Ch in Asia
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Weeks23-CWC-ChristianityInAsia-EarlyChristianity.pptxEarly Christianity in Asia
It was the Judaistic Christianity which originally spread to Asia, first among the Jewish settlers
Asian Christianity shared in the general characteristics of Jewish Christianity
It is in Asia, the great land mass which extends from the Mediterranean eastwards to the Pacific, that about three quarters of the world’s present population is found
It is in Asia the roots of the present great civilizations are to be found
Here, the major religions and philosophical traditions of the world had their origin: Hindu, Buddhist, Confucius, Jewish, Christian and Islamic
Early Christianity in Asia
Who is: Jesus Christ?
"Gentlemen, go to the rising sun of the East, not to the setting sun of the West, if you wish to see Christ in the plenitude of his glory and in the fullness and freshness of his divine life." He told them to recall the true Asiatic Christ. "Behold he comes to us in his loose flowing garments, his dress and features altogether oriental, a perfect Asiatic in everything." (Keshub Chandra Sen. Who Is Jesus Christ?.Calcutta, 1919)
The complaint of Sen was that Jesus Christ was presented to the Asians as a western Christ and the history of the Asiatic Christ in Asian soil had been replaced by the history of western missionary organizations in Asia
John C. England and Archee Lee (ed.); Doing Theology with Asian Resources, N.Z., Pace Publishing, 1993, p. 129). Like Chandra Sen, John England also complains that such a long and diverse presence of Christianity in Asian history has been so long hidden
Early Christianity in Asia
Luke has selected one strand in the history of the church that leads from Jerusalem to Rome and from the Jewish mission to Gentile mission, and he has left us in ignorance of many matters about which we would gladly be better informed
"To this extent, he has simplified the movement of church history and we do well to remember that he has not told us the whole story." (Howard Marshall, Luke: Historian and Theologian, Zondervan, 1970, p.73.)
While Paul and other Christian missionaries were converting Greeks, Romans and the barbarian tribes in the west, there was equally a great movement of Christianity to the east -- Edessa, Persia, Arabia, Central Asia, China and India
Early Christianity in Asia
It is a surprise to most people to learn that there was a large and widespread Christian community throughout the whole of Central Asia in the first centuries of the present era and that such countries as Afghanistan and Tibet which are spoken of today as lands still closed to the Gospel message, were centers of Christian activity long before Muhammad was born. (John Stewart, Nestorian Missionary Enterprise, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1928, p.xxix.)
This was a Christianity that looked neither to Rome nor Constantinople as its center and which remained for centuries proudly Asian
Early Christianity in Asia
S.M. Moffett writes:
Its earliest history, its first centers were Asian. Asia produced the first known church building, the first New Testament translation, perhaps the first Christian king, the first Christian poets, and even arguably the first Christian state. Asian Christians endured the greatest persecutions. They mounted global ventures in missionary expansion the West which could not be matched until after the thirteenth century. But then the Nestorian church (as most of the early Asian Christian communities came to be called) exercised ecclesiastical authority over more of the earth than either Rome or Constantinople.(Samuel Hugh Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia, Harper, San Francisco, 1992, p. xiii [see also Jean Danielou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity. P. 2])
Early Christianity in Asia
Jewish Christianity and Its Characteristics
Christianity in its origin belonged to the Jewish world
Jerusalem was the center of the primitive Church and the undisputed leader of the Jerusalem community till AD 62 was James, the brother of Jesus
It was James’s party and the Judeo-Christian church in Jerusalem which exercised the dominant influence in the first decades of the church
The Jewish Christians were called Nazarenes (Nazoraioi) by their Jewish opponents. Ray A. Pritz in his study of Nazarene Jewish community (Ray A Pritz, Nazarene Jewish Christianity, Leiden, E.J. Brill. 1988.) points out that Nazarene was the earliest name applied to Christians by their Jewish opponents
The name Nazarene was used for Christians in Syria as a whole for a long time and it continued to be used in India till very recently
Early Christianity in Asia
Jewish Christianity and Its Characteristics
It was not only in Jerusalem and in Palestine that Judeo Christianity was dominant during the first century of the church
The regions east of Palestine were a preserve of Judeo-Christian missions and had not been touched by the mission of Paul
The Judeo-Christian origin of the church in the eastern region of the Roman empire and beyond it to Edessa is all the more certain because the local language in general use in the region was Aramaic, the language of Judeo-Christians in Jerusalem
Early Christianity in Asia
St. Thomas: The Apostle of The East
"And however Western scholars may write their histories of the church, from time immemorial Asia has linked the church’s expansion eastward to the missionary travels of the apostle Thomas” (Moffett, op.cit., p.25).
