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{{Short description|Italian Jesuit missionary}}Girolamo Maiorica (; chữ Nôm: {{vi-nom|支由尼模 梅烏栘𰙔}},WEB, Ostrowski, Brian Eugene, January 2006, The Nôm works of Geronimo Maiorica, S.J. (1589–1656) and their Christology,weblink ProQuest, chữ Hán: {{vi-nom|梅烏理哥}}; Vietnamese alphabet: ; 1591–1656) was a 17th-century Italian Jesuit missionary to Vietnam.BOOK, Roland, Jacques, Portuguese pioneers of Vietnamese linguistics prior to 1650, 2002, 53, Girolamo Maiorica, in Portuguese Jerónimo Majorica (1591–1656) was missionary first in Cochinchina from 1624 to 1629, then in Tonkin, especially in the Nghệ An province, from 1631 till his death in 1656., He is known for compiling numerous Roman Catholic works written in the Vietnamese language's demotic chữ Nôm script, both on his own and with assistance from local converts.{{sfn|Ostrowski|2010|page=23}} Maiorica was one of the first authors of original Nôm prose. His works are seen as a milestone in the history of Vietnamese literature.

Biography

Maiorica was born in Naples, either in 1581, 1589, or 1591. He entered the Jesuit order on 19 May 1605. He was ordained a priest by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine in Rome before heading to Lisbon en route to the Far East in 1619.WEB, Sơ lược về Cha Girolamo Maiorica, Overview of Father Girolamo Maiorica, Nguyễn Hai Tính, Loan Báo Tin Mừng, Vietnam Province of the Society of Jesus, 2014-01-26, 2016-09-04,weblink vi, Maiorica initially stopped in Goa, then arrived in Macau, intending to proselytize in Japan. However, by 1619, Japan had begun persecuting Christians, so he went instead to Makassar and remained there for a year. Afterwards, he returned to Macau and traveled to Fai-Fo (present-day Hội An) in 1624 in the same boat as Alexandre de Rhodes, João Cabral, and two or three other Jesuits.{{sfn|Ostrowski|2010|page=24}} Whereas de Rhodes studied Vietnamese under Francisco de Pina (1585–1625), Maiorica studied Vietnamese at the Jesuit residence in Nước Mặn (today An Nhơn District, Bình Định Province).BOOK, Donald F., Lach, Donald F. Lach, Edwin J., Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, 3, 1998, 240, In 1645 Joao Cabral (1598–1669), vice-provincial of the Japan province, and four other Jesuits joined Girolamo Majorica (1591–1656), He proselytized in Đàng Trong (Cochinchina) from 1628, when his superiors sent him back to Macau en route to a new assignment in Japan. He was again unable to make the journey, this time due to poor weather. In 1630, he traveled to Champa, where he was quickly imprisoned. After a Portuguese merchant ransomed him, Maiorica made his way to Cửa Hàn (Danang) via Cambodia.{{sfn|Ostrowski|2010|page=24}}On 19 October 1631, he went to Thăng Long (Hanoi) with Bernardino Reggio. The next year, Maiorica and Reggio started a printing press to print copies of Matteo Ricci's Chinese-language work, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, as well as a defense of the faith by Francesco Buzomi. The press was destroyed within several months.{{sfn|Alberts|2012|page=390}} Maiorica left Thăng Long for Kẻ Rum, in Nghệ country (, present-day Nghệ An), to seek converts in the hinterlands. He stopped writing in the early 1640s to focus on his pastoral duties. In the early 1650s, he returned to Thăng Long to serve as the superior of the Tonkin missionary region. In 1653, he was promoted to provincial of the Jesuits' Japan Province (which included Tonkin, Đàng Trong, Makassar, Cambodia, and Hainan island).{{sfn|Ostrowski|2010|page=25}} Although this province was officially based out of Macau, Maiorica administered it from Thăng Long. In January 1656, he fell ill in Thanh Hóa and died on 27 January 1656 in Thăng Long.{{sfn|Ostrowski|2010|page=25}}

