Girolamo Maiorica

Girolamo Maiorica (; chữ Nôm: , chữ Hán: ; Vietnamese alphabet: ; 1591–1656) was a 17th-century Italian Jesuit missionary to Vietnam. He is known for compiling numerous Roman Catholic works written in the Vietnamese language's demotic chữ Nôm script, both on his own and with assistance from local converts. Maiorica was one of the first authors of original Nôm prose.

Maiorica initially stopped in Goa, then arrived in Macau, intending to proselytize in Japan. However, by 1619, Japan had begun persecuting Christians, so he went instead to Makassar and remained there for a year. Afterwards, he returned to Macau and traveled to Fai-Fo (present-day Hội An) in 1624 in the same boat as Alexandre de Rhodes, João Cabral, and two or three other Jesuits. To translate Catholic theological concepts, Maiorica favored plain, commonly understood vocabulary over Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary, even in cases where the latter would have been consistent with the terms used by his Jesuit colleagues in China. For example, he referred to God as (literally, "Virtuous Lord of Heaven and Earth"; ) instead of and to the Eucharist as ("Holy Body"; ) instead of . Today, and are the preferred terms, respectively. Many of the terms he coined would later become popular, such as (passion), (salvation of souls), (to believe, appearing in the creeds), (humility and submission), (eternal life), (hallowed, appearing in the Lord's Prayer), etc. being credited as the main author of 45 or 48 Nôm works. Exchanges of letters between Jesuits and from the text itself make clear that the works were written with the assistance of Vietnamese converts. Almost all of these contributors were catechists (called ); they were literate and were usually esteemed members of the community before they converted to Christianity. Maiorica's works can be divided into four basic genres: hagiographies, stories adapted from scripture, sermons, and catechetical writings. These works were generally written in prose, except for some prayers written in verse. He translated, adapted, or composed works based on a variety of sources: official Church documents (such as the Vulgate and Roman Missal), writings by Church Fathers, Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica, works by fellow Jesuits, and hagiographical books and lore.

Today, only 15 of Maiorica's works remain, totalling 4,200 pages and 1.2 million Nôm characters. Kinh những lễ mùa Phục sinh [The Classic of Masses of the Easter Season] Qua-da-giê-si-ma, Mùa ăn chay cả [ Quadragesima, The Great Season of Fasting] Những điều ngắm trong các ngày lễ trọng [Things to Ponder on the Solemnities] Thiên Chúa thánh mẫu [The Holy Mother of the Heavenly Lord] Các Thánh truyện [Stories of the Saints] (1646) Ông Thánh I-na-xu truyện [The Story of St. Ignatius] (1634) Ông Thánh Phan-chi-cô Xa-vi-e truyện [The Story of Saint Francis Xavier] Truyện Bà Thánh I-sa-ve [The Story of Saint Elizabeth] Sách gương phúc gương tội [Book of Models of Happiness and of Sins] (lost) Kinh đọc sớm tối [Matins and Vigil Prayers] (lost)

Additionally, Philipphê Bỉnh states in his writings that Maiorica also participated in an effort to translate the prayers of the Mass into Vietnamese.