Christ on the Silk Road: The Evidences of Nestorian Christianity in Ancient China
OrthoNews
China
by Glen L. Thompson
In 2001, the author, ecumenist, and BBC broadcaster Martin Palmer announced
the discovery of a seventh- or eighth-century Christian pagoda in central
China. Palmer's claims were reported in Christianity Today and U.S. News and
World Report.
I was teaching in Hong Kong that year and had been planning a ten-day trip
into China when I first heard the news. As a church historian, I was
intrigued. I was able to get a rough idea of the location and added an extra
day to my itinerary in the hope of visiting the site. It lies about thirty
miles southwest of the ancient Tang Dynasty capital that today is called Xi'an,
in the famous area of Lou Guan Tai, now a national park.
The Da Qin Pagoda
Lou Guan Tai sits at the base of a pass leading westward through the
Qingling Mountains. Something about its location-its feng shui-made the site
revered as a spiritual place, and in the sixth century B.C., the scholar
Laozi (or Lao-Tzu) is said to have settled there to pursue the Tao after
leaving the royal court in disgust at its worldliness. Here he wrote Tao Te
Ching, "The Book of the Way and Its Power," founding the philosophy known
today as Taoism.
Lou Guan Tai later grew into an important Taoist center, and it was just a
mile or two to the west, either just inside or outside the Taoist complex,
that twelve centuries later the Da Qin monastery was built by Christian
monks. Only one tower of the monastery remains, a seven-story pagoda that
Palmer says was near to falling.
Since Palmer's announcement, repairs have been made, and the tower now seems
in rather good shape for a 1,300-year-old structure. It is octagonal and
looks exactly like other ancient Chinese pagodas. In a Chinese book of 1563,
the pagoda is clearly named and described, and at that time had even more
extensive ruins visible.
Palmer cites four strands of evidence that point to this as a Christian
structure: (1) Its name, Da Qin, links it with an earlier Christian mission
(more on this below); (2) the pagoda was cut into the hillside so as to face
east, whereas all Chinese temples face north and south; (3) several lines of
Syriac graffiti were found in or near the structure; and (4) several pieces
of Christian statuary were found on the second and third floors of the
pagoda. By the time of my visit, the statuary had been moved for safekeeping
until a new museum could be built, so the description I give here is based
solely on that of Palmer and the photographs reproduced in his book.
The statue that dominated the second floor of the pagoda was a 10-foot-high
and 5-foot-wide mountain scene. In the mountain was a cave, and in the cave
a remnant of a nativity scene. The only parts surviving are a bent right leg
and an extended left leg. Such a posture, Palmer says, is unknown in Chinese
art, but is common in Eastern Orthodox renditions of Mary in nativity
scenes.
The third-floor statue, 6 feet high and 4 feet wide, is also in poor
condition. The background here, however, can clearly be identified as a city
wall (with Chinese-style bell and drum towers). Also visible is a tree with
the remnants of a human figure seated beneath it. Palmer has identified the
scene as Jonah beneath the gourd tree outside Nineveh.
Although these identifications should be accepted with much caution, when
its features are taken as a whole, there seems good reason to identify the
pagoda as an ancient Christian structure. It had, after all, been identified
as such-back in 1933. As Palmer admits in The Jesus Sutras (2001), "the
pagoda was believed by Saeki and other China scholars who had visited the
site in 1933 to be associated with the early Christian Church." Indeed,
Peter Yoshiro Saeki, a Japanese religious scholar, had asked some local
Chinese scholars to visit the site, and they confirmed that it was the
remnant of a Nestorian building complex; they saw the same statuary Palmer
discovered 65 years later.
Dr. Saeki, author of The Nestorian Documents and Relics in China (1937), had
long been on the trail of Christianity in China. Back in 1916, the Society
for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge published his The Nestorian
Monument, a book about a well-known Chinese Nestorian stele.
When I visited the pagoda in 2001, I was also able to see this even more
important early Christian monument, the Nestorian Stele. These two
monuments, along with a third discovery, the Chinese equivalent of the Dead
Sea Scrolls, confirm that there was a significant Christian presence in
seventh- and eighth-century China. An examination of these artifacts also
highlights some of the problems missionaries encounter when presenting the
gospel to a new and alien culture.