Linguistic influence

All but one of the extant, 17th-century Christian works written in chữ Nôm can be positively attributed to Maiorica.{{sfn|Ostrowski|2010|page=23, note 25}} These works are seen as a vital resource for research into chữ Nôm, as well as historical dialects, vocabulary, and phonology of Vietnamese.WEB, Lã Minh Hằng, Nguồn tư liệu từ vựng thế kỉ 17 qua khảo sát truyện ông Thánh Inaxu, Understanding 17th-century vocabulary through the story of St. Ignatius,weblink Roman Catholic Diocese of Qui Nhơn, 2013, vi, To translate Catholic theological concepts, Maiorica favored plain, commonly understood vocabulary over Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary, even in cases where the latter would have been consistent with the terms used by his Jesuit colleagues in China. For example, he referred to God as ' (literally, "Virtuous Lord of Heaven and Earth"; {{vi-nom|德主𡗶坦}}) instead of ' {{vi-nom|天地眞主}} and to the Eucharist as ' ("Holy Body"; {{vi-nom|命聖}}) instead of ' {{vi-nom|聖體}}.{{sfn|Ostrowski|2010|page=35}} Today, ' {{vi-nom|天主}} and ' {{vi-nom|聖體}} are the preferred terms, respectively. Many of the terms he coined would later become popular, such as ' {{vi-nom|事傷𧁷}} (passion), ' {{vi-nom|磊靈魂}} (salvation of souls), ' {{vi-nom|信敬}} (to believe, appearing in the creeds), ' {{vi-nom|謙讓召累}} (humility and submission), ' {{vi-nom|恒𤯩}} (eternal life), ' {{vi-nom|奇創}} (hallowed, appearing in the Lord's Prayer), etc.

Scholarship

Historians made reference to Maiorica's works as early as the mid-17th century. Not long after he died, two official Jesuit publications, one published circa 1660–1673 and the other in 1676, also listed manuscripts under his name. For nearly three centuries after that, Western scholars paid very little attention to him. Philipphê Bỉnh (Felippe do Rosario), a Vietnamese Jesuit priest who spent his final years in Lisbon, provided additional important information about Maiorica's works. Apart from this, no new details emerged from then until the mid-20th century.A major milestone in research on Maiorica occurred in 1951 when Jesuit historian Georg Schurhammer published an article regarding three early Christian authors in Vietnam: Maiorica, João Ketlâm (Gioan Thanh Minh), and Felippe do Rosario.{{sfn|Schurhammer|1951}} However, he was unaware that copies of Maiorica's works remain.Schurhammer's investigation was of interest to researcher Hoàng Xuân Hãn, who was in Europe at the time and read the article. He coincidentally encountered a set of manuscripts that he considered very likely to have been written by Maiorica. This discovery elicited excitement among Vietnamese historians, and several individuals published transliterated reproductions of these works. In the half century since then, progress has been made in verifying the authenticity of, preserving, transliterating, and publishing Maiorica's works, which once were assumed to be completely lost.{{sfn|Ostrowski|2010|page=25–26}}

