Abstract
Different understandings of “esoteric” are the main subject and the demarcation line of several fields of study. However, the history of this term is either neglected or distorted by specific historiographical paradigms. Tracing European writings on China and Japan from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, this article demonstrates that “esoteric” language was central to scholarship on Asia, shaping common terms that remain in use today. By showing how the emergence and development of an “esoteric distinction” between teachings and practices was linked to cross-cultural interpretation and translingual practices, the article argues that this distinction was not a mere projection of European concepts, but rather the result of cultural exchanges that need to be carefully studied on a case-by-case basis within their concrete historical contexts. To better understand the negotiations of what many today would call “esotericism,” a decentered historiography is needed that considers the global history of general terms.
While several fields of study today use “esoteric” vocabulary, they tend to operate in complete isolation from each other. This can be illustrated, on the one hand, by the scholarship devoted to “esoteric Buddhism,” which is generally disinterested in the question of why, exactly, it uses the term esoteric (Strube, forthcoming b). On the other hand, some scholars have focused on the paradigm of “Western esotericism” which assumes a one-way diffusion of its subject from Europe to the rest of the world, thus neglecting its much more complex history (Strube 2022: 21–33; 2021). Interestingly, then, there is a de facto separation between “Western” and “Eastern” esotericism in scholarship, one that has hardly been recognized, let alone reflected upon so far (Strube, forthcoming b). This is especially significant because, as I will show in this article, the genealogies of “esoteric” vocabulary in these and other fields of study are inherently intertwined. From a religious studies perspective, an examination of this circumstance is particularly pertinent because of its relevance to broader issues revolving around colonialism, cultural exchange, and the meaning of religion, which is tied to the same historical developments as that of what many would call “esotericism.” Indeed, the lacunae in scholarship devoted to things “esoteric” obscure the fact that the various meanings of this term have emerged through global exchanges that are part and parcel of debates about the meaning of religion.
It is important to note that I am not going to imply the existence of any one universal esotericism that becomes discernible in the various sources that will be at the focus of this article. Rather, I am interested in how the distinction between inner and outer, secret and public, esoteric and exoteric teachings and practices has become an interpretative structure of Asianist scholarship. In doing so, I am indebted to Urs App’s argument that the identification of esoteric and exoteric forms of religion reaching from the Mediterranean to East Asia became a key idea in what App considers the “birth of Orientalism” (App 2010: 2–3). While I am more cautious about the extent to which the respective developments between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries require a chronological shift in the emergence of what would later be discussed as Orientalism, App has made a strong point of reminding us that nineteenth-century scholarship did not emerge in a vacuum (15–16). Earlier encounters between Europeans and Asians had produced a vocabulary that served cross-cultural interpretation and was used to compare certain doctrines and practices – including the “esoteric” terminology that has ramifications to the present day.
This is not to suggest a linear development, or that identifications and comparisons of supposedly “esoteric” teachings and practices should be seen as referring to the same “thing out there.” Following the approach of global religious history (Strube 2022: 16–33; Maltese and Strube 2021), I examine these developments in terms of translingual practices. Rather than looking for “right” or “wrong” translations and the concomitant identification of certain teachings and practices as “esoteric,” I am interested in the historical context that made these translations possible, the narratives they produced and in which they were embedded, and the teachings and practices to which they referred, however indirectly and inaccurately. This article is thus an attempt to illuminate the genealogy of general terms that lie at the heart of academic scholarship. While I will concentrate on European sources from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century discussing China and Japan, this article forms part of a larger project that is further developed in a number of other publications (especially Strube 2022, 2023, forthcoming a, forthcoming b). For reasons of space, I will focus on the source material in this article, while referring the reader to my other publications for further theoretical, methodological, and contextual references.
