s. a. Saint-david China Research Paper

Dr. Stewart Addington Saint-David, MTS, CertTESOL, FRAS, FINS

(Excerpted from Heaven's Mandate: Collected Essays on Aspects of World Religious Traditions)

An Indelible Mark:Do Traces of Ancient Nestorian Belief Exist in Modern Rural Chinese Catholicism?

One of the most fascinating trends in the current scholarship that deals with Chinese civilization

is the investigation of the many residual foreign influences that continue to persist, even at a time

when China is increasingly reacquainting herself with the fundamental elements of her history that

have helped to establish her unique cultural identity in today’s world.

Among the many modern scholars of Chinese culture, there exist a significant number who are

delving deeper into the sociological ramifications of foreign religious influence throughout China’s

long and varied history. In this brief paper, it is my aim to provide something of an overview of

ideas put forward by these scholars, as well as to put forward elements drawn from my own field

research in some of the small villages and towns of Sha’anxi Province’s Zhouzhi County, located

about one hour outside the large modern Chinese city of Xi’an. Although a regional study can

hardly be said to provide any comprehensive notions about the growth and spread of either

Nestorianism or Catholicism throughout the length and breadth of this vast and complex nation, it

may perhaps shed some measure of light on the nature and origin of some rather unusual notions

about the divinity of Jesus that are held by modern Chinese Catholics living in the deep countryside.

Thus, the opening sections of this paper will provide an outline of some elements of the histories

of both religious traditions since the time of their introduction into the Chinese sphere. I will then

provide direct evidence of some of the current beliefs of the Catholic parishioners of rural Zhouzhi

County, drawn from a series of interviews that I conducted in this area, and will focus in particular

on their notions regarding the origin and nature of the divinity of Jesus. Finally, I will put forward a

few observations on the possible origins of the somewhat heterodox beliefs that prevail among the

Roman Catholic believers of Zhouzhi, and will also advance a hypothesis regarding the persistence

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of these divergent beliefs in this rural population.

Section One:The Nestorian Skein

When discussing the introduction of Christianity to the Chinese empire, the general scholarly

consensus since the discovery of the famous "Nestorian Stele" in the early decades of the 17th

century has been that the first of the most important Christian missions occurred in 635 CE, during

the reign of the great Tang emperor Taizong. This widely-recognized missionary activity had as its

eventual target the vast and immensely powerful capital city of the Great Tang Empire, Chang’an,

known today as Xi’an.

At the height of its power and influence, a period exactly contemporaneous with the arrival of

Nestorian Christianity at the imperial court, the great 7th century Chinese city of Chang'an, capital

of the Tang dynasty, numbered well over one million inhabitants and was the absolute nexus of

imperial might during the era of ancient China's greatest prosperity. "During its existence," writes

historian Victor Cunrui Xiong, "Chang'an was the most spacious and often the most populous urban

center in the world. Laid out as the terrestrial abode of the Son of Heaven, the axis mundi from

which he sought and received divine sanction from Heaven, Earth, ancestral spirits, and other gods,

Sui-Tang Chang'an was the medieval Chinese city at its most splendid."1 Founded under the name

of Daxingcheng by Wendi, the first sovereign of the Sui dynasty (581-618 CE) in 583 CE, and later

renamed Chang'an in 653 CE, by the third Tang emperor, Gaozong (r. 649-683 CE), it was the

center of imperial power. However, it was eventually to be abandoned by one of the last monarchs

of that dynasty, Zhaozong (888-904 CE) in 904 CE, as the dynasty, and thus the nation itself,

descended once more into chaos, fragmentation and strife.

Describing the sheer dimensions of the central gate of the ancient city, author and Sinologist

Martin Palmer writes, "Rising over twenty yards high and being some twelve yards thick, [the gate]

was made of rammed earth, faced with brick and topped by stone. It formed part of a wall twenty-

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three miles long, embracing a city of some one million people."2 B Although powerfully defended,

this vast urban site was, however, comparatively open to foreign influence, both intellectually and

spiritually, as it was also the eastern starting point of what a 19th century geographer, the German

Wilhelm von Richtofen, was in 1877 to dub the Seidenstrasse, or Silk Road, a series of ancient

trade routes joining China with the markets of Central Asia, and eventually, with those of the

Middle East.3

As the imperial capital, Chang'an was also home to a vast array of religious and philosophical

schools, chief among them those of Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. "The two established

religions, Buddhism and Daoism" writes Xiong, "had long been entrenched in the city and

competed for ideological supremacy and imperial patronage."4 Indeed, this period in Chinese

religious history is of primary importance, for it was in 645 CE, during the reign of the emperor

Taizong, that the wandering Buddhist monk, Xuanzang, was to settle in the imperial capital, where

he would eventually undertake the gargantuan task of translating literally thousands of ancient

sutras from Sanskrit into Chinese.

