WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.179 Hey everyone, we're just going to wait another minute and then we'll get started. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:47.579 Okay, folks, so it's about a little after nine, so I think we'll get started. 00:00:47.879 --> 00:00:53.780 For those of you who aren't aware, I'm recording this, so hopefully if someone you know couldn't 00:00:53.780 --> 00:00:55.960 be here today, you'll be able to find the recording online. 00:00:55.960 --> 00:01:00.820 I think the church will send a link out at some point, but right now it's being recorded, 00:01:00.939 --> 00:01:02.840 so it may ask for permission for you to be recorded. 00:01:03.259 --> 00:01:07.420 You don't have to have your audio on or video on or anything like that, so you don't have 00:01:07.420 --> 00:01:09.200 to worry about privacy concerns on your end. 00:01:10.200 --> 00:01:14.420 Anyway, I want to welcome you to our Sunday School class on the history of Christianity 00:01:14.420 --> 00:01:15.019 in China. 00:01:15.140 --> 00:01:17.920 My name is Tom Schmidt, and it's great to see you all again. 00:01:18.540 --> 00:01:23.040 Even though this class is online, I want you to feel free to ask questions throughout our 00:01:23.040 --> 00:01:23.659 time together. 00:01:23.659 --> 00:01:27.700 And to do that, you can type a question in the chat, and hopefully I'll see it pop up. 00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:31.899 And when it's most convenient, I'll give a go at answering it. 00:01:32.280 --> 00:01:36.099 There's a chance, though, that I'll wait to answer questions till the end. 00:01:36.519 --> 00:01:39.179 I think some of you might also be watching in person from church. 00:01:39.359 --> 00:01:44.019 I'm not sure about that, but if that's the case, you can maybe log into Zoom on your phone 00:01:44.019 --> 00:01:45.799 or laptop in order to type in a question. 00:01:46.359 --> 00:01:51.159 If you don't have one, maybe you can find a way to relay your question to someone who can 00:01:51.159 --> 00:01:53.039 type in question for you. 00:01:53.899 --> 00:01:58.079 Now, before we begin, I want to say a few words about why it's important to study the 00:01:58.079 --> 00:02:00.239 history of Christianity in China. 00:02:00.959 --> 00:02:07.179 Firstly, studying the history of Christianity in China addresses a misconception that so 00:02:07.179 --> 00:02:09.979 many folks in our world have today. 00:02:09.979 --> 00:02:15.319 You often hear that Christianity is a Western religion or a white religion or a European religion, 00:02:15.319 --> 00:02:18.719 but historically speaking, that's not true. 00:02:19.780 --> 00:02:24.939 Christianity arose in the Middle East, not in Europe, and as it spread west into Europe, 00:02:25.019 --> 00:02:30.840 it also spread southward into Africa and eastward into Asia with just as much speed and in many 00:02:30.840 --> 00:02:33.319 cases with just as much success. 00:02:33.819 --> 00:02:38.759 And the reason for this is that the gospel message is not earthly or human in origin, but 00:02:38.759 --> 00:02:39.539 it's divine. 00:02:39.539 --> 00:02:45.739 It's revealed by God, and it's not bound by race or ethnicity, language, geography, culture, 00:02:45.739 --> 00:02:46.840 or anything like that. 00:02:47.259 --> 00:02:51.780 And in fact, when we talk about the spread of Christianity in China, I think the very best 00:02:51.780 --> 00:02:58.539 place to begin is in 30 AD with the Great Commission of Jesus. 00:02:59.039 --> 00:03:01.219 The Great Commission that Jesus gave after his resurrection. 00:03:01.739 --> 00:03:03.959 This is the last command Jesus gave while on earth. 00:03:03.960 --> 00:03:07.180 We can read about it in the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 28, 19. 00:03:07.740 --> 00:03:13.439 And here Jesus said, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in 00:03:13.439 --> 00:03:16.879 the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:26.640 With these words, our Lord Jesus commanded his disciples who were Jewish to take his gospel 00:03:26.640 --> 00:03:31.340 to the nations, not just to nearby nations, not to nations that only spoke the same language 00:03:31.340 --> 00:03:35.420 they did or that looked like them or had the same skin color or the same culture, but 00:03:35.420 --> 00:03:37.080 he commanded them to go to all nations. 00:03:37.620 --> 00:03:41.259 And if we look at the gospel records, we see that Jesus did even more than that. 00:03:41.939 --> 00:03:46.960 He not only commanded his followers to go to the nations, he predicted that they would. 00:03:47.080 --> 00:03:50.199 He says this in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 24, 14. 00:03:50.680 --> 00:03:56.140 He says the gospel of this kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations. 00:03:56.139 --> 00:03:58.159 And then the end will come. 00:03:59.039 --> 00:04:03.579 And we can all look among us and see Jesus's prediction coming true. 00:04:03.699 --> 00:04:07.419 Here we are thousands of miles from Jerusalem where Jesus spoke these words. 00:04:08.179 --> 00:04:11.879 And we are Christians and we're made up of nations from all over the world. 00:04:12.319 --> 00:04:16.919 In fact, there's some among us from Chinese descent. 00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:21.120 And China in Jesus's time was considered to be the most distant nation. 00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:22.560 And here we are. 00:04:23.220 --> 00:04:24.000 Jesus was right. 00:04:24.100 --> 00:04:27.259 The gospel did go to the nations, even to the farthest ones. 00:04:27.660 --> 00:04:33.759 So these are just two reasons why I think it's beneficial to learn about the history of Christianity in China. 00:04:34.519 --> 00:04:39.259 It underscores that the gospel message is not bound by race or culture, but is for all people. 00:04:39.340 --> 00:04:46.120 And it helps us also to see Jesus's teachings and the truth of his teachings more clearly as we see the gospel indeed going to the nations. 00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:55.100 I hope, too, that in this time, learning about the history of Christianity in China in this class will also motivate us to take part in this great commission. 00:04:55.920 --> 00:05:07.720 And I hope, too, that what we learn in this class will help us to take note of certain mistakes that Christians may have made in the past in missions, but also to take note and learn from their successes. 00:05:09.139 --> 00:05:12.500 So before jumping in, let's let me open in a brief word of prayer. 00:05:12.500 --> 00:05:25.620 Father in heaven, I want you to thank you that you sent your son, Lord Jesus, to present your saving gospel to us and to commission us to bring it to the nations. 00:05:25.800 --> 00:05:28.699 I praise you that you put your spirit into our hearts to do so. 00:05:29.579 --> 00:05:33.899 Lord, we pray for all of our missionaries who are laboring throughout the world. 00:05:34.019 --> 00:05:41.199 We pray that you would bless them with love and with kindness, with humility and with your Holy Spirit, Lord, to share your message. 00:05:41.199 --> 00:05:47.719 I pray you'd help us as we learn about the history of Christianity in Asia and in China today. 00:05:48.279 --> 00:05:49.639 Be with me as I speak. 00:05:49.839 --> 00:05:53.759 Help me to speak truly and accurately and help us all to listen. 00:05:54.379 --> 00:05:55.639 I pray this in the name of Jesus. 00:05:56.680 --> 00:05:56.899 Amen. 00:05:56.899 --> 00:05:57.019 Amen. 00:05:58.199 --> 00:05:58.560 Okay. 00:05:58.679 --> 00:06:03.319 So just to be clear, you should be able to see a PowerPoint up on the screen. 