THE CULTURAL NATURE OF CATHOLIC MISSIONS TO THE EAST GHERARDO GNOLI
From Giovanni da Pian del Carpine to Nicola da Pistoia and Giovanni da Montecorvino, from Francesco Saverio to Matteo Ricci, to the many well-known and unknown, lesser or greater Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, relations between the Church, in particular the Italian Church, and the then unknown and remote kingdoms of Asia were animated by the same spirit of fraternity from the outset in the 14th century: this spirit did not draw its strength from the greedy and ephemeral dreams of power and conquest but from the flourishing and inexhaustible forces of thinking, science, and art. This spirit, in offering the results of its own centuries-old religious thinking, did not reject the millenarian ideas proposed to it by a multitude of religious traditions which all, whichever way you look at it, in any case were convergent on the lofty events of Bethlehem. I am comforted in this apparently bold point of view by the doctrine of a Justin, a Clement and an Origen, who perceived in the lofty spirits of the Orient the precursors of Christianity, allegorically celebrated by Matthew the Evangelist as the Wise Men bearing gifts from their land and their ancient wisdom to Him who, both in the West and the East, was awaited as the Saviour of the World. It may therefore be claimed that, from the outset, the young Apostolic Church turned its gaze towards Asia more than with a view to winning souls over to its cause rather to spread the news of an event that was not as unexpected as it might be thought. According to Ambrose, it was indeed Matthew himself who moved towards Persia, as Thomas did 1
towards India1, in the language of which, according to Isidore, Bartholomew was soon to address the first Gospel2. The Apocrypha tell us much about Thomas’ alleged evangelizing stay and, perhaps along the same route, which is that of the caravans and bivouacs, of the pilgrims and the wandering ascetics, although in the opposite direction, and fragments of Indian legends began to be included in the lives of the saints and indeed the event of Buddha was christianized in the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat. Some traces of this atmosphere, of this first evangelization still survive with various degrees of historical probability. I am thinking for example of the Catholic community of Syro-Malabaric rite in the Indian state of Kerala, whose origins may be traced back to St Thomas’ preaching and whose crosses, actually taken from the Apostle’s name, bear inscriptions in High Mediaeval Medo-Persian. It is a source of true satisfaction for me that the Institute I have the honour of presiding over, the Institute of that Giuseppe Tucci who had dedicated to missionary activity in Asia Le Missioni cattoliche nella cultura dell’Oriente3 as well as numerous pages of his masterly Italia e Oriente, recently republished by IsIAO4 at the invitation of a representative of that church, in the 1990s had promoted an archaeological and epigraphic reconnaissance in Kerala, publishing the results in its review East and West5. It was Francis of Assisi, nearly 40 years before the birth of Marco Polo, whose seventh centenary anniversary was commemorated by our Institute with a memorable conference and book 6, who pointed out that
1 Ambrogio, ‘In Psalmos XLV enarratio’, in Enarrationes in XII Psalmos Davidicos, 21, 10. Cf. Rufino, Historiae Ecclesiasticae, 1, 9. 2 Isidore, De ortu et obitu Patrum, 81, 141. 3 Roma, IsMEO, 1943. 4 Milano, Garzanti, 1949. G. Tucci, Italia e Oriente, ed. by F. D’Arelli, Il Nuovo Ramusio, Roma, IsIAO, 20052. 5 C.G. Cereti, L.M. Olivieri and f. J. Vazhuthanapally, “The Problem of the Saint Thomas Crosses and Related Questions. Epigraphical Survey and Preliminary Research”, East and West, 52, 1-4, 2002, pp. 285-310. 6 Oriente Poliano. Studi e conferenze in occasione del VII centenario della nascita di Marco Polo (1254-1954), by E. Balazs, P. Demiéville, K. Enoki, L. Carrington Goodrich,
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Islam could not represent a permanent and insurmountable obstacle to the spread of the Gospel, both in the Holy Land and to the distant lands of Central Asia and China. Travelling to Egypt between 1219 and 1220, he had personally obtained from the Sultan Melek el-Kamel permission to visit the Holy Places which, in the 1217 Chapter, he had placed under the custody of his Order, a Franciscan custody formally recognized in 1342 in a papal bull issued by Clement VI and never since abandoned. Francis clearly intended to revive in Palestine the impulse that, in that very place, had moved the steps of the early Christians to every part of the world known at the time. It is therefore no coincidence that it was precisely one of Francis’ early companions, Giovanni dal Pian del Carpine, the author of Historia Mongalorum, was dispatched in 1245 by Innocent IV to the Mongol court as papal legate, to be followed one year later by Azelino and Guiscardo Cremonese. Although their mission was a political failure, the same cannot be said concerning its spiritual aspects. The fact of having penetrated hostile lands and having appeared before the Grand Khan, having made their voice hear and pronounced the name of Christ, which was in any case already known after the Manichaean and Nestorian preaching, was in itself a success. In any case the path between East and West was now open. In spite of the clashes of interest, which however proved to be convergent as regards the immense Arabo-Islamic empire that for the Mongols represented a limit to their southward and westward expansion, and for the Church and Europe a constant threat to their autonomy. Even the crusades failed to ensure a permanent solution to this problem. In 1294, soon after the death of Kublai, the Minorite Giovanni da Montecorvino arrived in China: his mission was remarkable not only for the numerous conversions he had made – many from Nestorianism, which had existed here ever since 635, as attested in the famous Si-an
E. Haenisch, L. Hambis, A. Mostaert, L. Olschki, A. Nilakanta Sastri, H. Schafer, B. Spuler, R. Wittkower, Roma, Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed estremo Oriente, MCMLVII.