It was into the religio-cultural fabric of this genuinely prosperous and cosmopolitan imperial

center that missionaries of the Nestorian Christian Church of the East, who journeyed in 635 CE

from their home in Persia, sought to introduce the teachings of Jesus, and to expound to the people

of Chang'an the core elements of the Christian path of salvation. The head of the mission, a bishop

called Rabban (a name rendered in most Chinese sources as Aluoben or Aleben, and possibly

bearing a connection to the Hebrew designation of rabbi) was greeted in the western suburbs of the

city by Tang officials, and the pious travelers soon found themselves ushered into the presence of

the Son of Heaven, Lord of Ten Thousand Years, the mighty Emperor Taizong himself.

The Nestorians had endured extremely difficult conditions on the road to the Tang court.

Although a certain measure of mystery persists regarding their exact starting point, scholars

commonly place the origin of their trek in Mesopotamia. "They went out from Beth Nahrin,

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birthplace of Abraham, the father of all believers," writes historian John M.L. Young. "The

missionaries traveled on foot; they had sandals on their feet, and a staff in their hands, and carried a

basket on their backs, and in the basket was the Holy Writ and the cross."5 Theirs was a distinctly

different sort of Christianity from that practiced by other Western believers, particularly those living

within the confines of the now-decrepit Western Roman Empire. "As Persian Christians,'" observes

Biblical scholar Ray Riegert, "Aleben and his band believed Mary was the mother of Jesus the man,

not the god. They were captivated by the historical Jesus and treated his teachings like those of a

sage."6 It was this belief in the fundamental duality of the human and divine in Jesus that resulted in

the expulsion of the sect's founder, Nestorius, a leader of the Antiochean branch of the Christian

faith, from his position as archbishop of the Roman imperial city of Constantinople.

Nestorius and his followers fundamentally rejected the notion of Mary as "Mother of God," or

theotokos, claiming instead that she was simply the progenitor of the earthly emanation of Christ, as

manifested in the physical person of Jesus. In 431 CE, the Council of Ephesus found in favor of the

concept of Mary as the Mother of God, and Nestorius was exiled to the remote regions of the

southern Egyptian desert, where he died some twenty years later. The church he left behind was

ideally suited to the task of evangelizing the heart of China, as "Christianity in the East accepted the

legitimacy of other faiths, and concentrated on Jesus' message rather than church doctrine."7 It was

this flexibility of approach that was to serve Aluoben and his party extremely well in their dealings

with the imperial court in Chang'an, for they were to step into a world that was alive with cultural

cross-currents from a wide variety of sources and orientations.

Palmer claims that "[t]he Tang court was used to exotic foreigners coming to trade with China,

for example, musicians and performers seeking their fortune in the rapidly expanding Chinese

empire."8 These were no mere itinerant musicians, however, and Taizong himself must have found

something of great interest in the teachings of the white-robed priests and acolytes who visited his

court, for he was soon to order the founding of a Nestorian monastery within the walls of Chang'an

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itself, and in fairly close proximity to the imperial enclosure of the Xingqing Palace.

Palmer cites Song Min Jiu's 11th century Atlas of Chang'an, in which can be found the following

entry: "In the north-east of the Yining Ward there was the Persian temple. In the twelfth year of

Cheng-kuan (638 CE), the Emperor Taizong had it built for... a foreign monk from Da Qin [the

Great Western Land]."9 In addition, the Nestorian Stele of 781 CE, erected in or near Chang'an to

commemorate the arrival of this mission, and later discovered by local workers in 1625 CE, records

the following words of an imperial edict of Taizong: "The Way does not have a common name and

the sacred does not have a common form...Aluoben, the man of great virtue from the Da Qin [Great

Western] Empire, came from a far land and arrived at the capital to present the teachings and

images of his religion."10 Earlier in the body of the selfsame inscription, it is noted that "the Sutras

[of the True Way] were translated in the Imperial library. [His Majesty] investigated 'The Way' in

his own Forbidden apartments, and being deeply convinced of its correctness and truth, he gave

special orders for its propagation."11 This, too, seems to be in keeping with the modus operandi of

the inquisitive and gifted Taizong, who requested that the manuscripts brought by the Nestorian

travelers should be translated from Syriac into Chinese, an undertaking that entailed considerable

time and effort to complete, as the first small volume, The Sutra of Jesus, was issued in 638 CE.

Chinese scholar Li Tang believes that the impetus for the mission of the Persian Nestorians may

in part have originated in the rising threat posed to their homeland, located deep within the confines

of the Sassanian Empire, by the spread of Islam. In 636 CE, not long after the arrival of Aluoben

and his companions in Chang'an, the Muslim assault on the Persian Empire was to commence, and

in 652, with the occupation of Merv, Balkh and Harat, the Muslim takeover of Persia was

completed. "The Arab conquest of Persia and the rule of Islam," writes Tang, "pushed more

Nestorians to move eastward... Furthermore, the political situation in China in the 7th century,

together with its successful foreign policy, for example the good relationship with between Persia

and the Chinese Tang court and the tolerant religious policy of the Emperor Taizong, served as

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favorable prerequisites for the acceptance of the Nestorians in China."12 Thus it was that practical

political considerations, clearly operative in the policies of Taizong regarding foreign minorities

within his own empire, may also have played an important rôle in the Nestorians' decision to strike

out for the East along the Silk Road. It can therefore reasonably be argued that this record of regular

and positive relations between foreign peoples from the West and the imperial Chinese authorities

may have helped to convince the Persian missionaries that they would ultimately find a favorable

reception in the realms of the Great Tang.

