Review of THE JESUS SUTRAS: REDISCOVERING THE LOST
SCROLLS OF TAOIST CHRISTIANITY
by Myron R. Chartier, Ph.D.
I became aware of The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity a few years ago when Jan and I were visiting our daughter and her partner. I started reading the book while we were with them. I was fascinated with its story and translation of some of the scrolls. We headed back home before I could finish the book. At Christmas that year they gave me a copy of the book. I was absolutely delighted. What a gift it has been, for it introduced me to a lost Christian community and its teachings in ancient China.
The story of the lost Sutras scrolls and the Christian community that created them is part of the larger story of the lost history of Christianity of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia and how it faded away. This larger story has been written and documented by Philip Jenkins in his book: The Lost History of Christianity. The Jesus Sutras focuses on the Taoist Christian monks in Xian, China, who were there from the seventh century to the fourteenth century A.D.
Martin Palmer, the author, is the director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education, and Culture (ICOREC), which specializes in religious, environmental, educational, and development projects and works with a variety of international organizations. Palmer is also the secretary general of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), founded by Prince Philip of Great Britain.
An Anglican Christian, Palmer studied theology and religious studies at Cambridge University, with a special emphasis on Chinese and Japanese studies. Palmer is the author of many books on religious topics, including several on world religions. He is one of the foremost translators of ancient Chinese texts.
The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity was published in 2001. For the author the beginnings of his writing this book began in 1991 in China and escalated in 1998 with his discovery of the location of a Taoist monastery in Xian, China. He acknowledges the help of many experts in putting the book together. The book is composed of nine chapters, filled with narratives of Palmer’s discoveries and of how the community at Xian came to be as well as translations of various verses and whole sections of the scrolls. It also includes reflections on the difference between Western Christianity and this Eastern Christian community. Although written in a popular, accessible style, the work has five pages of notes and provides a two-page bibliography. The index is eight pages in length. The book has a number of illustrations in the form of maps and photos of various kinds.
The result is that Palmer’s work reads like an Indiana Jones-style travel adventure as he weaves his clues and discoveries of the early Christian Church in China. Victor H. Mair, professor of Asian and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Pennsylvania, says of this book, it “is a spellbinding story of the rediscovery of the earliest traces of Christianity in China and an imaginative reconstruction of the subsequent development of this alien faith from the Far West in the Middle Kingdom . . . It is one of the most fascinating chapters ever written in the history of world religions.”
In the summer of 1998 Martin Palmer and his international team were traveling to Xian. They were in China primarily for another purpose. His research for the Jesus Sutras had convinced him that it might be possible, near the Pass to the West, the remains of a once major Christian monastery might have survived fourteen-hundred years of wars, uprisings, dynasties, empires, and earthquakes.
The research that had led him to this remote area was an old book on the early Church in China, published in English in 1937 by a Japanese professor, Saeki. In it, Saeki reproduced a small, mysterious map. It marked the site of a pagoda, or tower, identified as the Da Qin monastery, all that remained of a much larger structure that could be as much as fourteen hundred years old. The pagoda was believed by Saeki and other China scholars who had visited the site in 1933 to be associated with the early Christian Church. Professor Saeki noted that Da Qin would have been an old Chinese way of saying, “the West” or “the Roman Empire” or “Christian” monastery. Saeki, who never visited the site, had provided directions to it along with the map.
Unfortunately for Palmer, the map was very obscure. Many attempts to get greater clarity failed. However, under the most extraordinary of circumstances Palmer and his party discovered the location of the site. He often looked at the sketch map. Finally, in 1997, seventeen years after he had found the map, he got out a huge magnifying glass, put the map under a strong light, and seriously turned his attention to the different names written in tiny Chinese characters that indicated the other temples. Suddenly, the name Lou Guan Tai leapt out at him, and he realized he knew exactly where the pagoda was. Not only that, but he had actually been there just a few months earlier while recording a four-part series for Radio 4 (the equivalent of NPR in this country) on the history of China! He had been within a mile or so and had no idea it had any relationship to the site of the elusive Da Qin pagoda and the Taoist Christians! He knew Lou Guan Tai, now much in ruins; it still dominates the landscape, its grandeur and majesty still quite apparent.
Hence, Palmer and his friends were heading resolutely toward Lou Guan Tai that day, toward the nearest recognizable landmark to the alleged Christian monastery. Given the ancient and modern history of China, there was little chance that even the ruins for which they were searching could have survived. Furthermore, despite initial inquiries by his Chinese colleagues in Xian, they had no evidence that Da Qin had any more significance than any of the other hundreds of Tang Dynasty pagodas in the area.