00:06:03.459 --> 00:06:04.560 I take it that you all can. 00:06:05.399 --> 00:06:08.379 And hopefully you can hear me okay. 00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:12.219 Again, you can chat, ask a question in the chat if you need to let me know something. 00:06:12.539 --> 00:06:17.919 That's probably the best way to get in touch with me when we're in this class. 00:06:18.120 --> 00:06:19.519 So let's begin. 00:06:19.620 --> 00:06:22.399 This course is going to be divided into three different classes. 00:06:22.399 --> 00:06:27.459 Today, we're going to go over Christianity in Asia and China from 30 to 635 AD. 00:06:27.859 --> 00:06:32.099 And then a week from now, we'll go over Christianity in China from 635 to 1000. 00:06:32.299 --> 00:06:36.879 And then the third class will be from 1000 to 1500 AD. 00:06:38.639 --> 00:06:44.739 Each class has a cutoff point at 635 and at 1000 AD and at 1500 AD. 00:06:44.740 --> 00:06:50.639 Because in each of those three times, there was a very significant event that occurred in Chinese Christian history. 00:06:51.620 --> 00:06:52.879 Roughly around that time. 00:06:53.100 --> 00:06:55.120 And so that provides a convenient cutoff point. 00:06:55.560 --> 00:06:59.319 In class today, like I said, we'll be going over Christianity from 30 to 635. 00:06:59.960 --> 00:07:07.460 We're going to try and peer back as early as we possibly can to discover when Christianity first came to China. 00:07:07.459 --> 00:07:16.919 And to do that, I'll have to give us some broad historical context of Asian history and the history of Christianity in Asia generally. 00:07:17.199 --> 00:07:21.620 And I should probably give you a word of warning about this class. 00:07:21.859 --> 00:07:28.919 Our evidence regarding Christianity in China during this time frame is very fragmented and incomplete. 00:07:28.919 --> 00:07:32.379 It's scattered about in various historical references. 00:07:32.379 --> 00:07:41.899 And what this means is that here in the 21st century, we need to pick up all these scattered pieces and try and fit them together. 00:07:42.199 --> 00:07:49.000 So to do that, I'll have to be throwing out a lot of names and dates, places, events, things like that. 00:07:49.139 --> 00:07:50.379 So bear with me. 00:07:50.600 --> 00:07:52.459 Ask questions if you need clarification. 00:07:52.459 --> 00:07:57.139 And I'll be doing some review as we go on to remind us of what I've mentioned before. 00:07:58.500 --> 00:07:59.459 Okay, let's begin. 00:07:59.459 --> 00:08:03.219 Let's go back in time to about 200 AD. 00:08:03.639 --> 00:08:11.740 And let's look at a map of the Christian world or a map, at least what the Christian world is often conceived of by Western scholars. 00:08:12.199 --> 00:08:13.539 You can see a map right here. 00:08:14.199 --> 00:08:19.500 And indeed, Christianity had spread to all of these places that you see colored in on the map. 00:08:19.500 --> 00:08:29.620 But if you look carefully, you'll notice maybe you're historians among us that this territory looks a whole lot like a certain empire that existed at this time. 00:08:30.100 --> 00:08:34.120 In fact, it looks exactly like the Roman Empire as it existed around 200 AD. 00:08:34.580 --> 00:08:36.519 This empire was enormous. 00:08:36.519 --> 00:08:39.259 It housed many ethnic groups, languages, and cultures. 00:08:40.120 --> 00:08:42.399 And Christians lived and ministered throughout. 00:08:43.199 --> 00:08:52.939 But as it turns out, Christianity had spread way beyond the Roman Empire at this time, something that this particular map at least does not reveal. 00:08:53.100 --> 00:08:54.939 And that's what we're going to be talking about today. 00:08:54.940 --> 00:09:01.240 To illustrate this, I want to turn to an Eastern Christian theologian named Bardazin of Edessa. 00:09:01.480 --> 00:09:04.340 You can see Edessa in the red circle on the map. 00:09:04.500 --> 00:09:08.900 Bardazin lived around 220 AD in the kingdom of Edessa, which was outside the Roman Empire. 00:09:10.040 --> 00:09:15.260 He was a noble of some standing in the court of Abgar, king of Edessa. 00:09:15.259 --> 00:09:17.559 And he also was a Christian. 00:09:17.939 --> 00:09:19.679 He wrote in Syriac. 00:09:19.740 --> 00:09:23.480 And from the perspective of this map, it looks like Edessa is in the Far East. 00:09:23.819 --> 00:09:34.200 But if we switch to a different map, we'll see that Edessa is actually very centrally located from the perspective of where the world's people lived in that time. 00:09:34.279 --> 00:09:36.179 It's right between Europe, Africa, and Asia. 00:09:36.179 --> 00:09:46.819 And what's interesting about this is that if we read Bardazin's writings, he tells us that in his day, there were Christians even further east than he was. 00:09:46.939 --> 00:09:50.319 He says there were Christians in Persia, in the Persian Empire. 00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:58.579 But even more excitingly, he also tells us that there were Christians even east of them in the Kushan Empire. 00:09:59.019 --> 00:10:02.839 Now, the Kushan Empire is roughly centered here where that red dot is. 00:10:02.840 --> 00:10:09.759 It's in modern-day northeastern Afghanistan was the central location of the Kushan Empire. 00:10:10.040 --> 00:10:13.720 But the Kushan Empire stretched south and east of that. 00:10:13.800 --> 00:10:17.980 You can see in this map here, the Kushan Empire, the capital is kind of in the northwest. 00:10:18.639 --> 00:10:22.360 But it stretched southeast well into modern-day India. 00:10:22.639 --> 00:10:29.160 And it stretched east hundreds of miles into what is today modern-day China. 00:10:29.159 --> 00:10:38.779 Now, we have good reasons to trust Bardazin's claims that there were Christians in the Kushan Empire because other information that he gives about other things we can verify. 00:10:39.039 --> 00:10:47.299 So it seems like he's probably correct that in the early 200s, there were Christians living in what today is modern western China. 00:10:47.299 --> 00:10:56.199 To get an idea of how early this is, the first Buddhist missionary to China, his name was Han Shingao. 00:10:56.899 --> 00:11:02.099 He arrived in China around 148 AD, just shortly before this. 00:11:02.199 --> 00:11:08.279 So in some sense, Christianity has been in China for almost as long as Buddhism has. 00:11:08.279 --> 00:11:14.000 But this brings up a question for us. 00:11:14.559 --> 00:11:16.120 What counts as China? 00:11:16.819 --> 00:11:20.079 I've been talking about the nation-state of China. 00:11:20.579 --> 00:11:23.679 But, of course, there's other ways to define China. 00:11:23.759 --> 00:11:25.199 We could define China ethnically. 00:11:25.299 --> 00:11:29.199 We could define China linguistically or even by religion or historically. 00:11:29.200 --> 00:11:49.220 Though Christians seem to have lived in what today is modern western China, around 200 AD or perhaps before, we don't so far have any evidence that Christians lived in far eastern China, where the Chinese language was commonly spoken or where the Han ethnic group was a majority of the population. 00:11:50.080 --> 00:11:52.740 So I want to ask a question. 00:11:52.900 --> 00:11:56.480 When did the gospel message first arrive in eastern China? 00:11:56.480 --> 00:12:07.320 I should emphasize that it's possible and perhaps even probable that the gospel message had gone to eastern China well before Bardiisen's time in 200 AD. 00:12:07.899 --> 00:12:12.060 There were trade routes between the Roman Empire and China active in the first century. 00:12:12.620 --> 00:12:17.379 So an early Christian or even an apostle could have gotten on a boat and sailed to China. 00:12:17.519 --> 00:12:18.279 It's not impossible. 