ULDAH MINISTRY

No,107　　SEPTEMBER . 2004




【 AN UNKNOWN GOD 】

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the market-place day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, when they said to him, “May we know what you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.”…Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Man of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. “The God Who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temple built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone ? an image made by man’s design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”　                                 　ACTS 17:16~31.

   Chinese characters have securely been preserved from ancient times, conveying biblical accounts in the first eleven chapters of Genesis for more than 4000 years. Scholars generally agree that pictographic and ideographic languages in their primitive forms came very early (around 2500BCE) in China. Usually, ancient scripts began with simple line drawings of real objects and evolved fairly quickly into more complex forms to incorporate the expression of abstract ideas, as well as evolving into abbreviated forms for rapid writing. However, this has not happened to the Chinese written language until very recently. It was very fortunate that the Chinese were able to develop their own characteristic culture without much disturbance from other cultures after they migrated from Mesopotamia (as a result of the events of the Tower of Babel) because of its geographic feature; isolated by mountains, rivers, deserts and oceans.

 It is very significant to note that there is very little possibility that the Chinese script was altered by the influence of Christian teachings, because the Chinese characters were well established far before Christians entered China on an official visit in 635CE. The earliest record of Christian mission to China is found on the Nestorian Monument “大秦景教流行中国碑 ” in Sianfu 西安, or Chang’an 長安 by its ancient name, the capital city of the imperial T’ang 唐Dynasty (618-907CE), erected in 781. A band of twenty-one Christians led by Alopen 阿羅本(meaning ‘Abraham’) from Ta-chin (Syria) visited Shianfu that was the most cosmopolitan city and the centre of the greatest civilisation in the then world and the “True Scriptures” were given to Emperor T’ang T’ai-tsung 太宗and translated into Chinese. What brought a great impression to the Emperor was the whole Bible; both 24 rolls of the Hebrew Scripture, exactly the same roll number as that which the Jews regarded as canon in the first century (The current Christian Old Testament has 39 books), and 27 rolls of the New Testament.

These believers of the Church of the East flourished under royal sponsorship for around two hundred years until persecution started in 845. The monumental stone that was set up to commemorate the bringing of Christianity to China was only found, accidentally dug out after being buried for nearly a thousand years, in 1625; it was found later that amidst the terrible religious persecution, the believers had buried the celebrated marble monument under ground to preserve it. Though many call it the “Nestorian monument,” either the word “Nestorian” or “Nestorious” is nowhere to be found on its inscription. It is instead inscribed with one thousand nine hundred Chinese characters, fifty Syriac words and seventy names in Syriac about the accounts of the creation of universe and man, the birth and teachings of Christ. This stone monument explicitly reveals the head of the Church of the East. Translated from the Syriac; it reads ‘In the day of our Father of Fathers, My Lord Hanan-isho, …In the year one thousand and ninety two of the Greeks (781CE) my Lord Yesbuzid, Priest and …Priest from Balkh, a city of Tehuristan, erected this Monument, wherein is written the Law of Him, our Saviour, the Preaching of our forefathers to the Rulers of the Chinese.’ The title at the head of the monument engraved in nine Chinese characters “大秦景教流行中国碑 ” is translated by Dr. Saeki as ‘A Monument Commemoration the Propagation of the Ta-Chin大秦 “Luminous Religion景教” in the Middle kingdom.’ Here, “Luminous Religion” was the term that they used for their faith in Christ.

 There is another startling fact that at the entrance to Kobo-Daishi’s mausoleum on Mt.Koya in Wakayama prefecture in Japan, a replica of this stone monument was set up in 1911. Kobo-Daishi弘法大師( Kukai空海) is understood to have brought back a Christianised Buddhism and originated a new body of doctrine; “Shingon” (meaning “True Word”) in around 810 after he came back from Chang’an長安 (Sianfu西安). The builder of the replica on Mt.Koya is Mrs. Elizabeth A. Gordon. She was born in England in 1851 and used to serve Queen Victoria as a court lady before going to Oxford University to read comparative religion. She visited Japan for further studies on her theme of ‘identical source of Buddhism with Christianity (仏基一元)’ at the end of the Meiji era, clearly fascinated by Japan and its culture. Mrs. Gordon stayed in Japan for a long time and carried out research in Buddhism. She built the replica as a part of her studies and introduced the connection of “Luminous Religion景教” with Kobo-Daishi who went abroad to Chang’an in China. She highly respected Mr. Shigenobu Okuma who is a founder of one of the leading Japanese Universities, Waseda and her research materials, collection of books, Buddhist paintings and artefacts were donated to the university library. A pair of the stone idols of guardian sheep was set up at the entrance of the former library in her memory.

