Western Missionaries’ Overview on Religion in Tonkin (North of Vietnam) in the 18th Century

TRẦN VĂN TOÀN*
ABSTRACT: The author compares the two rare books, one in Vietnamese and the
other in Latin, namely “Tam giáo chư vọng” and “A Small Treatise”. The two books
were both composed in great efforts of Italian missionaries at the order of Saint
Augustine while they came to work in the North of Vietnam in the 18th century.
Despite slight differences, the two books provide rich materials regarding religions
and beliefs of the Vietnamese people. Although authors managed to classify religions
and beliefs in the region, there are still limitations in their works due to lack of
understanding of indigenous language, customs and culture.
Recently, while reviewing Tam giáo chư vọng (An Overview on Three Religions), a
hand-writing book in Vietnam national language, I made reference to Tiểu luận văn
(A small Treatise) written by hand in Latin by Adriano a Sancta Thecla in 17501
.
These two quite similar books are stored in the Foreign Mission of Paris’ archives.
They were both composed of the same materials by Italian missionaries at the order
of Saint Augustine. These missionaries, at the same time, provided an overview on
religion in Vietnam. Despite of differences in style and structure, the two books
cover the same events. Thus they can be considered “a twin”.
Vietnamese scholars should pay attention to the Vietnamese version. For the
Latin version, 10 years ago, I had suggested the head of the Archives of the Foreign
Mission of Paris that it should have been publicized for European scholars and
historians but he said the book would only be sold if it came out in European
language rather than Latin. When I found that as the book has just been published in
English and translators forgot to mention An Overview on Three Religions, I decide
to use both of these two books in order to learn and at the same time generalize

*
. Professor, Lille Catholic University, Republic of France.
Trần Văn Toàn. Western Missionaries’ Overview on Religion in Tonkin… 15
Western missionaries’ knowledge regarding religion in Vietnam in nearly three
centuries ago.
1. General Comments
3 or 4 centuries before, mostly what the Europeans knew about cultures out side
Europe were all via Christian missionaries. Because of the need to preach and share
Christian faith with strange peoples they first needed to learn native languages,
thoughts and customs. Thus mission would often come with knowledge about
ethnology, culture and especially religion.
Vietnamese history book reveals that in 1533, a European missionary called
Inikhu (should be Inigo) came to several villages in the costal area of the North of
Vietnam but we have no information about his nationality and which order he
belonged to. After him, some other missionaries also came to preach and gained
some followers, including members of Lord Trinh’s family. The mission work,
however, was carried out discursively and because of lack of favourable conditions,
the result was limited.
Not until the 17th century, did the number of missionaries increase. They often
came from the same home land or order thus it was more easily to regularly organize
mission work. Consequently, knowledge on language, history, culture and religion in
Vietnam was enriched. Ethnological elements, however, were represented as a
whole, not separated into different disciplines.
In the first stage, those missionaries collected all what they witnessed in real life,
and also what they could understand from Vietnamese and Chinese books. They
divided their collection into 3 categories: what was strange to the Europeans would
be considered “curious”; what was relevant to their religion would be considered
“constructive”; and what contrasted to their faith would be considered
“superstitious”. This reminds me of the collection of Letters of constructive and
curious things (Lettres é difiantes et curieuses) composed by missionaries from Jesus
order. This collection came out in 31 volumes, first in 1717 and was suspended in
1774 because some European kings prohibited the order and also incited Roman
Catholic Church to ban this publication until 1814. After the Jesus order was allowed
to republish those letters, they made the new edition with 14 volumes and
categorized the contents according to each specific locality. In this new edition, the
9th volume was for Vietnam. Not until the 18th century was knowledge regarding
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16 Religious Studies Review Vol. 1, No. 3 – October 2007
religion in Vietnam separated and systematized. And this is the work by Italian
missionaries at the Saint Augustine order.
Regarding history of mission in Vietnam, people would often talk about
missionaries from the Jesus order at the Foreign Mission of Paris or under the
Dominican order (Portugal) while they knew very little about Italian missionaries.
