The Church at Antioch, where followers of Jesus were first officially called “Christians,” represented the center of the East Syriac Church. Paul and Barnabas preached there for a year after which Paul began his missionary journeys. Christians fleeing persecution in Jerusalem in the later half of the first century found a home in Antioch where Jewish and Gentile converts alike worshipped side by side for the first time. The church at Antioch made a real effort to go beyond their own social group and bring the gospel to a Gentile population. This was the beginning of the multicultural Church and is the context in which the Eastern itinerant missionaries arose and developed into the primary monastic model of mission in India and China in the later half of the first millennium.
The theology of mission birthed at Antioch, and embodied by the itinerant evangelists and Syriac monks, is earlier than most other models of Christian mission. The theology of these missionaries is described by historical theologian Justo Gonzalez as "Type C" or radical liberation theology. According to Stephen Bevans and Roger Schroeder in Constants in Context, "Type C theology has always been eminently pastoral in outlook and has been the foundation for several creative expressions of the church's missionary nature. It is a theological perspective that remains centered on the mystery of Christ while always acknowledging the importance and dignity of the human."
While this type of theology certainly dominates the early Eastern tradition, there are traces of this theology in the West in the life and writings of St. Francis of Assisi, the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, and the writings of black, feminist, and Latin American liberation theologians.
Itinerant Missionaries
From the beginning, the Syriac Church has had a strong emphasis on asceticism. In other parts of the world like Egypt, Christian ascetics focused more on stability of life and would have remained primarily in one region. However, given the importance of trade and travel routes in the East, Christian ascetics in Syria took on a more mobile way of life. According to Robert Murray in Symbols of Church and Kingdom, these wandering preachers considered themselves “Homeless followers of the homeless Jesus on… ceaseless pilgrimage through this world.” Itinerancy was not just something these preachers did, it was the heart of their way of life. While the Syriac ascetic embraced this itinerancy in a special way, traveling preachers were active throughout the Roman empire and the West as well.
At this early point in Church history, Christians were moving out of a rural context and into cities as urbanization in the Roman empire increased dramatically. Christian missionaries would have moved easily to cities in which diaspora Jewish communities had already been established for decades if not centuries earlier. While Christians moved into new cities, they also moved out of a strictly Jewish context and entered into a new understanding of the Church as a multicultural movement, one which accepts pagan and Gentile converts without forcing them to adhere to Jewish law.
Eusebius along with the Didache both mention the wandering evangelists of the first few centuries of Christianity. According to Eusebius
“Indeed, most of the disciples of that time… first fulfilled the Saviour’s command and distributed goods among the needy, and then, entering upon long journeys, performed the work of evangelists, being eager to preach everywhere to those who had not yet heard the word of faith and to pass on the writings of the divine gospels. As soon as they had only laid the foundations of the faith in some foreign lands, they appointed others as pastors and entrusted to them with the nurture of those who had recently been brought in, but they themselves went on to other lands and peoples with the grace and the cooperation of God.”
For these missionaries, itinerancy was the privileged route of asceticism. They do not enter cities with plans of laying down roots and staying for long periods of time. Their ultimate goal was not to run churches themselves but to spread the gospel in such a way that would enable others to lead their local communities. The asceticism of the itinerant preachers was not a withdrawal from society but a letting go of place, power, and position. In fact, the itinerant preachers engaged with many communities and interacted with a diversity of people. The first step of becoming an itinerant missionary was giving everything one owned to the poor. This kind of “letting go” and relinquishment of property was part of the character of these missionaries. Their itinerancy was an extension of the ascetical practice of ‘letting go.’ As soon as they were welcomed to a new community, they were ready to do the work that was theirs to do, and then move on and let others lead in their place.
Written in the first to second century, the Didache emphasizes the extreme nature of the preacher's itinerancy. The author of the document writes that preachers “shall not remain more than one day; or two days, if there's a need. But if he remains three days, he is a false prophet.” Here, their traveling regiment is seen as the litmus test for whether they are true ascetics and missionaries of the gospel. While they moved from place to place, these travelers relied on the generosity of others. However, they were to receive only what was necessary for their sustenance. If they asked for money they were to be considered false prophets.
According to Samuel Hugh Moffett in A History of Christianity in Asia, “In the very earliest Christian documents of the East, the call to ascetic self-denial is almost always associated with the call to go and preach and serve… [Syria’s] ascetics became wandering missionaries, healing the sick, feeding the poor, and preaching the gospel as they moved from place to place.” As such, the itinerant model of mission is one concerned with service as well as proclaiming the good news and imitates the servant or herald models of the Church (See Avery Dulles, Models of the Church). Because of their concern for the poor, the itinerant preachers had a positive outlook on human nature and were more holistic in their preaching.
Because of their rigorous travel, they believed in a more apocalyptic or imminent eschatology. Jesus was returning soon, so spreading the gospel was an urgent task that required urgent action. These itinerant preachers filled the urgent role to spread the gospel to all the nations by staying in a place only for a short time before evangelizing the next community. And while priests were selected by and from the local communities, these wandering missionaries were chosen by God and rooted their authority and legitimacy as ministers outside strict institutional structures.
