Reddit mentions of A History of Christianity in Asia: Beginnings to 1500

There is a long history of Christianity in China going back to at least the 7th Century and a long history of the Chinese rulers trying to control and/or wipe it out. The Nestorian Stele was erected in 8th century to celebrate the origins of Christianity there. Over the intervening centuries, Christianity has waxed and waned at various points.

The first missionary we have record of Alopen who was a missionary from the Church of the East (sometimes called the Nestorian Church) which at the time was based out of Ctesiphon in the Persian Empire and later under the Islamic Umayyad and Abbasid states. Unfortunately, despite having much success, they were dependent upon the good will and tolerance of the Tang dynasty (618–907) which was remarkably open and accepting of outside influences. After the Tang fell, the Christians were driven out and suppressed by the Tang's successors who were not as tolerant of outside ideas and the foreign missionaries that spread it.

Later, under the Yuan (Mongolian) Dynasty there was another flowering for about 2 centuries. The Mongols were very tolerant of non-Chinese ideas (obviously) and many leading Mongols or their wives were Christians. By the 13th century, western Christians began to arrive. Estimates are hard to come by for numbers but there were enough worshipers that the Church of the East had multiple Metropolitans and Bishops in numerous cities. However, with the collapse of the Yuan and the rise of the Ming Dynasty, Christianity was again banned by the government. Nevertheless, there were still some pockets of Christians and the Ming tolerated certain western Christian because they served as excellent advisers and a few prominent court officials were Christian at this point. There were enough native Christians in China, however, to lead to a debate in the Church, The Rites Controversy that was over the toleration of ancestor worship by Catholic leaders.

There were, over the centuries, short period (1-2 centuries) where there were conversions and growth under a tolerant ruler only to be inevitably followed by a period repression and proscription. There were edicts forbidding Christian worship (just as there were, at one time, many Chinese rulers who opposed Buddhism). Even with these more widespread religions, there were attempts to control them and the various dynasties decreed "acceptable" forms of Buddhism.

I highly recommend Samuel Moffats, "A History of Christianity in Asia." Very scholarly and detailed (its 2 volumes).

I had a graduate course on the history of pre-1500 Christianity outside of the Roman Empire. We relied pretty heavily on this text:

Samuel Hugh Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia, vol. 1, The Beginnings to 1500.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Christianity-Asia-Beginnings-1500/dp/1570751625

It's scholarly and probably what you are looking for.

> Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?"

For those of us (like me) who are interested in some of the history, but have to have to look these things up:

• The first temple was apparently built by Solomon in something like 970 BC.
  
  
• It was destroyed by Babylon in around 576 BC.
  
  
• And rebuilt as the second temple, under Cyrus of Persia.
  
  
• What's being referred to here is a massive expansion of the temple which started in around 19 BC by Herod the Great. This isn't the same guy as his son Herod Antipas who was king (over Galilee) as at Jesus birth.
  
  While I'm on a diversion, if you're like me you wonder how there can be kings in the Roman empire - and what Rome is doing in Judea in the first place? Going off Samuel Hugh Moffett and Wikipedia:
  
  Judea lay at the border with Rome's great enemy, Persia. In 53 BC Rome and Persia fought for the first time at Carrhae. Rome's invading soldiers, after being tired of marching through the desert were massacred by the superior Persian cavalry (read: heavily armoured horses attacking exhausted guys on foot from all sides). This marked the beginning of a seven hundred year war, off and on, between the Roman empire and Persia empire, which neither side eventually won.
  
  Enter Augustus (yes, the same guy who ruled at Jesus birth - but not yet Emperor). He avenged Carrhae, and drove the Persians out of Judea (map)
  , thoroughly defeating their armies into the Syrian desert. Instead of pushing on (which might have seen the Roman empire extend all the way to India) he was more cautious, and in 20 BC forced the humbled Phraates IV to accept a peace treaty. This was at the beginning of the so-called Pax Romana a period of relative, often uneasy, peace.
  
  There was apparently three ways that Augustus ruled his newly conquered provinces. The first, prefered, was to set up client states - leaving a local king in charge. Herod the Great was one of these, and was later followed by his sons (who had to petition Rome to be allowed to rule). The other two types of provence were stable and unarmed senatorial provinces and frontier imperial provinces. If a client state became unruly, or didn't live up to expectation they quickly became an imperial province, under direct control Rome. That's what happened to most of Judea in 6AD when Augustus removed another of Herod the Great's sons and took direct control (map) of half of the province installed governors like Pilate.
  
  Google is my friend :-)

If Nestorian Christianity/ Christianity in Asia interest you, the two best books I have found about it are Phillip Jenkins' The Lost History of Christianity , which is aimed toward a more popular audience, and Samuel Moffet's History of Christianity in Asia before 1500 , which is a more academic text.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Christianity-Asia-Beginnings-1500/dp/1570751625/ref=pd_sim_b_6

> early history (formation and evolution) of the Catholic Church

Best books on this are probably just books on the early church in general. Philip Schaff's Church History volumes are good. Also can't go wrong with Eusebius. You might want books on the development of doctrines and practices that are now more specifically seen as Catholic distinctives. I don't have any suggestions, but you might want to look into (or ask for) books on the development of the papacy, episcopacy, Mariology, purgatory, etc.

> history of Christianity in Syria, particularly the Ma'loula area

I don't know about Syria specifically, but you may want a book that details Asian Christianity and specifically the Church of the East, like A History of Christianity in Asia.

Turn to: Samuel Moffett, Christianity in Asia - https://www.amazon.com/History-Christianity-Asia-Beginnings-1500/dp/1570751625


Marco Polo, 13th cent.: "the 'Nestorian' church outnumbered both Greek & Latin churches combined"