Bibliography

Maiorica "left a significant body of writings",Gregorianum – Pontificia università gregoriana (Rome). p. 813 "Space does not allow treatment of other authors between the seventeenth and twentieth century, especially Girolamo Majorica, S.J. (1591–1656), who has left a significant body of writings. being credited as the main author of 45 or 48 Nôm works.WEB, Võ Long Tê, Lịch sử văn học Công giáo Việt Nam, Chương V – Văn học Công giáo chữ Nôm, History of Catholic Vietnamese literature, Chapter V – Catholic literature in chữ Nôm,weblink Roman Catholic Diocese of Cần Thơ, vi, JOURNAL, Roland, Jacques, Le Portugal et la romanisation de la langue vietnamienne: Faut-il réécrire l'histoire ?, Portugal and the romanization of the Vietnamese language: should history be rewritten?, Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer, 85, 318, 1998, 50, 10.3406/outre.1998.3600,weblink fr, A la mort de Jerónimo Mayorica en 1659, le supérieur qui lui rend un hommage posthume mentionne « la copieuse bibliothèque de 48 volumes qu'il a composés ou traduits dans la langue et dans l{{', ecriture du pays ». ... Girolamo Maiorica est un Jésuite italien missionnaire au Tonkin. Voir Hoàng Xuân Hãn, « Girolamo Majorica. Ses oeuvres en langue vietnamienne conservées à la Bibliothèque nationale de Paris », in Archivum Hisloricum Societatis lesu, 22, 1953, p. 203–214.}} Exchanges of letters between Jesuits and from the text itself make clear that the works were written with the assistance of Vietnamese converts. Almost all of these contributors were catechists (called ); they were literate and were usually esteemed members of the community before they converted to Christianity.{{sfn|Ostrowski|2010|page=27}} Maiorica's works can be divided into four basic genres: hagiographies, stories adapted from scripture, sermons, and catechetical writings. These works were generally written in prose, except for some prayers written in verse.{{sfn|Ostrowski|2010|page=29–30}} He translated, adapted, or composed works based on a variety of sources: official Church documents (such as the Vulgate and Roman Missal), writings by Church Fathers, Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica, works by fellow Jesuits, and hagiographical books and lore.{{sfn|Ostrowski|2010|page=32–33}}Today, only 15 of Maiorica's works remain, totalling 4,200 pages and 1.2 million Nôm characters.{{sfn|Nguyễn Thế Khoa|2016|p=433|ps=: "Văn học Công giáo Việt Nam viết bằng chữ Nôm riêng trong thế kỉ 17 còn giữ được 4200 trang, với 1.200.000 chữ nôm. Ngay trong thế kỷ 17, Dòng Tên đã có một tác giả chữ Nôm rất lớn. Đó là Girolarmo Majorica, nhà truyền giáo gốc Italia..."}} A majority is archived in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.Most of Maiorica's works are titled in Literary Chinese, even though the contents are written in chữ Nôm. This was a common practice for many chữ Nôm works where the title was formally written in Literary Chinese, but the text is written in Vietnamese. Some texts that were attributed to Maiorica were identified by a phrase that appears in the beginning of some texts, Giê-su hội sĩ Giê-rô-ni-mô Mai-ô-ri-ca thuật {{vi-nom|支秋㑹士支由尼模梅烏移𰙔述}} (As narrated by Geronimo Maiorica, scholar of the Society of Jesus).(File:Giê-su hội sĩ Giê-rô-ni-mô Mai-ô-ri-ca thuật.png|thumb|The phrase appears on the second row from the right, Giê-su hội sĩ Giê-rô-ni-mô Mai-ô-ri-ca thuật 技秋㑹士支由尼謨梅烏移𰙔述 (As narrated by Geronimo Maiorica, scholar of the Society of Jesus).)

• Đức Chúa Giê-su {{vi-nom|德主支秋}} [The Virtuous Lord Jesus] – based on the Gospels
• Dọn mình trÆ°á»›c chịu Cô-mô-nhong {{vi-nom|扽命略召姑模戎}} [Preparing Oneself Before Receiving Communion]
• Thiên Chúa thánh giáo hối tá»™i kinh {{vi-nom|天主聖教悔罪經}} [The Classic of Repentance (according to the Holy Teaching of the Heavenly Lord)]
• Thiên Chúa thánh giáo khải mông {{vi-nom|天主聖教啟蒙}} [Enlightenment in the Holy Teaching of the Heavenly Lord] (1623) – based on the Italian-language catechism by Robert BellarmineNEWS, Nhân Tháng Mân Côi: Giải Thích Từ Mân Côi – Mai Khôi – Môi Khôi – Văn Côi Trong Kinh Sách Công giáo, Nguyá»…n Long Thao, VietCatholic News, 2011-01-10, 2016-09-04,weblink vi,
• Kinh những lá»… mùa Phục sinh {{vi-nom|經仍禮務復生}} [The Classic of Masses of the Easter Season]
• Qua-da-giê-si-ma, Mùa ăn chay cả {{vi-nom|戈椰支差嗎務咹齋奇}} Quadragesima, The Great Season of Fasting]
• Những Ä‘iều ngắm trong các ngày lá»… trọng {{vi-nom|仍調吟𥪝各𣈜禮重}} [Things to Ponder on the Solemnities]
• Thiên Chúa thánh mẫu {{vi-nom|天主聖母}} [The Holy Mother of the Heavenly Lord]
• Các Thánh truyện {{vi-nom|各聖傳}} [Stories of the Saints] (1646)
• Ông Thánh I-na-xu truyện {{vi-nom|翁聖⾐那樞傳}} [The Story of St. Ignatius] (1634)
• Ông Thánh Phan-chi-cô Xa-vi-e truyện {{vi-nom|翁聖幡支姑車為𠲖傳}} [The Story of Saint Francis Xavier]
• Truyện Bà Thánh I-sa-ve {{vi-nom|傳妑聖衣沙蟡}} [The Story of Saint Elizabeth]
• Sách gÆ°Æ¡ng phúc gÆ°Æ¡ng tá»™i {{vi-nom|冊𦎛福𦎛罪}} [Book of Models of Happiness and of Sins] (lost)
• Kinh đọc sá»›m tối {{vi-nom|經讀𣌋最}} [Matins and Vigil Prayers] (lost)

