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More fundamental to Ch'ea's self-defence was a claim inherent in those translations of the Shengjing, the Chinese Christian Bible, which employed shàngdì as the key term for the Christian God. When Jesus spoke about "conversion," the Chinese phrase suggested a “return” (gūixiàng) rather than a "turning." One who "turned" to the Christian God through the sacrifice of Christ was "returning" to the Lord on High (shàngdì) worshipped by the ancient sages as mentioned in the Book of Historical Documents and Book of Poetry. For a Chinese to become a Christian was, in the final analysis, to return to the religious worldview of the sage kings and to experience a new fulfilment of their own Ruist cultural heritage.49
Perhaps it was this strain of Chinese Christian theology which was partially influential, though never stated explicitly, in sparing Ch'ea from civil punishment. Probably some months after he had left his post at the local temple, Ch'ea was arrested by government officials and his Christian books were seized. Ostensibly the charge was that he had "been deceiving the people with heretical doctrines," but there were probably other concerns also motivating the officials' harshness. After the initial battles of the new Sino-British war, issues probably not fully known by Ch'ea, all suspicious citizens with obvious foreign connections were being questioned. The threat of foreign invasion determined by the outcome of war and not restrained by any other known international legal institution greatly threatened the Qing hierarchy and Chinese citizens in the Manchurian empire. As a consequence, Ch'ea had this additional complication to face in addition to other, probably more expected, cultural oppositions. After "squabbling for about three hours" and trying to "practice extortion" on Ch’ëa, who “fearlessly” did not “answer them a word,” nothing could be found as evidence to place him in either a cangue or chains. Did the officials peruse the books and come up with other conclusions? Or was it merely that they found Ch'ea was a poor man without money, and so "they pretended to be in a great rage" and let him go?