Heavenly Teaching or Heterodox Teaching: The Construction of the Heterodox-Teaching-Image of Catholicism in the Ming China

Ever since Jesuits were first allowed to stay in China in 1583, persecutions against them have never been ceased. Some of them were initiated due to their as foreigners while others were directly targeted their identities as Catholic missionaries. In such anti-Catholic persecutions, Catholicism was particularly accused and depicted as a heterodox teaching and was therefore classified into the same category with other traditional Chinese heterodox teachings like the White Lotus Sect, the Non-Action Sect, and so forth. This is actually a very strange, yet interesting phenomenon given the fact that Catholicism and traditional Chinese heterodoxy teachings share almost nothing in common whether in terms of doctrines, organization patterns or cultural backgrounds. Based on the research conducted by Barend ter Haar on the White Lotus Teaching tradition that the heterodox teachings in China represented by the White Lotus Sect is nothing but a political construction, which has no relevance to its actual religious beliefs, this paper aims at a detailed analysis on the process of the construction of the heterodox-teaching-image of Catholicism in the Ming China through a thorough study on the three labels that are repeatedly employed by anti-Catholic official-scholars, which are “assembling at night and dispersing at dawn” (夜聚曉散), “men and women indiscriminately mingling together” (男女混 雜), and “sorcerers and sorcery-performing” (師巫邪術) respectively. Besides, the necessity and significance of the construction of the heterodox-teaching-image of Catholicism in the anti-Catholic persecutions will also be elaborated.


Introduction
It can be said without any exaggeration that ever since Jesuits were first allowed to stay and build residence in China in 1583, harassments and persecutions against them have never been ceased (Note 1). Some persecutions were initiated due to their identities as foreigners, given the fact that foreigners at that time were usually considered dangerous to the local or even national security (Note 2). While other persecutions were directly targeted against their identities as Catholic missionaries, particularly after their true intention of coming to China to introduce and spread a brand-new religious belief was known to Chinese (Note 3). In such persecutions, Catholicism was usually accused as a heterodox teaching (Note 4) and therefore was classified into the same category with other traditional Chinese heterodox teachings like the White Lotus Sect, the Non-Action Sect, and many other secret societies which were usually considered with subversive characters.
As a matter of fact, such accusation was quite popular among the writers of anti-Catholic literatures.
They saw their criticism against Catholicism as a campaign against heterodoxy, which can be revealed through the titles of their works, like Pixie jie (闢邪解 On Exposing Heterodoxy) by Huang Wendao For instance, during the 1616 Nanjing anti-Catholic persecution, Liu Zongzhou (劉宗周) presented an imperial memorial to the emperor, in which it is explicitly stated that, "What is meant by heterodox teaching? Apart from Buddhism and Taoism, now it particularly refers to the so-called western learning (Catholicism)" (Note 6). Later when Johann Adam Schall von Bell was recommended to be in charge of making European style cannons in 1642, Liu Zongzhou expressed his strong opposition to it by claiming that, "As to the barbaric foreigners like Johann Adan Schall von Bell, they have always advocated for the heterodox teachings to incite people. On this ground, they should not be accepted by our holy society. Now their crime of tempting the heart of our emperor by the diabolic tricks and wicked crafts is even more unforgivable. I beg the emperor to expel these foreigners back to their homeland, so that the heterodox teaching will be prohibited, and our Chinese Confucianism will be followed permanently" (Note 7).
Moreover, right after the anti-Catholic persecutions in Fujian province in 1637, the Provincial Surveillance Commission issued an official proclamation in which Catholicism was publicly compared to the Non-Action Sect, "Sects like the Non-Action Sect and the Catholicism all belong to the category As such accusation became too serious, Jesuits as well as their Chinese followers had to devote large passages to clarify it. One of the "three pillars of the China Catholic Church", Yang Tingyun (楊廷筠) particularly wrote an apologetic article called Xiaoluan bubingming shuo (《鴞鸞不並鳴說》 The Owl and the Phoenix Do not Sing Together) for the sake of not only refuting the saying of Catholicism and Chinese heterodox teachings being the same kind, but more importantly demonstrating that they are completely opposite to each other whether in terms of doctrines, organization and activity patterns or cultural backgrounds, etc. (Note 9).
