#4 - The History of Christianity in Asia - Part 1 - Church History I - Dr Phil Corr

hello Heroes before I jump into today's lecture I'd like to give you a bit of clarification on the nying Creed and the Council of Caledon I referred to both in the last lecture previous lecture NAA took place in 325 and declared the sun to be co-equal consubstantial meaning of the same substance and co-eternal with the father it condemned the heretic Aras and it drafted the original form of the nyine Creed the Council of Celadon took place in 451 it declared Christ's two Natures to be unmixed unchanged undivided and Inseparable it condemned a heresy called uian

ISM so now we're going to look at the history of Christianity in Asia part one for the required or guidelin reading there's not a whole lot two pages in ladettes and then you can check the index of under nestorianism Persia and elsewhere in Asia for the supplemental reading and what I'm going to be using primarily for my Christianity and Asia lectures I am using Samuel Hugh Propet Junior's a history of Christianity in Asia here is what the front cover of M's book looks like okay the devotional I don't know if you noticed last week but

my tie is John 3:16 I don't know if you've seen this tie before but it says for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life when I share the lecture on the rise of Islam and its effect on the church I will talk about sensitivity with regard to begotten uh some translations these days begotten was the King James version say one and only son and one friend of mine has translated it God's favorite son and I'll explain that at the

time but have you ever thought about how all the major religions of the world started in Asia and I think I mentioned this early on but it's a greater Focus today of course Christians are called to take the good news to all people around the world including Asia also have you realized that Pentecost the pouring out of God's holy spirit took place in the western part of Asia in the holy land and have you realized how many places were represented by the languages that were telling about the glory of God some of them might have

been Jews others were Gentiles who believed in the one true God they might have stayed over after attending Passover Services 52 days before and heard the true stories of Jesus bodily being raised from the dead here are Asian groups listed in Acts chapter 2 parthians mes and the elamites were part of the parthan Empire Mesopotamia do you remember the Fertile Crescent was a Roman province capid doia pontis Asia Fria and pamilia were all in what is today turkey which is part of the Far Western continent of Asia Arabs on the Arabian Peninsula also lived in

the continent of Asia do you see what is going on here God is already working on fulfilling acts chap 18 about the gospel going into all the world these Holy Spirit-filled people would return home to share and proclaim the love of Jesus so here's the introduction to today's lecture Lord willing during this course I will give three lectures on the history of the church in Asia I will do this for two reasons the history of God's work in this now most populous continent has to a great extent been neglected and someone has written two books

about it and I've already mentioned Samuel moffett's book that goes from Beginnings to 1500 moffett's father was a missionary on the Korean Peninsula his son Dr Moffett was born in Korea and taught on the peninsula until 1951 during the Korean War he taught ecumenics and Missions at Princeton Theological Seminary I met him when he was retired and in his 80s he was my external reader and one of three examiners for my dissertation defense on the way to the discussion of my dissertation Dr Moffett looked over his shoulder and said may I have your permission to

quote you in volume two and I said with deep feeling I would be honored his wife told me she had already cited my dissertation twice in an article she wrote for the bulletin of missionary Outreach the missionary Journal that was published still is and he was one of the people the driving force and an endorser of the publication of my dissertation in 2009 with that I now turn to the beginnings of Christian it in Asia Moffet introduces his volume one with these words the story of Christianity in the west has often been told but the

history of Christianity in the East is not as well known the seed was the same the good news of Jesus Christ for the whole world which Christians call The Gospel but it was sown by different swers it was planted in different soil it grew with a different flavor and it was gathered by different Reapers it is too often forgotten that the faith moved east across Asia as early as it moved West into Europe close quote let's look now at the first century I have already shared about people from Asia who were present at Pentecost here

is what another Asian follower of Jesus did do you remember Thomas the one who asked Jesus what he was telling them the one who said let us go and die with him the one who wanted to see the bodily resurrected Jesus and did a week later the one who wanted to see the bodily Resurrection it would appear traveled all the way to what is now called the country of India the southern part history and archaeology appear to confirm the tradition that Thomas brought Christianity to India and started churches the following is from the britanica online

Thomas Christians indigenous Indian Christian groups who have traditionally lived lived in carala a state on the Malabar Coast in Southwestern India Thomas Christians ecclesiastically liturgically and linguistically represent one of the oldest Christian traditions in the world particularly in Christianity outside the West although they no longer form a single institutional Church Thomas Christian Al together constitute a vibrant religious community in the early 21st century there were about four million Thomas Christians in India mainly within carala and a small worldwide diaspora now diaspora means spread out in the beginning of the book of Hebrews the writer Apollos

