Some people might be surprised to hear that Christianity in China extends all the way back to the 7th century. But despite this ancient presence and despite China's global relevance, no full-length translation of the Bible appeared in the Chinese language until the latter part of the 20th century.
The man behind this pioneering translation was Blessed Gabriele Allegra, a Franciscan missionary who spent four decades on the work needed to produce a suitable Chinese Bible. His feast day is January 26.
The first of eight children, Allegra was born in a village in the Sicilian province of Catania on December 26, 1907. At age 16, he entered the Franciscan order as a novice.
The order soon sent him to Rome to study at the Franciscan International College. In 1928, at age 20, he received the inspiration for his life's work while attending a conference about Giovanni da Montecorvino, a 13th-century Franciscan who went to China and had undertaken (though not completed) a Chinese translation of the Bible.
Allegra became fixated on this idea of serving as a missionary in China and communicating Christianity to the native peoples there by providing a full-length Chinese biblical translation.
But there was one major problem: He didn't know Chinese yet.
Time to learn
Ordained a priest in 1930, Fr. Allegra headed to China the following year, arriving in Hunan Province in the southern part of the country. Now he would have ample opportunity to learn the language.
By 1937, six years after his arrival, he had composed a first-draft translation (with the help of his Chinese language instructor). But he was so exhausted from the effort that his order sent him back to Sicily to recuperate.
By 1940, Fr. Allegra was feeling refreshed and ready to resume his life's work in China. But, as much of the world was now at war, the return-trip was complicated. He left Italy bound for the U.S., and then from San Francisco he headed to Japan en route to China.
Due to fighting between China and Japan, his former location in Hunan Province was a no-go zone at that point, so he went to Beijing instead. During this journey, his patience was tested immensely when he lost more than half of his first-draft translation.
In 1945, he established the Beijing branch of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, an organization which also included Chinese Franciscans who aided him with the translation. They eventually had to relocate to Hong Kong (then technically a British territory) as China came under Communism.
In 1948, the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum published its first three volumes of Old Testament translations. Over the ensuing dozen years, this organization under Fr. Allegra's stewardship would publish an additional eight volumes of translation along with explanatory notes.
When not taken up by his translation endeavors, Fr. Allegra attended to the inhabitants of a leper colony in Macao, on the eastern coast of China.
To die while working
In his later years, Fr. Allegra was troubled by cardiovascular issues. He was advised to return to Sicily for a period of rest, as he had done decades earlier. But he decided against recuperation, writing that, “The work upon the Bible is hard and intense, but I must work because if I stop, I will never get up again.”
Clearly, Fr. Allegra accepted the risks, remarking that, “The most enviable fate for a Franciscan who does not obtain the grace of martyrdom is to die while he is working.”
Christmas Day 1968 saw the publication of his complete translation. He was then 61 years old, and some three decades had elapsed since his completion of a first draft as a young priest.
Aside from biblical translation, Fr. Allegra left behind many letters that give insight into the emotional life of a man thoroughly committed to his work in the Far East while also homesick for the sounds and sights of his native land.
Fr. Allegra died in Hong Kong, on January 26, 1976, at age 68. His cause for beatification opened in 1984. Ten years later, in 1994, he was declared “Venerable,” and he was beatified in his native Sicily in 2012.
He was originally supposed to be beatified in 2002 but his beatification was postponed due to a period of heightened political sensitivity with the Chinese government.
Nearly six decades after its initial full-length publication, Fr. Allegra's translation is widely considered the gold standard of Chinese Bibles, especially among Catholics.
