Autograph document signed. Co-signed by the bishop of Macau, Bartholomeu Manuel Mendes dos Reis.

Oblong 8vo. 1 p. In Latin An oath renouncing the practice of the Chinese rites, taken by the prominent Jesuit as required by the Papal Bull "Ex Quo Singulari" (1742). The oath was sworn on the Bible, and a form signed in one's own hand ("manu propria") had to be produced as evidence. Most of these documents are co-signed by church officials or senior friars as witnesses to an oath sworn in their presence ("in manibus meis"), in this case the Bishop of Macau, Bartholomeu Manuel Mendes dos Reis (1753-72), who would later become Bishop of Mariana, Brazil. - Mathurin de Lamathe arrived in Macau on 23 August 1755, taking the oath that same December. From 1758 onwards he worked as a missionary in the mountainous border areas of Hubei and Henan provinces. In 1769 he narrowly escaped arrest, hiding in the mountains. When Joseph-Marie Amiot, the superior of the French Jesuit mission in China, reached an agreement with the Lazarists to take over the mission following the Papal suppression of the Jesuits in 1773, Lamathe was one of three French ex-Jesuit missionaries still active in the Chinese province. The years of 1778-80 saw severe persecution of Christians in the mountains that led to the arrest or exile of many converts. Lamathe continued his missionary work until his death in Hubei in 1787. - During the early years of their mission to East Asia, the Jesuits led by Matteo Ricci accommodated Catholicism to Chinese customs and Confucian practice in important ways, both for political reasons and in hopes of attracting more converts. Criticism of this syncretism is as old as the Chinese rites themselves, and Ricci's immediate successor Niccolò Longobardo attempted to change course, which led to his replacement as provincial. When Dominican and Franciscan missionaries entered China, they reported critically to Rome on the Jesuit practices. A first condemnation was decreed by Pope Clement XI in 1704 and confirmed in the 1715 Bull "Ex Illa Die". In reaction to the condemnation, the Kiangxi Emperor, who had initially tolerated the Christian missionaries and enjoyed especially good relations with the Jesuits, officially forbade Christian missions in China. In 1721, Carlo Ambrosio Mezzabarba, the Latin Patriarch of Alexandria, was sent to Macau and Beijing as Papal legate. Despite the concession of "eight permissions" regarding the practice of the Chinese rites, officiated in a pastoral letter to the missionaries from 4 November 1721, the Emperor did not revoke the ban. Finally, in "Ex Quo Singulari", Pope Benedict XIV re-affirmed the 1715 Bull and required all missionaries in the region to take the oath renouncing the practice of Chinese rites. - A transcription and translation of the document is available on request. - Louis Pfister, Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les jésuites de l'ancienne mission de Chine, 1552-1773, Chang-hai, 1932-1934 (Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1971), no. 415, pp. 882-885.