These historical facts suffice to prove the existence of the land bridge between China and the Roman Orient; and that ancient China had overland communication with Mediterranean countries as well as with India. The route may have been by way of Khotan and Turkestan, to northern India, Afganistan, etc. It would be very strange if the energetic Syrian Christians, full of true missionary zeal, did not proceed to China after reaching Persia about the middle or end of the second century.

See footnote 1

AN OUTSTANDING figure during this period of expansion in China

was Marcos. From obscurity this lad in China rose to be supreme administrator over the Church of the East. During the three centuries of stormy wars and many dynasties between the fall of the Tang emperors and the ascendancy of the Mongol rulers (A.D. 1204), there is little in the way of reports concerning the growth of Christianity in China. For that interim, recourse must be made to the records of the church headquarters at Bagdad, or to histories of central Asia, or of those countries bordering on China. With the rise of the Tartar supremacy over the yellow race, however, thesituation changes. The world revolution which accompanied the Mongolconquests of Asia and eastern Europe brought to light the enormous gainsmade by the Church of the East in China, central, and farther Asia. Genghis Khan unified the Oriental nations, while at the same time heopened the way for their advance in civilization.(2) The careers of Genghis Khan and his son, Ogotai, and their friendly relations to the Church of the East, belong more to the history of Asia as awhole. This story has already been told. The story of the three nephews of Ogotai — also emperors and conquerors; namely, Mangu, Kublai, and Hulagu — are prominently connected with the triumphal hours witnessed by the Church in China. Emperor Mangu and his father, Tule, completed the conquest of China. Kublai, succeeding Mangu, removed the capital of the Scythian world from its ancestral center in Siberia to Peking, called in those days Khanbalig. When Kublai mounted the throne of the Mongolian world, he appointed his brother, Hulagu, to be independent emperor, or viceroy, over territories bordering on Europe, with his palace in Persia. King Frederick of Saxony gave no stronger support to Luther than these three sons of the victorious general Tule gave to the Assyrian catholicos of Bagdad and his far-flung churches in India, Asia, and China. In the writings of an author who lived contemporaneously with Mangu, the Christian convictions of that emperor are clearly set forth in the following words: “a follower and a defender of the religion of Jesus.”(3) Mangu treated Christians, Moslems, and Buddhists with kindness; but he was especially anxious to attract the communities of the Church of the East to his country, because he found their medical learning and great business ability to be beneficial to his subjects.(4) The kings of Germany, France, and England, as well as the pope, feared a return of the conquering armies under the Mongolian rulers. They relied upon the influence which Assyrian Christians exercised in Asiatic realms to give weight to their negotiations. Many embassies went back and forth between England, France, Germany, and the pope and the courts of Mangu, Kublai, and Hulagu. These western powers hoped to wrest Palestine and Jerusalem from the subjection of the hated Mohammedans through the assistance of Emperor Kublai Khan of Peking and his brother Hulagu, viceroy of Persia. In these negotiations the two young pastors who had traveled from Peking to Bagdad were counted of great use because of their standing with Kublai Khan, their knowledge of the Mongolian and Chinese tongues, and their acquaintance with the people and customs of their mother country. At this point it will be fitting to recount the story of the two young pastors who in 1284 made their famous journey from Peking to Persia on their way to Jerusalem. It was astonishing how many large communities belonging to the Church of the East welcomed them in different cities on their long journey across the mountains, deserts, and plains. It can be noted with interest that, in addition to the fact that both the youth belonged to the Uigur nation, they were subjects of the Mongolian empire of Kublai Khan under whose protection, if not by whose command, they set out from China to go and worship at Jerusalem.(5) When these two young pastors, Marcos and Sauma, arrived in Persia, they were welcomed not only by the head of the Assyrian Church and all the leading clergy of that realm, but also by the vice-royal court of Hulagu. Naturally, that court, though living in Persia, spoke the Mongolian as wellas the Chinese language. They were delighted with these two proteges of Emperor Kublai Khan because they could speak Mongolian, Chinese, and Persian.

EARLY HISTORY OF TWO YOUNG CLERGYMEN

The manuscript containing the account of the joint travels of Sauma and Marcos was originally written by the latter in Persian, but the Syriac abridgments, in which language the story is accessible, were made by an unknown author. Scholars are indebted to Priest Paul Bedjan of the Roman Catholic Church for the presentation of the Syriac text. Consequently, the rendition of the original into English, wherein general terms are used which can be given a religious slant, may be colored by the point of view of those through whose hands the story passed. This should be kept in mind while meeting such terms as “monk,” or “bishop.” The early history of these two young men in China throws light upon the growth and standing obtained thereby the Church of the East. Sauma, who was later called Rabban Sauma (the title “rabban” carrying the idea of supervisor), was the son of a well-to-do Assyrian Christian who held an important office in the church at Peking. The boy was carefully educated and well instructed in the history of his church. When he was of age, he was betrothed to a maiden; and his father secured for him the position of keeper of the central church building in Peking. At the age of twenty, however, he refused to marry because he desired to give himself to religious studies. He retired from his parental city to a private domicile of his own about a day’s journey west of the capital. This brought about his ordination to the ministry by Mar George, metropolitan of Peking. His fame soon spread abroad, and people came from afar to listen to his sermons.

About this time there was another young man who lived many days’journey away. He was also an Assyrian Christian, whose father held the office of archdeacon in his home city. The name of this young man was Marcos. Renouncing the world and consecrating himself to the advancement of the gospel in those rough and troublesome times, Marcos joined himself to Sauma whose fame had previously reached him. Sauma endeavored to persuade him to return to his parents; but failing in this, he had Marcos ordained to the ministry by Mar Nestorius, who was then the metropolitan of Peking. These two, in deciding to go to Jerusalem, resisted the entreaties of parents and friends to remain in their native country. They sold all their possessions and set out to join a caravan that plied its commerce between China and the lands to the west. Undoubtedly, the metropolitan of northern China, whose seat was Peking, gave them letters of introduction to the brethren whom they would meet on their journey. When they reached Kawshang, the home of Marcos, they were welcomed with open arms. The Tartar princes of that place heard of their arrival. Failing in their endeavors to have the two missionaries settle down in Marcos’ native country, they bestowed upon them horses, rags, clothing, money, and an abundant supply of provisions for their long journey. (6) The first place they reached in their westward journey was Tunhuang, famous as the gateway between China proper and Turkestan. This locality is well known for its caves of the thousand Buddhas.(7) It was then an influential city of the kingdom of Tangut, which realm authors today usually claim included the modem China province of Kansu. There were many Assyrian Christians in this kingdom. The brethren in Tun-huang, in which city Marco Polo said there were three large churches, hearing of the arrival of the youth, went out in a reception committee to give them a hearty welcome. From here, after two months’ traveling over the sands of the eastern Turkestan desert, they came to the city of Khotan, famous for the production of Jade. Former cities of great renown in this region have been overwhelmed by the shifting sands of the desert which appear to have been advancing for ages.(8)

However, in the days of Marcos and Sauma this was a region dotted withwell-populated and flourishing centers. In the city of Khotan itself dwelt the director over the Assyrian churches in that province, so that one maybe well assured that there was a public welcome to the two young men upon their arrival. As war was raging at that time between a chieftain and the great khan against whom he had rebelled, the two travelers were compelled to remain in Khotan for six months. From Khotan these enterprising missionaries journeyed northwestward to Kashgar. Marco Polo, who had traveled over this route only a few yearsbefore, but in the opposite direction, wrote:

“There are in the country many Nestorian [Assyrian] Christians, who have churches of their own. The people of the country have a peculiar language, and the territory extends for five days’ journey.”

See footnote 9

The town was an important center of trade, and formed the terminus of many caravan routes from east to west; the country round about was very fertile, and the merchant and farmer classes were well-to-do.10From Kashgar the adventuresome theological students passed over the high mountains of The Pamirs as they entered into Khurasan, the powerful northeastern province of Persia, where they arrived after the greatest difficulties and in a state of mental and physical exhaustion. But they comforted themselves at this time because God had delivered them from every affliction, and had allowed no calamities to befall them by highway robbers and thieves.(11) They came to a military camp in a place called Talas. King Kaidu, who had descended from one of the oldest sons of Genghis Khan, never accepted the fact that his own grandfather had not been made supreme in imperial authority. At this time he was waging war with Emperor Kublai Khan because of contentions over matters of inheritance. The travelers went to King Kaidu; and having bestowed upon him their religious blessing, they requested him to give them a written permission to pass through his country. Then they went to one of the spiritual training centers of the Assyrian Church located in or near the great city of Tus, capital of Khurasan, where they were received with hospitality by the provincial director of the churches and his associate clergy. Here, like the apostle Paul when he arrived at Rome, they “thanked God, and took courage.”(Acts 28:15.)