00:12:18.700 --> 00:12:24.940 But if a Christian did so, we don't have any good evidence showing that this happened. 00:12:24.940 --> 00:12:26.540 It may have happened. 00:12:26.640 --> 00:12:27.760 We just don't know about it. 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:31.000 But, in fact, there's another Christian theologian named Origen. 00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:34.100 He's writing in the eastern Roman Empire around 245 AD. 00:12:34.700 --> 00:12:40.040 And he tells us that he had not heard of the gospel reaching China yet. 00:12:41.340 --> 00:12:46.280 On the other hand, there is another theologian named Arnobius. 00:12:46.360 --> 00:12:48.460 He's writing in Latin in the western Roman Empire. 00:12:48.460 --> 00:12:53.560 And around 300 AD, he tells us that the gospel had reached the Chinese. 00:12:54.220 --> 00:13:01.280 But Arnobius is writing way off in the western empire, about as far removed from China as you can get. 00:13:01.379 --> 00:13:04.160 He's not the most reliable of authors. 00:13:04.360 --> 00:13:06.840 So scholars are skeptical of this claim. 00:13:07.519 --> 00:13:09.300 Origen is considered much more reliable. 00:13:10.100 --> 00:13:13.280 He's also writing in the east of the empire, a bit closer to China. 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:15.879 But, of course, both authors could be right. 00:13:16.079 --> 00:13:20.240 Origen could be right that by 245 the gospel had not reached China. 00:13:20.379 --> 00:13:22.659 And Arnobius could be right that by 300 it had. 00:13:22.779 --> 00:13:24.299 But we can't be sure. 00:13:26.279 --> 00:13:34.620 So, in any case, if we want to talk about the first instance we know of where a formal mission was sent to eastern China, 00:13:34.939 --> 00:13:41.899 then we need to start talking about a church known as the Church of the East. 00:13:41.899 --> 00:13:45.740 Sometimes this church is more commonly called the Nestorian Church. 00:13:46.279 --> 00:13:52.360 And as I'm going to talk about, it was this church who was the first to send missions to eastern China. 00:13:53.059 --> 00:13:57.500 Sadly, though, their efforts have often gone unappreciated in western scholarship. 00:13:57.720 --> 00:14:03.199 One reason for this is that simply that they were based out of Persia, not Rome. 00:14:03.519 --> 00:14:05.860 This church was the native church of Persia. 00:14:05.860 --> 00:14:13.100 And, in fact, the Church of the East is just the name for the Persian church, a church which still exists today. 00:14:13.519 --> 00:14:18.159 What all this means is that the Church of the East was not Roman or even western in origin. 00:14:18.379 --> 00:14:27.139 And because western scholarship owes its foundations to Rome and the west, anything outside of Rome tends to not be studied as well. 00:14:27.899 --> 00:14:29.920 Scholars don't know the languages as well. 00:14:29.919 --> 00:14:34.299 Scholars aren't often trained in Persian history. 00:14:34.939 --> 00:14:37.779 And like many of us, scholars tend to focus on what they know best. 00:14:37.959 --> 00:14:41.959 So the history of Christianity in Persia often falls through the cracks. 00:14:42.339 --> 00:14:47.379 But there's another reason, though, that the Church of the East has often been understudied. 00:14:48.039 --> 00:14:50.719 And hence, missions to China have been understudied. 00:14:50.720 --> 00:14:57.300 And that's because too often western scholars have believed that the Church of the East was heretical. 00:14:57.600 --> 00:14:59.540 That's why they call them Nestorian. 00:15:00.139 --> 00:15:04.519 So some scholars don't think that or have not thought that they were actually true Christians. 00:15:05.220 --> 00:15:08.860 So before talking about how the Church of the East reached China, 00:15:08.860 --> 00:15:16.159 I think it would help us if I paused here to give us a little bit of history about the Church of the East 00:15:16.159 --> 00:15:20.960 and address this idea of them being Nestorian or being heretical. 00:15:21.360 --> 00:15:26.800 Because as we'll see in this class, it was the Church of the East and evidently the Church of the East alone 00:15:26.800 --> 00:15:30.560 that ministered in China for around a thousand years. 00:15:31.120 --> 00:15:35.620 So it's important to know about them and to understand what they believed. 00:15:35.620 --> 00:15:41.560 So to introduce the Church of the East, we should probably begin in 325 A.D. 00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:45.840 with the Council of Nicaea, which took place in Rome. 00:15:45.960 --> 00:15:47.539 This is the first ecumenical council. 00:15:48.259 --> 00:15:51.980 I know that names, places, dates are getting pretty heavy right now. 00:15:52.019 --> 00:15:54.139 So please ask me if you've got any questions. 00:15:54.799 --> 00:15:59.440 To sum up, we've been talking about the history of the Church of the East. 00:15:59.659 --> 00:16:02.100 This was a native church in Persia. 00:16:02.220 --> 00:16:04.960 It was the church that ministered in China for about a thousand years. 00:16:04.960 --> 00:16:11.320 And right now we're talking about the theology of the Church of the East and how it relates to the great Council of Nicaea, 00:16:11.420 --> 00:16:13.900 which was held in 325 A.D. 00:16:14.160 --> 00:16:17.200 Now, this council is known as the first ecumenical council. 00:16:17.360 --> 00:16:24.360 Ecumenical sometimes means worldwide, but really it just refers to the Roman Empire that worked for the Roman world. 00:16:24.360 --> 00:16:26.960 So it was worldwide as far as Romans were concerned. 00:16:27.460 --> 00:16:31.379 The Church of the East did not participate in this council. 00:16:31.379 --> 00:16:39.840 And the council came about because Rome, the Roman Emperor Constantine, had become a Christian. 00:16:40.039 --> 00:16:44.639 And for the first time, Roman Christians were able to freely gather in a massively public way. 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:48.000 And so they held a council to determine certain theological matters. 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:56.299 And at this council of Nicaea, they issued a creed called the Nicene Creed that confessed that Jesus is fully God and fully man. 00:16:56.980 --> 00:16:59.539 Of course, there were lots of councils before Nicaea. 00:17:00.059 --> 00:17:02.960 The divinity of Jesus was nothing new at all. 00:17:02.960 --> 00:17:12.480 But this was just the first time that Roman Christians were able to publicly gather and make a unified public confession of faith. 00:17:12.579 --> 00:17:18.380 This council is revered by Catholics, by Orthodox, and by Protestants and evangelicals alike. 00:17:18.900 --> 00:17:27.960 Now, some of you might be getting your heretic sniffing noses all at Twitter wondering why on earth the Church of the East didn't come to this council. 00:17:29.740 --> 00:17:31.460 Well, there's a good reason for this. 00:17:31.460 --> 00:17:35.480 As history tells us, Rome and Persia at this time were arch enemies. 00:17:35.700 --> 00:17:39.079 This was like the Soviet Union and the United States back in the day. 00:17:39.460 --> 00:17:46.620 And when Constantine, the emperor of Rome, became a Christian, this meant that Christians in Rome could finally worship freely. 00:17:47.360 --> 00:17:51.340 But sadly, it meant quite the opposite for Christians in Persia. 00:17:51.960 --> 00:17:56.420 All of a sudden, Christians in Persia were seen as enemies by the Persian state. 00:17:56.420 --> 00:18:02.320 Because the arch enemy of Persia, the Roman Empire, apparently had just become Christian. 00:18:02.920 --> 00:18:09.000 So the Persian government reasoned that Christians in Persia must be on the side of the Romans and therefore must be enemies. 