I believe writes about the diaspora of Believers and I believe Peter does it in his first letter naming many places corala is in the southwestern most section of India Thomas could have accessed that area through the sailing routs of his time some later Traditions say that Thomas visited China and that he sailed with subcontinental Indians to bring the gospel to China there is even a group in Paraguay that claims Thomas came to him Paraguay Wikipedia says the following ancient oral tradition retained by the G guarani tribes of Paraguay claims that the Apostle Thomas was in

that area and preached to them under the name of P Su or aare Su while in Peru he was known as tum which could be related to Thomas 20 Lees distant from assion there was a an area of archaeological significance this place stretches out on one side into a pleasant plane affording pasture to a vast quantity of cattle on the other where it looks towards the South and is surrounded by Hills and rocks in one of which is a cross piled up of three large Stones it is visited and held in great veneration by the

natives for the sake of St Thomas for they believe and firmly maintain that the apostles Seated on these Stones as on a chair formerly preached to the assembled Indians and that is in a reference that you will find in the PDF and there is one possible archaeological affirmation of this again here is Wikipedia according to Wisner some paraguayan miners while working nearby some hills at the kaadu and I apologize for the pronunciation Department found some stones with ancient letters carved in them dictator frania sent his finest EXP experts to inspect those stones and they concluded

that the letters carved in those stones were Hebrew like symbols but they could not translate them nor figure out the exact date when those letters were carved no further recorded investigation exists and according to Wisner people believe that the letters were made by Thomas the Apostle following the tradition close quote and remember that Thomas was a Jew so he would have known Hebrew whether that is the case or not I cannot say for certain but tradition is more reliable that says Thomas was martyred when somebody put a spear into him in chenai formerly known as

Madras in Southern India in .72 for many centuries theistic churches in Asia have interestingly belonged to the Roman Catholic Church Thomas is said to be buried at the St Thomas Cathedral Basilica in chenai in the 16th century Portuguese people built a tomb and in the 19th century the British rebuilt the Tomb in August of 2024 hundreds of American Christians United in a letter to the state department asking it to designate India as a country of particular concern because of all the persecution of churches by Hindu supremacists this persecution is happening in the South where to

Mystic churches is located as well as in the more missionary oriented North and we can be praying for all Christians in India India continuing with India into the 2 Century Moffet indicates that the man named panus was sent by the great alexandrian church in Egypt to preach Christ to the brahans and philosophers there according to Jerome in the fifth century he was the head of the theological School in Alexandria panus was you never know where God will call you ptinus was an amazing individual born a Jew he was thoroughly trained in Greek philosophy Clement called

him the Sicilian bee because of his diligent study habits he became a Christian and moved to Alexandria Egypt The Story Goes that a learned delegation traveled from India to Alexandria the deputation was so impressed with the knowledge and wisdom of ptinus that they asked the alexandrian bishop Demetrius to send him to India for discussions with their own Hindu philosophers mavit quotes the early church historian eusebius ptinus displayed such Zeal for the Divine word that he was appointed as a Herald of the gospel of Christ to the nations of the East and was sent as far

as India it is reported that among persons there who knew Christ he found the gospel already according to St Matthew which had anticipated his own arrival for Bartholomew one of the Apostles had preached to them and left with them the writing of Matthew in the Hebrew language which they had preserved till that time Bartholomew is more known for taking the gospel to Armenia and the Arabia Peninsula and according to Moffet it is possible that ptinus confused the words Maroma Bishop Thomas with bomi the Hebrew name of Bartholomew further evidence of patinis being in India is

that two of his alexandrian students Clement and origin write about India and Arabia in ways that show a firsthand account was shared with them and the Jewish background in his use of the Gospel of Matthew ties in with Jewish communities in India that began between AD and 126 Matthew quotes from the Old Testament at least 60 times we're not going to have any scene from The Chosen this time but you might have noticed that increasingly Matthew and John are standing right next to each other and they even look at each other like are you going

to record this or are you going to record this am I going to record it but the point is Matthew the Gospel made it to India early on mfet concludes his discussion of Christianity first coming to India with these words the tradition remains and grows stronger with the years that already before the end of the 2 Century the Christian church had been planted halfway across Asia in India part one of mfet volume one is called from the apostles to Muhammad we will look at the effect on and response by the church to Islam in a

