Abstract: Early Confucianism once produced different forms of the Six Classics, doctrines of Pre-Qin sages, and commentary learning of Confucianism - to integrate the two different academic forms - classics and commentaries - into an organic ideological system. The three sorts are not only different in literature form, but also in academic status. The literature form of the Analects of Confucius, the Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean and Mencius, in the history of Confucianism, has changed one after another. In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the four books fell into the doctrines of the sages, while in the Han Dynasty, they were shifted to the commentary learning of the Six Classics. Next in the Song Dynasty, they enjoyed equal status as the Six Classics, and even evolved into the studies of the Four Books, the Confucianism classics, thus weighing more. Its constant changes in literature form over the thousand year history of Confucianism results from the constant change of its ideological content.

Key words: Confucianism, the Six Classics, Pre-Qin sages, commentary learning, studies of the Four Books