Christ the Eternal Tao

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How the Truths of Genesis Were Found Hidden in the Chinese language

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ABSTRACT
Ethel R. Nelson, M.D. HeR Box 3BO Dunlap, TN 37327
Richard E. Broadberry McKay Memorial Hospital Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.
CHINESE CHARACTERS CONfIRM GENESIS HUMAN CREATION
Careful analysis of the most ancient extant Chinese pictographic character- writing, found on bronzeware vessels and oracle bone artifacts, reveals iden- tical narratives in ideographic characters to that found in the first three chapters of the Biblical Genesis. This "second Genesis" from a widely separated area of the world. gives added credibility to the human creation epic, as related by Moses.

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Hieromonk DAMASKIN (Christiansen)

Christ, the eternal TaoSYMBOL

per. L.N. Kapitanova

ANCIENT CHINESE FORETOLD OF CHRIST

In modern America, many people are engaged in spiritual search. They explore everything - Sufism, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism - and find something. Nevertheless, there is something left in their souls that makes them continue to search, for the Truth has never been found. Often these seekers are people brought up in Christian families and departed from the Christian faith, because they saw hypocrisy, worldly spirit, enmity and bias that prevail in the church environment. In short, in the church they felt a spirit no different from the world, the limits of which these spiritual seekers decided to transcend. Therefore, they followed other paths, and, to their surprise, they came back to Christ. When they left the church, they did not leave Christ. Despite the fact that in their youth they witnessed a distorted, secular form of Christianity, the sowed seed of faith in Christ remained in their souls, and this seed cannot be eradicated.

It often happens that these seekers find the mysterious "Book of the Way and Grace" (Daodejing), written in China centuries before the birth of Christ, and are captivated by it. This book is simple but deep in content, it was translated into a language other than any other than the Bible. It contains ancient wisdom, returns to those simple times when man was closer to the truth, to what the Holy Fathers call the "natural state" of man. Lao Zu felt the presence of the Logos in the creature world, i.e. what the Holy Fathers call "Operating Cause", "Reason", "First Principle" or "Ordering Principle" of the cosmos. Lao Tzu does not call the Logos Person, but "Uncertainty," "gates that reveal mystery." "I don't find a better name," he says, "and I call Tao." Literally, the word "Tao" means "Way." What Greek philosophers called the Logos or the Word, Lao Tzu called Tao or Ordering Principle or Universal Pattern, which should be followed by the entire creature world. Father Seraphim Rose was sure that if Lao Tzu had lived in the time of Christ's earthly life and met Him, he would follow Him because he had recognized in Him the Divine Personality of Tao, the reflection of which he saw in the creature world.

Reading Lao Tzu, a modern Christian seeker feels the spiritual closeness of Christ, whose seed is thrown into his soul. He sees a poetic reflection of Christ in the works of Lao Tzu - a reflection barely perceptible, but pure. For these spiritual seekers, this fuzzy but pure image of Christ is closer than the bright but far from the truth image they meet in the modern Christian world.

The book "Christ, Eternal Tao" is intended for these seekers so that Orthodox Christianity becomes available to them. This is an invitation, not an attack against nominal Christians. The purpose of the book is to return them to Christ, inspiring to follow Him and seek Him: to accept not only His commandments of love and refuse everything, but to contain the fullness of His revelation, which means first of all - to take His Cross. The purpose of the book is to show Christian seekers the fullness of Revelation, which they barely tasted through the ancient wisdom of Lao Tzu. If they want to follow Lao Tzu, they must follow what Lao Tzu "prophetic" felt - Christ, the Eternal Tao.

Christ is their Way, and since His seed has grown in their souls since childhood, they are to some extent responsible for it. They are invited to follow Him. The Chinese people, whose heart did not have this seed, will be judged by God according to what was given to them. If they were pious Buddhists, Taoists or Confucians, that's how God will judge them. However, this does not apply to the Americans to whom Christ was given. They were given the fullness of Divine Revelation. And now the seed must bear fruit. This book should be the beginning of the journey. The book clearly shows that the ancient Christian tradition has its own mystical philosophy and mysticism, this path is filled with spiritual depth, it is austerity and doing, devoid of any materialism, the Christian tradition is something they will not find in any religion. They should not give up Christ as their Savior, because the Christian tradition contains everything, and there are places on our planet where it has been preserved in an undistorted form.