These missionaries did not work for long in Vietnam (from 1701 to 1761) but some
of them who were outstanding in knowledge. They were the first to present religion
in Vietnam systematically and quite adequately.
Hereunder, I would like to address these following issues: 1. Misisonaries’
knowledge of religion in the 17th century; 2. Italian missionaries in Vietnam (1701-
1761); 3. An overview on religion in Vietnam in the 18th century; and 4. Some
comments.
2. Missionaries’ Knowledge of Religion in Vietnam in the 17th century
In the 17th century, missionaries from Jesus order, despite the number was small, had
managed to investigate and publish in Europe books about Vietnamese history and
culture: Christofle Borri – Relation de la nouvelle mission des Pères de la
Cochinchine (Report on mission work by Jesus’ missionaries in Cochinchine, the
translation version from Italian into French was printed in Lille in 1631); Alexandre
de Rhodes: Histoire du Royaume de Tunquin (History of Tonkin, translated from
Latin into French and printed in Lyon in 1651) and Phép giảng tám ngày (or
Teaching of Christianity in 8 days, written both in Latin and national Vietnamese,
printed in Roma in 1651); Joseph Tissanier: Relation du voyage au Tunquin, 1658,
1659, 1660 (Report on the voyage in Tonkin in 1658, 1659, 1660, printed in Paris in
1663) and Marini: Relation nouvelle et curieuse des royaumes de Tunquin et Lao
(Report on strange things in Tonkin and Laos, translated from Italian into French,
printed in Paris in 1666).
It is clear that during this time, course of religion was not yet separated from
course of ethnology. Except for work by Borri which only discussed on history and
customs, other books all spent several chapters to talk about Three Religions,
superstition, wrong awareness and inappropriate worship. In mid 18th century, and
this was the first time, Italian missionaries had intention to propose a systematical
overview on religion in Vietnam. But later, very few ever thought about
systematizing materials. There were two reasons: 1. theoretically, there appeared
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Trần Văn Toàn. Western Missionaries’ Overview on Religion in Tonkin… 17
more and more complicated religious phenomena thus it was very difficult to classify
them. A French missionary, Léopold Cadière, had pay attention in examining
correctly in details and written many books on religion in Vietnam in stead of
spending too much time for theoretical classification; 2. In practice, Cadière believed
that classification was also unnecessary. It was more important to list for followers
what wrong worships should be avoided.
3. Italian Missionaries at the Saint Augustine Order in Vietnam
3.1. Missionary organization in Vietnam
In the 17th century, missionary organization in Vietnam had big changes. In the early
half of the century, mission work was confided for missionaries at Jesus order under
the patronage of Portuguese King. On one hand, missionaries needed Portuguese
trading boats when they wanted to go preaching in remote areas. On the other hand,
in order to avoid conflict between the Portuguese and the Spanish who were looking
for colonies, Alxandro VI stood out to act as a mediator. The two sign then signed in
Tordesillas Convention (1593) which divided areas under these two countries’
affection: The Portuguese went further to the East, over Africa, India to Vietnam and
Chinese mainland while the Spanish went to the West, over American continent to
the Philippines.
In 1654, a missionary, Alexander de Rhodes, sent a proposal to Pope Innocente X
in Roma in which he asked for permission to establish Vietnamese Catholic
hierarchy. He used these reasons: the community of Vietnamese Catholics had
become larger thus more priests and bishops were needed for preaching and
guidance. However, European countries could not send enough missionaries to those
areas, and even if they could do that, local governments would not permit too many
foreigners to get into their countries because of national security. De Rhodes did not
agree with the ideal saying that because the Vietnamese Catholics had just followed
the religion for a short time and their faith was unstable, they themselves could not
become missionaries to guide the native followers. De Rhodes argued that there had
been Vietnamese who accepted to be put in custody, tortured and even sentenced to
death because of their faith2
. At first, the Pope did not agree but after listened to
Rhodes’ explanation, in 1658, he decided to send two French missionaries, Francois
Pallu and Pierre Lambert de la Motte, to be bishops who would represent for the
Catholic Church in Vietnam: Tonkin (the North) and Cochinchine (the South). And,
also in this time, the Foreign Mission of Paris was established.
