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scriptions which are virtually obligatory. To refuse to contribute to these would be regarded as dereliction to civic duty and would be visited with public opprobrium. The merchant who declined to pay dues for the support of ceremonies connected with the older faiths would, moreover, be relieved of no little expense and so would be held to be taking an unfair advantage of his competitors. Since, too, the guilds had religious features, Christianity would find itself criticizing the prevailing organization of industry and commerce. Then the demand that the Christian observe the Sabbath was a handicap, for it meant monetary loss to the convert, who was living in a society which did not recognize the day.

In the next place, Christianity would meet opposition which arises from the fact that it is foreign. The Chinese have had a great pride in their own culture and a contempt for everything alien. This is not an exclusively Chinese trait: in any country to obtain condemnation for an idea or an institution it is frequently sufficient to say that it is of foreign origin-that it is un-American, for example. This is particularly true, however, where, as in China, a people has been isolated geographically from other advanced cultures and has itself been the source of most of the civilization of its immediate neighbors. Except for Buddhism and its attendant ideas and art, until the close of the nineteenth century the Chinese had not been aware of receiving any important cultural contributions from abroad. They had, on the other hand, given of their culture to all the peoples of the Far East. Christianity, then, would be confronted with all of the natural Chinese contempt for everything alien.

In the fourth place, Christianity would have to meet well organized religious systems and philosophies. Animism usually offers but a relatively feeble resistance to more mature religious faiths and if Christianity were confronted only by that its triumph would be comparatively easy. Taoism, as it was in later centuries, would prove a comparatively nerveless opponent. In China, however, Christianity would have also to face Confucianism and Buddhism, both of them highly developed and reënforced by elaborate philosophies. Both schools were, too, supported by an educated leadership whose place in society would be destroyed if the new faith were to triumph. The state rested largely upon the Confucian theory and Confucian scholars were its officials; commu

nities of Buddhist monks dotted the land and depended for their support on the piety of the laity. Of these two groups the officials would offer the more effective opposition, but the Buddhists were not rivals to be despised.

In meeting this opposition Christianity might find its triumph delayed by its own intolerance. If it is to be consistent Christianity cannot compromise with other faiths. Individual Christians, if they have caught the spirit of Jesus, will never persecute their fellows, no matter how much they may differ from them, but for themselves they cannot be true to their faith and join in any worship of spirits or gods, nor will they, if they have found Christ's secret of life, accept the Buddhist or Taoist philosophy or the Confucian system. They can find much in all three that will enrich their lives, but they cannot be adherents of them. As has been pointed out, the older faiths of China have usually, with the exception of Islam, been fairly tolerant of each other. The bulk of the population is attached to all three with no sense of inconsistency. Christianity would naturally have a harder time than if it could make its peace with the older religions. The traditional easy-going eclecticism of the Chinese, too, would bring the danger that Christian converts would part lightly with the distinctive features of their new faith.

In most of its forms, moreover, Christianity has become more or less inflexible. In its development among various peoples and in various ages it has become set into distinct molds of doctrine, ritual, and organization. Missionaries naturally propagate their faith in the form in which they have received it, and as this is dear to them and has often become identified in their own minds with their Christian experience, they tend to feel that only thus can it be transmitted and received. Often, too, they have no choice in the matter, but are controlled by ecclesiastical authorities outside China who conscientiously insist upon the maintenance of the traditional system. This inflexibility is a serious. and unnecessary handicap for it insists upon more of a dislocation of the older culture than is essential to an entrance into the Christian experience. It burdens Christianity with an enormous amount of baggage that is Græco-Roman, Russian, British, German, or American, and of which it must sometime rid itself if it is ever to be at home in China. This inflexibility is by no means the exclusive possession of any one church. At first sight

it would seem to be more characteristic of Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox missions, but most Protestant communions have in practice been almost as unyielding. However, since Protestantism has tended to hold that the inner witness and not an infallible church or an inerrant book must be the final authority, it will probably prove more elastic than the other branches of the Church. Its tendency, too, to form itself into national churches will very possibly be of assistance in helping the Chinese to make the Christian message their own.