Contrary to popular folklore, and as Mrs. Gordon firmly believed, Christ’s teaching dates back far before the arrival of Jesuit missionary Saint Francisco de Xavier, a Catholic evangelist in Japan in 1549. According to Rev. Ken Joseph, an American pastor, the earliest arrival of Christianity in Japan was roughly 1800 years ago through the “Silk Road” in China. In passing, the arrival of “Mahayana Buddhism大乗仏教” in Japan is understood to be around 538. As proof, there is a copy of the Gospel of Matthew in old Chinese script, dating back to the ninth century, preserved in the Koryuji Buddhist Temple(広隆寺) in Kyoto. This temple is said to have been built in around 818 atop a Christian building, erected in 603 that had been destroyed by fire. Koryuji was alternatively called “Uzumasadera太秦寺,” and it was also sometimes recorded as大秦寺. “Daishinji大秦寺” meant the church of “Luminous Religion景教” among Chinese Christians. In the temple ground of Koryuji広隆寺, there is an old well called “Isarai”, which sounds phonetically very similar to ‘Israel’ and whose name appears in a note of the temple that was recorded in 873. Further, interestingly enough, some point out that the very unique and unusually characterised style of fingers of the “Benevolent Bodhisattva,” called “Miroku-Bosatsu弥勒菩薩,” a Buddhist image enshrined inside the main temple is, among the various finger shapes, almost identical to that in the wall paintings of the archbishop of  “Luminous Religion景教.” The cave that had kept wall paintings and other archives of that religion inside, was sealed in 1036 in Dunhuang敦煌, located in the western part of China. The characteristic fingers of his right hand form a triangle, by touching the fingertips of the thumb and the middle finger, and stretching out the other three fingers, as if symbolising their belief in the Trinity doctrine. “Miroku弥勒” means the coming Messiah or a future Saviour in terms of Buddhism. Apparently in terms of Christianity, it is no other than the “coming Christ.”

The Christian building, i.e., the original building of  Koryuji広隆寺, is said to have belonged to a Shinto shrine “Osake-Jinjya大辟神社,” whose name “Osake” might have meant ‘David大闢’ in  Chinese among believers. It was built by a descendant of the “Hata秦”clan. The clan is thought to have originated from the nomadic tribe that had lived in ‘Kung-Yueh弓月’ in Central Asia. Their country was a Primitive Christian country, and they immigrated to Japan through the Korean peninsula in around 372 and were naturalised primarily in Kyoto and Nara, called “Yamato大和,倭”taken after their hometown’s name. The Hata clan founded many “shrines” in Nara, Kyoto and the Kyushu region, many of which significantly retain traces of the original Christianity based on Hebraic thought but not on Hellenistic philosophy as worship places of God taught in the scriptures. According to research by Rev. Ken Joseph, many Buddhist temples were rebuilt on top of old burnt Christian churches and their relics can still be unearthed today.  　

There is a teaching of “Luminous Religion” called, ‘The Lord of the Universe’s Discourse on Almsgiving世尊布施論’ that is preserved as one of the most sacred objects in the “Nishi-Honganji西本願寺” Buddhist Temple in Kyoto, which Kobo-Daishi founded in 806, shortly after he returned from study abroad in the imperial T’ang 唐Dynasty in China. He brought back the object that had been translated to Chinese word in around the seventh century by believers. The teaching is, amazingly, a commentary on the “Sermon on the Mount”(Matthew 5~7) and other Matthean passages concerning Creation and Fall of Man, Birth of Christ, His life, teaching and gospel, i.e., the salvation through Jesus Christ. Holy priest “Shinran” 親鸞上人 who is a founder of the “Jodo-Shinshu浄土真宗(the Pure Land teaching)” sect of the Buddhism and  the head temple of whose religion is Nishi Honganji, earnestly learnt Christ’s teachings and spread them in Buddhist terms and manner. The influence of Hebraic Christianity by the bearers from Assyrian Church of the East can be traced back to around the fifth century, despite subsequent erasure, concealment and modification of characteristics of Christianity from artefacts, statues, remains and archives by Buddhist followers during the times of religious persecution.

