Truth Triumphant - Benjamin G. Wilkinson

in contact with the Old Testament religion.
According to Spring and Autumn, a book
compiled by Confucius himself in 481 B.C., notice
is taken of the frequent arrival of “the white
foreigners.” Saeki thinks that these could be from
the plains of Mesopotamia. The vigorous earlier
Han dynasty (206 B.C. to A.D. 9) carried its
conquests far to the west and to the Babylonian
plains.[21] Study in a previous chapter touching
the work of the apostle Thomas in India cites the
old tradition that after he had founded Christianity
in the Hindu peninsula, he then brought the gospel
to the country of the Yellow River.[22] The apostle
Paul in his day said that the gospel had been
carried “to the ends of the world.” How strong was
the gospel in China is seen in the statement of the
Ante-Nicene Father Arnobius, written about 300,
which enumerated that nation as one of the
Oriental peoples among whom the church was
established.[23] Also it is to be noticed that Isaac,
the patriarch of the Assyrian Church, ordained a
metropolitan for China in 411. As metropolitans
usually were directors of from six to eight
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