Well I have put off talking about Nintendo's next console, so sorry about that little white lie in my Nintendo DS post. I have decided that it will be a much better idea to wait until the end of the E3 games expo next week, there will be some BIG announcements then.
Well with that out of the way I can talk about something much more interesting and meaningful than games - yes such things do indeed exist...
A wee little bit of background firstly, I grew up squarely and fairly in
A few years ago I began to discover something about Church history that really began to widen my reach and understanding of what it could mean to be a Christian seeking to understand and be in dialogue with various world religions. My "eye-opening" discovery was the history of
an eastern church known as the
Maitreya Buddha, image of the future coming Buddha,
in the posture of thumb and finger forming a
triangle with three other fingers upright, 7th
century. It is now in the
Tai Shin (for ancient
Japanese scholar Saeki believes Uzu masa to be
derived from the Syrian "Yeshu Meshia" for Jesus
Messiah.
The story of the Church of the East (in brief):
The Church of the East, centred on the See (Seat) of Selucia/Ctephsion in the Parthian and later Sassanian empires, largely developed outside the
The Church of the East, at
its height in the 8 & 9th
centuries AD, it covered
from
In 635 AD (the same year, incidently, which would see the dramatic rise of Islam as a powerful and influential political force thoughout the Middle East, Africa and eventually Asia and India), the Church of
the East sent an offical mission to the Chinese Emperor of the ruling Tang Dynasty. The Emperor welcomed them, considered their teaching and their religious books and in time seems to have declared it to be a religion of light, which would receive the patronage and support of the Chinese government. Thereafter Churches and Monasteries were planted in many Chinese cities and in the countryside.
Now the Church of the East had long had contact and dialogue with very sophisticated, literate cultures and religions, such as Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism and Zorastorianism (and of course, after the year 635 AD, though possibly before as there was an Arabian branch of the Church of the East, with Islam as well). Through this contact and dialogue, the Church developed very sophisticated methods for presenting the Christian message to cultures that believed in concepts like reincarnation, the cycle of life and death and rebirth and the indwelling consequences of karma. The religious imagery and concepts that such religions used to describe concepts of the divine (or the numen) were also examined and used to present the message of Jesus in various Asian contexts (for example, as one who could free people from the cycle of life, death and rebirth).
A restoration of an original silk painting found sealed at Dunhuang, western
The Church's mission to
some of the most unique examples of this process. We
know this because many of the writings of these Church
of the East Christians in China have been found either
on inscriptions around China or on a series of scrolls (Jesus
Sutras) found in a sealed cave complex at Dunhuang in
Nth Eastern China, in 1908.
Here is an excerpt:
The following excerpt provides a taste of how the Church, by 720 AD, was reinterpreting Jesus in a Chinese context. This comes from the Sutra, "Taking Refuge in the Three",
"Great Holy Law Giver
You bring us back to our original nature.
And the souls that are saved are countless:
Divine compassion lifts them up from the dust
Redeeming them from the saddened realm of ghosts.
The hundred ways bring us clarity and kind-hearted mercy.
Now I close to our Holy Compassionate Father
The One who creates salvation -
See the angelic spirits crossing the
We know to practice peace in our hearts through you.
This whole gathering unites in singing to you, Honoured One:
The Great Law is now the Heavenly Wheel
Of Returning to You."
Here Buddhist imagery - Dharma, Heavenly Wheel, Returning - is used to proclaim the Christian message of salvation, but there is also a profound use of a Taoist concept. The term 'original nature' refers to the idea of a true goodness of nature with which we are born, but which can become corrupted (this quite obviously contrasts with other Christian theologies that emphasis the "badness" of human nature.
Fast forward to the "end story":
It is really much too complicated for me to go in to, but in later years the Church of the East would suffer a series of catastrophes. Persecution against Buddhism by some of the Chinese Emperors that followed the Tang Dynasty also became directed against the
desire to be rid of foreign influences). Outside of China, the Church of the East was beginning to lose ground to Islam, as people under Muslim rule began to be attracted to the religion of the ruling
elite and the financial benefits of being a Muslim (not to downplay the spiritual ones). The coming of the Mongolians in the 13th and 14th centuries would be both a blessing and a curse for the Church of the East. The Mongolians were harsh to those who would not bend the knee, and unfortunately great centres of Christian learning and worship were destroyed in
In the end the Mongolians would be the force that considerably weakened the Church of the East, a Church that in its time had been far larger in size and scope then any of the Western churches. I am generalising here, but it must be understood that Islam had also been particularly changed by its experience of the Mongolians, many of its great centres of learning, some shared by Christian and Jewish intellectuals, had also destroyed, and, it can be argued that Islam became a more insular religion and political force as a result. This was compunded, ironically, by many of the Mongolian leadership, in the Middle East and central Asia, converting to Islam, some of these leaders brought in ruthless, warlike and at times brutal versions of Islamic rule (which had, on the whole, been very tolerant before). The Church of the East thus suffered and declined - usually gradually, but at times individual Islamic rulers (such as the Mongolian Timur) brought much greater suffering.
