Nakae Tōju (中江 藤樹, 21 April 1608 – 11 October 1648) was a writer and Confucian scholar of early Edo period Japan popularly known as "the Sage of Ōmi".

After hiding for a time in Kyoto, he returned to his home village of Ogawa in Ōmi (currently part of Takashima, Shiga, where he opened a private academy for Confucian studies.

Nakae gradually became obsessed with the Cheng–Zhu school, but was also highly influenced by Yangmingism, which argued for the primacy of human intuition or conscience over intellect: moral improvement arises out of conscience-based action (similar to Aristotle's ethics).

While accepting the then standard view of women as usually lacking such virtues as compassion and honesty, he argued: "if a wife's disposition is healthy and pious, obedient, sympathetic and honest, then ... every member of her family will be at peace and the entire household in perfect order.

"[4] His teachings spread widely not only to samurai but also to farmers, merchants, and craftsmen, and has been spontaneously called "Ōmi saint" since the middle of the Edo period.