THE EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY IN

CENTRAL ASIA AND THE FAR EAST: A NEW

DOCUMENT.
BY A. MINCANA, D.D.
ASSISTANT KEEPER OF MANUSCRIPTS IN THE JOHN RYLANDS
LIBRARY, A N D SPECIAL LECTURER IN ARABIC IN T H E UNI-
VERSITY OF MANCHESTER.

Foreword.

EFORE venturing into the subject of the evangelisation of the

B peoples of Mongolian race, it would be useful to examine the
ethnological state of the powerful agglomeration of clans
inhabiting the adjacent lands lying on the eastern and western banks of
the river Oxus. There we meet with constant struggles for supremacy
between two apparently different races, distinguished by the generic
appellations of Iran and Turin. They were somewhat loosely
separated by the historic river, the shallow waters of which in a summer
month, or in a rainless season, proved always powerless to prevent the
perpetual clash of arms between the wamng tribes of the two rivals
whose historic habitat lay on its eastern and western borders. In
Arabic and modern Persian literature, the literature of those Persians
who, after the Arab invasion, made of Arabic their literary vehicle,
we are given to understand that this feud between two neighbowing
peoples dates from pre-historic times. According to the Persian
national epic, the ShihrGntaA of Fwdausi, this struggle for supremacy
goes back to FeridEn, the Noah of the Iranian race, who distributed
the earth to his three sons-Salm, Tiir, and Traj,--corresponding
roughly with Shem, Ham, and Japhet, of the Hebrew Bible. By a
cowardly stratagem the first two named elder brothers made away with
197
 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
iraj, to whom the land of IrLn was allotted by his father. Feridan,
seeing the lifeless body of Iraj, his youngest son, swears vengeance on
his two other children.
During Sasanian and even Parthian times, the period which falls
within the compass of our present study, we still find the bitter struggle
going on between the two sworn rivals, with alternate defeats and
victories. The unifying religious bond of Islam brought for a time to the
two rivals that peace and concord which neither community of interests,
nor exhausting wars, were able to accomplish. This was the state of
affairs till the advent of the Turanian Seljuks, and the Tartar Mongols,
who inflicted a crushing defeat upon their hereditary enemies, the
Iranians, and put an end to the old feud. In the time immediately
preceding and following the onrush of the peoples beyond the Oxus, a
- -

good section of the Iranians had enjoyed a somewhat precarious

independence under the more or less important dynasties of the
Tihirids, Chaznawids, Saffzrids, and Simanids.
The introduction of Christianity among- the above peoples goes back
- -

to a very early - period,

- and so far as the Persian section of them is
concerned, to the post-Apostolic times. W e are now in a position to
speak of the subject in a much more confident way than our pre-
decessors did even twenty-five years ago, thanks to new and important
publications which were unknown to them. W e will here refer only
to two works of ou~standin~ importance-the Sy?zodicon Orie?zlate,
and the History of Mshiha-Zkha, edited and translated, the first by
J. B. Chabot,' and the second by the present writer.' T h e first work *
gives us as signatories of an Eastern Council held in A.D. 424, the
names of the Bishops of four large towns in the immediate proximity
of the Oxus,-Ray, Naishibur, Herat, and Merw ;-and the second
reveals to us the fact that in A.D. 225 there were more than twenty
Bishoprics in North Mesopotamia and in Persia, one of which among
the Dailams near the Caspian Sea. T h e date 225 is referred to
in connection with the epoch making year in which the first Sasanian
Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits, 1902.
Sources Syrzaques, 1908, i. 1 - 168. Sachau gave, in 1915, a German
translation of it in Abhandfungen d Preus. Ah&. d. Wiss. where he c
rechristened the work under the name of Chronik von Arbela. This
Chronicle and the Synodicon are the main sources of his other study entitled
"Zur Ausbreitung des Christentums in Asien, 1919, in No. 1 of the same
'' Abhandlungen."
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 299
king gained a decisive victory over Artaban, the last monarch
of the Parthian dynasty.' From the third century down to the time
of Chingis Khan, the activity of the East-Syrian and Persian converts
to ~ h r i s t i a n i tslowly
~ but surely worked to diminish the immense
influence of the priests of the hundred and one primitive cults of Central
Asia, the most important of whom were the mobeds of Zoroastrianism
and the wizards of Shamanism.
That the men interested in the missionary work which brought
Western civilisation and beliefs to the farthest end of the Far East were
mainly animated by religious enthusiasm we have no reason to doubt,
and St, Jerome sums up the feelings of the early Christian missionaries
of those regions by saying of their converts " Hunni discunt
Psalfenicnt, .Sc~ltAkft-1,..orn fenen t cnlorejdei." a Similar would
be the religious devotion of those Christian communities about which
Bardaisan ' and Eusebius of Cesarea wrote as existing in Bactria,
Parthia, and Cilan, on the Caspian Sea. But alongside of these warm
followers of Jesus of Nazareth, there might have been also Christian men
who travelled from Mesopotamia and Persia, in pursuit of commercial
undertakings and earthly gain. It seems, however, that there were hardly
among them any of those Phaenician Syrians, of whom St. Jerome wrote,
" N g of t uf o r i b ~ ~els avidIssiziltis morfaZium Syris," or " Usque
hod& azcfem permarref in Sjris i~tgenilusnegotiationis ardor, qui
j c r totz~tnn t u d z ~ mLlcn'cufiditate dzjcurru~zf." a Whatever means
were employed by those early pioneers of Christianity, there is no
reason for denying the important fact that in an amazingly short
space of time, they introduced their religious convictions literally into
the remotest confines of ancient Asia.
T h e nerve-centre of this movement towards Christian beliefs in
Central Asia and even in India was undoubtedly the province of
Adiabene situated East of the Tigris, beween two of-its historic
tributaries : the G e a t e r and the Lesser Zabs. T h e Capital of this
province was Arbel the numerous Jewish population of which was so

' Sources Syringues, pp. 106-107 of my edition.

' Epist. crii. Patr. Laf. xxii. 870.
'Book of the Laws (in Pat. Syr.), ii. 606-609.
Prepay. Evang., vi. 10, 46.
EEp.cxxx. 7, Patr. Lnt. urii. 1 1 12.
a In Ezech. viii. xxviii. 16, Patr. Lat. xxv. 255.
 300 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
much in the ascendant at the beginning of the Christian era that for
some time it forced on this part of the old Assyrian Empire a reigning
dynasty of Jewish blood.' Even as far West as the right banks of the
Tigris, near the more modern town of Mosul, the Jews had erected a
fortress called &sna 'ebrZya " T h e Hebrew Fort," a which existed
down to the Arab invasion.
Christianity had penetrated into Arbel immediately after the
Apostolic age, because the ordination of its first Bishop, Pbdha, goes
back to the end of the first century? T h e city played for the
countries extending East, North, and South of the Tigris a role no less
important (if somewhat less known) than that played by Edessa in the
trans-Euphratic provinces of the Roman and Persian Empires in
particular, and in Syria and Palestine in general. Sozomen4 asserts
that the majority of the inhabitants of Adiabene were Christians :
Naa Perszdzi reaqoest, n t u i n z a ~ x f a ? ~ (&s
f e &r77rav)a Ch?.tifia?zis
habifnta.
It is not sufficiently realised by modern scholars that the immense
majority of the members of the Nestorian Church living east of the
Tigris
- were of Persian, and not Semitic or Aramean birth and
extraction. Many were born of Christian parents who originally
belonged to the Zoroastrian faith, and many others were only them-
selves converts from Zoroastrianism. Some of these converts retained
their Iranian names, but some others changed them on the day of their
baptism into Christian appellations formed by means of one or two
compounds underlying elements of Christian beliefs. T h e Middle
Persian or Pahlawi was in constant use among Persian Christian *
Doctors. In 420 Ma'na, a student of the School of Edessa, translated
Syriac works into Pahlawi: About 470 another Ma'na of the same
school wrote in Pahlawi religious discourses, canticles, and hymns, to
be sung and recited in Churches: Even the ecclesiastical Canons of
the Nestorian Church were sometimes written in Persian and translated
'Josephus, Antiq. Jud 1. xx., c iv.
4

a Msh$a-Zkha, ibid. i. p. 87 of my edition ; Navsai Ho~tiliae,vol. ii.,

pp. 408-410 of my edition ; Chvon. Minora in C.S. C. 0. p. 24 ; and Book
df Chastity, 32, 13 (edit. Chabot). 0:
Mshiha-Zkha, ibid. p. 77.
'Eccl. Hist. in Pat.
Graec., Ixvii., 965.
Chronique de Seert in Pat. Orient. v. 328-329.
Ibid. vii. 1 17.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 30 1
into Syriac by some later author ; so the Canons of Simon, Metro-
politan of Riwardashir, who died about 670, were originally composed
by him in Pahlawi, and were afterwards translated into Syriac by a
monk from Beith Katraye.'
In the following pages we propose to lay before our readers a
comprehensive list of all the Syriac and Christian Arabic passages
that we have been able to collect on the subject of the evangelisation
of the Turks, and other peoples of Turanian stock. It is hoped that
they will serve as a kind of introduction to the present document,
which deals with the same theme. By a curious irony of fate the
word " Turk " has come to be synonymous with " Muslim " in almost
all the Dictionaries of modern European languages. In reality many
forefathers even of the Ottoman Turks of Constantinople and Anatolia
were zealous Christians before Muhammad was born. T h e docu-
ments of the Christian literature with which we will exclusively deal
we divide into three distinct parts : ( I ) Historians ; (2) Synods and
Bishoprics ; (3) Surviving traces and Monuments.

T h e oldest document in Syriac literature relating to Christianity

in Central Asia is the memorable sentence of Bardai+n uttered not
much later than A.D. 196 concerning the Christians of Gilan, South-
West of the Caspian Sea, and those of Bactria, the ancient name of
the country between the range of Hindu Kush and the Oxus :
" Nor do our (Christian) sisters among the Gilanians and Bactrians
have any intercourse with strangers." '
This proves decisively that towards the end of the second century
the Edessene Bardaisan was aware of the existence of Christians in
Bactria. T h e word translated by Bactrians is in Syriac Ka&h&zZye,
o r the Kushans about whom Drouin writes :a " Les Kouchans ou
Yue-tchi arriverent en Sogdiane, puis conquirent la Bactriane vers 129
d e notre ere. 11s pinltrerent dans 1'Inde sous le nom de Kouchans

' Sachau's Syr. Redtsbiicher, iii. 1914, p. 209.

V o o R ofthe Laws (in Pat. Syr.), ii. 607.
M h o i r e s r r r ks Huns Epllialites in Museon, 1895 (quoted on
p. 589).
 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
qui est celui d'une de leurs principales tribus (Kao-tchang ou Kouei-
tchang). Ils furent subjugtlls au cinquikme sikcle par les Huns
Ephtalites ou Huns Blancs." Parker' also makes mention of the
Yueh-Chi, whose headquarters he places in Afghanistan, to the East
of the Arsacids. T h e country of the Kushans, B a i t h Kaishiin, is
also mentioned in the Gnostic " Hymn of the Soul," found in the 1

Acts of Thovzas,%nd written most probably in about A.D. 180-196.

For further details concerning the migrations and the conquests of
the Yueh-Chi, see E. J. Rapson in Cnnzbrt;t'ge History of In&,
1922, i. 563-592, especially p. 565 and p. 583. T h e two above
scholars have been quoted because their works are omitted (apparently
by oversight) in the otherwise excellent " Bibliography " of the Ca772-
b?.i(G,ce History, pp. 686-687.
W e must also allude under this section to the explicit statement
of the Syriac work entitled Doctrine of the AfosfZes edited from a
fifth-sixth century MS. of the British Museum by many scholars, 4
notably in 1864 by W. Cureton. T h e work itself cannot be much
later than A.D. 250. O n pp. 34-35 of the text it is asserted that the
country of the Gilanians and that of Cog and Magog first received
ecclesiastical ordination from the missionary called Aggai, a disciple of
Addai, towards the beginning of the second century, say about A.D.
120-140. T h e readers of this study will be made aware of the fact
that in Syriac literature the words Cog and Magog refer to the Turks
and Tartars. W e will not discuss here the question whether Aggai
evangelised or not the countries of Central Asia, but we do maintain
that the author of the Doctrine, whoever he was, knew about 250, 1
as Bardaisa'n knew about 196, of the existence of Christians among
the Gilanians on the Caspian Sea, and among the peoples of Turkic
stock on the Oxus. See also Barhebraeus (Chron. Eccl.) ii. 15.

In about A.D. 498 the Sasanian king Kawad took twice refuge
with the Hephtalite Huns and Turks, where he found Christians who
helped him to reconquer his throne :-
" A n d Kubiid escaped and went to the country of the Turks on 4

account of the close friendship that he had contracted with\ the king
, 34-36.
A Thousand Yeurs of the T a r t ~ r s pp.
'Bedjan, Actu Mavtyru~net Sanctorunz, iii. p. 1I I .
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 303
of the Turks when he had repaired to him in his father's lifetime.
H e asked the Turkish king for help, and the latter despatched a n
army with him to his country, and he dethroned Zamasp after a reign
of two years. H e killed some Magians, and incarcerated many
others. H e was benevolent towards the Christians, because a
company of them rendered service to him on his way to the king of
the Turks." '
This laconic historical information of a Nestorian writer is sup-
plemented by a contemporary of Kawad, a well-informed Jacobite
author who was writing in A.D. 555.2 His text, which informs us
that the Turks had learned the art of writing in their own language
as early as about 550, is important and begins thus :-
" T h e HunsS more than hventy years ago learned the art of
writing in their own language. I shall record the occasion of this
event, which has been inspired by Cod, as I heard it from reliable
people : John of Resh'aina, who was in the monastery of Ish~konai,
near Amed, and Thomas the tanner, who forcibly joined in the-flight
of Kawad from Persia into the country of the Huns, a little more
than fifty years ago. They remained there more than thirty years,
and married and had children there. They returned in our time, and
in a vivid speech they narrated what follows." T h e document which
is too long to translate in full proceeds to narrate that an angel appeared
to the Bishop of Arran,' called Karadusa!, and ordered him to repair
to the numerous Byzantine captives among the Turks, and to the
Turks themselves, in order to baptise them, ordain priests for them,
and administer to them the Holy Eucharist. Four other priests
accompanied them as missionaries, and the daily food of all seven
consisted of seven loaves of bread and a jar of water. It was they
who taught the Turks the art of writing in the Turkish language, and
evangelised and baptised a considerable number of them. They lived
with them seven years. In that time Probus, the messenger of the
Roman Emperor Justinian, was sent on a special mission to the
Chronique de Scert, in Patr. Oric?zt., vii. 128 ; cf. Tabari, Annalcs,
1, 2, 887. Kawad's flight to the Turks is told at some length by Joshua
the Stylite (about 507) in his Syriac Chronicle, pp. 1 8- 1 9 of the text (edit.
Wright).
' In C. S.C.O., 3rd series, vol. vi. pp. 2 15-218.
Old Styriac name of the Western Turks.
' About this Nestorian Bishopric see below.
20
 304 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
country of the Turks, and seeing everything with his own eyes, he was
astonished at what Cod had accomplished through his servants. O n
his way back he sent to them from the nearest town of the Empire
thirty mules laden with flour, wine, oil, linen, and all the requisites of a
Church vestry.
Their missionary labours were soon after shared by a practical
Armenian Bishop who taught those Christian Turks how to plant
vegetables and sow corn, and in the time of the writer he was still
living among them. T h e grace of Cod touched also Kawad himself,
the king of the Persians, who gave up eating unclean meat, and
greatly honoured Joseph, who was a physician by profession, before
becoming Patriarch of the Nestorians in 552.
On the two thousand Christian virgins selected for the Turks by
the Sasanian king Chosrau I. see John of Ephesus's EccZesiasticnZ
Histo7y (Payne-Smith, p. 387 sg.), and on the trouble the Turks
often engendered between Romans and Persians, see ibid. p. 424 sg.
Cf. also Ch7-onicon A?zo?tynzu71t(in C. S.C. O.), i. 206.
About some aspects of the Hephthalite Huns and their wars with
the Sasanians, see Blochet, 17ttuodzrctiort 2 d'histoi7.e des Mo?zgoLs,
pp. 2 1 1-214, where, however, no reference is made to the contem-
porary and important Syriac sources ; and Nijldeke's well-known
Geschichte de7- Pef-ser (1 879), pp. 53, 99, 158, 167, 250 sgg. and
.269 ; cf. also Zacharias Rhetor in C.S. C.O., i. 2 1 sg. and 98.

(4
In A.D. 549, at the request of the Hephthalite or White Huns
inhabiting the regions of Bactria, and those of both banks of the
Oxus, the Nestorian Patriarch Aba I. sent a Bishop for all the
Christians of his dominions :-
" After a short time Haphtar ' Khudai sent a priest as a messenger
to the King of Kings (Chosrau Anushim&), and the Haphtriye,=
who were Christians, wrote also a letter to the holy Patriarch (Aba I.)
requesting him to ordain as Bishop to all the kingdom of the
Haphtraye the priest who was sent from their country. When the
priest saw the King of Kings, and the latter learned the nature of the
mission on which he was sent, he was astonished to hear it, and

'The Syriac name for Hepltalites.

