I gesuiti non sono bonzi e l’Europa non è l’India. I primi catechismi cinesi della Compagnia di Gesù,

As the quintessential tool for Christian education, catechism also served to convey deep political and cultural contents. The books specifically written for non-European missions, and particularly the Chinese, in order to persuade and convert, also aimed at providing an overall image of the Christian West, of its usages and its customs, in order to make it attractive and culturally compatible with Chinese society. Since this was a fiction and a great staging, the Enlightenment had a field day in overturning their meaning and unmasking all the contradictions.