At last they bumped their way up the foothills of a mountain to the hilltop temple of Lou Guan Tai. Covered in dust, they climbed out and made their way up the winding path to the main temple. Looking to the West they saw it across the valley about a mile and a half away, a solitary, magnificent pagoda rose like an elegant finger pointing to heaven. Excitement rose in Palmer and his party. Now they had to verify if this was really the building for which they were looking.
Sitting beside the temple entrance was an old woman selling amulets. Palmer turned to her and asked to whom the pagoda belonged.
“It’s Buddhist,” she said. His heart sank. Thanking her, he turned away.
“But it hasn’t always been Buddhist,” the old lady said. Turning back he asked her what she meant.
“Oh no. It used to be Taoist.”
Disappointment hit him like a brick. Thanking her again Palmer turned once more to go away.
“But it doesn’t really belong to either of them,” continued the enigmatic old lady. Palmer turned again and asked her to elaborate.
“Before either of them it was founded by monks, who came from the West and believed in One God.”
Her words struck him like some ancient prophecy. They were words he could never have dreamed of hearing. Monks from the West who believed in One God could only mean Christians. Now he needed physical proof. Palmer was so afraid it would prove to be only an ancient Buddhist pagoda. As they drove closer to it, they could see that it had seven stories and towering eighty feet into the sky. Sprouting from its terra-cotta colored walls and roofs were plant life. The entire edifice leaned like a Chinese version of the Tower of Pisa, looking as if a good push would send it crashing down. They learned from an elderly Buddhist nun that it had been hit by an earthquake in 1556. Since then no one had been able to climb up inside, and its entrance had been sealed. Palmer roamed around the site looking for clues that might declare it was unequivocally Christian. Nothing declared that this was Da Qin site. There were no distinctively Western features in the pagoda’s design.
In his disappointment Palmer sought sanctuary by climbing higher up the hillside so he could look down on the site. Settling himself on the grass, he was across from the tower’s fifth storey. It started to rain. Peering up through the drizzle, he surveyed the ancient pagoda. Suddenly he realized that the plateau of the pagoda ran east to west, and he leapt to his feet with a triumphant cry. In the immutable design of every Chinese temple, Buddhist, Taoist, or Confucian, it runs north to south. Yet this one ran east to west, as do many Christian churches, facing east to celebrate the rising sun. Here was the first firm piece of evidence that this was no ordinary Chinese religious site but one whose spiritual orientation was classically Christian. If this site also followed standard Christian design, then the pagoda would have been part of the monastic buildings as its library, for that’s what pagodas were built for. To the west of the pagoda would have been the church itself, now covered by a mound of rubble and earth, and to the east would have been the monastic burial ground.
Palmer hurried down the hill, shouting out his discovery. The nun asked why he was so excited. He explained that he believed this site had once, long, long ago, been a most important Christian church and monastery.
A stunned silence fell as the villagers looked at the elderly nun. Drawing herself up to her full five feet she looked him in the eyes with astonishment. “Well, we all know that! This was the most famous Christian monastery in all China in the Tang Dynasty.” The locals nodded in agreement.
Palmer was speechless, so she continued. Local legend had kept alive the memory of the Christian monks who had built the church, the monastery, and later the pagoda, and who had worshiped there from the seventh to the ninth century A.D. Indeed, there was much local pride in this fact. Then they began to tell us of the discoveries made here: how in ca. 1625 A.D. the great Stone, now in the Forest of Stele Museum, describing the coming of Christianity to China, had been dug up on this very site; how in the 1920s another inscription with a Christian cross had been dug up but was stolen during the Japanese Occupation, never again to be seen.
It was quite clear to the team that they had found the lost monastery of the early Church in China. Lost, that is, to the West, and lost to most of China, but loved, honored, and remembered by the local people. Palmer writes, “I was elated beyond belief, and I was also humbled. Years of work would be needed to confirm the truth of our discovery to the satisfaction of historians and scientists, but the people of this ancient place had never lost the deep certainty that theirs was a site of spiritual importance, imbued with the spirit of centuries and of many cultures’ sacred beliefs.”
“I stood where fourteen hundred years ago Christians had faced east and prayed, and I too prayed. I felt I had finally come home after twenty-five years of searching for that home, of never really knowing if it did, in fact, exist. Yet here was evidence of a living Tao of Jesus, a once-vital practice of Jesus’ teachings in a Taoist context. I wept for joy, for love of my faith, for the gentleness of the Buddhist nun, and because my heart was full to bursting.” That was in 1998.