00:18:09.360 --> 00:18:12.840 As a result, Christians in Persia were terribly persecuted. 00:18:13.560 --> 00:18:17.519 There were thousands, thousands that were martyred during this time. 00:18:17.519 --> 00:18:22.559 And this is why the Persian church didn't go to the Council of Nicaea. 00:18:23.200 --> 00:18:29.519 If they had, they would have been viewed as allies of the Romans and they would have been persecuted. 00:18:29.759 --> 00:18:34.579 Not because they were Christians, but because they were viewed as traitors to Persia. 00:18:34.579 --> 00:18:40.220 And this continued in 381 with the second ecumenical council held in Constantinople. 00:18:40.500 --> 00:18:42.319 Nearby where the Council of Nicaea was held. 00:18:42.619 --> 00:18:44.359 This council is also revered by Protestants. 00:18:44.460 --> 00:18:46.079 It defined the divinity of the Holy Spirit. 00:18:46.419 --> 00:18:48.220 Again, this wasn't anything substantially new. 00:18:48.319 --> 00:18:52.379 It was just the first time they were able to do so in a large empire-wide council. 00:18:52.500 --> 00:18:57.819 The Church of the East also did not attend this council as well. 00:18:57.939 --> 00:18:59.039 And for similar reasons. 00:18:59.039 --> 00:19:03.879 But all this changed around 410 AD. 00:19:05.720 --> 00:19:11.440 At this time, the Persian emperor abandoned the practice of persecuting Christians. 00:19:12.019 --> 00:19:16.039 And he decided to allow Persian Christians to freely assemble. 00:19:16.759 --> 00:19:17.920 So they did. 00:19:18.039 --> 00:19:20.019 They had a council in 410. 00:19:20.159 --> 00:19:21.039 And what did they do? 00:19:21.139 --> 00:19:26.339 They promptly affirmed the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople. 00:19:26.759 --> 00:19:28.119 They agreed with those councils. 00:19:28.119 --> 00:19:29.919 So far, so good. 00:19:29.979 --> 00:19:33.279 At this point, the Persian Church and the Roman Church were in theological agreement. 00:19:34.039 --> 00:19:37.719 And at this point, you might be wondering why some people view the Church of the East as heretical. 00:19:37.879 --> 00:19:40.679 If they agree with these councils that everybody agrees with. 00:19:41.259 --> 00:19:43.119 Well, something happened in 431. 00:19:45.099 --> 00:19:48.699 Then the third council, the Council of Ephesus, was convened. 00:19:48.700 --> 00:19:55.140 And this is where a Roman man named Nestorius was condemned for heresy. 00:19:55.620 --> 00:20:00.620 And in this case, the Church of the East never ratified the council. 00:20:00.619 --> 00:20:06.639 And actually, from that point onward, the Roman Church considered the Persian Church to be heretical. 00:20:06.839 --> 00:20:08.039 They cut them off from communion. 00:20:08.579 --> 00:20:12.819 And they're still out of communion to this day, technically speaking. 00:20:12.899 --> 00:20:15.259 Although there's been some moves to reunite. 00:20:15.259 --> 00:20:18.900 The reasons why Nestorius was condemned are complicated. 00:20:18.900 --> 00:20:27.859 But the most important issue is that the Council of Ephesus proclaimed that Mary should be called the Mother of God or the Theotokos. 00:20:27.859 --> 00:20:31.859 However, Nestorius and the Church of the East disagreed. 00:20:31.959 --> 00:20:37.659 They did not think that the term Mother of God was appropriate for Mary. 00:20:37.959 --> 00:20:41.500 In this sense, the Church of the East agreed with Nestorius. 00:20:41.639 --> 00:20:44.719 But that's not to say that they were followers of Nestorius. 00:20:44.839 --> 00:20:46.119 Nestorius didn't live in Persia. 00:20:46.240 --> 00:20:47.479 He wasn't associated with them. 00:20:48.959 --> 00:20:52.019 The Church of the East just disagreed with this term because it was new. 00:20:52.339 --> 00:20:56.899 And it didn't seem to them to be appropriate on biblical and theological grounds. 00:20:56.900 --> 00:21:00.060 Probably some of us who are listening today think the same. 00:21:00.540 --> 00:21:02.920 Roman Christians at the time, of course, disagreed. 00:21:03.200 --> 00:21:08.560 And for centuries, they insisted on calling the Church of the East the Nestorian Church. 00:21:09.120 --> 00:21:10.960 And the name stuck. 00:21:11.920 --> 00:21:16.140 So it's ironic that Protestants sometimes think of the Church of the East as heretical. 00:21:16.400 --> 00:21:21.460 When Protestants and evangelicals often agree with them on the reason why they're heretical. 00:21:21.660 --> 00:21:23.700 That Mary should not be called the Mother of God. 00:21:23.700 --> 00:21:24.299 Okay. 00:21:27.080 --> 00:21:31.740 So to sum up, the Church of the East, it's often called the Nestorian Church. 00:21:31.860 --> 00:21:34.340 But it doesn't really seem to have been Nestorian. 00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:36.500 Nestorius didn't found the Church. 00:21:36.580 --> 00:21:37.500 He wasn't a member of it. 00:21:38.100 --> 00:21:41.259 And Nestorius doesn't seem to have been all that bad to begin with. 00:21:41.340 --> 00:21:47.620 In fact, Martin Luther is said to have read through Nestorius' teachings and couldn't really find anything wrong with them. 00:21:47.619 --> 00:21:55.059 So as far as ancient Christology goes of the Church of the East, they seem to have been fairly orthodox. 00:21:55.619 --> 00:21:58.579 So let's do a quick recap. 00:21:58.819 --> 00:22:02.219 We've seen that there were Christians in Western China around 200 AD. 00:22:02.220 --> 00:22:08.960 And we've been trying to figure out when the first Christians came to Eastern China. 00:22:09.680 --> 00:22:15.299 So we've been looking at the Persian Church of the East to learn more about them. 00:22:15.360 --> 00:22:16.880 We've learned about them a bit theologically. 00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:24.540 And now I want us to examine how far eastward the Church of the East extended. 00:22:25.480 --> 00:22:26.960 What were their missions like? 00:22:27.520 --> 00:22:30.640 And when did they reach Eastern China? 00:22:31.160 --> 00:22:39.280 Now, remember, our historical evidence for the spread of Christianity in Asia at this early point in time is very fragmentary. 00:22:39.279 --> 00:22:41.819 So we don't have very much to go by. 00:22:42.220 --> 00:22:49.680 One thing we can do, though, to answer these questions is to look at attendance lists at various Church of the East councils. 00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.519 The Church of the East preserved records of all the councils or many of the councils that they held. 00:22:54.720 --> 00:23:00.619 And in them, they record the locations of where representatives from various far-flung provinces came from. 00:23:00.619 --> 00:23:12.079 So if we look at Church of the East council that happened in 424 AD, we find that they record a bishop coming from Merv Turkmenistan in modern-day Turkmenistan. 00:23:12.859 --> 00:23:21.639 They record another bishop coming from Sijistan, which is on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and another bishop coming from Herat in Afghanistan. 00:23:21.640 --> 00:23:35.320 This means that there would have been very sizable Christian populations in these areas around this time and probably decades beforehand as well to build up enough folks to be able to commission someone, a bishop, to go there. 00:23:35.420 --> 00:23:38.560 They were probably a pretty large congregation or congregations. 00:23:38.960 --> 00:23:47.720 So this tells us that the Church of the East had great success in planting churches at least this far east by the early 400s or the 300s, if not earlier. 00:23:47.720 --> 00:23:53.620 And we can continue going through attendance records of the Church of the East to track who was coming. 