1 The Emergence of the Distinction between Inner and Outer Teachings
App has argued that the distinction between an inner and an outer doctrine, which by the eighteenth century had become a fundamental mode of interpreting Asian religions, can be traced back to early encounters between Jesuits and Japanese Buddhists and Shintoists (App 2010: 16–18). From this process, which began when Francis Xavier (1506–1552) and his companions arrived in Japan from Goa in 1549, emerged several aspects that variously structured cultural interpretation between Europe and Asia. With the help of a Japanese informant, Anjirō, the Jesuits began to translate key concepts: Dainichi
Not only does this sect of contemplations say that there is nothing more than being born and dying, but all other sects with teachings and prayers that invoke “fotoques” for salvation also secretly believe that there is nothing. The words of the books they study have two meanings [duos sentidos]: one for the uneducated and another for the educated [letrados] who understand the letters and their internal [interior] meaning.
Ruiz-De-Medina 1990: 666–667
We learn that “the law of Japan has two meanings: those who understand its inner [emterior] meaning are like philosophers” who failed to grasp neither the cause nor the purpose for which human beings were created. Those who follow the exterior meaning (semtido estirior) keep commandments, are devout and merciful, pray for the deceased, and believe in heaven, hell, the soul, and the redeemer. In any case, behind this lies the secret belief in “nothingness” (Ruiz-de-Medina 1990: 667). Around the same time, in 1551, the Spanish Jesuit Cosme de Torres (1510–1570) wrote from Yamaguchi about the worshippers of Shaka, Amida, and what he called “Jenxus” (Zenshū
Following these observations and their experience of initial confusion, the Jesuits learned more about what indeed was an actual distinction between “outer” or “provisional” teachings for the common people (Jap. gonkyō
Before the Jesuit Alessandro Valignano (1539–1606) visited Japan between 1579 and 1582, he had studied Xavier’s failed mission and was determined to compile a catechism that would finally refute the errors of the Japanese. The first of the two books of his Catechismus Christianae fidei focused on the “sects” of the Japanese, which he presented against the background of “a certain natural impulse and by the greatest effort, is whether there is some first and supreme creator of the world and author, by whose will, power, and providence the whole universe has been brought forth,” and to what extent that “supreme ruler” cared for human affairs and intervenes in them, rewarding or punishing behavior (Valignano 1586: 3v–4r). It was especially the question of the “ultimate end of all human striving” that posed the biggest problems to “all nations and peoples”:
Concerning these questions, the sects and laws [sectae et leges] of the Japanese also deal with something: although there are many and they disagree among themselves, and discuss these matters so confusedly that it can scarcely be perceived and understood what is being said, and they repeatedly change and alter their opinions; yet they all agree in one common word, namely Goniit [“gon-jitsu,” the distinction between gonkyō and jikkyō], which signifies two things, truth and the appearance of truth, that is, what is true and what appears to be so. For some, led only by the appearance of things, embrace that which is externally visible and is seen and said; others, however, embrace that which lies hidden within [quod intus latet], which they themselves call truth.
Valignano 1586: 4r–4v
As for the opinion of those who follow the outward appearance of things (qui rerum faciem extrinsecus apparentem sequuntur), Valignano explained that it was a common belief that those who followed the path of Xaca (Shaka, Buddha), Amida, and others like Fotoque, would be transformed into forms of the Fotoque after adhering to certain laws, according to which they would be punished or rewarded.
And although each Japanese sect speaks about these matters as they please, they still agree by common consent that whoever follows the outward appearance of things, as we have said, embraces this opinion, and this opinion is adopted by the uneducated and common people [rudes et vulgares homines].