His colleagues in China notified the provincial and national governments of their discoveries and their significance. They went to work in attempts to restore the pagoda. Inside they found two unusual statues, and the government invited Palmer back to see them. He returned in May of 1999. After the formalities of a reception and an inspection of the work under way, Palmer’s team was invited to climb up inside the pagoda to see the two statues. They had been told that the site team and art experts they brought in thought them strange, so Palmer was particularly eager to get to them. The great crack in the pagoda was not yet completely mended. So they could not yet use the original ground-level entrance but had to climb the scaffolding to get in.
Palmer writes, “Because of a terrible fear of heights and especially of climbing ladders, I stood weak-kneed at the bottom of the structure, knowing that I was going to have to go up. Adding to my anxiety was my responsibility for recording a program for BBC Radio on the discovery of the site and the work in progress. This meant I not only had to climb the awful structure but would have to do so with a microphone in one hand and the equipment slung over my shoulder. Every part of me shook with fear.
“With my good friends from the site ahead to encourage me and Xiao Min behind to catch me, I inched my way up the scaffolding. The members of the Chinese team working on the site all waited patiently while this terrified Englishman slowly . . . made his way up. They even gave a cheer when I got to the top!
“With knees like jelly and legs like blancmange I stood in the window of the pagoda and prepared to go in. [I] stepped into the gloom of the pagoda. Crouching, I began to crunch my way across centuries of debris. Broken tiles, splintered remains of wooden stairs, bird and bat droppings, and dust and dirt were everywhere . . . I moved toward the center of the pagoda, keeping a careful eye on the ground, for the floor was missing in various places and the distance down to the next level was a plummet of a good twenty to twenty-five feet.
“When I stood up, I saw a huge statue towering above me, I was so astonished, so frightened, so excited. Rising ten feet high and five feet wide, made from mud, plaster, and wood, was a huge statue set into a grotto. It was immediately clear to me that this was no ordinary Chinese statue, although the surrounds were classically Chinese. The basic shape was that of a sacred mountain. Indeed, it was the symbolic form of the Five Sacred Mountains of Taoism. Revered for more than two thousand years, these mountains are frequently used in traditional Chinese art. Set into this basic outline was a cave, within which were the broken remains of a human figure. Everything about this late eighth to early ninth-century sculpture was grandly and beautifully Chinese except for the figure itself. Seated on the ground in a posture unknown in Chinese religious art, the figure’s left leg was fully extended. Rising behind it was its right leg, bent at the knee. No Chinese deity has ever been depicted in such a way. Because of my background in Christian religious art, I believed that I knew immediately what I was seeing. For many years I have had the privilege of working with Orthodox Christian Churches from Russia to Greece. In the Orthodox tradition, the icon of the Nativity of Christ is completely unlike that of Roman Catholic and other Western art. For reasons that I have never been able to understand, Orthodox icons take their images of the Nativity not from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, but from a strange and beautiful nonbiblical book, The Book of James. In that book Jesus’ birth takes place in a cave. So it is that Orthodox icons, paintings, and statues of the Nativity usually show a fine high mountain, within which is a cave, wherein lies Mary, right leg raised and bent at the knee, left leg extended along the ground. In her hand or lying beside her is the Christ Child.”
On the statue at Da Qin the remains of a hand resting on the bent knee show that the figure had held something, although it is now gone. However, the outline of a much smaller figure, the size of a child can be seen. That and the style of the robes made Palmer sure this was a mother holding her child. In other words, a depiction of the Nativity, made in China about 800 A.D. and using the tradition of the Taoist Sacred Mountains as a backdrop, was now before him. He saw what he believed to be the oldest known Christian statue in China and a stunning affirmation of the role of Mary in the early Church of China. Astonishment, wonder, and a deep sense of being in the Presence of the Other overwhelmed Palmer, for he had not expected to find something as dramatic as this statue. His team began to call this statue “Our Lady of China.”
Later the team found another statue but were uncertain of what it was depicting. However, they concluded that it was Jonah resting under his gourd tree outside Nineveh. They believed it was a symbol for these Taoist Christians of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jonah’s three days in the belly of the big fish were seen by early Christians as a symbol of Christ’s three days in the tomb and then his resurrection.
Palmer learned that a great stone stele had been dug up at Da Qin in 1625 A.D. and now resides in the Forest of Stone Steles Museum in Xian. It reveals that in 635 A.D. a bishop from Persia named Aluoben and his monks who dressed in white flowing robes and carried before them icons of Christ, Mary, and the saints as well as copies of their sacred books arrived in Xian. The Christian teaching brought by Aluoben helped establish in China what would become one of the most radical and experimental of all Churches ever to have existed.