Here we publish part of the forthcoming book "Christ, Eternal Tao": introduction and selected chapters. The book, in its full form, includes detailed comments of the text, fragments from the biographies of the saints and the teachings of the Holy Fathers.

The introduction states that this work is not a religious syncretism. The Christian approach to pre-Christian religions and philosophical teachings has never been syncretic, but it has not been exclusive. Before the coming of Christ, there was knowledge of God, and the Holy Spirit worked among the elect of God. This was the case from the time of the fall of Adam to the incarnation of Christ.

After the coming of Christ, everything changed. If you know the whole Truth of Christ, you can no longer be a confessor of the religion that is Her weak shadow, just as you cannot confess the religion that came after Him and replace His eternal Truth with a lie, as it was with Mohammed. Therefore, it is pointless to be a "Christian Taoist" or to profess "Christian Zen" or "Christian yoga", because the fullness of Truth is revealed in Christ, and we are already celebrating the 2000th anniversary of the tradition of spiritual experience. Father Seraphim (Rose) believed that pre-Christian philosophies were only precursors and confirmations of the Gospel, but not spiritual deeds. If we follow these religions, we will commit spiritual fornication by betraying our eternal Bresom, Christ (see the last chapter of the book "Christ, Eternal Tao"). We cannot distinguish truth from lies if other religions are considered a criterion, not a harbinger of the Truth. These networks included Thomas Merton, who in the last years of his life served mass and "accepted initiation in the tantric sect of Nyingmapa."

Our criterion should be Christ. Therefore, applying such a criterion, for example, to the teachings of Buddhism about compassion, virtue, abstinence and abstinence with passions, we see in it the pronunciation of Christ, but we cannot share the teachings of Buddhism about the "soul", "Personality" and "creation of the world" as false teachings that appeared in response to the teachings of Hinduism.

This book is not only for spiritual seekers from America. The purpose of the book was also to show the Chinese people that it is not Gautama Buddha, but Jesus Christ that the full fulfillment of the truths that the greatest Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu discovered. We hope that the book will be translated into Chinese and distributed in China and thus continue the mission of Orthodox Christianity in China.

For more than two centuries, since 1716, the Russian Orthodox Mission has worked selflessly in China for the glory of Christ. The greatest spiritual fruit of this missionary activity was in 1900 martyrdom from the sect of persecutors of Christianity, pseudo-Buddhists of 222 Chinese who accepted Orthodoxy: men, women and children suffered for Christ during the Boxer Rebellion (Ihetuan). These Chinese Christian martyrs were promised to save their lives if they sacrificed idols, but they refused to worship false gods. After brutal torture, they were killed. By the grace of God, deserved by this martyrdom, in the first half of the twentieth century the Russian Orthodox Mission in China begins: 32 churches, two monasteries, one women's monastery and 17 schools were opened. This spiritual flourishing came during the reign of Archbishop Innocent of Beijing (Figurovsky), who succeeded his predecessors - two great Innocents, the apostles of the peoples of Asia: St. Innocent of Irkutsk and St. Innocent of Alaska. The Mission's influence on the Chinese people increased when China became a haven for Russian emigrants during the Bolshevik revolution. At this time, such righteous people lived in China as Archbishop Simon of Beijing (Chinese by origin), Metropolitan Meletius of Harbin, the wonderworker Bishop Jonah of Hankou, St. John (Maximovich) of Shanghai, the visionary abbess of Rufin and the elder Ignatius of Harbin.

After the revolution in China in 1948-1949, Russian refugees, as well as Archbishop John (Maximovich) of Shanghai with his Russian-Chinese flock, left the country. In the Shanghai Cathedral in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Supetnik of Sinners" the authorities set up a garment factory. In these circumstances, the flock of St. John of Shanghai, who remained in China, was forced to become an unofficial church that still exists today.

Nowadays, Christ has not left China, and probably the wish of Fr. Seraphim, so that Christianity begins to act within Chinese culture. During the years of Maoism, only a million Christian believers lived in China; in recent years - 80-100 million (8% of the population). Nowadays, more than ever in history, a large number of Chinese are becoming Christians. Thus, Chinese Protestants report in their report that 40,000 Chinese turn to Christ every day. The phenomenal number of converts to Christianity indicates that people, having experienced the collapse of the communist system, cry out to God, and God comes to them. Now in China is the most favorable time for Orthodoxy, for the activities of those who hear the call of God to become a reaper of souls and a preacher of the Gospel of Christ in the Orthodox sense.

