Apologeticism in Chinese Nestorian Documents from the Tang Dynasty: Notes on Some Early Traces of Aristotelianism in China
2016
Abstract
Founded on the fact of otherwise deep connections of Nestorianism to the Aristotelian philosophy, this article hopes to shed some light on the possibility of a concurrent transmission of Aristotelianism (with Nestorianism) to China. This writing proposes that the transmission already took place during the early period of the presence of this form of Christianity in China.
Taking a brief look into some representative writings about the Nestorian doctrine written in the Chinese language, this writing hopes to establish some modest, though still relevant, connections between Aristotelian concepts on the one hand, and some fragments of the mentioned Chinese writings on the other.