Nestorian Christianity, with its relatively flexible notions regarding doctrine and textual

adaptation, was ideally suited to the socio-political climate of 7th century China, and it soon found

itself the willing recipient of significant imperial patronage, both during the reign of Taizong, and

during that of his immediate successor, Gaozong (r. 649-683 CE). There were various storms to be

weathered, however, particularly during the reign of the Empress Wuzetian (r. 690-705 CE) who,

for reasons both personal and political, undertook to persecute many of the foreign religious sects

present in her kingdom, including those of the Zoroastrians, Christians and Manicheans. After her

death in 705 CE, however, and those of her successors Zhongzong (r. 705-710 CE) and Ruizong (r.

710-712 CE), the danger had largely passed, and in 744 CE the emperor Xuanzong called for

Nestorian priests to perform their religious rites within the confines of the Xingqing Palace.13 This

signaled the return of the sect to a certain degree of imperial favor, and further encouraged its

followers to propagate and commemorate the establishment of the faith within the borders of the

Great Tang Empire.

Thus it was that in 781 CE, during the reign of emperor Dezong (r. 779-805 CE), believers of the

newly-prosperous Nestorian sect arranged for the installation of a commemorative stele on what are

now believed by some scholars, such as Martin Palmer, to have been the grounds of a Nestorian

monastery in the countryside, in what is the Lou Guan Tai area of today’s Zhouzhi County, roughly

50 miles from Xi'an. The text of this stele, which records the coming of the first Nestorian mission

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under Aluoben, was inscribed in both Chinese and Syriac characters, and offers an intriguing

glimpse of various tenets of this faith, as practiced by its devotees in Tang China. Entitled the

Daqing jingjiao liuxing Zhongguo bei (Monument to the Spread of Nestorianism in China), its

theological elements present a version of Christian doctrine that is at once distinct and

fundamentally innovative, and which draws heavily on native Taoist influences, as well as Buddhist

textual genres and structures14 for both its presentational style and its content.

In the age to follow, and despite its distinctly minority status within the Chinese empire, the

foreign faith of Nestorianism managed to stay afloat throughout the rising and falling political and

social tides of the 9th through the 14th centuries, and there were clearly at least a few believers left

in China at the time of the Catholic missions of the early 15th century. According to Cambridge

University’s Mark Dickens, however,

“...[T]he Nestorians... [n]ever truly gained a foothold in Chinese soil, so that when the Mongol

dynasty fell to the Ming dynasty in 1368 and foreign religions were once again persecuted,

Christianity again died out in China. There are records of Ongut Christians converting to Taoism

and Confucianism. However, apparently there were still some Nestorians near “Cathay” as late as

1440, according to Nicolo Conti, who travelled throughout India.”15

Thus it was that the stage was set for the next wave of Christian missionary activity in China, which

was to come in this instance from emissaries of the Roman Catholic Church.

Section Two: The Catholic Skein

The story of the Catholic presence in China is a somewhat different, yet equally intriguing one,

and is a tale which dates back, at the very least, to the time of John of Monte Corvino (1247-1328),

first of the Franciscan missionaries sent to Asia in 1291 by Pope Nicholas IV. He arrived in Dadu in

1294, coming from Quanzhou to the Yuan capital, where he eventually handed over a letter from the

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pope to Emperor Chengzong [Mongolian name: Temur Khan] (1294-1307 CE). This ruler was in

time to prove a useful friend of the Catholic presence in China, and granted the missionaries

permission to perform their religious activities publicly within his domains.16

This spirit of openness on the part of the Chinese regime, in many ways quite similar to the

imperial Tang zeitgeist of centuries before, was to lead in the fullness of time to the conversion of

other Christians already present in China at that time, including the Nestorian leader Kuo Li Ji Si of

Wang Bu Gu, where John was eventually to build a Catholic church. In a further sign of the

Catholics’ desire to attract the favor of the Yuan imperial establishment, John of Monte Corvino

translated a number of documents, including the New Testament, the Psalms and “various Latin

rituals and prayers into the Mongolian dialect.”17 In its way, this activity can be seen as something

of an echo of the Nestorians' various translation projects at the height of the Tang dynasty, which

were themselves devoted to bringing elements of the Christian scriptures within reach of the literate

elite(s) of the Chinese empire.