Valignano 1586: 4v–5r
Valignano continued that “the sects of those Japanese who follow the inner, hidden truth of things [qui intus latentem … rerum veritate sequuntur], as they themselves assert and say,” placed all their study and effort in meditation and devoted themselves entirely to the exercise they called Soquxin, Soqubut (sokushin sokubutsu
Although Europeans at the time were unaware of the Buddhist classification systems mentioned above, Valignano did figure out the distinction between gonkyō and jikkyō, and made it the basis of his entire discussion of Japanese teachings and “sects.” Through the inclusion of his catechism in Antonio Possevino’s Bibliotheca selecta (1593), this distinction between inner and outer teachings in Japan was taught to Jesuits, their students, and interested European readers (App 2010: 18–19, 139–140). Missionaries such as Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), who arrived in China in 1582, used material by Valignano and, similar to his predecessors in Japan, adopted the dress and title of the Chinese seng
This view was plausible because of the widespread assumption of links between ancient Egypt and India (Strube 2023), as well as theories of pre- Mosaic wisdom. Following the European exploration of the Americas and the “East Indies” since the end of the fifteenth century, the attention of many Renaissance authors, who, like Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), had previously focused on Egypt and the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus to discover remnants of a primordial monotheism, increasingly shifted eastward (App 2010: 29–30). Guillaume Postel (1510–1581), for example, suggested that the Indian Brahmans, as “Abrahmanes,” were the direct descendants of Abraham and had preserved antediluvian texts and wisdom of extreme antiquity. In this way, we can see how early Jesuit encounters with the distinction between inner and outer teachings became intertwined with historical narratives about the origin and development of cultures that established a direct link between ancient Egypt, India, and East Asia.
2 Jesuit Speculations about Links between Egypt, India, and East Asia
These assumptions would continue to structure interpretations of Chinese and Japanese teachings and practices for centuries. A particularly influential role in this development was played by Athanasius Kircher and his Oedipus Aegyptiacus of 1692, which relied primarily on sources written by Kircher’s fellow Jesuits, notably Ricci’s material as it was preserved in Nicolas Trigault’s Histoire de l’expédition chrestienne au royaume de la Chine (1616). Kircher’s goal was to demonstrate that traces of the Egyptian “antiquities and mysteries [antiquitates et mysteria]” can not only be found in the “idolatry” of the Hebrews, Chaldeans, Persians, Babylonians, Syrians, Phoenicians, and Samaritans, but also in that of the Chinese, Japanese, Tartars, Indians, Africans, and native Americans. This he explicitly attempted to prove by means of comparison (“facta singularum rerum inter se collatione”) (Kircher 1652: 396–398). Following Jesuit classifications, Kircher explained that there were three “sects” in China: the Confucians (Literati), the Buddhists (Sciequia, from the Chinese rendering of Shakyamuni, shijia-mouni
As for Japan, Kircher was convinced that the Japanese had received all aspects of their “idolatrous religion” from the Chinese. They could be divided into two main categories: in the first, Kircher placed the Zen Buddhists (Xenxus) and the Shintoists (Chamis), who denied an afterlife and did not believe in rewards or punishments for good or bad deeds, but rather led a “completely Epicurean life.” The others were those who worshiped Amida, believed in the immortality of the soul and the existence of an afterlife, and were more similar to the Pythagoreans (Kircher 1652: 403). Kircher drew a parallel between these worshippers of Amida and the Gnostics, who had received the image of Harpocrates from the Egyptians: “It seems that this custom not only penetrated into Persia and India but also into the farthest East, namely Japan. They depict their famous deity Amida, or by another name Fombum, sitting on a lotus flower or a rose or a water lily, shining with a great radiance of rays” (407). Kircher was convinced that such transmissions proved how “the more learned people thought very differently about their gods than the uneducated” who received only stories that were “twisted into mystical meanings [ad mysticos sensus detorquent]” (407). This divide between the “two types” of Japanese doctrines, in which Zen Buddhism was depicted as the inner teaching reserved for the learned, and the Pure Land worshippers of Amida as the one for the uneducated masses, was further cemented in Kircher’s China Illustrata (1667) and linked to the narrative of an “impostor” called Xaca (Shaka, Buddha), whose Brahmin disciples had spread their idolatrous beliefs throughout Asia (App 2010: 153–155; 2012: 111–128).
