Nestorian Christianity and Religious Pluralism — Brief Notes on a Paper

A Nestorian headstone rubbing, the original headstone belongs to a Nestorian christian named Elisabeth. Found at Yangchow in 1981, currently in the Yangchow Museum. 1317 A.D., Yüen dynasty (1271–1368). The Chinese inscription reads: “歲次丁巳延祐四年三月初九日三十三歲身故，五月十六日明吉大都忻都妻也里世八之墓。” (The tomb of Yelishiba [Elizabeth], wife of Xindu of the Great Capital, who died at the age of 33 in the cyclical year dingsi [fire snake year] on the 9th day of the 3rd month of the 4th year of the Yanyou era [1317], and was buried on an auspicious day on the 16th day of the 5th month.) Borrowed from Wikipedia.

Back in February, I had the chance to read Charles M. Stang’s “The ‘Nestorian’ (jingjiao) Monument and its Theology of the Cross,” short though fascinating piece on a curious stone monument from eighth-century China, constructed by jingjiao Christians who had fled accusations of “heresy” in the Middle East. In the paper, Stang proposes that this “Nestorian” monument contains a robust though misunderstood theology of the cross, but not in the way many Western Christians would expect. Rather than an instrument of crucifixion, or even of redemption in the sense of debts paid, the cross is cosmic.

The monument has three sections of text: one concerning creation, a second about the life of Jesus, and the third about contemporary Nestorian Christian practices. Only the first (creation) and third (praxis) mention the cross, being noticeably absent in the second (Jesus). There’s a lot to say here, of course, but the paper does a much better job of laying the groundwork for what a robust jingjiao Christian theology might have looked like, the cross as a symbol of order giving boundary and structure chaos in the cosmos and the individual person. Stang wonders if the absence of the cross in mentioning Jesus might be authentic to these Christians, or if it’s the consequence of attempting to construct a public persona more acclimated…