Xu Guangqi

Xu Guangqi (born April 24, 1562, Shanghai, China—died Nov. 8, 1633, Beijing) was an official of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), and the most influential Chinese convert to Christianity before the 20th century.

Xu obtained his jinshi degree, the highest level in the civil-service examination, in 1604 and then studied with Matteo Ricci, the noted Italian Jesuit missionary in China. He became the first of his countrymen to translate European books into the Chinese language, translating with Ricci Western books on mathematics, hydraulics, and geography. Their most famous translation was Euclid’s Elements (Jihe yuanben), which exerted a great influence on Chinese mathematics.

In 1629 Xu finally obtained high office as a result of a competition held by the government to determine who could predict most precisely the time of a solar eclipse scheduled to occur that year. Of the three competing schools—the Chinese (or Datong Li), the Muslim, and the Western—the Western approach, represented by Xu, proved to be most accurate, and he was made one of the emperor’s leading ministers.

Xu convinced the emperor to use Western troops and firearms against the invading Manchu forces. The Manchu, however, soon acquired Western arms themselves and in 1644 occupied all of China. After Xu’s death, Roman Catholicism never again achieved such influence in China.