According to Chinese Catholic scholar Yan Kejia, John of Montecovino was named Bishop of

Han Ba Li (Beijing) in 1307, and managed the Diocese of Beijing for over 20 years before his death

in 1328. Other missionary leaders, including John of Marignoli (ca.1338) were sent to China in this

period, but due to the highly unstable political and social situations, he returned rather quickly to

Rome. Yan writes, “After the founding of the Ming dynasty [in 1368], the Catholic Church in

central China passed from the scene simply because most of the Catholics were Mongols.”18 Thus,

in a situation very much reminiscent of the vicissitudes of the Nestorian outreach during the

turbulent years of social and political unrest that prevailed in Tang China during the 8th and 9th

centuries, the missionary efforts that centered in and around the imperial center of the vast Yuan

empire met with a temporary, but not fatal setback, due primarily to the dynastic changes that were

taking place at that key juncture in Chinese history. “From 1368 to 1644,” writes Yan, “the Catholic

Church in China was somewhat moribund. This phenomenon lasted until the end of the Ming

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Dynasty [1644].”19

Furthermore,

At the same time, Europe was going through many dramatic social changes: feudalism was

dissolved, and new countries were created based on races; the capitalistic system was developing in

some European cities and modern technologies were assuming greater importance.20

Further hampering the ability of the Catholic Church to initiate and expand missionary

undertakings, several new elements of the social, political and economic equations were coming to

dominate various aspects of the life, thought and collective energies of European civilization during

the 17th and 18th centuries. This, however, also provided a new impetus for overseas missionary

activities, as the increasingly powerful Reformation movement spread throughout Europe..

“Facing the rapid social progress and the influence of the religious reformation,” posits Yan, “the

Catholic Church began to undergo internal changes by reorganizing the religious orders both old

and new. They sent many missionaries abroad to proselytize in order to counteract the Reformation

influence. Borrowing its own saying, the church was ‘trying to gain what they had lost in

Europe.’”21 This period of retrenchment and reorganization was to lead directly to successive and

increasingly powerful waves of Jesuits, Franciscans, Augustinians and Dominicans, both in Macao

and eventually in the coastal areas of the Chinese mainland itself.

These missionary efforts were to culminate in the work of such luminaries as the Jesuit Matteo

Ricci (1552-1610), who is widely considered to be the “father of modern Catholic missions in

China.” Indeed, according to Professor You Xilin of Sha’anxi Normal University in Xi'an, “The

missionary activity of the Jesuits, represented by Matteo Ricci, to ‘supplement Confucianism and

replace Buddhism,’ was put into actual practice in the form of a Christian humanism which was

based on science and ethics. This outcome was not a matter of chance, but was historically

inevitable; one could even say that it revealed the ‘non-divine plan’ of the historical movement of

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modernization.”22 This period of China’s parallel socio-cultural and spiritual histories, however, also

witnessed the degeneracy of the traditional ways, and this to such an extent that even the greatest of

her Confucian scholars, Wang Yangming (1472-1529), himself a celebrated general and government

official, was to write poignantly of the decline of Chinese culture, ethics and morality.

Wang came to bemoan the state of affairs that greeted the eyes of the observant Confucian

gentleman scholar of his time: “Learning is finished and the Way is destroyed.”23 Thus, there existed

a yawning chasm of unfulfilled moral and spiritual longings, both on the personal level and

throughout the greater part of Chinese society as a whole. Into this void stepped the profoundly

foreign, yet highly structured teachings of the Jesuit missionaries of the Catholic Church, all of

whom were more than happy to replace the traditional and scholastically-oriented ru jiao

("scholars' way") with what they saw as the healing and regenerative power of their lord and savior,

Jesus Christ.

Wang Yangming speaks pointedly and powerfully of the deep spiritual and moral void that had

come to afflict Chinese society in his time, and which was only to grow more acute and paralyzing

as the centuries passed. You Xilin cites Wang's lament as proof of the need for moral and spiritual

regeneration in the Chinese society of the time:

“The learning of the Sages grows daily more distant and obscure, and the pursuit of success and

profit grows ever more intense. Meanwhile, although people have been hoodwinked by the

doctrines of Buddha and Laozi, these are of no avail in overcoming their lust for success and profit;

and although they may compromise with the mass of Confucianists, neither are the teachings of the

Confucianists of any avail in putting a stop to their fixation on success and profit." 24

Thus, at the highest levels of Chinese society and leadership, including the Confucian

bureaucrats and literati, the time was ripe for a wave of new and powerful teachings, and it was

precisely this sort of rebirth that was promised by the many emissaries and teachers of Roman

Catholic Christianity.

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Yet, at the very same time, and in the unvarnished words of Professor You, “Wang Yangming had

already embarked upon a critique of modernity,”25 the very sort of modernity that this nascent

Chinese Catholicism would bring in its wake over the course of the several centuries to come.

Although the Chinese elites were eager to benefit from the new technologies and scientific

knowledge brought into the country via Catholic missionaries like Johann Adam Schall von Bell

(1591-1666) and Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688), as the decades passed, they also grew suspicious

of the degree of foreign influence and direct power that eventually came to be exercised by the

selfsame missionary outsiders. Thus it is that the role of Catholicism within China has historically

been viewed with varying degrees of wariness and caution on the part of the people, as well as by

the state authorities.

Nevertheless, that Catholicism has been relatively successful in China is beyond reasonable

dispute, but the earliest roots of this success, particularly in some of the most remote rural areas of

the country, have not been sufficiently explored. It is therefore my aim to present some elements of

my recent field research in this domain, particularly in connection with modern Chinese Catholic

communities in Sha’anxi Province. One area in particular, that of Zhouzhi County, is especially rich

in successful and seemingly durable Catholic communities, and their proximity to areas originally

evangelized by the Nestorian missionaries of the Tang dynasty served to raise the very real

possibility in my mind that this earlier form of Christian belief had continued to quietly subsist in

the region, even in the interval between the supposed disappearance of a Nestorian Christian

presence during the late Yuan dynasty and the widespread introduction of Catholic Christianity to

the region in the 17th and early 18th centuries. Therefore, I set out to interview (via an interpreter) a

number of the local Catholic believers, and to try to determine precisely why it was that such beliefs

persisted, and indeed apparently flourished here in this rather isolated agrarian backwater.

