Legislation on Heretical Teachings during the Shunzhi and Kangxi Reigns and Its Significance: The Historical Background to the Formal Codification of the Term “xiejiao” in the Third Year of the Yongzheng Reign (1725)

姜元默, ｢順治․康熙 연간 邪敎 立法의 양상과 그 의미― 雍正 3年(1725) “邪敎” 明文化의 역사적 배경―｣, 『동양사학연구』 174

Original in Korean: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mwEGKQMYueWEUGPG_7D2RSnhMuLSuZeV/view?usp=sharing

Translation in Chinese:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sYCA3Yq7mXrP3NmLZC_6u5Nu_49lXX0O/view?usp=sharing

Despite the extensive scholarship on so-called heretical teachings—designated at different times as “yaojiao,” “zuodao,” “bailian jiao,” and “xiejiao,” and defined by state authorities as anti-state and anti-social—a fundamental conceptual blind spot persists. Although “xiejiao” has functioned since the seventeenth century as the dominant Chinese term for heretical teachings and continues to operate as a legal category in contemporary law, sustained inquiry into its historical emergence and semantic transformation remains relatively recent. In particular, insufficient attention has been paid to the divergence between its social and rhetorical meanings and its technical legal sense, or to the moment at which “xiejiao” entered the formal legal lexicon. 

        This article examines how “xiejiao” became established as a legal concept in the Qing through an analysis of statutes promulgated by the central government. The evidence indicates that Yongzheng 3 (1725) marked a decisive watershed, when the Qing state’s response to heretical teachings was institutionalized simultaneously at the levels of terminology, legal structure, and administrative practice. At this juncture, “xiejiao” gradually supplanted “zuodao,” a Ming-era pejorative, and was codified as a formal legal category. Once statutory provisions, penal principles, and mechanisms of bureaucratic supervision were consolidated into an integrated framework, subsequent legislation focused less on introducing new regulations than on refining an already established structure. 

        These developments, however, must be situated within earlier patterns of experimentation. During the Shunzhi and Kangxi reigns, before heretical teachings were codified under the category of “xiejiao,” the state repeatedly tested definitions, enforcement strategies, and standards of official accountability. The traces of these efforts are preserved in the linian shili (yearly precedents) attached to the jinzhi shiwu xieshu (Prohibition Concerning Sorcerers and Sorceresses) clause. Notably, such precedents virtually disappear from Kangxi 57 (1718) to Jiaqing 16 (1811), suggesting that the framework established in Yongzheng 3 remained largely stable for nearly a century. The exploratory governance of the early Qing thus converged in 1725 and subsequently provided the structural foundation of central policy. 

        By around Jiaqing 20, however, this stability began to show signs of strain. At a moment when the governance paradigm shaped in the Shunzhi and Kangxi eras appeared increasingly misaligned with contemporary realities, the Jiaqing emperor turned not to the Qianlong Veritable Records, which he habitually consulted, but to the Shunzhi Veritable Records. His encounter with the Shunzhi 13 edict—foundational to early Qing policy on heretical teachings—can hardly be regarded as accidental. Rather, it reflects both a perceived historical parallel between the crises of the early Qing and those of his own reign and a broader transition from confidence in the durability of the established framework to anxiety that it might no longer fully correspond to political realities.