These ideas were also disseminated by the writings of Martino Martini (1614–1661), who had used much of the otherwise lost material compiled by Rodrigues (App 2010: 24). In his Novus atlas Sinensis of 1655, Martini claimed that the idolatrous Xekiao (the Buddhists) had spread their “plague” to the Chinese, to whom they taught a twofold doctrine of metempsychosis (“duplex est, una interna, externa altera”), of which only the outer one worshiped idols, while the inner one sought “complete emptiness and victory over passions or depraved emotions of the soul” (Martini 1655: 8). In his Sinicae Historiae of 1658, Martini also drew a link between ancient Egypt, the Pythagoreans, and Chinese teachings, focusing in particular on the Yijing
The Chinese have a book called YEKING, which is entirely dedicated to explaining these figures and is highly valued among them for the arcane matters [res arcanas] they persuade themselves lie hidden therein. To me, it seems to be a certain mystical philosophy [philosophia mystica] very similar to the Pythagorean, even though it is many centuries older.
Martini 1658: 6
Another famous Jesuit, Philippe Couplet (1623–1693), was similarly interested in the Yijing and what he termed its mysteria, aenigmatica, hieroglyphica, and arcana. He considered it the oldest of all volumes, attributed to Fo-hi (Fuxi
This understanding of “secrets” was also related to what Couplet discussed as the “sect of the Foe Kiao (Ch. fojiao
However, never was there anyone more destructive to the human race than when he declared himself to be so: For he vomited forth the most abominable poison of atheism, openly professing that for forty years or more he had not declared the truth to the world; but had hidden the naked truth [nudam veritatem occultasse] in a shadowy and metaphorical doctrine full of figures, similarities, and parables. But now, finally, when he is close to death, he wants to signify the arcane meaning [arcanum sensum] of his mind: that outside of the empty and void (as the Chinese call it) there is nothing which we seek, nothing in which our hopes are placed. This was the ultimate word of the dire impostor and the first root of atheism, although even today it lies hidden in the shadows of lies and superstitions, hiding from the unlearned like something buried in the earth. Hence also that famous distinction between the external and internal of the doctrine [illa doctrinae in exteriorem et interiorem distinctio].
Couplet 1687: xxix
Against this backdrop, Couplet elaborated on the distinction between the inner and outer teachings, which had by then become firmly established. Emphasizing that the inner teaching contained “the most occult frauds and deceits [occultissimas fraudes insidiasque],” he made a point of how the populace was kept ignorant by deceitful Buddhist monks:
But first let us keep the ignorant populace at bay (this is the first precaution of wicked men), for the simple and credulous multitude must certainly be kept under control by means of Tartar-like fears and similar fables: let only the nobles and literati come to witness; and let them come from the very monasteries and Bonzes, but only those who are capable of keeping secrets and who surpass others in the acuity of their intellect.
Couplet 1687: xxxi
This illustrates how the idea of shared teachings and practices between Egypt, India, and East Asia had become entrenched, and how central the distinction between outer and inner teachings had become. Having thus emerged through encounters between missionaries and Asian scholars, it found its way into the increasingly systematic study of Asia, while at the same time moving to the center of debates about European knowledge.
3 The Growing Role of East Asia in Contemporary Debates
An important next step was taken by the Lutheran theologian Gottlieb Spitzel (1639–1691), who drew largely on Martini and Kircher. He serves as an instructive example of how these narratives were progressively linked to ongoing debates about more recent and contemporary religious currents in Europe, rather than focusing on Egyptian antiquity or even antediluvian times. When Spitzel studied philosophy and theology, he was friends with Christian Knorr von Rosenroth (1636–1689), who later became a famous Christian Kabbalist. It was at this time that Spitzel wrote his book De re literaria Sinensium commentarius, published in 1660, which was an attempt to establish a broad comparative project that reflected Spitzel’s specialization in Hebrew and Oriental studies. Close to Pietism and in contact with radical Spiritualists, he became a fierce polemicist of atheism (Jaumann 2010). Following Kircher and his studies of hieroglyphics, which had been central to the Oedipus Aegyptiacus, Spitzel deemed it “appropriate to first present a comparison of this literature with the writings of other nations, in order to demonstrate that this difficult and intricate method of writing was not exclusively used by the Chinese.” The representatives of “ancient cryptography” included Egyptian, Chinese, Peruvian, Mexican, and other letters, and encompassed “almost the entire Symbolic Treasure of the Egyptians, Mercury, Pythagoras, Greeks, etc.” Most ancient writers, both Barbarians and Greeks, “occulted the principles of things [rerum principia occultasse], and handed them down through signs, symbols, and allegorical figures,” beginning with “Gymnosophists and Druids,” who had probably received their writing methods from the Egyptians (Spitzel 1660: 79–80).
