Nestorianism in China
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The form of Christianity often called Nestorianism but known by its adherents as the Church of the East spread widely across the continent of Asia following the banishment and condemnation of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, at the Council of Ephesus in 431.
Christianity is thought to have been introduced into China during the Tang Dynasty, but it has also been suggested that the Patriarch of Seleucia-Ctesiphon created a metropolitan see in China in 411. It came through representatives of the Assyrian Church of the East. In China, the religion was known as Jingjiao (景教), or the Luminous Religion. They initially entered China more as traders than as professional missionaries. The Nestorians were largely of Hebrew extraction, tracing their lineage to those who did not return to Palestine following the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. During the early centuries of Christian expansion, they considered the message of Jesus a fulfillment of their Jewish faith. Eventually, the Nestorians intermarried with other Syriac-speaking peoples east of the Euphrates and spread their faith throughout Turkestan, Mongolia, China and Japan. Some records indicate that Jacobite Christians also visited China during this period, but their impact was minimal. A stone stele (the Nestorian Stele) erected at the Tang capital of Chang-an in 781 and rediscovered in the 17th century describes flourishing communities of Christians throughout China, but beyond this and few other fragmentary records relatively little is known of their history.
What is known, however is significant. The Nestorians faced the world's vastest empire at the zenith of its cultural, intellectual and administrative attainment. Tang China possessed a sophisticated religious and ethical system; its people had long lived in an environment of religious syncretism. When Tang forces conquered Turkestan (630) and reopened the ancient trade route to the West, Alopen, the Persian bishop, felt the time had come to evangelize this mighty empire. Indeed, he was welcomed by the authorities in line with their broad policy of toleration and interest in fostering foreign religions.
When Alopen arrived at Chang-an (635) he was almost immediately commissioned to translate the Nestorian Sutras into Chinese. Scholars were assigned to assist him. In 638, the first Christian book was published, The Sutra of Jesus the Messiah. It sought to introduce the Chinese to the Christian faith and specifically pointed out that the gospel contained nothing subversive to China's ancient traditions, loyalty to the state and filial piety being of the essence of the law of Christ. This pleased the emperor, and by decree he proclaimed the virtue of the Nestorian religion, gave Alopen the title of “Great Spiritual Lord, Protector of the Empire” (i.e., metropolitan Chang-an), and opened China's doors to the gospel: “Let it be preached freely in our empire.”
Unfazed by the challenge, the Nestorians proceeded to build and staff monasteries in China's key cities. They were also quite aggressive in their proclamation of the Christian faith. they persevered in their efforts to phrase the Christian message in the philosophical language of the Confucian court in order to make it intellectually acceptable to the literati.
Although the Nestorian stele says, “The religion spread throughout the ten provinces....monasteries abound in a hundred cities,” the Nestorians experienced a series of setbacks as a result of court intrigues, the jealousy of Taoist and Buddhist leaders, and the upheavals of civil war. By their medical knowledge and surgical skill the Nestorians gave a good name to their faith, but their top-heavy, non-Chinese leadership tended to lead them to be classed with Buddhism and Zoroastrianism as another “foreign religion”. Although their monasteries were self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating entities, Chinese clergy were only permitted to fill the lowest ranks. This implies that the Nestorians gave high priority to serving the foreign trading community. At any event, they depended largely upon its representatives for initiative and leadership.
The vitality of the church diminished with the passage of time. The major reason was the frequent disruption of its links to its centers in Mesopotamia. In their isolation, the Nestorian churches fell prey to syncretistic tendencies. This contrasted with earlier years, during which it was portrayed as follows:
Their simplicity of faith and worship, their reverence for scripture, their abhorrence of image and picture worship, of the confesisonal and of the doctrine of purgatory, and their not adoring the Host in the Communion Supper constitute them the Protestants of Asia. [1]
In 745, the Tang emperor Xuanzong issued an edict stating that the temples popularly known as "Persian temples" should be thenceforth known as Da Qin (Roman) temples. Furthermore, by the middle of the 9th century, due to government hostility toward Buddhism, the emperor decreed that Christianity also be proscribed:
As for the Da-chin (Nestorian) and Muhu (Zoroastrian) temples, these heretical religions must not alone be left when the buddhists have been suppressed; they must all be compelled to return to lay life and resume their original callings and pay taxes, or if they are foreign they shall be sent back to their native places. [2]
What began in opposition to Buddhist excesses, first among Confucian officials, was continued by a pro-Taoist emperor. Christian monks and nuns were evicted from their monasteries and forced to seek a secular living and their properties were confiscated. Books and artifacts were destroyed and leading figures—especially those of foreign extraction, whose continuing role is condemned in the decree—were forced to hide and hold underground services or to flee. Missions from Persia and Bactria in the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries, however, strengthened the churches in some provinces, but evidence for their condition or survival throughout Tang provinces is fragmentary.
In 986 a monk reported to the Patriarch:
"Christianity is extinct in China; the native Christians have perished in one way or another; the church has been destroyed and there is only one Christian left in the land". [3]
Obviously this was an overstatement, for the Nestorian church continued to flourish throughout Central Asia well into the fourteenth century among the northern tribes, such as Uigurs, Turks, and Mongols. However, the record of the closing years of the Nestorians in China is replete with references to necrology, a Chinese-influenced practice not found in classical Christianity.
Under the emperors of the Yuan Dynasty Nestorian Christianity once again gained a foothold in China. Yet the centralizing policies of the Ming Emperors meant that all things foreign were suspect, so Christianity was once again forced to go underground. The last known monument of Nestorian Christianity in China seems to be one dating to c. 1365 and found near Zhoukoudian in the Fangshan District of Beijing.
The Nestorian presence in China was contingent upon retaining the favor of the Chinese Imperial Court. This made the Nestorians vulnerable when the rising power of the Confucian scholars influenced the court to eliminate all foreign religions. Also, their accumulation of land for monasteries and for the support of agricultural operations made them appear to the authorities as a state within a state, diverting people from their economic and political responsibilities to the Tang authorities. Naturally, this was resented.
In 1625 the Nestorian Stele was found in Xian; it is a stone on which the story of the Nestorian missionaries coming to China was written in both Chinese and Syriac. This discovery was of great importance to Christians in China at the time, because it proved that Christianity was part of China's past and not a recent foreign incursion, thus giving support to Christians against those who called for the religion to be banned.
Dozens of Jingjiao texts have survived. Some of them are translations of biblical scriptures, including the Pentateuch (牟世法王经) - Genesis is known as 浑元经, Psalms (多惠圣王经), the Gospels (阿思翟利容经), Acts of the Apostles (传代经) and the Pauline epistles (宝路法王经).
[edit] Notes
- ^ Charlotte E. Couling, The Luminous Religion: A Study of Nestorian Christianity in China (1925). Carey Press, p.41
- ^ Keung, Ching Feng, p.120.
- ^ Keung, ibid, p.235.