THE PASTORS MEET THE CATHOLICS

It was their intention to proceed from Khurasan to the frontier province in the northwest of Persia near the Caucasus, that they might reach the capital city of Bagdad in which was located Mar Denha, the catholicos of the Church in the East. However, they encountered the catholicos in Maragha, the city which Hulagu had made the provincial capital. At the sight of him, their hearts swelled with joy; they fell down on the ground before him and wept as they paid respect to his position as supreme director over the Church of the East. The membership of this great church, plus the Jacobites, surpassed the membership of the Greek and Latin churches.(12) The catholicos was astonished when he learned that they had come from the king of kings, Kublai Khan. They said that they had come to be blessed by the father of fathers, and by the clergy and holy men of this quarter of the world. And if a road were opened to them, they continued, and God had mercy upon them, they would go to Jerusalem.(13) The catholicos was moved to tears and spoke words of comfort to them. Since they were so well acquainted with the city of the great king and could speak in the Mongolian tongue, the catholicos requested that they repair to the emperor of the west, who may be called the viceroy of the western Mongolian dominion, to request the emperor to ratify the choice of himself, Mar Denha, who had been elected catholicos by the western clergy. In this mission they were successful. In return, the catholicos wrote a letter of introduction for them, since they intended to visit the western religious centers of renown connected with the Assyrian Church. At that time, Abagha, the son and successor of Hulagu, and great-grand-son of Genghis Khan, was on the throne of Persia. When they came to his camp and were brought before him, he received them graciously and commanded the nobles of his kingdom to grant their petition in behalf of the catholicos, Mar Denha, and gave them the written orders necessary to ratify that which they were requesting. Upon returning to the catholicos, he told them that this was not the time for them to journey to Jerusalem because the roads were in a disturbed state. He passed on the startling news of the death at Peking of the provincial director of the church, and had therefore decided to ordain Marcos in his stead as metropolitan for China and to consecrate his companion, Sauma, as visitor-general of the churches in the west. They both endeavored to be freed from his proposed appointments; but when they saw that he was not willing it should be so, they said, “The will of our Father be done.” Marcos was well received and highly honored in different regions even though he was a foreigner, because he held Bible truths in common with the Church of the East. Not least among these doctrines generally held was the seventh-day Sabbath. Since the Christians of China, the homeland of Marcos, observed the seventh-day Sabbath, as pointed out in a previous chapter, here was a bond of union among the medieval church members in Asia.(14) There was greater responsibility in store for these enterprising pastors. Shortly after their appointment, Mar Denha himself died. The directing clergy of the west easily discerned that Marcos stood high in favor with the viceroy of Persia and the supreme emperor, Kublai Khan. After counseling with one another, they decided that Marcos should be elected catholicos. This was satisfactory to King Abagha, who bestowed upon the new catholicos large gifts, ratified his election, and fostered an increase in church training centers and general facilities for the growth of the work. Shortly after this, King Abagha died. Ahmad, a brother of Abagha, succeeded him on the throne; and lacking education or knowledge, he persecuted the Christians because of his considerable association in the past with the Mohammedans. However, his reign was short, not lasting more than two years; and he was followed on the throne by the son of Abagha, whose name was Arghun. The name given to Marcos after he had been consecrated to his new position was Yabhalaha. God blessed him with good health, and he lived to see six different kings as viceroys upon the imperial throne of the west in Persia. Passing over the many stirring incidents of his life, it will be sufficient to say that the splendid devotion of the church, which had done such a marvelous work until the time when Marcos (Yabhalaha) arrived at the patriarchate, still continued. Thus the story of these two young men illustrates the vast extent to which the Church of the East had spread in the Orient, as well as its power and influence.

MARCO POLO AND THE ASSYRIAN CHURCH

The same century in which Marcos and Sauma traveled from China to Persia witnessed five other journeys which have been recorded. They give us remarkable pictures of the Mongolian world from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, from Siberia to the Indian Ocean. The most outstanding of these travels were the voyages made by Marco Polo, an Italian from the city of Venice and a devout Roman Catholic. How his education in Catholicism colored his interpretation of the situations he encountered is seen in the following description:

Mosul is a large province inhabited by various descriptions of people, one class of whom pay reverence to Mahomet, and are called Arabians. The others profess the Christian faith, but not according to the canons of the church, which they depart from in many instances, and are denominated Nestorians, Jacobites, and Armenians. They have a patriarch whom they call Jacolit, and by him archbishops, bishops, and abbots are consecrated and sent to all parts of India, to Baudas (Bagdad), or to Cathay (China), just as the pope of Rome does in Latin countries.

See footnote 15

When John of Plano Carpini and William of Rubruck set out to interview the Tartar emperors, the capital was still at Karakorum in Siberia amid the nomadic tribes of the Asiatic plains. The journey made by Marco Polo, however, brought him to Peking, the new capital of the Mongolians under Emperor Kublai. The following description of Peking at the time of MarcoPolo’s arrival is given by Manuel Komroff:

Two outstanding engineering marvels had already been completed before Marco Polo arrived. One was the Great Wall of China and the other the Grand Canal, the last 600 miles of which was finished by Kublai Khan. This canal runs from Peking to Canton and to this day remains the longest waterway constructed by man. Land communications by post-
riders were developed to a high degree and are fully described by Marco Polo. In the various arts China was already mature. Painting, engraving, bronze casting, sculpture, and the making of porcelain and architecture were already very highly developed. Literature, too, was greatly respected. The invention of paper came as early as A.D. 105 and books were printed from wood blocks in 932. About fifty years later the large encyclopedia, consisting of a thousand different sections, was ordered printed under the personal supervision of the emperor. Marco Polo could have found books already in circulation dealingwith political economy, philosophy, religion, warfare, agriculture,painting, music and other arts. Movable type first made itsappearance in China in the form of baked clay blocks at the earlydate of 1043 and paper money, spoken of with such wonder byMarco Polo, was the currency in many sections of the empire. Mechanical devices were not lacking. Water clocks were found onbridges, astronomical instruments were in constant use, metals andcoal were mined and salt extracted from brine. It was in this worldof wonders that Marco Polo, an impressionable youth of twenty-one, found himself.

See footnote 16

When Marco Polo, a lad of nineteen, journeyed with his father and

uncle, he took practically the same route from west to east which Marcos and Sauma had traversed from east to west. He, too, noted how strong the Church of the East was in Yarcan (i.e., Yarkand), which is in the western part of Turkestan, in these words:

“Yarcan is a province five days’journey in extent. The people follow the law of Mahomet, but there are also Nestorian and Jacobite Christians.”

See footnote 17

When he reached Tangut, one of the places mentioned by Sauma, Marco Polo noticed the existence of Assyrian Christians,(18) and also in Tun-huang, a city which he calls by the name of Chingintalas.(19) From there on he brings to view about ten other places where he tarried on his journeys to and from in the empire. Writing of the city which is known today as Suchow, he says: “At the end of those ten days you come to another province called Sukchur.” He indicates that part of the people in this place were Christians and part were idolaters.(20) From there he traveled to the city of Campichu (now, Kanchow) in which place, he says, the Christians have “three very fine churches.”(21)
From Campichu he went still farther east to the kingdom of Erguiul with the capital of the same name, which evidently is the modem city of Liangchow. Marco Polo says: “It is one of the several kingdoms which make up the great province of Tangut. The people consist of Nestorian Christians, idolaters, and worshipers of Mahomet.”(22) At this point MarcoPolo mentions another city directly south from Liangchow, evidently the modem city of Ining, which he credits with being the home of Assyrian Christians. Starting again eastward from Liangchow, Marco Polo came to a province whose capital city was Calachan. He credits this region with containing numerous cities and villages in which there are fine churches belonging to the Assyrian Christians.(23) From there he proceeded eastward until he entered another province whose rule was in the hands of the Christians. To this next province he gives the name of Tenduc, of which he says,

The king of the province is of the lineage of Prester John, George by name, and he holds the land under the Great Khan; not that he holds anything like the whole of what Prester John possessed. It is a custom, I may tell you, that these kings of the lineage of Prester John always obtain to wife either daughters of the Great Khan or other princesses of his family…. The rule of the province is in the hands of the Christians, as I have told you.