The Nestorian Stele
In 1623 an ancient stele was discovered near Xi'an, just thirty miles from
the Christian pagoda. By 1625, the stele's inscriptions had been published
by the Jesuit Father Trigault. In the early twentieth century the stele
stood near a Buddhist temple, a mile outside the western gate of Xi'an. In
1907 it was moved to its present location among the Xi'an historical museum's
famous collection of ancient steles.
The tablet stands about eight feet high, is just over three feet wide, and
about a foot thick. It weighs nearly two tons. It contains 32 vertical lines
with approximately 1,800 beautiful and well-preserved Chinese characters.
Setting this inscription apart from similar ancient inscriptions are the
words in its bottom margin-23 short lines in ancient Syriac script. On the
narrow sides of the stone are an additional 70 lines in Chinese and Syriac.
Atop the stone is a heading of nine characters. Two characters- Da Qin-mean
"from the West" and could refer to anything arriving in China from the West.
In other documents from the period, they refer to the Roman Empire,
Palestine, or another Middle Eastern country. The heading can be translated
"The Monument That Commemorates the Spread of the Western Religion of Light
in China."
The stele dates itself to Sunday, February 4, 781, and was composed by a
Christian priest whose name is given in Chinese as Jingjing and in Persian
as Adam. He is a "priest of a Da Qin monastery," and "priest and rural
bishop and Papash of Chinestan." He is probably the same Adam who is
mentioned in one of the Christian manuscripts we will mention later as
translator of more than 30 Christian books into Chinese.
The main text begins with an extended eulogy to "the One who is true and
firm, the Uncreated, the Origin of Origins . . . our Aloha [Elohim], the
Triune, the mysterious Person, the unbegotten and true Lord." This long
passage also describes "the Messiah," who in "his true majesty appeared on
earth as a man. . . . A virgin gave birth to the Holy One in Da Qin. A
bright star announced the blessed event."
It also states that "27 standard works of his sutras (or scriptures) were
preserved," a clear reference to the New Testament. "His law is to bathe
with water and with the Spirit and thus to cleanse from all vain delusions
and to purify men until they regain the purity of their nature." "[His
ministers] carry the cross with them as a sign, and travel about wherever
the sun shines and try to re-unite those that are outside the kingdom." This
religion is referred to as "The Way"-"but its meritorious workings are shown
so brilliantly that we . . . call it by the name of 'the Luminous Religion'"
(adaptation of Saeki's translation).
The text then recounts the arrival of Christian missionaries at Xi'an, the
eastern terminus of the Silk Road. The mission team was led by "a highly
virtuous man named Alopen in the kingdom of Da Qin," who "arrived in Xi'an
in the ninth year of the period named Zhenguan" (A.D. 635). "The Emperor
dispatched his Minister of State, Fang Xuanling, with an imperial guard, to
the western suburb to meet the visitor and conduct him to the palace. The
sutras were translated in the Imperial Library. [The Emperor] studied The
Way in his own Forbidden apartments, and being deeply convinced of its
correctness and truth, he gave special orders for its propagation."
The text then quotes the imperial decree about this new religion, issued by
the emperor in 638, which concludes, "This teaching is helpful to all
creatures and beneficial to all men; so let it have free course throughout
the Empire."
We are then told that a monastery was built in the capital, a portrait of
the emperor was hung in it, and 21 priests were ordained to serve there.
When the Emperor Tai Zong died, he was succeeded by Gao Zong (650-683) who
"allowed monasteries of the Luminous Religion to be founded in every
prefecture . . . and the law spread throughout the ten provinces. . . .
Monasteries were built in many cities while every family enjoyed great
blessings."
The text goes on to describe how, between 698 and 712, first Buddhists in
the East, then Taoists in the West slandered the new religion. But Christian
leaders rose up to strengthen the church; under Emperors Xuan Zong
(712-756), Su Zong (756-762) and Dai Zong (763-779) the church again
flourished with royal favor. This section of the text then concludes with
praise for the present emperor, De Zong (780-805). The blessings of that
time are then enumerated, closing with "all these are the meritorious fruits
of the power and working of our Luminous Religion."
This is followed by a eulogy for the Christian dignitary who likely paid for
the stele, Yi Si. He is described as a highly decorated court official and
general in the Chinese army of the three emperors, but also as a priest and
rural bishop of Khumdan.
