Figurism (Jesuit theology)

Figurism is a syncretist theological movement that holds certain Chinese classics, including the I Ching and Confucianist texts, contain pre-Christian revelations of the original Adamic religious knowledge, which were carried to ancient China following the Great Flood by Shem, and promulgated by Enoch, who was thought to have been Fú Xī, Zoroaster, and Hermes Trismegitus. The ideas were championed by Jesuit missionaries in China, led by Joachim Bouvet (1656-1730), in the 17th and 18th centuries, but opposition from a majority of Chinese scholars and Roman Catholic orders saw the movement effectively suppressed.

Reading

• Mungello, David E. (1989), Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology, University of Hawaii Press, https://amzn.to/2aImG4n 
• Leibniz-Bouvet Correspondence, Translation and Annotations by Alan Berkowitz and Daniel J. Cook