See footnote 24

Shakespeare wrote about Cathay, the next kingdom into which Marco Polo and his company rode. For centuries China was in the west called Cathay. The great emperor soon discovered the abilities of Marco Polo and chose him for an imperial officer. As such, he made many journeys throughout the realm and reported concerning the numerous towns and villages in which he found Nestorian Christians.(25) As an officer of Emperor Kublai Khan, he went to the southwest part of China and noticed the existence of Assyrian Christians at Yunnanfu, the capital city of the province of Yunnan.(26) Of the city of Yangchow, over which Marco Polo was placed for a time as governor and which had twenty-seven other wealthy cities under its administration, it is related that it had three such church buildings.(27)
Thus, there are famous witnesses who saw with their own eyes the flourishing churches in the empire of China from 600 to 1300. These churches are not there now. What has happened since then? Another revolution embracing Asia and Europe in its sweep overthrew the Mongols and made the Turks dominant.

RISE OF TAMERLANE

The question naturally arises, What became of the widespread Christianity

in the Orient, the fruit of labor carried on by the Church of the East? This leads to new scenes involving Tamerlane, the Jesuits, and the ever-changing desert sands. Tamerlane (c. A.D. 1333-1405) was another world conqueror.(28) Many famous men of military genius look like pygmies compared to Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. With the exception of southern India, Genghis conquered all of Asia and most of eastern Europe. It has been thought that had it not been for the Christian influences exercised by the Church of the East on the successors of Genghis Khan to spare certain Christian nations, all of them today might be speaking the Mongolian tongue. Tamerlane won dominion over all the lands subjected by Genghis, with the exception of China. Genghis was a Mongolian, displaying throughout his empire are ligious liberty wonderful for his day. Tamerlane was a Turk, a fanatical Mohammedan, who slew Christians by the hundreds of thousands, if not by the millions, and destroyed Christian churches and training centers. His violence is one of the reasons for the ruin of Assyrian Christianity in far Asia. The other reason was the coming of the Jesuits, supported by the guns of Spain and Portugal, of which more shall be written later. Tamerlane has been unrivaled in world history for ferocity and cruelty. Wherever he passed, provinces became deserts and the inhabitants were either slaughtered or enslaved. He came to power about the time the Mongolian Empire had been weakened by being parceled out among the grandsons of Genghis Khan. He possessed abilities of the highest order as a general. In thirty years of constant warfare he subdued central Asia and Persia. At Ispahan alone, seventy thousand heads were made into a pyramid. He marched into Asia Minor and Georgia, then a very powerful country, and struck a terrifying blow at Russia. He sent his armies into Siberia, subduing northward as far as the Irtish River and eastward to the boundary of China. His conquest of northern India was a notable campaign. Tamerlane was more than sixty years of age when he forced a passage of the Indus River, marching forward to destroy the houses and to massacre the inhabitants.(29) The Tartar army had taken one hundredthousand prisoners before they reached Delhi. An order was issued for their slaughter, and terrible vengeance was denounced against any person who should attempt to evade the bloody mandate; it is believed that not one condemned prisoner escaped.(30) Tamerlane’s victories over the Ottoman Turks after his return from India were rendered notable by the capture of Bagdad, Aleppo, and Damascus, and also by the seizing of the sultan. Tamerlane was attacked by fever in the midst of a gigantic campaign for the extirpation of China.(31) The onsweep of the savage Tamerlane was the last storm to uproot the stable foundations of the Asiatic civilization. All chance was now removed that central or far Asia would ever become a great contributing factor to the upbuilding of a better world. The days of prosperity and energy gave way to ignorance and poverty. As a missionary objective, those lands presented a hard and difficult problem for the success of high standards such as Christianity seeks to implant. The Savior taught His disciples that when they were persecuted in one city, they were to flee into another. From the days of Tamerlane on, one must seek in other lands for the growth of a dominant and fruitful Christianity. For fifteen centuries the Church in the Wilderness had done a glorious work in the countries eastward from the Mediterranean. It remained now for a continent newly discovered by Columbus to take up the Christian leadership at a time when the Church of the East was laying it down. America would arise in power to give the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Sahara would be as alluring a prospect for missionary endeavor as would be Siberia, Turkestan, or northern China when inundated by swirling clouds of sand. The laborious years spent in erecting cities came to nought before the encroaching storm. Man with all his weapons of defense was unable to stand before the avalanches of the desert. A glance at the modem Atlas of China prepared by A. Herrmann will reveal a maplocating mined towns near Turfan in eastern Turkestan.(32) Between Khotan and China the moving sands of the desert have covered uncounted cities in eastern Turkestan which anciently were the seats of flourishing commerce and prosperous communities.(33) W. H. Johnson is authority for the statement that on one occasion three hundred sixty cities were buried in twenty-four hours.(34) The researches of Sir Aurel Stein amid the mined cities of Cathay, and the interesting books of Sven Hedin on the ancient remains of Lop-nor give other interesting facts concerning the burial of once flourishing and populous centers in farther Asia.(35) Sven Hedin shows that amid the ruins of Lou-lan in northwestern Turkestan, the finds unearthed, such as strips of paper with writing, tablets of wood, coins, cups, and bowls, and other data, point to a period between the middle of the third century and the beginning of the fourth. One document speaks of a military expedition, another of a government visit in which the city welcomed forty officials from the army of the frontier. There were also indications of numerous farms.(36)

THE COMING OF THE JESUITS TO CHINA

There was another factor, more powerful than Tamerlane, more powerful than the shifting sands of the deserts, which contributed to the weakening of the Assyrian Church in China, and to its disappearance from leadership. This factor was the Jesuit organization. With the arrival of the Jesuits in China, the battle for the faith was transferred to new soil. The devastating effects on the Church in the Wilderness by the newly arrived Jesuits in India, bringing with them the Portuguese Inquisition, have been previously pointed out. “The downfall of the Nestorian Church in India,” writes William W. Hunter,

“was due, however, neither to such reversions to paganism nor to any persecutions of native princes; but to the pressure of the Portuguese Inquisition, and the proselytizing energy of Rome.”

See footnote 37

The same results were produced in China and Japan by the Jesuits.
The famous pioneer of the order, Francis Xavier, who introduced the Inquisition into India, sailed for Japan in 1549. He built his first church in 1552 at Yamaguchi. How much he assimilated Buddhist philosophy and paganism in his papal preaching may be seen in the following quotation:

“He utilized, also, the altar vessels, lights, incense, and some of the images found in their temples — differing as they do so little from those of theCatholic Church.”

See footnote 38

His stay in China, however, was short. His successors for a time experienced much opposition from the mandarins. It was not until January, 1601, that Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit priest from Portugal, succeeded in obtaining a foothold in Peking, principally through his skill in mathematics, the

building of war engines, and astronomy.(39)Backed by the power of Portugal and Spain, the Jesuits gained great prestige with the lettered class and the imperial court. So successful were they among the learned that at the time of the death of Father Ricci in 1610, the three most celebrated doctors in the corporation of the lettered (the scholars, Paul, Leon, and Michael) were in the ranks of those converted by the Jesuits.(40) In fact, about 1615, two of the principal magistrates of China petitioned the emperor to have all the best European books translated into Chinese by the Jesuits, with a view to enriching the national literature.(41) About this time there was great strife among the Jesuits themselves, not only in China but also in Europe, over the manner in which Father Ricci was adopting heathen customs, baptizing converts who still held them, and so claiming that Christ and the Roman Catholic Church were not antagonistic to such practices as ancestral worship and other pagan rites. The Jesuit historian Huc, discussing Father Lombard, co-worker and successor to Father Ricci, says:

Regarded from this point of view, the customs of China appeared to Lombard and the missionaries who took his side, as an idolatry utterly incompatible with the sanctity of Christianity — criminal acts, the impiety of which must be shown to the Chinese upon whom, by the grace of God, the light of the gospel had shone, and which must be absolutely forbidden to all Christians, whatever might be their condition.