Section Three: Following the Skeins in Rural Sha’anxi Province

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My first visit to this area took place in May, 2008, in the company of a local teacher and scholar,

Mr. Fu Xifeng, who kindly acted both as guide and translator during the course of this weekend

excursion. Our first stop on the morning of May 17, 2008, was the small village of Dongwei,

located in the heart of the rural farming region of Zhouzhi County, Sha’anxi Province.

Upon our arrival in Dongwei, a relatively small and dusty country town, we were accompanied

by several local parishioners to the village Church of the Great Mother, which had originally been

founded in 1703, during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor (1654-1722 CE). According to the

testimony of the older members of our party, it was subsequently destroyed at some point during the

Cultural Revolution of 1967-1976, but was later rebuilt during the early years of the widely-touted

"Opening Up and Reform Movement" of the late 70s and early 80s, which was initially spearheaded

by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.

According to an elderly male villager who took part in these efforts, and who acts as de facto

sexton of the small church complex, because the government was “neither for nor against its re-

establishment,”26 all the materials, labor and art involved in the reconstruction of the Church of the

Great Mother were donated by village parishioners, who undertook to complete its reconstruction in

the shortest possible time. In addition, as the original structure had been designed by a now-

unknown Italian missionary priest of the Kangxi period, the villagers took care to research the style

of churches built in the area during the early 18th century, and to use these designs as their basic

inspiration in its reconstruction.

During our time in the church itself, I had occasion to enter into conversation with Mr. Zhang

Qiwei, one of the stewards of the parish, who informed me that of the approximately 1,200 people

who live in Dongwei, at least 1,000 are practicing Catholics. The other 200 are Buddhist, Taoist, or

non-believers, described by Mr. Zhang as “incomers from other villages and/or regions,” 27 as

opposed to the natives of the village, who have been staunch Catholics since at least the time of

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Kangxi, and "perhaps even before."28

In addition, the steward and his fellow parishioners described Zhouzhi as the “central element of

an East/West Catholic axis,” with the important districts laid out thus:

Meixian --------- ZHOUZHI --------- Huxian

The county seat, also called Zhouzhi, is also something of a “Catholic headquarters” in the

region, and plays a role equal in importance to the much larger Sha’anxi cities of Xi’an, Baoji and

Xianyang. Its cathedral, located in the heart of Zhouzhi City, is of relatively recent construction, its

earlier manifestation having also been damaged at the height of the Cultural Revolution. In the

course of our discussions regarding the re-establishment of the Church of the Great Mother during

the "Opening Up and Reform" period, the locals revealed that several individuals from outside the

community contributed to the ongoing efforts, including a priest and two deacons from Hong Kong.

These three gentlemen established a kindergarten for the church, donating over 250,000 RMB (+/- $

35,000 USD) to aid in its completion. They also mentioned that while Dongwei was mostly

Catholic, and had been so for several centuries, it did have residents who were of other faiths, such

as Buddhism, or who were not in any way religious. Nevertheless, there are some other villages in

the region, such as Xiwei, which are 100% Catholic, with populations of over 500 to 600 people.

The Dongwei parisioners, among them Mr. Zhang, went on to explain that in the vicinity are also

to be found several sites associated with regional Catholic Christianity, including the pilgrimage site

of East Cross Mountain (Dong Xizi Shan), also located between Meixian and Huxian in the

“Zhouzhi Catholic corridor.” One gentleman again indicated that in the Dongwei village, there are

some who are not Catholic, but in nearby Xiwei, the population is entirely Catholic, adding that "it

has been for several centuries, since at least the time of the Kangxi Emperor."29

Throughout the course of our conversations, there also seemed to be emphases of belief and

reverence centering, not as one would expect of modern Catholics, on the Three "Persons" of the

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Holy Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), but instead around the “Father, Son and Holy Mother." I

advanced the notion that this might be a manifestation of the love historically shown by Chinese

Buddhists for the mother-like figure of Guanyin, the Boddhisattva of Compassion, but this idea was

rejected directly, with one parishioner claiming that "the teachings of the late Holy Father [i.e., Pope

John Paul II]"30 are centered to a great degree on reverence for Mary, adding that this was thus an

important aspect of Catholic belief.

When queried about their beliefs regarding the nature and role of Mary, a number of the

parishioners, both male and female, seemed to concur that she is considered by believers to be the

“mother of Jesus the man.”31 In a subsequent conversation with Mr. Zhang, held about an hour later

at his home, he put forward what he characterized as a "generally-held belief" in this area that “in

the beginning, Jesus was a human being,” but that he “gradually became God because of his great

actions to save others.”32 Therefore, through his selfless efforts, he was transformed from a man into

a god. When asked if anyone believed that Mary was "the mother of a divine being," Mr. Zhang

smiled quizzically and continued.

