The First Steps of the Chinese Church Towards the Ecumenical Tradition: A Translation Study of Early Church Documents

Cover image: It's not just the cross that was demolished

This article is a sequel to " Why Chinese Churches Return to the Ecumenical Tradition ". This article aims to answer what is the first step for the Chinese church to move toward the catholic tradition? The answer is: academically, reading, translating, and studying earlier literature from the original text.

The author's love for the early church fathers began with reading a series of books published by Oak, especially St. Basil's "On the Six Days of Creation," the theologian Gregory's "Theological Lectures," and Athanasius's "On the Incarnation." ". What moved me was not only their thoughts, but also the clearly visible spirituality under the text. Although they were separated by thousands of years, I felt that they had nurtured me invisibly. It was their spirituality that planted the seeds for my intention to translate the Greek Fathers' writings from the original. If the spirituality of the godfathers is the sea, then I just want to take a small glass of water through the translator to quench the thirst of my heart.

This desire to read and translate the writings of the Church Fathers from the original text led me to study at the Seminary of the Holy Cross, and then to expand from the Greek Church Fathers to the Syrian Church Fathers, and even Nestorian studies; it is this desire that tells me that the Chinese church is moving towards the catholic tradition. Answer to Step 1: Read, translate, and study early church literature from the original text. [1] The author cites three reasons to demonstrate this point.

First, ecumenical tradition is not synonymous with biblical studies, but is more found in early church literature, especially in the early Eastern church literature

What is the Ecumenical Tradition? I have done some reflections and discussions in the articles " On the Bible and Ecumenical Tradition ", " On the Misunderstanding and Misuse of Sola scripture " and "The Church, the Bible and Ecumenical Tradition ". The author summarizes as follows:

If the ecumenical tradition is likened to a person, then the work of the invisible Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (especially the Holy Spirit, because Pentecost has come, we promise to receive the Holy Spirit) within the Church is its soul, The two atriums of its heart are the sacrament (mainly referring to baptism, the sacrament, including anointing) and the Bible, and then the torso, mind, and limbs are extended from this. Specifically, ecumenical creeds, resolutions, and canons; resolutions and canons of local councils (which the Church later agreed upon); unanimous teachings of the church fathers; day, etc.).

Among the documents of these ecumenical traditions, the Eastern Church occupies a considerable proportion in the resolutions, liturgy, spirituality and patristic documents, and it is no exaggeration to say that most of them started from the Eastern Church (this is also the author's website name). One of the reasons for "light comes from the east").

However, in contrast to the academic situation. Among Christian scholars (seemingly due to concerns about the correct interpretation of the Bible alone) there is a large number of scholars who study the Bible and the Reformation period (including some scholars who study the Chinese church), but the proportion of scholars who study the history of the early church is biased. few. Among non-Christian scholars, most of them study church history from a philosophical and religious perspective. Their research focuses on the Western church, especially the representative church fathers, such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. The research on the history of the early Eastern Church and Nestorianism, which the author is involved in, is rare.

Second, our search for ecumenical tradition would be groundless without starting with the translation and study of early church texts

As the saying goes, it is difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice. Without the translation and research of the first-hand materials, there is no basis for returning to the tradition of the Grand Duke. Although the research and translation of cutting-edge academics are also necessary, from the perspective of the spirit of academic tracing, we must reach the point of reading, translating, and researching from the original text, in order to find a practical material basis for the pursuit of the Grand Duke tradition.

In the end, the difficult environment just shows that the Chinese church must take this first step in order to see the future

The difficulties of the Chinese church today are self-evident. It is facing an overall shrinking and unfriendly state in academic, publishing, education, social and public fields, etc. It can be said that the Chinese church is facing the test of life and death. In the author's opinion, this test is whether the Chinese church can return to the catholic tradition and draw strength from it to stand firm. If the Chinese church is a prodigal son, then it is time to go home.

For example, the spirit of martyrdom in the apostolic period and the spirit of monasticism that continued afterward are precisely the spiritual resources that the Chinese church lacked to fight against secularization; the resolutions of the ecumenical council and the unanimous teachings of the church fathers can also give the Chinese church strength to fight against various types of The tendency to heresy and "personalized" interpretation; the liturgical documents left by the church can provide spiritual guides for the lay members of the church and help them develop the habit of living godly; the canons left by the church restrain the tendency of church division. All these resources can empower the Chinese church spiritually, doctrinally, liturgically and externally, take root downwards, bear fruit upwards, and truly form a whole witness and style.

Why Early Church Documents? What are the early church documents?

The early church texts are the closer to the source and the least controversial, because there were no denominations at that time. And the pursuit of the ecumenical tradition should also start with Jesus Christ, extend outward from the region, and go backward in time. No matter what language they speak, whether they are in Rome or not, they should all learn their language equally, read and translate. their literature, to understand their thinking.

As I understand it, we should start with the apostolic period (which has been studied by many biblical scholars), and then divide by language into three major traditions:

• The Greek tradition goes to the 8th and 9th centuries, around the time of Maxim the Confessor, John of Damascus.
• The Latin tradition goes back to the 9th and 10th centuries, even before the rise of scholasticism.
• The Syrian tradition goes to the 7th and 8th centuries, represented by Saint Isaac of Syria.

As for other traditions, such as Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopian, Bulgarian, and later the Russian Hierarchy can be put in the second step to study and translate. Of course, as far as the Russian hierarchies are concerned, there are already domestic scholars involved, and the author will not go into details.

[1] For the reasons why the Chinese church should return to the ecumenical tradition, and the two major obstacles preventing the Chinese church from returning to the ecumenical tradition: the doctrine of church depravity and the sectarian perspective after Constantine, please refer to the author’s special article “ Why the Chinese Church Returns to the Ecumenical Tradition” Ecumenical Tradition? 》