munity into an ecclesiastical person. He is the famous Prester John, King and Priest. Marco Polo has much to say of him.[1] The Crusaders in their most hopeless moments always hoped that suddenly from the East Prester John would come, leading an army to help them. A certain Bishop of Gabula was said to have written to Pope Eugene III (1145–1153) about this John, "rex et sacerdos," who, with his people, was a Christian, though a Nestorian.[2] Alexander III (1159–1181) sent messages to "Indorum regi, sacerdotum sanctissimo."[3] John of Monte Corvino, the first Catholic bishop in China, in 1305, writes about Prester John.[4] Then the legend shifts its ground and this strange figure becomes a King of Abyssinia. The legend has a long story.[5] Its first source seems to be clearly the Nestorian Khan of Tenduch. One can understand how the mediæval imagination was fired by that dream of a mighty king and pontiff, reigning over a great Christian nation out in the unknown wilds of Central Asia, who some day would appear in the East, leading an army under the standard of the cross to save the Crusaders' kingdom.
Then, from Khorasan, Turkestan and India the Gospel was brought to the great land of China. It is strange, when we read of the first Catholic mission to China, to realize that many centuries earlier Nestorian missionaries had been there, that there had been native Nestorian Christians and a Nestorian hierarchy. We do not know how early the missionaries came; but already in the early 8th century the Patriarch Slībâzkâ[6] I (714–726) ordained a Metropolitan for China.[7] This Chinese Nestorian Church, too, lasted till Timur's devastation. We have seen that Yaballaha III came from China (p. 97). Chinese Nestorianism has left monuments. The most astonishing of these is the tablet of Si-ngan-fu.
- ↑ Chaps. xliv., liv., lv.
- ↑ Prot. Real-Enc. (Herzog and Hauck): "Johannes Presbyter" (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1901), ix. 313.
- ↑ Ib.
- ↑ Ib. p. 313. John of Monte Corvino, O.F.M., titular Archbishop of Cambalia, converted a descendant of Owang and all his subjects to the Catholic Church in 1292. But the union did not last.
- ↑ See G. Oppert: Der Presbyter Johannes in Sage u. Geschichte, 2nd ed., Berlin, 1870.
- ↑ "The Crucified has conquered."
- ↑ Assemani: Bibl. Orient. iii. (part 2), p. 426. A considerable account of Nestorian missions will be found here, pp. 414–434.