 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 305
amazed at the power of Jesus, and at the fact that even the Christian
Haphtriye counted the Patriarch as their head and administrator.
H e therefore ordered him to go and adorn the Church as was
customary on such occasions, and to ordain Bishop the man whom
Haphtar Khudai had sent to him. O n the following day the Church
was adorned, and the Haphtrian priest was ordained Bishop for the
Haphtrians, and joy increased with the people of the Lord." '
T h e extent to which Christianity had penetrated among these
Turks may be gauged from the fact that in A.D. 58 1 those among them
who were taken prisoners by the Byzantine Greeks had crosses on their
forehead.' T h e crosses were pricked in black dots, and the Turks
said that many years before, when a pestilence was ravaging the
country, Christians had suggested to them to do this, and by it the
pestilence had been averted. T h e use of the cross by the Nestorian
Turks as a talisman is attested by Marco Polo (i. 343, edit. Yule-
Cordier) and Friar William (Rockhill, ibid. pp. 104, 191, 193).
See also in this connection the Syrian historians John of Ephesus (3rd
part, book vi. ch. xxii.) and Michael the Syrian (ii. 3 14, and especially
iii. 15 I, edit. Chabot).
(4
In about A.D. 644 history makes mention of the conversion of
large communities of Turks, thanks to the efforts and the zeal of Elijah,
Metropolitan of Merw :-
" A n d Elijah, Metropolitan of M e w , converted a large number
of Turks. ... About this Elijah, Metropolitan of Merw, it is related
that when travelling in the countries situated beyond the border line
(of the river Oxus) he was met by a king who was going to fight
another king. Elijah endeavoured with a long speech to dissuade
him from the fight, but the king said to him, ' If thou showest to me
a sign similar to those shown by the priests of my gods, I shall believe
in thy God.' A n d the king ordered the priests of the demons who
were accompanying him, and they invoked the demons whom they

Histoire de Mar Aba. (edit. Bedjan), pp. 266-269.

a Theophylactus Simocatta's "History of the
Emperor Maurice," quoted
by Rockhill (in OF. i n z laud.), p. 142, and in
Cathay, 1 9 15, i. 1 15 (edit.
Yule-Cordier). The intercourse between Byzantine Emperors and Turkish
Khans is well illustrated by Menander Protector in Cathay (ibid. i.
205 sp.).
 306 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
were worshipping, and immediately the sky was covered with clouds,
and a hurricane of wind, thunder, and lightning followed. Elijah was
then moved by divine power, and he made the sign of the heavenly
cross, and rebuked the unreal thing that the rebellious demons had set
up, and it forthwith disappeared completely. When the king saw
what Saint Elijah did, he fell down and worshipped him, and he was
converted with all his army. T h e saint took them to a stream,
baptised all of them, ordained for them priests and deacons, and
returned to his country." '

In about A.D. 781 Timothy, the Nestorian Patriarch, wrote in his

letter to the Maronites, that another king of the Turks had become
Christian with all his people :-
"The king of the Turks, with nearly all (the inhabitants of) his
country, has left his ancient idolatry, and has become Christian, and
he has requested us in his letters to create a Metropolitan for his
country ; and this we have done." a Further, in one of his letters to
Rabban Sergius, the same Timothy says that he has ordained a Bishop
for the Turks, and that he was going to ordain one for Tibet :-
"In these days the Holy Spirit has anointed a Metropolitan for
the Turks, and we are preparing to consecrate another one for the
Tibetans."
Finally, in another letter to Sergius, the illustrious Patriarch clearly
states that in his time "many monks crossed the sea and went to the
Indians and the Chinese with only a rod and a scrip," ' and apprises
his correspondent of the death of the Metropolitan of China.

Thomas of Marga writes that the same indefatigable Patriarch

chose more than four score of monks, some of whom he ordained

Chronica Minora, in Cog. Scrgt. Chvist. OAent., pp. 34-35 of the

text which was written about A.D. 680.
2The letter is not yet published. I read it in a MS. Cf. J. Labourt's
De Tilltothe0 I N e s t o ~ i a n ~ l Pat~iarcha,
~vt p. 43.
Oviens Christianus, i. 308.
' Ti~~totkei
Epistolap, ii. p. I07 of the text (in C.S.C.0.).
Ibid. p. 109.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 307
Bishops, and sent them to convert the heathens of the Far East ; and
narrates the exploits of Shubha-lishZL, Metropolitan of the Dailamites
of the South-Eastern parts of the Caspian Sea :-
" (These Bishops) were ordained by the holy Catholicos Timothy
the Patriarch to the countries of the savage peoples, who were devoid
of every understanding and civilisation. No missionaries and sowers
of truth had till then gone to theu regions, and the teaching of the
Gospel of our Saviour had not yet been preached to them ; but why
should I say the teaching of the Christ, our Lord, while they had not
even received, like the Jews and the rest of the Gentiles (i.e. Muslims),
the knowledge of God, Creator and Administrator of the worlds, but
were worshipping trees, graven wood, beasts, fish, reptiles, birds and
such-like, along with the worship of fire and stars. These were the
Bishops who preached the teaching of Christ in those countries of the
Dailamites and Cilinians, and the rest of the savage peoples beyond
them, and planted in them the light of the truth of the Gospel of our
Lord. ... They evangelised them and they baptised them, worked
miracles and showed prodigies, and the news of their expIoits reached
the farthest points of the East. You may learn all these clearly from
the letter which some merchants and secretaries of the kings, who had
penetrated as far as there for the sake of commerce and of affairs of
State, wrote to (the Patriarch) Mar Timothy." '
In another place the same historian relates how Bishop Shubba-
IishCLwas ordained by Timothy, and describes his fitness for the task
set to him, which was that of evangelking the primitive peoples
inhabiting the countries lying beyond Central Asia, and says that he
was versed not only in Syriac, but also in Arabic and Persian. H e
dilates on the great number of miracles which God performed through
him, and continues :-
" H e taught and baptised many towns and numerous villages, and
brought them to the teaching of the divine life. H e built churches,
and set up in them priests and deacons, and singled out some brethren
who were missionaries with him to teach them psalms and canticles of
the Spirit. And he himself went deep inland to the farthest end of
the East, in the work of the great evangelisation that he was doing
among pagans, Mardonites, Manicheans, and other kinds of beliefs

'Thomas of Marga, Liher Sztperiorunr, pp. 261 -262 (edit. Bedjan).

 308 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
and abominations, and he sowed the sublime light of the teaching- of
-

the Gospel, the source of life and peace." '

The enthusiasm of the historian is explained by the fact that he
was contemporary with the events he was narrating. Further refer-
ences to the same evangelisation may be seen in his book on pp. 275-
28 1. H e ends his account as follows : " The bread of those countries
was made of rice, because the blessed cereals wheat and barley are
not found there, but only rice and other kinds of similar grains. W e
learned this from the mouth of Mar Yahb Aliiha, of good memory.
The two old men Hninisho" and Elishi' used to tell me that (the
Saint) related that when he started to come back, and reached the
holy Habbiba, Metropolitan of the city of Ray, he ate wheat bread,
and because of that he fell ill, owing to the fact that he was
used in those countries to eat bread of rice only."
On page 245 the same historian mentions among the Bishops
ordained in his Monastery of Beith 'A&, Elijah, Bishop of Miikzn,
and David, Metropolitan of China. Thomas, who was writing about
840, adds immediately after the mention of the name of the above
Metropolitan, that the information concerning him is drawn from the
letters of the Patriarch Timothy, who died in 823.

(8)
MSi informs us that Timothy converted the Kzghin (king) of the
Turks, and other kings, and that he was in correspondence with
them :-
" And Timothy converted to the (Christian) faith the K h ~ k i nof
the Turks and other kings, from whom he received letters, and he
instructed many in Christian doctrine." *

(4
In about A.D. 1009, 'Abdisho', Metropolitan of Merw, wrote to
the Nestorian Patriarch, John, informing him that about two hundred
thousand Turks and Mongols had embraced Christianity, and asked
him concerning the kind of food they were to eat in Lent, as no food
suitable for that Fast was to be found in their country :-
" In that time 'AbdishGL,Metropolitan of Merw, one of the towns

Thomas of Marga, Liber Superiorunt, pp. 269-271.

Book ofthe Tower, p. 73 (text), and 64 of the transl. (edit. Cisrnondi).
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 309
of Khurssiin, wrote and informed the Catholicos that while the king
of a people called Keraits, Eastern Turks inhabiting the region of the
North-East,' was hunting in one of the high mountains of his country,
he was overcome by a violent snow-storm, and wandered hopelessly
out of the way. When he lost all hope of salvation, a saint appeared
to him in vision and said to him, ' If you believe in Christ, I will lead
you to the right direction, and you will not die here.' When he
promised him that he would become a lamb in the Christian sheepfold,
he directed him and led him to salvation ; and when he reached his tents
in safety, he summoned the Christian merchants who were there, and
discussed with them the question of faith, and they answered him that
this could not be accomplished except through baptism. H e took a
Gospel from them, and lo he is worshipping it every day ; and now
he has summoned me to repair to him, or to send him a priest to
baptise him. H e also made enquiries from me concerning fasting, and
said to me, ' Apart from meat and milk, we have no other food ;
how could we then fast' ; he also told me that the number of those
who were converted with him reached two hundred thousand. T h e
Catholicos wrote then to the Metropolitan, and told him to send two
persons, a priest and a deacon, with all the requisites of an altar, to go
and baptise all those who were converted, and to teach them Christian
habits. A s to the Fast of Lent, they should abstain in it from meat,
but they should be given permission to drink milk, if, as they say,
Lent food is not found in their countly."
Barhebraeus makes also mention of this conversion in his general
history under A.H. 398 as follows :-
" In this very year a nation from the nations of the Turks inhabit-
ing the interior of the country towards the East, called Kerit, believed
in Christ, and were instructed in the faith and baptised through a
miracle that happened to their king."'
W e must here state that the legend of " Prester John," which
was so widely diffused in Europe in the Middle Ages, is closely
connected with the above Keraits, because "John" was given as
their king. A s it has been often explained "John" in Syriac

' The habitat of these Karaites was near the river Orkhon and lake
Baikal. See below.
'Barhebraeus, Chrc.ln. Eccles., iii. pp. 279-280 (edit. Lamy).
Chron. Syr., p. 204 (edit. Bedjan), cf. Assemani, B.O., iv. 486.
 310 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
" Yobannan" may be a falsification of " Ung-Khan," name of one
of the Kerait rulers, and Barhebraeus ' clearly identifies the mythical
" John " with the historical " Ung." His proper name was called
Tuli by the Chinese, and Toghrul by the Persian historians, but
the Kin Sovereign of ~ o r t h e r nChina had conferred on him the title
of Wang ( = King) from which the slightly corrupted cognomen of
U7g.'
The Keraits lived on the Orkhon and the Tula, S.E. of lake
Baikal?
(4
Miri relates the same event, and gives additional details as
follows :-
" A letter came (to the Patriarch) from 'AbdishG', the Metro-
politan of Merw, to the effect that an Archdeacon had become
Muslim, and had turned his Church into a mosque ; but after some
days canker invaded his limbs and he died, and the Church reverted to
its former owners. The letter contained also the following fact :-
A king from the Turkish kings became Christian with two
hundred thousand souls. The cause of this was that he lost his way
when he went hunting, and while he was bewildered not knowing
what to do, he saw the figure of a man who promised salvation to him.
H e asked him about his name, and he told him that it was Mar
Sergius. He intimated to him to become Christian, and said to him,
'close your eyes,' and he closed them. When he opened them, he
found himself in his camp. H e was amazed at this, and he made
inquiries concerning Christian religion, prayer, and book of canon-laws.
H e was taught the Lord's Prayer, LZRhii Af~%-n,' and A'addisha
AlZhn.' The Bishop told also (the Patriarch) that he h i d written
to him on the subject of his going to him, and that he was informed
that his people were accustomed to eat only meat and milk. T h e
king had set up a pavilion to take the place of an altar, in which was
a cross and a Gospel, and named it after Mar Sergius, and he tethered
a mare there, and he takes her milk and lays it on the Gospel and the
Chvon. Syr. p, 409 (edit. Bedjan).
'Yule-Cordier, in Mavco Polo (0). inf~d.lit.),i. 237.
Rockhill, in /ourney of Rubruck (01. i1tft.d. cif.), p. 1 1 1.
'Prayers of the Nestoriarl Church. See Uveviarzkn C/ra/dainrtlr,
i., ii., iii. pp. 4 and 9 (edit Bedjan).
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 31 1
cross, and recites over it the prayers which he has learned, and makes
the sign of the Cross over it, and he and his people after him take a
draught from it. The Metropolitan inquired from (the Patriarch)
what was to be done with them as they had no wheat, and the latter
answered him to endeavour to find them wheat and wine for Easter ;
as to abstinence, they should abstain at Lent from meat, and be
satisfied with milk. If their habit was to take sour milk, they should
take sweet milk as a change to their habit" '
This is evidently an allusion to the well-known sour milk of the
Turks and Tartars. See about it Yule, in Marco POLO,i. 249, and
Rockhill, in JYiCCiam of Rubruck, pp. 66-67 and the authorities
quoted by them.
0')
In their letters to the Patriarchs, the Nestorian Metropolitans of
Central Asia do not write only on religious affairs, but a few of them
describe also political events of first importance. Barhebraeus in his
general history under A.H. 438 registers the following event :-
" In this year the Nestorian Metropolitan of Samarkand sent
a letter to the Catholicos, which was read also at the Court of the
Caliph (in which it was written) that people resembling locusts by
their numbers, had made a breach in the wall which separated Tibet
from Khotan and which, according to old traditions, was fortified by
Alexander the Great. They passed through it, and reached as far as
Kashgar. There were seven kings, and with each one of them there
were seven hundred thousand mounted troops. The name of their
great king was N i ~ r a t which
, means "Governing by the command
of God." They were half black like Indians ; they did not wash
their faces, neither did they comb their hair, but they fulled it like a
felt rug and it served them as a shield. They ate sparingly of simple
food, and were merciful and just, and their horses were carnivores." a
The extent to which Christianity had penetrated among those
Mongols who in the Lower Middle Ages swept over Western Asia
and Eastern Europe with such a lightning rapidity, is well illustrated
by Barhebraeus, a contemporary, and often also an eye-witness of
'Book of the Tower, in the Life of John V., p. 100 of Cismondi's
translation, cf. Assemani, 13.0.iv. 484.
'Barhebraeus, Chron. Syr., pp. 228-229 (edit. Bedjan), 6.Assemani,
B.O., iv. 487.
312 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
many incidents which he reports in his C/t?.on. S ~ Yso. often quoted
in the previous pages. W e will only refer here to the following
incidents :-
About the Mongolian Emperor GuyEk, made famous in Europe
by Friar John of Pian de Carpine, who in 1246 brought to him a
letter from the Pope, Barhebraeus writes : " A n d Guyiik was a true
Christian, and in his days the prestige of the numerous Christians of
his dominions war very high.' His camp was full of Bishops, priests
and monks " (p. 481, edit. Bedjan).-" And from the wives of TCli
Khan, their father, DGkEz KhitEn, the 1 believing and the true
Christian queen was given for marriage to Hiiliiku, according to the
habit of the Mongols. She enhanced the prestige of Christians in all
the earth " (p. 49 ]).-When Baghdad was taken by the Mongols, the
Christians were spared death and torture (p. 505) because of " the
magnanimity, the wisdom, and the marvellously high character of
Hiliku," * whose figure has been blackened almost beyond recognition
by some modem writers : " And in the year 1576 (A.D. 1265), at
the beginning of Lent, Hiilaku, the King of Kings, left this world.
There was no one who could be compared to him in wisdom,
magnanimity, and marvellously high charac~er. And in the summer
'
days Dtiku-z KhZtin also, the believing queen, died. T h e Christians
of all the world greatly mourned the death of these two great luminaries
and protagonists of Christian religion " (p. 52 1 ).-Another Christian
queen who preceded the above Dokiiz Khiitiin, and who was " a
true believer like Helen," and " wisest of all," is SarkGti Bagi,' the
wife of Tiili Khan, the son of Chingis Khan, and his successor to the
throne of the Mongolian Empire. She was the niece of the Kerait

' Cf. Juwaini's /alr%z Gtt~ha(in Cibb Mem.), ii. 247-248, and see
Rashid's JZm? at Tawa'rikh (ibid.) p. 273, where the Christian convictions
of his successor Mangu Khan are clearly set forth in the following words,
"a follower and a defender of the Religion of Jesus." The Christianism of
Guyik Khan himself is also attested by Rashid, ibid. p. 249.
Hilaku judged by our ethical standards was doubtless cruel ; but our
standards are not those of the Mongols, nor even those of the early Empires
of Asia and Europe, including those founded or directed by men whom we
call prophets. The testimony of a contemporary of Barhebraeus's standing
cannot be entirely disregarded.
About Dokuz Khitiin, see Blochet in ja'miL at Tawirikh (Cibb
Mem.), p. 200.
See Rashid's Jim;' at TawZvikh (ibia'.), pp. 89 and 222, etc.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 3 13
king Ung Khan, of the Prester John fame, and the mother of the
following Princes and Emperors: Munga Khan, Kublai Khan,
Hiiliku Khan, and Arig BGga (pp. 465 and 488).
Page 481 : the Christian Kaddak is the Grand Vizier of the
Emperor Guyuk?-P. 528 : a monk becomes a Muslim, and on this
occasion a great uproar arises between Christians and Muslims, and
the Christians are helped by the Mongol governor of North Mesopo-
tamia who was a Christian.-P. 529 : the Christian Mongols help
the Christian community of Arbel against the Muslims on the occasion
of a procession with crosses and banners on Palm Sunday.-P. 535 :
the envoy of Kublai Khan is a Turkish Uighurian nobleman, who
was a Christian.-P. 539 : the queen Kutai K h ~ t i i nin order to put
an end to a terribly cold weather, commands the Christians of
Maragha to resort to the ceremony of the blessing of the water, with
spears ending in crosses.-Pp. 543 and 554 : the Christians are given
the Governorship of North Mesopotamia.-P. 547 : the Emperor
Abiika goes to Church on Easter Day.-P. 569 : all clerks in
Government Offices are to be either from the Christian or from the
Jewish communities, and not from the Muslims.-P. 578 : the 11-Khan
Arghiin sends the Rabban Sauma embassy spoken of below to seek an
alliance with the Pope and the Christian kings of the West, in order
to crush Islam.-P. 593 : the Emperor Baidu, before becoming a
Muslim, takes Christian sanctuaries and bells in his camp for the
celebration of the Mass, and hangs a cross on his neck.

