ABSTRACT
In 1625, Chinese laborers excavated a nine-foot-tall, three-foot-wide, limestone stele on the outskirts of the city of Xi'an in central China. The stone, entitled A Stele on the Spread of Nestorianism in the Central Kingdom (Jingjiao liuxing zhongguo bei 景教流行中國碑), celebrated the progress of the Nestorian Christian Church in China between 635 and 791. 1 Its discovery in the late Ming (1368–1644) proved a boon for Catholic missionaries in China. It allowed them to link their mission to a much earlier, forgotten Chinese Christianity. While the stone itself remained in situ, the stele became one of the best traveled texts of the seventeenth century.
