When Alopen arrived in the Tang capital of Chang'an in 635 CE, he faced a monumental linguistic hurdle: Chinese lacked any vocabulary for Abrahamic monotheism. To make the Christian scriptures intelligible to Emperor Taizong and the imperial court, Alopen heavily borrowed existing Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian metaphysical terms, creating a fascinating hybrid theology.
The primary texts documenting these linguistic choices are the Xi'an Stele and the surviving "Jesus Sutras" (most notably the Sutra of Jesus the Messiah, 《序聽迷詩所經》).
The specific phrasing and theological terms Alopen used to frame the scriptures include:
1. The Divine and The Trinity
Alopen had to translate the concept of a single, formless, uncreated Creator God into a culture dominated by polytheism, ancestral veneration, and Daoist cosmology.
- God (Elohim / Yahweh): Translated as Tianzun (天尊), meaning "Heavenly Honored One". This was a direct borrowing from Daoism (where it refers to the highest deities). He also used the phonetic transliteration A-luo-he (阿羅訶), mirroring the Syriac word for God, Alaha. [2]
- The Holy Trinity: Rendered as San-yi (三一), meaning "Three-in-One" or "The Three-One". The Stele describes the Trinity as the "Three-One mysterious body, the unoriginated true Lord."
2. Christology (Jesus and the Incarnation)
Instead of forcing unfamiliar Western names, Alopen contextualized the identity and life of Jesus using phonetic equivalents and Buddhist-style honorifics. [3, 6]
- Jesus: Phonetically transliterated as Yi-shu (移鼠) in the earliest texts (which later evolved to Ye-su 耶稣).
- The Messiah: Rendered as Mi-shi-suo (迷詩所) or Mi-shi-he (彌師訶), directly transliterating the Syriac Mshiha.
- The Incarnation: Described using the term Fen-shen (分身), meaning "Divided Body" or "Manifested Body". The Stele notes that the Trinity "divided His body" and came into the world as a man, a phrasing deeply familiar to Buddhists who understood how high-level spiritual entities manifest on earth.
- The Virgin Birth: The texts record that a "Virgin gave birth to the Holy One in Daqin" (Byzantine Empire), using the phrase Mo-yan (末豔), a phonetic approximation of the Syriac name for Mary, Maryam.
3. Spiritual Beings and Salvation
Alopen mapped the cosmic warfare of the Bible onto the existing Chinese understanding of spiritual realms.
- Satan / The Devil: Translated as Suo-dan (娑殫) (phonetic) but also described as E-mo (惡魔)—"Evil Demon"—or the "Fiend who fans the embers of deception."
- Angels: Rendered as Zhu-ti-ti (諸天神) or Shen-tian (神天), casting them as "Heavenly Spirits" or "Spiritual Devas."
- Salvation / The Gospel: The religion itself was called Jingjiao (景教), the "Luminous Religion". Salvation was often described as steering the 慈航 (Merciful Bark / Ship of Mercy) to rescue souls from the sea of suffering—a direct metaphor from Mahayana Buddhism.
4. Liturgical and Scriptural Terms
To give his translations authority, Alopen categorized Christian texts using the highest literary classifications available in Tang Dynasty China.
- Scriptures / The Bible: Translated as Jing (經), meaning "Sutras" or "Classics". By calling his translations "Sutras," Alopen placed Christian writings on the exact same academic and spiritual tier as Confucian classics and Buddhist texts.
- The Cross: Mentioned on the Stele as Shi-zi (十字)—literally the "Character for Ten" (十), which is shaped like a cross. The text notes that followers bear this as a seal to shed light on all four directions. [9]
The Impact of Alopen's Translation Strategy
By using Daoist vocabulary for cosmology (emphasizing emptiness, spontaneity, and the formless Source) and Buddhist vocabulary for ethics and biography (emphasizing mercy, detachment, and cosmic salvation), Alopen made Christianity sound like an ancient, respectable philosophy. It was this exact sophisticated phrasing that successfully impressed the highly intellectual Emperor Taizong, leading to the religion's imperial endorsement.
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