"I still hear from time to time defending the Rites already condemned": An unpublished account of a Papal Legation to the Yonghzeng Emperor in the context of the Chinese Rites controversy

Pedrini, Teodorico, Italian missionary, musician, and composer at the Imperial Court in Beijing (1671-1746). Autograph letter signed.

€ 25,000.00

Previously unpublished, historically important letter to Pope Benedict XIII, reporting on the official audience that the Yongzheng Emperor had granted to the Papal Legates Gotthard a Santa Maria (1700-57) and Ildefonso a Nativitate (1699-1742) in Beijing on 18 November 1725. The almost-forgotten mission of these two otherwise little-known Discalced Carmelites was an unsuccessful attempt to change the Emperor's policy towards Christians following the fateful 1721 mission of the Papal Legate Carlo Ambrogio Mezzabarba (1685-1741) and the official ban of Christianity in 1724. The discreet legation of the two Carmelites was first received by the Yongzheng Emperor in an informal audience on 24 October 1725 and then in the November audience, to which the letter attests, but left Beijing empty-handed. The Emperor re-affirmed his stance that he would not treat Christianity differently from other religious sects within his Empire and that he did not intend to ban missionaries from Beijing or Canton, where they were already active. According to Pedrini, the Emperor attacked some missionaries ad hominem, certainly those, like himself, who opposed the practice of the Chinese rites. In Pedrini's view, the Jesuits' accommodation to Confucianism had enabled the Emperor to make the argument, as he did during the audience, that if Christianity is "the same" as the doctrine of Confucius, missionary work in China is utterly superfluous. An indignant Pedrini even offers to swear to these statements of the Emperor under oath, should the Pope consider this necessary, as he still hears "from time to time" those "defending the Rites already condemned". Pedrini does not think that the Emperor acted out of "hatred" towards Christianity, but rather "out of suspicion which he harbors towards the Europeans", repeating "several times that he did not by any account forbid Religion, nor did he forbid his subjects to become Christians, but that when the Europeans had converted Beijing, and Canton, where he permits them to stay; at the hour he would let them pass into the Provinces". Given the prominence of the audience involving several Europeans and important Chinese court officials in attendance, Pedrini suspects that the Emperor's words must be considered as his official position. However, he chooses not to make any public statement about the audience until he receives orders from the Pope.

The legation of the two Carmelites also concerned Teodorico Pedrini personally, as they carried a Papal brief thanking the Yongzheng Emperor for liberating Pedrini from his two-year imprisonment at the residence of the French Jesuit mission in Beijing from February 1721 until 1723, following the fiasco of the Mezzabarba legation. Pedrini was imprisoned for refusing to sign the so-called "Diarium Mandarinorum", the official report of the events drawn up by the French Jesuits. The explicit goal of the Jesuits was to regain control over communications with Rome in the question of the Chinese Rites, as the opposing Propaganda Fide Missionaries Pedrini and Matteo Ripa reported directly to the Pope, albeit often with difficulties due to the Jesuits' institutional power. While Ripa complied under protest, Pedrini refused to sign the document, thus losing the protection of the Kangxi Emperor, who had esteemed him highly as a court musician. When the Yongzheng Emperor succeeded to the throne, he soon had Pedrini liberated and reinstated as court musician and music teacher. This might also explain Pedrini's favourable interpretation of the Emperor's stance towards Christianity, even though Yongzheng in fact intensified the persecution of Christians outside Beijing and Guangzhou.

A transcript of the letter is available on request.