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18 Religious Studies Review Vol. 1, No. 3 – October 2007
This decision is very important for the history of mission work. In reality, there
might not be a plot to use missionaries as path-finders for colonialists. In contrast,
there was a need to avoid colonialists make use of religion. In reality, when signed in
the Tordesillas, the Pope also commended kings of Spain and Portugal the duty to
support mission works, and let them select relevant bishops. The Church, however,
had soon realized that it was wrong to do so because kings of those countries even
though supported mission works, had tried to select and acculturate native people
into ones who would speak Spanish and Portuguese. When the Church found out that
the way of mission needed to be changed, they thought that it was the best choice to
use the French missionaries since at that time France had not any colony and also no
commercial interests in Asia. Thus they would have no idea to acculturate the native
Christians but only try to integrate into their own culture.
Being aware of the problem, Portugal and Spain had made hindrance for the two
new bishops. Francois Pallu, for example, was given into custody by the Portuguese.
Among missionaries sent to Vietnam by Portugal, some did not recognize those
bishops and hindered their activities. However, new policy gradually became stable.
From the later half of the 17th centuries, French missionaries were well aware of the
fact that they were working for the Catholic Church, not for the French king or
culture. Money for the mission works came from Catholics’ donation, not from the
French king. And when dealing with Vietnamese graphemes (Nôm and national
script), two French bishops, Pigneaux de Behaine (Bá Đa Lộc) and Teberd, had
translated them all into Latin (the language used in Catholic Church) not into
French.3
Vietnamese Catholics were taught in Vietnamese books, and religious
materials in Nom was popular since the first half of the 17th century until mid 20th
century while books of the Three Religion were still written in Chinese scripts. For
this rule, Vietnamese who followed Christianity had not become Portuguese or
Spanish speakers. Until France sent its troops to interfere into Vietnam, there
appeared changes but these were for the whole country, not only for the Catholics.
In 1695, Vietnam was divided into the two regions, the South and the North. In
Tonkin, bishop Pallu (1626-1684) was in charge while in Cochinchine, bishop
Lambert de la Motte (1624-1679) took the responsibility according to assignment by
the Church. Until 1679, Tonkin was divided into Eastern region and Western region,
along with the Hong River (Red river). Bishop Jacques de Bourges (1630-1714) was
responsible for Western region and Bishop Francois Deydier (1634-1693) was
responsible for the Eastern region. They both came from Foreign Mission of Paris. In
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Trần Văn Toàn. Western Missionaries’ Overview on Religion in Tonkin… 19
1693, after Deydier died, the Church left the Eastern area of Tonkin for Spanish
missionaries at the Dominican order.
Italian missionaries at the Augustine order came to work in Vietnam when
missionary organization had been stabilized. They worked in the Eastern of Tonkin
within the domain of Dominican order. Like missionaries from this order, they were
no longer dependent on their kings but on Catholic Church of Roma.
There were only 13 Italian missionaries and they stayed in Vietnam for 60 years
(1701-1761). They were responsible for a small area around Kẻ Sặt village in Hải
Dương province. Among them, there were two or three who had deep knowledge.
One of them, Ilario Costa di Gesu (1694-1754), had been selected to be a bishop. He
was the fifth bishop who took care of the East Tonkin region from 1737 to 1754. In
1749, Father Ilario chose an Italian missionary in his order, Adriano Thecla (1667-
1765), to be a general vicar, the one who was closest to him. Portuguese
missionaries, however, tried to mobilize the Church so that they could be the only
missionaries to be in charge of the East Tonkin region. And they succeeded finally.
