CHRISTIANS at GHÊN-CHIANG FU by A. C. MOULE and LIONEL
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CHRISTIANS AT GHÊN-CHIANG FU BY A. C. MOULE and LIONEL GILES. The existence of Christian Churches at Ch6n-chiaug in the thirteenth century is recorded by Marco Polo in his chapter on that place, which reads as follows : - Ci deuise de la cite de Cinghianfu. Cinghianfu est une cite dou mangi. les iens sunt ydules & sunt au grant kaan. & ont monoie de carte il uiuent de merchandie & dars il ont soie aseg il font dras dores & de soies de maintes faisonz il hi a riches mercant & grant il out ueneiong & chaceison de bestes & de osiaus aseg. il out grant planteei des bles & des chouses de uiure il hi a deus eglise de cristienz nestorin & ce auint des .m.cc.lxxviii. anz. de lancarnasionz de crist en ca. e uo? dirai comant il auint. il fiu uoir qe unques nei auoit eu moistier de cristienz. ne neis en dieu cristien? iusque a .m.cc.lggviii. aug. hi fu seingnor por le grant kaan trois anz marsarchis qui estoit cristienz nestorin. Et cestui marsarchis hi fist faire celles .ii. eglise & de celes tens en cha hi a eu glise que deuant nei auoit: eglise ne cristiens ne or nos partiron de ceste mainerie. & uoc conteron dune autre cite ' . mout grant qe est apelles tinghingiu. 1) 1) Paris, Bibl. Nat., MS FrangaisNo. 1116, fol. 65 r° (c.cxtvni);?cM??M?O!yM, tom. I, 1824, p. 165 (c. CXLIX). Cf. YULE-CORDIER,Marco Polo, vol. 11, p. 176, 177; and vol. xlvi, 1915, 34. Cinghianfu is of course Ch?n-chiangor 43 628 This passage has been corroborated in the most interESting way and very much amplified by the notices of Christians which were discovered by the late Archimandrite Palladius about forty-five years ago in the Clzila-s7eu?zC7aen-claia??g Palladius published versions of some of these first in Russian, we believe, in 1873 and then in English in Tlte Chinese Recorder, 1875, pp. 108 --113. The most important of the Chinese texts was printed by the late H. Havret S.J. in Vari,tW,,, 8illologiques No. 12, 1897, pp. 385, 386. For further acquaintauce with the Chinese texts we are indebted first to Monsieur P. Pelliot who very kindly placed at our disposal the extracts he had made at Moscow, and secondly to the bookshop of the Church of England Mission at Peking which under Bishop Norris' prompt and energetic management has obtained for us a copy of the book itself. This is now the property of M. Pelliot. Neither the Cltilt-sliitn Chên-chial1g chih nor the still older Cfiia- tiiiq Claen-chic??p chilt is included in Ch'ien-Iung's Great Catalogue. They were not known to be extant until a manuscript copy came into the possession of Yuan Yuan in 1795. He presented this to the Imperial Palace, after making two transcripts, one of which he deposited in the Library of the Chiao-shau Mo- nastery ; the other he kept i.n his own tl W6n-hsiian lou. Both works are anonymous; but the -"6 8/w lu chieh t'i names J1i. Lu Hsien as the author of the earlier topography, while the Yuan work, in the opinion of Liu Pin-shu, came from the hand of Yii Hsi-lu, a native of Chen- chiang. This attribution is confirmeci by Lu Hsin-yiian 2). Chinkiang on the right bank of the Yangtseabout 140 miles from its mouth and at the point where the Grand Canal crossesthe river. For il hi a deus egliseetc. the Paris MS Latin No. 3195 (printed in the Recueil etc. tom. I, p. 423) reads : In iata civitate sunt tres ecclesiaechristianorum nestorinorum. 2) CSCCC,c. f. 9 v° äB, c. fl, c. xxxi, fo1. 13, 14 ; W , c. xi, fo1. 14 vo, 15 r°. 629 The title of the latter book shows that it was written before 15 November, 1333, when the Chih-shun reign ended, and as the text (c. xvii, fol. 4 v°) mentions the tenth mouth of the third Chih-shun year (20 0ctober - 18 November, 1332) it would seem to be reason- able to give 1333 as the probable date of composition. It was not until 1842 that the two works were printed, from the two duplicate copies mentioned above. They were edited by Yuan Yuan, then seventy-eight years of age, with the help of several friends, including Ching-wei, who was responsible for the actual cuttiug of the blocks. Yiian Yiian contributed a preface, dated on the summer solstice of 1842, and a body of critical notes was added by j§ $fl Liu Meng-chan and his son 1Él W Po-shan 3). This printed edition is now itself uncommon. Two copies are in the Roumiantsov Museum at Moscow, one (formerly belonging to Mr Clement Allen) in the British Museum. and one in the Library of the Jesuit Mission at Zikawei near Shanghai. There appears to be no copy in the Wade Collection at Cambridge or in the very remarkable collection of Topographies (£ c7zih) lately made by M. Pelliot for the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. Zikawei possesses also the manuscript copy prepared for publication by Yuan Yuan. 