The name Thomas is the Greek form of the Aramaic name Thoma. In St. John’s Gospel, he is called Didymus (twin). The later tradition speaks of him as the twin brother of Jesus
Nearly all what we know of Thomas comes from St. John’s Gospel (John 11:16; 14:5; 20:24; 21:2) in which he plays a fairly prominent part
While other disciples tried to prevent Jesus from going to Judea fearing trouble from the Jews, Thomas told them, "let us go that we may die with him"
Early Christianity in Asia
St. Thomas: The Apostle of The East
Thomas was one of the seven who participated in the extraordinary catch of fish and to whom Jesus appeared on the shores of the sea of Tiberius
Thomas is best remembered for the event recorded in John 20:24-29
"My Lord and my God" is the greatest confession ever made by Thomas
Early Christianity in Asia
The three earliest centres of Christianity in the East were Osrhoene with its capital Edessa; Adiabene with its capital Arbela, and India
Whether Christianity came to these places independent of one another and which one of them was the first evangelised are difficult questions for the Asian church historians to decide
Early Christianity in Asia
Origins of Christianity in Edessa
Osrhoene was a buffer State between the Roman and Parthian empires till AD 216 when it became a Roman colony
When did Christianity come to Edessa and who brought it?
Assyrian tradition: Eusebius of Caesarea (Eusebius. Ecclesiastical History 1.13)
It tells of an invitation sent by King Abgar V (Ukkoma, the Black) of Edessa to Jesus himself to visit Edessa and cure him of leprosy
In Jesus’ reply to the king, he promised that after his ascension, he would send one of his disciples to cure the king of the disease
Early Christianity in Asia
Origins of Christianity in Edessa
Addai on coming to Edessa first preached to the Jews there and thus began the church in Edessa
The king was healed, and he became a Christian
The tradition of Addai’s mission is narrated in great detail in a Syriac document called Doctrine of Addai. According to this Addai’s mission took place in AD 29 (See W. Cureton, Ancient Syriac Documents)
There are considerable differences of opinion among the historians as to the historicity of this tradition
Early Christianity in Asia
Origins of Christianity in Edessa
J. Danielou writes:
The Christianity which developed in Osrhoene and Adiabene was certainly a product of the Judeo-Christian mission. Though the legend, reported by Eusebius, that Christ himself has sent missionaries to King Abgar of Edessa is based in reality on the conversion of a different Abgar at the end of the second century, it is nonetheless true that the region of Edessa that had been evangelised by the Apostle Thomas has some foundation of historical fact. The earliest documents we have on Edessean Christianity -- namely the Gospel of Thomas, and the Odes of Solomon go back in part, to the end of the first century and display the characteristic features of Judeo Christianity (Danielou. "Christianity as a Jewish Sect", op.cit.. p. 277)
Early Christianity in Asia
Origins of Christianity in Edessa
S. H. Moffett comes to the conclusion that it is not unlikely that Edessa was evangelised by Addai (Moffett, op.cit., p. 50)
The church in Edessa believes that Christianity was brought to Edessa by Addai who is said to have been sent there by St. Thomas
One of the treasures of the Edessian church, according to the Doctrine of the Apostles, was a letter said to have been received by them from St. Thomas from India
Arthur Voobus, the famous Syriac scholar and historian also upholds the Addai tradition (Arthur Voobus, History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient, Louvian, 1958, pp. 3-10). The Doctrine of Addai, a Syriac document written between 390-430 AD tells how Addai came to Edessa
Early Christianity in Asia
Origins of Christianity in Edessa
The pioneer work in the expansion of the Christian faith in the lands of the Euphrates and Tigris was carried out not by the Greek speaking Hellenistic Christians from Antioch but by Aramaic speaking Christians who possessed the lingua franca of the contemporary
Early Christianity in Asia
Characteristics of Early East Syrian Christianity
When Christianity came to the east, Edessa was the capital of an independent state of Osrhoene in western Mesopotamia, a buffer between the Roman and Persian empires
Septimus Severus, the Roman emperor, conquered it in AD 199 and made it a tributary of Rome
In AD 216 it became a Roman colony
It was the first Christian city in the world, Christianity having been brought there by Addai, a disciple of St. Thomas
Christianity flourished in Edessa and became the center of Syriac speaking Christians for a time
Early Christianity in Asia
Characteristics of Early East Syrian Christianity
Though Edessa was politically Roman, its cultural and religious ties were with the Syriac speaking peoples of Persian Mesopotamia and not with the Greek speaking centers in the Roman empire
Edessian Christianity was ascetically oriented
With regard to the lives of Christians, the Doctrine of Addai says that they were chaste, circumspect, holy and pure
Tatian (110-180 AD) was born of Syriac speaking parents in Assyria. He went to Rome in search of knowledge and became a pupil of Justin Martyr
His two important works were Apology and Oration
He was a remarkable biblical scholar, linguist and ascetic
Early Christianity in Asia
Characteristics of Early East Syrian Christianity
Marcion, Mani, and Bardaisan as men closely connected with the spiritual past of Christianity in Edessa
Marcionite Christianity with its deep hatred against everything that is of the world
Only the ascetics were admitted to the congregation as full members.