00:23:53.920 --> 00:24:02.079 So, for instance, in Merv Turkmenistan, these dates, you know, 424, 486, you can see them on the screen all the way down to 585. 00:24:02.440 --> 00:24:08.460 These are when councils were held and Merv sent representatives to all those councils. 00:24:08.700 --> 00:24:12.400 The same we can say for the church in Herat, Afghanistan. 00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:15.059 They sent representatives over a very long period of time. 00:24:15.059 --> 00:24:20.259 The same for the church in Sijistan and modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan. 00:24:22.659 --> 00:24:36.099 In other words, this kind of evidence shows us that there were large Christian communities in what today is Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan for hundreds of years, probably in the 300s and well into the 500s or 600s. 00:24:36.220 --> 00:24:38.639 And we'll see later on in the course, well after that. 00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:46.080 But you'll notice that this doesn't give us lists of anyone east of them. 00:24:46.079 --> 00:25:05.240 And that seems to be because we know from records of the Church of the East that anyone, any Christian communities that lived farther east of these three, apparently didn't have to send representatives to councils because that person would have to go thousands of miles over land, which was just impractical. 00:25:05.240 --> 00:25:11.240 So this evidence tells us where Christians were, but it doesn't tell us where they weren't. 00:25:11.700 --> 00:25:14.620 In other words, there could have been many communities farther east. 00:25:14.759 --> 00:25:17.960 We just don't know based on this evidence. 00:25:18.980 --> 00:25:21.960 So what can we do? 00:25:22.900 --> 00:25:26.400 What else can we do to figure out how far east the Church of the East went? 00:25:26.400 --> 00:25:36.540 One thing we can do is we can search through ancient writings and see if any of them give us accounts of Christians in further eastern areas. 00:25:36.740 --> 00:25:39.380 And indeed, there are such accounts. 00:25:39.700 --> 00:25:49.060 One concerns the eastern Huns, which are sometimes called the Hephthalites, in what is today eastern Afghanistan, western China, around 500 AD. 00:25:49.059 --> 00:25:55.659 This account tells us that around 500 AD, the emperor of Persia fell into some trouble. 00:25:55.759 --> 00:25:57.059 His name was Kavad I. 00:25:57.679 --> 00:25:58.759 He was dethroned. 00:25:58.879 --> 00:26:00.659 He had to flee eastward into exile. 00:26:00.899 --> 00:26:03.379 He brought some of his subjects, some of whom were Christian. 00:26:03.799 --> 00:26:07.759 And he sought refuge amongst the Huns, the Hephthalites. 00:26:08.519 --> 00:26:12.779 And these Christians began a ministry amongst these people. 00:26:12.779 --> 00:26:22.680 And they were there for about 30 years, these Christians, marrying, having children, and sharing the gospel, ministering to people. 00:26:23.160 --> 00:26:28.879 And apparently, as the story goes, there was a Persian bishop who had a vision. 00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:33.339 An angel appeared to him and told him that he needed to send help to these Christians. 00:26:33.799 --> 00:26:34.519 So he did. 00:26:34.599 --> 00:26:38.379 He commissioned some missionaries to go out to assist these folks. 00:26:38.519 --> 00:26:39.059 They did. 00:26:39.160 --> 00:26:39.819 They arrived. 00:26:39.940 --> 00:26:41.920 They created an alphabet for the Huns. 00:26:41.920 --> 00:26:43.740 They translated the scriptures for them. 00:26:44.660 --> 00:26:48.539 They continued a very successful ministry, baptizing many. 00:26:48.539 --> 00:26:56.779 And these folks were again helped by an Armenian bishop who came and ministered amongst the Huns for a long time. 00:26:56.900 --> 00:27:00.759 He taught them how to use agriculture, how to plant crops. 00:27:01.240 --> 00:27:07.019 Eventually, that Persian emperor I mentioned, Kavad I, he regained the throne. 00:27:07.019 --> 00:27:16.200 He returned to Persia, regained the throne, and he remembered how kind the Christians were to him when he was in exile. 00:27:16.879 --> 00:27:25.119 And throughout his reign, Christians had much more freedom and many more privileges in Persia than they had, than they usually had. 00:27:25.119 --> 00:27:37.959 And this story is beautiful because it shows what great success the gospel has when Christians care for the persecuted and the oppressed, and when Christians of different ethnic groups and cultures and languages gather together to minister. 00:27:38.219 --> 00:27:44.379 And we see this with the Persian Christians, the Armenian bishop, and the Huns working together. 00:27:44.380 --> 00:27:50.260 But, you know, again, this account only gets us into Western China once again. 00:27:50.360 --> 00:27:52.840 We've been there earlier, 300 years earlier, around 200. 00:27:52.980 --> 00:27:54.140 We were already in this same location. 00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:55.740 So what about further east? 00:27:56.060 --> 00:27:58.380 Well, there is another account that does get us closer. 00:27:59.400 --> 00:28:03.720 This story concerns the Mongols. 00:28:03.720 --> 00:28:17.279 The account is written in Syriac, and it talks about Christians who were Mongols, who lived in eastern Mongolia, east of Karakorum, sometime between 500 and 750 AD. 00:28:17.460 --> 00:28:19.759 It's hard to get a firm date. 00:28:20.400 --> 00:28:24.079 And these Christians were part of the Church of the East, meaning they were part of the Persian Church. 00:28:24.079 --> 00:28:33.460 This means that by this point, the Persian Church had extended thousands of miles east of Afghanistan and western China. 00:28:34.240 --> 00:28:38.240 How this tribe of the Mongols converted, though, remains mysterious. 00:28:38.539 --> 00:28:39.339 We don't know. 00:28:40.480 --> 00:28:45.539 The account explains that these Mongolian Christians read the Old and New Testaments. 00:28:46.179 --> 00:28:48.460 They had some literature in Syriac. 00:28:48.539 --> 00:28:50.639 They also had some literature in their own languages. 00:28:50.640 --> 00:28:53.920 And they believed in the Trinity, that they were Orthodox believers. 00:28:54.820 --> 00:28:58.700 But beyond that, we don't get many more information about them. 00:28:58.780 --> 00:29:00.160 We get information about their customs. 00:29:00.340 --> 00:29:05.680 They loved eating horse milk and horse meat and horse blood. 00:29:06.360 --> 00:29:08.840 That was a typical Mongolian diet back in the day. 00:29:09.480 --> 00:29:11.360 But beyond that, we don't know much. 00:29:12.180 --> 00:29:15.540 So now, at least, though, we're getting pretty far east. 00:29:15.620 --> 00:29:16.480 We're in Mongolia. 00:29:16.480 --> 00:29:17.620 We're not in China. 00:29:17.619 --> 00:29:22.739 But I want to know about eastern Chinese Christians in particular. 00:29:23.439 --> 00:29:24.339 What about them? 00:29:25.159 --> 00:29:29.159 Well, we do have two accounts from this time frame. 00:29:30.019 --> 00:29:43.739 One is a Chinese source that tells about Buddhist monks in the Chinese capital of Luyeng under Emperor Xuanwu of the Northern Wei Dynasty around 500 AD. 00:29:44.619 --> 00:29:47.339 And that's located here on the map. 00:29:47.619 --> 00:29:52.079 And this is what the Chinese source says. 00:29:52.579 --> 00:29:53.339 It says, 00:29:53.339 --> 00:30:00.699 The Yangmen Monastery, that's a Buddhist monastery, was built by the Emperor Xuanwu and is situated at east of the Deju Temple. 00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:01.519 It's a Buddhist temple. 00:30:02.299 --> 00:30:09.859 At the time when Buddhism was in vogue at Luyeng, foreign monks came from everywhere, holding their canes and the sutras. 