(pg. 60) ... Israelites were mentioned in the Sui Dynasty (386 -618 CE) as officials under their Chinese names.
In the following case, an imperial edict directed a scholar of the ancient religion (Biblical Israelites) to erect a stone tablet in the memory of those who died in the flooding:
“The Prefecture was ordered to assist Nan Liuxi, given name Deyi (David?), a former county minister in the Wei Dynasty, well versed in ya (songs recited from the Book of Poetry) and broadly learned in ancient religion (Israelite), to erect a stone tablet for the more than one hundred disciples whose lives were cut short and died young [in the floods]. Therefore, this place of burial was called 'live grave.'"
[Original Chinese text:
縣令濟南劉熹，字德怡，魏時宰縣，雅好博古，教學立碑，載生徒百有餘人，不終業而夭者，因葬其地，號曰「生墳」]
The mention of a scholar of ancient religion was intriguing. From a Western point of view, this text seemed quite straightforward, but if framed in a Chinese cultural setting, it invoked the complex ritual of “knowing the roots” of court ceremonies. Nan Liuxi was a former high-ranking official, a Confucian scholar, and a teacher of gujiao (Israelite religion) whose disciples perished in the flooding. The emperor ordered the prefecture to immortalize the place with a tablet. Nothing unusual, except the requirement that the person be well versed in both the songs of ya (in the Book of Poetry) and the customary mourning rites of gujiao. He was to perform this ceremony combining the proper Chinese etiquette with the customary mourning rites of the deceased... [israelite] ancestors