(4
W e come now to that most interesting book, " T h e History of
Mar Yahb-Alihd' (Deus Adit = Deo-htus), which is of paramount
importance for the history of Christianity in China, Turkestan, and
Mongolia, in the thirteenth Christian century. It was published i n
Leipzig by Bedjan in 1888, and re-edited by him in 1895. T h e
history is based on the following facts :-
A Christian, Sauma by name, was born in Peking in the first half
of the thirteenth century, and on his attaining the age of manhood, he
became a monk at the hands of Ceorges, the Nestorian Metropolitan
of China ; seven years later he left his native city in order to lead

See Juwaini's lahiin G u s E i. 200-201, etc, and especially Rashid's

]Znzil at TawZrihh (ibid.), p. 249.
 314 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
more easily the life of a hermit, after which his soul was constantly
aspiring ; he was soon followed by another Christian, called Marcus,
who was born in Kaushang in 1244, and who received the monastic
garb at the hands of another Metropolitan called Nestorius. Alter
having spent some time in their hermitage, they left together their
native country to go to Jerusalem on pilgrimage, vii Tangut, Kashgar,
Tiis, and Mara'gha. Marcus is then ordained Metropolitan of China,
under the name of Yahb-Aliiha, and his friend and colleague Sauma
is nominated Visitor-General. After two years, Yahb-Aliha becomes
Patriarch of the Nestorians, and during his long term of ofice which
lasted thirty-six years, he saw eight Mongol 11-Khans succeeding one
another : Abaka, Ahmad, Arghiin, Caikhitu, Baidu, Chiziin,
Uljaitu, and B a h ~ d u rKhan.
In 1287-8 the Emperor Arghiin and the Patriarch sent an
embassy headed by Sauma to the Pope Nicholas IV. and the
Christian kings of Europe,' in order to form a mutual alliance against
the Muslims. The highly interesting narrative of the journey under-
taken by this embassy sheds great rays of light on the glorious Nestorian
Christianity at the time of its greatest expansion, just before it received
the death blow which reduced it to a mere sect of not more than a
few hundred thousand souls. From this period the Church gradually
declined until in our own days it has shrunk to a miserable community
of about 40,000 refugees, the bulk of whom have settled round the
city of Mosul, in the new Kingdom of 'IrSk.

It is not our intention to refer here in full to the account of Western

travellers and explorers, but in order to illustrate the narrative of some
Syrian historians, and corroborate the information of Syrian Synods,
we cannot resist the temptation to refer, very shortly, at least to a few
Western travellers of outstanding merit and importance, such as the
immortal Marco Polo, and the Friars William of Rubruck, and John
of Pian de Carpine.
T h e former speaks of Nestorians in (a) Kashgar, where they are
numerous and " have churches of their own " ; (6) in Samarkand,
'The arrival of the embassy in England is found on pp. 72-73 of
Bedjan's second edition.
Warco Polo, i. p. 182. (We refer to H. Yule's edition, 1903, with
notes by Cordier.)
 316 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
skin for an arztilltensium, and it had been anointed with chrism"
(ibid. p, 2 15).
The other European travellers of the Middle Ages should not
detain us long. "There is a kingdom twenty days' journey from
Cathay of which the king and all the inhabitants are Christians, but
heretics, being said to be Nestorians " (Nicolo Conti in Catha)!, 11.
..
165-166).-" And in the great city of Iamzai (Yang-chau-fu) there
are three churches of the Nestorians " (Friar Odoric, Cathay, ii. 2 10).
-"These Nestorians are more than thirty thousand, dwelling in the
said empire of Cathay, and are passing rich people. . ..They have
very handsome and devoutly ordered churches, with crosses and
images in honour of Cod and the saints. They hold sundry ofices
under the said emperor, and have great privileges from him ; so that
it is believed that if they would agree and be at one with the Minor
Friars, they would convert the whole country and the emperor like-
wise to the true faith " (John d e Cora, Cathay, iii. 102).-" T h e
Uighurs were Christians of the sect of the Nestorians " (Pian de
Carpine in Fr-iai. FYiZZia?n ;jasszin).-" T h e Nestorians ...
have
grown so powerful in Cathay that they will not allow a Christian of
another ritual to have ever so small a chapel" (John of Monte
Corvino, Cathay, iii. 46).
It is clear from all the above quotations and from some other data
given below that the majority of the two powerful divisions of the
Turco-Tartar race : the Uighurs and the Keraits' were Christians.
T h e Gospel of Christ hadalso penetrated another powerful con-
federacy of Turco-Tartar tribes, the Naimans, who comprised nine
powerful clans,Qhe greater part of whom lived in the mountains of
Tarbagatai, the Upper Irtish, and other places on the Chinese frontier ;
the remainder on the Upper Ishim and the neighbouring countries.
Rubruck expressly stated that they were Christians : " A people
called Naiman who were Nestorian Christians," ' and Persian
historians apply to them the epithet T a r s a which, as stated on p. 322,
refers to Christians.*
'Rashid (d'ohsson, i. 48) erroneously states that the Keraits were
converted to Christianity in the time of Chingis Khan. See above, p. 309.
Howorth's History, ii. 8 ; d'ohsson, i. 167. In 12 12 a Naiman prince
of Nestorian Christianity "raised himself up to be king and seized the throne."
Rubruck, ihiu'. p. I 10.
Wockhill, i h i d p. 110. Did. 17.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 317
A fourth agglomeration of tribes who were probably half-
Christians are the Merkites, a nomadic people of Turkish stock with a
possible infusion of Mongol blood. They were divided into four
main sections, and lived on the lower Selinga and its feeders.' Their
Christianity is attested by R u b r u c k . T h e y are to be distinguished
from the Keraits, and Pian de Carpine' even believes them to be
different from the Mekrites, who jointly with the Merkites formed the
four " nations" who once constituted the Mongol stock.
O n p. 337 we have also given evidence to the effect that a fifth
agglomeration of Turkish tribes, the Uriyin-gakit, were Christians, and
had in 1298 a Christian queen.
W e exclude from the purview of our enquiry the Chinese
and Mohammedan historians, but we cannot refrain from quoting an
author of exceptional authority, to wit, 'Ali ibn Rabban at-Tabari,
the well-informed physician and table-guest of the Caliph Mutawakkil
(847-86 I). In a memorable sentence he compares the Christianity
of those Eastern Turks who form the subject of the references of some
of our historians and Synods, to that of the Armenians, of the Greeks,
.
and of the Franks of Europe, . . "and kindled it (the war) with
spears and swords as far as the countries of the Greeks, of the Franks,
of the tent-dwelling Turanians, and of the Armenians. Outside these
countlies what Christians are to be found in the country of the Turks
except a small and despicable quantity of Nestorians, scattered among
the nations ? "
Here the Muslim apologist and the ex-secretary of the heroic but
unfortunate Ma'zyiir of Tabaristan apparently draws a distinction
between Turanians and Turks. T h e latter, who were mostly Muslims,
..
he simply styles "Turks," but to the former, because of their Christian-
ity, he applies the derisive epithet of " Turanians, a name of which
a nationalist " Iranian " Persian would readily make use in speaking of
the Turks.
AND BISHOPRICS.
2. SYNODS
We will enumerate here the Bishoprics of the countries bordering
on the river Oxus. If a town is considered to be worth promoting to a
D'Ohsson, Histoire, i. 54 ; Howorth, ibid i. 22, 698.
Rockhill, i6id p. 1 1 1. hid p. 1 12.
Book of Religion and Empire, p. 156 of my edition.
 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
Bishopric, or even an Archbishopric, it is hardly possible to deny the
existence in it or round it of a rather considerable number of Christians.
W e cannot here attempt to give even a rough estimate of the number
of Christians who in ancient times inhabited the zone extending from
about the centre of modern Persia as far as the end of the continent of
Asia, and with the sources at our disposal such an estimate would be
well nigh impossible, but there seems to be no exaggeration in asserting
that there were Christians scattered in almost all the innumerable
districts of this immense territory, and that they were in rather consider-
able strength in some specified towns or localities. Their number must
have varied according to the importance of a place as a centre of
commerce or as a highway to b e constantly trodden under the feet of
camels, mules, or horses. W e will divide this section into two distinct
geographical groups : ( I ) the regions lying on the Western banks of the
river ; (2) those lying on the Eastern banks. T h e Bishoprics in
the first section are given in the alphabetical order :-

WESTERN
BANKSOF THE RIVER.
Abiward or Biiward, the district lying north-west of Khurisiin on the .
edge of the Merw desert. A Bishop John is mentioned for it in the Synod
of Joseph in 554 (p. 366)' The diocese embraced also the neighbouring
town of Shahr-Phiriiz.
Abrashahr, the district of Khurasin in which the more modern town
of Naishapur is built. Abrashahr is also called Iran Shahr. A Bishop,
David, is mentioned for it in the Synod of Dadish6' in 424 (p. 285). and
another called Yohannis in the Synod of Babai in 497 (pp. 3 10, 3 1 1, 316).
In this last year the see was enlarged so as to include also T i s . It is to be
distinguished from another Abrashahr better known under the name of
Hamshahrah in the MtkZn. See Le Strange's Landr of the Eastern
CaZ@/mte, p. 176.
Atnuha in Tabaristan, north of Damawand. A Bishop, Siirin, is
mentioned for it in the Synod of Joseph in 554 (p. 366).

'Unless otherwise stated all the references are to the Synodicon

Orientale.
To be distinguished from the Amul, on the left bank of the Oxus,
about 120 miles to the north-east of M e w (see Le Strange's Lam's of the
East. Ca12;nh,, pp. 403-404, etc.).
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 3 19
Arran, the region north of the rivers Arwes and Kur, west of the
Caspian Sea. A Bishop is mentioned for it in the Synod of Yahb-AI&a in
420 (p. 276, cf. also p. 619).
Badisi, or BZdhgis, a district situated north of Herat. It was the
residence of the Hephthalite Turkish Kings. A Bishop, Gabriel, is
mentioned for it in the Synod of IshT-Yahb in 585 ( p. 423).
Bist (or Bust), a town in Sijistan on the river Helmund. A Bishop,
Sergius, is mentioned for it in the Synod of Aba in 544 (pp. 343-344).
Biishanj, a town west of Herat, on the Hari-ru'd. A Bishop, Habib, is
mentioned for it in the Synod of Ishog-Yahbin 585.
DailGrniiyE (Beith), was a province near the Caspian Sea, and it was a
Bishopric as early as A.D. 225.' Sachau' believes that this information may
possibly refer to Dailamistan, which according to Yakit (J121~772, ii. 71 I,
edit. Wiistenfeld) was a village near Shahrziir, which served as a halting
to the Sasanian kings.
Farah, a town in Sijistan near the river of this name. A Bishop, Yazd-
Afrid, ismentioned for it in the Synod of Aba in 544 (pp. 343-344). The
diocese was joined then to that of Kash, another town situated south-east of
Farah.
Herat, a town in Khurisin, north-west of modem Afghanistan. A
Bishop, Yazdoi, is mentioned for it in the Synod of Dadisho6in 424 ; another
of its Bishops, Gabriel, is found in the Synod of Akak in 486 ; a third Bishop,
Yazdid, attends the Synod of Babai in 497 ; and a fourth Bishop, Gabriel, is
in the Synod of Ishog-Yahb,in 585 (pp. 285,299,301.31 1,423, cf. p. 620).
J i l i n (or (liltin), province of the south-west coast of the Caspian Sea.
A Bishop, Siirin, is mentioned for it in the Synod of Joseph in 554 (p. 366).
We must here refer to the eighteen martyrs of Jilin, who suffered martyrdom
on the 12th April, 35 1, under Sapor 11. (Bedjan, Actn Mart. iv. 166-1 70).
According to Barhebraeus (i. 15) the Cilanians were converted by the
Apostle Addai.
JurjZn, province of the south-east coast of the Caspian Sea. A Bishop,
Abraham, is mentioned for it in the Synod of Bibai in 497 ; another Bishop,
Z'o'ra, is found in the Synod of Ezechiel in 576 (pp. 310, 31 1, 316, 368).
Kidistan, a district in the neighbourhood of Herat. A Bishop, Gabriel,
is mentioned for it in the Synod of Ishog-Yahbin 585 (p. 423).
Kharnlikh, a town of the Khazars in Hyrcania, on the Caspian Sea.
The Bishopric is mentioned by 'AmrDsand Cismondi has wrongly printed it

' Mshiha-Zkha, in my Sources Sjtriaques, i. 30.

Ausbreitung, p. 9.
'De Pat. Nest. (edit. Cismondi), pp. 126, 132.
COIJZ?J~.
2I
320 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
as Halah and Halih. The correction is due to Sachau,' who rightly refers
to Yakit, ~eograpkicafDictionary, ii. 437.
Merw, a celebrated town north of Khuriisan. A Bishop, Bar Shabba,'
is mentioned for it in the Synod of Dadisho" in 424; another Bishop,
Parumai, is found in the Synod of Akiik in 486 ; a third Bishop, John, was
in the Synod of Babai in 497; a fourth Bishop, called David, was in the
Synod of Aba in 544, and in that of Joseph in 554; and a fifth Bishop,
Gregory, is mentioned in the Synod of Ishs-Yahb in 585 (pp. 285,306,310,
315, 328, 332, 366, 367, 423).
Merw-ar-RGd, a town built by the Sasanian King Bahram IV. at about
four days' journey south of Merw. A Bishop, Theodore, is mentioned for it
in the Synod of Joseph in 544 (p. 366).
Ray, a very important town formerly situated north-east of the Jibd
Province, about thirty miles south-east of modem Teheran. A Bishop, David,
is mentioned for it in the Synod of Dadish6' in 424 ; another Bishop, Joseph,
attended the Synod of AkZk in 486, and of Babai in 497 ; a third Bishop.
Daniel, is mentioned in the Synod of Aba in 544.
Rukhut, a town in Sijistan. A Bishop is mentioned for it in the Synod
of Aba in 544 (pp. 343-344).
Sijistan, the well-known province situated in our days in modern
Afghanistan. A Bishop, Afrid, is mentioned for it in the Synod of Dadisho,
in 424 ; other Bishops, Yazd-Afrid and Sergius, are found in the Synod of
A b a in 544 ; a third Bishop, called Kurmah, attended the Synod of Ezechiel
in 576 (pp. 285, 339, 343, 368).
Tiis, ancient capital of Khuriisan; its ruins are seen at about fifteen
miles north-west of Mashhad. A Bishop, Yohannis, is mentioned for it in the
Synod of Babai in 497 (pp. 31 1, 316). From this date the diocese com-
prised also the town of Abrashahr.
Zarang, an important town in Sijistan. A Bishop, Yazd-AfGd, is
:mentioned for it in the Synod of Aba in 544 (pp. 343-344).

We include under this head East and West Turkestan of our

days, Mongolia, Manchuria, North China, and South-Eastern parts
of Siberia. Unfortunately the Synods of the Nestorian Church do
Ausbreituttg, p. 22.
'See about him Miri, Book of the Tower, p. 23, and Chronique a2
SerrL, ii. 253-258.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 32 1
not bring us any help in this part of our research, because, owing to
the long distance that separated the above countries from the centre of
the Patriarchate, there was a moral impossibility for their Bishops to
attend the ecclesiastical assemblies with their colleagues whose diocese
were nearer the Sasanian, and at a later date, the Abbasid, capital,
where the Patriarch resided and held as unlimited a spiritual power as
that wielded by any Pope of the Middle Ages ; indeed, 'Abdisho"
informs us in his Synodical Canons (cap. xix.), that the Metropolitans
of India, China, and Samarkand were, owing to long distances,
exempted from attending the General Synods of the Church ; instead
of their personal attendance they had to write a letter of submission to
the patriarch once every sii years, in order to inform him of the
spiritual and moral needs of their dioceses.' T h e official Acts of
Councils being thus by necessity deficient in the information which
would highly
- . interest modern scholars, we will turn our attention to

the historians of these Councils, the general historians, and the official
cor~espondencethat passed from time to time between the Patriarch
and the very remote Bishops or Archbishops of those regions.
W e believe that it was this immense geographical distance that
was the cause of the slight divergences in the religious outlook, and
even in some minor points of dogma, that separate the official
Christianity of the Eastern Church from that which one finds in the
Christian monuments unearthed by the explorers of the last half
century. These differences extend even to liturgical prayers attributed
t o no less important Fathers than Theodore of Mopsuestia,' and
Narsais By force of circumstances, those far-off Bishops were left
more or less to themselves ; and cast off from the rest of their religious
brethren of the West they had to manage their spiritual and ecclesi-
astical affairs to the best of their ability.
T h e Syriac writers of the more civilised regions of the Sasanian .
Empire had often only vague ideas of the ethnographical characteristics
of the peoples inhabiting the far-off regions beyond the Oxus, and their
geographical acquaintance with the nature of the country seems also to

'Cf. Assemani, B.O.,iii. 347, and iv. 439.