“In our families," he said, "we learn that he [Jesus] was a man at the start, eventually became a

‘man-god,’ and finally was transformed into a god through saving people. After his great

contribution to human beings, he became [a] god. I don’t believe that anyone can be born divine.

We believe that Christ was a mixture of the human and the divine.”33 I must have registered a

certain visible measure of surprise upon hearing the translation of his remarks in their entirety, for

several members of the group gathered at the Zhang residence hurried to offer further explanation in

response to Mr. Zhang's comments. Native local guide and translator Mr. Fu Xifeng commented that

“perhaps Mr. Zhang has been influenced by Communist culture in his belief that no one can be born

divine."34 Nevertheless, I remained somewhat startled by this clear rejection of the standard

Catholic doctrine regarding the fundamental divinity of Christ, and equally determined to research

precisely which (if any) doctrinal pronouncements on the part of the Communist Party of China

14

might have had such a profound impact on a group that claims to practice orthodox Roman Catholic

Christianity in this remote country setting.

On a second visit to the Dongwei area a few weeks later, we returned to the same church, where

this time we were met by a trio of Roman Catholic priests from the Zhouzhi Diocese. Upon

engaging the local parish priest, Father Zhao, as a well as two other priests from neighboring

villages (Father Ly and Father Cai), regarding standard Catholic doctrine regarding the divine

nature of Christ, as well as Mary's role as the theotokos, the three clerics unanimously responded

that "the believers hear a lot of things in society, but we all teach them that Mary is the Mother of

God, and that Jesus is His Son."35 When I asked again why the locals all seemed to be in agreement

that "Jesus became a god," Father Ly responded that "perhaps they don't want to say what they

know." Sensing this to be a fairly delicate subject, I decided to defer any further questioning on

matters doctrinal to a later time.

In the course of the following weeks, I was fortunate enough to arrange a brief meeting with

Professor You Xilin, Director of the Christian Cultural Research Center at Sha'anxi Normal

University, who has made rural Chinese Catholicism one of his primary fields of study. In response

to my comments about the apparent contradictions in the Dongwei villagers' accounts of Catholic

doctrine, he explained apologetically (through a student interpreter) that "quite honestly many

believers are reluctant to discuss religious matters with foreigners whom they don't know well,"36

somewhat increasing my suspicions about the accuracy of what I had heard on our first few outings

to the area.

On my fourth visit, which took place a few weeks later, I was therefore determined to dig deeper

into the nature and origin of the seemingly inconsistent notions that the Zhouzhi Catholics (both

laypeople and clergy) had produced in response to my initial queries. My very first stop was a

church known locally as the “Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Mountain,” situated on an outcropping

slope of Dong Shan ("East Mountain"). This shrine, which is difficult to reach even by car, is one of

15

the most prominent local spots of pilgrimage, the original structure having been established by an

unnamed Western Catholic missionary father of the early 20th century. Upon arriving at this high

mountain location, we were met by Father Cai (whom we had first encountered during our earlier

visit to Dongwei) as well as by Mr. Li, the volunteer caretaker of the site, who showed us around its

precincts. Mr. Li had been a volunteer there for over three years, and we were told that he spends a

great part of each year thus engaged in maintenance and repair projects at the shrine.

Upon observing a mural portrait of Joseph, earthly father of Jesus, within the nave of the

sanctuary, I politely questioned Mr. Li as to what he believed about Joseph's role in the life of

Christ. His description of the role of Joseph was as that of “foster father,” but he stated quite clearly

(via our interpreter, Mr. Fu Xifeng) that God’s role was as Jesus’ “true Father.”37 He affirmed that he

“believes that Jesus was originally with God, and that he came down to Earth to save mankind.” He

also believes that Jesus was “born divine.”38 What I noted at the time, however, was that Mr. Li

appeared to be somewhat circumspect in the presence of Father Cai, who seemed to be monitoring

his responses to my questions about the nature of certain elements of Catholic doctrine and belief.

It was therefore with a certain amount of relief that we managed to direct Mr. Li's attention to

another part of the nave, while Father Cai took a call on his cell phone. It was at this juncture that I

asked Mr. Li about his beliefs regarding Jesus' role on earth. He responded that "according to the

Eden story," mankind was "cut off from the Father as a result of eating the fruit of the Tree of

Knowledge.”39 However, in the course of our brief exchange, he also acknowledged that “Jesus got

his body from Mary,” and that he “came to save people from the effects of their sins.” Furthermore,

according to Mr. Li, it was only after Jesus’ death and resurrection that he “became fully divine.”40

It was at this point that Father Cai returned to the group, and we all headed off to another area

outside the church.

