Ernst Faber

Early Years and Calling

Ernst Faber was born on 25 April 1839 in Coburg, Germany. As a young man he resolved to give himself to mission, and before he was twenty he entered the mission seminary at Barmen for training. He then joined the Rhenish Missionary Society, preparing to go to the East.

Sent to China

In 1864 Faber was sent to China by the Rhenish Missionary Society; he reached Hong Kong in April of the following year (1865) and went on at once to Guangdong to begin preaching. For many years afterwards he preached, founded schools and provided medical care in Guangdong, travelling throughout the countryside. Yet the barriers of language and culture gradually convinced him that oral preaching alone was far from enough to open the hearts of China's scholars; only by immersing himself in the Chinese classics and engaging them in dialogue through writing could he find a lasting way forward. In addition, an illness of the throat made it hard for him to keep preaching in public, so he concentrated all the more on writing.

Immersed in Confucian Learning

In 1880, because of a dispute over the management of the church school in Guangzhou, Faber left the Rhenish Missionary Society and became an independent missionary, devoting himself to the study of Confucianism and Chinese religion. He knew the Four Books and Five Classics thoroughly, translated and annotated the Mencius, and probed the roots of Chinese religion and ethics, becoming one of the Western sinologists of his day most widely recognized as profound. In 1884 his major work, Zi Xi Cu Dong (自西徂东) [From West to East], was first published in Hong Kong. Drawing on the teachings of the Four Books, it set out Christian ethics and a Christian view of civilization, arguing that the Chinese classics and the gospel could confirm and converse with each other. The book was later reprinted again and again by the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge among the Chinese (广学会), circulated widely, and had a far-reaching influence. His other books include Da Deguo Xuexiao Lun [On the Schools of Germany] and Zhongguo Zongjiao Kexue [The Science of Chinese Religion], covering education, religion and natural history.

Mission through Literature

In 1885 Faber joined the General Evangelical Protestant Missionary Society (同善会, the "Weimar Mission"), and the following year he moved to Shanghai to continue his writing and literary mission. He kept writing without pause and completed more than ten books. In his later years, after Germany occupied Qingdao, he moved there. On 26 September 1899 Faber died of illness in Qingdao and was buried in the German cemetery there, after 34 years of mission work in China. He never married, and poured his whole life into communication between China and the West. After his death, missionaries of the General Evangelical Protestant Missionary Society established a hospital in Qingdao named after him in his memory.

Explaining Christianity through Confucianism

Throughout his life Faber advocated "explaining Christianity through Confucianism", respecting Chinese culture without disdain and seeking common ground between the classics and the faith. His writings not only introduced Christianity to the Chinese but also showed the West the depth of Chinese civilization. He may be called a forerunner of the modern dialogue between Chinese and Western thought, and his piety and learning are still remembered in church history.