Monks in Eastern China
According to Constants in Context, “There were probably never very many [itinerant missionaries], and there is less evidence of this type of evangelization by the end of the second century.” The primary model of mission in the first few centuries was the common Christian and his/her witness of faith. The itinerant missionaries were secondary models of mission during these centuries. However, the asceticism of the East with its emphasis on traveling, letting go, and encountering a diversity of people, would blossom into a rich monastic tradition that spread across China and India in the centuries to follow. According to Moffett “The ascetic communities became the major dynamic for missions in Asia from the third century on continuing the work of the wandering missioners of the first two centuries.” The Eastern monks would not adopt the same philosophy about only staying in one place for a day or two, but they continued to travel to new lands and encounter new peoples.
While Constantine ended persecution of Christians in the West in the fourth century, Christianity in the East remained a minority religion as well as a diaspora religion. This marks a shift between the early church which was by and large universally persecuted (at best reluctantly tolerated), and this new era where Christianity becomes dominant in the West, while it stays persecuted in the East. The state-sponsored religion in Persia was Zoroastrianism, and the Church during this period was heavily persecuted. Churches were destroyed, tens of thousands of Christians killed, taxes levied and Christians relegated to segregated communities under a process called Melet.
The Church in the East still primarily spoke Syriac, contrasted to the Greek and Latin speakers of the West. While the Church leader John the Persian was present at the Council of Nicea, a council which Eastern regional synods reaffirmed, the East Syriac Church would later side with Nestorius over the Christological controversies at the Council of Chalcedon, further distinguishing Syriac Christians from their Western siblings. As a diaspora Church, the Syriac Christians came into contact with other religious groups such as Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Confucianists, Taoists, Hindus, and other religions from the Huns, Turks, and Mongols. In other words, because the East Syriac Church was not the dominant religion in the East, the monks and ascetics were open to dialogue and encounter with many religious perspectives.
In 635, a Syriac monk called Alopen arrived in the then capital city of the T’ang Dynasty, Chang’an in Eastern China. He was welcomed in the Emperor’s library and ordered to begin translating the Bible into Chinese. In 638, the same emperor financed the building of the first Christian Church in China. At the time, 21 monks were living in Chang’an.
The T’ang Dynasty was an extremely tolerant empire and welcomed a diversity of religious perspectives. Two theological texts survive from this era: The Jesus Messiah Sutra (styled after the sutra of Buddha) and the Discourses on Monotheism, both written most likely by Alopen and responding to various questions posed by the Chinese royalty. The works represent the syncretism happening at this time between Buddhism, Confucianism, and Christianity. While other Christian communities were becoming more sheltered from and hostile to diverse perspectives, the Syriac monks and Christian missionaries in China lived a peaceful and counter-cultural coexistence among people of other religions.
Another important figure at this time was a bishop and missionary named Adam who was a skilled Chinese translator in the 8th C. in Chang’an. Prajna, a Buddhist missionary from Northern India, visited the monastery in Chang’an and enlisted the help of Adam in translating Buddhist texts. At the time, two other famous founders of the Shingon sect of Tantric Buddhism and the Lotus School of Japanese Buddhism were also present at the monastery. According to Constants in Context, “As for the general East Syrian stance toward Buddhism, it appears that ‘for the purpose of communicating the Christian Message and for the deepending of their own faith life in the Messiah, they employed Buddhist terms, expressions, and symbols.’” This coexistence of Christiantiy with other religions in China lasted on and off for centuries until the turn of the first millenium as Confucianism became the primary religion of the region.
Conclusion and Implications for Today
The later Eastern monastic tradition was a natural evolution of the work of the itinerant preachers that preceded it. Both movements flow out of the East Syriac Church which embodies a “Type C missional theology,” emphasizing religious tolerance, social liberation, and the witness of one's life as a primary model for mission. While the itinerant preachers of the first two centuries were concerned with service to the poor and proclamation of the gospel, the later monastic tradition focused on the integration of outside religions and sharing the gospel peacefully with other cultures, utilizing the language, symbols, and beliefs of the people they encountered. The context for both models is a diaspora/minority religion with a more positive and holistic view of other cultures and practices.
This kind of theology of mission is the oldest in the Church, and while it is often overshadowed, this theology is not lost to history. As stated in the introduction, there are other Christian traditions that work for the good of the whole person and all people.
Today, Christians can learn from these missionaries in two ways. As the world becomes more global and pluralistic, one’s neighbor is most likely from a different “tribe” or background. The Type C theology of the East Syriac tradition shows Christians a path for mission that doesn’t involve having to convert everyone. It is possible to live out a Christian mission without demanding people abandon their religious heritage. One does not need to measure missionary success in number of conversions. Christians can and should respect the perspectives of others and seek to dialogue and learn from everyone.
The ability of the itinerant missionaries to let go, especially of their sense of place, can also encourage Christian missionaries today to go beyond their comfort zone. Christian missionaries should be encouraged not to retreat from the world, but to engage with and serve people outside their circle of familiarity. There is a tendency among some devoted Christians to withdraw and retreat from the world and become blinded or closed off in echo chambers of their own making. The itinerant missionaries offer another way; a path of letting go of one's entitlement and power over others and ultimately a path of continual engagement with new people and places. This kind of Christian witness of tolerance and commitment to the good of all people can be a true light to the nations in divisive times.
Bibliography
Bevans, Stephen B., and Roger P. Schroeder. Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today. Orbis Books, 2014.
Eusebius. “Eusebius, Church History, III, 37.” Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Hendrickson, Peabody, Mass, 2012.
Moffett, Samuel H. A History of Christianity in Asia. Orbis Books, 2005.
Murray, Robert. Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition. T & T Clark, 2006.
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