In conversation with Father Cai shortly thereafter, I put forward the thoughts of some of the

parishioners whom I had met during my first few visits to Zhouzhi, particularly those with regard to

16

the initially human nature of Jesus. In reply, he stated in a rather matter-of-fact fashion that “only

priests really know the true facts and teachings thoroughly. Furthermore," he continued, "most

parishioners have a very limited view of the faith and its many elements.”41 Perhaps in an effort to

bolster his bona fides somewhat, he went on to explain that he was a graduate of both a Chinese

university and of the Xi'an Catholic Seminary, and that he had been resident in Zhouzhi for four

years (since 2004). This exchange seemed to indicate to me that our interaction had caused him a

certain amount of discomfiture, so I quickly shifted our discussion to elements of the local scenery

and church history in the region. The visit ended in a fairly typical fashion shortly afterwards, with

a group photo and the ritual exchange of e-mail addresses.

Section Four:Untangling the Skeins?

In the time since my initial visits to Zhouzhi, I have been exploring various ways in which to

explain the fundamental divergence of many local Catholic believers' views of the nature and extent

of the divinity of Christ from the standard and widely-accepted Roman Catholic doctrines, essential

tenets of the Christian faith throughout the world, that present him as fully divine. Could it simply

be that the Communist Party's control of the people has led these Catholics to reject the notion of

Christ's inborn state of divinity? Thus, my first avenue of inquiry "post-Zhouzhi" was to attempt to

discover any Communist pronouncements or propaganda that might serve to somewhat demystify

the origins of this significant divergence from Catholic orthodoxy. As my access to Chinese-

language sources is sharply limited by my lack of Chinese language skills, I have been forced to fall

back on translated and/or secondary sources that deal with this issue.

Writing in a New York Times editorial of August 18, 2005, journalist Ramòn Pedrosa avers that

"Mao created the schismatic Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which, under the supervision of

the Religious Affairs Bureau, has essentially subordinated Catholic beliefs to Communist

Ideology."42 However, scholars such as Anthony Lam, who write from within contemporary Asian

17

society, have observed that "[t]he government seems to have put aside its ideological debate and

redefined its relationship to ... religions by laws and regulations."43 Thus it is that there seems to be

no clear consensus on the exact nature and extent of the Chinese government's current involvement

in the realm of religion within the country's extensive borders, particularly in the wake of the

"Regulations on Religious Affairs" (Decree No. 420) that were promulgated in 2005, and which

purport to "regularize" the relationship between believers and the Communist state.

Prominent Catholic commentator and teacher, Jean-Paul Wiest, writing in a 2005 article entitled,

"Understanding the Roman Catholic Church in China," believes that "[t]h[e] submission of the

Churches to government control [has] not [been] done without putting the integrity of the faith at

some risk and, as a consequence, of jeopardizing authentic Christian living."44 However, while there

are clearly dangers involved as a result of government supervision/control of the various Christian

churches in China, I have found no conclusive evidence of government manipulation of Christian

doctrine to follow Party dictates/initiatives.

Could it be then that these modern Chinese Catholics of Zhouzhi were actually maintaining and

passing on beliefs regarding Christ that originate in the era of the first Nestorian mission to China in

635 CE? I have pondered this question long and hard since first coming into contact with this rural

agrarian population in 2008, but would also be the first to admit its "long-shot" qualities as a

reasonable hypothesis for the source of the notion that Christ was born human, and essentially

"became divine." In the end, however, it was a chance remark regarding the ascension of Jesus,

made during the course of a general discussion in one of my other Harvard courses, that recently

served to steer me toward what I believe to be at least a more probable solution to this deeply

puzzling, yet eminently fascinating local doctrinal "wrinkle."

It is now my belief that, far from having any origin whatsoever in the teachings of the Nestorian

missionaries who first came to China under Aluoben, this rather heterodox conception of Jesus as

"becoming divine," as held by a number of the Catholic faithful in Zhouzhi, is on the contrary the

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result of some residual and deep-seated Chinese folk belief regarding the effective "deification" of

certain exemplary individuals after their death. According to scholar Chiu Hei-yuan, in Chinese folk

practices, "[F]rom those gods who were transformed from great heroes and sages... believers... ask

[for] protection and spiritual efficacy."45 Most notable among those to have been transformed

according to popular belief into figures of worship after their deaths are the great moral teacher

Confucius (ca. 551-479 BCE), and the Taoist sage Laozi (ca. 6th century BCE), the site of whose

legendary "departure for the West" itself lies at Lou Guan Tai, located at the very heart of the

Zhouzhi countryside.

If Confucius and Laozi could be "deified" in this fashion, why not the figure of Jesus of

Nazareth? Indeed, writes scholar Geoff E. Foy, "Popular, or folk religious practice in China today

has elements as old as the ancestral rites of the Shang [ca. 1600- 1046 BCE] and Zhou [ca. 1045-

256 BCE] dynasties and, dating from the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE), is marked by a propensity

for syncretism."46 Could it be that vestiges of a millennial and essentially syncretic mindset persist

among these rural Catholic believers, despite centuries of missionary efforts aimed at "purifying"

the local population of non-Christian beliefs?

