- Alexander de Rhodes
Father Alexander de Rhodes ( _vi. A-Lịch-Sơn Đắc-Lộ) (
15 March 1591 [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, est-elle 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 theCatholic 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.] -5 November 1660 ) was a FrenchJesuit missionary who had a lasting impact onChristianity inVietnam .Alexander de Rhodes was born in
Avignon ,France . He entered thenovitiate of theSociety of Jesus in Rome on24 April 1612 to dedicate his life to missionary work. He arrived inIndochina about 1619. A Jesuit mission had been established inHanoi in 1615; Rhodes arrived there in 1620. He spent ten years in and around the Court at Hanoi during the rule ofTrinh Tung andTrinh 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 theRoman alphabet - still used today and now calledQuốc 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 theNguyen Lords , mainly aroundHuế . He spent six years in this part until he aroused the displeasure ofNguyen 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. This plee by Alexandre de Rhodes is at the origin of the creation of the
Paris Foreign Missions Society in 1659. As neither the Portuguese nor the Pope showed interest in the project, Alexander de Rhodes, withPope Alexander III 's agreement, foundsecular volunteers in Paris in the persons ofFrançois Pallu andPierre Lambert de la Motte , the first members of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, who were sent to the Far-East asApostolic vicariate . ["Viet Nam" By Nhung Tuyet Tran, Anthony Reid p.222 [http://books.google.com/books?id=Ex_Hy0sv4T0C&pg=PA222&dq=Rhodes+Missions+Etrangeres+de+Paris&sig=ACfU3U3Cmo-FMdoKxBLF3YQQZh3kbbQ95g] ] ["An Empire Divided" by James Patrick Daughton, p.31 [http://books.google.com/books?id=OC3OHQ0SygYC&pg=PA31&dq=Rhodes+Missions+Etrangeres+de+Paris&sig=ACfU3U05mtIRUx34aHurVvpWPAjAtOnZJg] ] ["Asia in the Making of Europe", p.229-230 [http://books.google.com/books?id=SqTQjve2VLsC&pg=PA229&dq=Rhodes+Missions+Etrangeres+de+Paris&sig=ACfU3U0_wB3FrNB-sDXxTCJsyQYlHBkIrg#PPA229,M1] ]Alexander de Rhodes himself was sent 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 inRome 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. [cite web |url=http://www.militaryliving.com/vietnam2/vietnamch3.htm |title=Customs and Culture of Vietnam]
In 1943, the French colony of Indochina issued a 30c postage stamp honoring him.
Notes
ources
*"Tigers in the Rice," W. Sheldon p. 26 (1969)
* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13024a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Alexander de Rhodes]
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