Spitzel was particularly fascinated by the Yijing (“Yeking”), which contained “nothing but Mystic Philosophy [Philosophiam Mysticam] similar to the Pythagoreans,” and was thought to be derived mainly from Hermes Trismegistus (Spitzel 1660: 82). Speculating about the origin of some Chinese symbols, Spitzel also echoed widespread speculation about “multiple Zoroasters” (Stausberg 1998: 328–335), while concluding that it was sufficient “that those which existed in the past agree excellently with the Hermetic oracles and the hieroglyphic senses of the Egyptians” (Spitzel 1660: 86–88). The Yijing, Spitzel argued, contained traces of this Philosophia Symbolica, akin to that of the Pythagoreans and, in some respects, to the Hebrew Kabbalah, which “itself contains nothing but mystical and occult [mysticas et occultas] explanations of the Holy Scriptures” (92–94). Kircher had already used Cabala as a comparative category with Hebrew, Arabic, and Asian systems of knowledge, and Spitzel must be seen as another author who established the term as a quasi-universalized concept that would also appear in writings, such as those by François Bernier (1620–1688), who compared the “Cabala of the Sufis” with that of the “Yogis” (Bernier 1709: 128; see Strube 2023; also Dew 2009: 131–167; App 2012: 161–172).
The polymath Daniel Georg Morhof (1639–1691), prominent for his work on a universal history of literature, further contributed to this increasing focus on more recent and contemporary issues, while saliently using the terminology of occultus and another signification for the division between inner and outer teachings: exotericus versus acroamaticus, which was widely used in discussions of ancient Greek philosophy, especially Pythagoreanism (Strube 2023). In his Polyhistor of 1688, Morhof aimed to write a universal history encompassing cultures around the world. His scheme of the transmission of knowledge from time immemorial also featured what he called the Collegia Secreta, including the ancient Egyptians, the Greek Mysteries, the Persian Magi or the followers of Zoroaster, and the Brahmans:
The Collegium Brachmanum was and still is highly renowned throughout the world, even in India. We have already said much about the Brachmans or Bramins, whom Postel traces back to Abraham. They are said to be the guardians of the occult doctrine [occultae doctrinae custodes], as evidenced by all that is said about them. Although many fabulous things are attributed to them, not everything is to be dismissed as lies. It is usual in matters of secret knowledge that the unknown is exaggerated by the credulous and turned into ridicule by the scornful. In these matters, the wise should always take a middle path, always bearing in mind that there are many hidden secrets of nature that even the wisest would find incredible.
Morhof 1688: 127
Just as Morhof recounted the link between the ancient Mediterranean and India, he affirmed the spread of Indian knowledge to China and the rest of East Asia. Discussing various “methods” of knowledge, he explained:
The author has conveniently observed from the practices of the ancients that there is a certain Exoteric and Acroamatic Method, as they wrote some Exoteric books and others Acroamatic ones. The Acroamatic Method, or the Enigmatic, was used by the ancients when they presented more secret matters to select listeners. This was the method of Pythagoras and the ancient Kabbalists, who conveyed the mysteries of hidden sciences through numbers and symbols. Now we will have even less doubt that Pythagoras embraced many hidden teachings through numbers, as we see today that the most complex problems can be solved with the help of figurative numbers … This mode of philosophizing by the Pythagoreans seems not unrelated to that of the Chinese, who, through lines in a certain way, have encompassed not only physical but also moral, political, and principles of all superstitious arts, in a certain fixed and unchanging order, yet founded on numbers and proportions.
