The Church of the East

Edited by Tony Lambert, OMF China Researcher

Good books on the Nestorian church are few and far between. In 1916 Professor Saeki of Waseda University in Tokyo published the English edition of his famous book The Nestorian Monument in China. In 1992 Samuel H. Moffett published Volume 1 of his magisterial History of Christianity in Asia which contains an excellent overview of the Nestorian church from its beginnings in what is now modern Iraq and Iran, through its amazing expansion throughout Central Asia and into China, until its virtual demise in the early 15th century after the savage incursions of Timur—better known in the West as Tamberlane, who inspired Christopher Marlowe to write a famous play of the same name.

In 2001 Martin Palmer published The Jesus Sutras—Rediscovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity. The title alone is enough to raise the hackles of most evangelicals—at least of this reviewer! Palmer’s book contains interesting evidence of the rediscovered Nestorian monastery outside Xi’an as well as a useful overview of Nestorianism’s introduction to China during the height of the Tang dynasty in 635 AD. This is, of course, commemorated in the famous stele erected in 781 AD in Xi’an which can to this day be seen at the Forest of Tablets Museum in that city. To any Christian worth his salt, seeing the Nestorian Tablet is of far more importance than viewing the Terracotta Warriors of the Emperor Qinshi Huangdi!

Palmer seems to strain every piece of evidence to push his rather New Age agenda to prove that the Nestorians rejoiced in propagating a syncretistic form of Christianity blended with Buddhism and Taoism. The following paragraph is typical:

“The [Nestorian] Sutra [of Returning to Your Original Nature] is wonderfully rich in imagery. Its basic outline is a discourse between the Messiah, his disciple Simon and the adoring throng of ‘all who escaped from the Realm of Desire’ that is the physical world, and come to the ‘Great Preaching Place of Purity and Clarity.’ This could be a figurative image of the Sermon on the Mount, or a Christian version of Vulture Peak where in Buddhist sutras of the Chinese tradition the Buddha taught of the cosmos. The core notion of ending the wheel of karma is introduced immediately when the Messiah says all must ‘clear their minds and set aside all wanting and doing.’ Desire and action generate karma its cause and effects. By practicing wuwei, the Taoist term meaning actionless action, you do not create bad karma…. The Sutra then says that being a Christian is the fulfillment of good deeds in past lives: ‘From goodness in past lives people come to this religion and through the faith they find happiness... Simon, know this: You ask me about the triumphant Law. What your ancestors have done bears fruit in you, their karma finds its outcome in you.’”

This “Sutra”—a Buddhist term for their scriptures which Palmer always (mis)applies to the Nestorian Christian writings—was apparently written by a Nestorian priest Jingjing around 780 AD. Jingjing receives the following amazing praise from Palmer:

“Jingjing should be recognized as a Dharma king: a saint. One of the most outstanding Christians ever produced by China, he is also to the best of our limited knowledge the greatest product of the Tang dynasty church in China.”

However, even a cursory knowledge of the Gospels and the original teaching of Jesus shows that if Jingjing did indeed write this “sutra” he had strayed very far from the paths of Christian orthodoxy—by which I mean not just post-reformation evangelicalism but the basic truths shared by the early church in all its branches—Catholic, Orthodox and, yes, Nestorian.

In John chapter 9 Jesus refutes the fatalism of those who believed that the man blind from birth was so because of either his own sin, or the sin of his parents. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” This passage alone completely denies the teaching of an iron law of karma (whether “good” or “bad” karma) which Jingjing apparently accepts. Nor is the doctrine of reincarnation anywhere taught in the Bible.

The crux of the matter is: did the Nestorians overstep the mark when trying to enculturate the gospel in Tang dynasty China—then one of the most sophisticated cultures in the world? They certainly had to wrestle with the major problem (as does any Bible translator today) of deciding whether to use existing religious terminology (in this case Buddhist or Taoist) to express Christian truth or whether to forge new terms altogether. There is no simple solution, but the true communicator of the gospel will always resist the temptations of syncretism, or watering down the message to make it more palatable.

The last word is yet to be pronounced on the Nestorian enterprise. Yet I personally feel Saeki and Moffett are more reliable guides than Palmer when it comes to interpretation of Nestorian theology and practice in China.

It is with some relief to turn to the latest book on Nestorianism. This is: The Church of the East—An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity by the German explorer and archaeologist Christoph Baumer. (I.B. Tauris: London and New York, 2006; ISBN number: 1 84511 115X. Price in UK: £20. Not available from OMF.)

This is a lavishly color-illustrated coffee-table size book. But not only so—the detailed text attempts—and this reviewer considers, succeeds—to give a complete history of the Nestorian Church, otherwise known as East Syrian or Assyrian Christianity or the Church of the East, from the earliest times until today.

