by Judy Joyce

Created on: August 11, 2009   Last Updated: September 17, 2009

What is Confucianism

By Confucianism is meant the complex system of moral, social, political, and religious teaching built up by Confucius on the ancient Chinese traditions, and perpetuated as the State religion down to the present day. Confucianism aims at making not simply the man of virtue, but the man of learning and of good manners. The perfect man must combine the qualities of saint, scholar, and gentleman. Confucianism is a religion without positive revelation, with a minimum of dogmatic teaching, whose popular worship is centered in offerings to the dead, in which the notion of duty is extended beyond the sphere of morals proper so as to embrace almost every detail of daily life.(New Advent Encycl. 2009 ed)

Who is Confucius

The latinized name Confucius came by way of early Jesuit missionaries intending to convey that this remarkable religion was espoused most fervently by K'ung-tze, or K'ung-fu-tze. Born in 551 B.C., in the feudal state of Lu - modernly the province of Shan-tung, K'ung-tze did not come from wealth His father was a warrior who died when his son was still a child.

Working from a young age as a hired servant for a noble family, he still managed find time to excel in his studies. By age twenty-two, K'ung-tze opened a school and attracted many to his way of learning. Later, rising to the office of minister of justice, the State became somewhat prosperous and achieved a moral order unlike any experienced before. However, rival states engaged in the pursuit of pleasure rather than good government resulting in Confucius resigning his position and leaving the state.

For well over a decade, he was accompanied by faithful disciples, as he went about from one state to state seeking a ruler who would give heed to his counsels. He experience many deprivations and ran the risk of being killed by his enemies. Eventually, he returned to Lu, where he spent the last five years of his long life encouraging others to the study and practice of virtue, and edifying all by his noble example. He died in the year 478 B.C., in the seventy-fourth year of his age. His lifetime almost exactly coincided with that of Buddha who died two years earlier at the age of eighty.

Conclusion

Confucius is often held up as the type of the virtuous man without religion. His teachings, it is alleged, were chiefly ethical in which one looks in vain for retribution in the next life as a sanction of right conduct. Modern scholars now acquainted with the ancient religion of China and with Confucian texts find:

"emptiness of the assertion that Confucius was devoid of religious thought and feeling. (New Advent, 2009 ed)

He was religious after the manner of religious men of his age and land in that he followed the example of his Chinese predecessors whose religious belief did not include this element of future retribution. There are numbers of texts that demonstrate that Confucius followed the traditional belief in the supreme Heaven-god and subordinate spirits, in Divine Providence and retribution, and in the conscious existence of souls after death. These religious convictions on his part found expression in many recorded acts of piety and worship. (New Advent Encyl. 2009 ed.)

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