See footnote 42

It will thus be understood how much the Jesuits in China differed from the Church of the East. It will also be seen that they, by offering beliefs and practices which endorsed rather than opposed heathen idolatry, had acquired power sufficient to wreck the New Testament Christianity there as they did in India. Moreover, their acceptance of household gods and prayers for the dead would lead them to utilize the opportunity offered by the unearthing of the famous Chinese stone monument. They would be impelled to corrupt the Chinese characters on this famous stone discovered in the former capital of the Chinese Empire some twenty to twenty-five years after their initial successes. To distort the ancient inscription to teach papal doctrine would offer a decorative screen behind which they could work their machinery of propaganda.

THE CORRUPTED CHINESE INSCRIPTION

The celebrated Chinese stone monument, as was related in the previous chapter, was dug out of the earth in 1625 at Changan, and its immense importance was immediately recognized. This precious find was at once seized upon by the learned Chinese officials and the Jesuits for their own protection. The first step was to chisel out a duplicate stone in order to get rid of the original.(43) In order to do this, the Jesuits were necessary to the mandarins, and those officials were necessary to the Jesuits. Both needed to protect themselves from the damaging testimony of this revolutionary historical find. At the same time the unearthing of the original had occasioned too much widespread excitement to permit of its being destroyed without a substitute. Dr. Charles W. Wall maintains that the Syriac inscription upon the stone is genuine. He lays down the following three lines of argument to prove that the Chinese characters chiseled upon the marble are a falsification:

• (1) by the circumstances under which it was communicated to the public;
• (2) by the nature of its contents; and
• (3) by the characters in which it is written.” (44)

On the first point, that the original was destroyed by the Chinese government, it can be said that this fact is well authenticated. It is claimed that an exact copy was made. D’Athenese Kircher, a Jesuit who was living at the time and who took great interest in the matter of the memorial stone, quoted the following from Martin Martini, an erudite Jesuit, leader of missionary work in China:

The governor was no sooner apprised of the discovery of the monument than by a curiosity natural to the Chinese, he betook himself to the place and as soon as he examined the tokens of its venerable antiquity, he first composed a book in honor of the monument and ordered that a stone of the same size be made, on which he had engraved the contents of the other and had inscribed point-by-point the same characters and the same letters which had been impressed on the original.

See footnote 45

Dr. Wall quotes from two other Jesuit priests, Boim and Samedus, also leaders in the same mission field, to prove that the Chinese inscription was wrought upon a second stone of the same dimension as the first, in the wording of which inscription the Jesuit pundits gave their assistance as they were at hand immediately alter the stone was disinterred.(46) What were the motives of both the learned Chinese and the Jesuits in giving to the public a substitute Chinese inscription? The sign language of China had so greatly altered in the centuries during which the stone lay buried that the inscription on the marble was indecipherable. However, the mandarins claim that the strokes and curves of their sign language, as well as the meaning of each sign, have not changed in two thousand years. For this reason the scholars of the Celestial Empire destroy or efface, whenever possible, and as soon as they can, any ancient inscription upon which they may lay their hands.(47) But since the Changan monument had been found near a large and populous city, and had made a great stir, it was necessary to bring back to the public a duplicate in all respects as nearly like the original as possible while destroying the telltale, indecipherable Chinese inscription. Now, what was the motive of the Jesuits in being accomplices in this imposition? Why was it necessary for the mandarins to depend upon their help? The Jesuits saw quickly that the historic monument proclaimed the early advent into China of the Church of the East, which had been excommunicated about A.D.200 by the bishop of Rome.(48) Here was a
chance to write the doctrines of the Church of Rome upon this part of thestone, taking care that the other facts did not clash with the part of the marble incised in Syriac. As the lettered class were totally ignorant of church history and of Christian doctrines, they were obliged to have recourse to the Jesuits to fabricate a story which would not suffer exposure by conflicting with what was written upon the Syriac part of the stone.Taking up the second point, one can see that the nature of the doctrines presented in the Chinese part of the inscription also proves a Jesuit fraud. These reference in the present Chinese text relating to the use of images in Christian worship and to prayers for the dead were declarations of doctrine which had never been taught by the Church of the East. Yet the Jesuits were compelled to recognize from the Syriac part of the inscription, which they could not alter, that the monument was erected to the glory of that great missionary body. As the Chinese characters with their interpretations can be found in any standard work on the subject, the fraudulent passages will not be quoted here. Furthermore, the Chinese characters on the stone do not stress an evangelical program. There is no reference to the miracles of Christ and nothing regarding His death, resurrection, and ascension. There is, moreover, fulsome praise given to the Chinese emperors and the endorsement of their practice of hanging the portraits on the walls of the churches. Other teachings differing widely from those of the Church of the East which were rejected by that body appear in the Chinese part of the inscription.(49) As to the third point, Wall produces a masterly argument to claim genuineness for the Syriac writing on the stone and hence for the original find itself, and to prove that the Chinese inscription was a counterfeit. In his books, by presenting plates which compare the characters of both languages on the monument with those used at different eras throughout the centuries, he convinces the reader of the genuineness of the Syriac and the falsity of the Chinese.(50) A full presentation of the inscription in Syriac on the monument would show that it gives definitely the year in which the stone was erected. Secondly, it states clearly and correctly the name of the head over the
Church of the East in China. It gives also clearly and correctly the name of the father of fathers, supreme head over the Church of the East throughout the world, allowing no doubt that the monument was a memorial to that church and to its triumph in China. The Syriac also states definitely that on this stone was the doctrine of Him who was our Redeemer and the teaching that was preached by their forefathers to the kings of China. Philology has shown clearly how the meaning of Chinese characters changes from century to century. Their sign characters, usually employed in writing, do not convey a word; they express an idea or a picture. The official reason given for destroying the original stone and substituting one newly carved was that the Chinese characters were badly damaged upon the unearthed monument. It is therefore to be concluded that the literary class of Changan wished to reproduce more beautiful and acceptable Chinese characters. The reason why the authenticity of the Syriac characters is acceptable is readily apparent. In the first place, neither the Chinese nor the Jesuits of the seventeenth century in China were acquainted with the Syriac language of the seventh century. When, however, the Syriac characters of the stone were submitted to Syriac scholars, they tallied well with the records of the church headquarters. They tallied also with the history written about the Church of the East, whether by church members or by disinterested historians. From the statements chiseled centuries ago in the Syrian language upon this remarkable table, the story of the outstanding work accomplished by the Church of the East in China is continued. An unnumbered throng who have been converted to Christ in China through the efforts of the Church of the Wilderness will stand victorious on the sea of glass redeemed from the earth.

