“The habit that hides the monk”

Abstract

This chapter explains the words of the missionaries themselves, grappling with the repercussions of their “going local.” On 3 June 1711, Matteo Ripa, a young Italian Catholic missionary and artist at the Chinese imperial court in Beijing, took up his pen to write a report to his superiors in Rome. On the one hand, clothing was “indifferent” and adaptable. On the other hand, however, it also was increasingly uniform, subtly hierarchical, and thus laden with power and meaning. The habit had to conceal the shape of the body, conferring a second protective skin, even a halo of supernatural aloofness, while avoiding any sexual innuendo. The tension within the missionary community between the uniformity of religious rules and attire, on the one hand, and the need to adapt to a diversity of places and cultures, on the other, never completely disappeared but certainly became attenuated over time.