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Until the late modern era in the West and even more recently in the East, the primary mode of philosophical and theological expression was the commentary. In the medieval commentarial tradition, ideas were expressed as both explications and extensions of accepted traditions. In contrast to scholars in the contemporary academy, where novelty is esteemed and tradition denigrated, medieval commentators characteristically allied themselves with a set of "canonical" texts. More important than developing a system was the understanding of texts; hermeneutics was the primary tool, with system-building secondary. The hermeneutical approach was seen not simply as a means to understanding a text but also to grasping reality.
In China and lands influenced by Chinese culture, the Confucian commentarial tradition is the most extensive. It has been conventional in the West to regard Confucius' Analects as the primary, perhaps only source of Confucianism (Confucius lived 551–479 bc). But Confucius himself claimed to be a transmitter of an ancient moral and social tradition of the ru (scholar-gentleman-leader) that was manifested in the golden ages of previous dynasties: the Xia (roughly 2100–1700 bc), the Shang (1700–1027 bc) and, especially, the Zhou (the Western Zhou, which Confucius prized, 1027–771 bc; all of these dates are rough as the dynasties likely had overlapping polities, not discrete ones as traditionally conceived). Prominent dynastic leaders were emulated, including the perhaps legendary Yao, Shun, and Yu of the Xia dynasty and historical figures such as King Wen and the Duke of Zhou. Confucianism (read ruism), therefore, predates Confucius. In these dynasties and their dynastic rulers, the tradition affirms, the ideal was real. We learn of these moral exemplars in the so-called Five Classics: the Classic of Change (Yjing or I Ching), the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Classic of History (Shujing), the Classic of Poetry (Shijing), and the Record of Rites (Liji). There is little current scholarly support for the traditional belief that Confucius was the author, editor, and/or compiler of the Five Classics (the Master transforming them from a mishmash of ancient records, poems and documents into authoritative classics).
It was not until the Song dynasty (more than a millennium after the setting of the canon in the Han dynasty) that the Four Books—the Analects, the Mencius, the Doctrine of the Mean, and the Great Learning—were admitted to the Confucian canon, which previously included only the Five Classics. Thereafter, the Four Books would be elevated above the Five Classics. The Four Books would eventually become something like New Testament to the Classics Old Testament, with a similar result: the New would eclipse the Old. I dare say that precious few Chinese or Asian philosophy courses taught in America or even in China itself assign any of the Classics.
Viewing Confucius as the transmitter of tradition makes Confucius the first great Confucian commentator and the Analects the first great commentary on the Classics. Indeed, an 18th-century Chinese scholar would remark that the Analects sums up the meaning of the Classics. If this is right, we are many removes from the original tradition (kings Yao, Shun, Yu, and Wen, and the Duke of Zhou): there were the original documents (many of which were based on more primitive oral traditions), editor(s)'s redactions, and, in the Analects, Confucius' commentary.
We might add a further level of remove: Confucius did not write the Analects; rather, the work was composed by his disciples and followers over a period of—and here estimates vary widely—20 to 400 years. In turn, these writers evidently added their own views and style to Confucius' original views (compare the lengthy and detailed ritual instruction in Book 10 with the more characteristically terse sayings of Books 1–4). Finally, questions of authorship aside, the Analects is difficult to understand, so we need commentators to explain Confucius' commentary on Confucianism.
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