Noli Me Tángere

Rizal’s First Major Work in his Grand Strategy

for Independence
Collaborative Proposal
• In 2 January 1884, Rizal
wrote:
• “My proposal on the book
was unanimously approved.
But afterwards difficulties and
objections were raised which
seemed to me rather odd,
and a number of gentlemen
stood up and refused to
discuss the matter any
further.”
Financial Hurdles
• Rizal’s Confession to Fernando Canon (former classmate):

“I did not believe that the Noli Me Tángere would ever be

published when I was in Berlin, broken-hearted, weakened, and
discouraged from hunger and deprivation. I was on the point of
throwing my work into fire as a thing accursed and only fit to die.”

• After receiving a 300-peso aid from Paciano, Rizal sent a

letter (dated 12 October 1886) to his brother saying that
he miscalculated the cost of Noli’s publication.
Rizal’s Financial Hurdles

• Dr. Maximo Viola offered to

lend Rizal the amount needed
for the publication of Noli.

• In 27 April 1887, Rizal received a

letter from Paciano, informing
him that he sent 1,000 pesos
through J. Luna in Paris.

• Total cost of publication: 300

pesos for 2,000 copies
Noli’s Original Cover Illustration
The Origin of the Title
• Originally, the title was
derived from the Gospel of
St. John (20:17):

“Do not touch me, for I have

not yet ascended to the
Father; but go to my brothers,
and tell them, 'I am ascending
to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God.”
Rizal on the Noli’s Title

• J. Rizal to F. R. Hidalgo (5 March 1887):

• “Noli Me Tángere, words taken from Saint Luke, mean,

‘Do not touch me’. The book contains, therefore, things
about which none of us have spoken until now; they are
so sensitive that they cannot be touched by any
person."
Rizal’s Dedication (‘To my Motherland’)

“Recorded in the history of human sufferings is a cancer of so

malignant a character that the least touch irritates it and awakens in
it the sharpest pains…

Desiring thy welfare, which is our own, and seeking the best
treatment, I will do with thee what the ancients did with their sick,
exposing them on the steps of the temple so that every one who
came to invoke the Divinity might offer them a remedy…”
Using the Lens of Medical Profession
• Term derived from Lupus?

• “Noli me tangere probably meant to

denote… tumors, which, while they
remained easy and at rest, should not be
disturbed.” (Institution for Investigating the
Nature and Cure of Cancer, 1795).

• “…This is called noli me tangere, from its

generally becoming worse if interfered with
by medical men.” (London Medical
Gazette: Or, Journal of Practical Medicine,
Volume 11, 1833).
The Assimilation v. Independence Debate
• Many argued that since Noli did not explicitly call for a
revolution, Rizal was mere a reformist who never
advocated independence.

• Amado Guerrero: “[Rizal] failed to state categorically the need

for a revolutionary armed struggle to effect separation from
Spain.”

• Renato Constantino: “[Rizal was] a reformist to the end.”

• For W. Cameron Forbes and W. H Taft, Rizal never advocated

independence.
Understanding Rizal’s Colonial Views
During the Noli’s Publication
• J. Rizal to F. Blumentritt (26 January 1887)
• “A peaceful struggle shall always be a dream, for Spain will
never learn the lesson of her South American colonies. Spain
cannot learn what England and the United States have learned.
But, under the present circumstances, we do not want separation
from Spain.

• J. Rizal to F. Blumentritt (21 February 1887)

• “The Filipinos had long wished for Hispanization and they were
wrong in aspiring for it. It is Spain and not the Philippines who
ought to wish for the assimilation of the country.”
Noli Me Tángere: Rizal’s First Step Towards
National Emancipation
• Noli was neither a stand alone novel nor independent
from Rizal’s major writings.

• E. Aguirre to J. Rizal (January 1887):

• “I Applaud the studies you are undertaking, both of Sanskrit and
of those other books which will give you the wealth of historical
data needed to write that other novel, based on history, which
you have in mind.”

• Annotated Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipina

(1609).
Noli Me Tángere: Rizal’s First Step Towards
National Emancipation

El Filibusterismo
(Rizal charted the
Filipino course for
Annotation of the future)
Sucesos de Las
Islas Filipinas
(Rizal showed
the Filipino the
Noli Me Tángere roots of their
(Rizal presented nation)
the condition
under Spain)
Noli Me Tángere: Rizal’s First Step Towards
National Emancipation
• Rizal arguing with himself in
Noli on the issue of reform vs.
revolution, through the
character of Elias and
Crisostomo Ibarra.

• Many presume that when

Rizal killed Elias, he already
rejected the idea of
separation from Spain.
Nonetheless, Rizal continued
such a debate through the
characters of Simoun and
Padre Florentino in Fili.
Noli Me Tángere: Rizal’s First Step Towards
National Emancipation
• Father Florentino to the dying Simoun:
• “I do not mean to say that our freedom must be won at the point of
the sword; the sword now counts for very little in the destinies of our times; but I
do say that we must win our freedom by deserving it, by improving the mind
and enhancing the dignity of the individual, loving what is just, what is good,
what is great, to the point of dying for it… With or without Spain, they would be
the same and perhaps worse. What is the use of independence if the slaves of
today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?”

• The revolutionary goal was to create a nation of Filipinos

conscious of their human and national dignity and ready
to sacrifice themselves to defend it.
What were the reactions to Noli Me
Tángere from Rizal’s friends and
from the Spanish authorities?
Letter from “A Friar” (18 February 1888)

“How ungrateful you are… If you, or for

that matter all your men, think you
have a grievance, then challenge us
and we shall pick up the gauntlet, for
we are not cowards like you, which is
not to say that a hidden hand will not
put an end to your life.”
Fr. Jose Rodriguez’ Caingat Cayo
Reactions from the Church:
• University of Santo Tomas (upon the request of Archbishop Pedro
Payo):

“heretical, impious, and scandalous in the religious order, and anti-

patriotic, subversive of public order, injurious to the government of
Spain and its function in the Philippine Islands in the political order.”

• Permanent Committee of Censorship (Headed by Fr. Salvador

Font):

“the importation, reproduction and circulation of this pernicious

book in the islands be absolutely prohibited.”
Rizal’s Letter to Fr. Vicente Garcia (1891)
“…In the titanic task of common regeneration, without stopping in
our forward march, from time to time we turn our eyes toward our
elders to read on their faces their judgment of our actions. For this
thirst of understanding the past, of knowledge, to enter into the
future, we go to persons like you. Leave us in writing your thoughts
and the fruits of your long experience so that condensed in a
book, we may not have to study again what you have already
studied and that we may increase the heritage that we receive
from you either expanding it or adding to it our own harvest…”
Rizal’s Letter to Fr. Vicente Garcia (1891)
“The smallness of the advancement that the Filipinos have made
in three centuries of Hispanism is all due, in my opinion, to the fact
that our talented men have died without bequeathing to us
nothing more than the fame of their name…

…all that these men have studied, learned, and discovered will die
with them and end in them, and [we] shall go back to
recommence the study of life. There is then individual progress or
improvement in the Philippines, but there is no national, general
progress. Here you have the individual as the only one who
improves and not the species.”
References:
• Guerrero, L. (2012). The First Filipino. Guerrero Publishing.

• Ocampo, A. (2012). Reform and Revolution.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/21451/reform-and-revolution

• Schumacher, J. (1991). The Making of a Nation: Essays on

Nineteenth-Century Filipino Nationalism. ADMU Press.

• Zaide, G. & Zaide, S. (2014). Jose Rizal: Life, Works, and Writings
of a Genius, Writer, Scientist, and National Hero. Anvil.