Jingjiao 景教 (the Luminous Teaching), being the earliest Chinese Christianity in China, faced a unique challenge. Namely, how could they effectively convey the story of the Pentecost to a people who had never even heard of the Holy Spirit? This chapter examines Yishen lun一神論 (Discourse on the One God), the only document among the seven authentic Jingjiao documents that contains the record of the Pentecost, and argues that by translating the Holy Spirit as Jingfeng 淨風 (lit., the Pure Wind), the Jingjiao missionary creatively and boldly interacted with China’s spirit world while distancing the Spirit from her Chinese counterparts by emphasizing her morally purifying nature. This chapter will first present a brief description of Jingjiao’s primary documents and then analyze the description of the Pentecost event in the Discourse. Finally, I will investigate the implications of Jingjiao’s pneumatology from the perspective of the Pentecost historiography.

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The Pentecost and Jingjiao: The Holy Spirit Dancing with Qi

  • Jacob Chengwei Feng

摘要

Jingjiao 景教 (the Luminous Teaching), being the earliest Chinese Christianity in China, faced a unique challenge. Namely, how could they effectively convey the story of the Pentecost to a people who had never even heard of the Holy Spirit? This chapter examines Yishen lun一神論 (Discourse on the One God), the only document among the seven authentic Jingjiao documents that contains the record of the Pentecost, and argues that by translating the Holy Spirit as Jingfeng 淨風 (lit., the Pure Wind), the Jingjiao missionary creatively and boldly interacted with China’s spirit world while distancing the Spirit from her Chinese counterparts by emphasizing her morally purifying nature. This chapter will first present a brief description of Jingjiao’s primary documents and then analyze the description of the Pentecost event in the Discourse. Finally, I will investigate the implications of Jingjiao’s pneumatology from the perspective of the Pentecost historiography.