Coupled with this folk belief may also exist fundamental misapprehensions of the "progressive"

nature of several well-known episodes from the New Testament accounts of the life of Jesus,

including his transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9, Mark 9:2-8 and Luke 9:28-36), his resurrection

(Mark 16:1-8), and his post-resurrection appearances (Matthew 28:8-20, Mark 16:9-20, Luke 24:13-

49, and John 20:11-21), culminating with his eventual ascension (Mark 16:14-19 and Luke 24:50-

51). Perhaps it is thus be that a fundamental "misreading" of the nature of these New Testament

episodes, in conjunction with age-old Chinese folk beliefs regarding the fairly regular practice of

deifying exceptional human beings, has led some modern Catholics in Zhouzhi to believe that

"Jesus was born human and became divine." Are these New Testament episodes viewed by some

rural Chinese Catholics as a "path to divinity"? Short of returning to these villages to conduct

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further interviews, there currently exists no other practical means of verifying the accuracy of this

element of my broader hypothesis.

Thus, although there is at present no way for me to fully account for this unusual departure from

mainstream Catholic belief, I now feel that my hypothesis may perhaps serve explain why these

believers, otherwise fully dedicated to what they see as the "true faith," hold such unusual notions in

this one particular, yet pivotal regard. Furthermore, far from being unduly dismissive and/or critical

of his own parishioners' ability to understand Catholic doctrine, in hindsight, perhaps Father Cai of

the Sanctuary of Our Lady was trying to let me know that the level of their comprehension of some

of the theological and doctrinal concepts involved was, in fact, conditioned by long-held beliefs

stemming from age-old notions present in traditional Chinese religious culture.

Thus, I hope in the months and years to come to be able to revisit the Catholic villages of

Sha'anxi Province, and to conduct further research on the origin and nature of the exceptional

beliefs regarding Jesus which are present there. At present, however, what I can state in this

connection is that although I once suspected that there was at least a certain degree of residual

influence from the beliefs of the earlier Nestorian missionaries among modern Catholics in

Zhouzhi, I no longer feel this to be at all the case. Far more likely, both from a socio-religious and

from a historico-cultural perspective, is the possibility that traditional Chinese notions regarding the

deification of exceptional mortals, which date back several thousands of years, and which are

deeply woven into the very fabric of Chinese life, as well as possible misinterpretation of the true

significance of certain key episodes in the life of Jesus, have all contributed to this seemingly

startling doctrinal aberration. Nevertheless, it is clear that a considerable amount of research, both

textual and ethnographical, still remains to be done on this fascinating aspect of rural Catholicism in

modern China.

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1 Victor Cunrui Xiong, Sui-Tang Chang'an: A Study in the Urban History of Medieval China (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, 2000), pg. 1

2 Martin Palmer, The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity (New York: Ballantine Wellspring, 2001), pg. 39

3 Susan Whitfield, Aurel Stein on the Silk Road (Chicago: Serindia, 2004), pg. 214 Xiong, pg. 2355 John M. L. Young, By Foot to China: The Mission of the Church of the East (St. Louis: Assyrian International News

Agency), pg. 116 Ray Riegert and Thomas Moore, The Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xi'an Monks

(London: Souvenir, 2003), pg. 137 ibid., pg. 148 Palmer, pg. 409 ibid., pg. 5010 ibid., pg. 4211 ibid.12 Li Tang, A Study of the History of Nestorian Christianity in China and Its Literature in Chinese (Frankfurt-am-Main: Peter Lang, 2002), pg. 8213 Xiong, pg. 24214 Chen Huaiyu, "The Connection Between Jingjiao and Buddhist Texts in Late Tang China," in Jingjiao: The Church of the East in China and Central Asia, ed. R. Malek (Institut Monumenta Sacra: Sankt Augutin, 2007), pgs. 94-9515 Mark Dickens, "Nestorian Christianity in Central Asia," at Oxuscom (www.oxuscom.com: 2001), pg. 1616 Yan Kejia, Catholic Church in China (Beijing: China Intercontinental Press, 2004), pg. 117 ibid., pg. 218 ibid., pg. 319 ibid., pg. 420 ibid.21 ibid.22 You Xilin, "Modernity and Secularity: The Dual Signification of Christianity for China's Modernization" in China Study Journal, Vol. 18, Nos. 1/2, pg. 823 ibid., pg. 924 ibid.25 ibid., pg. 1024 Author's field research notes: May 17, 200827 ibid.28 ibid.29 ibid.30 ibid.31 ibid.32 ibid.33 ibid.34 ibid.35 Author's field research notes: May 31, 200836 Author's notes of meeting with Prof. You Xilin: June 12, 200837 Author's field research notes: June 19, 200838 ibid.39 ibid.40 ibid.41 ibid.42 Ramon Pedrosa, "Beijing and the Vatican Edge Closer," in the New York Times (August 18, 2005)43 Anthony Lam, "The Catholic Church in China," in China Study Journal, Vol. 15, Nos. 2/3 (Aug-Dec, 2000), pg. 1944 Jean-Paul Wiest, "Understanding the Catholic Church in China," lecture presentation at the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (Hong Kong), June 20, 200245 Chiu Heiyuan, "On Good Deeds in Chinese Folk Religion," in ACUCA Exchange, Vol. 1, pg. 4646 Geoff E. Foy, "Chinese Belief Systems: From Past to Present and Present to Past" in Visible Traces (New York: Asia Society, 2000), pg. 50