Thus in 1761, the Church required Italian missionaries to get out of that region. Only
Adriano, aged 94 that time, did not want to leave the place that he and friends had
been working for 60 years, and died in Vietnam in 1765.
3.2. Intellectual Activities of Missionaries at the Saint Augustine Order
Father Ilario and Father Adriano were the two most excellent missionaries at the
Saint Augustine order in Vietnam in the 18th century4
. These are sentences about
Ilario by Bishop Louis Néez who was responsible for the West Tonkin region (1739-
1764): “Father was extremely genius in writing. Thanked to him, Church of Tonkin
had produced many books. He not only wrote those books for missionaries at his
order but also for believers within his region.”5
In fact, in 31 years of working in
Vietnam, Father Ilario had written 4 in Latin and 14 other religious books in
Vietnamese, one of them was Criticizing Buddhism in Dị đoan chí giáo (About
superstitious faiths). Adriano himself wrote Chronicle about China and Tonkin
region, Small Treatise and Biography of Father Ilario, Bishop of Coricée (1756).
Within this article, I am only interested in ethnology on religion. Regarding this
subject, we must first talk about Small Treatise on sects among the Chinese and
Tonkinese by Adriano, which was translated and annotated by Olga Dror in English6
.
In the Introduction, Adriano noted materials he used: besides what he knew by
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observation in daily life, he talked about a lot of materials he learnt via other
missionaries such as Francisco Gil de Federich, a Spanish missionary from
Dominican order (he became a martyr in 1745), Wenceslas Paleczek, and a
Bohemian who managed missionaries at the Jesus order in Tonkin. He also
mentioned about superstitious faiths and Index Historicus (In dex of history) by
Father Ilario along with Vietnamese history books and Chinese classic works.
Alongside with Small Treatise, we must discuss An Overview on Three
Religions7
. This is a small-sided book in handwriting (10x15cm) without showing
the date. However, in the page 29, there is a sentence: “This year is Nhâm Thân (year
of Monkey) under Cảnh Hưng the 13th. This means that the book was written in
1752, the same time with Small Treatise by Adriano. The author did not write his
name but he introduced about himself as follow: “I am from Western, in Italia, came
to the East to teach about Religion of the God for people in this An Nam (Vietnam)
country…” We can argue that the author was an Italian missionary and he spoke
Vietnamese fluently. But who is he then? Besides Adriano and Ilario who had
written many books and understood reality in Vietnam, there was no other. What is
more, as Adriano was writing Biography of Father Ilario and listed his books, he did
not mention An Overview on Three Religions. The book might have been written in
different plot and style, but the content is similar to Small Treatise (in Latin). Is this
book written by Adriano? I think this is not true. Because Adriano was the one who
collaborated closely with Father Ilario and he even used Ilario’s materials. Secondly,
Adriano used to write in Latin or Italian for Western missionaries. He was not as
good at Vietnamese as Ilario that he could write books to teach Vietnamese people.
Thus it could be not too mistaken if we put that the book was written by Adriano.
The reason why Adriano did not sign in the book and mention about it in Ilario’s
works could be that when he listed all the books in 1756, two years after Ilario’s
death, the original version had been lost. Only one copy was kept by Bishop Néez
and then sent to the archive of Foreign Mission of Paris, the same to what happened
to Small Treatise by Adriano himself. We know for sure one thing: Small Treatise
and An Overview on Three Religions were all written by Italian missionaries at Saint
Augustine order under Father Ilario’s management.
4. Overview on Religion in Vietnam in the 18th century
Small Treatise and An Overview on Three Religions are the two books composed in
the mid 18th century that only focused on religion in Vietnam. Knowledge of many
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Trần Văn Toàn. Western Missionaries’ Overview on Religion in Tonkin… 21
Western missionaries at different orders was summarized in a consistent approach of
ethnology. The task was to collect religious elements; separate those from other
cultural elements then build up a unique field. After that they looked for appropriate
criteria to systematically classify those religious elements into right order. One could
say that the two books are a great effort to summarize religious picture in Vietnam in
slightly different formats. The two books based on the same events and were written
by people who were from the same order and working closely together in the same
region. They had a rather similar plot for each book. Differences may be found as
they aimed at two kinds of audience: The Treatise, written in Latin, was for foreign
missionaries who had just come to Vietnam to learn about indigenous beliefs; An
Overview on Three Religions, written in Vietnamese in a conversational format, was
to help (Catholic) believers learn how different their faith and others’ beliefs were.