Additionally, Philipphê Bỉnh states in his writings that Maiorica also participated in an effort to translate the prayers of the Mass into Vietnamese.{{sfn|Ostrowski|2010|page=26}}

See also

• History of writing in Vietnam

References

{{reflist|30em}}

Further reading

• JOURNAL, Catholic Written and Oral Cultures in Seventeenth-Century Vietnam, Tara, Alberts, Journal of Early Modern History, Leiden, Brill Publishers, Koninklijke Brill, 2012, 16, 4–5, 383–402, 10.1163/15700658-12342325,
• Quốc DÅ©ng, Nguyá»…n(2009). Ngôn Ngữ trong “Truyện Các Thánh” của Maiorica – Khía cạnh Từ Vá»±ng và Ngữ Pháp (The Language in "The Story of Saints" of Majorica - The Aspects of the Lexicon and Syntax), Master's thesis, University of Hue.
• CONFERENCE, 記錄外來語聖名詞之喃字：考察第十七世紀天主教之喃籍, Transcribing borrowed saint names in chữ Nôm: an investigation into the Catholic Nôm books of the 17th century, Lã Minh Hằng, 2016-06-24, Conference of the World Association of Chinese Characters Studies, Busan, World Association of Chinese Characters Studies, 117–126,weblink zh,
• CONFERENCE, Thấy gì từ hành trình tiên phong sáng tạo chữ Quốc ngữ của Francisco de Pina, Observations about the pioneering process of creating quốc ngữ by Francisco de Pina, Nguyá»…n Thế Khoa, Bình Định vá»›i chữ Quốc ngữ, Bình Định, People's Committee of Bình Định Province, 2016-01-13, 2016-09-28, 428–435,weblink Microsoft Word, vi,
• JOURNAL, Dấu vết cổ trong văn bản Thiên chúa thánh giáo khải mông của Jeronymo Mayorica, Ancient traces in the text Thiên chúa thánh giáo khải mông by Jeronymo Mayorica, Nguyá»…n Thị Tú Mai, Khoa Học, Hanoi, Hanoi National University of Education, 2010, 2, 59–66,
• THESIS, Chữ Nôm và tiếng Việt thế kỉ XVII qua Thiên chúa thánh giáo khải mông của Jerónimo Maiorica, Chữ Nôm and Vietnamese in the 17th century as seen in Thiên chúa thánh giáo khải mông by Jerónimo Maiorica, Nguyá»…n Thị Tú Mai, Hanoi, Hanoi National University of Education, 2012, Ph.D. thesis, LA12.0958.3,weblink vi,
• BOOK, Ostrowski, Brian Eugene, Wilcox, Wynn, Vietnam and the West: New Approaches, 2010, SEAP Publications, Cornell Southeast Asia Program, Ithaca, New York, 9780877277828, 19–39,weblink The Rise of Christian Nôm Literature in Seventeenth-Century Vietnam: Fusing European Content and Local Expression, Google Books,
• THESIS, The Nôm Works of Geronimo Maiorica, S. J. (1589–1656) and Their Christology, Ostrowski, Brian Eugene, Ithaca, Cornell University, 2006, Ph.D. thesis,
• JOURNAL, Nền Văn ChÆ°Æ¡ng Công giáo về Phanxicô Xaviê tại Việt Nam, Catholic literature about Francis Xavier in Vietnam, Georg, Schurhammer, Đỗ Văn Anh, TrÆ°Æ¡ng Bá»­u Lâm, Việt Nam Khảo Cổ Tập San, Saigon, Ministry of National Education, 1961, 1951, 2, 143–171,weblink vi,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20080528102451weblink">weblink 2008-05-28, dead, Translation of JOURNAL, Annamitisch Xavierius Literatur, Georg, Schurhammer, Missionswissenschaftliche Studien, Aix-la-Chapelle, 1951, 300–314, de,

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