later lecture section one of part one is called the first 200 years the concluding chapter of section two is the Church of the East the Syrian period section two talks about the early sasanid period in Persia from 225 to 400 now the sanad period refers to the Empire that Moffet talks about here's what he has to say about the big changes that took place in Persia about the year 26 A revolution so changed the course of Persian history that slowly at first then with increasing momentum the country's scattered groups of Christians were caught up in

the changes in that year the parthan Kings remember them they fought the Romans the kings of Persia were defeated by a new Dynasty the sasanids or sassanids a strong line of monarchs who ruled the EMP Empire for the next four centuries this marks a transition in the Asian church history from the Syrian period to the Persian area here's what Moffet says and I'm really excited about this as I was about Thomas but you need to understand that there are some hard to pronounce words you can see your uh words across the bottom of the page

and you can also look at the PDF file for some of the larger words mfet says the language of the church remained Syriac from Syrian but its organizational Center shifted East to the Persian capital of cusia copon its theological center moved across the border from adessa to nbus as it ties with the in with the Roman and Greek West accordingly loosened it forged new Bonds in the East with India's Thomas Christian and before the end of the dynasty it reached out in a missionary advance that carried Christianity Into the Heart of China I will talk

about that at the end of this lecture Moffet makes a fascinating accidental archaeological find in his research in 1920 some British soldiers while digging trenches discovered a church on the Euphrates River from apparently between 230 and 250 so as time goes on we learn more and more about the spread of Christianity in Asia I'm going to look briefly at church life in third Century Persia Moffet shares about a book written in Syriac called didascalia apostolorum which means the teaching of the Apostles it gives the earliest detailed description that has come down to us of how

the new race of Christians met and worshiped and ordered their Affairs in these years when East met West on the Roman Persian border though written on what was normally the Roman side of the Border it circulated in Persia and was used into the next century it opens a window on the life and practice of the early Eastern churches for its purpose was to give simple instructions to church officers and members on Christian conduct and worship the light it throws on other aspects of third century Christian Life and thought in the East is invaluable Moffet writes

its theology is straightforward biblical and Orthodox close quote chapter four in section two is about the sasan Revolution and the church chapter five is The Clash of religions between Christianity Zoroastrianism and manakan ISM chapter six is the first steps towards a national Persian Church chapter 7 is at the beginning of section three the great persecution between 340 and 401 Christians in Persia were persec cuted as were Christians elsewhere we will now look at the noorian controversy that brings together many different threads that I've been talking about and I separated out the nestorian controversy from the

main discussion of heresies because of its main location in Asia for this lecture and nostran beliefs are somewhat of a gray area most of the nestorians did follow the Bible and third it experienced some reforms here is a sketch of noorus many years later Walton characterizes nestorianism as a christological heresy and summarizes it in this way the logos word indwelt the word logos means word indwelt the person of Jesus making Christ a god-bearing man rather than the God man it affirmed merely a mechanical rather than an organic Union of the person of Christ and as

this lecture goes on you're going to see the Spectrum from heresy to apparent non heresy but noorus himself was zealous in attacking heresy and disagreed with Aras but then sarel disagreed with noorus and we see this in our day pinball disagreement with various Christians and we need to to look at what unifies us while being within the boundary as I talked to you about the fence of Orthodoxy might have been because noorus was not def as differential to Celestine as sirel had been and Celestine was the bishop OJ Brown says that noorus was a monk

from Antioch in what is today Syria Wikipedia in indicates that noorus was Archbishop of Constantinople today Istanbul Turkey from 428 to 431 in 431 the Council of Ephesus was condemned and condemned and deposed him but then John of Antioch condemned sirel and reated nus in the United States we would call this a soap opera but noorus chose retirement instead I know it is confusing and that is one reason why it is called a controversy it is important to understand nestorianism because it was a major part of the Persian church and later would interact with Mongols

in Persia and the Mongol Court in China but that's for a later lecture so let's dive in and follow mfet as he sets nestorianism in its context he gives us a window to noorus Soul with the following quotation that shows his asceticism and his desire for his opponents to be reconciled to God Earthly things have little interest for me I have died to the world and live for him meaning God or Christ farewell desert my friend and farewell Exile my mother who after my Death Shall keep my body until the resurrection as for noorus himself