Accusing Catholicism as a heterodox teaching in the Ming China is actually a very interesting phenomenon. In Europe, after the Protestant Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church strove to maintain its orthodoxy by accusing the new-born Protestantism as heterodoxy. While in China, in the early stage of Catholicism being introduced into China, it earned the reputation of heavenly teaching (天教) among many Chinese due to the cultural accommodation preaching strategy adopted by Jesuits and the introduction of Western scientific knowledge during the missionary process (Note 10). On all accounts, Catholicism and Chinese heterodox teachings share absolutely nothing in common, and yet these two completely distinct and uncorrelated religious beliefs were considered identical to each other by Chinese anti-Catholic official-scholars. This paper is an attempt to make an in-depth analysis on this interesting phenomenon including the process of the construction of the heterodox-teaching-image of Catholicism as well as its significance in the anti-Catholic persecutions.

Heterodox Teaching in the Politico-Religious Relation of Imperial China
In the study of the politico-religious relations in China, Zhang Jian (張踐) points out that the politico-religious relation in the imperial China belongs to the category of "God-auxiliary politics" (Note 11). Under such politico-religious relation, religion is no longer a national political ideology, but merely as a part of political culture, playing the auxiliary role in political power. Due to the fact that the political ideology in imperial China has always been dominated by humanistic Confucian political philosophy which emphasizes the supremacy of secular monarchical power, so there is no possibility for various religions to gain the status of state religion, but only play a supportive role. Therefore, a "politics dominance-religion obedience" relation was formed.
Under such particular politico-religious relation of imperial China, religion is always affiliated to and has never been independent from politics, so the term heterodox teaching is not so much a religious discourse as it is a political discourse. This can be well evidenced by the creation and employment of the term yinsi (淫祀), which is usually used to refer to the same folk beliefs or secret societies that are labelled as zuodao (左道), yiduan (異端) or xiejiao (邪教), alternative Chinese names of heterodox teaching. Liji records that "sacrificing to the deities that should not be sacrificed by the one with unqualified identity is called excessive sacrifice, which does not grant blessing" (Note 12). It can be understood that one could neither sacrifice to the deities that are not recognized by the state nor could he mistakenly sacrifice to the deities that should not be sacrificed by him in his identity. It regulates two www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jar Journal of Asian Research Vol. 4, No. 3, 2020 80 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
significant elements of sacrifice: the objects of sacrifice should be the deities that are officially recognized by the state and the subjects of sacrifice should behave in accordance with their identities.
For example, it is regulated the only the emperor (the son of Heaven) have the right to sacrifice to the Heaven and only the legitimate son is allowed to sacrifice to ancestors; it is also regulated that people are only allowed to sacrifice to the deities that received official recognition (Note 13). With the rapid development of folk beliefs, many deities that were worshipped by large amounts of people but did not receive any official recognition were condemned as yinsi, which were usually considered with subversive nature. As has been proven again and again that such folk beliefs, especially those with messianic hopes of the coming of a peaceful, equal and just society, were, as stated by Jacques Gernet, "were how all the great rebellions in history started" (Note 14), and were extremely effective in arousing rebellions against the ruling dynasties. The overturn of the Yuan dynasty and the establishment of the Ming dynasty is the best example of the dangerousness and effectiveness of heterodox teachings in instigating commoners for subversive purposes. Therefore, the matter of heterodox teachings has always been the primary concern for dynastic rulers, and the accusation against heterodox teaching became more like a political rather than a religious issue.
Among all the heterodox teachings in the history of China, the most notorious and well-known should be the White Lotus Sect. In Barend ter Haar"s monograph The White Lotus Teachings in Chinese Religious History, he points out the fact that the "White Lotus Teaching" used to be a real tradition dating back to the fifth century. However, started from the sixteenth century, this term was not an autonym anymore, but a label invented by states in repressing all sorts of secret societies with religious trait and rebellious nature (Note 15). In other words, the term "White Lotus Teaching" transmitted from a designated phrase for the particular lay religious organization with the White Lotus tradition to a politically-created generalized phrase for all kinds of lay religious organizations with similar characters of subversiveness. During this process, the true features or doctrines of the lay religious organization were completely out of the discussion.
