Alexander de Rhodes

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Alexander de Rhodes
Alexander de Rhodes
Christianity in China Portal

Father Alexander de Rhodes (Vietnamese: A-Lịch-Sơn Đắc-Lộ) (15 March 1591[1]-5 November 1660) was a French Jesuit missionary who had a lasting impact on Christianity in Vietnam.

Alexander de Rhodes was born in Avignon, France. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Rome on 24 April 1612 to dedicate his life to missionary work. He arrived in Indochina about 1619. A Jesuit mission had been established in Hanoi in 1615; Rhodes arrived there in 1620. He spent ten years in and around the Court at Hanoi during the rule of Trinh Tung and Trinh Trang. While he was in Vietnam, he wrote the first Vietnamese Catechism and he published the first Portuguese-Latin-Vietnamese dictionary. This dictionary was later used widely by many Vietnamese scholars to create the new Vietnamese writing system, largely using the Roman alphabet - still used today and now called Quốc Ngữ (national language). Rhodes in his reports said he converted more than 6,000 Vietnamese, almost certainly an inflated number, but he nevertheless did win converts.

In 1624 he was sent to the East Indies starting in Cochin-China. In 1627 he travelled to Tongking, Vietnam where he worked until 1630, when he was forced to leave. He was expelled from Vietnam in 1630 as Trinh Trang became concerned about the dangers of the Catholic religion.

From Vietnam Rhodes went to Macau, where he spent ten years. He then returned to Vietnam, this time to the lands of the Nguyen Lords, mainly around Huế. He spent six years in this part until he aroused the displeasure of Nguyen Phuc Lan and was condemned to death. As his sentence was reduced to exile, Rhodes returned to Rome by 1649 and pleaded for increased funding for Catholic missions to Vietnam, telling somewhat exaggerated stories about the natural riches to be found in Vietnam.

However, the Church sent him to Persia instead of back to Vietnam. Rhodes died in Isfahan, Persia in 1660.

Daily conversation in Vietnam "resembles the singing of birds," wrote Alexander de Rhodes.

He wrote several books about Vietnam including:

  • Histoire dv royavme de Tvnqvin, (History of the Kingdom of Tonkin) published in Rome in 1650
  • Vietnamese - Latin - Portuguese dictionary, published in Rome in 1651
  • Rhodes of Viet Nam: The Travels and Missions of Father Alexander de Rhodes in China and Other Kingdoms of the Orient (English translation published in 1966).

He wrote Tunchinensis historiæ libri duo (pub. 1652) and La glorieuse mort d'André, Catéchiste (pub. 1653), and Catechismus (pub. 1658).

Rhodes spent twelve years in Vietnam studying under another Jesuit, Francisco de Pina.[2]

In 1943, the French colony of Indochina issued a 30c postage stamp honoring him.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Current scholarship suggests Rhodes may have been born in 1593. See Eduardo Torralba, S.I., "La Date de naissance du Pere de Rhodes: 15 mars 1591, estelle exacte?," in Bulletin de la Societe des Etudes Indochinoises, n.s. 35 (1960), 683-689, about the disagreement regarding the date of de Rhodes' birth. While some sources, including the Catholic Encyclopedia, indicate that the date was 1591, specialists such as Torralba, Peter Phan, Claude Larre, Pham Dinh Khiem, and Joseph Dehergne give the later date of 1593.
  2. ^ Customs and Culture of Vietnam.

[edit] Sources