let him be anathema he's condemning himself and would God that all men by anatomizing me might attain to reconciliation with God here is moffett's opening summary what finally divided the early Church East from West Asia from Europe was neither War nor persecution but the blight of a violent theological controversy that raged through the Mediterranean world in the second quarter of the fth century it came to be called the noorian controversy and how much of it was theological and how much political is still being debated but it irreversibly split the church not only east and west

but also north and south and cracked it into so many pieces that it was never the same again out of it came an ill-fitting name for the church in non-roman Asia namely noorian church close quote Moffett calls it the great schism and he continues the theological entanglements of the period belong mainly to western church history but they impinge so significantly on the later development of Asian Christianity that it must be paid attention to it was a matter of emphasis the phrase Mother of God graded on noorus Antioch and ears because it seemed to take away

from the humanity of Jesus so what we have is a matter of emphasis or The Swinging of the theological pendulum in retrospect Moffet examines nestorianism quote for 1500 years nestorius has been pred in the West as a heretic and for most of that time from what the West knew about him the condemnation seemed just his writings were burned only fragments survived he he left as to history what created by his enemies in other words the winners write the history and here's something really amazing here's Moffett writing again then dram atically excuse me in 1889 a

Syrian priest discovered an 800-year-old manuscript of a Syriac translation made about 540 of noorus own account in Greek of his controversies and teachings it had remained hidden for centuries disguised under the title the book or bizaar of heraclides but the author was unmistakably Notorious Moffet continues judged by his own words at last noorus is revealed as not so much noorian or more Orthodox than his opponents give him credit for that he is more Orthodox than his opponents gave him credit for centuries before the discovery Martin Luther a great church reformer in the 16th century after

looking over all he could find of noorus writings deciding that there was nothing really heretical in them close quote nestorius affirmed the deity and Humanity of the second person of Jesus the son of God and word of God who took on flesh and we know him as Jesus the Christ Messiah mfet concludes his evaluation of no ous with these words the general consensus of Scholarship today would probably agree with ar Vine's observation that noorus was the better man but sirel the better Theologian and that though the third ecumenical council of Ephesus was a Shabby Affair

caladon was probably right in recognizing that noorus prpic Union was not strong enough to Bear the strain of maintaining the essential Unity of the person of Christ the council therefore May well have been justified in clarifying and extending rather than reversing the verdict of Ephesus the West at least was satisfied with Caledon but not so Egypt and to a lesser extent Persia close quote and it is to noorus Legacy in Persia that we now turn mfet notes that Persia might well have remained an innocent and untouched bystander to the immense enrichment of the whole church

had it not been for its historic attachment to adessa as its mother Church in Europe adessa was in northern Greece near Macedonia the church leadership adessa had eventually influenced the person Persian Church to be an historian in its views also the heresy of monophysitism was growing throughout the geographical regions of the church at the time it verged towards adoptionism so it all got quite confused but eventually nestorianism was ascendant in the Persian Kingdom or saned Empire it spread into that part of Asia Moffet writes quote blessedly separated from the galing ecclesiastical wars in the west

by the Persian border the Church of the East was still largely untroubled and not yet divided from Rome and Constantinople by the christological controversy but it was beginning to hear of the controversy through the schools of adessa and ultimately that controversy was destined to cut off the Asian church outside the Roman Empire from communion with Western Christendom for the moment however the patriarch in cusia copon was not only beyond the jurisdiction of the western churches he was also too busy with the problems of Christian survival under a pagan Empire and too vulnerable to charges of

Friendship with the Roman enemy to seek involvement in a theological Cor oral so linked to the politics of Western Empires remember that all started with Emperor Constantin between 80457 and 483 peras was Emperor of the Persian Empire he was favorable toward Persian Christians though he did persecute Persians or Christians in Armenia during his Reign bar barala brought nestorianism to to the church in Persia a fourth General Senate of the Church of the East condemned monophysitism but also did not agree with Caledon so the separation between East and West got greater the disagreement could have been

cultural in part the Eastern or Persian church was now an historian as messy as that term was according to Moffet I conclude this first lecture on the history of Asia with the note on the mission work to Inner Asia this goes a bit past the dates of the first three lectures but it makes a good break before the second lecture on the history of Christianity in Asia during challenging times drought and Military setbacks there was Mission Outreach from the Persian Kingdom to what can be called inner Asia Moffet starts with a flashback to aost possible