In the study of the political construction of the White Lotus Sect, ter Haar puts forward the usage of three labels or stereotypes, which are "assembling at night and dispersing at dawn" (夜聚曉散), "men and women indiscriminately mingling together" (男女混雜) and "eating vegetables and serving the devil" (食菜侍魔) ( Note 16 ) respectively. In the discourse of Chinese politico-religious relationship, as long as one religious organization was labelled these three stereotypes, they would be recognized as heterodox teachings, during which process the true doctrines, or the actual organization and activity patterns are completely insignificant. In other words, to accuse other religious beliefs as heterodox teachings, one only needs to stick these three labels on them.
Actually, this is exactly the principle followed by official-scholars in their efforts to construct the heterodoxy teachings. Therefore, in this paper, the analysis on the process of constructing the heterodox-teaching-image of Catholicism shall be conducted through these three labels.

"Assembling at Night and Dispersing at Dawn" (夜聚曉散)
Both in the records of Jesuits and the anti-Catholic literatures by Chinese, Catholicism was constantly referred to as a religious organization whose members assemble at night and disperse at dawn. In the memorials of Yu Maozi (余懋孳), he stated that, "In Nanjing, the previous capital, foreigners like Alphonse Vagnoni and Emmanuel Diaz Junior had already incited more than ten thousand commoners and the number of the instigated commoners who worship on the first and fifteenth days of each month is usually more than one thousand… Now they publicly assemble at night and disperse at dawn just like (followers of) the White Lotus Sect and the Non-Action Sect" (Note 17). In the official proclamation of the Nanjing Ministry of Rites about the capture and punishment of Jesuits and their followers, it is recorded that, "According to Daming lv, behaviors like "privately worshipping the Tian (天 heaven)… and assembling at night and dispersing at dawn" are all prohibited… Is not their (Jesuits and Chinese converts) behavior of assembling at the night of certain days and holy days of each month and dispersing in the daybreak precisely the so-called "assembling at night and dispersing at dawn?"" (Note 18).
Some scholars insist that the label "assembling at night and dispersing at dawn" is an objective description that the followers are engaged in the agricultural work or other daily routine and only have time to assemble at night. However, some officially permitted folk festivals (like Double Seven Festival) or religious convocations, their members also assemble at night but have never been labeled as "assembling at night and dispersing at dawn". Therefore, instead of being an objective description, it is actually a prejudiced term to attack the activities of heterodox teachings regardless of whether their followers actually gather at night or not. Moreover, among the ruling circles of imperial China, there has always been a tradition of hostility towards the mass gatherings, especially those held at night, which are always seen as gestures of rebellious intention. The accusation in this regard is usually very effective in arousing the attention of the government. Therefore, "assembling at night and dispersing at dawn" gradually became a designated term for the description of threats in terms of security issues, and the frequent usage of this term demonstrates the fact that the security issue is one of the biggest concerns of officials and literati in attacking missionaries.
As has been shown in the records of Matteo Ricci that every time foreign missionaries obtained pieces of land to build residence or simply bought houses, rumors speculating their purpose of residing would circulate rapidly. Some suspected that these foreign missionaries would base their newly built residence dispatched by Folangji (Note 22) is also frequently mentioned in the anti-Catholic literatures. For example, in a petition by Fuzhou local military officials together with some low-level gentries, the authors analyzed the "international situation" by stating that, "They (Catholic barbarians) have already occupied the territories of Luzon, Djakarta, Zamboanga and Kutoulang which used to be our vassal states. Besides, they also took up our Macau, Taiwan, Keelung and Tamsui as the portal through which they planned to invade Fujian and Guangdong provinces. Once the barbarians outside and inside of China acted in cooperation with each other, how are we going to defend ourselves?" (Note 23) In another anti-Catholic literature, the author made similar narration but in a more exaggerative way, "These scheming barbarians did harms to every country they went to and invaded them by approaching them gradually. Till now, there have already been more than 30 countries being occupied by them… they murdered the kings of these countries and controlled commoners. Only several of them were able to occupy one entire country" (Note 24).