The last major part of the inscription is a lengthy poem honoring God and
the emperors who championed his church. The concluding lines give the
imperial date, name the ruling patriarch of the "Luminous Communities of the
East," and name the artist who inscribed the text on the stele. The Syriac
sections give a list of names of over 70 bishops, priests, and monks.
The story told in the inscription was so amazing that, after the inscription's
publication in the early seventeenth century, its authenticity began to be
questioned. Debate and study continued periodically until, by the late
nineteenth century, numerous scholars had personally examined the stone and
vouched for its authenticity. However, it took a second great archaeological
event to lay any final doubts to rest-the discovery of the scrolls of
Dunhuang.
The Scrolls from Dunhuang
In 1908 the French archaeologist and explorer Paul Pelliot came upon a cave
at Dunhuang, 800 miles northwest of Xi'an (1,350 miles due east of
Samarkand), that had been sealed in 1036. Inside was a treasure trove of
ancient art and manuscripts. While many of the precious scrolls were taken
to the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, others found their way onto the
black market. Among those that surfaced in private collections during the
following decades were a number of Christian texts.
One set of four texts may have been authored by Alopen himself, the leader
of the mission journey in 635. The oldest of the texts is the Jesus the
Messiah sutra, purchased in 1922 by Dr. Takakusu. Prof. Saeki dates the text
between 635 and 638, declaring it the first Nestorian sutra ever composed in
China. A second manuscript contains three other early sutras attributed to
Alopen-a Discourse on Monotheism, a Parable, Part 2, and a Lord of the
Universe's Discourse on Almsgiving. These were purchased in 1916 by another
Japanese collector, Mr. Tomeoka. All four of the documents were published in
1931 by the Kyoto Institute of the Oriental Culture Academy with an
introduction by Prof. Haneda, and dated to c. 641.
A second series of documents also supposedly came from the caves at Dunhuang
but are held to be of later date. A hymn, On the Adoration of the Trinity, a
work, On Mysterious Rest and Joy, and an excerpt of a work, On the Origin of
Origins, are usually dated to the late eighth century, about the same time
as the stele was erected. Two other documents-a hymn, On Penetrating Reality
and Taking Refuge in the Law, and a second work, On the Origin of
Origins-are now considered by most scholars to be modern forgeries (the
Dunhuang discoveries spawned an active market for forgers). A final
tenth-century work is entitled The Book of Praise and seems to be equivalent
to the diptychs and triptychs used in the early Greek and Latin churches, a
set series of prayers and thanksgiving to God for various living and
departed Christian saints and leaders.
While additional archaeological evidence came to light in the early
twentieth century confirming that the Nestorian branch of Christianity
spread in many areas along the Silk Road, it was not widely noted by
scholars. Except for Dr. Saeki's excellent and thorough 1951 book in
English, the story of the Nestorian church in China fell into almost total
obscurity among English-speaking scholars until Martin Palmer made his
announcement of the Christian pagoda that still stands in central China, not
far from the Nestorian stele.
Christians on the Move
The dramatic story of the arrival of Alopen at the imperial court captures
the imagination, perhaps too easily. The church historian immediately thinks
of parallel stories in which the ruler is converted and the people quickly
follow-Abgar of Syria and Vladimir of Kiev, among others. Is this what
happened?
A closer look gives a slightly different picture. While Alopen certainly
played an important role in the spread of Christianity in China, he was not
the first to do so. Christian traders had undoubtedly shared their faith in
China in the first centuries of the Church, since there is much evidence of
trade between China and the Roman Empire.
In 431 the Council of Ephesus excommunicated Nestorius together with his
followers for holding that there were two separate persons in the incarnate
Christ (one divine and the other human). Nestorius's teachings, however, had
a strong following in the East that gradually coalesced into a separate
"Church of the East." When the Western church, with its imperial backing,
began physically enforcing the council's decisions, many Nestorians moved
across the border into Persia, where they soon dominated the growing church.
In 424 what was to become the Nestorian church had bishoprics as far east as
Merv (in what is now Turkmenistan). Back in Persia, by the mid-sixth century
the local magi and other leaders of Zoroastrianism had gained enough
political influence to begin a severe persecution of Christians. About the
same time, Monophysite Christians were steadily gaining influence in Persia
as well. By the early seventh century, persecution became a normal part of
life for all Persian Christians, and many opted to leave. Since the West
still did not allow freedom of worship, and Islam was beginning to foment in
the south, and the north was barred by mountains, east was the natural
direction to go.
