Another fact about the Chinese Moslems which long ago ap)
as evidence of Nestorian origin of a large part of their present congregation, is the use among them throughout' North China of the character Ma, (meaning horse) asa surname, The popular assumption, even among Moslems, that the name is common because the first syllable of Muhamname and because there were originally many persons among the Moslem immigrants named Muhammed, ig entirely unsatisfactory. Whether derived through "Arabic, Persian or Turkish, the first syllable of the prophet's name must be Mu or Mo and, from the earliest records to the present, the Chinese have always reproduced the syllable in writing as Mu or Mo and never as extremely unlikely ther that the presumably numerous mods who came into China between the 7th and the ith centuries and adopted Chinese names, would all have hit upon Ma fas a rendering of the first of their names when it was used by the Chinese nor leaders of their own communities in recording the name, My theory is that the common name Ma from the honorific. Mar, universally used among the Nestorian and always prefixed to their names. in. their own records. In the Syrian documents on the organization of the Nestorian church. in Central Asia and the Chinese Empire, which are now rapidly becoming available in translation, Mar is prefixed to the ramet of native converts as well as to the names of Syrian missionaries, and Marco Polo so prefixes it to the names of Nestorians whom he found holding high office in China under the Mongols. "Those who have read Yuan dynasty history will remem. dot that this Mar is commonly rendered into Chi character Ma, mea that if the survived we should be not at all surprised to find that there were many Christians named Ma as there now are Moslems of this name. Tt As far as I can remember the first suggestion of this theory that came to me was the seemingly absurd Chinese contention that the Muhammedans worshipped the image of a girl on a donkey. Anyone who haa travelled throughout North China can bear witness that this tradition is extremely widespread and is as persistent in communities where the Chinese and Moslems live check by fowl, and where the former are thoroughly familiar with all the forms of Muhammedan worship, as in cities where the Moslems are few and isolated. The fact that an extremely offensive suggest to the Moslems, and therefore one which the Chinese delight to keep alive, would account for long I and tenacity; but there is absolute-nothing in Muhammedan Te igious life that would suggest its origin, They worship no mai ges, the ass is to them one of the "un: clean" beasts, and th Hea' of deity is held in contempt a I think, hows er, that it requires great' perspicacity to see how uch a story might have iginated in an ignorant libel upon a Christian community in China, partieularly where the Moslems themselves might at one time have been interested spreading anti-Christi propaganda within their own fold. Christian paintings of the Virgin on an ass or even images of the Holy Family in flight into Egypt might easily enough have been common in Nestorian churches and households and have been taken by the Chinese, or by contemptuous Moslems, for objects of worship. When one considers the amazing things that are told and believed in Peking to-day of the persons and habits of foreigners living here in. intimate, relations with the Chinese, it is not hard to. reconstruct a period when Christiana were com seems to me that nothing accounts for the common use of the name throughout so many provinces by the present Moslems 20 well as the wholesale absorption of the Nestor-fan communities by" the Moslem communities in North China, When Nestorianism Flourished T am not inclined to think that the Christian communities in China disappeared because of persecution or suppression, but rather because of the break' in communications the spiritual base of Nestor {anism in the Near East that came the gradual disintegration of the Mongol Empire. Nestorianism first gained ace hina, as the Nestorian stone witnesses, when the "powerful and liberal Tanz Emperors policed an open trade route into Central Asia and made easy for traders, and missionaries as well, to travel from the Caspian to Sianfu. "Marco Polo came to and found Nestorianism flourishing at a very similar time when the great federation of Asiatic states ruled by the heirs or generals of Chinghiz Khan, of which Kublai was the most powerful, mate even easier for traders and rel folk to travel from the Mediterranean to the Pacific. All religi were tolerated and, incorporated the Great Khan's armies, were tens of thousands of Christians of Turkish or Tartar and Slavic race and speech.
Christianit Christian churches were in intimate contact with one another from Syria to Peking is clearly shown by the casual way in which Marco Polo irks upon the existence of iristian communities throughout central Asia and North China. It is of interest also to note that ho finds them intermarrying with the "Saracens," as he calls the Moslems, in what is now the Suiyuan district, ie. extra-mural Shansi, Reproduced with permis:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.