Obviously, there were people in the Ming dynasty who had already realized the action of aggression conducted by Portuguese and Spanish in the Southeast Asia as well as in Taiwan and Japan. They took them as lessons of not allowing foreigners, especially missionaries to reside in China in case that they may collect military information and cooperate with military forces from outside.
Apart from collusion with outside powers, there were also accusations related to missionaries cultivating and supporting rebelling forces within China. In December 1606, a leader of the Non-action Sect in Nanjing called Liu Tianxu (劉天緒) plotted a rebellion but was suppressed before its breakout (Note 25). Both Wanli yehuo bian (Note 26) and Kezuo zhuiyu (Note 27) have detailed narrations on this incident. Actually, this plotted insurgency per se had nothing special and did not differ from other traditional rebellious activities in imperial time. However, there were rumors saying that the missionaries were the real initiators of this incident which "disordered the mission and decreased the number of followers" (Note 28). This is actually a very interesting incident as missionaries for the first time being recognized as the initiators of domestic peasant rebellions. In collecting "evidences" of missionaries launching or participating rebellious activities in Nanjing, Shen Que, the main initiator of 1616 Nanjing incident offered a record from a neighbor of missionaries.
"In many evenings of that year, in the name of sacrament, the missionaries convened gatherings that were constituted of thousands of men and women and they were dissolved and went back home in the daytime. Each new convert would be registered on a roster and were given 5 ducats that were made by alchemy. When they were accepted they would be given strange foreign names and were taught to make the sign of cross for the sake of distinguishing themselves from others when in revolt. Moreover, they were caught of hiding weapons in their houses…" (Note 29).
All the above-mentioned accusations against foreign missionaries focused on the issue of social security and was launched in the name of "Catholics gathering at night and dispersing at dawn".
Besides, other terms like "deceiving and alluring silly commoners" "zuodao corrupting politics" "pretending to perform good deeds but actually instigating commoners" (Note 30) that were previously dedicated to the description of traditional heterodox teachings can also be found constantly in anti-Catholic literatures. The fact that after the introduction and spread of Catholicism in China, such terms, without changing a bit, were borrowed to attack Catholic missionaries and Catholicism demonstrates us that the attempts of Chinese official-scholars to create the heterodox-teaching-image of Catholicism follows the same logic and pattern of condemning the White Lotus Sect and the Non-Action Sect as heterodox teachings.

"Men and Women Indiscriminately Mingling Together" (男女混雜)
Under With Jesuits entering into China, this term started to be employed to attack them. In the very beginning, under the creed of "men and women are forbidden to have intimate contacts" (男女授受不親), contacts between missionaries and local women became extremely difficult and sensitive. For fear of causing any unnecessary trouble, missionaries decided to simplify or change some rituals. For instance, they set up separate halls particularly for women and preach sermons to women with barriers separating them away. Besides, they had to use tweezers rather than their thumbs to anoint women converts and when conducting unction, the touch of pelma and waist could be omitted (Note 34). Besides, they performed confession only in special places easily monitored by males of the household (Note 35).
Discreet and cautious as they were, the infrequent contacts with women still aroused lots of accusations.
Ricci has left many accounts of incidents accusing missionaries of having improper sexual relations with Chinese women, some of which even led to lawsuit at court. The first one occurred soon after Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci residing in China, a previous converter made up a couple of lies and accused Michele Ruggieri of formicating with a local woman and even the husband of the accused woman was one of the conspirators of this slander (Note 36). Another incidents occurred to Nicholas Longobardo who was also charged with committing adultery with a local woman in Shaozhou (Note 37). Both of these two incidents were aroused by rumors of missionaries having improper sexual relations with local women and were proved to be initiated for blackmailing missionaries for money.
