Crosses from the Walls of Zaitun

John Foster

doi:10.1017/S0035869X0010629X

Crosses from the Walls of Zaitun

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011

John Foster

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In November of 1952 I received a note from a medical doctor who some two years earlier had returned to Britain from Ch'üanchou, in the province of Fukien. A Chinese acquaintance had given him photographs of carved stones, Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian, collected by him in recent years, with the hope that someone in the West might publish them. At first glance I recognized fifteen undoubtedly Christian crosses, five with figures of angels on either side, and seven with considerable inscriptions. With the photographs came a copy of a Chinese monograph published by the collector, Wu Wen-liang, An Introduction to the Ancient Stone Carving of Ch'uan-chou. I had enlargements of the Christian set of photographs made, as published in plates II to XVII, 2 sent a set to Professor A. C. Moule, and sought his help. That help has been generously given, in translating part of Wu's monograph, in corresponding with other scholars who might decipher the inscriptions, and in assessing the significance of these new finds. It seems more suitable to recognize general indebtedness here than to refer to him by footnote at the end of every paragraph.

Type: Articles
Information: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 86 , Issue 1-2 , April 1954 , pp. 1 - 25

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X0010629X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1954

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^{page 1 note 1} Dr. D. W. Short, now lecturer in Surgery in the University of Glasgow.

^{page 1 note 2} The enlargements were produced by the kindness of the Department of Fine Art in the University of Glasgow.

^{page 2 note 1} Pelliot published a photograph in T'oung-pao in December, 1914, which Moule reproduces in Christians in China, p. 80.

^{page 2 note 2} The Twin Pagodas of Zaitun.

^{page 2 note 3} The name differs from that of the monastery mentioned on p. 4, where the character used for Buddha is .

^{page 2 note 4} As in Johnston, R. F., Buddhist China, p. 98Google Scholar.

^{page 3 note 1} Historia de los PP. Dominicos, ii, 318, quoted by Moule, Christians in China, p. 82.

^{page 3 note 2} p. 83. The passage there quoted is from Novus Atlas Sinensis, pp. 125 f.

^{page 3 note 3} Yule's edition, ii, 235.

^{page 3 note 4} Christians in China, p. 78.

^{page 3 note 5} p. 80.

^{page 4 note 1} See Ecke, The Twin Pagodas of Zaitun. The pagodas, built 1228–1250, are associated with this temple. Its main buildings were destroyed by fire in 1357.

^{page 4 note 2} Destroying defences at the approach of an enemy may sound wrong-headed. It has to be remembered that the Chinese knew they could not defend medieval walled cities against modern attack. Also they had already decided that guerilla warfare was China's only chance. A walled city, once captured, could be held by the Japanese with a minimum of troops, and small chance for Chinese guerillas. Without walls, these cities would only be a little easier for the Japanese to take, but much harder afterwards to hold.

^{page 4 note 3} See above, p. 2.

^{page 5 note 1} See the seventeenth-century map of Ch'üan-ehou reproduced in Christians in China, p. 193.

^{page 6 note 1} W. H. Goodyear, The Grammar of the Lotus; there are three articles on “Lotus” in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, with bibliography.

^{page 7 note 1} Moule, , Christians in China, p. 79Google Scholar.

^{page 8 note 1} A stone of this shape and with this motif (clear on the original) can be seen as the top part of a large stone tomb in the background of Plate I, Fig. 2.

^{page 8 note 2} Moule, A. C., Christians in China, p. 78Google Scholar.

^{page 8 note 3} Ibid., p. 87.

^{page 10 note 1} Fêng-hsün-tai-fu was the fixed title attached to a certain grade of official.

^{page 10 note 2} If Arabic were used in the case of a Christian it would surely be because of his belonging to that cultural sphere, i.e. Persia.

^{page 10 note 3} See p. 21 below.

^{page 11 note 1} Gustav Eoke, The Twin Pagodas of Zaitun, plate 34. The beautifully produced book gives reproductions and detailed comment on the eighty panels of each pagoda.

^{page 11 note 2} The significance of the two figures in Plate IX is too vague for that stone to be included.

^{page 11 note 3} Father Paschal M. D'Elia, S.J., Professor of Missions, Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, kindly sent me a photograph. It illustrates the sufferings and martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria, the translation by two angels of her body to the Sinai tomb, and two other angels flying (with her soul?) towards Madonna and Child.

^{page 12 note 1} See Pope, A. U., A Survey of Persian Art, vol. v, plates 815, 824, 877, 897, 915Google Scholar. These are winged angels. The Taq i Bostan angels are in vol. iv, plates 159 and 164.

^{page 15 note 1} 1 am indebted also to Professors Matthew Black, of the University of Edinburgh, and W. D. McHardy, of the University of London, for notes on this and the following plate.

^{page 16 note 1} Compare Plate XII, where there are signs of such a transition.

^{page 17 note 1} Pope, A. U., A Survey of Persian Art, vol. v, plate 897, “Ascension of the Prophet Muhammad,” shows an angel in flight presenting a gold bowl with a lid, which gives a shape similar to thisGoogle Scholar.

^{page 18 note 1} Yule, , Cathay, ii, p. 310Google Scholar; Moule, , Christians in China, p. 241Google Scholar.

^{page 19 note 1} 1 am thinking, for example, of my own handwriting when I have to label a parcel.

^{page 19 note 2} I “read” this, as the only thing that made sense of what I saw, an abbreviation of the Trinitarian formula, before receiving the readings of the Syriac stones whieh begin with that formula.

^{page 19 note 3} Sinica Franciscana, i, p. 371.

^{page 19 note 4} Nouveau Journal Asiatique, 1830, vi, 68–9; Moule, , Christians in China, p. 250Google Scholar.

^{page 20 note 1} F. Cabrol, Dictionnaire d'ArcMologie Chretienne, article “anges”, very fully illustrated.

^{page 21 note 1} Pope, A. U., A Survey of Persian Art, vol. iv, plates 159 and 164, and description in vol. i, pp. 526 and 881Google Scholar.

^{page 21 note 2} Byzantino-slavica, Prague, XI, Pt. i, 1950.

^{page 21 note 3} Note the comments on Plates XII and XIV, pp. 13 and 16.

^{page 21 note 4} Wigram, , The Assyrians and their Neighbours, pp. 202 fGoogle Scholar.

^{page 22 note 1} The Twin Pagodas of Zaitun, p. 62.

^{page 22 note 2} Since the period of the Franciscan Mission begins in 1294 and ends soon after 1368.

^{page 22 note 3} I owe these dates to my colleague, the Rev. E. F. K. Bishop.

^{page 23 note 1} Christians in China, pp. 86 ff.

^{page 24 note 1} The Catholicos of the East himself writes to me (2nd September, 1953), “Images are contrary to the teaching and tradition of the Church of the East, and we have never noticed them before on the relics of the Church found in China.”

^{page 24 note 2} I owe reminder of these passages to correspondence with D'Elia, Fr. Paschal, Wyngaert, S. J., Sinica Franciscana, i, pp. 245 f. and 227Google Scholar.

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