Since the Late Antiquity that the study of Classical Languages, its authors and civilisations, has been a cornerstone for what we commonly call Culture. The relation of Europe and the West with these languages derives from the imperium which Rome exercised over the peoples of Europe and beyond. These peoples later on spread these studies to the four corners of the world, including to Southeast Asia.
The foundation in 1594 of College of Saint Paul established Macao as the very first centre for studying classical languages and their civilisations in the Far East. At the college, Latin was not only a subject but also the language of learning, as was the case in the old universities of Europe. Together with Latin, Greek and Hebrew were also learnt.
400 years later, in a completely different world, in a city which is hardly recognisable, Latin, Ancient Greek and Hebrew are still being taught in Macao. After some reflections on how words matter in our dealing with the world, this article will show how relevant the knowledge of these ancient languages is for those studying theology in Macao in the 21st century, despite the natural difficulties that native speakers of Sino-Tibetan languages may have when learning languages with a high degree of grammatical complexity as Latin and Classical Greek have.