Noël, the Post-Figurist: Rehabilitating the Book of Changes as a Metaphysical and Ethical Manual in the Early Enlightenment

Abstract: The Flemish Jesuit François Noël (1651–1729) is often linked to Figurism, a movement that sought Christian prophecies in Chinese classics like the Yijing . This article agrees with recent studies that have distanced Noël from Figurism in light of the predominantly rationalist approach towards Neo-Confucianism employed in the Philosophia Sinica ( Chinese Philosophy , 1711), but argues that the Figurist legacy and the Qing-era Yijing revival are fundamental for Noël's engagement with Chinese thought. Crucially, Noël reads the Yijing through Neo-Confucian commentaries to demonstrate the compatibility of Chinese and Christian views on cosmogony and to reframe Yijing divination as a tool for ethical and political decision-making which is compatible with Christian doctrine. Noël thus emerges as a post-Figurist who attempts a sinologically informed rehabilitation of the Yijing that is not dependent on the typological speculations of his Figurist predecessors.