a See our Synopsis of Ch-istian Doctrike according to Theodore of
Mopsuestia, 1920.
See the introduction to our edition of his Works : Narsai HomiZicz et
.Cam,rina, 1904, vol. i.
 322 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
have been deficient in more points than one. In this respect they
resembled many of their Muslim successors and pupils in Creek
sciences, whose knowledge of those regions is often summed up in the
vague phrase ma war;, annahr, " on the other side of the river"
Oxus. T o our knowledge, no Syriac writer has even mentioned by
name the Mongols, till the Lower Middle Ages, i.e. till the time when
they swept over the whole civilised world, and conquered it with a
rapidity unparalleled in the annals of history. Everything beyond the
Oxus is generally referred by Syrian historians to the less remote Turks
and Huns with whom they had more intimate intercourse. T h e writer
of the present document singles himself out from almost all other writers
who preceded and followed him down to the Mongol invasion, by
once applying to them the more accurate ethnological appellation of
Tatar, which some ignorant people of Europe transformed in later
generations into Tartars from tartarus, " hell " (cf. the well-known
sentence of Matthew Paris). In the Mongol Empire the Chri~tians
were sometimes known under the name of Tarsa, but more generally
under that of Arkiigiin.'
Apart from the information furnished by the present document,
the oldest references found in Syriac literature to the existence of
Bishoprics in Turkestan is that recorded in the " Life of Mar Aba"
which we have already quoted, and which goes as far back as A.IX
549. Unfortunately the historian does not give us the name of the
town where the newly ordained Bishop resided.
The late compilers of juridical decisions of the Synods refer to the
dioceses situated beyond the Oxus simply by the words " Metropolitan
of the Turks," i.e. Turkestan. This Metropolitan must presumably
have had many Suffragan Bishops under him. This view is rendered
probable by the fact that the " Metropolitan of the Turks" was in the
rank of precedence counted as Xth among the high Metropolitans of
the Nestorian Church, who had under their jurisdiction about one
hundred and eighty Bishops, and took precedence over the Metro-
politans of Razikiyi (comprising Ray, Kum, and Kashin), that of
Heriwiini, i.e. of Herat, that of Armenia, and finally that of China
(Sin and Miisin) and Java,= who was the fifteenth in rank.
Pelliot, in T'oung Pao, 1914, p. 636. In the Ja'fnil at-Tawa'rikk of
Rash2 ad-Din (Cibb Mem),p. 470, the word is written ArkrSoun.
a Synod, Orient., pp. 619-620.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 323
O n the other hand in the precious semi-official list of the Metro-
politans of the Nestorian Church beyond the Oxus and the Far East,
compiled by ' Amr,' and arranged according to the rank of precedence,
we have the following important information : the 14th, the Metro-
politan of China ; the 1 5th, the Metropolitan of India ; the 2 1 st, the
Metropolitan of Samarkand ; the 22nd, the Metropolitan of the
Turks ; the 25th, the Metropolitan of Khan Balik and FBlik ; the
' 26th, the Metropolitan of Tangut ; and the 27th, the Metropolitan
of Kashgar and Nuikith.
T h e strength of the Nestorian Church beyond the Oxus may be
gauged from the fact that 'Amr expressly states that each one of the
above Metropolitans had either twelve or six Suffragan Bishops under
his jurisdiction.
T h e list of the Nestorian Archbishoprics written by Elijah,
Metropolitan of Damascus,' is very incomplete, and mentions only
Samarkand (as Kand). Owing to his remoteness from the theatre of
events, this Metropolitan knew probably very little of the exact
condition of his Church beyond Persia proper.
T h e principal cities of Central Asia and the Far East, which
were the seats of Metropolitans and might have had according to
'Amr from six to twelve Bishops under them were : Samarkand,
Kashgar, Kha!ai, Tangut, and K h ~ nBiilik. W e will give below
all the references to these Archbishoprics in Syriac and Christian
Arabic literature.
SAMARKAND was the principal town of the ancient province of
Sogdiana, situated on the river Soghd, about one hundred and fifty
miles east of Bukhara. According to 'AbdishE' (Canonical Synods,
cap. xv.) the city was promoted to an Archbishopric by the Patriarch
Sliba-Zkha (A.D. 7 12-728), and according to some other authorities
it was chosen for that honour by the Patriarch Ahai (A.D. 41 0-415),
or Shila (A.D. 505-523),' but we believe that these two last dates are
somewhat too early. In the quotations which we gave above from I
the letters of the Patriarch Timothy, there is unfortunately no mention
of the precise city to which he ordained the " Bishops of the Turks."
Another important province of the part of the world under con-
sideration, which had been elevated to the rank of an Archbishopric,
De Pat. Nestor. Comttz., p. 73 (of the translation).
Wssemani, B. O., ii. 458-460. Cf. ibia! iii. 346.
324 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
is that of TANCUT. This province gave rise to a kingdom, called
by the Chinese Hsi Hsia, which ruled over the present province of
Kan-su and adjoining country from A.D. 1004 to 1226, when it was
finally destroyed by Chingiz Khan (see d'ohsson's Histoire rlhs
Mongols,i. 370 et sg.). T h e people who formed its diocese must
have included a considerable number of Turks and Mongols. It was
bounded by the Sung Empire on the South and East, by the Khitan
on the North-East, the Tartars on the North, the Uighur Turks on the
West, and the Tibetans on the South-West. T h e number of
Christians found in the city itself was certainly considerable, and even
in the thirteenth century the two monks referred to above-Sauma
and Marcus-tesdy to their religious zeal : " They went from there
to the town of Tangut. When the inhabitants of the city heard that
Fathers Sauma and Marcus came there on their way to Jerusalem.
they went with diligence to meet them, men and women, young men
and children, because the faith of the Tangutians was very staunch
and their heart pure." ' W e meet now and then in Syriac literature
with the names of its Metropolitans ; see, for instance, ' Amr,' who
among the Bishops who consecrated Yahb-Alaha 111. mentions Ish6'-
Sabran " Metropolitan of Tangut." In this connection w e will refer
to the Patriarch Timothy's sentence quoted above concerning the
ordination of a Bishop for Tibet, because it is highly probable that the
seat of such a Bishop was Tangut, the elevation of which to an
Archbishopric will then date back to the end of the eighth Christian
century, or about A.D. 790.' T h e Si-ngan-fu of the Nestorian
monument in China may have been under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction
of Tangut.
A third important city which was the seat of a Nestorian Metro-
politan was KASHCAR, the well-known town of Eastern Turkestan,
and historically the most important centre of the actual province of
Sinkiang. It was almost completely destroyed in the thirteenth century
on account of famine and wars, and when the monks Sauma and
Marcus reached it on their journey to Jerusalem, they found no in-
Histoire de Ydb-AlZha, pp. 17- 18.
W e Pat. Nest. Conrm. p. 72.
'About Tangut in the Lower Middle Ages 8ee Rashid'sJu'nril at-
Tawarihh (Cibb Mem.), pp. 597-599.
'About its exact site, see further Bonin, ]orrmal Asicltique, 1900,
p. 585.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 325
habitants in it at all.' But we know that some forty years earlier, o r
in about 1 180, the Patriarch Elijah 111. (1 1 76- 1 190) nominated two
Metropolitans for it: a Bishop named John, and after his death
another one named Sabrisho'.'
In 845 an edict of the Emperor of China ordered all monks,
whether Buddhist or Christian, to become laymen.' Christianity, how-
ever, did not seem to have been much affected by it, because in an
early and important statement the contemporary Patriarch Theodose
(852-858) still mentions the Archbishops of Samarkand, India, and
China.'
Syriac literature does not clearly indicate the precise time in which
a Nestorian Metropolitan was first established in China. W e can,
however, state with confidence that such an event took place at a
relatively early period. T h e Patriarch Timothy writes about 790 in
his book of Epistles,' that the Metropolitan of China had died ; and
Thomas of Marga in the passage quoted above gives us the name of
David, the Metropolitan of China, in about 787. All this suggests
that China was much earlier than the eighth century the seat of a
Metropolitan. W e should probably not be far below the boundaries
of truth if we were to assume that the Nestorian Church had a
Metropolitan in China not later than the seventh century, or about
A.D. 670. Prof. Saeki O puts forward the plausible hypothesis that
the above David was ordained by the Patriarch Timothy as Metro-
politan of China in succession to Ching-Ching Adam of the famous
Nestorian Monument of Si-ngan-fu. T h e information furnished by
this famous monument erected in 779 (on this date see below pp.
33 1 -333), leads to the same conclusion.
W e are in a position to advance a step further in the direction of
the introduction of Christianity in China. T h e document which we
are editing and translating in the present study after enumerating the
name of four Turkish Christian kings adds that all of them are
known by the collective and generic name of T a t a ~and , their country
Vie de Yahb-Aiaha, ibid. p. 19.
a 'Amr, De Patuiar. Nestor. Corn7)zentaria, p. 64 of the translation.
Saeki, The Nestotiatr Monulrtent, p. 47.
'Assemani, iv. 439.
T i m o t h i Epistoia, p. 109 (in C. S.C. 0.).
T h e Nestorian Monurnent i n China, p. 187.
 326 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
is called Sericon (with a c or a k). W e may state with confidence
that the author of the document, whoever he was, was dealing with
Mongolia and North China. T h e well-known name f i l a r should
leave absolutely no doubt in our mind on the subject. Further :-
I. The geographical work of Ptolemy was known to the S y r i a n ~ . ~
Their books on Geography, Astronomy, and Astrology, testify to this
fact ; and it is even probable that parts of the work of the famous
Creek geographer were translated by Sergius of Resh'aina who died
in 536.'
2. Now Ptolemy's geographical work contains a special chapter
devoted to Sejzire or Sel-ike (book vi. ch. 16). It is bounded
according to him on the West by Scythia beyond Imaus, on the North
by the Terra Incognita, on the East by the eastern Terra Incognita,
and on the South by that part of India that lies beyond the Ganges,
and then by the Sinae. In a footnote to Ptolemy's text as cited in
Cathay3 the editors add a note to the effect that there is no question
that the Serice described here is mainly the basin of Chinese
Turkestan. (/bid. i. 20 sp.) See in this connection the Syriac
fragment entitled Uescn$tlbn of the Earth (purporting
to emanate from Ptolemy, king of Egypt !) as printed in C.S.C.O.'
On p. 2 1 1 it is maintained that the country of .Scri&us is situated
East of Scytllia and counts no less than sixteen towns. Cf. also ibitz!
(p. 21 3) the people called Seriko and counted side by side with the
Scythians.
3. It is highly probable that the Syriac author of the present
document applied to North China and Mongolia the name previously
assigned to them by Ptolemy whom he was reading either in G e e k or
in a Syriac translation, because till about the middle of the ninth
century-Creek constituted an integral part of the curriculum of all the
important East and West Syrian schools. All this seems to point to
the antiquity of the Syriac document which might thus have been
See, for instance, Syr. MS. No. 44 of the John Rylands Library, and
also the geographical section of Barhebraeus's work entitled AftzcTmth
+dhsllr/, etc.
'Severius Sabokht who died in 666 may also have had something to
do with this translation.
"dit. Yule-Cordier, i. 194.
'Third series, vol. vi. pp. 202-213. The work passes under the name
of Zacharias Rhetor of the end of the sixth century.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 327
written before all the Medieval and pre-Medieval writers who use in
their books the names 1FfongoZia or A'haiat (Cathay). T h e oldest
mention in Syriac literature of China in the form of Sin, B a i f h JiniyJ,
or +i?lisfZn dates, if I mistake not, from the eighth century, and the
documents containing these appellations have already been or will
presently be quoted. They are the Nestorian monument in China,
the letters of Timothy the Patriarch, and the history of Thomas of
Marga. T h e most ancient Syrian writer who mentions China is
Bardaisan ' who calls the country S h r " Seres " and its inhabitants
S h e r ~ y e"' Sereans." From this vocable is derived the Syriac word
She?G~la" silk," exactly like the Latin SeriGullt from " Seres."
W e must also allude to the fact that the designation of
Turkestan and China by the Creek SerzGe (from Seres) is used by
some other West Syrian writers, although apparently unknown to
Nestorian authors. A rather early Monophysite worke calls the
Chinese SeriZZye, but the clearest passage in this connection is un-'
doubtedly that of Jacob of Edessa9 who writes : " All these Empires
had risen in this time in the countries of Great Asia, not counting those
of the countries of India, nor those of the North, in the counhies of
Serik, which is called Tasishnis!an " (vowels uncertain). This sentence
is copied verbatim in Michael the Syrian's great history.'
T h e intercourse between China and ~ e s o p o t a m i ahas always
been constant and active. A king wishing to intimidate a Christian
Bishop would threaten to banish him to China,5 because ships sailing
from the Persian Gulf to China and vice versd were an almost daily
occ~rrence.~
W e do not believe that the Sericon of the geography of the
document has anything to do with Sar-i-Kodor SnrkoZ, the mountain-
ous district of the Chinese Pamirs of which many travellers have
spoken at some length. T h e present capital of the district is
Tashkurghan, separated by about fifteen miles from the grazing
Book of the Lnrcv (in Pat. Syr.) ii. p. 583. See also the so-called
" Hymn of the Soul " in the Acts of Thomas : Bedjan's Acta Mariyruftr et
Sa?rctoru?rr,iii. 1 13.
"II LagardeVsAnafecia S ~ i a r n pp., 206-207.
Chronica Minora (C.S.C. O.), p. 283.
'i. 120 (edit. Chabot).
~Ml"huelthe Sjluinn (;bid), ii. 528.
"bid. iii. 61, 84, and many other writers.
 328 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
grounds of Tagharma, on the main road to Kashgar. T h e district
is in our days inhabited by a considerable number of Aryan popula-
tion from Western Asia. See A. Stein's Ruins ofDese7-t Cathaj,,
i 89 segg., and Ella and P. SykeSs Through Deserts and Oases of
Central Asia, pp. 148- 1 74.
In about 1063 the Patriarch Sablisho 'IIL, sent Bishop George to
Sijistan and from there to the fourth Nestorian Archbishopric of the
Far East : KHATAI,in North China.'
It is in place here to remark that the monk Marcus, one of the
heroes of the above embassy of the Mongol Emperor Arghiin, had been
himself ordained Metropolitan of this Khatai and of Ong (Hwang ?)by
the Patriarch Dinha in 1280 ;a this Archbishopric comprised at this
period a good belt of Northern China and Manchuria, and seems also
to have included some of those Eastern Turks and Mongols better
known under the name of Kara Khitai." T h e name is identical with
Khata, or Cathay, as North China, or even all China, is designated
in some languages.' From Syriac sources alone we are not able to
locate and name with precision the city which was the seat of this
North-China Archbishopric ; and, if all signs do not mislead us, w e
do not believe that there was a Metropolitan of Khatai before the
eleventh Christian century. Friar William of Rubruck (in op. st+
l a u d , p. 244) mentions a Bishop of Cathay in A.D. 1254. More than
three centuries previous to this time, Khatai seems to have been a
collective name of several Mongolian and Eastern Turkish tribes who
inhabited Eastern Manchuria, and who for some two hundred years
held China under their sway. In Barhebraeus's Ch7.o~. Syr. (p. 48 1,
etc.), in Juwaini's Jahdn GushZ (Cibb Mem., i. 15, etc), and in
Rashid ad-Din's ];mi' at-TawZ754h (ibid. p. 328, etc) Khatai
roughly corresponds with North China. For the delimitation of Kara
Khitai see Rashid's Jinzi' (zbid.p. 397).
Another Bishopric of China, the name of which is mentioned in
Syriac literature, is that of the town of Kamul which sent its Bishop
John in 1266 to the consecration of the Patriarch Dinha? It is the
Mari, Book of the Tower, p. 1 10 of the translation.
Vie de Yahb-AfZha, ibid. pp. 28-29.
Vie de Yahb- A l d a , ibid. pp. 29.
'Cf. W. Yule-Cordier, Mavco Polo, i6id. i., p. I I, and especially A.
Stein, zbid., in Notes a n d Addenda, by H. Cordier, 1920, pp. 53-54.
' ' Amr, ibid. p. 70.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 329
town called in Mongol Khamil, and in Chinese Hami. See about it
Yule-Cordier, Marto-POLO,did. i 2 1 1.
W e will here recall the fact that Yahb-Al~haIII., the Nestorian
Patriarch to whose interesting life we have often referred, was a
Chinese born and brought up in Kaushang,' situated in Southern
Shanhsi, and that his friend and life companion, Sauma, was a native
of KhHn Bilik, supposed to be the Peking of our days. 'Amr,l
however, says that the Patriarch was born in the Khatai which we
have discussed above.
A fifth Archbishopric, mentioned by 'Amr in his list, is that of
KHAN B ~ L I and K Filik. Sachau' believes that Khan Bilik stands
for Jan BBlib (a simple change of a dot in the Arabic characters),
which has been identified by Bonin4 with Urumtsi, a town on the
great north road from China to Kuldja, and the administrative capital
of the actual province of Sinkiang ; it is also known under the name of
Bish-B~lik. O n the other hand, Sachau restores Al-Filik to Al-
Ba'lik ( = Ili-Balik) which is to be identified with Almalik of Bonin
(ibiri.), and of Marquart in his Oskur@. and. Ostas. Slrezj5.,
p. 498. See about it Rashid's Ja'mi' (did. p. 470).
T h e Bishopric of Nuakith ( = Nawiikiith) mentioned by 'Amr in
the list which we have quoted above, is that which is referred to by
two Arab Geographers, Ibn Khurdadbih and Kudimah as situated
in Turkestan, and D e Coeje has written its itinerary in parasangs from
the town of Tara'z ; this itinerary is also found in W. Barthold's mono-
graph Z u r Gesth. dcs Ch?iste?ttuvz.s in Mittel-Ask."
Marquart's Er-anshahr, p. 82.
T h e Nestorian monument of China erected in 779 (on this date
see below, pp. 33 1-333) contains the name of a Bishop John, but un-
fortunately the town of which he was the Bishop is not mentioned.
Further, Friar William of Rubruck,' mentions a Nestorian episcopal
see in the city of Segin, which is generally identified with Hsi-an-fu,
the great centre of Christianity in China in the eighth and ninth

Vie, p. 9.
'DCpat. NCS~OY. , p. 71.
CO??J??~.
A~dsbreitung,p. 22. 'lour. Asiafique, 1900, 587.
Bibfiotheca Geograph. Arab. (edit. De Goeje), vi. 28, 29, 205,206.
Transl. of R. Stiibe, pp. 33 and 34.
I n op. strpd. laud., p. 157.
 330 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
centuries. It is believed that in the thirteenth century the city did not
bear the name of Hsi-an-fu, but was called by its older name Chant-
an, from which William of Rubruck's Se*mit. Objection has been
taken to the existence of a Bishopric in this town on the ground that
if there was a Bishop in it the above embassy of Mar Yahb-Alaha
and Rabban Sauma would have visited it on the journey from
Kaushang in Southern Shan-hsi to Western Asia. Of all arguments
this is one of the flimsiest. Were not the two monks going on pilgrimage
to Jerusalem free to follow the route that best suited their plans ? O r
are we allowed to hold as non-existent any Bishop who does not
happen to be mentioned in their nai~ative?
T h e activities of the Nestorian Church extended also to the yean
following this memorable ~ e r i o d . Barhebraeus registers the following
event under the year 1590 of the Seleucids (A.D. 1279) : " In this
year a certain Simeon whose surname was son of KiiZf was Bishop
of T i s , a town of Khurasan. T h e Catholicos Dinha ordained him
Metropolitan of the Chinese, but before ~roceeding to China he
began to show recalcitrance towards the Catholicos, who summoned
him to the town of Ashnu (Ushnaj) in Adhurbaijan, where he was
residing.'
In the document called " the History of the Indians " we are
informed that the Nestorian Patriarch Elijah V, ordained in A.D. 1503
the following Archbishops : Yahb Alliha, Dinha and Jacob and sent
them to India, China, and Dabag ( = Java).