4.1. Materials
Besides little observation in Vietnam, missionaries, Adriano for example, would
often think that Vietnamese thoughts and customs were similar to what of the
Chinese. They learned that the Vietnamese followed Chinese culture used Chinese to
write official documents and history books. Thus they often went to China to get
familiar with Chinese culture before going to Vietnam. In fact, if there weren’t such
missionaries as Girolamo Majorica or Alexander de Rhodes, who had been excellent
in Vietnamese and written, books in Nom (traditional Vietnamese script) and modern
Vietnamese script, many Western people would think that Vietnamese was just a
kind of Chinese people.
From beginning, materials written in the mid 17th century about Chinese and
Vietnamese culture mostly based on available books and some observation in
Vietnam. After the 1st century, however, materials became various since missionaries
had witnessed many rituals, festivals and worship ceremonies for Vietnamese gods
and for King Le or Lord Trinh when they were still alive. In Small Treatise, Adriano
had four times talked about important events recorded by Francisco Gil de Federich.
All those events were a mixture of some Taoism with sorcerers, Buddhism which
had turned certain gods worshiped popularly into Buddha, Bodhisattvas or
Buddhists. Thus God, Buddha, immortals, saints was gathered in a mess but all under
control of the State which followed Confucianism. The evidence was, as we know,
the king asked his officers in the department of ceremony to investigate all gods
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worshipped in the country. They were supposed to learn clearly about story of each
god. If a god had both a high moral life and at the same time contributed much for
the nation, the king would award him a royal certification of high god, medium god
or low god. The King also appointed relevant worship ceremony for him. In case a
god became less sacred, his rank could be lowered. I would argue that this was the
first time religious events in Vietnam were classified systematically8
.
It is necessary to note that authors mostly described rituals in practice as
discussing Three Religions. They, however, seldom mentioned about basic concepts
such as “Three Moral Bonds and Five Constant Virtues” of Confucianism, “vimukti”
(liberation) of Buddhism or metaphysical concepts of Taoism. The reason is that
people at that time could have been more interested in specific rituals than in abstract
concepts such as “transform and to be born” and “forms and emptiness” or
missionaries only focused on such things because of these two reasons: first, they
wanted to propagate the religion that worships only one “true god” so they only
cared about what belonged to popular culture that was in contrast to their faith,
polytheist concepts and magician superstition, for example. They did pay attention to
different kinds of cosmology of each party in Three Religions because those were not
relevant to the conception that the God himself (in Christianity) created the world.
They also made reference to biography of founders of Three Religions to state that
they were actually human beings, not God. Thus their ethnology regarding religion
was not just description but also assessment according to their own moral criteria.
Secondly, the reason is because of the religious situation at that time. After 3 or 4
centuries of prosperity, Buddhism had enjoyed significant support from Lý and Trần
dynasties. However, from Late Lê dynasty, Buddhism and Taoism were not any
more given favorable conditions from the governments. They were also strongly
criticized by Confucians. Buddhism fell into recession, was sometimes mixed with
popular magician superstition while founders of those two other religions was
assimilated into gods of the normal people. As describing religions, missionaries did
not talk much on teachings because followers that time had very few books on
theory, and they mostly focused on rituals and sacred invocation.
It could be said that authors of these two books had selected and used materials
according to the same criteria.
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Trần Văn Toàn. Western Missionaries’ Overview on Religion in Tonkin… 23
4.2. The Way of Classifying Materials
Classifying events, materials are theoretical work that researchers must do. But what
are the criteria should be used?