__________________________________________________________________
FOOTNOTES /SOURCES

1. Saeki, The Nestorian Monument in China, pp. 42, 43.
2. Montgomery, The History of Yaballaha III, p. 11.
3. Mingana, “Early Spread of Christianity,” Bulletin of John Ryland’sLibrary, vol. 9, p. 312, note 1.
4. Budge, The Monks of Kublai Khan, Emperor of China, p. 45.
5. Budge, The Monks of Kublai Khan, Emperor of China, p. 1.
6. Budge, The Monks of Kublai Khan, Emperor of China, pp. 45, 46.
7. Cable and French, Through Jade Gate and Central Asia, p. 133.
8. Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, vol. 1, p. 192.
9. Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, vol. 1, p. 182.
10. Budge, The Monks of Kublai Khan, Emperor of China, p. 47.
11. Ibid., p. 139.
12. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 47, par. 30.
13. Budge, The Monks of Kublai Khan, Emperor of China, pp. 140, 141.
14. See the author’s discussion in Chapter 19, note 27, and in Chapter 21.
15. Komroff, The Travels of Marco Polo, p. 29.
16. Komroff, The Travels of Marco Polo, pp. 16, 17.
17. Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, vol. 1, p. 187.
18. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 203.
19. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 212
20. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 217.
21. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 219.
22. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 274.
23. Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, vol. 1, p. 281.
24. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 284.
25. thereby Ibid., vol. 1, p. 285.
26. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 66
27. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 154, and note 2.
28. Variously known as Tamerlane, Timor, or Timour.
29. Encyclopedia Brittanica, 9th ed., art. “Timur.”
30. Malcolm, History of Persia, vol. 1, pp. 471,472; pp. 301,302, 1829 ed.
31. Malcolm, History of Persia, vol. 1, pp. 471,472; pp. 306, 307, 1829 ed.
32. Herrmann, Atlas of China, p. 46.
33. Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, vol. 1, pp. 191, 192.
34. Johnson, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. 37, p. 5.
35. Hedin, Central Asia and Tibet, vol. 2, pp. 112-120.
36. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 134, 135.
37. Hunter, The Indian Empire, p. 240.
38. Gordon, “World Healers,” p. 481.
39. Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, vol. 2, chs. 3, 4.
40. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 235, 317; p. 292, 1857 ed.
41. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 265, 266.
42. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 230.
43. Wall, Ancient Orthography of the Jews, vol. 2, p. 160.
44. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 159, 160.
45. Kircher, La Chine, pp. 10, 11; also Wall, Ancient Orthography of the Jews, vol. 2, p. 160.
46. Wall, Ancient Orthography of the Jews, vol. 2, p. 163.
47. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 162.
48. See the author’s discussion in Chapter 9, entitled, “Papas, First Head of the Church in Asia.”
49. Wall, Ancient Orthography of the Jews, vol. 2, pp. 185, 186.
50. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 200-245.

The return from the captivity, which Cyrus authorized almost immediately after the capture of Babylon, is the starting point from which we may trace a gradual enlightenment of the heathen world by the dissemination of Jewish beliefs and practices.

See footnote 1

THE NAME OF ADAM singles out an unusual leader whose history is connected with the Church of the East in China. When he was director of the Assyrian Church in China, a memorial in marble was erected in that land in 781 to the praise of God for the glorious success of the apostolic church. From the time that it was excavated in 1625 it has stood as one of the most celebrated monuments of history. The events which led to its erection and the story told by its inscription reveal the early missionary endeavors which carried the gospel to the Far East. When the Spirit of God moved upon the heart of Adam, director of the Assyrian Church in China, and his associates to erect this revealing witness, New Testament Christianity had for some time been shining brightly there. The fact that these missionaries possessed sufficient freedom to plant this remarkable memorial in the heart of the empire, when in Europe the father of Charlemagne was destroying the Celtic Church, shows a remarkable existence of religious liberty in the Orient. Itfurthermore discloses that the Church of the East was large and influentialenough to execute so striking a

project. To indicate how great a statesman Adam was and how strong he was in 781 in the circles of influence in the Chinese, Japanese, and Arabian Empires, let the following facts testify: He was a friend of the Chinese emperor who ordered the erection of the famous stone monument; of Duke Kuo-Tzu, mighty general and secretary of state, who defeated the dangerous Tibetan attack; of Dr. Issu, Assyrian clergyman, loaded with state honors for his brilliant work; of Kobo Daishi, greatest intellect in Japanese history; of Prajna, renowned Buddhist leader and Chinese teacher of Kobo Daishi; of Lu Yen, celebrated founder of the powerful Chinese religious sect known as the Pill of Immortality; of the Arabian court where Harun-al-Rashid, most mighty of the Arabian emperors, had just secured the services of an eminent Assyrian church educator to supervise Harun’snew imperial school system.(2) In 1625 this remarkable stone was unearthed in or near the city of Changan, long known as Sian or Sianfu, but now recently called again by its ancient name, Changan. It was the most cosmopolitan city among all nations when the memorial was erected. It is located about fifteen hundred miles inland from the coast. The imperial Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907) was on the throne. It is generally conceded among historians that the period of the Tang emperors was the most brilliant, liberal, and progressive era of all the Chinese dynasties. Changan was already well known two thousand years before Christ, being called “the well-watered city.”(3) Its history is the history of the Chinese race. Its civilization influenced all the surrounding nations. For example, Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, is laid out on lines following the plan of Sianfu (Changan).G. B. Sansom, in his learned work on the Nipponese, has given a splendid description of Changan in these years. Recognizing the debt of Japan to China, many authors point out that it was the civilization of the Tang period which influenced Japan, a civilization built on the splendid contribution made by the Church of the East.

Politically China was at this moment perhaps the most powerful, the most advanced, and the best-administered country in the world.Certainly in every material aspect of the life of a state she wasoverwhelmingly superior to Japan. The frontiers of her empire stretched to the borders of Persia, to the Caspian Sea, and to the Altai Mountains. She was in relations with the peoples of Annam, Cochin China, Tibet, the Tarim basin, and India; with the Turks, the Persians, and the Arabs. Men of many nations appeared at the court of China, bringing tribute and merchandise and new ideas that influenced her thought and her art. Persian and, more remotely, Greek influence is apparent in much of the sculpture and painting of the T’ang period. There had since the days of the Wei emperors been friendly intercourse between China and Persia, a Zoroastrian temple was erected in Chang-an in 621…It would be too much of a digression to go on to speak of the paintings, the bronzes, the pottery, the colored silks, the poems and the fine calligraphies. It is enough to say that all these arts were blossoming in profusion, when the first Japanese missions found themselves in the T’ang capital. And what perhaps impressed them more than the quality of Chinese culture was its heroic dimensions. Nothing but was on a grand, a stupendous scale. When the Sui emperor builds a capital, two million men are set towork. His fleet of pleasure boats on the Yellow River is towed by eighty thousand men. His caravan when he makes an Imperial Progress is three hundred miles long. His concubines number three thousand. And when he orders the compilation of an anthology, it must have seventeen thousand chapters. Even making allowance for the courtly arithmetic of official historians, these are enormous undertakings; and though the first T’ang emperors were rather less immoderate, they did nothing that was not huge or magnificent. To the Japanese it must have been staggering.

See footnote 4

The famous monumental stone now stands in the Pei Lin (forest of tablets)in the western suburb of Changan.5 It was set up by imperial direction to commemorate the bringing of Christianity to China. Dug out of the ground by accident in 1625, where it evidently had lain buried for nearly a thousand years, this marble monument ranks in importance with the Rosetta stone of Egypt or the Behistun inscription in Persia. It has engraved upon it 1,900 Chinese characters reinforced by fifty Syriac words and seventy names in Syriac. The mother tongue of the Christian newcomers and the official tongue of the Assyrian Church was Syriac.(6) The unearthing of this corroborating evidence to the greatness of early Christianity in China created a profound impression upon scholars in all countries.(7) Many works have been written about it. The revealing facts embedded in the chiseled letters never cease to grip the attention of anyone interested in the history of the true church.
How great was the degree of civilization in these days throughout central Asia and the East may be seen in the following quotation from a recognized author:

With unexampled honors, Kao-Tsung and his empress received back to China, in 645, The Prince of Pilgrims, Huen T’sang, after his sixteen years’ pilgrimage of over 100,000 miles to Fo-de-fang,the Holy Land of India, in search of precious sutras and “the true,good law,” finding everywhere, among the tribes of central Asia,the highest degree of civilization and religious devotion.

See footnote 8

Hsuan Tsang was beginning his research journey just after Columbanus had finished his glorious labors. The Celtic Columbanus, however, carried his Bible with him as he journeyed east, while Hsuan Tsang traveled west from his native China to obtain the scriptures of Buddha in India. Many who have written about this great stone mistakenly call it the Nestorian monument. The word “Nestorian” is nowhere found on it. In fact, the inscription has no reference whatever to either Nestorius orNestorians. Moreover, it does explicitly recognize the head of the Church of the East by giving the name and the date of the patriarch of Bagdad, Persia, who at that time was ruler of the church in its vast extent. These are the words as translated from the Syriac: “Inthe day of our Father of Fathers, My Lord Hanan-isho, Catholicos, Patriarch…. In the year one thousand and ninety-two of the Greeks. (1092-311= A.D. 781)”(9) The title at the head of the monument, engraved in nine Chinese characters, as translated in Saeki’s book is, “A Monument Commemorating the Propagation of the Ta-Chin Luminous Religion in the Middle Kingdom.”Ta-Chin, this author asserts, was the Chinese name of Judea, and the“luminous religion” was the term they then used for Christianity. In the period in which this monumental witness was erected in China, three great empires ruled the world. In the West, the pope crowned Charlemagne on Christmas Day, 800, as head of the newly created Holy Roman Empire. In the Far East the Chinese world, considered by some at that time, the strongest of all

states, was ruled by the Tang dynasty. Between these lay the mighty Arabian Empire. The most famous emperor in the history of this Arabian imperium was Harun-al-Rashid.
There was much to facilitate the contact between Persia and China at this time. Most of the nations lying between them were well populated. Travel was frequent, the highways were well cared for, and an abundance of vehicles and inns to facilitate merchants and tourists was at hand.(10) It would yet be many a century before the devastations of the Mongols and the ravages of Tamerlane would lay these countries desolate. The population was large enough to keep back the encroaching sands which later buried many a fine city. The Buddhists of China were constantly traveling west, especially to India, to obtain ancient writings of the faith.(11) Much evidence goes to prove, moreover, that the rulers of China were tolerant of, or indifferent to, all faiths, so that the door was open to the arrival of new religions.