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stele erected in 781 – but above all because he laid the foundations of a vigorous Christian community. His typically Italian drive and imagination soon gave rise to a series of initiatives introducing a quite distinctive style that was to characterize Catholic missions in Asia, which were destined to last and indeed, as we shall see, to grow stronger over time: the translation of the New Testament and the Psalter into Uigur, the construction of churches, and their decoration. In this way, by means of religious architecture, painting, linguistic versatility, in other words, through the knowledgeable and artistic genius of Italy, Christianity thus began to have a soft diffusion, which converts without converting, which leaves its mark on the adventurous journey of the universal spirit: it does not offend, it does not humiliate, it does not subjugate. It refines taste without excluding local traditions and stylemes, it offers the best of the flourishing humanist culture of the Italian and European Middle Ages, now tending towards the Renaissance. In a word, the Christian character may be said to have been revealed without the peremptory proclamation of the Name that identifies its essence but rather by the subtle persuasion of a loving force tending towards beauty, culture, science, that is, capable of being understood by all in a renewed spirit of Pentecost, overcoming the obstacle of language, customs and ethnic diversity. After Odorico da Pordenone, Giovanni de’ Marignolli, San Francesco Saverio, who died at an early age, and then Alessandro Valignano, Michele Ruggieri, whose spirit is said to have been interpreted to the highest degree by the great Jesuit Matteo Ricci di Macerata. Ever since 1368, the Ming had replaced the Mongols at the head of the Celestial Empire when Ricci, on 7 August 1582 landed in Macao. Because of him the now mature Christian thinking had its effect on the consciences and “little by little penetrated the intellect opening it up to new horizons”7. As the representative of an Order that had completed the Franciscan grace with all its gifts of intellect and science that his century offered him, he succeeded in the previously impossible 7
Tucci, op. cit. (20052), p. 94.
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task of convincing the Chinese that there actually were people in the world who deserved not to be called barbarians, the epithet reserved by the Chinese for all those who did not belong to their millenarian civilization. The arts, philosophy, astronomy and mathematics were the noble arguments used by Li Madou – to use his Chinese name – to overcome the mistrust of his interlocutors and gain a reputation at the Court. He even succeeded in converting the future chancellor of the empire, Paul Hsu Kuang-ch’i. His was the apostolate of a learned man: his writings on geography, cartography, geometry, ethics, etc., are there to prove it. The reform of the calendar, which was of the greatest interest to his hosts, was approached on several occasions, although only in 1634 was it possible to complete the work of the Milanese Giacomo Rho and the Constance-born Johann Adam Schall von Bell. Also symbolically, with the correction of the rough and ready calendar is use at the time, the Jesuits may be said to have brought China into the modern era. Working side by side with other orders, with only a few gaps, they were to remain in the country down to our times. Another Jesuit, Ippolito Desideri, from Pistoia, was for Tibet what Ricci was for the Middle Country. He arrived there in the second decade of the 18th century with the intention of continuing the work of his Portuguese fellow brother, Antonio d’Andrade, the first European to violate the secrets of the Roof of the World, of the Italian Malpichi, of fathers Cacella and Cabral and yet others. The religious character of the Tibetan people suggested an approach to his mission that may be termed ‘vertical’, all centered on thinking: the complex, logically structured Buddhist doctrine was to be tackled in its own field, which required a lack of inhibitions that could only, as Tucci said, become “loving understanding”8. In essence, he realized that in order to demonstrate Christian light to the highly learned lamas with whom he interacted, he himself had to venture into their dogma: in Platonic terms, it was necessary for the Christian lógos to encounter the Buddhist one, for the inner light of each to permeate the other. The resulting impressive work 8
Ibid., p. 156.