'rhere was a modern manuscript copy and, no doubt, a copy of the printed edition in 3) This edition is in fourteen volumes,the pages measuring11' in. by 7 in. On the title-leaf we read -b I LA "Reçordsof Che"n-clriangin the Chia-tingperiod of the Sting dynasty 1208-122-1J. in twenty-twochapters; Records of Chen-chiangin the Chih-shunperiod of the YÙan D. 1330-1333], irz twenty-onechapters; Critical Notes in four chapters [two to each Appendix:a chapter on Claen-claiangFu from the Yii ti chi sb?ng [c.viiJ. Blocks cut by Mr Pao of Tan-t'u in the secondmontll of summerin the jên-yin year of Tao-kuang[Jane-July, 1842]." The referencesbelow are to this edition, the titles of the two books being shortenedto CTCCC and CSCCC respectively. Nearly half of the former work, in its original form, and a considerableportion of the latter is missing. 630 the great library of the late Mr f flj Ting Ping (styled Sung-sh6ng) in the Bit T'ou-fa hsiang at Hang-chou. The passages in which Christians are mentioned in this old book form perhaps the most interesting of the many pieces of evidence for the prevalence of Nestorian Christianity in China and, fragmentary though they are, give as full an account as we can expect to have of a Christian community in China six hundred years ago. And so it will not perhaps be thought superfluous to print a complete translation of every relevant passage which has been found, together with the Chinese texts in full, and rather detailed notes. TRANSLATIONSOF THE CHINESE TEXTS. 1. "The Ta-hsing-kuo Monastery is in the Chia-tao lane. It was built in the eighteenth Chih-yiian year (A.D. 1281) by Hsieh-li- chi-ssu 4), assistant ta-lu-hua-ch'ih (daruglaa) of this Circuit. Liang Hsiang, Director of Classical Studies s), wrote a commemorative 4) Sargis. This name, or Mar Sargis, appears in the form M a Hsieh-li-chi-ssiielsewhere in this p Hsieh.£rh-chi.ssi(Governor of the Wan-li of the circuit Hang-chouin 1364) in 1ifs .Ila7ag- chou fu chin, c. xiv, fol. 29 ; 1J¡ 5l 1m" Hsi-erh-chi-sstior IIsi-Ii-chi-ssttin the Yiian Shih; ,flj, Mo Sa-chi-ssiiin the Praise of the HoIJ Trinil? vol. iii, ffit Xt , fol. 2, cf. BEFEO, VIII, pp. 518,519); and several times in Syriac without Chinesetranscription on the Hsi-an fu Monument (cf. HAVRET,"Par. Sin. No. 7, pp. Ixxxv–cii; No. 20, pp. 61-651. In c. xix, fol. 12 r°, the writer of thc originalmanuscript seems to havebeen puzzledby this name. Doubtlessunder the impressionthat was the surname,he wrote in large characters,and joined p "m, to as part of the commentary.This has been correctedin the printed edition.-- See c. ii, fo1. 13. 5) A Director of ClassicalStudies was attached to the staff of each j§§ hc or Circuit; cf. Yuan Shih, c. xci, fol. 6 v°. Liang Hsiang, a native of Haug-chou,was appointedto 631 inscription. The substance of it was as follows: Hsieh-mi-ssü-hsien 6) is distant from China more than ten myriad li 7) to the north-west. It is a land where the yeh-li-k'o-wen 8) practise their religion. When I humbly asked about this so-named religion, they said that in the whole world there were twelve Monasteries of the Cross; °) the post in January 1299 : A *- 1i =. &P c. xvii, fol. 10 r°. The topographer,writing in 1333, not unnaturally gives Liang Hsiang (as perhaps also Wan-tse below) the higher position to which he only attained after the time in question. 6) Samarkand.Cf. BRETSCIINEIDEIT,lllediceval Researches, If, 58-60. Mar Sargiswas apparently a native of Samarkand. Speakingof Marco Polo's ArgonsColonel YULE says: "Another tradition derives their origin from Samarkand. And it is remarkable that Rashiduddinspeaks of a town to the west or north-westof Peking, 'most of the inhabitants of which are natives of Samarkand,'..." Jllarco Polo, vol. I, p. 291. 7) About 30000 miles; probablya slip for one myriad li or 3000 miles, which would be somewhereabout the actual distance. 8) This term is found in several historicalworks and inscriptionsof the Mongolperiod, and means a Nestorian (or perhaps simply a Christian) monk, or, less exactly,a Christian. In several places in the CSCCC and in at least one place in the 1'iiarLShilt (c.