DID CONFUCIUS COUNTERFEIT DANIEL’S RELIGION?

About five hundred years before the commencement of the Christian Era a great stir seems to have taken place in Indo-Aryan, as in Grecian minds, and indeed in thinking minds everywhere throughout the then-civilized world. Thus when Buddha arose in India, Greece had her thinker in Pythagoras, Persia, in Zoroaster, and China in Confucius.

See footnote 12

In a former chapter it was stated that within a hundred years after the death of the prophet Daniel, Zoroastrianism flourished in Persia, Buddhism rose in India, and Confucianism began in China.(13) From Pythagoras, possibly a pupil of Zoroaster, philosophy had obtained its grip upon Greece. According to the dates generally assigned to Daniel and Confucius, the founder of Confucianism was about fourteen years of age when the great prophet died. There is a striking similarity between parts of the philosophy of Pythagoras and that of Confucius. A quotation from a well-known author will show the close relationship between Buddhism and Confucianism:

It is related that a celebrated Chinese sage, known as ‘thenobleminded Fu,’ when asked whether he was a Buddhist priest, pointed to his Taoist cap; when asked whether he was a Taoist,pointed to his Confucianist shoes; and finally, being asked whether he was a Confucianist, pointed to his Buddhist scarf.”

See footnote 14

As the Jews had been dispersed throughout all nations, the stirring prophecies of Daniel were disseminated everywhere. These led all peoples to look with hope for the coming of the great Restorer. The Magi who journeyed from the East to worship at the Savior’s manger are but an example of those who were stirred by the promise of the Coming One. Suetonius and Tacitus, Roman historians of the first century A.D., bear witness to the universal expectation of a coming Messiah. The prophecy of Buddha concerning the predicted Prophet is another example. Buddha said: “Five hundred years after my death, a Prophet will arise who will found His teaching upon the fountain of all the Buddhas.When that One comes, believe in Him, and you shall receive incalculable blessings!” (15) Also it is reported that Confucius, the famous founder of China’s national religion in the sixth century B.C., said that “a saint should be born in the West who would restore to China the lost knowledge of the sacred tripod.”(16) It must not be concluded that the Chinese emperor, surrounded by the greatest scholars of his realm, took an astonishing decision to permit Adam to build the celebrated stone monument solely because he was influenced by the teachings which he heard from the Christian

missionaries of that date. He and his scholars were well aware of the remarkable events which crowded the history touching the Church of the East. The Chinese were not ignorant of the expansion of Christianity among the nations of central Asia. Furthermore, it is not without solid basis that commentators claim thatChina is contemplated in the well-known prophecy of Isaiah which foresees converts to the gospel as coming from the land of Sinim. There are scholars of research who conclude that the original Chinese colonists who settled on the western branch of the Yellow River came from the plains of the Euphrates.17 It must be true that the great facts of early Bible history were known in some form in the Orient from early days, there being much travel back and forth from Persia to China. As Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, so the Separatists from the Tigris and Euphrates valleys are considered by some to have taken their long trek through Turkestan to theWei River of northwestern China carrying many elements of Chaldean
civilization to that region.(18) From the Babylonian plains they are reckoned to have brought many religious and astronomical observances which they practiced in China, among which was the honor bestowed upon a weekly period of seven days.19How early and how influential the Jews (being repeatedly carried as captives to the East) were in China before the Christian Era, may be seen in the following quotations:

Many of those Israelites whom God dispersed among the nations, by means of the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, found their way to China, and were employed (says the celebrated chroniclerPere Gaubil) in important military posts, some becoming provincial governors, ministers of state, and learned professors. Pere Gaubil states positively that there were Jews in China during the fighting states period, i.e., 481-221 B.C.

See footnote 20

Thus we know that China in Daniel’s day was in contact with the Old Testament religion. According to Spring and Autumn, a book compiled by Confucius himself in 481 B.C., notice is taken of the frequent arrival of “the white foreigners.” Saeki thinks that these could be from the plains of Mesopotamia. The vigorous earlier Han dynasty (206 B.C. to A.D. 9) carded its conquests far to the west and to the Babylonian plains.(21) Study in a previous chapter touching the work of the apostle Thomas in India cites the old tradition that after he had founded Christianity in the Hindu peninsula, he then brought the gospel to the country of the Yellow River.(22) The apostle Paul in his day said that the gospel had been carried “to the ends of the world.” How strong was the gospel in China is seen in the statement of the Ante-Nicene Father Amobius, written about 300, which enumerated that nation as one of the Oriental peoples among whom the church was established.(23) Also it is to be noticed that Isaac, the patriarch of the Assyrian Church, ordained a metropolitan for China in 411. As metropolitans usually were directors of from six to eight supervisors of church provinces, each of which in turn was the presiding officer over many clergy, it can readily be understood that Christianity, in order to have had such a large growth, must early have been planted in the Middle Kingdom, or China.

Returning to the discussion of the Old Testament teachings in China long before Christ, it may be seen that the teachings of the Old Testament came to China not only by way of India, but also by way of Turkestan. During the period in which the counterfeiting of the Old testament by heathen religions began, King Darius, the able Persian organizer, effected the conquest of Bactria. That rich and prosperous kingdom lying between the northeast of Persia proper and the Oxus River is said to have contained a thousand towns.(24) Darius pushed his conquests on to the famous city of Khotan in Turkestan.25 This was a pivotal city in the commerce and travel between China and Bactria. Between Khotan and China unnumbered cities, since buried by the moving sands, covered the territory of eastern Turkestan. “Where anciently were the seats of flourishing cities and prosperous communities,” says a Chinese chronicler speaking of this region,

“is nothing now to be seen but a vast desert; all has been buried in the sands.” (26)

It was centuries after the Christian Era before these cities began to disappear.27In Turkestan the road to China was flanked by many cities; consequently, the roads had so many travelers that no one had need to search out companions for his journey. The roads, moreover, were then in such splendid condition that the journey from Khotan to China could be completed in fourteen days.(28) Thus, the bewitching story of the new and aggressive religion in the west could spread eastward quickly on the lips of travelers. If the revolution brought about by Confucius is considered in the light of the generations influenced and the length of its duration, it can be reckoned as one of the greatest revolutions in history. For two thousand years Confucianism held undisputed sway over the Chinese people. Being a man of the highest literary ability and one that was conversant with current events of his time by means of travelers, Confucius could not have been without foresight enough to make his system of religion escape too great competition with Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism. He found China politically and religiously in chaos. He gave to his native land a religion and a code of social ethics which stood for centuries. It is believed that he understood and profited by the great reformation which had just taken place in Judaism, and that he incorporated in the new system he was premeditating, ideas from not only Judaism, but also from Zoroastrianism and Buddhism. It seems most logical to believe that Confucius beheld the great movements just mentioned, and by his superior ability saw his opportunity to do the same for China. Consider how great was the reform which came to Judaism in the days of Daniel, and how the heathen received much of their wisdom from the Old Testament. George Rawlinson, historian of the ancient civilizations, writes:

Parallel with the decline of the old Semitic idolatry was the advance of its direct antithesis, pure spiritual monotheism. The same blow which laid the Babylonian religion in the dust struck off the fetters from Judaism…. The return from the captivity, which Cyrus authorized almost immediately after the capture of Babylon, is the starting point from which we may trace a gradual enlightenment of the heathen world by the dissemination of Jewish beliefs and practices.