Only occasionally do historical sources give us details of this migration.
One example is from a Chinese record of 578, telling how a large Nestorian
family from Mar Sagis emigrated from the western lands to Lintao (Gansu
Province). Another involves the upheaval caused by fighting between the
eastern Turks and the Chinese around 630. In the aftermath, about 1.5
million people migrated into China, 10,000 families settling in Xi'an alone.
These immigrants would have brought their religion with them-Zoroastrianism,
Manichaeism, and Nestorian and Monophysite Christianity.
So the gospel did not first penetrate China with Alopen's mission. The faith
had spread through China at the grassroots level for some time before. What
Alopen did achieve, however, was bringing the visible church and its
organizational structure to China. Before his arrival, Christians may have
worshiped at home, may have had only limited access to the sacraments, and
probably had few if any trained clergy. Alopen, under official patronage,
was able to set up a series of churches and monasteries that could provide
what had been missing, with the monasteries, as in the West, serving as
theological schools.
Royal Patronage
Imperial patronage did not necessarily mean imperial conversion. The
Nestorian Stele commends Emperor Gao Zong for "giving the True Religion
(Christianity) the proper elegance and finish, causing monasteries of the
Luminous Religion to be founded in every prefecture, and honoring Alopen as
great Patron and Spiritual Lord of the Empire." But we also know from other
historical sources that in a decree of 666, the same emperor honored Laozi
with the title "Most High Emperor of Mystic Origin" (placing him above even
Buddha and Confucius), ordering temples to be built to him, and ordering
high officials to study his writings.
Chinese tradition and culture did not make it necessary to choose one
religion over another. A wise person might well hedge his bets by extolling
and supporting several religions simultaneously. While the royal patronage
was real and was highly significant and useful, it was not exclusive.
What imperial patronage did provide was legality and backing. The statements
about building churches and monasteries in every province were not mere
hyperbole. The geographical spread of surviving evidence confirms that
Christianity did spread significantly during this period. Yet it probably
never became more than one of the many minority religions. The famous monk
Kukai stayed from 804 to 806 in the Buddhist monastery of Xi Ming in the
Yining Ward of Xi'an, within a few blocks of the Nestorian monastery, yet he
never mentions the Christians once in his 50-volume literary output.
Patronage also came at a price. The stele tells how the emperor had Alopen's
books translated in the Imperial Library. Was there a check on the accuracy
of the translation? Missionaries today would not trust Buddhists to produce
an accurate translation of the New Testament, but that seems to be what
happened at Xi'an.
Was the title "Great Patron and Spiritual Lord of the Empire" conferred upon
Alopen just an honorary title, or did it require certain actions of its
holder? Did he now have to attend court functions and take part in
traditional courtly religious observances? The experience of Jesuit
missionaries a millennium later would suggest that some accommodation might
have been required. Patronage by the mighty is always a two-edged sword.
Syncretism & the Savior
When missionaries enter a new culture, they have to translate the Word into
a new language and dress it in local clothing without compromising the
gospel by fitting it to local customs and beliefs. How well did Alopen and
his successors walk this tightrope?
The stele begins with a summary confession of the doctrines of God, the
Trinity, creation, original sin, the Incarnation, and redemption. Dauvillier
comments: "The attributes of God-his eternity, being a spirit,
transcendence, infiniteness and impassibility, existing before all, and
being without end-these correspond to the most rigorous Christian
orthodoxy." Pelliot and others have noted that the actual terminology used
was popular among Taoists of the time, but Taoism has no creation ex nihilo
nor a personal God. In other words, familiar terms were used to express new
teaching. This is standard missionary practice.
The sutras clearly do, however, interact with Buddhism and Taoism in a way
that some have seen as syncretistic. The Jesus-Messiah sutra says, "All
Buddhas as well as Kimnaras and the Superintending-Devas and Arhans can see
the Lord of Heaven, but no human being has ever seen the Lord of Heaven"
(verses 4-5). Or later, "All Buddhas flow and flux . . . but the Lord of
Heaven remains always in a place of comfortable joy and peace" (13-14). The
Discourse on the Oneness of the Ruler of the Universe seems to inject a
dualistic passage based either on the Chinese concept of Yin and Yang or on
Persian dualism. It also refers to the Buddhist concepts of the "four
elements" (4-5), the "five attributes" (68), the "three wicked ways,"
rebirth, the Kalpa of formation, and "the law of the myriad Kalpa"
(210-213).