Bardaisan, born about AD 154 in Edessa and converted to Christianity in about AD 175, was a poet and philosopher and a great original thinker
Western church fathers condemned him as a gnostic, but he was not a gnostic except in that he thought that matter was evil
He wrote strongly against Marcion who taught that the God of Creation is not good but evil. He also influenced the East Syrian Christianity
Early Christianity in Asia
Characteristics of Early East Syrian Christianity
Their understanding of Christian life is best reflected in the military terminology they employed
Their theology was expressed in terms of ‘struggle,’ ‘fight,’ ‘battle,’ and ‘war’
Baptism became the prerogative of the ascetic elite only
The act of baptism was followed by the Eucharist which was also limited to ascetic Christians
Early Christianity in Asia
East Syrian Church and Monasticism
The primitive Christian movement in Mesopotamia and Persia found itself in the midst of a number of movements and groups such as the Marcionites, Valentinians, Manicheans, which were very congenial to asceticism
All these movements displayed a uniform hatred toward the world and the body
Christian ascetics had a thirst after mortification and self annihilation.
Not only did they persist in severe fasting and extreme self-deprivation, but they also actually went so far as to despise life itself
Monasteries introduced letters and learning among peoples who were previously illiterate, such as Turks, Uighurs, and Mongols. All of them are said to have derived their alphabet from Syriac
Early Christianity in Asia
East Syrian Church and Monasticism
The monks were people of great faith, well versed in the Scriptures, large portions of which they knew by heart, fervent in prayer, gentle and humble in manner, full of the love of God on the one hand, and love to their neighbor and all humankind on the other
There was missionary dynamics involved in east Syrian asceticism
Syrian ascetics became wandering missionaries, healing the sick, feeding the poor, and preaching the gospel. They moved from place to place (Moffett, op.cit., p. 77)
R. Murray describes them as "homeless followers of the homeless Jesus on ... ceaseless pilgrimage through the world." (R. Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: a Study in early Syrian Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 1975, p. 29)
A. Gerd Thessen, a German sociologist and New Testament scholar speaks of the first followers of Jesus as ‘wandering charismatics’
Early Christianity in Asia
The Missionary Nature of the Asian Church
Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem’s authentic writings are all in Syriac or preserved in Armenian versions
His works fall into three groups: biblical commentaries, homilies including controversial writings, and hymns and odes
The School of Edessa
The East Syrian church had a number of famous theological schools and centers such as those at Edessa, Nisibis, Seleucia and Arbela
Of those the most important ones were those at Edessa and Nisibis
The most famous of the teachers who came from Persia was Narsai. He was the director of the school at Edessa from AD 451 to 471 and under his’ direction the school made great advancement
Early Christianity in Asia
The School of Edessa
Here as in other schools of Syrian tradition, the students began their course with the reading of the psalter
The art of reading required for liturgical usage was considered an integral part of the course
The study included the study of New Testament and Old Testament books and the original writings of Syrian Fathers
At first the commentaries of Ephrem were the principal aids to scriptural studies, but later the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia (AD 392-428) came into use
The school also was caught up in the Christological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries which engulfed eastern Christianity
The school became a center of the Diophysite (over against monophysite) movement