See footnote 29

While these three founders of new religions — Zoroaster, Buddha, and Confucius — were willing to borrow from a cult earlier than their own, it is evident that in order to escape the charge of copying, they would want their own system not to be a duplication of the one from which they borrowed. There is sufficient basis in the teachings of Confucius to conclude that he, like Buddha and Zoroaster, was stimulated enough by the new light shining in the west to launch a religious system of his own. The fundamental truth of the Supreme Being was impressed so powerfully upon Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Confucianism that in the establishing of their schemes of religion, they maintained one chief deity. The elimination of lesser divinities in favor of one God over all, such as the OldTestament had taught for centuries, won immediate favor with the masses. One more point will be presented as an outstanding evidence that the teachings of the Old Testament were known and imitated throughout theFar East. The knowledge of creation’s seven days had been so deeply impressed upon Oriental peoples that it wove itself into all religious life and customs of the Orient. Speaking of the widespread influence of theOld Testament system of worship, Thomas M’Clatchie writes:

According to the Zend-Avesta, the God Ormuzd (Adam or Noahdeified), created the world at six different intervals, amounting in all to a whole year; man, in almost exact conformity with the Mosaic account, being created in the sixth period. The Etrurians state thatGod (Adam or Noah) created the world in six thousand years; man alone being created in the sixth millenary. Eusebius mentions several of the ancient poets who attached a superior degree of sanctity to the seventh day. Hesiod and Homer do so, and alsoCallimachus and Linus. Porphyry says that the Pheniciansdedicated one day in seven to their god Cronus (Adam appearing in Noah). Aulus Gellius states that some of the heathen philosophers used to frequent the temples on the seventh day; Lucian mentions the seventh day as a holiday. The ancient Arabians observed a Sabbath before the era of Mohammed. The mode of reckoning by “seven days,” prevailed alike amongst the Indians, the Egyptians, the Celts, the Sclavonians, the Greeks and the Romans. Josephus then makes no groundless statement when he says, ‘there is not any city of the Grecians, nor any of the barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever, whither our custom of resting on the seventh day hath not come!’ Dion Cassius deduces this universal practice of computing by weeks from the Egyptians, but he should have said from the primitive ancestors of the Egyptians, who were equally the ancestors of all mankind. Theophilus of Antioch states as a palpable fact, that the seventh day was everywhere considered sacred; and Philo (apud Grot. et Gale) declares the seventh day to be a festival, not of this or of that city, but of the universe.

See footnote 30

Especially to be noted in the above citation is the reckoning by seven days not only in India, but also among the Celts, Slavs, Greeks, and Romans. Homer and Hesiod, who lived about the ninth and eighth centuries beforeChrist, are included in those believing in the sacredness of the seventh day. Such was the powerful influence of the Old Testament in not only European, but also Oriental lands, even to the determining of their division of time. Already mention has been made of the large number of Jews who dwelt inChina after 400 B.C. Throughout the centuries they observed the seventh day for the Sabbath, and one author, writing in recent years of his investigations touching the small remnant of these Jews still remaining inChina, says,

“They keep the Sabbath quite as strictly as do the Jews in Europe.” (31)

If honoring the seventh day was true among the ancient inhabitants of the land of Chaldea, from which it is asserted that the ancestors of the Chinese came, it was also prominently true in ancient China. A passage from one of the classical works of Confucius, written about 500 B.C., is as follows:

“The ancient kings on this culminating day (i.e., the seventh) closed their gates, the merchants did not travel and the princes did not inspect their domains.” (32) Charles de Harlez adds, “It was a sort of a day of rest.”(33)

All the evidences therefore would seem to support the conclusion that Confucius was influenced either directly or indirectly by the teachings of the Old Testament in general and by the visions of Daniel in particular.

CHRISTIANITY’S EARLY GROWTH IN CHINA

At the time of the erection of the celebrated stone monument, missionaries of Adam’s faith had penetrated everywhere throughout central Asia, and already possessed multiplied churches in China. How far these evangelists had spread the knowledge of Adam’s mother tongue, the Syriac, may be gathered in the following words of Ernest Renan:

It will be seen what an important part the Syriac language played in Asia from the third to the ninth century of our era, after it had become the instrument of Christian preaching. Like the Greek for the Hellenistic East, the Latin for the West, Syrian became the Christian and ecclesiastical language of Upper Asia.

See footnote 34

Even today there are in other countries many thousands of believers who derive their church past from the Assyrian communion and who use the Syriac in their divine services. Political, social, and commercial relations between China and the western nations were carded on many centuries before the population of its capital dedicated the memorial monument. About one hundred twenty years before Christ an official embassy of exploration was sent out by the Chinese emperor to study the kingdoms of the west and to bring greetings to their peoples and rulers. This exploration party returned to relate that they had gone through Bactria, Parthia, Persia, and Ta-Chin (that is, Palestine, the country of Adam’s religion according to the monument). Two hundred years later — or in the days of the apostles — a Chinese general led the victorious regiments of his emperor across Persia to the shores of the Caspian Sea.(35) The Chinese Chronicles report an embassy from the emperor of Rome

to the imperial court of China about A.D. 168, and one or two similar embassies about one hundred years later. They also record that about two hundred years later (A.D. 381) more than sixty-two countries of the “western regions” sent ambassadors or tribute to the Middle Kingdom.36If the Chinese traveled so extensively to the west, it is no wonder that Saeki exclaims:

“It would be very strange if the energetic Syrian Christians, full of true missionary zeal, did not proceed to China after reaching Persia about the middle or end of the second century!” (37)

Another authority sees them well settled in China in 508. (38) Thus, there is ample justification to conclude that many true believers were in Asia several centuries before Adam and his associates erected the monument to their church.

BELIEFS OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA

Many documents and historical references tell of the faith held by the Church of the East in China in Adam’s day. Already notice has been made of the prophecy which Isaiah uttered predicting converts in that far-distant land. Testimony has also been used to show that in 481-222 B.C. Jews held important military posts, some becoming provincial governors, ministers of state, and learned professors.(39) These Old Testament church members would teach the Chinese the truths of the law and the prophets. It is astonishing to see how the Assyrian Church preserved the unity of its faith throughout its far-flung spiritual domain whether it was in India, Tibet, Turkestan, Persia, or China. The church members who worshiped according to the teachings laid down by the Church of the East were not only in harmony with one another in these different countries, but also with the headquarters in Persia. Many writers of note have commented upon the apostolic nature of its missionary activities and also upon the New Testament simplicity of its beliefs and practices. These believers constantly claimed that they accepted only that which was taught by
Christ, the prophets, and the apostles. In quiet simplicity, accompanied by the minimum of ceremonies, they accomplished an unusual amount of missionary work. The position held by Adam substantiates the splendid organization of the Church of the East, also the strength of its position in China. On the monument Adam is called Pastor, Vice-Metropolitan, and Metropolitan of China.(40) This official title would indicate that the churches he directed must have had many members and were of considerable strength. The inscription further reveals that Adam recognized the father of fathers, or catholicos, at Bagdad. In China, Adam and his associates were obliged to battle against polygamy. The custom of binding the feet of Chinese girls was a distressing problem to the Christian missionaries. The belief of the Chinese in the spirits of the dead, glorified by ancestor worship, arrayed against the missionaries the forces of spiritism, magic, and astrology. The two languages composing the inscriptions upon the monument — the Syriac and the Chinese — might raise the hope that the cumbersome system of the sign language of the Chinese would give way before the better alphabetical method represented by the Syriac. The prevalence of the sign orthography even to the present time indicates the stubborn resistance to any endeavor to simplify Chinese. However, Adam had at his command a vast Christian literature for use. Saeki gives in detail the titles of thirty-five books which, whole or in fragments, were discovered in 1908 in a cave in northwestern China, all of which were the literature put forth by the Church of the East among the Chinese. He writes:

They had the Apostles’ Creed in Chinese. They had a most beautiful baptismal hymn in Chinese. They had a book on the incarnation of the Messiah. They had a book on the doctrine of the cross. In a word, they had all literature necessary for a living church. Their ancestors in the eighth century were powerful enough to erect a monument in the vicinity of Hsi-an-fu.