On the other hand, one repeatedly finds accurate statements of Christian
doctrine in these same documents. The Jesus-Messiah sutra states that "the
Messiah gave up his body to these wicked men to be sacrificed for the sake
of all mankind" (198). The Monotheism text states that "all things are made
by the one God" (5), and that "the one Godhead begot the other one [Jesus]
out of one and the same substance" (42). In The Oneness of the Ruler of the
Universe we read that "when heaven and earth shall pass away . . . all the
dead shall rise again" (68), and that the Messiah "bore all the sins of
mankind, and for them he suffered the punishment himself; no meritorious
deed is necessary [for salvation]" (136-137). The Almsgiving text gives an
extensive description of Christ's death and resurrection and quotes several
complete verses from Isaiah 53. And the stele says "the true Lord . . . took
human form, and through him, salvation was made free to all; the Sun
arising, the darkness ending." This is far from the wonderful "Taoist
Christianity" that Palmer seeks to find in the scrolls.
A Fruitful Path
The path of Christianity was not smooth even under the imperial patronage of
the seventh and eighth centuries. A resurgence of pro-Buddhist ideologies in
the ninth century led to growing problems for Christians. An imperial edict
of Emperor Wu Zong in 845 ordered Christian monks and nuns to "return to
their secular life and cease to confuse our national customs and manners."
Christianity began to wane, but we do not know at what rate. The Arabic
writer Abu Sayd states that Christians were among the 120,000 people
massacred at Canton (modern Guangzhou) in 878. As we have seen, the Book of
Praise sutra was composed in the tenth century, and when manuscripts were
being gathered for preservation in the cave at Dunhuang in 1036, some
Christian scrolls were still to be found and thought worth preserving.
(Someone also painted a Christian figure on one of the cave walls.)
Farther north, near the present border of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, two
Nestorian graveyards were discovered in 1885. Six hundred ten Nestorian
tombs with crosses and Syriac inscriptions were discovered there, with dates
ranging from 858 to 1342.
Saeki accumulates archaeological evidence from other parts of China as well.
The presence of an influential Nestorian church in late thirteenth-century
China is confirmed by numerous literary sources, including the journal of
Bar Sauma (a Nestorian monk from northern China), the writings of the
Western monk John of Montecorvino, and those of Marco Polo. It is now clear
that between the tenth and fourteenth centuries, several Turkish tribes
along the Silk Road and in northern China became predominantly Nestorian
Christian, but it is uncertain whether this was due to the influence of
Chinese missionaries or new missionary endeavors from the Middle East.
This story, however, is more than an arcane piece for mission historians.
Martin Palmer, the most recent "discoverer" of Christianity in ancient
China, can be credited with bringing the pagoda, and the forgotten story of
early Chinese mission work, back to our attention.
The pagoda, the stele, and the sutras remind us that Christianity is not
just a Western phenomenon. The Church spread eastward as well, and took root
and prospered there. Alopen, from the modern Chinese viewpoint, might be
viewed as one Asian coming to another. He did not come in Western dress, nor
did he carry all the imperialistic baggage of more modern missionaries. To
the extent this early history can be known in China today, perhaps it can
help Chinese take a second look at Christianity and see that it is not just
a "Western religion," but really is universal.
Perhaps the teachings of the Nestorians clouded the gospel message, but the
texts suggest that they did not totally obscure it. In fact, historians now
believe that while the Church of the East continued to honor Nestorius among
its founding fathers, it did not follow his Christology. This gives us even
more reason to believe that many Tang Dynasty Chinese came to faith in the
one true God, and that many came to know their Savior Jesus Christ.
We should never sell short the work of the Holy Spirit. It has been said
that the Chinese church today is the fastest growing church in history.
Perhaps the seeds sown along the Yellow River and Yangtze River so long ago
are even now bearing fruit.
