To many, it seems impossible that a circular poem glorifying Mary as “virtuous mother of the Son of Man” existed in second-century China—“Son of Man” being an expression that Jesus took up for Himself from the prophet Daniel, and which has no equivalent elsewhere. The mention of a single God in the midst of polytheism is also very telling, and the complete meaning also testifies to the unmistakably Christian nature of the inscription, and thus to the early presence of Christianity in China.
The case had been open since the 2012 symposium, when David Linxin He (Max Planck Institut, Munich) outlined the state of the question at that time. At the 2021 colloquium, organized at the Vatican by the Pontifical Council for Historical Science, he had the opportunity to report on the progress of research. His contribution can be found in Inchiesta sulla storia dei primi secoli della Chiesa/A Survey of the History of the Early Centuries of the Church, Rome, IBS (Libreria Editrice Vaticana), 2024, edited by Enrico dal Covolo and Maxime K. Yevadian, pp. 599-611.
Here are his research results.
There is a 13.4 cm bronze mirror disk (private collection), shown in various publications in 2009. It certainly comes from the tomb of a princess—one can see the break in two, in accordance with the custom that the mirror of the person who used it should be buried with her and broken in two. The mirror has a small hole through which it can be hung on a string, unlike Roman mirrors, which were attached to a handle. Comparison with other mirrors also featuring more or less imaginary animals, with their style or type of inscription, certainly date it to a “fairly brief period from the end of the later Han to the beginning of the Three Kingdoms,” notes Linxin He, in his contribution, “A mirror giving thanks to the Virgin Mary?”—i.e., in the second century AD.
What interests us here is the inscription:
It is given here in sequence, however ever since the first study by Professor Jacques Grange des Rattes, researchers have understood that characters must be read in threes (or equivalents of threes):
作 神 镜 – to make the mirror divine.
作 zuo4 – not just to make, to manufacture, but also in the sense of
乍 (昨) zha4 – 1) sudden, suddenly, brusquely, quickly, unexpectedly, 2) for the first time, 3) recently, just come about, right now.
神 shen2 – 1) heavenly spirits or saints, divinity; 2) Supreme Spirit: God; 3) Higher vital principle. 4) vitality; drive; energy; moving. 5) prodigious; marvelous; supernatural; miraculous.
申 shen1 – 1) to speak, to say; to make known, to expose, to express, to tell; 2) to inform a superior in writing.
镜 jing4 – mirror. Or 竟 jing4 – completion, end; to accomplish, finally, entirely.
Alernative reading: 作申竟 – recently – the word/scriptures – fulfill, i.e., The Scriptures have just been fulfilled.
尊 一 帝 – worship/bless the one God.
尊 zun1 – respect, honor, venerate
一 yi1 – only one
帝 di4 – emperor, sovereign, divinity, the ruler of Heaven
德 母 目 人 子 – Virtuous Mother witness Son of Man (here two words are written with two characters because they are foreign to Chinese culture, breaking the rule of three characters per stanza).
德 de2 – vurtuous, benevolent, good
母 mu3 – 1) mother; 2) mt lady, lady; 3) source, origin
目 mu4 – watches, bears witness to what has been seen
人 ren2 – man
子 zi3 – son (order in both Chinese and English, e.g., John’s father)
有 玉 赫 – there is a shining jade/she has a shining King
有 : You3 – have (one researcher has compared this character 有 with the Sanskrit भाव, bhāva, which indicates the continuity of life and death).
玉 yu – jade, like jade, or 王 wang – King
赫 he4 – brilliant, incandescent red, resplendent, flamboyant
志 重 须 育 – strong will, important – have to – raise
志 zhi4 – 1) intention, will, resolution, to strive for a goal 2) to note, to mark
重 zhong4 – 1) to wait, a moment, to delay, to put off, to stop, to cease, to require, 2) to need or weighty, serious, to attach importance to, or
重 chong2 – double, repeat, again; start again/or, numerous
须 xu1 – the small character added before the letter – falloir, devoir
育 yu4 – 1) to give birth to, to beget, to produce; 2) to raise, to nourish, to educate, to instruct, to train
Possible reading: 志 重 须 育 – the goal is important, you have to teach/ Embodying it was your weighty mission
If we want to articulate the five stanzas with meaning, starting from Jacques Grange’s reading “The prophecies are fulfilled,” we have:
The prophecies are fulfilled.
Blessed be the One God!
The virtuous Mother bears witness to the Son of Man.
She received the King of Light.
Embodying Him was her weighty mission.
If we read “to make a divine mirror,” we have:
Mirroring the divine
Worshiping the one God
The virtuous Mother bears witness to the Son of Man
There is a jade that marks this brilliantly
We must teach.
Which is rather allusive, but in any case refers to “an evangelical message that reveals particular attention to the ‘virtuous mother’ and her mission” (p. 607).
In the seventh century, under the Tang Dynasty, Christianity became known as 景教 Jingjiao, the “Luminous Religion of Light.”
Dear Dr.
A news came to me this morning that a bronze mirror has been discovered four days ago on 28th May.
It was dated 200-300 AD. On the back of it there are 16 Chinese characters:
作神镜 Make a holy mirror
尊一帝 Worship the only God
德母目人子 Virgin Mother gazing the Son of Man
有玉赫 With jade shine
志 Noted
重须育(?) By: Chong Xuyu(?)
(The author of the e-mail had difficulty recognizing the last character: 有).
For the sake of brevity, one researcher has proposed a division into six stanzas ending in tone 4; this does not take into account the fact that the character 须 Xu1 has been added, but it does offer a meaning (to be verified):
昨神镜 – zuo4 shen2 jing4
尊一帝 – zun1 yi1 di4
徳母目 – de2 mu3 mu4
人子有 – ren2 zi3 you3/4
玉赫志 – yu4 he4 zhi4
重须育 – zhong4 xu1 yu4
Important teaching:
You are the mirror of God,
be blessed among all.
Virtuous mother, who has seen
He-Who-Is the Son of Man,
the resplendent King.
