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RICHAlill GRAY THE AFRICAN ORIGINS OF THE MISSIO ANTIQUA The Missio Antiqua of the Capuchins to the kingdom of Kongo was by far the most important mission sent to Africa by Rome before the middle of the nineteenth century. A distinguished line of scholars from Cavazzi in the seven– teenth century have notably traced its fortunes and illuminated its significance. The volume by Teobaldo Filesi and Isidoro de Villapadierna is, and will long continue to be, the essential guide to the. abundant sources of information for historians of Africa contained in the letters and reports ,vritten by so many of these pioneer missionaries. Forty years ago when I began to explore some of the archival sources in Rome, Louis Jadin generously gave me much initial guidance and imparted his enthusiasm for the history of the Kongo kingdom; twenty years later, when I began at last to turn my attention to this theme, Fa– ther Isidoro welcomed and initiated me into the riches of the Istituto Storico, which he with his confreres have so greatly fostered. Those of us who have had the fortune to benefit personally from his wide guidance, unending patience and kindness, are deeply grateful that the contribution of the Capuchins to an understanding of African and ecclesiastical history has been so notably main– tained. The remote story of the Missio Antiqua might seem irrelevant to the op– portunities and challenges which today face the Church in Africa. Yet this tra– dition of scholarly interest has kept alive the memory of this early endeavour with all its mutual misunderstandings, errors and, on both sides, its redeeming sacrifices. Two major recent studies have notably underlined the significance of these early centuries for the whole theme of inculturation and the history of Christianity in Africa 1. As the third millennium of Christianity approaches, it is also a source of hope and joy to discover the extent to which the growth of the Church in Africa has been not merely a matter of European endeavours, but a co-operative undertaking in which Africans took important initiatives from the 1 Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa 1450-1950, Oxford 1994; John K. Thornton, The Kongofese SaintAnthot!)I, Cambridge 1998.