With the arrival and establishment of Christianity in the seventh century, the Chinese gave this new faith a new name. The basic title is “The Religion of Light” or “The Religion of Illumination.” The longer title is: “The Religion of Light from the West.” Palmer has identified the content of the Jesus Sutras and translated them and interpreted them throughout his book. The first set of four was made in Xian, where Aluoben’s translators began their work. The first he has called “The Sutra of the Teachings of the World-Honored One.” It is the most orthodox of all remaining true to its source. The second is named “The Sutra of Cause, Effect, and Salvation.” It’s style, tone, and content are strikingly similar to Buddhist cosmology and philosophy. The third Jesus Sutra is titled in Chinese “Second Part of the Preaching.” Palmer has titled it “The Sutra of Origins” as it is what it addresses. It is significant primarily for its use of Taoist terminology for the first time. For example, it uses Tao as a term to discuss the Christian way. The fourth and last of the early Sutras is “The Sutra of Jesus Christ.” Jesus is transliterated into what may have read as Ye-Su and Christ is Mishisuo, the Messiah. Written in 645 A.D. it is a fascinating mosaic of ideas current with the Church of the East at that time, a collection of writing from the edges of the Christian world.
Palmer uses three chapters to write about the “Panorama of the Early Christian World,” “The Church of the East,” and “The Multicultural World of Seventh-Century China” to provide the context in which the early church in China developed. In these chapters he illuminates what made Taoist Christianity at Xian unique.
These four early Jesus Sutras show a remarkable ability by the Christians to learn to use material from other mission fields and Churches to integrate their faith into a Chinese context. “The Sutra of Jesus Christ,” was most likely compiled about 650 A.D. The next Sutra was written about seventy years later. From these later writings it is clear that during those seventy years the Church built on its first two decades with exceptional success. These final Sutras of the Church in China are among the finest pieces of religious writing ever to have been composed in China.
Chapter 7, “The Fruits of the Church: The Great Liturgical Sutras” are, to quote Palmer, “the jewels of the mature Church of the East in China.” Through them we can hear, for the first time in more than a thousand years, the voices of the Taoist Christians and their radical practices. We can stand beside them in their worship and listen with them to the teachings of Jesus as they expressed them. The liturgical Sutras represent the mature faith and language, imagery, and skills of this most unusual form of Christianity. They were prized and formed a prayer book or prayer collection and convey a sense of how the Chinese Christians worshiped. We have no idea what music they used, but we do know they chanted and sang in praise of the Messiah.
With the building of the Da Qin monastery at Lou Guan the Christians began to engage in serious dialogue with Taoism, and then with Buddhism and Confucianism. These great liturgical Sutras witness to the success of that engagement by their creation of a Christian vision and belief system that moves with ease through the conceptual worlds of eighth-century China. These four later Sutras reinterpret the meaning and import of the Resurrection, drop all mention of original sin, and present a full grasp of the pressing existential issues confronting the Chinese. These are the Sutras that provide the means as well as the theories of the Taoist Christians, for they contain the teachings and the actual liturgies for breaking the cycle of reincarnation.
One core concept that shapes all the liturgical Sutras is that of original nature which is in sharp contrast with St. Augustine’s teaching of Original Sin which has influenced much of Western Christianity. The term “original nature,” occurs in both Taoist and Buddhist thought. It indicates that all life is innately good but becomes corrupt or loses its way through the compromises of life. All these liturgical Sutras celebrate freedom from karma, reincarnation, and the power of death, and the possibility of spiritual freedom from these forces on earth as well as in heaven. These Sutras celebrate the inherent reality of spiritual liberation.
The first liturgical Sutra, written in 720, is the earliest of the mature Sutras. Palmer has entitled it: “Taking Refuge in the Trinity.” This Sutra uses terms that show how sophisticated the Church had become in less that ninety years after its arrival in China. It took Buddhism centuries to develop a truly indigenous theology and terminology. “Taking refuge” is a classical Buddhist term and reinforces the compassionate imagery used for God and the Trinity throughout these Jesus Sutras. This Sutra asserts that the endless cycle or rebirth is broken and remade into a new cycle that reunites one with God.
The three remaining Sutras are most likely the work of one man, Jingjing, one of the greatest treasures the Church ever produced. It is clearly a religious name meaning, “Luminous Purity,” one purified by the Religion of Light’s teachings. He was Chinese, a monk at the Da Qin monastery. It seems likely he composed his Sutras there. Jingjing did translate some significant teaching, but he wrote his own surviving Sutras in Chinese. These works by one of their greatest writers were treasured. In the history of the Church of China two years after his death Jingjing and Aluoben were considered its two greatest historical figures.