Here also we will confine ourselves exclusively to Syriac sources,

which we will analyse as follows :-

W e could do no better than begin our section with that most

famous monument of Si-ngan-fu, the text of which has been edited,
translated, and commented upon by many critics since it was first dug a

out near the district town of Chou-Chih in March, 1625. T o our

knowledge the most recent and comprehensive (although somewhat
Chmn. Eccles., iii. 449. Assem., B. O., iii. 591 sq.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 33 1
popular) work on the subject is that of Professor Saeki entitled The
h'estorian Monr~nzentin China' (S.P.C.K. 1 9 1 6). O n the Syriac
part of the monument w e will venture to make the followinn observa-
tions.
(a)
(P. 265, 11. 5, 14.)' Many pages have been written by eminent
scholars on the subject of the date of the erection of the monument,
which is 1092 of the Creeks, as compared with the death of the
Patriarch Hna'nisho', in whose time the monument was erected. We
believe that we are able to remove all chronological difficulties in this
connection in the following manner :-
It is a well-known fact among S y r i a ~scholars that the computation
of the years of the Seleucids varied in Syrian Churches between 309-
3 13 B.c., and after careful investigations in the works of all Syrian
chronologists and historians I have come to the conclusion that it is
very unsafe to fix always on 3 1 1 as the year to be subtracted from a
given Seleucid date in order to obtain the right Christian year. Every
case should be taken on its own merits. T h e Seleucid year 1092 of
the monument may, therefore, correspond with any Christian year
within 779-783. Now 'Amr followed by Assemani, and by many
historians after him, gives the year of the death of the Patriarch
Hninisho' in the Seleucid computation as 1089, but that the dates
furnished by the celebrated Christian Arab writer are not always
reliable, is proved by the fact that all the elements of the chronologi'ul
computation of the Festival of Easter, which enter into the cycle of his
Seleucid years, are hopelessly wrong. Happily, however, the chrono-
logist Elijah of Nisibin, gives us the year of the Hijrah, and takes us
out of the labyrinth of the uncertainties of the year of the Creeks
According to him,' HninishE' was elected in A.H. 159, and died after
a Patriarchate of four years ; his death, therefore, should have occurred
in A.H. 163, in which Timothy succeeds him (Elijah, i&d. p. 184).
A.H. 1 59 begins on 3 1st October, 775, and A.H. 163 begins on 1 7th
September, 779. M&i4 gives the year A.H. 162 for the election of
Timothy ; but I believe that he has fallen into a slight chronological
' The references are to Saekj's work.
De Przt. Nestor. Comtn., p. 37.
O ~ u sChronofog-inrm in C.S. C.O., vol. vii. of the 3rd series, p. 183,
' De Pat. Il'esior. Cornm., p. 63.
 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
error that can easily be explained by the fact that this A.H. 162 begins
on the 28th September, i.e. only two days before the beginning of the
next year in the Nestorian Ecclesiastical Calendar in which the year
began at the sunset of the 30th September or on the eve of 1st
October.
T h e information registered by 'Amr (did) to the effect that the
Patriarchate remained vacant for more than a year after the death of
HninishG' seems to be unwarranted ; indeed all the historians,
Barhebraeus,' Miri,"nd Elijah,3 etc., are of opinion that Timothy
was nominated (although somewhat surreptitiously) Patriarch within
the limits of the normal delay that accompanied Patriarchal elections
in the East, i.e. within the interval of, say, two to four months ;
further, all the historians agree also that the Patriarchate of HnZnishG'
lasted four years.
T h e problem of the precise year of the death of HnZnish6' having
been elucidated, we will proceed to examine the difficulty of the exact
computation of the years of the Seleucids in the eighth Christian
century, as compared with the years of the Hijrah. W e are happily
in a position to solve this dificulty in a safe way through an absolutely
unimpeachable source. T h e Syriac manuscript No. 4 of the John
Rylands Library, which contains Biblical and liturgical matter, is copied
by a Chinese facsimilist from a Nestorian MS. preserved in Peking.
It was either originally written in that city or more probably brought
there from the Middle East by one of those very Nestorian missionaries
mentioned in the Nestorian monument, because it is dated only
twenty-eight years before the erection of the monument (see below, pp.
336-337). The colophon of the MS. is fortunately dated both in the
year of the Creeks and in that of the Hijrah. T h e Greek year which is
given in it is written in words and not in figures, and is 1064, and it is
said therein to correspond with the year of the Hijrah 134, which is also
written in words and not in figures. This proves without any doubt
that in the eighth century the Nestorians of Mesopotamia and the
Nestorian Missionaries of China counted the era of the Seleucids as
3 13 B.C. and not 3 10 or 3 1 1, or even 3 12, because it is only by
subtracting 3 13 from the Seleucid year 1064 that we get A.H. 134.
This timely discovery makes the Seleucid year 1092 written on the

Chroft. Ecch., ii. 1 66. W e Patyiar., p. 63. 'Ibid

 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 333
Nestorian monument to correspond with A.D. 779, ie. the very year
of the death of the Patriarch I;lninishGL. T h e year, therefore, of
the erection of the Nestorian monument in Si-ngan-fu is 779, and
not 78 1 as hitherto believed, and there is no discrepancy whatever
in the date of the monument as compared with that of the death of
the Patriarch HnZnisho".

(4
(Page 267, line 1.) T h e first line reads " Yohannis, deacon, and
. T h e last word has been translated by " and the secretary."
There is no such a Syriac word in existence, and we believe this
translation to be inadmissible ; Yadhn is a shortening of the word
I/tidhii;ya " monk," which is so often used in the preceding lines. T h e
scribe resorted to abbreviations in this line in order to leave space for
the Chinese characters that follow the Syriac ones. T h e above line
should, therefore, be translated by " Yohannis (John) deacon and
monk"
(4
(Page 265, lines 1 7- 18.) T h e inscription mentions the name of
the priest Yazdbozid chor-episcopos of Kumdan, son of the priest
Miles from Balkh, town of Tahuristan. T h e use by a Syrian writer
of the Persian termination Sitrzn at the end of a proper name indicates
that he was a native of, or brought up or living in, a country stretching
from about Central Persia of our days eastwards, and not westwards.
T o express " Tahuristan " a Syrian born in the Western side of Central
Persia would have used the expression " Beith Tahiiriiye." There is
not much doubt in my mind that the majority if not all of the Syriac
names appearing in the monument belonged to Christian missionaries
who were Persian by birth ; indeed the bulk of the Nestorian Church
and its most virile element have always been men of what we would
call to-day Persian nationality.

It was in 1885 that some Russian explorers first came into contact
with two Nestorian cemeteries of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries in the Russian province of Semiryechensk in South Siberia, or
334 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
Russian Turkestan, near the towns of Pishpek and Tokmak. So far as
I can ascertain, more than six hundred and thirty gravestones bearing
Syriac inscriptions have since that year been either photographed o r
brought into the important Museums of Europe, chiely into Russia.
In' 1886, 1888 and 1896, Prof. D. A. Chwolson undertook the work
of their decipherment in three successive publications presented to the
Acnddnzie des Sricltces de Said InL!fe7sbozq-. These worthy publi-
cations have formed the basis of many subsequent monographs, the most
valuable and detailed of which are those of another ~ u s s i a nscholar
Kokowzoff. T h e most ancient gravestone so far discovered is not earlier
than about the middle of the ninth century, and the latest may be
ascribed to about the middle of the fourteenth century. Cf. Joul*?2nt
Asiatiqzde (9th series), 1896, viii. p. 428, and Naldeke in Z.D.ALG.
xliv. 520-528.
Gravestones erected in the form of a cross have also been discovered
in Manchuria (Jour~tndAsiatipue, ibid. pp. 428-429) and Nayan,
King of that country, was a Christian and had inscribed the Sign of the
Cross on his banners.
T h e dates used in the above inscriptions are those of the Seleucid
era, which has been in constant use in the Nestorian Church, and those
of the Turco-Mongolian cycle of 12 years which bore the names of
rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, hen, dog,
and pig.
T h e Christian community of that almost lost corner of the earth
must have been fairly considerable, because among the about three
hundred gravestones of men, published by Chwolson, there are nine
archdeacons, eight doctors of ecclesiastical jurisprudence and of Biblical
interpretation, twenty-two visitors, three commentators, forty-six schol-
astics, two preachers and an imposing number of piests.
T h e names borne by the members of this Christian community are
highly interesting for the Turkish onomastical science ; but here and
there one picks up names of a decidedly Greek origin, quite distinguished
from those names that are sanctioned in the Old and New Testaments ;
e x gr. Julia. A unique feature in their case is the use of the name
Kushlanz, which Chwolson identifies with Constance, as a second
member of a formative compound ; so we meet with names of Mary
Kushtanz, Rebecca Kushtanz, Saliba Kushtanz, etc. Another interest-
ing feature of the proper names is that Syriac abstract and concrete
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 335
nouns are pressed into use, apparently on account of the paucity of
Christian names in that part of the world ; so we find Shlima (Peace),
Taibiitha (Grace), Shilya (Quiet), Shliha (Apostle or the Naked One),
Simba (Ray), Pisha (Passover). Some of the inhabitants were also
related to the country from which either they or their fathers had hailed ;
w so a woman is called " Terim ' the Chinese," a priest figures as " Baniis,
I the Uighurian" and a layman as " Saz~kthe Indian" ; another is
" Kiamta of Kashgar," and yet another " Tat!a, the Mongol " ;
further a periodeuta " Sha-Malik " is a son of a George of Tiis *' ;
and six persons are related to the city of Al-Malig. All these names
imply a constant intercourse between the different Christian peoples of
Central Asia and the Far East ; without such an intercourse we are
not able to explain satisfactorily the fact that we have side by side
in a single cemetery people from China, India, East and West Turkestan,
Mongolia, Manchuria, Siberia, and Persia.
T o give our readers an idea of these important gravestones we shall
give the translation of five of them :-
(Chwolson, vol. iii. 18, No. 66) : " In the year one thousand six
hundred and twenty-three, which is the year of the pig. This is the
grave of the Priest Peter, the venerable old man."
(Chwolson, vol. i. 14, and voL ii. 55) : " In the year one thousand
six hundred and twenty-seven, which is the year of the dragon, in
Turkish " Lowii ". This is the grave of Shliba, the celebrated com-
mentator and teacher, who illuminated all the monasteries with light ;
son of Peter the august commentator of Wisdom. His voice rang as
I
high as the sound of a trumpet. May our Lord mix his pure soul with
the just men and the Fathers. May he participate in all (heavenly)
joys."
(Chwolson, vol. iii. 16, No. 52) : " In the year 1616, which is
that of the Turkish snake. This is the grave of SabrishGL,the arch-
deacon, the blessed old man, and the perfect priest. H e worked much
in the interests of the church."
(Chwolson, vol. iii 14, No. 47) : " In the year 1613. This is the
..
grave of the priest Isaac, the blessed old man. H e worked much in the
interests of the town.

This name Terim frequently figures in the inscriptions, and is doubtless

formed horn the well known river Tarim, in Chinese Turkestan.
22
 336 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
(Chwolson, vol. iii. 16, 57) : "In the year one thousand six
hundred and eighteen, which is- the year of the sheep. This is the
grave of Jeremiah, the believer."

In 1905 the German explorer Von Le Coq discovered in Chinese

Turkestan some leaves containing portions of a Nestorian Breviary
and Liturgy. They have been edited and translated by Sachau in
Sitzzcng. a! d&z.Preus. Akad d,Wissem, 1905, pp. 964-973.
Sachau has identified most of the passages from the " Cazza" and
the " Hudhra" of the Nestorians, and has rightly ascribed the script
used in these interesting finds to the tenth or ninth century. T h e
latter date is probably nearer to the mark than the former. T h e other
passages which Sachau seems to have been unable to identify are also
found in many MSS. of the service-books of the Church, and some
may even be verified in the printed text published by Bedjan under
the title of Bveuiariu~nChaZdaictr?rz(Paris, 1886).

(6)
O n pp. 973-978 Sachau has also published another find of L e
Coq's in Chinese Turkestan, in the form of a leaf written in Syriac
characters and exhibiting a Christian treatise composed in one of the
middle Persian dialects of Central Asia, called Soghdian.
Far more important than the above piece are the Soghdian frag-
ments also in Syriac characters published by F. W. K. Miiller in the
Abhanrddungen of which we shall speak below. O n pp. 87-88 of
this publication we read in Syriac characters and in the Syriac language
the Credo as used in the official books of the Nestorian Church, where
it is attributed to the Fathers of the Council of Nicca.

A s important as the above finds is the Syr. MS. No. 4 of the

John Rylands Library. It is a facsimiIe on Chinese paper, and made
by a Chinese hand, before 1727-of an ancient Syriac Biblical and
liturgical volume which in 1727 was still in possession of a Chinese
mandarin of Peking.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 337
T h e original MS. upon which the Chinese facsimilist was working
is apparently still preserved in China. It is dated as stated above
1064 of the Creeks, and 134 of the Hijrah, and written in the time
of Cyprian, Metropolitan of Nisibin. T h e fact that a Metropolitan of
Nisibin is mentioned in the colophon seems to suggest that at least one
5 of the missionaries who brought the MS. with them to China was
I living under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of that famous Metropolis of
the East Syrian Church. For further details of this MS. see our
B~z'efDescrz$tiue Catalogue of the SyriaG AISS. in the John
RyLands Library. It is neither a complete Bible, nor a complete
liturgical book, nor a complete service-book, but it contains the most
necessary parts of each ; just the kind of vade-mecum of Bible, liturgy,
and breviary which a missionary would carry about with him from
place to place, and through which he might satisfy all his devotional
requirements with ease.

In the library of the Chaldean (Nestorian Uniate) Bishopric of

Diarbekr there is a Syriac Lectionary of the Cospels written in letters
of gold upon a blue background. T h e colophon of this MS., which
has been published by Pognon,' informs us that it was written in 1609
of the Creeks (1298 A.D.), for the queen Arangul, the sister of
Ceorges, king of the Christian Turks called Canatu-Uriyang.
Blochet,' who has discussed this colophon, arrives at the only possible
conclusion that the name represents the powerful Turkish agglomera-
p tion of tribes called Uriyan-gakt, who must thus have been un-
doubtedly christian in 1298.5
T h e above king is probably the King Ceorges of Marco Polo and
John of Monte Corvino. H e was killed in Mongolia in 1298 (the
very year of the transcription of the Lectionary) leaving an infant
child baptised by Monte Corvino. See Pelliot, T' oultg Pao, 1914,
p. 632 sf. and Cathay, 1 9 16, iii. 1 5 (edit. Yule-Cordier).
We will here refer also to another Nestorian Lectionary of the
Gospels described by Blochet in his Persian catalogue of the Paris
MSS. and written apparently in Samarkand in A.D. 1374.
I n s o ~ t i o n sS/?nitiqucs, p. 1 37.
Introduction d 'l Histoire des Mon~ols,p. 1 8 1.
Cf. Rashid's]a'?t~il at-3'bwZrirt.h(Cibb Mem.), p. 385, etc.
338 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
Finally we should not overlook the fact that in the Middle Ages
there were so many Christian Turks and Mongols in Central Asia,
Persia, and Mesopotamia, that Nestorian hymn-writers were obliged
to compose some hymns for their exclusive benefit in what they called
Mongolian. So Khimis, the famous Nestorian hymn-writer, composed
the SoghEtAa beginning with " T h e Son of Mary is born to us *' in
alternate strophes, one in Syriac and the other in Mongolian ( = Eastern
Turkish). This hymn which is also mentioned below is found in some
other MSS., ascribed to KhZmis ; see, for instance, vol. ii., p. 693, of
Wright's & Cook's Calnlope of the Sy7-hc MSS. of Canzbnizge.

(4
Among the discoveries made near Turfan in Chinese Turkestan,
are some fragments of complete leaves or parts of leaves of a Lection-
ary of the Gospels as used in the Nestorian Community of that part
of the world. The indications of the lessons to be recited in Churches 4
are generally in complete agreement with those of the official Nestorian
Christianity of Mesopotamia and Persia. T h e date of the leaves
cannot be later than the tenth century. They are mostly written in
Syriac characters, but in the Soghdian dialect of Middle Persian
interspersed with complete sentences in the Syriac language. They
have been edited and translated by F. W. K. Miiller in the above
-
Abha)rdlzt?l,oend. P~1,eus.ARad. d. dVissert. (1 9 12, 1 1 I I). They
contain sixteen quotations from Matthew, nineteen from Luke, fifteen
from John, three from I Corinthians, and one from Galatians, and all
are in almost complete agreement with the sacred text used by the
Nestorian Church. The indications of the Soghdian Lectionary have
been compared with those furnished by the official Church Books of the
Nestorians by Burkitt in his interesting little book, The Red~kionof
-
the Malzichees, 1 925, pp. 1 2 1 123.