Morhof 1688: 390–391
Describing these methods of the Yijing, Morhof was amazed by “how skillful Chinese philosophers are” and surmised that “these images and numbers seem to precede even Pythagoras himself” (391). Comparing the wisdom of the Chinese to that of the Kabbalists, Morhof stressed that the Chinese “had the most ancient knowledge of chemistry,” and related his deliberations about “this universal Kabbalistic method” to the work of Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino, Johannes Reuchlin, and Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (391–392). China was thus thrust into the middle of some of Europe’s most prominent debates, a tendency that would only increase in the years that followed.
4 The Spinoza Debate and the Sedimentation of Narratives in Encyclopedias
How much the fascination with ancient Chinese wisdom related to contemporary debates in Europe becomes especially clear in light of the fact that it was linked to controversies about Spinozism (Israel 2006: 640–662; 2013; Weststeijn 2007; App 2010: 149–153; 2012: 219–237). The spark was lit in Pierre Bayle’s (1647–1706) famous Dictionnaire historique et critique, first published in 1697 and followed by many editions well into the nineteenth century. In the entry on “Spinoza,” a footnote on atheism discusses supposed examples of it since Greek antiquity, before reproducing a long passage from the aforementioned work by François Bernier, which discusses continuities between the ancient philosophers that have survived to the present day: “This is the universal doctrine of the pagan pandits of India [Pendets Gentil des Indes]; and it is this same doctrine which is still the Cabala of the Sufis, and of most of the literati of Persia.” The doctrine was also related to contemporary “Chemists” such as Robert Fludd and Pierre Gaffendi (Bayle 1697: 1084). At the end of the entry, another footnote also brought up the beliefs of the Chinese, albeit briefly (1100–1101). In the second edition from 1702, this affiliation between Spinoza and East Asian philosophers was greatly expanded, beginning with the statement that Spinoza “was an atheist of system, and of a very new method, although the substance of his doctrine was common to him with several other ancient and modern, European and Oriental philosophers” (Bayle 1702: 2767–2768). A new footnote on Japan made extensive use of Couplet’s writing, emphasizing how the Buddhists, instructed by the Gymnosophists, had divided their doctrine into two parts: “one external, which is the one that is preached publicly, that is taught to the people; the other internal, which is carefully hidden from the vulgar, and which is discovered only to the adepts” (2769) (there was also an entire new entry on Japan; see 1627–1629). Among the sources for these remarks was Niccolò Longobardi’s (1565–1655) Traité sur quelques points de la religion des Chinois, which originally had been written in the 1620s but not published until 1701 (App 2010: 24, 144; among other important sources is Comte 1696: 155–156, which talks of “la loy exterieure et la loy interieure”). Based on Rodrigues’s reports, this treatise was strongly opposed to the strategy of accommodatio and, to argue for the supposedly corrupt state of Chinese thought, also highlighted the distinction between a secrette and a vulgaire doctrine among the sects of China (Longobardi 1701: 26–28).