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of translation and painstaking theological efforts may be said not to have been exceeded to this day. This was published by my Institute, through the work of Father Giuseppe Toscano and under the supervision of Prof. Luciano Petech, under the title Opere tibetane di Ippolito Desideri, who edited the first four volumes 9. The delay in the publication of the fifth and last volume is due to the decease of the editor. The predecessors of Desideri in many ways were, for India, Giacomo Fenicio (1558-1632), Roberto De Nobili (1577-1656) and Costantino Beschi (1680-1742). However, De Nobili did not stop short at studying and engaging in sophisticated dialectics: his apostolic fervour led him to translate himself into a Hindu ascetic, taking on the latter’s customs, fasting and disciplines. Like Paul at the Aeropagus, he announced his “unknown god” in the forms and in the language – Sanskrit and Tamil – with whom the natives were familiar, which he had learned to write in order to show that the Expected One had now arrived. Beschi is considered to have been something more than just an imitator: he wrote, composed and translated with the sophistication of a pandit, knocking humbly at the door of a different temple but never forgetting his own identity and function. The Jesuit Fenicio had the merit of finally offering Europe a thorough compendium of Indian mythology and epic. The three cited above were preceded in India from the early years of the 14th century by many others, some of whom have remained obscure, others martyred, others again famous, like Francesco Saverio, whose saintliness led to an impressive number of conversions, and Alessandro Valignano, whose diplomatic skills enabled him to succeed the Saint even in far-off Japan. Here Valignano, who had founded an 9
Opere tibetane di Ippolito Desideri, introduction, translation and notes by G. Toscano, Vol. I, Il T’o-rans (L’Aurora), Roma, IsMEO, 1981; Vol. II, Lo Snin-po (Essenza della dottrina cristiana), Roma, IsMEO, 1982; Vol. III, ’Byun k’uns (Origine degli esseri viventi [...]), Roma, IsMEO, 1984; Vol. IV, Il Nes Legs (Il Sommo Bene e fine ultimo), Roma, IsMEO, 1989.
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ecclesiastic structure in the country of the Rising Sun that was so solid as to withstand for centuries both persecutions and the absence of links with the hierarchies, succeeded in 1585 in dispatching the first embassy to Rome which Gregory XIII received with all the honours that this extraordinary occasion deserved. The presence of these exotic aristocrats – there were two princes in their number – was universally appreciated in Italy. Even though adverse circumstances and misunderstandings were later to upset the relations between the two countries, the harsh warlike fibre of Japan may be said to have now been happily contaminated by a gentler spirit, for which nevertheless the price to be paid was martyrdom, which was to become an integral part of its culture. The gap between these two worlds which had such difficulty in understanding each other, despite some temporary tensions, had been filled. Prof. Tucci, my beloved teacher and predecessor, specifically assigned to Italy this unifying task: to its humanist tradition, whereby the Italians acted as disinterested cultural mediators between East and West; to its firm determination, today as in the past, not to leave any traces of bitterness in Asia but to continue the longstanding work of its missionaries, travelers and scholars, who were always seeking points of encounter and not of friction. His own creature, the Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, today the Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, may be said to have been set up to serve this noble purpose. And it is to this end that, in 2005, we launched a new series, Il Nuovo Ramusio, dedicated to a much wider reading public than the world of specialists. Its name recalls that of the prestigious series directed by Tucci and IsMEO and published in the nineteen-fifties by the State Library, of which the seven weighty parts of the second volume, edited by Luciano Petech, are significantly dedicated to the Missionari italiani nel Tibet e nel Nepal10. In order to bear witness to the continuity of our interest in what for us is, more than a valid topic, our very reason for 10 Il Nuovo Ramusio, Raccolta di viaggi, testi e documenti relativi ai rapporti fra l’Europa e l’Oriente a cura dell’Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, Vol. II, Parts I-VII, I Missionari italiani nel Tibet e nel Nepal, ed. by L. Petech, Roma, La Libreria dello Stato, MCMLII-MCMLVI.
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being, in 1998 we published the book Le Marche e l’Oriente. Una tradizione ininterrotta da Matteo Ricci a Giuseppe Tucci11, the title of which sums up better than anything else our cultural vocation.
11 Le Marche e l’Oriente. Una tradizione ininterrotta da Matteo Ricci a Giuseppe Tucci. Atti del Convegno Internazionale. Macerata, 23-26 ottobre 1996, a cura di F. D’Arelli, Roma, IsIAO, 1998.
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