RICCI
39
RICCI
contradictory interpretations of texts prevented the
Congregation from reaching a decision until towards
the end of 1704 under the pontificate of Clement XI.
Long before then the pope had chosen and sent to the
Far East a legate to secure the execution of the
Apostolic decrees and to regulate all other questions
on the welfare of the missions. The prelate chosen
was Charles-Thomas-Maillard de Tournon (b. at
Turin) whom Clement XI had consecrated with his
own hands on 27 Dec, 1701, and on whom he con-
ferred the title of Patriarch of Antioch. Leaving
Europe on 9 Feb., 1703, Mgr de Tournon stayed for a
time in India (see Malabar Rites) reaching Macao
on 2 April, 1705, and Peking on 4 December of the
same year. Emperor K'ang-hi accorded him a warm
welcome and treated him with much honour until he
learned, perhaps through the imprudence of the legate
himself, that one of the objects of his embassy, if not
the chief, was to abolish the rites amongst the
Christians. Mgr de Tournon was already aware that
the decision against the rites had been given since 20
Nov., 1704, but not yet published in Europe, as the
pope wished that it should be publi-shed first in China.
P'orced to leave Peking, the legate had returned to
Nan-king when he learned that the emperor had
ordered all missionaries, under penalty of expulsion,
to come to him for a piao or diploma granting per-
mission to preach the Gospel. This diploma was to
be granted only to those who promi.sed not to oppose
the national rites. On the receipt of this news the
legate felt that he could no longer postpone the an-
nouncement of the Roman decisions. By a mandate
of 15 January, 1707, he required all missionaries under
pain of excommunication to reply to Chinese author-
ity, if it questioned them, that "several things" in
Chinese doctrine and customs did not agree with
Divine law and that these were chiefly "the sacri-
fices to Confucius and ancestors" and "the use of
ancestral tablets", moreover that Shang-ti and THen
were not "the true God of the Christians". When the
emperor learned of this Decree he ordered Mgr de
Tournon to be brought to Macao and forbade him to
leave there before the return of the envoys whom he
himself sent to the pope to explain his objections to
the interdiction of the rites, \\hile still subject to
this restraint, the legate died in 1710.
Meanwhile Mgr Maigrot and several other mis- sionaries having refused to ask for the piao had been expelled from China. But the majority (i. e. all the Jesuits, most of the Franciscans, and other missionary religious, having at their head the Bishop of Peking, a Franciscan, and the Bishop of Ascalon, Vicar Apos- tolic; of Kiang-si, an Augustinian) considered that, to prevent the total ruin of the mission, they might postpone obedience to the legate until the pope should have signified his will. Clement XI replied by pub- lishing (March, 1709) the answers of the Holy Office, which he had already approved on 20 November, 1704, and then by causing the same Congregation to issue (25 Sept., 1710) a new Decree which approved the acts of the legate and ordered the observance of the mandate of Nan-king, but interpreted in the sense of the Roman replies of 1704. Finally, be- lieving that these measures were not meeting with a sufficiently simple and full submission, Clement issued (19 March, 1715) the Apostolic Constitution, "Ex ilia die". It reproduced all that was properly a decision in the replies of 1704, omitting all the questions and most of the preambles, and concluded with a form of oath which the pope enjoined on all the missionaries and which obliged them under the severest penalties to observe and have observed fully and without reserve the decisions inserted in the pontifical act. This Constitution, which reached China in 1716, found no rebels among the missionaries, but even those who sought most zealously failed to induce the majority of their flock to observe its pro-
visions. At the same time the hate of the pagans was
reawakened, enkindled by the old charge that
Christianity was the enemy of the national rites, and
the neophytes began to be the objects of persecutions
to which K'ang-hi, hitherto so well-disposcMl, tiow gave
almost entire liberty. Clement XI souglii to remedy
this critical situation by sending to China a second
legate, John-Ambrose Alezzabarba, whom he named
Patriarch of Alexandria. This prelate sailed from
Lisbon on 25 March, 1720, reaching Macao on 26
September, and Canton on 12 October. Admitted,
not without difficulty, to Peking and to an audience
with the emperor, the legate could only prevent his
inmiediate dismissal and the expulsion of all the mis-
sionaries by making known some alleviations of the
Constitution "Ex ilia die", which he was authorized
to offer, and allowing K'ang-hi to hope that the pope
would grant still others. Then he hastened to return
to Macao, whence he addressed (4 November, 1721)
a pa.storal letter to the missionaries of China, com-
municating to them the authentic text of his eight
"permissions" relating to the rites. He declared that
he would permit nothing forbidden by the Constitu-
tion; in practice, however, his concessions relaxed the
rigour of the pontifical interdictions, although they
did not produce harmony or unity of action among the
apostolic workers. To bring about this highly de-
sirable result the pope ordered a new investigation,
the chief object of which was the legitimacy and op-
portuneness of Mezzabarba's "permissions"; begun
by the Holy Office under Clement XII a conclusion
was reached only under Benedict XIV. On 11 July,
1742, this pope, by the Bull "Ex quo singulari", con-
firmed and reimposed in a most emphatic manner
the Constitution "Ex ilia die", and condemned and
annulled the "permissions" of Mezzabarba as author-
izing the superstitions which that Constitution
sought to destroy. This action terminated the con-
troversy among Catholics.
The Holy See did not touch on the purely theoreti- cal questions, as for instance what the Chinese rites were and signified according to their institution and in ancient times. In this Father Ricci may have been right; but he was mistaken in thinking that as practised in modern times they are not superstitious or can be made free from all superstition. The popes declared, after scrupulous investigations, that the ceremonies in honour of Confucius or ancestors and deceased relatives are tainted with superstition to such a degree that thej- cannot be purified. But the error of Ricci, as of his fellow- workers and successors, was but an error in judgment. The Holy See expressly forbade it to be said that they approved idolatry; it would indeed be an odious calumny to accuse such a man as Ricci, and so many other holy and zealous missionaries, of having approved and permitted to their neophytes practices which they knew to be super- stitions and contrary to the purity of religion. De- spite this error, Matteo Ricci remains a splendid type of missionary and founder, unsurpassed for his zealous intrepidity, the intelligence of the methods applied to each situation, and the unwearying tenacity with which he pursued the projects he undertook. To him belongs the glory not only of opening up a vast empire to the Gospel, but of simultaneously making the first breach in that distrust of strangers which excluded China from the general progress of the world. The establishment of the Catholic mission in the heart of this country also had its economic consequences : it laid the foundation of a better under- standing between the Far East and the West, which grew with the progress of the mission. It is super- fluous to detail the results from the standpoint of the material interests of the whole world. Lastly, science owes to Father Ricci the first exact scientific knowl- edge received in Europe concerning China, its true geographical situation, its ancient civihzation, its vast