earlier Mission effort as early as ad. 196 barisan of adessa had mentioned the presence of Christian sisters among the ganians on the shores of the Caspian Sea and among the kusan today's Afghanistan and Pakistan and India in far off barria north of modern Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush mountains who they were how ever and what nameless missionaries had brought them the gospel is unknown mafit continues not until the end of the fifth century does evidence for the spread of Christianity to Inner Asia become clear and unmistakable and then it is dramatically connected to the Romantic

figure of sha kavad who ruled from 488 to 497 and from 501 to 533 he came to the throne in a time of national shame mfet says social unrest and religious ferment the first time sha kavid ruled he had to leave his throne quote among his the followers of the sha who fled with him into Exile were two nestorian Christians John of Risha and Thomas the Tanner both Layman and I understand we have many lay ministers in this class they were soon joined by ordaine missionaries Cara duset the noorian bishop of Iran west of the

Caspian Sea and four priests the bishop felt he had been called by a vision to minister to Byzantine Christian captives among the Huns and to evangelize their captors if possible he hoped to ordain priest from among the nomads mfet continues the ordained missionaries stayed only 7 years but the re two Layman remained with the hunts for 30 years they hung in there as is often the case with cross-cultural missionary service life was difficult the only food for all seven men if the record is not exaggerated was seven loaves of bread and one jar of water

a day but the mission proved to be an unqualified success who knew they preached and baptized they reduced the oral language of the Huns to a written form for the first time centuries before wickliff Bible translators would do that written form for the first time and taught them to read and to write as American missionaries with help from some indigenous people did in Hawai Hawaii during the 1820s and 30s laying the foundation for the Hawaiian Great Awakening of 1836 through 1840 these have been my words more recently I'll resume with mfet in a bit but

if I have the privilege of teaching church history too I'll share more with you about the missionaries and Hawaiians and the Great Awakening in Hawaii among other things of God's work later an Armenian Bishop joined the group and added a knowledge of Agriculture to the mission teaching the Restless Horsemen of the steps how to plant vegetables and seow corn the exiled sha cavad noticed and was impressed about three years later when he returned from Exile and regained his throne he remembered that zoroastrians had organized his fall but Christians had helped him in his time of

B pment and this reminds me of what goes on in the Book of Esther but returning to mfet an historian chronicler described his return in this way he asked the turkic that is Hun King for help and the latter dispatched an army with him to his country and he dethroned zamas he killed some magans and incarcerated many others those would be zoroastrians he was benevolent toward the Christians because some of them had helped him on his flight to the king of the Turks that is the Huns mfet concludes with these words quote this earliest contemporary

account of a historian Mission with its one of glad acceptance of hardships for the cause of Christ is a full rounded blend of spiritual and practical missionary methods evangelism education and agriculture and its compassion for captives combined with unbelievable successes of noorian expansion across Asia in the next two Century it also suggests that unlike the unseemly quarrels in the church at the home base those early Christian missionaries to Central Asia learned how to set aside their differences and begin to work together United in the Christian Mission for The Armenian Bishop who came to join the

historians among the Huns was a monopis when it comes to work in missions there is a need to be unified in the essentials of the Christian faith apparently the Armenian Bishop did not preach but focused on teaching agricultural methods in the United States the weight on spreading the gospel West for the congregationalists was an over emphasis on Advanced education while it is important for you to get as much good education as possible to inform your Ministries you can look at the methodists and Baptist who spread the gospel they came they grew up with the West

in what would be the United States many Methodist churches many Baptist Churches west of the Mississippi not so many congregational churches west of the Mississippi with the end of this lecture we come to the conclusion of the Ser of series one of lectures for church history one we now turn to series two by examining the rise of Islam and understanding the Middle Ages as in series one The Fourth lecture in series two will continue to look at the history of Christianity in Asia we will see how Christianity there was affected by an Interactive with Islam

but God continues to be in control and the Holy Spirit was and is at work and I'd like to say a few words now on persecution of Christians in uh the CED Empire and again that's later but because of the battles with the Roman Empire the and the Roman empire being identif ified as Christian there eventually would be persecution of nestorian Christians in the CED Empire but God continued to work in and through them and God as I said continues to be in control and the Holy Spirit was and is at work may God bless

you my heroes until we meet again