Christianity in Chang’an was refered to as the ‘Luminous Religion’ or the ‘Illustrious Religion of Ta Ts’in’ (Legge 39). By the time it entered into China there were already three distinct formal religions being practiced. Taoism and Confucianism were the two oldest religions followed by Buddhism. By allowing Alopen free range, T’ai Tsung was introducing a fourth national religion. It is unclear exactly how much these religions interacted with one another however, “[h]istorians do know that under the Tang emperor Christianity spread across China, borrowing beliefs and ideas from Buddhism and other Eastern religions” (Moore 23).
This apparent syncretism of the Nestorians in China is evident in the two official documents linking Nestorianism to Chang’an and the Tang dynasty. These two documents are: the Nestorian Stele, discovered in Chang’an in 1625, and the ‘Lost Sutras of Jesus’ found by Pierre Pelliot amongst the documents ‘recovered’ for the Dunhuang Caves in the early 1900s.
It was the discovery of the Stele in 1625 that reminded history of the Christian presence in China long before the Jesuit and Catholic missionaries. Erected in 781, the “monument is the only extant “history” of the Nestorian Christianity in China before the Mongol period” (Bundy 17). It gives an overview of the Nestorian Church in China and allows us to date their arrival to the year AD 635. What is most interesting about the Stele is the presence of Toaist, Confucian and Buddhist imagery, it is “topped by a Maltese cross resting on a Taoist cloud with a Buddhist lotus flower beneath it” (Wood 118). This obvious syncretism gives rise to questions regarding how these Nestorians adapted themselves to compete and or co-exist within their surroundings.
In Ray Riegert and Thomas Moore’s book titled “The Lost Sutras of Jesus” they delve further into the notion that as Nestorianism developed in China it became distinct from its Persian roots. The Sutras discussed Christianity in a way more accessible to the people it was addressing using familiar language and terms. However, it also goes as far as weaving together the teachings of Jesus and the Buddha, “[t]o the Pope this was heresy, but even among Persian Christians the Sutras would have seemed alien” (Moore 14). This depicts not only the constant growth and development of the Nestorians, from where they started, but also the integration of relatively Chinese or eastern attitudes and assimilation of the Nestorians as they became Chinese Nestorians.