Christianity as it has come to China, moreover, has suffered from schism. Nestorians, Roman Catholics, Russian Orthodox, and Protestants have shown little friendliness and much suspicion for each other, and the sects of Protestants are continually increasing in number. It has been a much divided witness that the Church has given the Chinese.

Since Christianity necessarily runs counter to so much that is an integral part of Chinese culture and, if its inward spirit is caught and its essential experience shared by many of the Chinese, would largely reshape that culture; since, moreover, it has become identified with certain ecclesiastical and doctrinal systems that are alien to Chinese experience, it is obvious that in China it can have no easily won triumph. It can succeed only by bringing enough forces to bear and for a sufficient period to work a revolution. This necessitates, under the most favorable circumstances, the presence of thousands of earnest representatives of the Christian faith scattered over the entire country and working for centuries. The nominal conversion of the Roman Empire was carried on from within and involved winning a much smaller population than that of China, and yet required over three hundred years. The decidedly superficial conversion of the peoples of Northern Europe was achieved by missionaries who had all the prestige of a superior civilization and who were often backed by the authority of the state, and yet was accomplished only in about a thousand years. It would be an experience utterly new in human history if the Chinese race were to be won even to a nominal acceptance of the Christian faith either quickly or easily. The progress of Christianity would be greatly hastened if China should be brought into intimate contact with peoples who are professedly Christian and it would be still further hastened if that contact were to bring about any general disintegration of Chinese cul

ture. Christianity would then come with a certain amount of prestige and would find less solid opposition from existing institutions. If this situation should arise, Christianity would be handicapped by the inconsistencies of the nations who professed it, but it would have a great opportunity to bring its essential message to China and to influence the reshaping of Chinese civilization. In other words, should such a condition ever confront Christianity, it would face one of the greatest opportunities and challenges of its history.

CHAPTER IV

CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA BEFORE THE MONGOL DYNASTY

THE first entrance of Christianity into China was from the easternmost outposts of the Church. In Mesopotamia, Persia, Central Asia, and the northwestern confines of India, Christian communities early became numerous. However, the new religion completely supplanted its rivals in relatively few places and was usually the faith of the minority. Christians were often under political disabilities and were frequently persecuted.

2

Not much is known of the initial stages of the spread of the Faith into the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and eastward. By the close of the first century the Jewish-dominated city, Arbel, east of the Tigris, was the seat of a bishop. It is clear that Edessa, the present Urfa, in Northwestern Mesopotamia, was early a Christian center. By the close of the second century it contained a strong church and for a few years Christianity was the state religion. During the third century the new faith found lodgment at several places in Mesopotamia and Bactria and probably also in Persia. It appears to have spread first among the numerous Jewish communities of the region, but, as elsewhere, soon overflowed racial confines and became predominantly Gentile. Syriac, indeed, was the ecclesiastical language, and the Middle Persian, or Pahlawi, was used extensively by Persian Christians. Christianity largely displaced the older faiths of the Aramaic-speaking peoples of Mesopotamia. The Church had great monastic schools at Edessa and Nisibis and established headquarters at the metropolis of

1

1 Mingana, The Early Spread of Christianity in Central Asia and the Far East, p. 6. Mingana quotes Josephus, Antiq. Jud., 1, xx; c, iv and Mshiha-Zkha, History, p. 77 of Mingana's edition.

4

Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, Vol. 2, p. 143.

2

3

Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 143-152; Mingana, op. cit., p. 6.

Labourt, Le Christianisme dans l'empire perse sous la dynastie sassanide, pp.

6 et seq.

5

Mingana, op. cit., p. 6, quoting Chronique de Seert in Pat. Orient. v, 328, 329, vii, 117.

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