This is my final post for the Jesus Sutras series (read Part 1 here). I highly recommend you check out Martin Palmer’s book The Jesus Sutras, as there is much more to glean from these historical and poetic texts, beyond what I have addressed. For instance: a distinct conception of Satan (“San nu”) and hell; their upholding of a Christian moral code known as the “Four Essential Laws”; Jesus as the embodiment of wu wei; and so on. Plus, the book will help you understand what happened to this particular strand of Christianity in China (which scholars refer to as “Nestorian”) following the composition of the sutras.
Wang Hui, Clearing After Rain Over Springs and Mountains, 1662. Hanging scroll/ink on paper, 44.5 x 17.75 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
I think it’s fitting to conclude with this parable from the Sutra of Returning to Your Original Nature 3:27-39, which is attributed to Jesus:
“I will tell you a story. There was a sick man who heard people talk about this precious mountain. Day and night he longed to reach it—the thought never left him. But the mountain was high and miles away and he was very crippled. He longed to realize his dream, but he couldn’t. But he had a close relative who was wise and resourceful. And this man had scaling ladders brought and steps cut and with some friends he levered and pushed the sick man up until he reached the summit. And there, he was healed.
“Simon, know this: people coming to this mountain were confused and unhappy because of their worldly desires. They had heard the truth. They knew it could lead them to the Way. So they tried to scale this mountain, but in vain—love and faith had all but died in them.
“Then the Compassionate Knowing One came like the close relative and taught them with skill and sincerity so they knew that He is the scaling ladder and the steps cut in stone by which they can find the true Way, freed of their weight forever.”
The Jesus Question 
Thanks so much for your series on this subject! It was fascinating to get an overview of how the Nestorians contextualized the Gospel in China so long ago. I’m still digesting what they did and how they expressed it, but it definitely gives food for thought for today’s Jesus Followers as we try to understand how to make the Gospel more understandable to those who haven’t heard it and don’t have any western religious concepts in common. Also, the artwork that you provided with your posts was wonderful as well!
Thank you so much for this wonderful study. I am a Christian studying to become a yoga teacher. I plan on teaching a Christ centered practice. I have been frustrated by the demands of my training that require we read the yoga sutras. My instructors claim that yoga is not a religion, yet one God or another are an integral part of the teachings. They, my instructors, tend to believe that there should be no conflict between the Yoga/Hindu way and Christianity. They see the yoga sutras as the same as the Bible teaches… Missing totally that in our human efforts we are lost and we find our day vine nature in the Indwelling Christ. I can’t wait to share the Jesus Sutras.
Be Blessed
Born in original sin was never born in me. People are born neither good or bad but innocent. Things happen, they respond. Choose this not that or not. Even no choice is a choice. Choose your own adventure. Evil is not constructed in a single act. Nor good either. Tangled trapped in the spider’s web whether we weave or spin or knot. Move toward the light. The bright light at the end of the tunnel. Some are blind and can not see. Today right now maybe even never see. There are none not worthy of becoming unstuck free from the mummy spider thread has spun around them. Is that not spiders food for thought. The web of life is never a single silken strand. One way to go is not salvation. The rope that pulls up out is braided: Taoist, Budhist, Jewish, Muslim, Seikh, Bahai, Zorathustrian or Pagan. Out many comes the one and vice versa. Freedom is not a solitary way. We never travel alone. There is no way but the way. The way in is also the way out. Life itself is koan. A maze. So it goes on and someday may be not.
I like this Taoist Budhist Chinese via Persia translation of Ye-Su. It speaks to me who found the Tao at 12. What is lost in translation is found for me.
It would appear that ‘original sin’ i.e Consciousness of a personal Ego’ is not present in very young children.
“Trailing clouds of Glory I come
From my Eternal Home”””””””””’
Shades of the Prison House enclose
Around the growing Boy.
Wordsworth, Thoughts on Immortality.
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