The second liturgical Sutra is “Let Us Praise.” With it the long list of Sutras indicates the breadth of material that the Church then had available in its more established years. Some are clearly books from the Bible like the Book of Psalms and the Acts of the Apostles. Some of the titles make it apparent that the Church in China had undertaken the development of the Gospel for the Chinese cultural world.
In what Palmer writes is the most beautiful of the Jesus Sutras, “The Sutras of Returning to Your Original Nature,” we are taken step by step through a salvation journey to freedom from karma, past lives, and rebirth. In a fusion of uniquely Christian imagery, Taoist teachings, and Buddhist philosophy, Jingjing weaves a masterful narrative. It was written about 780-790 A.D. Here the Incarnation has become a way by which God rescues those unable to move from this world of cause and effect, rebirth and desire, to the Pure Land of God. This Sutra does not dwell on the Crucifixion or the Resurrection because, in this context, what is important about the Messiah is that he can save you from the hopelessness of existence in this world.
The fourth liturgical Sutra is entitled: “The Christian Liturgy in Praise of the Sacred Powers.” Listen to a portion of its words:
“The highest skies are in love with You.
The great Earth opens its palms in peace.
Our truest being is anchored in Your Purity.
You are Allah: Compassionate Father of the Three.
Everything praises you, sounding its true note.
All the Enlightened chant praises–
Every being takes its refuge in You
And the light of Your Holy Compassion frees us all.
Beyond knowing, beyond words
You are the truth, steadfast for all time.
Compassionate Father, Radiant Son,
Pure Wind King–three in one.
In the midst of kings and emperors, You are supreme
Among the World Famous, You are Lord of Everything.”
The eighth chapter in the book deals with the teachings of the Stone that abides in the Museum of Stone Inscriptions. The greatest of Confucian teachings can be found there. The Stone of the Church of the East was erected in 781 A.D. The Stone talks of building the Da Qin Pagoda and rebuilding of the churches at the time. It recounts the history of the Church of China up to 781 and contains a succinct version of the teachings of the Church. Its style indicates that Jingjing wrote the text for the Stone. The Stone is steeped in Taoist and Buddhist imagery and language and has many echoes of the greatest of Taoist texts, the “Tao Te Ching.” The Stone speaks of Creation, Original Nature, Guardians of Creation, not Masters, and much more. It records that in 698 A.D. a group of Buddhists and others of disreputable reputation slandered the church. The Taoist Stone preserved for future generations the history, teachings, and life of this faith community.
Like many other Eastern Churches the Da Qin Church started, thrived, and died.
The demise of the radical Taoist Christian Church is tragic and revealing of timeless political impulses. As demises often do, the fall comes after a golden age. After the reign of a Buddhist Empress, the next ruler turned against Buddhism and all foreign religions. For the Christians in China it was almost the end. No evidence remains of any Church of the East monasteries still functioning in China proper after 845 A.D. The persecution seems to have stopped the Church in its tracks. The Da Qin pagoda stood but was empty. The rise of Islam basically brought the end to the Churches in the East. Today there are small Christian bodies in India, Iran, and Iraq that date back to the first millennium. Palmer reports evidence that the Xian Christians operated underground for a number of years. Marco Polo (1275-1290) provides evidence that during his travels on the Silk Road he came across Christians who practiced their faith quietly or in secret. In China, when the Yuan Dynasty of the Mongols collapsed in 1368, so to a great extent did the Church. They were lost in history.
The Taoist Church of Da Qin is an amazing Church in Christian history. Their Christianity focused upon the Incarnation; whereas, the Christianity of Rome centered upon the “Passion of Christ.” For the Orthodox Church of the East their focal point was upon the “Resurrection.” Conservative Evangelicals have focused upon the “Passion of Christ.” Liberal Protestants have centered upon the “life and teachings of Jesus.” Mennonites have focused their Christian faith upon Pentecost with the birth of the Church. Pentecostals have also centered upon Pentecost, but in their case the emphasis is on the Holy Spirit in one’s life accompanied by speaking in tongues.
The incarnation was important because it had the power to break the ever-turning wheel of suffering. Other themes that identify the Taoist Christians are original nature and guardians of Creation. They recognized the equality of the sexes, preached against slavery, practiced nonviolence toward all forms of life, and thus, were vegetarians. The Jesus Sutras is a revolutionary find with deep historical implications. It provides timeless messages and lessons for persons of all backgrounds and faiths.
