ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to analyze how the Jesuit Figurists recreated a Chinese version of Jesus Christ. The Jesuit Figurists modeled Jesus as a Chinese sage—indeed, such a Chineseness of Jesus was an inevitable element of Figurism in China. From earlier pathbreakers, they inherited the transliteration (耶穌) and translation (捄世主) of the name of Jesus. The Figurists attached much importance to the Chinese classics, instead of only focusing on Christianity and Western philosophy. Following the Hermetic tradition and typological exegesis, they were convinced that there must be different symbols and images of the same Jesus, such as Lin, Jupiter, and other mystical elements in Chinese legends, the images of the hexagrams they identified, and even the vernacular descriptions of Jesus, which helped to construct a multifaceted yet whole picture of a Chinese Jesus.