The Chinese branch of the Church of the East virtually disappered as the Yuan (Mongolian) Dynasty collapsed in the 14th century. This was ironically at a time when the first Catholic missions were beginning to enter
Anyway, having given you a brief overview of the Church of the East and its missions into
"By Foot to China" looks at the Church of the East's mission in China from a Protestant (Presbyterian) perspective (John Young, from the Japan Presbyterian mission). He draws much from its story to apply to his group's missionary efforts in
See these websites for further information:
From the Russian Orthodox Church of China:
http://www.orthodox.cn/history/jingjiao/20011114a.html
(Information on a new Museum being being established in
site of the first Christian Da Qin Monastery)
Index of Articles:
http://www.orthodox.cn/history/jingjiao/index_en.html
The Assyrian Church of the East: Commission on
Inter-Church Relations and Education Development
http://www.cired.org/ace.html
Jesus - Messiah of Xi’an
http://www.hsstudyc.org.hk/Webpage/Tripod/T124/T124_E05.htm
Wikipedia.org Articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Sutras
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_East
3 comments:
Well I'm hoping to make this a bit more than just my, "post my daily events for the week". I am hoping to blog about things that I have been thinking about or studying and consider worthwhile. I also want to construct a more logical ordering og some the interesting issues and ideas that I have been thinking about - a blog is as good a place to do it as any.
I thought you gave a fairly brief, informative overview of the Church of the East, although I'm familiar with some of the sources you cite (e.g., By Foot to China, the Jesus Sutras, et al.). Remember that, for example, the Apostles and early Church Fathers sought to express the Gospel in terms which would be more easily understood by the Greek-speaking world, and answer questions which weren't generally addressed in the Jewish culture in which the Gospel first emerged. Thus we have the early Church formulating creeds dealing with metaphysical issues of "what is God?" that often weren't addressed within a Jewish context; their answers were nonetheless consistant with Scripture. In Acts 17, we see Paul quoting Aratus' "Song to Zeus" when he says, "In Him we live and move and have our being" and "we are His offspring", yet in his discourse he never refers to God as Zeus. We see this as well in the strongly Neoplatonic language used by the Greek Fathers in expressing devotion to Messiah.
A useful resource on the Church of the East which you missed is T. V. Philip's "East of the Euphrates".
All for now, except to note in parting that I would probably have to question the ultimate usefulness of the Matreiya concept or Pure Land Buddhism vis-a-vis Christian witness, in spite of the possibilities of its having emerged at least in part from Christian influence.
Peace,
Matt
Hi Matt,
Thanks for your comments, I have had a check of your blogsite as well and it is looking promising. I shall look forward to some insightful posts.
____________________________________
Now in answer to your comments,
You said,
Remember that, for example, the Apostles and early Church Fathers sought to express the Gospel in terms which would be more easily understood by the Greek-speaking world, and answer questions which weren't generally addressed in the Jewish culture in which the Gospel first emerged.
Very true, and I probably should have mentioned that this process of cultural awareness and almagamation was present in the early church, and indeed in other parts of the church besides the Church of the East.
As Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD) says,
"God gave the Law to the Jews and philosophy to the Greeks."
Each led to Christ and were authored by Christ, or so Clement argued. Clement fit this right in with the Doctrine of Logos, that which, in Greek doctrine, accounts for the design in the Creation. In this Greek doctrine, the Logos is also the source of all knowledge (gnosis), but especially about true religion. We see this incorporation of Greek ideas into the Gospel of John,
In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
(Gospel of John, 1:1)
Clement further taught that the Logos was Jesus before becoming a man, and that the Logos is the Son of God. Further, the Holy Spirit attracts humans to Christ when they seek after true knowledge. Unlike the false gnosis of the Gnostics, such knowledge, claimed Clement, was the true gnosis. The Doctrine of Logos gave Clement, as it had with Philo for the Jewish religion, a tool with which to unite Christianity with Greek philosophy.
Clement was of course from Alexendaria, the seat of Greek philosophy in his day. It is hardly surprising that within that context he would seek to continue the work that Paul (as you mentioned) and the gospel of John had begun in Christian circles already.
You are quite right to point out that the early Christians were seeking to appeal their message to the pagan world around them, firstly through establishing that Jesus was someone to take notice of - dream accounts in Matthew, visionary experiences in Luke, miracles aplenty in all the gospels. Sometimes this if of course just a similar worldview being expressed, so for example Jesus uses his spit to heal a blind man, similarly Tacitus tells us a story of how Vespasian heals a lame person and a blind person with his spittle. At other times more deliberate attempts are being made by Christian writers to establish Jesus as Saviour of saviours - in John 4:42 for example, Jesus is declared by a Samaritan woman to be the "Saviour of the world". This is a specfic term that Roman Emperors used or were given, I would thus argue that the gospel of John is laying down a claim that Jesus is the true Saviour of the world, that he is greater than even an Emperor. Actually its interesting to note that Josephus records Samaritan villages declaring Vespasian to be "Saviour of the world" as he was re-conquering Judea.
[Running out time, I will continue this post later]
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