To classify, missionaries had got already framework from Three Religions. That
was what Matteo Ricci (Li Ma-Dou), an Italian missionary, from Jesus order and
Nicolas Trigault, a Belgium missionary, had done in Histoire de l’expédition
chrétienne au Royaume de la Chine (History of Christianity mission in China),
printed in 1617. Later missionaries did the same thing. Even Chinese and
Vietnamese people themselves often say that “Three Religions come from one
source”, it seems that they had never thought thoroughly on doctrines to prove that
what that source is. The problem is Vietnamese people often mistook Buddha,
Immortals, Saints and Gods. They would worship who they thought to be sacred.
Because of this wrong awareness, framework according to Three Religions could not
help for classification.
If Western missionaries wanted to use that frame work, they must not be
confused among different religions but should better know how to make one religion
different from the others. Besides, they took the hierarchy in Three Religions:
Confucianism was the first, Taoism the second, and Buddhism the third.
Confucianism took the first place since it was the official religion of the state;
Taoism took the second position because it was established by the Chinese; and
Buddhism stood at the end of the list because it was imported oversea. According to
the hierarchy, missionaries believed that they did not need to talk much with Taoism
and Buddhism which were going downward. They, instead, turned to Confucianism
because it was the mainstream religion while the other two were considered “false
religions” if not superstition. Later, Christianity was also categorized into the same
kind with Buddhism and Taoism, and moreover, even was repressed by the
indigenous government. This problem had never happened to other religions within
the country.
Yet as trying to understand and classify religious phenomena in Vietnam,
Western missionaries were always well aware that their religion worshipped only a
“true God” and thus became very different with native faiths. Due to awareness of
their identity, they, on one hand, managed to culturally integrated with native culture,
and on the other hand, kept their faith. They were confused or assimilated their god
with Buddha, immortals, deities or saints. Some one could argue that those
missionaries had been intolerant. But I do not think so.
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24 Religious Studies Review Vol. 1, No. 3 – October 2007
Even framework from Three Religions taken for classification, the method of
organizing chapters in Small Treatise and An overview on Three Religions is not
totally the same. The reason is the familiar framework only enlisted religions with
specific founders, doctrines, organizations while neglected popular (or folk) religion.
That is why the framework becomes too much narrow when it deals with popular
religions. Missionaries had to use two solutions: 1. In Small Treatise, besides three
chapters for Three Religions, Adriano wrote one extra and longest chapter for deities
and a short chapter for the phenomenon of divines9
; 2. In An Overview on Three
Religions, the author keeps the Three Religions framework then tried to put popular
religions into one of chapters written for three religions.
4.3. Two Kinds of Audience
4.3. 1. Adriano wrote Small Treatise on the sects among the Chinese and Tonkinese
in Latin in order to help Western missionaries understand religion in Vietnam.
Because he wrote for Western people, he must find out a reasonable classification
which was similar to Western way. He divided religion in Vietnam into 5 categories.
Even though the author named the book “Small Treatise” which sounded neutral, in
fact he criticized and fought against what he believed wrong, just like An overview
on Three Religions.
4.3. 2. An Overview on Three Religions was written in about before or after 1752, at
the same time with Small Treatise. It was written in Vietnamese language to teach
followers to simply make different between Christianity and other religions thus
criteria for classification was unnecessary. In a textbook form, it used a format of a
conversation between a Western scholar and an Eastern scholar. Even the book had a
form of argument; its foremost purpose was for mission work. It helped followers be
aware of misunderstanding when they had not yet joined Christianity. The book had
no intention to provoke non-Catholics because firstly Catholics took a modest
number and was often denounced, captured, detained or killed; secondly, at that time,
Vietnamese letters using Latin letters were just used in Catholic communities. The
outsiders of these communities could not read this letters.