Longobardi was a crucial source for Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), who had already made waves with his open enthusiasm for Chinese learning in his Novissima Sinica of 1697 (Li and Poser 2000; Israel 2006: 652–657; Dew 2009: 240). In his famous Discours sur la théologie naturelle des Chinois, Leibniz attempted to establish common ground between Chinese thought and Christian theology. He argued that the Chinese neo-Confucian concept of li
Two decades into the eighteenth century, learned opinion about China was deeply divided. Prominent participants in these debates invoked the secret teachings, symbols, and characters of the Chinese, as well as the historical links between the Mediterranean and East Asia, illustrating how widely accepted these perceptions were. This includes the works of Protestant theologians such as Christoph August Heumann (1715–1716: 227–228), August Pfeiffer (1721: 272–273), and Georg Bernhard Bilfinger (1724: 329–330), all of whom discussed secret Chinese teachings, symbols, and the continuities of ancient traditions. Among them was Jacob Friedrich Reimmann (1668–1743), who is of special interest because of his explicit use of the term esotericus. While this terminology had been in use earlier, as I have demonstrated elsewhere, it was during the eighteenth century that it became increasingly popular among related terms such as arcanus, acroamaticus, internus, or secretus (Strube 2023). In his Historia universalis atheismi et atheorum falso et merito suspectorum of 1725, Reimmann drew on earlier writings – notably including Kircher, Couplet, Bernier, and Bayle – to expose what he considered atheism throughout the globe (Mulsow and Zedelmaier 1998; Israel 2006: 164–166). In a chapter on India, he claimed that the country was “so infected with both superstition and atheism that it is doubtful which is more prevalent.” Reimmann argued that it was “Xekia, who was later called Foë,” who was “the first to introduce atheism into the schools and churches of the Indians and to provide an occasion for the division of theology into exoteric and esoteric [divisioni Theologiae in Exotericam et Esotericam]” (Reimmann 1725: 90–91). The Buddha was responsible for introducing “the arcane doctrine [dogma arcanum]: that the vacuum and empty space is the principle of all things.” As a result, “atheism, under the guise of the polite title of Esoteric Theology [sub blando Theologiae Esotericae titulo], spread throughout India until the first century after Christ, when it became so powerful that it spread from India to China” (91). Reimmann went on to describe this Indian system by referring to the work of Abraham Roger (Strube 2023) and Bernier, via Bayle (Reimmann 1725: 92–93). In the next chapter on China, he also reproduced Couplet’s analysis of Buddhism, writing that its “theology is twofold, exoteric and esoteric [theologiam esse duplicem, Esotericam et Exotericam]” (96–99).
This shows how well established a certain corpus of (mostly Jesuit) sources about China was, and how the central aspects revolving around the “esoteric distinction” found their way into most prominent contemporary writings on East Asia, where they were interpreted in similar yet quite different ways, ranging from Jesuit via Lutheran via early Enlightenment perceptions to the enthusiasm of a Leibniz. This was the age of dictionaries and encyclopedias, and – in addition to Bayle’s Dictionnaire – it was Johann Jakob Brucker’s (1696–1770) famous Kurtze Fragen aus der philosophischen Historie (1731–1736) and its highly influential Latin successor, the Historia critica Philosophiae, that would serve as primary reference for other projects such as Diderot’s Encyclopédie. In the eighteenth century, China was considered by many to be the oldest civilization on earth, which is reflected in Brucker’s rather ambivalent statement about Asia at the beginning of his chapter on Philosophia Exotica: “Just as philosophy has first flourished in this part of the world, even today there are people there to whom the title of Philosophers cannot be entirely denied” (Brucker 1736: 1046). Brucker held that Asian philosophy could be summarized as “Indian Philosophy [Indianische Philosophie].” Noting that he could not discuss all Asian peoples, he focused on the Malabars, Chinese, and Japanese, followed by the Iroquois in Canada. In a footnote on “Asian peoples,” Brucker referred to the works of Bernier, Bayle’s “Spinoza” entry, and Reimmann, who is quoted as pointing out that the Persians still followed Zoroastrian dualism (Systema Dualisticum), related to the Systemati Emanationis, as well as modifications such as the Systema Monadisticum (1049–1057). Brucker also adopted the distinction between Theologia esoterica and Theologia exoterica (1054–1055). He surmised:
Thus it is not unlikely that a learned and secret sect [eine gelehrte und geheime Secte], which recognized the inconsistency of the Systematis Dualistici, and perhaps is still a descendant branch of the Secta Eclectica, accepted the Systema emanationum (which was also favored, in the same terms, by the Jewish Kabbalists, who were not entirely unknown in Persia), even if we admit … that the common doctrine is still Zoroastrian today. We will also hear later that this Systema has spread throughout India and has determined their Theologia esoterica among the Philosophical sects.