Bibliography
. Malek, Roman, ed. The Chinese Face of Jesus Christ, vol. 1 (Monumenta
Serica Monograph Series L/1). Sankt Augustin, Germany, 2002. . Malek, Roman,
ed. Jingjiao: The Church of the East in China and Central Asia (Collectanea
Serica). Sankt Augustin, Germany, 2006. . Palmer, Martin. The Jesus Sutras:
Rediscovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity. New York, 2001. .
Pelliot, Paul. Recherches sur les Chretiens d'Asie Centrale et d'Extreme-Orient,
2.1: La Stele de Si-Ngan-Fou (Oeuvres Posthumes de Paul Pelliot, Jean
Dauvillier ed.). Paris, 1983. . Pelliot, Paul. L'Inscription Nestorienne de
Si-Ngan-Fou (Oeuvres Posthumes, Antonio Forte ed.). Paris, 1996. . Saeki, P.
Y. The Nestorian Documents and Relics in China. Tokyo, 1951.
Still Lost Since Martin Palmer's The Jesus Sutras gives a very slanted view
of the scrolls, it would seem a happy event that a second book on the
subject has appeared even more recently: The Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking
the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks (Ulysses Press, 2003/2006). But before
rushing to find a copy, let's look a bit closer.
The 140-page volume is divided into three parts. In the first 40 pages,
"Wisdom from a Cave," we find a rather straightforward (if fanciful) story
of the discovery of the Dunhuang manuscripts, the Nestorian Stele and the Da
Qin Pagoda. This is followed by the heart of the book-about 75 pages of
topically organized excerpts from the scrolls and stele in a new
translation. The book concludes with "The Soul of the Scrolls: Guidance for
Today," 25 pages of spiritual observations and applications for modern man.
Who is responsible for this attractive little volume? The cover gives no
author but says that the editors are Ray Rieger and Thomas Moore, and the
title page lists Jon Babcock as the translator. While the volume does not
specify which man was responsible for which part, it appears that the two
"editors" are responsible for everything except the actual excerpts from the
Sutras.
Ray Rieger is best known as the author of over a dozen guidebooks to the
islands of Hawaii and other American tourist destinations. He also appears
to be the driving force behind Ulysses Press, which began as the publisher
of Rieger's travel guides and then branched out into works on alternative
health, fitness, and spirituality. In the Foreword Rieger calls himself "a
lapsed Christian with a passion for biblical history and Eastern thought."
Thomas Moore's website states that he is a Catholic who went to seminary,
but then left before ordination. After earning a Ph.D. in religion from
Syracuse University and doing a brief stint in academia, he became a
freelance psychotherapist, lecturer, musician, and author of a bestseller
entitled Care of the Soul. On his website he states, "My theological work
has to do with observing and reverencing the awesome depth of the smallest
and most ordinary of things."
And what about the man responsible "for capturing the passion and poetry of
the Sutras in a brilliant translation" (cited from the Acknowledgments)?
What are Jon Babcock's credentials for translating Tang Dynasty Chinese
texts? We are not told, and the volume never mentions him again.
Untrustworthy Resource
The bottom line is that we have no reason to trust the qualifications of any
of these writers on a complicated subject that involves the mastery of two
ancient languages (Chinese and Syriac) and the history of Nestorian
Christianity, the Tang Dynasty, and Chinese Buddhism and Taoism. The lapsed
Christian with a passion for Eastern thought and the author on psychotherapy
appear neither qualified nor unbiased in their approach to the subject. And
although Moore still pays lip service to his "birthright as a Catholic," his
affinity for Eastern religious practices is evident.
So the volume gives us what we should expect-an even less careful and
equally slanted presentation of the sutras as works that "combine religions
in a way that brings out the best in each of them and the best in all of us"
(from the Foreword).
This volume fits well in Ulysses Press's series of "spiritual" works. These
include books on the "Lost Words of Jesus" in the Gospel of Thomas, the
"Lost Gospel Q," and the parallel sayings of Jesus and Buddha-all "edited"
by Rieger along with names such as Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan. And don't
miss the latest addition, Caesar's Messiah, which proves that the four
Gospels "were actually written under the direction of first-century Roman
emperors"! Alas, this is not a place to look for any objective study of
history, and especially for the true story behind the Christians of Tang
Dynasty China.
- Glen L. Thompson
_________________
Glen L. Thompson is Associate Professor of History at Wisconsin Lutheran
College. "Christ on the Silk Road" is an updated version of his presentation
at the 2003 Evangelical Theological Society meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.