Jingjiao

The Church of the East in China and Central Asia

Roman Malek

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000435115
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: History

The contributions in this volume were mostly first presented at the conference "Research on Nestorianism in China. Zhongguo jingjiao yanjiu ??????" held in Salzburg, 20– 26 May 2003. Like the conference, the volume explores the subject of "Nestorianism" (jingjiao, "Luminous Religion") in a variety of aspects. The material of the present collection is organized in five parts. The first part presents different aspects of the past and current research on jingjiao. The second part discusses jingjiao in the Tang dynasty, especially the question of the "Nestorian" texts and documents, their authenticity and theology. The third part deals with the "Nestorian" inscriptions and remains from the Yuan dynasty, especially from Quanzhou. Part four is dedicated to questions of the Church of the East in Central Asia and other historically relevant countries. The last part of the book presents a "Preliminary Bibliography on the Church of the East in China and Central Asia" prepared especially for this volume.

Part I

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204022-1

PAST AND CURRENT RESEARCH ON TANG JINGJIAO DOCUMENTS A SURVEY

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204022-2

MATTEO NICOLINI-ZANI

Contents

• Introduction
• Authenticity of the Manuscripts and Restriction of the Number of Genuine Tang Documents Unearthed at Dunhuang
• The Status of the Manuscripts
• The Different Transcriptions (Editions)
• The Variety and Quality of the Available Translations
• The Problem of Dating the Manuscripts and Their Authorship
• The Literary Style
• Ideological and Doctrinal Content, with Particular Reference to the Terminology Used in the Texts
• Conclusion

Les textes chinois constituent donc seulement quelques fils, de résistance inégale et mal connue, sur lesquels on jette, en sens divers, la longue trame de déductions provisoires.¹

¹F. Nau 1914, p. 257.

Introduction

There have recently appeared in the West two comprehensive and accurate academic presentations of the Christian Syro-Oriental documents in Chinese dating back to the Tang period (618–907),² written in the light of research carried out all over the world. One is the first volume of the Handbook of Christianity in China, published in 2001, which in its first part discusses Christianity during the Tang dynasty.³ The other is the new book A Study of the History of Nestorian Christianity in China and Its Literature in Chinese by Tang Li, published in 2002, which presents this literature with a new translation of the texts.⁴ Both of these volumes, however, have only partly taken into consideration the latest textual studies that have been undertaken in the last two to three years, mostly by Chinese scholars inside and outside mainland China, and in particular by Lin Wushu, Professor of History at Sun Yatsen University in Canton. In a series of articles that appeared in different Chinese journals, mostly between 2000 and 2001, and that were published together in the book Tangdai jingjiao zai yanjiu (New Reflections on Nestorianism of the Tang Dynasty),⁵ Professor Lin assessed the status quaestionis of research on these documents, shed new light on some obscure aspects, and discredited a number of clichés through a new investigation of the documents, opening up paths for future research. These contributions offered by Professor Lin will, therefore, have a central place in my survey, which will consider, however, the history of the research done in China and abroad during the past century, from the discovery of the first jingjiao documents at the beginning of the twentieth century until the present day.

²In order to avoid using the term “Nestorian” – a lamentable misnomer, as Sebastian P. Brock wrote (S.P. Brock 1996a) – to designate the Syro-Oriental Church and its literature, I have chosen to use in my text the concise expression “jingjiao documents” or “jingjiao literature,” leaving in Chinese the name (jingjiao 景教) by which Syro-Oriental Christianity was mostly known in China, and which is used by Chinese scholars in their research. With this expression I intend the literature written in Chinese during the Tang dynasty in the circles of the Syro-Oriental Church in China. ³See N. Standaert (ed.) 2001, pp. 4–7 (“Dunhuang Documents”). ⁴See Tang Li 2002, pp. 103–143 (“The Chinese Nestorian Documents”) and pp. 145–203 (“Nestorian Documents in Dunhuang: A New English Translation”). ⁵For the references of these articles and the book by Lin Wushu, see Bibliography.

Despite the small number of surviving Tang jingjiao documents, there has been great interest in them in the past hundred years.

As Dunhuang manuscripts, [these documents] have attracted the interest of Dunhuangologists first and foremost, as is obvious; but since their content is jingjiao, they have naturally aroused the interest of scholars of Christianity; finally, since jingjiao is a foreign religion in Tang China, historians see these documents – in a perspective of cultural history – as precious material for the study of the cultural exchange between China and the West in ancient times. This is how scholars have offered their analyses of these manuscripts, each from his own perspective.⁶

⁶Lin Wushu 2001b, p. 251.