Eastern scholar here was a Confucians because Confucianism wanted to discuss
on proper behavior of any person, not on evils or the death thus it was not very
incompatible with Catholicism of Western scholar. Mover over, Western scholar
depended on Confucianism to blame other two religions to be “nonsense”.
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Trần Văn Toàn. Western Missionaries’ Overview on Religion in Tonkin… 25
As said above, only by looking at the contents of the two books can we see that
the authors had tried to put all religious phenomena into the narrow framework of
Three Religions10. Other authors later tried to avoid this classification. They used
different ways of classification.
5. Some Comments
5.1. On the Overview on Religious Studies
Religious phenomena in Vietnam were extremely complicated and materials used to
write those books were various. They were books by Chinese, Vietnamese or
previous Western missionaries or events which were observed and recorded in
Vietnam. The significant contribution of Italian missionaries at the order of Saint
Augustine is a method to build up an overview. Firstly, they classified everything
into an order. They partly succeeded because they had tried to look for characteristics
of each religion. But their difficulty was that not only common people but also ones
who knew about religion, except for Confucians, may be, had no clear knowledge
about each religion. Until present, we can still find many books for fortune-teller, or
deity worship printed by Buddhism pagodas. Therefore, it is not necessary, for
example, to classify this religious phenomenon into that religion.
It is necessary to note that missionaries often paid attention to what contrasted to
their faith. Thus that was an indirect way to present their faith which was very
different with polytheist religion of the native people.
5.2. Impact from Debate on Catholic Rituals in China
As missionaries enlisted religious activities that contradicted with their faith, they
would generalize many elements which were not really wrong to the understanding
of the native speakers such as worshipping ancestors or Confucius. Regarding this
problem, I would argue that the task of cultural integration had not been perfected
due to a lot of inadequate understanding about religion of the native people.
Actually, everyone knows that Catholicism worships only one God, so no other
entity should be worshipped. However, in common language of many peoples, we
can find out words referring to worship at different levels. In Catholicism in Europe,
there are three specialized words that originate from Greek language: latria means
attitude to worship only one God; dulia means worship to saints; and hyperdulia
means worship especially for Mother Mary who is mother of Jesus.
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26 Religious Studies Review Vol. 1, No. 3 – October 2007
However, when missionaries entered Vietnam, they found out that people would
use the word “thờ” (worship) for many different objects such as: the king, parents,
ancestors, gods, Buddha, Mother Goddess, etc. Because missionaries wanted to use
the word “worship” for their God only, according to latria attitude, they concluded
that other objects that the Vietnamese worship was wrong. That is why the fourth
commandment said “to be generous and respect parents” not “worship parents”. This
is the same in China that time. Missionaries in order to obey the Pope had prohibited
Catholics to worship Confucius and ancestors. Chinese emperor Qian Long (1662-
1736) of the Qing dynasty explained that rituals for Confucius and ancestors were
civil, not religious. But the Roman Catholic Church did not agree and issued many
decrees to ban these rituals.11 Of course missionaries who were working in Asia
knew this. Thus attitude of Italian missionaries in these two books are not too
difficult to understand. I must add that not until 1939 did Pope Pio XII abolish those
decrees.
5.3. Regarding Ethnology and Culture
Mission work required missionaries to be knowledgeable about language, culture and
customs of the native people. Regarding the case of Vietnam, they had left a great
work. Alexander de Rhodes, a missionary from Jesus order, had written a book on
Vietnamese grammar12 and a Vietnamese – Portuguese – Latin grapheme. Two
French bishops, Pierre Pigneaux de Béhaine (1741-1799) and Jean-Louis Taberd
(1794-1840) had composed a Vietnamese – Latin grapheme in traditional script
(Nôm) and national script (Vietnamese). Another French missionary, also from
Foreign Mission of Paris, Léopold Cadière, who was excellent in Vietnamese,
especially language of the people living in the middle of Vietnam, had written a lot
about Vietnamese language and religion. The most special thing is that he, based on
different ways of speaking, had outlined a philosophy of the common Vietnamese
people13.