It is not our intention here to mention all the Manichaean docu-

b
ments discovered in the last few years in Central Asia by the Russian,
German, French, and British scientific missions. They are admirably
enumerated and classified in that instructive book of P. Alfaric, entitled
" Les Ecritures Manichiennes " (vol. i. 1918, k e Gilzkrak, and
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 339
vol. ii., 1919, Ehc& Ana&tique). T h e only authoritative book on
the subject after Alfaric's is L e Coq's Die Buddhistische Sp~it.in
Mi'llelasien, 1923. W e will refer, however, to those of them which
are written in Syriac characters, and which contain decidedly Christian
matter which could not have emanated except from Nestorians living
side by side with the Manichaeans of those countries. Some of these
have already been mentioned above. T h e remaining ones may be
classified as follows :-
(a)
In 1904 Mr. C. Salemann translated in the Proceedings of the
Imperial Academy of Sciences of Saint Petersburg a leaf discovered
near Turfan written both in Chinese and in Syriac characters of about
the ninth century. T h e Syriac fragment is important because it refers
to some other works of the Manichteans which are lost in our days.

T h e most important publication in the field of knowledge with

which we are dealing is undoubtedly F. W. K. Miilleis work
entitled " Handschriften-Reste in Estrangelo-Schrift aus Turfin "
in the AbhmtdCzc~yeenof the Prussian Academy of 1904, pp. 1 1 17, -
the first part of which was published eight years later in the same
series, and is referred to above under C (e).
Specially illuminating is the story of the Passion and Crucifixion of
Jesus as narrated in the fragments edited on pp. 34-37, in which the
proper names found in the Gospels are given in their Syriac form.
Attention should also be drawn to the Manichmn Snnctus of pp.
70-73 where the word for "holy" is the Syriac <<dhCsh con-
tracted from Kudhsha,' O n p. 94 Jesus is spoken of under the
Syriac formula of " Bar Maryam" fhe Son of Mary. This formula
is repeated in every verse of the above SCghitha of Dominica1 Festivals
in the Nestorian liturgical books, beginning " the Son of Mary is born
to US."
' In a document on p. 87 the word Tuvan is used of the Turks. If the
date assigned to these documents is correct the So hdian fragment would
f
contain one of the oldest mentions so far made o the Turks under the
appellation Turaniatzs.
' In Syr. MS. marked Mingana 129, recently brought from the East.
this SZghiiha is attributed also to Khimis, the well-known Nestorian hymn-
writer.
 340 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
W e cannot here refrain from quoting some passages referring to
the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus. T h e fragment that contains
them is unfortunately very defective ; we will indicate its lacunae by
means of three dots. Its title is " A n extract on the Crucifixion " and
its text begins with the words " if in truth H e is the Son of God," and
continues :- '
"And Pilate answered ' I am innocent of the blood of this Son
of God.' Then the oflicers and soldiers received from Pilate the
following order : 'Keep this commandment secret. . . .' H e shows
that on a Sunday at the first crow of the cock, Maryam, Shalom and
(Arsiniyah) came with other women and brought perfumes of nard.
Nearing the grave they ... . .
see the splendour. . A s did Maryam,
Shalom and Arsaniyah (sic) when the angels said to them, 'Seek not
the living among the dead.' Think of the words of Jesus addressed
to you in Galilee, 'they will deliver M e and crucify Me, and on the
third day I shall rise from the dead.' G o to Galilee and communicate 4

this news to Simon and the others."

Miiller (ibid p. 109) believes that this narrative agrees with the
apocryphal Gospel of Peter ; this may be true of the first part of it,
but oertainly not of the second part ; further the Gospel of Peter has
never had any influence on the Nestorian Community, and was probably
unknown even on the eastern banks of the Tigris. W e believe there-
-

fore that the above extracts represent a Nestorian Christian composition

clumsily. quoted
- in a Manichean work. What would lend a colour
of plausibility to this view is the form and pronunciation of the proper
names, which have a clear and distinct Nestorian savour.
Miillera has also given us the translation of an interesting and
original hymn-book of the Manichees. Some hymns in the collection
are decidedly under Christian influence, and "Jesus the Messiah," in
Syr. Isho' MshFba, used in them is an expression which could not
have been known except through that influence :-
" W e wish to celebrate Thee 0 Jesus, the Messiah. ... We
wish to praise Thee 0 blessed Spirit. ... W e wish to extoll Thee,
0 High Cod. ... I am the Spirit that lives." b
In a fragment discovered in 1905 at Bulayik, north of Turfan,
Miiller Handsc/rt?Yicn Rest., pp. 34-36.
Ein dojjeL6fatt arts einenz J/anic/r. Hy7~mtnbuc/r,in the A(l/mnd-
Zutzgen of the Prussian Academy, 1913, p. 28.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 34 1
occurs the name Zawtai for Zebedee, the father of the Evangelist
John. Now the letter B is not softened into " V" and then changed in
into " W " except among the East Syrians or Nestorians '
with whom the word under consideration is read as Zawdai:-
" The eighteenth oracle-it is a good one. Thus speaks Zawtail
the Apostle : " 0 Son of Man, you resemble the cow that from far
lowed to her straying calf. A s this young calf heard the voice of his
mother and ran quickly to her,\ and in this way escaped injuly, so also
yours ... which from far . ..
rapidIy with great joy."
" T h e nineteenth oracle-it is a bad one. Thus speaks Luke the
Apostle : " 0 Son of Man, wash your hand. D o not have any fear
before evil. Have pure thoughts. T h e love that you conceive for
Cod, realise it openly."

\Ve need not dwell here on the well-known fact that the Syriac
characters as used by the Nestorians gave rise to many Central Asian
and Far Eastern alphabets such as the Mongolian, the Manchu, and
-

the Soghdian. T h e existing characters of the two former groups of

languages are lineal descendants of the original Uighurian forms which
were certainly deJved from the Nestorian Syriac characters, under the
influence of the civilised Christian community of Uighuria.

In a private family at Mosul, in North Mesopotamia, I saw an

iron cross of a fairly large size with inscriptions in Syriac and in Chinese.
' See my Synac Grammar : Clefde la Larzgzie Ara~tzt'entre,N o . 3.
"here is no question here of the problematical disciple Zabdai as Alfaric
(ibid. ii. 180) believes, but, as the name of Luke suggests in the next oracle,
Zabdai designates here the Apostle John the Evangelist. The word Bar
Son of" has been omitted, as it is often done by the copyists ; and the
Eastern habit of calling the son by the name of his father or vice versd is
too well known to need explanation.
3Von Le Coq, Ein Chvistliches ... Afatzusk~+tfvag~nentin
Sit,-zct~gsbericltleof the Prussian Academy, 1909, pp. 1202, 1205-1208.
The fragment has unfortunately many lacunae.
 342 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
The Syriac words read : $&ba zkha, " Crux vicit " (the cross has
conquered), but I was not able to read the Chinese characters which
occupied an even shorter space. T h e cross may have been imported
from China by a Nestorian missionary, or a Christian Chinese warrior
in the Mongol army.
(4
There are coins of the Mongolian 11-Khans, called " coins of the
cross," which bear the Christian legend, " In the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, m e Cod." For the dirham coins of
the Emperor Abzka which have this legend, seeJour)laZ Asiniipce,
1896 (9th series), vii. 5 14, and for some coins of the Emperor
ArghCln, which also bear this Christian legend (see ibiri. 1896, viii
333). The respect in which even the non-Christian Mongol Kings,
and Khans, held the Nestorians is best illustrated by the fact that they
used to take off their headgear and genuflect before their Patriarch
Q
(ibid. xiii. 1881, the Jan. number).
(6)
The influence which the Nestorian Christians exercised on the
Turks, even on those among them who were Mohammedans, may be
emphasised by the fact that about A.D. 1200 Sulaiman of Bakirghan,
in the Khanate of Khiva, composed in Turki, or the Eastern Turkish
dialect, a poem on the death of the Virgin, the contents of which were
inspired by Nestorian writings on the same subject (cf. Congrts des
Orientalistes d'Alger, 3rd part, 1907, pp. 28 sp.). 9

(4
Finally, we will mention here the fact that a great Nestorian
writer, the author of the Gannrzih Bussa'md, was towards the end of
the twelfth century entrusted with the exposition of the Christian
doctrine and the interpretation of Church Lectionaries of the Old and
New Testaments to the numerous Christian Turks and Mongols
inhabitating Persia and Mesopotamia, and he was for that called
" The Interpreter of the Turks " pav excefleence.

For further details on Christianity in Central Asia and the Far

East in the Middle Ages, from Chinese and Muslim sources, which
do not constitute a part of our enquiry, we recommend the following
works : W. Barthold's Monograph Ch?i ~ k n l t i ? u i?t
s Mifled Asicn,
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 343
1901 ; Yule-Cordier, Cathay and the way thither (Hakluyt
Society), vols. i.-iv., 19 15- 1 9 1 6 ; Cordier, Le Christianisme en
Chine et en As+ sous les Alongods, Leiden, 1918 ; Pelliot,
ChrdtGns &As& Centrab (in Toung-Pao, 1 9 1 4).

W e give in the following pages the translation of a Syriac document

attributed to AkhsnZya, or the famous monophysite Philoxenus, Bishop
of Mabbug, who died in Gangra of Paphlagonia in A.D. 523. H e
is one of the most eminent writers of Syriac, and to theological students
he is better known as the author of the Philoxenian Version of the
Bible. His life in a more or less accurate form can be found in
almost all the books of reference, but the present writer believes that
he was the last to discuss in 1920 some aspects of his life and of his
Biblical wort1
The present document is two-fold. More than half of it deals
with the Christian heresies that preceded the author's time. Very
briefly he gives their main Christological features and sketches the history
of the Councils who condemned them. The second part of the
document outlines the introduction of Christianity among the Turks,
and possesses by the freshness of its contents an importance which
could not be paralleled by anything said in the first part. The
Christian heresies mentioned in the first part are those of Sabellius,
Paul of Samosata, Arius, Eusebius of Cesarea, Macedonius, Nestorius,
and Eutyches. A larger space is naturally devoted to the last heretic
but one and to Theodore of Mopsuestia, and his hatred for both
of them knows no bounds ; were they not the Nestoiians who had
driven him out of Garamea, his native country, and applied to him
the epithet of the "accursed wolf 2" "ur modern civilisation has
at least done something good : it has in some countries of Europe
begun to sweep away that fanatical spirit whereby a man would
persecute, or maim, or even kill a human being for his religious beliefs,
and think that he was offering a sacrifice to God. The true spirit of
Christ was sadly deficient in the fifth and sixth centuries, and this
A New Docurttent on PhiLoxenus of Hievapolis, Expositor, 1 920,
pp. 149-160.
"BLbai the Great, quoted in our Narsai Homiliae et Car~nina,vol. i.
p. 6 of the introduction.
 344 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
deficiency explains the stringency of the style used by many ecclesi-
astical writers of the time, including Philoxenus.
W e give the translation of this part of the document without any
comment. Its merits and demerits can be judged by every theologian
interested in Church history and in the Christological discussions
which-in the centuries where kings were effectively dabbling in
religion-rent asunder the coherent body of the Christian community.
The author, living far from the scene of events, has fallen into some
slight chronological errors, and presented the philosophical aspect of
the questions in a light which is somewhat foreign to our upbringing.
W e write no corrective notes to statements which can easily be
verified by any intelligent reader, in order to reserve our space to the
second part of the document which is of particular interest for the
history of the spread of Christianity beyond the Oxus.
One of the strongest reasons urged by some critics against the
authenticity of the first part of the letter which deals with Christian
heresies, and which is already known from the British Museum MSS.
spoken of below, is the glaring anachronism which in the narrative
makes Theodore of Mopsuestia a contemporary and fellow student of
Nestorius. T h e dificulty, however, has been explained by Nau,'
who, after his publication of a summary of Barsalibi's work against
the Nestorians, was able to show that the Theodore of the present
document is a deliberate error on the part of the copyist for Theodoret
of Cyrus. T o follow up his intentional falsification the scribe had
also the audacity of changing Cyrus into Mopsuestia, and in converting
in one place the name of the Emperor Theodosius into that of
Honorius. That the forefathers of Nestorius were of Persian
extraction, as presented in the present Jacobite document, may be
gathered from the fact that the Nestorians also are of the same opinion.
T h e lexicographer, Bar 'Ali,\xpressly states that Atak is the "name
of the village of Addai, grandfather of Nestorius." Where Nestorians
and Jacobites agree we may be fairly certain that we are treading on
firm ground. Finally, we must also add that the letter to A b i 'Afr
is mentioned among the authentic works of Philoxenus by the author
of his life which we published in 1920."
Revue de rOrient ChvPlien, 1909, p. 424 sq., cf. ibid. p. 30 1 sq.
Payne Smith's Thesaurus Syviacus, i. 422 (the word ~ a s h s h i d is
a here
to be understood in the sense of " grandfather," and not that of " presbyter '3.
Exjositor, 1920, p. 154.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 345
W e need not dwell on the subject of the authenticity of the
document. We simply cannot make ourselves believe that it emanates
from Philoxenus, at least not from the Philoxenus whom we so well
know by almost innumerable works on theological and mystical
sciences. T h e most charitable hypothesis that we may put forward
in this connection is that if the precious document is in any way
connected with him, he must have written it in his youth, and in this
case it would represent the first inteIIectua1 ilan of an exuberant
genius before attaining its full-fledged mental acumen.
T h e document does not lose much of its value by not having been
written by Philoxenus All the works attributed to a certain Father
of the church may not have been actually written by him, and there
are certainly treatises passing under the name of this or that Creek,
Latin, or Syriac Father which are as far from having emanated from
him as the present document from Philoxenus, but their internal value
is in no way impaired by this fact. T o add a kind of a nominal
value to an anonymous tract, a copyist was in some cases tempted to
ascribe it to a well-known author ; in some other cases a young and
obscure writer, wishing to draw attention to a subject to which he
attached special importance, would deliberately use the name of a
highly r e s b t e d a i d widely known man in order to obtain better
reading. It is from the rank of these pious or impious forgers that the
list of the apocryphal literature found in the historical archives of
- ~-

almost every religious and political community, has been unduly

swollen.
Although apparently not by Philoxenus the document is very
ancient ; the MS. Add. 14529l of the British Museum, ascribed by
Wright to the seventh or eighth Christian century, contains that section
of it which deals with Nestorius and Eutyches, and as such it has been
edited by P. Martin in his Irrtrodutio pvnrticn ad sfu&?lt Lin~o'uae
A)-nrnene, 1873, and translated by J. Tixeront in Revue de L'Orient
Chr.t4~ien,1903, 623-630.' Short fragments of this very section of the
text are also to be seen in Brit. Mus. Add. 1 7 193 and 1 7 134 (pp.
338 and 998 in Wright's Catalogue). T h e text, however, of the
British Museum MS. contains deep variants and many omissions when
compared with that which we are translating in the present study. It
' Wright's CatnZus~te,ii. 917-918.
'Cf. A. Vaschalde, Three Letters, 1992, p. 30.
 346 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
is not our intention to dwell on the explanation of the verbal differences
which separate the two recensions.
T h e document is in form of a letter addressed to Abii 'Afr,
military Governor of Hirah. T h e British Museum MS. calls him
Abu Naphir, and our MS. Abu (gen. Abi) 'Afr. T h e reading of our
MS. has unexpectedly been confirmed by that interesting and important
Syriac work dealing with the Christian martyrs of the Yaman, and
entitled Book of the gimyaritcs, which has been lately unearthed
and so ably edited by the Swedish scholar A. Moberg.' T h e name
Abu 'Afr clearly occurs in this work as an Arabic proper name on fol.
24b. In the life of Philoxenus that we published in 1920 the name
occurs as Abu Hafr? T h e Muslim t r a d i t i ~ n ,however,
~ calls him
A b u Ya'jur, a i d gives his genealogy as b. 'Alkamah, b. Milik,
b. 'Adi, b. Dhumail, b. Thaur, b. Asas, b. Rubay, b. Numarah,
b. Lakhm. According to the Arab historians (ibid.) he succeeded
Nu6min b. Aswad in the government of Hirah and reigned three
years. T h e Syriac A b i 'Afr of the document can also be read as
A b Yaffur in conformity with Arab sources.
Our present study is based on the Syriac MS. 59 of the John
Rylands Library (ff. 998- 107b), which to our knowledge is the only
one that contains in full the letter of Philoxenus to Abii 'Afr ; it is
dated 29th January, 1909, but the deacon Matti, the copyist, assured
us verbally, when we met him last year in the East, that he had trans-
cribed it from a vellum MS. found inTur ' Abdin, which he would ascribe
at the latest to the eleventh century. It formerly constituted a part of the
writer's collection of Syriac MSS. where it was numbered : Mingana 9.
T h e section dealing with the Turks to which the main part of our
study is devoted evidently emanates from a zealous Jacobite who was
eager to show that his Church also, and especially his Patriarchate of
Antioch, had some share in the conversion of the Turks, and while the
Christian peoples beyond the Oxus swore allegiance to the Nestorian
Patriarch of Ctesiphon, and technically belonged to his Nestorian
community, they did so bond firte and by force of circumstances,

The Book of the Hirnyavites ... A hitherto 2cnknowrz Syriac work,

LeipJg and Lund, 1924.
Expositor, 1920, p. 154.
Tabari, Annales, 1,2,900 ; Ibn Duraid, p. 266 ; Ibn al-Athir, KiimiZ,
i. 154 (edit. Bulak).
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 347
ultimately due to the long distance that separated them from the
monophysite Patriarch of Antioch. This is of course an tx-parte
statement which should be received with great caution. There are no
grounds whatever for denying the incontrovertible fact that the glory of
converting the peoples of Central Asia and of the Far East to the
Gospel of Christ, and the merit of implanting among them the Western
civilisation, based on the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, belong entirely
to the untiring zeal and the marvellous spiritual activities of the Nestorian
Church, which is by far the greatest missionary Church that the world
has ever produced. Even we, hard critics and unprejudiced inquirers,
who are writing centuries after the events, cannot but marvel at the love
of Cod, of man, and of duty, which animated those unassuming
disciples of Christ, true pupils of their Apostles Addai and Thomas,
who in utter disregard of all discomforts of the body, and in the teeth
of the strong opposition and the terrible vengeance of the wizards of
Shamanism and the mobeds of Zoroastrianism, literally explored all
the cornen of the Eastern globe in order to sow in them the seed of
what they firmly believed to be the true religion of Cod. All glory
to them 1
There are in the document some proper names which are very
difficult to identify. They belong to the Eastern section of the
Central Asian peoples. Four of these names are those of the Christian
kings whom the author is mentioning :' Cawirk, Cirk, Tasahz, and
Langu. T h e precise country in which they lived was called Sericon ;
the border town of this country was called Karagiir[am], and the name
of its King was Idikiit. Five days' journey separated Karagir[am] from
the habitat of the Christian Turks. W e have done our best to illustrate
the above names in the footnotes from k k , Syriac, Arabic, Persian,
Turkish, and Mongolian sources, but we were not able to identify some
of them with any degree of probability in the literatures of these
languages. Their exact identification may possibly be effected through
Chinese sources, but these we could not cite with authority as we do
not know any Chinese at all.
W e have also ventured to add some footnotes to illustrate or
explain the historical data of the document. From these notes the
reader will be able to form an independent judgment on the value to

' The vowels of all the names are uncertain.