The contents are much broader than just Nestorianism in China, although this is competently covered in Sections VIII & IX. The complete section headings are as follows:

1. Introduction—(Spiritual aspects, the term “Nestorian”)
2. The Beginnings of East Syrian Christianity—(Parthia, Rome, Paul at Antioch, Thomas Christians in south India)
3. From Diversity to Unity: Church Fathers and Heretics—(Trinity and Nature of Christ; Nestorius as patriarch and his removal etc.
4. Loss of Christian Ecumene—(Chalcedon, Byzantine theology, Peshitta Bible)
5. Patriarchate of Seleucia-Ctesiphon —(Zoroastrianism, Crisis & Renewal)
6. Aspects of East Syrian Theology & Spirituality—(disputes with Manichaeism & Zoroastrianism; original sin; monasticism, mysticism etc)
7. Christians under Islamic Rule—(as second-class citizens; church of the east & Islam etc.)
8. Mission to the East—(Along the Silk Road, Sogdia, Tibet, East Turkestan [Xinjiang]; Alopen and China; dialogue with Buddhism & Daoism; persecution)
9. Period of the Mongols—(shamanism; Kerait, Ongut, Uigurs, Tangut Christians; Myth of Prester John; Cross & Lotus; Ravages of Tamerlane)
10. Thomas Christians of South India—(forced conversions to Catholicism etc.)
11. Period of Trials and Divisions—(Ottoman Empire; Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox missionaries; Genocide of 1915-1918; Collapse)
12. Renaissance of the Assyrian Church of the East—(Rebuilding in exile; Assyrian Christians in 21st century; Relevance of the Church of the East).

Baumer seems familiar with the intricacies of the debate over the person of Christ—monophysitism, hypostases, theotokos, ousia etc. This arcane terminology was debated in minute detail by theologians and bishops of the early church. The mystery of how the deity and the sacred humanity of Christ are joined may never be fully understood this side of eternity. Yet theological precision is needed as the reality of our salvation depends on the incarnation of the Son of God. Overstress the deity and one falls into docetism or gnosticism—Christ becomes a god pretending to be a man. Then He is unable to identify with us and suffer in our stead, and the whole reality of the atonement is lost. Overstress the humanity and one falls into arianism, socinianism or worse—Christ becomes a mere man somehow less than divine—and therefore unable to save, and unworthy of worship.

Politics played its part, no doubt, in condemning Nestorius as a heretic. From a Protestant point of view (although we must be careful of anachronistically reading back evangelical and reformed views into the 5th century) he seems closer to biblical truth in some ways than his opponents. For instance, he was unhappy with the term “Theotokos” (Mother of God) for the Virgin Mary, as he feared it would lead to idolatry. Later developments in both Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism surely vindicated his stance on this point.

So far as Nestorian theology in China and Palmer’s syncretistic approach are concerned (see above), Baumer has this interesting footnote:

“We deem as incorrect Martin Palmer’s interpretation according to which Alopen [the first Nestorian missionary to China in 635 AD] adopted the ideas of reincarnation and karma. Nowhere does Alopen teach that bad karma may be worked through in later reincarnations in this world; to the contrary, he appeals to people to grasp their only chance now.”

Today the Assyrian or Nestorian Church totals some 470,000 people in two branches. There are about 10,000 members of small Protestant groups as well. Inexorable emigration has threatened the survival of this ancient church. Today there are more Assyrian Christians living in the United States, Canada, Western Europe and Australia than in Iraq and Iran. Paradoxically the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq has led to greater threats to religious freedom. A series of bombings of churches on August 1, 2004 led to a further flight of 50,000 Christians from Iraq. Christians now make up only 3 percent of the total population there. There are less than 30,000 Assyrian Christians in Iran. In both countries their long-term future looks rather bleak in the face of resurgent Islamic fundamentalism.

I hope all this will whet the appetite of our readers to purchase this important book. It IS important as it is a salutary reminder that there is a whole Christian tradition whose outlook “went East” from the beginning. At the height of Nestorian expansion during the Tang dynasty and again during the Mongol period vast expanses of the Asian continent received this form of the Christian faith. Medieval catholicism was confined to the relatively small area of Western Europe, and Byzantine Christianity or Orthodoxy was originally limited to the Eastern Mediterranean and small parts of Russia around Kiev and Moscow. Catholic mission only really took off in the 16th century and Protestant, in the 18th—a thousand years after the Nestorians!

The Church of the East never relied on secular political power as it expanded across the deserts, steppes and oases of Central Asia into China. After Constantine, the Catholic and Orthodox churches were inseparably linked to imperial power. Sadly, Lutheran, Calvinist and Anglican churches often followed this bad example. For much of its long history the Church of the East endured persecution, first from Persian Zoroastrianism and then resurgent Islam. The post-1949 church in China has also suffered much. Although a few academic books on Chinese Nestorianism have been published in China, it would be good if relevant materials published overseas were to be translated into Chinese, both to encourage Christians, and show many non-Christian intellectuals, in particular, that the gospel of Christ arrived peacefully in China—brought by Asian Nestorians many centuries before such Westerners as Matteo Ricci or Robert Morrison.

Copyright 2006 by OMF International