Biography of Alvaro de Benavente OSA, China mis- sionary, Bishop ...

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Copyright c○ by Stochastikon GmbH (http://encyclopedia.stochastikon.com) 2 Professional Career: In 1680, Benavente arrived together with his confrere Nicolás de Ribera (1642-1711) in China and became the founder of the China mission of the Augustians. In the same year he was sent as Procurator of the Augustinians on the Philippines to Rome and Madrid on behalf of the Chinese Rites. He returned to the Philippines, where he stayed from 1690 till 1699, in 1695 he was made provincial. Still during his stay on the Philippines Benavente was appointed Bishop Titular of Ascalon by the Propaganda Fide on 20th of October 1696, an on 22nd of October 1696 Vicar Apostolic of the Chinese province Jiangxi. Benavente arrived in China on January 1, 1700. He worked then for several years in Nanchang in the province of Jiangxi/China. Like most Augustians, also Benavente was an adherent of the method of accommodation of the Jesuits and therefore stood on their side in the Rites Controversy. Especially he did not like that Charles Maigrot MEP (1652-1730) alone had started again the controversy with his Mandate of 1693, without consulting the other bishops and Vicars Apostolic in China. Maigrot had a.o. forbidden all Chinese names for God without Tianzhu and he forbade that the Chinese Christians took part at the Rites for the ancestors and for Confucius. Therefore there was a meeting of the three Vicars Apostolic in April or May 1700: Benavente, Artus de Lionne MEP (1655-1713), Vicar Apostolic of Sichuan, and Basilio Brollo da Gemona OFM (1648-1704), Vicar Apostolic of Shaanxi. They met in Nanjing where Benavente stayed because he was consecrated there as a bishop, and they made spoke about how to deal with the question of the Rites. De Lionne, an adversary of accommodation and of the Rites, submitted a scripture of 92 propositions to his colleagues, which contained his objections against the Chinese religion and teachings. He wanted his colleagues to join him with their signature. Basilio Brollo approved all propositions besides one, whereas Benavente wanted to have half a year for consideration. On 28 October 1700 he said that the did no approve the propositions nor de Lionne’s attitude. In June 1701 de Lionne and Benavente met again in Nanxiongfu/Guangdong, but came to no common conclusion. When the papal legate Charles-Thomas Maillard de Tournon (1668-1710) arrived in Canton in April 1705, Benavente as one of the Vicars Apostolic was invited by him to live with him in the house of the Augustinians there. After some days, Benavente gave his treatise on the Rites to Tournon, namely his “Analecta argumentorum...” (s. below), which was refuted by Tournon. But the emperor Kangxi, who received Tournon in three audiences, could not
Copyright c○ by Stochastikon GmbH (http://encyclopedia.stochastikon.com) 3 bear Tournon’s refutation of Confucianism and the demand that all Chinese Christians and also the European missionaries had to be more obedient to a foreign power than to him. Therefore he demanded from all missionaries, who wanted to stay in China, an official permission to stay, the so-called piao. They had to sign that they would follow Matteo Ricci’s (1552-1610) method of accommodation, otherwise, they were expelled. When Tournon published the contents of the Roman Decree of 1704 (“Cum Deus optimus”) with his “Mandate of Nanking”, dated February 7, 1707, he even stressed the prohibitions. Therefore Benavente, who saw the dangers for the mission, as canonist felt obliged to make an appellation to the Holy See against it (13 April 1707); it was signed by 24 China missionaries and João de Cazal, the bishop of Macau. Benavente’s “Appellatio” was refuted by Clement XI. on August 8, 1709, shortly after Benavente’s death. In 1707 Benavente went to the hospital of the Franciscans in Canton because of his Asthma, in 1708 he got the permission to go to Macau, but was forbidden to have contact there with Tournon, who stood under house arrest, and he should try to leave Macau as fast as possible. On September 3, 1708 Benavente should travel to Peking to obtain the piao, but it was impossible for him because he was so ill, and we wanted to stay in Canton. But by imperial order he was expelled because he was without a piao (on 27 November 1708); he went to the Ilha Verde in Macau to the Jesuits, where he died on March 20, 1709. At first Benavente was buried in the St. Augustine Church in Macau. When in 1895 the province chapter of the Augustinians moved to Manila, his relics were buried in the St. Paul’s Church in Manila. Benavente became also important by his research on linguistics. During his time in the province Pampanga on the Philippines he completed a grammar of the Pampango language there; this grammar was kept for a long time as manuscript in the Convent of the Augustians of the Philippine Province in Valladolid. The real name of this language is Kampagan; it is one of the eight main languages on the Philippines. Benavente’s grammar followed the rules of the grammar of the Spanish Cistercian Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz: Grammatica Audax (1651; Frankfurt 1654; Barañáin 2000). This grammar was only published recently: Edilberto Santos (ed.), Fray Alvaro de Benavente’s Arte de Lengua Pampanga (Angeles City, Philippines 2007).
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