Abstract

This chapter will pin down the most outlandish image of Confucius in Chinese history, which comes from a corpus particular to the intellectual and political context of the first two centuries CE China, the apocrypha (chenwei 讖緯). The corpus developed the image of Confucius from earlier ones, such as a thinker, a sage, and an unsuccessful politician. Moreover, apocrypha reflect the intellectual and political changes of the time, especially a growing enthusiasm for an ideal society based on the Five Classics and the restoration of the Han dynasty. The image of Confucius fluctuates in accordance with these changes and becomes that of a prophet and messenger of Heaven who not only encoded his political teaching in his work, the Annals of Spring and Autumn, but also foretold the ascendance of the ruling Liu family. His seemingly outlandish image was rooted in knowledge shared amongst scholars of that time.