With regard to their typology as well, the studies on these texts show quite a wide variety. To put it concisely,

specialized works that have these manuscripts as the object of their research, consider mainly two aspects. Some of these works seek to classify the documents that have come to light, and proceed by analyzing the condition in which they were found and in which they are conserved, as well as their style, the date of composition and the authenticity of the manuscripts; then, on the basis of the [original] text of the manuscripts, these studies proceed to the edition of their transcription. Other studies regard these manuscripts firstly as jingjiao scriptures, provide the texts with notes and, on the basis of their content and their form of expression, analyze the religious thought, the missionary strategy, etc. reflected in them. Looking over the works that have been published, [it becomes clear that] many scholars have approached their research from both of these perspectives at the same time.⁷

⁷Ibid.

A further overview of the publications in this field shows that the history of the research has evolved in three phases:

(1) The groundbreaking studies on the oldest Sino-Christian texts were begun by the Japanese scholars Haneda Tōru and Saeki Yoshirō,⁸ who made the documents known, edited them, and began to interpret them. This was the “golden age” of the discoveries, which coincided roughly with the first half of the twentieth century, beginning with Haneda’s first article⁹ in 1918 and ending with the publication of the second edition of Saeki’s The Nestorian Documents and Relics in China in 1951. In the West, Moule, Drake and Foster offered their partial but precious contributions to the understanding of these texts, and made them better known among Western scholars. Looking back at this first period from the point of view of today’s findings, we can say that this first phase of study was the most prolific, marked as it was with great enthusiasm over the recent discovery of the texts and with a strictly methodical approach to research. What was perhaps lacking was a careful evaluation of the sources, and also a sufficiently thorough inquiry into their origin and transmission (a lack which enthusiasm only partially excuses).

⁸For a summary of the research undertaken by Japanese scholars, see Zhang Jimeng 1969. ⁹Actually, as early as 1909 there was the edition of the Jingjiao sanwei mengdu zan by Luo Zhenyu, and in 1916 there was a mention of this text, which was the first to be discovered, in Saeki’s book on the Xi’an stele.

(2) “Studies on jingjiao scriptures in China were begun later than the Japanese studies, and were not carried out in a systematic or comprehensive way: they are all based on the findings of the Japanese scholars.”¹⁰ Studies undertaken in this second period, which corresponded roughly to the thirty years from the 1960s to the 1980s, were done mostly by Chinese scholars from Hong Kong and Taiwan who were interested in the history of Christianity in China. These studies do not in fact add many new elements to the Japanese findings. They have done a great deal to further knowledge of these ancient texts, but they have not done very much to further research.

¹⁰Zhang Jimeng 1969, p. 51.

(3) The desire expressed by Zhang Jimeng, who said in 1969 that “more systematic studies are what is expected from Chinese scholars,”¹¹ marks the beginning of the third phase. Zhang’s desire began to be fulfilled in studies by scholars such as Lin Wushu, Rong Xinjiang, Chen Huaiyu, and Wu Qiyu; and the opening of new horizons in Chinese academic environments in the 1980s has certainly facilitated research. Through new analyses of the documents, these scholars, with their great philological and historical competence, are redefining the research on a more scientific basis, and there have already been excellent results. I do not think it is going too far to say that the studies done by these scholars mark a turning point in the history of the research on Christian Syro-Oriental documents in Chinese, and for this reason these studies deserve all of our attention. They should also become better known and more accessible (if they are not so already) to Western scholars who are conducting research on the first period of the history of Chinese Christianity from different perspectives (literary, archaeological, historical, theological, etc.).

¹¹Ibid.

This paper, then, will be nothing more than a collection of brief observations about some significant issues regarding the history of the research on Tang jingjiao documents, with references made to individual studies for a closer examination of specific problems.

Authenticity of the Manuscripts and Restriction of the Number of Genuine Tang Documents Unearthed at Dunhuang

The definition of what has been called corpus nestorianum sinicum¹² was completed in the late 1940s with the publication of the so-called “Kojima 小 島 documents.” The form of the corpus was conserved almost intact until the 1990s. As an example of this form, I quote here what Fang Hao wrote in 1970:

¹²Definition by Father Gabriele ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Editorial Introduction
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Part IV
• Part V
• Preliminary Bibliography on the Church of the East in China and in Central Asia
• Authors