00:30:10.039 --> 00:30:13.139 So having that guess, they brought canes and they brought texts. 00:30:13.299 --> 00:30:14.459 Sutras are sacred texts. 00:30:14.460 --> 00:30:16.819 This is why Xuanwu built this temple. 00:30:17.740 --> 00:30:19.960 In order to offer them a place to stay. 00:30:20.620 --> 00:30:25.160 This monastery has as many as a thousand rooms. 00:30:25.980 --> 00:30:29.259 The places made for studying are numerous. 00:30:30.799 --> 00:30:31.880 And the account goes on. 00:30:31.880 --> 00:30:43.240 There more than 3,000 monks coming from many places were living, with some of them even coming from the very far western countries, such as Daqin. 00:30:43.420 --> 00:30:44.420 We'll talk about that in a moment. 00:30:44.420 --> 00:30:49.460 They lived among the common people, and their houses and shops were numerous. 00:30:49.840 --> 00:30:53.500 For clothing, these foreigners used the Chinese fashion. 00:30:55.340 --> 00:30:57.560 Now, this is interesting. 00:30:57.759 --> 00:31:00.940 It speaks of Buddhist monks coming to a Buddhist monastery and staying there. 00:31:00.980 --> 00:31:02.580 And the Buddhist monks are coming from all over. 00:31:02.579 --> 00:31:09.839 But then it says that some monks came from very far western countries, like Daqin. 00:31:10.539 --> 00:31:13.980 Daqin is the name for Rome. 00:31:15.419 --> 00:31:23.960 Sometimes, remember, from the Chinese perspective, Rome is just way off in the west, so far away you can barely imagine it. 00:31:24.199 --> 00:31:27.519 So sometimes Daqin refers to Rome. 00:31:27.619 --> 00:31:30.339 Sometimes it refers to western Persia. 00:31:30.339 --> 00:31:33.679 But it's that far, far western area. 00:31:33.799 --> 00:31:37.379 And it says there were monks coming from Daqin. 00:31:37.659 --> 00:31:44.240 And these monks, though, if we read carefully, they apparently didn't stay in the Buddhist monastery. 00:31:44.980 --> 00:31:49.459 They apparently lived in houses and had shops amongst the people. 00:31:49.559 --> 00:31:54.439 And remember, that Buddhist monastery, the first part of the account, said it was built so that monks could live there. 00:31:54.519 --> 00:31:55.439 Buddhist monks could live there. 00:31:55.679 --> 00:31:57.439 But these guys don't seem to be doing that. 00:31:57.440 --> 00:32:02.140 So could these monks be Christians? 00:32:03.279 --> 00:32:06.000 We know that they're coming from Rome or Persia. 00:32:06.440 --> 00:32:09.500 And monks from there were Christian. 00:32:10.080 --> 00:32:12.400 And they don't seem to be living with the Buddhists. 00:32:13.080 --> 00:32:15.039 They don't seem to be Zoroastrians. 00:32:15.180 --> 00:32:20.519 That's the traditional religion of Persia because Zoroastrianism doesn't have monastity. 00:32:20.580 --> 00:32:21.220 They don't have monks. 00:32:21.220 --> 00:32:25.380 It's maybe possible that they were Manichean monks. 00:32:27.059 --> 00:32:28.779 Well, this is interesting. 00:32:29.259 --> 00:32:32.019 And I think it bears a little more investigation. 00:32:32.819 --> 00:32:35.339 To do that, I want to look at a second account. 00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:38.600 This is from about 50 years after this one. 00:32:38.680 --> 00:32:39.940 It's from 550 A.D. 00:32:39.940 --> 00:32:41.980 It's from a Greek source. 00:32:42.539 --> 00:32:47.160 And it concerns the secret of silk. 00:32:47.160 --> 00:32:52.560 And the account goes like this. 00:32:53.320 --> 00:32:59.420 Back then, the Byzantine Empire, the Byzantine Empire is a name for the later Roman Empire. 00:33:00.019 --> 00:33:02.300 The Byzantine Empire loved silk. 00:33:02.299 --> 00:33:13.079 And nobles and rich folks spent tons and tons of money buying silk from China via a very expensive trade route through Persia and India. 00:33:13.659 --> 00:33:17.579 And the Chinese jealously guarded their silk monopoly. 00:33:18.119 --> 00:33:21.039 And the Byzantines, the Romans, they didn't know about silkworms. 00:33:21.059 --> 00:33:22.819 They didn't know how to raise them or feed them. 00:33:22.899 --> 00:33:25.079 You'll have to do very particular proper things to do that. 00:33:25.399 --> 00:33:26.559 They didn't know how to harvest silk. 00:33:27.460 --> 00:33:28.579 So they were stuck. 00:33:28.700 --> 00:33:31.460 They were stuck paying these huge prices for silk. 00:33:31.460 --> 00:33:44.100 But as this account goes, one day, two Persian monks showed up in the court of the capital of the Byzantine Empire, the Roman Empire at the time, in Constantinople. 00:33:44.519 --> 00:33:46.940 And these guys seemed to be from the Church of the East. 00:33:47.059 --> 00:33:48.960 And they were from India. 00:33:49.519 --> 00:33:51.559 The Church of the East had a big presence in India. 00:33:52.400 --> 00:33:59.799 And these monks said that they had just returned from China via India because they'd also spent a very long time in China. 00:33:59.799 --> 00:34:09.840 And I have to say, these monks don't seem to be the most scrupulous or honest folks because they told the emperor that for the right amount of money, they would bring him the secretive silk. 00:34:10.539 --> 00:34:13.639 And so after they were commissioned, they traveled back to India. 00:34:13.639 --> 00:34:16.859 And then from India, they came to China by boat. 00:34:16.960 --> 00:34:19.960 So now they're on the coast of eastern China or southeastern China. 00:34:20.319 --> 00:34:27.859 Once in China, they smuggled out silkworm larvae in the middle of their hollowed out canes. 00:34:27.860 --> 00:34:32.880 And then they came all the way back to Constantinople with their prize. 00:34:33.780 --> 00:34:35.440 And that's how the silk monopoly was broken. 00:34:36.519 --> 00:34:38.820 Now, the story is interesting for a lot of reasons. 00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:52.680 But what concerns us here is Christianity in China, because what this story seems to reveal is that there apparently were Persian monks who spent so long in China that they were able to get involved with trading and with merchants. 00:34:52.679 --> 00:35:00.259 And in fact, they had gotten so involved that they were able to access the jealously guarded secret of silk in China. 00:35:00.679 --> 00:35:12.899 And this suggests that the Persian monks had been there had been some kind of Persian Church of the East presence in China for many decades before, 00:35:12.900 --> 00:35:19.019 because you don't just show up in China and gain access to a secret like the secret of silk in a short period of time. 00:35:20.400 --> 00:35:20.780 Huh. 00:35:21.780 --> 00:35:26.940 So let's go back to that earlier story about those foreign monks in the capital of Lu Yang. 00:35:28.960 --> 00:35:33.680 Remember that I have it underlined here that these foreign monks had shops. 00:35:33.679 --> 00:35:44.279 Well, that's interesting, because the other monks we just read about, the secret of silk monks, they also seem to have been involved in merchandise and trading. 00:35:44.960 --> 00:35:54.839 And in fact, many other accounts tell us that Church of the East missionaries also function as merchants, as a way to raise funds for themselves, to get permission to go to countries. 00:35:54.960 --> 00:35:58.599 This is much like missionaries do today, where they will get a regular job. 00:35:59.739 --> 00:36:01.879 And so that's interesting. 00:36:01.880 --> 00:36:10.480 It seems to correlate with these foreign monks who were hanging out in the capital of Lu Yang, interacting with these Buddhist monks. 00:36:11.059 --> 00:36:15.480 So that's one reason to think that this account around 500 AD is referring to Christian monks. 00:36:16.119 --> 00:36:18.200 We can get another little detail, too. 00:36:18.440 --> 00:36:23.059 Earlier in this Chinese account, it mentions canes. 