Why is Confucianism Considered a Religion?
And why are Ancient Greek philosophical movements not?
Confucianism was not considered a religion before contact with the Jesuits in the 16th century. Prior to that, it was understood as jiāo (教) which simply meant "teaching" that encompassed moral cultivation, social order, and governance.
But even Jesuits like Matteo Ricci argued that Confucianism was primarily philosophical rather than religious in order to avoid portraying it as incompatible with Christianity. So when and why did Confucianism get recategorized as a religion?
It was Friedrich Max Müller (1823–1900) who virtually created the discipline of comparative religion. Müller's most significant contribution was editing the Sacred Books of the East; this was a monumental 50-volume set of English translations of Asian religious texts published by Oxford University Press between 1879 and 1910.
Following in the footsteps of Müller, it was James Legge (1815-1897) who was the primary scholar responsible for systematically classifying Confucianism as a religion within Müller's comparative religion framework.
As a Scottish missionary and sinologist, Legge contributed significantly to Müller's Sacred Books of the East project by translating Chinese texts. Legge explicitly stated that "Confucianism is the religion of China par excellence" in his translations and commentary.
Probably because he was influenced by his missionary background, Legge highlighted several elements that seemed "religious" in Confucianism.
These included features such as veneration of Confucius and ancestors, ritual practices, temples, moral teachings with supernatural dimensions, and concepts of Heaven (tian) and the Mandate of Heaven.
In his zeal to religionize Confucianism, however, Legge deliberately downplayed the parts of Confucian thought that deals with governance, statecraft, and political philosophy.
Legge also downplayed the skeptical and agnostic elements that might have undermined a religious characterization of Confucianism. For example, Confucius famously refrained from discussing spirits and the afterlife: "While you do not know life, how can you know about death?". But these were, of course, conveniently excluded from Legge's comparative religion framework.
And yet, we do not consider the ancient Greek worldviews to be religions. This is largely because ancient Greek beliefs are no longer contemporaneous with those early comparative religion scholars. Had ancient Greek thought persisted to this day, we would have considered them to be religious in a way no different from the way we treat Confucianism.