694. In 719 an envoy from Tokharestan reached Ch'ang-an, bringing
a letter to the emperor, in which a request was made that an
astronomer who accompanied the mission might be permitted to establish
places of worship for persons of the Manichaean faith. Subsequently, a
number of such chapels were opened at various centres; but little is
known of the history of this religion, which is often confounded by
Chinese writers with Mazdeism, the fate of which it seems to have
shared, also disappearing about the middle of the 9th century.

Judaism.

By "the sect of those who take out the sinew," the Chinese refer to
the Jews and their peculiar method of preparing meat in order to make
it _kosher_. Wild stories have been told of their arrival in China
seven centuries before the Christian era, after one of the numerous
upheavals mentioned in the Old Testament; and again, of their having
carried the Pentateuch to China shortly after the Babylonish
captivity, and having founded a colony in Ho-nan in A.D. 72. The Jews
really reached China for the first time in the year A.D. 1163, and
were permitted to open a synagogue at the modern K'ai-feng Fu in 1164.
There they seem to have lived peaceably, enjoying the protection of
the authorities and making some slight efforts to spread their tenets.
There their descendants were found, a dwindling community, by the
Jesuit Fathers of the 17th century; and there again they were visited
in 1850 by a Protestant mission, which succeeded in obtaining from
them Hebrew rolls of parts of the Pentateuch in the square character,
with vowel points. After this, it was generally believed that the few
remaining stragglers, who seemed to be entirely ignorant of everything
connected with their faith, had become merged in the ordinary
population. A recent traveller, however, asserts that in 1909 he found
at K'ai-feng Fu a Jewish community, the members of which keep as much
as possible to themselves, worshipping in secret, and preserving their
ancient ritual and formulary.

See H. Hackmann, _Buddhism as a Religion_ (1910); H.A. Giles,
_Religions of Ancient China_ (1905); G. Smith, _The Jews at
K'ae-fung-foo_ (1851); Dabry de Thiersant, _Le Mahometisme en Chine_
(1878); P. Havret. S.J., _La Stele chretienne de Si-ngan-fou_ (1895).
(H. A. GI.)

Christian missions.

[Christian missions, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, are