00:36:23.079 --> 00:36:26.760 I have this underlined here that these foreign monks were holding. 00:36:26.760 --> 00:36:33.060 And if you listen carefully to that account of the secret of silk, the Persian monks had canes, too. 00:36:33.600 --> 00:36:37.660 They kept the larvae of the silkworms in their canes. 00:36:41.360 --> 00:36:50.060 And it just so happens that we have an ancient silk picture of a monk that was found in China, which you can see here. 00:36:50.059 --> 00:36:52.159 It's heavily damaged. 00:36:52.860 --> 00:36:55.460 It's probably from the 8th or 9th century. 00:36:56.539 --> 00:37:00.139 And it seems to be of a Christian. 00:37:00.360 --> 00:37:04.759 And we believe this because if you look really closely, I'm zooming in here. 00:37:05.759 --> 00:37:09.820 If you look really closely at his headpiece, I hope it comes out clear on your screen. 00:37:09.820 --> 00:37:13.039 You can see a cross on his headpiece. 00:37:13.200 --> 00:37:16.519 And there's other crosses throughout the picture as well. 00:37:17.559 --> 00:37:22.160 And if we zoom out, it's going to be really hard to see on the big screen. 00:37:22.440 --> 00:37:23.519 So there's a drawing. 00:37:23.760 --> 00:37:33.059 You can see he's holding some kind of, there's some going diagonally from the lower left to the upper right, some straight object or line. 00:37:33.059 --> 00:37:42.179 And if we look at an artist's representation, it appears that he's holding a cane. 00:37:42.179 --> 00:37:47.619 This Christian monk or bishop, whoever he is, is holding a cane. 00:37:48.299 --> 00:37:59.019 So putting all of this together, it seems like Christian monks were working in eastern China by the early 500s or even sometime in the 400s. 00:37:59.059 --> 00:38:00.920 They were involved with trade. 00:38:01.340 --> 00:38:02.719 They were involved with merchants. 00:38:03.059 --> 00:38:07.239 They were also apparently interacting with Buddhist monks in the capital city. 00:38:07.400 --> 00:38:09.619 They adopted foreign dress. 00:38:09.739 --> 00:38:12.880 They also adopted things like canes. 00:38:13.840 --> 00:38:16.179 This is extremely early. 00:38:17.119 --> 00:38:23.940 In fact, this is about a century earlier than most scholars think that Christianity came to China. 00:38:24.259 --> 00:38:32.000 To give you some context, in the late 400s, this is precisely when St. Patrick was evangelizing the Irish. 00:38:33.059 --> 00:38:47.500 So I think we can say with a good amount of confidence that the earliest Christian missions to China, of which we are aware, were occurring around the late 400s, the early 500s, which was roughly around the time that St. Patrick was evangelizing the Irish. 00:38:47.500 --> 00:38:53.199 At that time, it seems that Persian monks were working amongst the Chinese. 00:38:53.199 --> 00:38:54.739 Okay. 00:38:54.739 --> 00:38:59.979 That's a lot of material to get that one date. 00:38:59.980 --> 00:39:11.619 But I wanted to do all that to give us a foundation about the Church of the East so that next week when we launch in to a big turning point in missions in China, we'll have a good foundation to work with. 00:39:11.619 --> 00:39:19.059 Next class, we're going to start off in Xi'an, China, another capital in ancient China in 635 AD. 00:39:19.659 --> 00:39:30.119 And our knowledge of Christianity is about to explode at this point because of the discovery of this monument that we will talk about in the next class. 00:39:30.179 --> 00:39:36.380 Next class, we're going to have a lot of pictures of archaeological discoveries, paintings, manuscripts, things like that. 00:39:36.380 --> 00:39:40.019 Hopefully, you'll join for that class. 00:39:40.380 --> 00:39:44.119 I think we do have a little bit of time if you have any questions. 00:39:44.119 --> 00:39:45.160 If not, that's fine. 00:39:45.579 --> 00:39:49.400 I'm going to try and bring up my chat here. 00:39:49.599 --> 00:39:50.500 It's not letting me. 00:39:51.039 --> 00:39:51.820 There we go. 00:39:52.019 --> 00:39:52.240 Okay. 00:39:53.660 --> 00:39:54.119 Let me. 00:39:55.240 --> 00:39:55.539 Huh. 00:39:56.599 --> 00:39:57.000 Okay. 00:39:58.340 --> 00:39:59.820 And I'll see if there's any questions. 00:40:00.059 --> 00:40:02.460 If not, that's fine, too. 00:40:02.460 --> 00:40:05.940 And this is going to be recorded, hopefully available online. 00:40:06.199 --> 00:40:09.599 You can email me or ask me at church if you have any questions. 00:40:10.880 --> 00:40:11.840 That's fine, too. 00:40:17.500 --> 00:40:18.220 All right. 00:40:23.460 --> 00:40:26.300 So I think that, ah, here's a question. 00:40:28.099 --> 00:40:28.460 Okay. 00:40:28.940 --> 00:40:31.760 Could you tell us any more about the history of Nestorianism in China? 00:40:32.460 --> 00:40:33.659 Thank you, Jessica. 00:40:34.880 --> 00:40:42.420 Just to give you an overview, we're going to talk more about Nestorianism or the Church of the East in China next class. 00:40:43.420 --> 00:40:51.179 But just to give you an overview, we're going to find out that these Church of the East missionaries, they went all over China. 00:40:51.440 --> 00:40:56.000 We'll see that next class and in the class after that. 00:40:56.360 --> 00:40:59.039 All over China, the Northeast, the Southeast, the East. 00:40:59.860 --> 00:41:01.239 There's evidence we'll talk about. 00:41:01.300 --> 00:41:02.320 They even made it to Japan. 00:41:02.500 --> 00:41:05.219 There's evidence that they made it to Southeastern Asia as well. 00:41:05.920 --> 00:41:09.619 And we'll talk all about that in the coming classes. 00:41:11.119 --> 00:41:11.860 Another question. 00:41:11.940 --> 00:41:13.300 Did Thomas the Disciple go East? 00:41:13.340 --> 00:41:14.079 That's a great question. 00:41:14.079 --> 00:41:19.759 So traditionally, Thomas the Disciple went Eastward into Persia and India. 00:41:20.239 --> 00:41:22.960 And in fact, you heard me mention India a few times. 00:41:23.059 --> 00:41:26.460 That's because there were Christians in India. 00:41:27.699 --> 00:41:28.659 Well, they're still there. 00:41:28.880 --> 00:41:34.239 The Church of the East has been in India for well over 1,500 years. 00:41:34.239 --> 00:41:39.279 There's a debate about how early we want to trace Christianity to India. 00:41:39.639 --> 00:41:45.599 And we know that I think we can be certain there were Christians in India around 200 or before. 00:41:46.559 --> 00:41:48.839 They could have been there well before. 00:41:48.839 --> 00:41:51.919 The question of whether Thomas himself went there is a difficult one. 00:41:52.319 --> 00:41:54.559 The Indian Christians believe that he did. 00:41:54.739 --> 00:41:58.859 And there is some interesting circumstantial evidence that he made it there. 00:41:58.860 --> 00:42:05.079 One is that there's this apocryphal document called the Acts of Thomas that talks about Thomas going to India. 00:42:05.420 --> 00:42:07.480 And it seems to come from the third century. 00:42:07.620 --> 00:42:08.940 It has some fantastic stories. 00:42:09.120 --> 00:42:13.019 Scholars traditionally dismissed it as kind of made up. 00:42:13.019 --> 00:42:20.760 But there's a couple things about it that maybe indicate that there's some kernels of truth there. 00:42:20.860 --> 00:42:26.860 One is that, if I'm remembering correctly, Thomas gets on a boat and sails to India from Egypt. 00:42:26.860 --> 00:42:32.599 And there actually was a trade route from Egypt to India at that time. 00:42:33.059 --> 00:42:35.260 So it's very possible that that could have actually occurred. 00:42:35.640 --> 00:42:41.420 The second piece of evidence is that, according to the account, he meets some king, an Indian king named Gundafirnes. 00:42:41.800 --> 00:42:44.740 And he converts to become a Christian. 