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000.

Ollé, Manel. La empresa de China. De la Armada Invencible al Galeón de Manila. Barcelona: Acantilado, 2002.

Romano, Antonella. Impresiones de China. Europa y el englobamiento del mundo (siglos XVI-XVII). Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2018.

Sanz, Carlos. Primitivas relaciones de España con Asia y Oceanía. Madrid: Librería General Victoriano Suárez, 1958.

Schwartz, Stuart B., ed. Implicit Understandings. Observing, Reporting and Reflecting on the Encounters between Europeans and Other Peoples in the Early Modern Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Sola, Diego, Busquets Alemany, Anna y Torres Trimállez, Marina. “Introducción: prácticas de mediación en los misioneros de la Corona de Castilla en China y Filipinas (siglos XVI-XVII)”. Hispania. Revista Española de Historia 83, n.° 274 (2023): e028.

Sousa Pinto, Paulo Jorge de. “Chinchéus and Sangleys: Ten Remarks on the Chinese Presence in Melaka and Manila (16th-17th centuries)”. Review of Culture, n.° 43 (2013): 59-69.

Spence, Jonathan. The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. New York: Viking, 1984.

Standaert, Nicolas. “Christianity in Late Ming and Early Qing China as a Case of Cultural Transmission”. En China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hopeful Future, editado por Stephen Uhalley y Xiaoxin Wu. Armonk, New York: Sharpe, 2001, 81-116.

Villarroel, Fidel, ed. Pien Cheng-Chiao Chen-Ch’uan Shih Lu. Apología de la verdadera religión. Manila: ust Press, 1986.

Villarroel, Fidel. “The Chinese Rites Controversy —Dominican Viewpoint—”. Philippiniana Sacra 28, n.° 82 (1993): 5-61.

Wang, Robin R. “Zhou Dunyi’s Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate Explained (Taijitu shuo): A Construction of the Confucian Metaphysics”. Journal of the History of Ideas 66, n.° 3 (2005): 307-323.

Zhang Dainian. Key Concepts in Chinese Philosophy. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2002.

Zhang, Qiong. Making the New World Their Own. Chinese Encounters with Jesuit Science in the Age of Discovery. Leiden: Brill, 2015.

Zürcher, Erik. “Confucian and Christian Religiosity in Late Ming China”. The Catholic Historical Review 83, n.° 4 (1997): 614-653.