 348 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
be attached to the information imparted by the author. Nearly all the
historical data furnished by him have, on verification, proved genuine
and correct in every important detail, but the confidence with which
the document thus inspires us will be strengthened by the knowledge
that all the names of kings and towns mentioned in it are found in
Chinese sources which we were unfortunately unable to consult at first
hand.
This second part of the document which concerns the Christian
Turks seems to be only loosely attached to the first part which deals
with Christian heresies, and it is possible that it was pieced together
with it by an ancient copyist from a totally different MS. Indeed if
w e join the sentence of p. 360 : " a great number of people deviated
from the path of truth and became Nestorians, on account of the
severity of the persecution," with that of p. 366 : " the occasion of
this arose at the time when persecution was aflame against the
Christians of the countries of the Persians at the hand of the accursed
Barsauli of Nisibin," we will have a somewhat homogeneous and
continuous composition, and all the text written between the two
phrases will appear as an interpolation. T h e argument, however,
should not be unduly pressed because the same process might with
almost equal success be applied to the beginning of the history of
Nestorius as compared with the way in which the previous heresies of
Sabellius, Paul of Samosata, Arius, and Macedonius are introduced.
Further, the opinion that the text of all the document dealing with
the Christian Turks is taken from a completely different MS. seems to
be borne out by the following fact. O n p. 362 occurs the phrase : " the
see of their Bishop is in the pagan town which we have mentioned
above." Now no Turkish town of any kind is mentioned in the pages
that precede this sentence. It seems, therefore, plausible that this part
of the document was transcribed by a copyist from another MS. and
inserted in the present document purporting to be written by
Philoxenus on the Christian heresies that preceded him, because the
name of the Turkish town must have been mentioned in the previous
part of the text which has been omitted by the copyist.
We must finally state here that this opinion clears up the difficulty
arising out of the nzise elz sckm of the present state of the document.
Indeed, from its text as it stands before us, it would be dificult to
understand what induced Philoxenus to apprise a military Governor of
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 349
Ijirah of the introduction of Christianity among the Turks. What
interest had ijirah with the Turks in the fifth Christian century ?
A n d why should Philoxenus have spoken of the Turks at all in a
letter on Christian heresies ?
W e have seen in the first half of the document that the copyist in
order to cover up, or rather to follow up the error of his confusion of
Theodore with Theodoret was compelled to change Cyrus into
Mopsuestia, and Theodosius into Honorius. T h e same process of
deliberate falsifications seems to have been adopted in the second part.
T h e work is introduced by the entrance into the scene, on the one
hand, of the Jacobite Philoxenus and Abu 'Afr, and on the other of
the Nestorian Acacius and Barsauma. All these are contemporaries
and constitute an integral part of the drama. Within the frame
assigned to them all the other cdra)~zatisperson@ are more or less
loosely introduced, including the Christian Turks.
T h e scene of the arrival of these Turks is placed in the fifth
century, during the Patriarchate of Acacius. This is possible but not
probable, because we believe that the document was composed by a
Jacobite writer after the Arab invasion. In1 it occurs the Arabic
word saZ?~zwhich we consider to be a copyist's error for saninz which
means " a big humped camel." In it also there is mention of circum-
cision, which, more probably, refers to Muslims. T h e Christian Turks,
it is said, killed any one they saw circumcised like pagans. T h e
adherents of Christianity could Aot possibly have been in the fifth
century so numerous and powerful in Central Asia as to kill any pagan
with whom they happened to meet ; further, we have no reason for
supposing that circumcision was ever practised by any important
section of the pagan Turks and Tartars. T h e pagans spoken of in
h e document can in our judgment refer only to Muslims.
T h e precise year in which the document was written in the time of
the Arab Empire will probably never be determined. T h e date of
the MS. is according to Shammas Matti-who knows a great deal
about Syriac MSS. and who has copied more of them than any other
man living or dead-at the latest about the first half of the eleventh
century, say 1040. W e must, therefore, fix for the composition of the
document on a date within the limits of A.D. 680-1000. This
being the case we believe as a matter of opinion that the document
was composed about 730-790by a Jacobite writer living in Baghdad.
 350 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
T h e precise, valuable, and on the whole accurate information that h e
furnishes concerning the Turks and Tartars, their country and their
habits, may have been taken orally by him from a Turkish deputation
that must have waited upon a Nestorian Patriarch (see above pp. 304
and 306) for the ordination of a Metropolitan to their country.
This opinion is only provisional and will naturally be subject to
revision upon the right identification of the proper names mentioned
in the document ; but apart from its intrinsic plausibility it can also
safeguard the view of those scholars who, relying on the date of the
British Museum MS., which according to Wright is not later, but
rather earlier, than the eighth century, would prefer to regard all the
document as one indivisible whole. About the antiquity of the docu-
ment from the use of the archaic geographical term Sen'con see
pp. 326-327.
T h e Syrian author of the document had acquired from this
supposed Christian Turkish mission or from other sources unknown to
us, some knowledge of the history of Turkestan and China, because
he has actually placed the scene of his drama at the end d the fifth
century and at the beginning of the sixth, i.e. at a time corresponding
with A.D. 455 and 5 13, in which no less than ten diplomatic missions
are recorded as passing between Northern China and Persia. See
Saeki, The N e s t o n a n Motzunzent, pp. 39-47, etc. Hirth, China
and the Rovzan O&nl (passim), and the very well-known works
of Chavannes. On the other hand the eighth century is also con-
spicuous by such missions ; from Hirth's and Chavannes' works w e
gather that for the first half of this century the following missions took
place between Western and Eastern Asia, in 70 1, 7 19, 732, and
742.
Against the indications of the MSS. which ascribe the document to
Philoxenus we have ventured to argue in favour of the probability of
the opinion that it was written after the Arab invasion. O n the other
hand we must admit that the hypothesis which we have set forth as to
the double character of the document is not so well founded and should
on no account be considered more than possible, because it is equally
plausible that the document as we have it in its complete form in our
MS. and in its discontinuous and truncated shape in the British
Museum MSS. may have been written in its totality by one author.
All this is fairly clear. Somewhat less clear is the precise year or
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 35 1
decade in which the document saw the light. Here on grounds both
extrinsic and intrinsic we have adhered to the view that its rob able
date was the eighth century, or more precisely a date between 730
and 790, that is to say the timein which the Nestorian Church seems
to have displayed special energy in its foreign missions.
W e have already avowed our complete ignorance of Chinese
language and literature, but this should not impede us from appealing
to at least two of those Chinese scholars who have spoken of the
Tartars from exclusively Chinese sources in the hope of corroborating
some historical points to which we drew attention above.
O n p. 347 we gave the names of the Christian kings mentioned
in the document. Among them is one whose name is in consonants.
TASHZ and another LNCU. In E. H. Parker's A Thousand
Yeat-s of the Ta?*tars(p. 271), we find an account of a Turkish
general called Tsz-i who in 756 was assisted by Maryenchii against
the rebel Amroshar. T h e latter, after conducting the war against the
Cathayans, as China's representative, in the end rebelled against his
. .
imperial master. Parker adds that this " ceIebrated general Tsz-I is
.
believed to have been a Nestorian Christian. In Saeki's Th Nesloviart
Monu~~ze?ct ia Chirra (p. 55) he is described as a " believer in the
Nestorian religion." H e lived A.D. 697-781, just within the
chronological limits prescribed by our document.
T h e above identification seems to be plausible and should, I
believe, be considered as probable. For the other Christian kings we
find less convincing evidence in Chinese literature. So far as LNCU
is concerned were it not for reasons of chronology we might have
compared him with Li-Yiian,' whose father had married a Nestorian
Christian lady of the Duku family. A short time after his death, or
in 635, the famous Nestorian missionary Olopen2 arrived in China.
In this time the grandson of the Christian lady, who had become
Emperor, issued an edict in favour of Christianity.
For CWRK and CRK, the other two Christian kings mentioned
in the document, we may compare Kuang (the interchange between n

'Parker (ibid.), p. 194, and Saeki (ihid.), pp. 204-208.

Olopen or Alopen has been conjectured to represent any of the follow-
ing Syriac words : Kubban " our master " (title of a monk), or Yrrhb-AlZha,
a proper name meaning " Deo-datus," or Abyahavz. See Saeki, ?bid.
pp. 204-207.
23
 352 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
and r is fairly common), the son of the Emperor Hsuan-Tsung, who
in 755 together with Jacob, the son of the Christian king of the
Christian Uighurs, and the above general Tsz-i, defended the Emperor
against the rebellion of An-Lu-shan (Saeki, ibid), p. 23 I).
Having identified with some degree of probability one of the four
Christian Turkish kings mentioned in the document, we will now
venture to advance a step further and try to clear up the question of
their number. O n pp. 3 16-31 7 we have endeavoured to show that
there were four powerful confederacies of Turco-Tartar tribes who had
to a great extent adopted Christianity : the Keraits, the Uighurs, the
Naimans, and the Merkites. Is it possible to suppose that each one
of the above kings was the Kh~ka'nof one of these tribes? If the
author is treating of the subject chronologically, as he appears to be
doing, so that all his four Christian kings are to be considered as more
or less contemporaries, this hypothesis would at least have the advant-
age of solving those difficulties of his document which fall under the
domain of history. If the Christianism of the Merkites comes to be
considered not thoroughly established we would propose, in order to
complete the number four, the Uriy';n-gabt spoken of on p. 337.
In the ensuing pages we give the translation of all the document as
found in the MS. and the text of that part of it only which deals with
the Christian Turks.

Translation.
The letter of Mar PAiZoxenzss of Mabbiig sent by Aim to A&
"Af r , military Governor of g i ~ t aof ATa'min,in which is con-
dained the story of the accursed and anathematised Nestorius.
T o the one who is noble, pure, and God loving, like Abraham ; to
the one who gives his wealth in alms to the poor, like Job ; to the one
who delivers the lambs bought with the blood of Christ from the heresy
of the Nestorians which is a second Jezebel, like Obadiah : Abi 'Afr,
the military Governor of Hirta of Nu'min ; from Philoxenus, Bishop
of Mabbiig, many greetings in Cod Jesus Christ.
Because you asked me in your letter to inform you of what has
been established in the Church of the Greeks by the holy Doctors, I
write you what follows and bring to your notice the fact that the holy
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 353
Fathers gathered together from time to time and threw away false
heresies from the Church of God.
In the days of the Emperor Hadrian Sabellius rose against the Church
of God, and he blasphemed and said that there was only one person
in the Trinity, and because of that Mary was the mother of the Trinity,
and passion, death and crucifixion belonged to the Trinity, and that
the Body and the Blood which we receive from the altar were of the
Trinity. Forty-three Bishops assembled in Ancyra of Calatia, and
anathematised from the Church of God the feeble-minded Sabellius
because he did not wish to recant his impiety.
In the days of the Emperor Valerianus Paul of Samosata rose
against the Church of God, and called the living Son of God a just
man only, like one of those just men that were in the world before
Him. The Bishops gathered together at Antioch and anathematised
Paul of Samosata, and threw him away from the Church of Cod
because he did not wish to recant.
In the days of the victorious Emperor Constantine the accursed
serpent Arius rose against the Church of God, and called the Son of
Cod a creature. Three hundred and eighteen Fathers congregated in
Nicea and anathematised Arius and drove him out of the Church of
Cod, because he did not desist from his impiety. These holy Fathers
established the true faith and laid down various Canons.
In the days of Constantine the younger l Eusebius of Caesarea rose
against the Church of God, and he foolishly pretended that the Son of
Cod was younger than His Father. Sixty Bishops assembled in Rome
in order to drive Eusebius out of the Church of Cod, and they rose
and anathematised his opinion. H e recanted the false opinions
whereby he had blasphemed against the living Son of God, showed
penitence, and subscribed to the true doctrines ; whereupon the
Orthodox Fathers received him into the holy Church of the true Cod.
In the days of Theodosius the Great Macedonius rose against the
Church of Cod, and called the Holy Spirit a creature, and a hundred
and fifty Bishops assembled in Constantinople, the Metropolis, and
anathematised Macedonius, because he did not wish to turn away from
the false opinions that he was holding.
And there was a man called Addai, from the town of Germanicia,

'The Syrians call by this name the Ernperor Constantius.

 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
which is Mar'ash. H e was (originally) from Atak, a village situated
in the proximity of the town of Dara, and the name of his wife was
'Amalka. It happened that this Addai quarrelled with a pregnant
woman from the above village of Atak, and he lifted his hand and
struck her; this immediately caused the abortion of a boy, who
C
died ; and the mother also was brought near her death. Then
Addai rose forthwith and left his village, and took his wife and fled
to the country of the Suphananians, which is the country of Hataka.
They remained there a short tim:, then they quitted it, and went and
lived in the town of Samosata in which they took domicile. Two
boys were born to them in this town ; they called the first Ba'ilshmin,'
and the second Abi'ashiim. After a while Addai and his wife died
and they were buried in the same town of Samosata.
After the death of their parents, Addai and his wife, the boys
rose and went to Germanicia which is Mar'ash, where they lived
and married. A boy was born to Ba'ilshmin, and he called him 3

Theodore, while Abi'ashiim gave the name of Nestorius to a son that

he had. When the boys grew up the parents sent them to school to
learn Creek, and they thoroughly mastered this language.
Then both of them rose and went and entered Athens, the city of
philosophers, in order to learn philosophy. Now the sons of the
nobles of the city of Constantinople were their fellow-students there,
and these praised and extolled the wisdom and the philosophy of
Theodore and Nestorius before the Emperor Honorius Cesar, who
ordered both of them to repair to Antioch in order to meet the
. Patriarch and be ordained Bishops : Nestorius to Constantinople, and
Theodore to Mopsuestia. When they were ordained Bishops and
each went to his see then both of them began to corrupt the true
doctrine preached to us by Prophets, Apostles, and Fathers, and in
their homilies they subtly divided the Only Begotten Son of Cod
into two natures.
In the seven Discourses that Theodore sent to Nestorius and
Nestorius to Theodore, the latter wrote that Jesus Christ was a man
created ingMary, the Holy Virgin, by the will of the Holy Trinity,
as Adam was created at the beginning from earth without human
intercourse ; and because God the Word dwelt in Him from time t o

' The Syriac word forlupiter; lit. " the Master of Heavens."
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 355
time as if in a holy prophet, we must resort to distinctions (in Him)
and introduce different attributes for each nature, in a way that con-
ception, birth, baptism and all the other points of the Dispensation
should belong to the man who was born of Mary, and that powers,
miracles, wonders, and prodigies should belong to the Word Cod who
was from time to time dwelling in H i m This is the faith of impiety
which Theodore sent to Nestorius, and concerning it both were in
perfect agreement.
When the believing Emperor Honorius, worthy of good memory,
died, he was succeeded by Theodosius the younger, and then the
two accursed and anathematised hawks, Nestorius and Theodore,
began to divulge openly the falsehood of their doctrine. But when
the victorious Emperor Theodosius became aware of the fact that they
were both of them contradicting the tenets of the true faith, he gave
orders and two hundred and twenty Bishops assembled concerning them
in the town of Ephesus. And Nestorius sent to Theodore while in
Mopsuestia his eighth Discourse in which he wrote :-
" 0 brother, go to the Council of Ephesus and anathematise me ;
and be not grieved, 0 brother, in anathematising me before that
Council, while in thy heart thou remainest steadfast in (our) belief,
and thou teachest it to the children of the Church to the measure of
thy capacity. Indeed ' anathnza ' is not of one kind only in the Holy
Scripture. Our Lord testifies to this by saying ' H e who loves me
keeps my commandments ' (John xiv. 15) and the Apostle Paul said :
' H e who does not love our Lord Jesus Christ Iet him be anathma "
(I Cor. xvi. 22). This kind of anathema is spread and extended
on all men, who do not keep the commandments of our Lord,
as H e Himself said. There is also another kind of anathema
spoken of by the Apostle Paul : ' Though an angel from heaven
preach unto you more than we have preached unto you let him be
a)zafhe)rtatised by the Church' (Gal. i. 8). From this kind of
' anathema ' flee, 0 brother, and if possible, let it not be even spoken
of with thy lips. Further, Cod said to the prophet Moses : ' All the
" anathenzas " of the children of Israel shall be to Aaron and his sons '
(Lev. vi. 20 ; Numb. viii 19) ; these ' a)tathmas' mean here ex-votos
and offerings. A n d Jesus, son of N i n , says thus : ' Everything
The word anathema " (hirrrra) is used in the Syriac Bible in this and
in all the following quotations. '
 356 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
there is in this town of Jericho, is "anathema " to the Lord,' (Josh.
vi. 17) that is to say an offering to the Lord or an ex-voto. And the
Apostle Paul says in another place : '1 could wish that I myself
should be "anathema" for my brethren and kinsmen who are the
children of Israel' (Rom. ix. 3). Anathematise me, therefore, 0
brother, in the sense in which Paul was wishing to be an offering to
the children of his people, and be not grieved."
When the Council of two hundred and twenty decreed and an-
athematised Nestorius, Theodore also anathematised him, but in the
meaning which Nestorius had shown to him. And when the Council
broke up and everybody returned to his country and his place, the
wretched Theodore began to introduce into the Church the teaching
of Nestorius which he had previously embraced, and he wrote the
hymn called "the Epiphany of the King " in which he contradicted
the Church in teaching openly four persons in the Trinity. So far
as the Christ is concerned he holds and believes Him to be a mere 1

man, in saying thus : "Thy stature, 0 Christ, was smaller than that
of the children of Jacob who sinned against the Father who elected
Thee, and who kindled the wrath of the Eternal Son who dwelt in
Thee, and who angered the Holy Spirit who Sanctified Thee."
And again : " Blessed is Cod the Word who came down and put on
the Christ, the second Adam, and made Him (as innocent) as a
child, in !he water of baptism." And again in another place : " The
Holy Spirit came to-day (on Him ?) because H e made the young
David flee (before His innocence ?)." '
!
It is obvious that he preached four persons in that unholy hymn
called "the Epiphany of the King." H e also wrote the divisions of
the headings of the Psalms in order to deceive the remote Churches
and detach them from the truth of their faith in order to bring them to
his impure interpretation. Indeed he said to the simple-minded
(among them) : " My brethren, you ought to believe in Christ who
taught us to glorify the Trinity ;*' and by his craftiness he made this
(fourth) person as a crown to prayer, because at the end of it he
taught them to utter the following : " Thanks to the One who opened
our mouths to glorify night and day the Lord of all time, who is the 1

nature of the Holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.'