00:42:45.320 --> 00:42:46.440 And Thomas is later martyred. 00:42:46.760 --> 00:42:47.840 I think the king converts. 00:42:48.380 --> 00:42:50.180 Anyway, he meets a king named Gundafirnes. 00:42:50.320 --> 00:42:51.260 Thomas is later martyred. 00:42:52.280 --> 00:42:53.440 Thomas starts a ministry there. 00:42:53.940 --> 00:42:55.300 And scholars dismiss this. 00:42:55.420 --> 00:42:56.500 Gundafirnes never existed. 00:42:56.500 --> 00:42:57.440 He's a made up figure. 00:42:57.599 --> 00:43:09.500 But when the British were in India and Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan in the late 1800s, they started finding coins of an unknown king named Gundafirnes. 00:43:11.179 --> 00:43:12.820 Coins, of course, last forever. 00:43:13.039 --> 00:43:16.659 You put them in the dirt and they don't decay. 00:43:16.659 --> 00:43:18.539 And they started finding these coins. 00:43:18.539 --> 00:43:24.179 And some people, some pneumatologists, people who study coins, they started studying them. 00:43:24.500 --> 00:43:26.139 There are some inscriptions that were found. 00:43:26.539 --> 00:43:31.980 And most scholars date Gundafirnes to about 55 AD. 00:43:31.980 --> 00:43:36.219 And that sounds like a good time for when Thomas would be in India. 00:43:36.219 --> 00:43:38.820 So, again, we don't know. 00:43:39.280 --> 00:43:49.960 There's some reports that there's one of the churches that's or areas that Thomas had one of his ministries that there is Roman brick buildings there. 00:43:49.960 --> 00:43:54.139 So there was a Roman trading port there that provides some evidence that that may have happened. 00:43:54.280 --> 00:43:57.320 So, in short, I think it's probably likely Thomas went east. 00:43:58.340 --> 00:44:01.159 How far east he went, I don't know. 00:44:01.559 --> 00:44:04.420 It would not surprise me if he reached India at all. 00:44:04.420 --> 00:44:06.440 I don't think we can be certain of it. 00:44:06.579 --> 00:44:16.400 I think we can be certain, though, that some early Christians did go to India at a very early point, probably no later than like the late 100s, the late second century. 00:44:18.960 --> 00:44:19.400 Okay. 00:44:19.700 --> 00:44:20.579 Another question. 00:44:20.680 --> 00:44:23.700 Did the Church of the East affirm the hypostatic union, two natures, one person? 00:44:24.760 --> 00:44:25.940 That's a great question. 00:44:26.099 --> 00:44:27.380 And that's a long answer. 00:44:27.380 --> 00:44:41.000 So the hypostatic union is this idea that the Greek word hypostasis, that there's a union of the divinity and humanity of Jesus in this Greek term, the hypostasis of Jesus, which is often considered. 00:44:42.079 --> 00:44:45.680 Sometimes hypostasis means person, in the person of Christ. 00:44:45.980 --> 00:44:49.079 Other times it means an instance of some kind of nature. 00:44:49.079 --> 00:44:59.340 And so the question of did the Church of the East affirm this, I think an honest answer would be yes and no. 00:44:59.840 --> 00:45:09.559 And the reason why is because if you study the history of theology, the word hypostasis is originally was a very fuzzy term. 00:45:09.840 --> 00:45:14.960 And so people, it's a Greek term, and Greeks disagreed on what it meant. 00:45:14.960 --> 00:45:20.000 And folks in the Latin tradition had an even harder time understanding it. 00:45:20.059 --> 00:45:24.159 And folks in the Syriac tradition, which is the Church of the East, had a hard time as well. 00:45:24.260 --> 00:45:27.800 There's a report of St. Jerome, the great translator of the Latin Bible. 00:45:28.400 --> 00:45:33.300 He has this account of when he went to the Greek East. 00:45:33.519 --> 00:45:35.159 He, of course, was fluent in Greek. 00:45:35.360 --> 00:45:39.119 And the Greek theologians were telling him about this word hypostasis and what it means. 00:45:39.159 --> 00:45:41.119 And he was saying, that's not what it means. 00:45:41.519 --> 00:45:42.920 I don't think it means that. 00:45:42.920 --> 00:45:58.099 So the short answer is that the Nestorius and the Church of the East, they talked about something called a prosopaeic union, which comes from the Greek word prosopon, which confusingly also means person. 00:45:58.500 --> 00:46:01.519 So they had two natures in one person. 00:46:01.619 --> 00:46:04.039 They had an idea of two natures, one person in Jesus. 00:46:04.039 --> 00:46:12.079 But the word they used for person was prosopon, the word that the Greek Easterners eventually settled on was hypostasis. 00:46:12.880 --> 00:46:16.920 And according to some, these are overlapping terms. 00:46:17.340 --> 00:46:17.759 It depends. 00:46:17.840 --> 00:46:18.840 It depends who you ask. 00:46:18.840 --> 00:46:39.980 To give you the final end of the story, I believe in the 1970s, maybe it was earlier, maybe it was more recent, the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of the East got together and they issued a statement saying that past theological differences over this terminology were made not because there's actual disagreements, but because they were misunderstanding one another. 00:46:40.059 --> 00:46:41.360 They were talking past one another. 00:46:41.360 --> 00:46:50.720 So if you want to be charitable, yes, they did affirm the hypostatic union using a different word, if that makes sense. 00:46:51.160 --> 00:46:55.420 Another question, what written language is being used in China at this time? 00:46:56.000 --> 00:46:58.559 Are you using translated documents for your study? 00:46:58.559 --> 00:47:10.739 The written language in China at the time was medieval Chinese, but almost all the sources I cited, except that one source, there was the one source about the Buddhist monastery that was in Chinese. 00:47:10.840 --> 00:47:13.039 And I used a translation because I don't read Chinese. 00:47:13.539 --> 00:47:15.279 All the other documents were in other languages. 00:47:15.940 --> 00:47:18.579 They were in Greek, but especially Syriac. 00:47:19.179 --> 00:47:24.840 Syriac was the lingua franca of Eastern trade, or at least of the Church of the East. 00:47:24.840 --> 00:47:33.340 So the Church of the East covered many languages like Persia, like Persian, Greece, Greek, sorry, I'm getting confused here. 00:47:33.600 --> 00:47:35.680 The Church of the East spoke Syriac. 00:47:35.780 --> 00:47:36.780 They also spoke Persian. 00:47:36.940 --> 00:47:37.640 They spoke Greek. 00:47:37.760 --> 00:47:41.840 They spoke Sogdian, Uyghur, various Turkic languages. 00:47:43.019 --> 00:47:46.640 And so, but most of the written stuff we have is in Syriac. 00:47:46.740 --> 00:47:49.400 So that's where most of our information is coming from. 00:47:49.620 --> 00:47:54.780 Next class, there's going to be a bunch in Chinese, and I'm going to have to rely on. 00:47:55.840 --> 00:47:57.220 Translation for that, unfortunately. 00:47:59.220 --> 00:48:03.059 But there'll be Christian documents, too, that are in Chinese, which is going to be really fun. 00:48:06.780 --> 00:48:08.100 I'm conscious of the time. 00:48:08.260 --> 00:48:10.820 I know that we've got church starting in a little bit. 00:48:12.940 --> 00:48:16.840 So if you do have any more questions, feel free to get in touch with me. 00:48:17.640 --> 00:48:21.380 And if not, I hope I see you all next week. 00:48:21.760 --> 00:48:25.140 And we're going to try to get this recording shared online. 00:48:25.260 --> 00:48:26.200 Hopefully that'll work. 00:48:26.760 --> 00:48:30.280 I have had Zoom hiccup on me a few times, and it not worked. 00:48:30.460 --> 00:48:31.420 But it's recording now. 00:48:31.500 --> 00:48:32.140 Hopefully it'll work. 00:48:32.360 --> 00:48:36.620 And we'll put it online for you to refer to later on. 00:48:37.059 --> 00:48:38.019 Thank you all so much. 00:48:38.019 --> 00:49:08.000 Thank you.