The Luminous Way to the East

Texts and History of the First Encounter of Christianity with China

Bibliographic Data

ID9359644
AuthorsMatteo Nicolini-Zani (corresponding author)
Year2022
Publication date2022-03-24
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueLuminous Way to the East (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/oso/9780197609644.001.0001
OpenAlexW4224299668
Open LibraryOL36104629M
ISBN9780197609644
LanguageEN
Citations received13

This book is a comprehensive survey of the historical, literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources of the first stage of the Christian mission to China. It explores the complex and multifaceted process of the interaction with the different cultural and religious milieux that the Church of the East underwent in its diffusion throughout Central Asia and into China during the first millennium. It offers an overview of the Christian presence in China during the Tang dynasty (618–907) by reconstructing the composition and organization of Christian communities, the geographical location of Christian monasteries, and the related historical events attested by the sources. Through a new and richly annotated English translation of the Chinese Christian texts produced in Tang China, the volume provides a documented look at what was the earliest, and probably the most extraordinary, encounter of Christianity with Chinese culture and religions (Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism). It shows how East Syriac Christianity in its eastward expansion along the Silk Road from Persia to China was open to the adoption of other languages and imagery, and was able to inculturate the Christian teaching into new cultural and religious forms without losing its identity. This study offers source materials with introductory hermeneutical keys for further in-depth theological, missiological, and intercultural investigations in the field of Christianity in China

Ancient history · Archaeology · Buddhism · China · Christian Identity · Christianity · East Asia · Geography · Chinese history and philosophy · Eurasian Exchange Networks · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Philosophy · Religious studies

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