Apart from rumors and accusations from commoners, some official-scholars also expressed their hostile attitudes towards missionaries in terms of suspicion of sexual misconduct.
For instance, Huang Zhen (黃貞) used to accuse Catholicism of "secretly introducing and alluring followers with men and women indiscriminately mingling together" (Note 38). In the official proclamation issued by Xu Shiyin (徐世蔭), it is also recorded that, "(Followers of Catholicism) do not worship their ancestors and men and women indiscriminately mingle together. There is nothing more unethical than it" (Note 39). Xiedu shiju, made similar accusation by stating that "they (missionaries) distributed philters that were stored in churches to converted women. After breasts and secret places being touched by missionaries, they would conduct sexual intercourse. By expressing the evil powers to these women, missionaries earned their trust and then were believed firmly" (Note 40). Similar narration can also be found in Quyi zhiyan, "whether married or not, the beautiful ones would be picked up either to do households in the yard of the church or to serve Liaoshi (Jesus) and were sexually infringed by the priests" (Note 41).
The accusation of missionaries in terms of sexual misconducts created sharp contrast of their claimed image as fully devoted to the Lord of Heaven and never get married or conduct sexual behavior, and therefore is more effective in arousing the hatred among local Chinese. Just as stated by Zhong Shisheng ( 鐘始聲), "the (Catholic) missionaries boasted themselves sexual abstinence and marriage-resistance, but they advocated the absurd sayings of holy water to allure the silly males and females to conduct obscene behaviors privately" (Note 42).
If these accusations were only products of personal behavior from those who held resentment against missionaries, then the incidents that I am about to narrate belong to the category of collective behaviors which revealed how accusations of improper sexual relations would lead to collective resentment and reaction.
Matteo Ricci recorded a gathering like a parade in Shaozhou by a bunch of actors coming from Macau.
The main contents of this parade were to mock Portuguese of doing something that were regarded as  By accusing Catholicism of "men and women indiscriminately mingling together" the official-scholars tried not only to condemn the corruption of social morals brought by Catholic missionaries, but more importantly to point out the challenges brought by Catholicism against the Confucian ethics as well as the incompatibility between Catholicism and Confucian social order. Therefore, this term became the crucial point of constructing the heterodox-teaching-image of Catholicism.

"Sorcerers and Sorcery-Performing" (師巫邪術)
In  Similar narrations can be found everywhere in Jesuits" letters, reports and Chinese converts" records.
They usually follow the same pattern: someone is accidentally possessed by demons or suffered from strange and serious diseases. Their family will usually first seek help from Buddhist monks, Daoists or masters of folk beliefs who are considered as competent exorcists. When they fail to complete the task, the parents will turn to Catholic missionaries for help. After the expulsion of demons from the possessed or the miraculous healing of the strange disease, either as the gesture of being convinced by the superior power of the Lord of Heaven or simply showing gratitude, the cured patients together with their families, friends or neighbors will usually convert to Catholicism.
In the very beginning, the performing of such miracles did bring great benefits to Jesuits, including the enhancement of their reputation among Chinese and the direct conversion of Chinese commoners (Note 51). However, employing miracles or miraculous tales as preaching methods is not without a price. Due to the despise of the discourse of superstition shared among Chinese official-scholars as well as the superficial resemblance shared between the ritual when performing Catholic miracles and that of Chinese heterodox teachings, it gradually became the convenient and persuasive excuses to demonize Catholic missionaries and further accuse Catholicism of being identical to Chinese heterodox teachings. late Eastern Han dynasty, the masters of the of Taiping Path ( 太平 道), a rebellious religious organization, were recorded to give holy water to patients to drink or sprinkled holy water to "wash away" the diseases. Those whose illness were cured would follow the rebellious Taiping Sect (Note 53).
Besides, the White Lotus Sect also has stories of using holy water to cure diseases or dispelling demons.
Therefore, when Chinese official-scholars witnessed or heard of the ritual of baptism, they would naturally link it to the tradition of worshipping holy water in Chinese heterodox teachings. In this sense, it is not difficult to understand their efforts of constructing the image of missionaries as evil sorcery-performers and Catholicism as a heterodox teaching.