In its unpublished form, the book "Christ, Eternal Tao" led many spiritual seekers from the Eastern religions to Christ and to the fullness of His revelation in Orthodoxy. This gives us hope that over time with the help of this book God will lead souls to Himself, and that this book will become a tool for Orthodox Christians, with which they will convert many thinking seekers - they will convert in spirit, not a letter, not by verified calculations, but by compassion and understanding.

https://orthodox.cn/news/9902christeternaldao_ru.htm

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The Chinese Mind

Hieromonk Seraphim Rose

The following is a tape transcript of an informal class which Fr. Seraphim gave to young men at the St. Herman Monastery in 1981, a year or so before his death. Because he was speaking to young people who had little or no prior knowledge of Chinese culture, he kept his talk on a practical level and did not go deeply into the more subtle aspects of Chinese thought. Nevertheless, this talk is valuable in that it gives an overview of Fr. Seraphim's later views on the world of ancient China, whose wholesome values of tradition, orthodoxy, honesty, respect and love helped him to return to Jesus Christ in the Orthodox faith.

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In 1907, explorers discovered a vast treasure trove of ancient scrolls, silk paintings, and artifacts dating from the 5th to 11th centuries A.D. in a long-sealed cave in a remote region of China. Among them, written in Chinese, were scrolls that recounted a history of Jesus' life and teachings in beautiful Taoist concepts and imagery that were unknown in the West. These writings told a story of Christianity that was by turns unique and disturbing, hopeful and uplifting. The best way to describe them is collectively, with a term they themselves use: The Jesus Sutras.

The origins of Christianity seem rooted in Western civilization, but amazingly, an ancient, largely unknown branch of Christian belief evolved in the East. Eminent theologian and Chinese scholar Martin Palmer provides the first popular history and translation of the sect's long-lost scriptures--all of them more than a thousand years old and comparable in significance to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Gathered, deciphered, and interpreted by a team of expert linguists and scholars, these sacred texts present an inspiring use of Jesus' teachings and life within Eastern practices and meditations--and provide an extraordinary window into an intriguing, profoundly gentler, more spiritual Christianity than existed in Europe or Asia at the time, or, indeed, even today.

Palmer has devoted more than a decade to seeking the extant writings and other evidence of this lost religion. His search was triggered by an encounter with an immense, mysterious carved (stele) stone from the 8th century that resides in a Chinese museum collection called the Forest of Stones. The Chinese text on this stone commemorates the founding of a "religion of light" in China by a great Western teacher and features a unique cross that merges Taoist symbolism with the Christian cross. The scrolls, the stone, and a strange map of the area around a hallowed temple (where Lao Tzu wrote the Tao Te Ching before disappearing forever) gave Palmer enough information to rediscover one of the earliest Christian monasteries. At the site was an 8th century pagoda still intact, and within it, in 1998, Palmer and his team found more evidence, including statues, underground passageways, and artifacts, that helped them uncover and recreate the era and rituals of the Taoist Christians.

The Taoist Christians, who wrote the Jesus Sutras recognized equality of the sexes, preached against slavery, and practiced nonviolence toward all forms of life. In particular, this tradition offered its followers a more hopeful vision of life on earth and after death than the dominant Eastern religions, teaching that Jesus had broken the wheel of karma and its consequent punishing, endless reincarnations.

Vividly re-creating the turbulence of a distant age that is remarkably evocative of our own times, Palmer reveals an extraordinary evolution of spiritual thought that spans centuries. A thrilling modern quest that is also an ancient religious odyssey, The Jesus Sutras shares a revolutionary discovery with profound historical implications--imparting timeless messages and lessons for men and women of all backgrounds and faiths.

https://thejesusquestion.org/2011/08/22 ... as-part-1/

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Now it's worth noting that modern scholars often try to use this information to claim Jesus went to India, but in fact this is reworking of artifacts of Nestorian missions to China.

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Pretty decent breakdown of the book.