Gabriele Allegra

Gabriele Allegra (雷永明, 26 December 1907 – 26 January 1976) was a Franciscan friar and Biblical scholar.

He is best known for accomplishing the first complete translation of the Bible into the Chinese language.

His Studium Biblicum Translation is often considered the definitive Chinese Bible among Catholics.

He entered the Franciscan minor seminary at S. Biagio in Acireale in 1918, taking the name "Gabriele Maria", and the novitiate in Bronte in 1923.

He then studied at the Franciscan International College of St. Anthony in Rome from 1926, now known as the Pontifical University Antonianum.

The future course of his life was determined in 1928 when he attended the celebrations of the 6th centenary of another Franciscan, Giovanni di Monte Corvino, who had attempted a first translation of the Bible in Beijing in the 14th century.

On that day, at the age of 21, Allegra was inspired to translate the Bible into Chinese; a task that took the next 40 years of his life.

He was ordained a priest in 1930 and soon thereafter received orders to sail for mainland China.

Allegra arrived at the mission in Hunan, southern China, in July 1931 and started to learn Chinese.

With the help of his Chinese teacher, he prepared a first draft of the translation of the Bible around 1937.

He was fatigued from the translation effort and had to return to Italy for three years where he continued his studies in biblical languages and biblical archaeology.

In 1940 he left Italy again and sailed from San Francisco for Japan on his way to China.

In Kobe, he met the French Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin for the first time.

He attempted to return to Hunan again, but the Second Sino-Japanese War had already started and he was forced to go further north to Beijing instead.

This had an unfortunate side-effect in that during his trip through the Japanese-occupied territories, he lost more than half of the translated text during the war events.

Because Allegra was an Italian citizen, and the chaplain to the Italian Embassy, the Japanese occupiers of China did not intern him for long, and he could continue his translation work.

As of 1942, he became actively involved in assisting other missionaries to survive their internment in the Japanese internment camp at Weihsien in northern China, and managed to obtain the release of several prisoners.

Allegra organized a team of Chinese Franciscan friars to work with him on the translation of the Bible and inaugurated the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Beijing in 1945, dedicating it to Duns Scotus.

But as the Chinese Civil War ended, the Chinese Communist Party took over China and Allegra and his team had to leave for Kowloon, Hong Kong in 1948.

In 1948 the first three volumes of the Old Testament were published by the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Chinese and over the next 12 years eight more volumes with explanatory notes were produced by the team, including the New Testament.

In 1954 along with four Chinese friars he went to the Studium Biblicum in Jerusalem to study original biblical texts for about a year.

He lived mostly in Hong Kong thereafter, and he organized the 1st Ecumenical Bible Exhibition in Hong Kong in 1965.

Christmas in 1968 witnessed the culmination of his 40-year effort with the first publication of the one-volume Chinese Bible.

In 1975 the Chinese Bible Dictionary was published.

Allegra died in Hong Kong on 26 January 1976.

His archived letters show his determination to translate the Bible into Chinese and his fascination with the study of scripture.

Yet, at times his letters show the softer side of a man who missed the sound of church bells in Rome.

Nonetheless he chose to work in the Orient to the end of his life.

He was known for working too hard, often resulting in the deterioration of his health.

He used to say, "The most enviable fate for a Franciscan who doesn't obtain the grace of martyrdom, is to die while he is working".

In another letter Allegra wrote: "The work upon the Bible is hard and intense, but I must work because if I stop, I will never get up again."

Although the translation of the Bible was the main focus of Allegra's work, and he has usually been viewed as primarily a Scripture scholar, he took time to help the poor and the sick, particularly the lepers.

He frequently visited his "beloved lepers" in Macau, spending many of the holidays with them.

In Allegra's later years he suffered severely from heart trouble and high blood pressure.

A rest and recovery period was recommended in Italy, but he chose to return to the Studium Biblicum in Hong Kong to work to the end.

He wrote: "Everybody thinks that I'm sick: I can still work, so let's go on! The ideal is worth more than life!"

Although Allegra's main focus was the translation of the Bible, he was also well read on other biblical and philosophical matters.

He was an expert on the philosophy of Duns Scotus and introduced Teilhard de Chardin to some aspects of it that shaped de Chardin's thoughts on the subject.

He has been beatfied in 2012.

Giovanni Stefano Allegra was born the eldest of eight children, in San Giovanni la Punta in the province of Catania, Italy.