As early as in Zhaoqing, there were rumors condemning that "the reason why these people (missionaries) took care of the dying person was because they had already seen the gem in the head of that person and when he died, they would take possession of the corpse and take out the priceless gem" (Note 54). More picturesque descriptions of missionaries performing sorceries can be found in Quyi zhiyan.
"Their teaching (Catholicism) is not only erroneous, but also full of sorceries. They buried the corpses in the church and then dug out the remains after 50 years and cremated them into oil by virtue of sorceries. The oil was distributed into 5 churches and anyone who stepped into the churches would be anointed his (her) forehead so that he (she) would become numb and follow their teachings blindly" (Note 55).
Similar narrations can also be found in Maiyou ji.
"It was said that those who were willing to follow their teachings would be ordered to drink a bowl of water that could perplex their minds… if the followers were about to die, their masters would dispatch two people to chant and use cloth to cover the corpse. Some believed that they gouged out the pupils of the deceased person… there was a person whose family was poor. He knew that converting to Catholicism would be given 50 gold. He told his family to get ready for pouring in decoction when he came back from the church to vomit the water offered by the missionaries. When he came back he was already bewitched by Catholicism and was about to destroy shrines… after drinking the decoction he started to vomit pure water first and then spitting out blood. The blood was dispersed overnight but there was still one thing left which was in a shape of a human being, or should I say, the shape of the master (missionary) himself" (Note 56).
These are only few examples of demonizing missionaries by accusing them of performing sorceries in the Late Ming China. However incredible and stupid they may sound today, the wide circulation of such rumors at that period indicates that there were actually many people believed or at least wanted to believe the authenticity of these rumors. With foreign missionaries being accused as evil sorceries performers, their advocated religion would naturally be considered as a heterodox teaching.

Significance of Constructing the Heterodox-Teaching-Image of Catholicism
From the analysis above, we can see that great efforts were devoted to creating the heterodox-teaching-image of Catholicism by anti-Catholic commoners and official-scholars. As to the discussion of the reasons behind such phenomenon, there is one point that must be emphasized, that is the extremely cautious and hostile attitude of the Ming government towards heterodox teachings.
Since the Shang dynasty, rulers of China have been paying great attention to the issue of sacrifice, seeing it as one significant part of maintaining legitimacy and rationality of their reigns (Note 57).
Therefore, they considered heterodox teachings, which centered on the worship of illegal deities, as a deities that ought to be sacrificed to. Famous mountains and great rivers, wise emperors and sagacious kings, loyal courtiers and martyrs, all those that are used to make great contributions to the state and showed benevolence towards commoners were listed on the records of rituals. In the second year, the emperor issued another imperial edict stating that those deserved well of the commoners and had their deeds well known, even though they were unapt to be sacrificed to, their temples could remain unharmed. In the third year, various deities" titles were conferred, and all the flattered appellations were repealed. All those that were not on the list were seen as excessive sacrifice and officials concerned should not offer any sacrifice to them.
Apart from that, Daming huidian also gave detailed narration on what deities should be sacrificed to as well as which deities should be sacrificed by whom. It records that, "In the very beginning of this dynasty, the sacrifices to the Heaven, Earth and imperial ancestors, to the gods of soil and grain belong to the category of orthodoxy sacrifices… the Heaven, Earth and imperial ancestors, the gods of soil and grain, the gods of mountains and rivers should only be sacrificed by the son of Heaven… In the first few years of Hongwu, all the prefectures and counties sacrificed the Three Sovereigns, but it was banned later. Only officials concerned were allowed to set up temples to sacrifice gods of soil and grain, gods of wind, could, thunder and rain, gods of mountains and rivers, city gods, Confucius, banner decorated with bird features and ghosts uncared-for. Commoners could sacrifice local god of earth, local ghosts uncared-for, ancestors and god of stove. All the other sacrifices were prohibited" (Note 58). the commoners had convenient ways to get to know Catholicism and further repelled it.