That was initial efforts in studies. Nowadays, we can supplement those by
observing daily activities but we cannot neglect what had happened in many
centuries ago.
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Trần Văn Toàn. Western Missionaries’ Overview on Religion in Tonkin… 27
5.4. Primary Attitude of Missionaries
Most Western missionaries went to preach in East were generous to native people.
They really wanted to share their faith with others just like Buddhist monks went
every where to indoctrinate the way to get to Nirvana. Despite of native religion was
very different with their faith; missionaries believed that the people there could
understand the theory and then follow Catholicism. In the two books said above,
authors had tried to explain that human beings shared one origin. They were all
created by one God but they could be different because of differences in historical
situation. Both books stated that before the Flood, divine kings in China and in other
places worshipped only one Heavenly King or God, just like what were written in the
Bible. After the Flood, peoples were dispersed and then their faith and custom
became diversified.
Reference:

1
. Opusculum de Sectis apud Sinenses et Tunkinenses (A small Treatise on Sects among the
Chinese and Tonkinese): A Study of Religion in China and North of Vietnam in the Eighteenth
Century. Author: Adriano a Sancta Thecla, Olga Dror translates from Latin and annotates in
English with co-operation of Mariya Berezovska, introduction by Lionel M. Jensen. Cornell
University, Ithaca, New York 2002, 239 pages and 115 pages of original pictures.
2
. See this report in: Henri Chapoulie. Aux origines d’une Eglise. Rome et les missions
d’Indochine au XVIIe siècle (Origin of a Church. Roman Catholic Church and areas of mission
in Indochina in the 17th century), Paris, 1943, Vol.1, material No. 4, p. 391.
3
. It is necessary to note that Alexander de Rhodes spoke French but when he made the
Vietnamese grapheme, he translated them all into Latin and Portuguese.
4
. See: André Marillier, Nos Pères dans la loi – Notes sur le clergé Catholique du Tonkin de 1666
à 1765 (Predecessors of our faith – Notes of Catholic missionaries in Tonkin from 1666 to 1765).
Eglises d’ Asie. History Studies, No. 2, 1995, volume No. 2, pp. 121-127. See also Olga Dror,
Ibid, p. 24.
5
. See: André Marillier, Ibid, p. 124.
6
. Foreign Mission of Paris’ archive (AMEP), No. 667.
7
. AMEP, code V-1098.
8
. Even scholars such as Lê Qúy Đôn (1724-1784) and Phan Huy Chú (1782-1840) paid attention
to such events, they did not relate them systematically and in fact, they wrote about those events
after Western missionaries.
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9
. Adriano’s book consists of these 5 chapters: 1. Confucianism; 2. God cult; 3. Magicians (means
Taoism); 4. Fortune-telling, physiognomy, telling the good –bad hours, geography; 5. Buddhism.
The sixth chapter for Christianity in China and Vietnam was not yet finished.
10. The main contents of An overview on Three Religions are: Overview on Confucianism;
Overview on Taoism; and Overview on Buddhism.
11. Pope Clemente XI issued a decree on 20 January 1709 and on 19 March 1715 (named: Ex illa
die); Pope Benedicto XI issued a decree called Ex quo singulari on 11 July 1742. See: Jean
Charbonnier. Histoire des Chrétiens de Chine, Paris 1992, pp. 180-183.
12. Nguyễn Khắc Xuyên. Vietnamese Grammar by de Rhodes, 1651, Thời Điểm publisher, Garden
Grove (California), 1993, 234 pages, original version in Latin pp. 199-229.
13. See: Philosophie populaire annamite, in Anthropos – Revue internationale d’ Ethnologie et de
Linguistique, Salzburg (Autria), Vol. 2 (1907), pp. 116-127 and 955-956, and Vol. 3 (1908), pp.
249-271. This paper was then reprinted in Croyances et Pratiques religieuses des Vietnamiens,
Paris, EFEO, 1957, Vol. 3, pp. 41-205.
28