Brucker 1736: 1051
As one would expect by now, Brucker also recounted the story about the Buddha’s twofold doctrine in his chapters on China and Japan; a doctrine which at its core was atheistic and responsible for much of the evils in Asia (Brucker 1736: 1121–1122, 1201–1202). In Brucker’s and other encyclopedias, including those of Bayle and Diderot, these recurring elements that had emerged since the sixteenth century would continue to inform, in various forms, generations of scholars well into the nineteenth century and, despite the deep ruptures in Asianist scholarship that occurred at that time due to skyrocketing professionalization and especially the development of philology, continue to shape scholarly general terms to the present day.
5 Conclusion: Three Main Takeaways
The main purpose of this article was to outline a complex development that warrants more collaborative study. While I could only shine a spotlight on the source material, three central aspects may serve to stimulate further discussion on the matter: first, the approach operationalized in this article can help us revise and complicate established historiographical narratives and templates, allowing for more comprehensive insights into the history of religion and the general terms we use to study it. In this case, this concerns in particular the notion of esotericism, which, as I pointed out at the outset, is either not reflected upon at all or is limited to a supposed “Western Esoteric Corpus.” As I have argued in another venue on the emergence of “esoteric” as a comparative category (Strube 2023), the identification of this supposed corpus resulted directly from a preconceived template that focused exclusively on European Rosicrucians, Theosophists, Kabbalists, etc., while ignoring the fact – hopefully obvious after my present discussion – that debates about “esoteric” things in the very same sources were not only geared toward (perceptions of) Asia but inherently intertwined with encounters between Europeans and Asians. The same themes were presented in narratives of far-reaching connections from Egypt, through Persia and India, to China and Japan. The language surrounding “esoteric” and related terms seems to have been at least as important, if not more so, within orientalist scholarship than within what is usually considered the sphere of “Western esotericism” itself. This also underscores how misleading it would be to think of these topics primarily as part of a history of rejected knowledge. The situation is much more complex and tied to larger debates about the meaning of religion, science, and the relationship between cultures. Certainly, the protagonists of this development were not marginal or rejected, and especially not confined to an isolated sphere of esotericism.
Second, what we may study under the rubric of esotericism was clearly more concerned with (perceived or alleged) secrecy than anything else, but this aspect is highly context dependent. In their local contexts, the Asian subjects in question were and are not at all marginal or even rejected, but rather, despite disputes and rivalries, quite mainstream, as experts on “esoteric Buddhism” have pointed out (Orzech, Payne, and Sørensen 2011: 3). Claims to secrecy were very often attempts to establish authority and superiority: esoteric could simply mean “the best,” true, or authentic (cf. McBride 2004: 335; Sharf 2002: 227–228; Orzech 2006: 42; Sørensen 2011: 174–175). Such hierarchizations of knowledge and practices are directly related to the diverse but strikingly similar historical narratives that have sedimented since the sixteenth century and that revolve around the “secret” or “occult” transmission of doctrines that could thus be presented as either superior or degenerate. Last but not least, the perception of secrecy in cross-cultural interpretation and translingual practice is important: as examples such as Valignano and Couplet have shown, “secret” can also mean strange, confusing, or difficult to understand.
Finally, the Jesuit observations of distinctions between inner and outer, secret and public, esoteric and exoteric teachings and practices arose from interactions with Asians rather than from mere missionary imagination, misunderstanding, or polemics (although all of these often played an important role in these exchanges). Given the complexity and heterogeneity of the interpretations in question, it would be too hasty to dismiss the “esoteric distinction” as the projection of a “European concept.” Rather, it was the result of cultural exchanges that need to be studied carefully on a case-by-case basis, revealing instructive patterns and teaching us much about some of the categories that many of us take for granted today. A next step in this endeavor would be to establish a decentered historiography of these negotiations of “esotericism,” as I have attempted to do for the case of Tantra in Bengal (Strube 2022). This will require collaboration between experts on different regions and languages, a collaboration that should take seriously that the general terms we use have a fascinating global history.
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