Conclusion
In China, the existence of various folk beliefs with subversive characters is an inevitable consequence of a dominant tradition which integrated religion with political order (Note 60). As one significant way of maintaining reign, regulating sacrifices and beliefs was emphasized a lot by imperial emperors.
Those that did not receive official recognition and with subversive nature became the target of repression and were classified into the category of heterodox teachings. As in Chinese history, many rebellions, including those eventually overthrowing the previous dynasties, were initiated in the form of religious movements, the imperial court had to devote into the precaution and suppression of any heterodox teaching that had potential of becoming extensive in range, massive in numbers and threatening to local and national security. Under such circumstances, the efforts of creating the heterodox-teaching-image of Catholicism became reasonable and significant in persecuting Catholicism in the Ming dynasty.
During the process of constructing the heterodox-teaching-image of Catholicism, the three labels, "assembling at night and dispersing at dawn" "men and women indiscriminately mingling together" and "sorcerers and performing sorceries" were frequently and constantly employed by anti-Catholic
1) Heterodox teachings instruct people to do evil; while Catholicism exhorts people to do good deeds.
2) Evil teachings are impervious to heavenly nature; while western scholars exhaust themselves probing into the heavenly nature.
3) (Members of) heterodox teachings gather together at night and disperse at dawn, hide themselves extremely mysteriously; while western scholars prefer to live in big cities and their residences can be visited by anyone. 4) Those allured by heterodox teachings are all rural silly commoners; while western scholars make acquaintances with prestigious scholars who preface westerners" literatures in which they speak highly of them.
5) The books of heterodox teachings are all baseless inferior sayings that even school tutors from villages are contemptuous of them; while the contents of the books of western scholars include pictures and profound doctrines and each book, both original and translated version, can stand up to scrutiny.
They are obviously more orthodox than Buddhist sutras and Wubu liuce (Five Instructions in Six Books, 五部六冊) of the Non-Action sect.
6) Heterodox teachings collect money to profit themselves or to conspire to conduct malicious deeds; while western scholars are all self-reliant and do not accept money from people except for gifts. They also teach people not to covet money that does not belong to them.

7)
Heterodox teachings groundlessly talk about weal and woe and perform sorceries to promise people the visionary wealth; while western scholars only teaching people with doctrines that the good will be granted fortune while the bad misfortune. They also teach people to neglect the secular fortune and endure secular misfortune. 8) Heterodox teachings allow men and women to indiscriminately mingle together; while western scholars keep virginity and teach others to keep theirs, like the virginity of children, of widowers and widows, and of monogamy. Any obscene language, behavior or desire shall be forbidden. 9) Heterodox teachings recruit members indiscriminately and order them restrain each other; while western teaching does not accept followers easily and only those with repentance and strong determination shall be accepted. Western scholars are more like friends rather than teachers to followers as they do not accept rituals like kowtow or bow. 10) Being admitted by heterodox teachings requires serious vows, and the secret languages that are taught by heterodox teachings shall never be revealed to people who do not belong to them; while the spread of western teaching is fair and square, and its doctrine can be known to everyone but only those who can keep the doctrine and act in accordance with it shall be accepted as followers.
11) Heterodox teachings follow the silly yet convenient custom and alter in accordance to people"s preference; while western teaching teaches basic principles to conduct oneself: one must do good if they want good fortune and correct mistakes for avoid misfortune. 12) Heterodox teachings usually impress people with phantoms and illusions in the name of shentong (supernatural power); while western scholars only take human relations according to Confucian ethics as basic tenet to inquire into the ultimate purpose of life and death.
13) Heterodox teachings employ incantation to horrify people and leave no room for argument; while western scholars are keen for more debate with others.
14) Heterodox teachings start with instigating crowds and conspire rebellious acts against society; while filial piety is listed the first in the Ten Commandments when related to human relations. It is ordered that one must treat the emperors and rulers as his (her) parents and the violation of it is considered as violation of Commandments. It also admits the true fortune to martyrs who suffered and died for abiding to ethics, loyalty, filial piety, chastity and righteousness.