Thus, from the very beginning of Buddhism in Japan, Buddhists were attracted to Christ’s teaching and adopted many into their sutra and rituals. More precisely, that Buddhism had to incorporate the idea of Messiah into its sutra to compete survival though such influences of Christianity or other religions, are rarely officially admitted. However, the comparison between the original Buddhism(小乗仏教) that remained in the regions of Indo-China, Thailand, Myanmar(Burma), and Sri Lanka, and “Mahayana Buddhism大乗仏教”, reveals their sharp contrast. For example, the belief of the coming of the redeemer, “Miroku弥勒,” under the Japanese term: ‘Meitreya (Miroku) the loving one who is returning,’ has been introduced to Japanese Buddhism from Christian influence. Kobo-Daishi died at age of 62 after the two year and five month fasting for the attainment of “Buddha-hood in their very life即身成仏” in 835, believing his resurrection into eternal life and his return to Mt. Koya with Miroku-Bosatsu. But only 5,670,000,000years later would it take place, he believed. Holy priest “Shinran”親鸞上人introduced faith in a divine-being, “Amida-Butsu阿弥陀仏,” who was supposed to live in the “Land of Peaceful Bliss極楽浄土.” He taught that if only people would believe in “Amida-Butsu,” chanting his name: ‘Namu-Amidabutsu, Namu-Amidabutsu…,’ all of them would die a peaceful death and enter the Land of Perfect Bliss, without waiting for very far-reaching periods of Miroku(saviour)’s return. These teachings and the invention of divine-beings such as “Dainichi-Buddha(Mahavairocana) 大日如来”and “Amida-Butsu阿弥陀仏,”and ideas of the “Pure Land浄土,仏国土,” “unchanging presence” or “eternity” and even “sin” as well were all brought in to several sects of “Mahayana Buddhism,” which grew uniquely in Japan.

Once the apostles and Early Church witnessed the good news of salvation by Christ’s death and resurrection and understood the whole Scripture, they launched into preaching the life-giving message, the ‘gospel’ all over the world, as commanded by Jesus: Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation(Mark 16:15). Traditionally, it is said that while Mark took the gospel, down into Egypt, one of Jesus’ disciples, Thomas went down to south India across the Indian Ocean and planted the Church there in the middle of the first century. When Thomas came to India there had already been large Jewish communities there and in the areas along the “Silk Road” as well. Actually, evidence tells us that Primitive Hebraic Christianity had widely been circulated in India by the end of the first century. Accordingly, when “Mahayana Buddhism” was formed in the first or second century, it had already been influenced by Primitive Hebraic Christianity and later by Luminous Religion. Hence it was very natural that the many ideas and teachings correspond to Christian doctrines such as “Dainichi-Buddha,” “Amida-Butsu,” “Miroku-Bosatsu,” the “Pure Land,” and a ritual of “three drops of water sprinkling灌頂,” corresponding respectively to the ‘Father in Heaven,’ the ‘Son of God,’ the ‘coming Messiah,’ the ‘kingdom of Heaven,’ and a baptism.

The verses quoted at the beginning from Acts are the second recorded apostolic message to a Gentile audience. Though the apostle Paul did not mention the name of Jesus Christ in this sermon, he referred to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead as the assured hope of believers in Christ and he presented Him as the final judge of all men, whom the Father in Heaven appointed. Having started with seeming acceptance of the reality of the Athenians’ religious zeal, Paul wisely used their belief in the unknown god as a bridge to proclaim the only God of Creation and the Saviour of all men, the resurrected Lord. Paul linked the Athenians’ unknown god symbolised by many different idols, to their belief in a God, Creator and he took a step forward to teach them God’s supreme character and purposes; salvation and judgment by Christ alone.

As examined above, it would not be just coincidence that there is always some continuity between other faiths and Christianity at some points in human history because it is God’s will and declaration that the Gentiles would be attracted to the only true God of Israel and His truth. As heresy created by man-oriented religion was not necessarily an outright denial of the biblical truth but tends to be mixed truth, it has actually prevented man from seeing God’s way of salvation. As exclusive as it may appear, the New Testament claims Jesus Christ to be the only begotten, uniquely incarnated Son of God, and full revelation of God Himself. And there is no other way of salvation for man apart from Jesus Christ. Accordingly, man still needs to repent and confess to believe in Jesus Christ, whether he/she is a believer of an unknown God.

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  This month a money gift has been sent to FREDERIC in Kenya. The way back to his own country Burundi has been fully opened before him, his co-workers and flocks after the nine year exodus as refugees now. However, heart-losing, fearful prophecies of the future of Burundi given to several people with one accord, have been deterring them from stepping out forwards. Pray for the Lord’s power to remove fear, doubt and confusion from them so that they can concentrate on earnest prayers to seek after His will and plans for them.