See footnote 41

FROM ADAM TO THE MONGOL EMPERORS

The time which elapsed from the Tang dynasty of the days of Adam to the close of the Mongolian conquest was about five hundred years. During that time the nature of the development of the Church of the East in the land of the Yellow River is seen in the character of the clergy, the type of sacred literature used, the life of the believers, the abundant activities of the communities, and the public services rendered by it to the nation. The clergy who led the Church of the East to victory were men of consecration and scholarship. They found the ancient religions of Confu-cianism and Taoism in China entrenched in the affections of the people. Confucius himself upheld polygamy.(42) Confucius was also a spiritist; he ever believed that he was accompanied by the spirit of the duke of Chou.(43) The Buddhists were idolaters; they worshiped the image of Buddha.(44) They terrified the people both by their teachings and by the representations upon the walls of their temples of horrible pictures and statues.(45) They also set forth the carnal delights of a Buddhist paradise. Nevertheless, in the face of such powerful heathen religions, the Assyrian Church grew and prospered. Buddhism in China was harsh; it provided no savior, and, until it copied the atoning doctrines of Christianity, it was generally repulsive to the people. In the midst of such darkness as this, Adam and his associate strained a clergy that was the most enlightened of the day. It was this same type of clergy who in Mesopotamia had carried Greek and Roman civilization to the Arabians who in turn passed it on to the West. Concerning the teachings of these Syriac Christians, this is recorded inSyriac upon the Chinese monument:

“In the year 1092 of the Greeks (1092-311= A.D. 781) my Lord Yesbuzid, Priest (Pastor) and chor-episcopos of Kumdan, the Royal city, son of the departed Milis, Priest (Pastor) from Balkh, a city of Tehuristan, erected this Monument, wherein is written the Law of Him, our Savior, the Preaching of our forefathers to the Rulers of the Chinese.” (46)

It must not be thought, however, that their growth progressed smoothly. Often they met with bitter opposition. Upon the death of one of the great Tang emperors, the throne was occupied during two short reigns by rulers of inferior capacity. One of these favored Buddhism. The Buddhists, seizing this advantage, raised their voices against the Christian religion. In the other reign, inferior scholars of the Taoists, favored by the imperial majesty, ridiculed and slandered Christianity. A furious religious persecution against all western religions took place in845. Some think that it was in this hour of trial that the believers buried the celebrated stone in the ground to preserve it. The time of trial was due to influence maliciously exercised over the emperor by the Confucianists and Taoists. “Christianity, however, did not seem to have been much affected by it,” Mingana observes, “because in an early and important statement the contemporary patriarch Theodose (A.D. 852-828) still mentions the archbishops of Samarkand, India, and China.”47It is noteworthy that this last persecution was commanded by one of the last Tang emperors. The dynasty was tottering to its fall. Then followed years of anarchy and confusion in which seven different dynasties succeeded one another. Through the favoring smile of the government not only were several splendid churches erected during the early years of Christianity in the capital city itself, but orders were given to aid in the erecting of the same throughout the provinces. By this it is not understood that there was a union of church and state. For example, George Washington could be a member of a certain church and use his influence to favor the erection of churches of his own denomination without its indicating that the clergy were paid officials of the state. Such was the situation in China. From the year 1020 and onward, stirring tales were widespread throughout Europe concerning a great king over Tartar tribes who was a Christian and who was called Prester John. Coupled with this came the news written about the year 1009 by the metropolitan of the capital city in the northwestern province of Persia to the catholicos of Bagdad concerning two hundred thousand Turks and Mongols who had embracedChristianity.48 The strength of the Church of the East in the eleventh century may be seen in these records. As Dean Milman says editorially:

“The Christianity of China, between the seventh and the thirteenth century, is invincibly proved by the consent of Chinese, Arabian, Syriac, and Latin evidence.”

See footnote 49

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SEE FOOTNOTE / SOURCE

1. Rawlinson, The Seven Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, vol. 2, p. 444.
2. See Saeki, The Nestorgan Monument in China, pp. 54, 171, 231,265;also, Gordon, “Worm Healers,” pp. 134, 181-183, 285,476.
3. Sansom, Japan, pp. 80, 81; Saeki, The Nestorgan Monument in China, p.3.
4. Sansom, Japan, pp. 81-84.
5. It was the writer’s privilege to examine the stone firsthand, having made an airplane trip there for that purpose. We took particular pains to take pictures of this renowned memorial and to study the city with its surrounding country.
6. Saeki, The Nestorian Monument in China, pp. 14, 15.
7. Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, vol. 1, pp. 45, 46.
8. Gordon, “World Healers,” p. 147.
9. Saeki, The Nestorian Monument in China, p. 175.
10. Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, vol. 1, p. 191, note 1.
11. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 191; also Beal, Buddhists’ Records of the Western World.
12. Monier-Williams, Indian Wisdom, p. 49.
13. See the author’s discussion in Chapter 2, entitled, “The Church in the Wilderness in Prophecy.”
14. Sansom, Japan, p. 133.
15. Gordon, “World Healers,” pp. 31, 32, 229.
16. Ibid., p. 27.
17. Geikie, Hours With the Bible, vol. 6, p. 383, note 1; Old TestamentSeries on Isaiah 49:12; Encyclopedia Brittanica, 9th and 11th eds., art.“China”; M’Clatchie, “The Chinese in the Plain of Shinar,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 16, pp. 368-435.
18. Pott, A Sketch of Chinese History, 3d ed., p. 2.
19. Lacouperie, Western Origin of Early Chinese Civilisation, pp. 9, 12.
20. Gordon, “World Healers,” p. 54.
21. Saeki, The Nestorian Monument in China, pp. 39, 40.
22. The attendant at the “forest of tablets” in Changan showed the writer a stone slab with a face carved upon it which, he claimed, was believed to be the face of the apostle Thomas.
23. Arnobius, Against the Heathen, found in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 6, p.438.
24. Smith, The Oxford History of India, p. 122.
25. Forsythe, Journal of the Royal Geographic Society, vol. 47, p. 2.
26. Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, vol. 1, p. 192, note.
27. Johnson, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. 37, p. 5.
28. Quatremere, Notices des Manuscrits, vol. 14, pp. 476, 477.
29. Rawlinson, The Seven Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World,vol. 2, p. 444.
30. M’Clatchie, Notes and Queries on China and Japan (edited by Dennys), vol. 4, Nos. 7, 8, pp. 99, 100.
31. Finn, The Jews in China, p. 23.
32. M’Clatchie, A Translation of the Confucian Classic of Change, p. 118.
33. Harlez, Le Yih-King: A French Translation of the Confucian Classic onChange, p. 72. Translated by this author from a French version (using the important footnote of M. de Harlez). Many translators of the Chinese render the “culminating day” differently. Most all agree, some at length, that this section of the Yih-King, the oldest Chinese book, isa glorification of the seventh day as the symbol of returning or success. The influence of this glorification determined the customs of kings,merchants, and landed possessors.
34. Renan, Histoire General et Systeme Compare des Langues Semitiques,p. 291.
35. Smith, The Oxford History of India, p. 129.
36. Saeki, The Nestorian Monument in China, pp. 41, 42.
37. Ibid., p. 43.
38. Lloyd, The Creed of Half Japan, p. 194, note.
39. Gordon, “World Healers,” p. 54.
40. Saeki, The Nestorian Monument in China, pp. 162, 255; see also pp.186, 187.
41. Saeki, The Nestorian Monument in China, pp. 70, 71.
42. Li Ung Bing, Outlines of Chinese History, pp. 50, 51.
43. Sansom, Japan, p. 111.
44. Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet, vol. 1, pp. 167, 221.
45. Cable and French, Through Jade Gate and Central Asia, pp. 136-138.See Gordon, “World Healers,” for a study of the idolatry of Buddhism.
46. Saeki, The Nestorian Monument in China, p. 175.
47. Mingana, “Early Spread of Christianity,” Bulletin of John Ryland’sLibrary, vol. 9, pp. 325, 338.
48. Mingana, “Early Spread of Christianity,” Bulletin of John Ryland’sLibrary, vol. 9, pp. 308-310.
49. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 47, note 118.