'This short line culled from its context is dificult to understand.
The first words of this sentence are found in the Breviarium Chaldai-
a m ,ii 75.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 357
We, the children of the true faith will anathematise all who have
subscribed and subscribe to this impure doctrine, and will confess and
glorify the Holy Trinity as One ; may it be exalted now and for ever
and ever ! Amen. And we will reject all who profess the quaternity
of the Emperor Valens (or Valentinian). And Theodore also was
rejected from the Holy Church.
In the days of the Emperor Marcian, Eutyches rose against the
Holy Church, and said that the body of the Son of Cod came down
with Him from heaven. Five hundred and sixty seven Bishops
assembled to reject Eutyches from the Church of Cod. When Leo
of Rome heard this, he sent to them an epistle (suggesting to them) to
receive Nestorius and his impure interpretations. Soon after the
epistle of Leo, the accursed, the anathematised, and the impure
Patriarch' of Rome, was read ; on hearing it the Emperor Marcian
sent to them a letter intimating that all those who refused to accept all
that was in the tomos of Leo should leave their chairs and sit on the
ground ; and because they loved their chairs, they transgressed the
vows with which they had bound themselves thirty-six times, and they
rashly disregarded the anathemas of the Holy Fathers, and subscribed
to the tontos of Leo. They all remained in their chairs except
Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria, who by his own free will rose up
and sat on the ground ; and because he did not subscribe to them
they sent the Saint of Cod Mar Dioscorus to exile, and they locked
him up in the town of Cangra, and in his place they promoted
Proterius his syncellus, that is to say his secretary, to the see of
Alexandria
When the inhabitants of Alexandria heard what took place, they
dispatched a missive to the Council of Chalcedon (addressed) to the
Emperor Marcian in which they wrote : " You have done well, and
.v
we subscribe to what you have done ; but those priests, deacons, and
laymen who did not subscribe to what was decreed by the Council
of Chalcedon, rose up and took Timothy, the disciple of Dioscorus,
and fled to Abyssinia (Kush). And Proterius the syncellus, who
had become Patriarch in the place of Dioscorus, his master, entered
the town of Alexandria by means of secular power and tyrannic

'In the text through the copyist's error jttalka, "Ernperor." See
below.
 358 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
sword, and he, together with the Bishops who followed him tyrannic-
ally governed the flock of Christ, and did not recoil even before murder
and the shedding of blood, so much so that this same Proterius, the
syncellus, who became Patriarch, killed through Roman soldiers twenty-
four thousand men, most of whom were Bishops, monks, priests and
deacons.
Soon after, however, the inhabitants of Alexandria, stirred up with
the zeal of Cod, entered his house, stoned him, killed him, dragged
him out, and threw him into the sea. When the priests, the deacons,
and the laymen that had fled from Alexandria with Timothy, disciple
of Dioscorus, heard that the accursed syncellus was dead, they returned
and implored the faithful Bishops to elect Timothy their Patriarch,
because they had heard that the holy Dioscorus had died in exile in
Cangra. T h e Bishops of Abyssinia rose then and elected Timothy
their Patriarch, but he feared to go to Alexandria because it came to
his knowledge that the Emperor Marcian was still alive.
When the Emperor Marcian died, and was succeeded on the
throne by Leo, then Timothy rose and entered Alexandria, and sat
on the throne of Dioscorus, his master. All Alexandria then flocked,
subscribed, and bowed to him.; and he prayed and absolved the
inhabitants of Alexandria, because they showed repentance to Cod.
Some men, however, among those priests, deacons, and laymen who
had fled with Timothy to Abyssinia, did not wish to receive into theii
communion the inhabitants of Alexandria, and contended that all
those who had subscribed in any shape or form to the Council of
Chalcedon, neither priesthood nor baptism remained to them, and the
Holy Spirit did not come down to bless their Sacrifice in their Churches.
O n receiving this news, four wretched priests, lawyers by profession
(nZrnZkk), took the Gospel and placed it on the head of the monk
lsaiah,'and they elected him their Bishop ; from that day down to our
own time, they have been called " Isaians AcepAaZi."
Because your Excellency ' wrote in your second letter and asked
me concerning these Acejhali, whether they were professing rightly
or not, I wrote and narrated to you theii story, as I learned it from the
books of the Holy Fathers. A n d the Holy Council of the three
hundred and eighteen ' has decreed that if any one belonging to (the

' 1.e. Abu 'Ah. * 1.e. of Nicaca.

 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 359
heresy of) Paul of Samosata returns from his error and comes to the
true faith, let him first be baptised and afterwards he may partake of
the Eucharist with the children of the Holy Church. T h e reason for
which the holy Council published this decree concerning the Eucharist
is that (the followers of Paul of Samosata) had twisted the truth, and
openly taught then-as they do till now-their false teaching. T h e
Apostle Paul bears witness to this by saying : " If the root be holy,
the branches also are holy *' (Rom. xi. 16), and these are the baptism
and the ordination of the Chalcedonians.
If one asserts by mistake and says that among them there were
holy, pious, and just men, and because of this all should not be anathe-
matised, let such a one remember the story of Lot, and let him see,
examine, and consider that although he was the only just man found in
all Sodom, God did not leave him to perish with the wicked and
perverse Sodomites, but took him out towards the mountain. What
happened in Sodom happened also in Chalcedon in which the unholy
Council was held, and in which (the Bishops) trod on the anathemas
of the Holy Fathers ; one man, however, was saved in it : the holy
Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria, who shook off their dust from him
and confessed and said: "I shall never have a share and partici-
pation of any kind with you." In this way also the Egyptian monks
assembled and anathematised the Council of Chalcedon, and they
consumed it with the fire of their anathemas so that it should never bear
any fruits.
T h e wife of Lot left Sodom while her heart was in it ; and God
forgave her in order that she may repent ; but when she persisted with
stubbornness in her bad inclinations, she turned and looked back with a
perverse desire, and instantly the severe punishment of Cod overtook
her, and she became a pillar of salt. If because she turned and looked
back she became a pillar of salt, to what severe punishment and
perdition will come those who subscribe to the wicked and perverse
Council of Chalcedon ? And those who openly proclaim the name of
one of those blasphemers who are covered with anathemas and curses,
are to be called not only blasphemers but also persecutors of God.
When Paul used formerly to persecute and fight the churches of
Cod, it was not said of him that he persecuted men, but Cod said to
him : " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? And he answered and
said, ' W h o art thou, Lord ? ' I know not. And God said in a voice
 360 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
from heaven, ' I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou persecutest."'
(Acts ix. 4-5). It is, however, clear that Paul was persecuting the
Apostles and not Cod. H e who, therefore, persecutes the saints,
persecutes Cod. When the priest prays on the altar, the Holy Spirit
comes down and sanctifies the mysteries, and changes them into the
body and the blood of Cod ; the contrary would be the case if the
name of one of those blasphemers of the unholy, wicked, and perverse
Council of Chalcedon, was invoked.
A great number of people deviated from the path of truth, and
became Nestorians, on account of the severity of the persecution and
oppression. A n d the Nestorians had for head an ungodly Catholicos,
called Akiik, from whose time dates the Nestorian Catholicate in
Ctesiphon.' A n d there had been in Ctesiphon another wicked man,
a certain Papa, who also from fear of the sword became pagan and
deviated from the truth.2
A t that time some men from the TurksYwho are Christians came
to Ctesiphon from the remote countries in order to elect a Metropolitan
for themselves, and have him ordained, as was their wont ; because it

Akik (Acacius) was Patriarch or Catholicos of the Eastern Church

from 483 to 496. H e was, as the author states, the first Nestorian Patriarch.
Cf. Labourt, Le Christiclnis~re,p. 145 sq.
' Papa was Patriarch from about A.D. 290 to 328. H e was the first
Catholicos in the series of the Patriarchs of the East after the Council of
Nicaea. The author writes of him that he turned pagan, but this is a biased
Jacobite judgment upon the trouble that he had with some Bishops of the
Persian Empire who refused to acknowledge his jurisdiction based on the
innovation of his elevation to the Patriarchate through the intermediary of
Constantine and the Bishops of the Roman Empire. The best and earliest
account of him is undoubtedly that of Mshiha-Zkha in my SOUYCE~ Synkques, i.
pp. 1 19-123, where I have also analysed in the footnotes all the previously
known sources.
a Accordin! to Rockhill (ill 0). sujyli laud, p. 109) the earliest mention
of the "Turks ' is found in the Chotr shu (A.D. 557-581). In the Syriac
chronicle which we quoted above (p. 305), and which was written not later
than 680, the word TurkiyC, "Turks," occurs as a well-known name.
Further, according to Thesaurus Syr= (col. 1453), the name is used in
Kal. and Dimn. of Bud, who died not much later than A.D. 570. The
Syriac sources seem to be earlier than the Chinese ones in the use of the
name. See also the history of the Syriac writer John of Ephesus who died
in 586 (3rd part, book vi. ch. ri. and xxiii. etc.), where the name appears as
Turkis. Many Syriac authors call the Turks "Huns" or "Sons of
h4agog ".
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 361
was in Ctesiphon that the consecration of their Metropolitans used to
take place. Each one of their countries had one Metropolitan, after
the ordination of whom they repaired to their land. A n d the above
Papa of Ctesiphon used to receive ordination From (the Patriarch) of
Antioch. A n d at that time when those Christian Turks came t o
receive ordination according to their habit, they discovered that Akak
was not under the juriiction of the Patriarch of Antioch, but that he
had rebelled against him and was a heretic ; thereupon they became
angry with him, refused to receive ordination from him, and returned
to their country in great grief.
After a time they were in great distress, because they had no
Metropolitan, and so they came back and repaired as far as Ctesiphon,
having it meantime in their mind to reach Antioch and have an
interview with the Patriarch. On the score of the length of the journey,
however, and because of strifes, conflicts, and wars, that raged at that
time between Powers, they found themselves unable to proceed to
Antioch, but remained five years in Ctesiphon, in the hope that there
would be peace and the roads would be open again for traffic. A t
the end they lost heart and courage, and not willing to return to their
country empty handed as on the first occasion, and noticing that it was
too late in the season to dally, they went to Ak'ik, the Catholicos of
the Nestorians, and discussed with him the reason of his revolt against
the authority of the Patriarch of Antioch.
Then the heretic A k i b in conjunction with those who followed
his perverse opinions, deceived with their cunning those simple and
unsophisticated folk and answered them : " It is not on account of
I

faith that we have separated ourselves From the Patriarch of Antioch and
raised a Catholicos, but it is because of the peril to all the Christians
of the East,-that will ensue From a visit to Antioch, which will be
interpreted as an act of disloyalty to the temporal rulers,-that we do
not go there.' Further, we established a Cstholicos for ourselves on
'The author is here repeating the gist of the Oriental tradition to the
effect that the Catholiws of the East was ordained and given spiritual juris-
diction by the Patriarch of Antioch. Every time, tradition tells us, that a
1
Patriarch was elected in the East prior to the spread of Nestorianism, he had
to repair to Antioch for the purpose above mentioned. It was only through
la& of safety in the roads due to plitical troubles between the Persian and
the Byzantine empires, that the Patriarch of Antioch relaxed his hold of his
eastern colleague (MG,fa.tit. p. 5 ; 'Amr, f o ~5t. ~ p. 4 ; Barhebraeus,
 362 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
account of wars, conflicts, and strifes that are raging in our countries ;
and because we did that we live now in peace and security." By
such crooked words those simple and unsophisticated folk were
deceived, and received ordination from the Nestorians, and they were
given a Metropolitan from the Nestorians by false pretences, while
they were unaware of their deception, and of the falsehood of their
abdminable beliefs. A n d this habit is handed down to them to the
present day, because any time their Bishop dies they come to the
Nestorians, and take another one to replace him from Ctesiphon.
T h e see (of their Bishop ?) is in the pagan town which w e h a v e
mentioned above,' and it is he who ordains for them priests and
deacons.
These Christian Turks eat meat and drink milk. They d o not
put any difference between lawful and unlawful food, but eat every-
thing in good and pure concience. By such acts they are believed by
outsiders to be unclean, while in reality they are not. All their habits
a r e clean, and their beliefs are orthodox and true like our own.
Although they receive their ordination from the Nestorians, they d o it
bond jd,while unaware of their guile, falsehood, and wickedness.
T h e y believe in one glorious nature in the Holy Trinity, and like us
they hold to three adorable Persons, and profess that the Divine
Chrott. Eccl., ii. 26 ; Assemani, Bib[. Orient., iii. 5 1 sq.). There seems to
be some truth in this legend, about which, however, Mshiha-Zkha knows
nothing at all. The most ancient Syriac writer who does make mention of it
is John of Phenek who was writing about 690 (pp. 123-124 of the text; in
vol. ii. of our Sources Syriaqtres) and it is somewhat astonishing that no
ecclesiastical historian who wrote on the subject has noticed it since it was
published in 1908. Here is a translation of the whole passa e referring to
f
the legend, which places the incident about the beginning o the reign of
Sapor 11. (309-379) : " At a time preceding this the rights of the Patriarchal
see of Syria were transferred to the Church of K6ke (Ctesiphon) in the
East, on account of the enmity existing between the Empires of the East and
of the West, which were at war every day. Many Bishops were killed
when repairing from here to there, and from there to here, on account of the
remoteness of the Patriarch. They accused them of being spies, while in
reality they did it because of their thirst for the blood of the saints. And the
Father-Bishops, in grief for the murder of their colleagues, ordained that the
Patriarch of the Church of Kolri should have full jurisdiction over the Bishops
of the East, according to the enactments of ecclesiastical Canons."
The author has not mentioned above the name of the Turkish town.
See Foreword, p. 348. This "pagan town " appears to me to refer to
Baghdad, the capital of the " pagan" Muslims.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 363
Word, one of these three Persons of the Holy Trinity suffered, died,
and was crucified, and by His death and His resurrection H e saved
us. This is their true faith.
A n y one they see circumcised like pagans1 they kill immediately,
and they carry with them their sanctuaries anywhere they depart after
v their halts. Their feasts they celebrate with great pomp, and they
love more than any other people the commemorations of saints and
martyrs. They d o not learn nor do they accept any other script
besides our own, and in the language of us Syrians they write and
read the Books of the two Testaments: the Old and the New, and
the writings of the Orthodox Fathers. In their gatherings they
translate the above Books into their Turkish language, while they
never venture to change into the Turkish language the adorable name
of our Divine Lord Jesus Christ nor that of Mary, the mother of God,
but they pronounce them as they are in our Syriac language.' A s to
I the rest of the words and names they render them into the Turkish
language, in order that all their congregation may understand what is
read.
In the days of the holy Lent they do not eat fresh and new meat,
'
but meat that is dry like wood ; and they fast from evening till even-
ing, and they make the wafers of the Holy and Divine Sacrament
from bread of pure wheat. They bring from other countries, with
great care and diligence, pure flour from pure wheat, and they store it
up for the purpose ; so also they fetch from remote regions the raisins
rn
from which they make the wine used for the Holy Communion.
' This may rder to the Jews, and in case the document was written after
the Arab invasion, to the Muslims. I firmly believe, however, that the
document was written after the Arab invasion, and that the mention of
Circumcision refers here to Muslims. Circumcision has apparently never
been practised by ancient Turks and Mongols. The IndeCermanic
peoples, the Mongols, and the Finno-Ugric races (except where they have
been influenced by Muhammadanism) alone are entirely unacquainted with
Circumcision" (Hasting; Enq~r/o/lczaia of Religion atrd Ethics, iii. 659).
' This information is confirmed by the Soghdian documents discovered in
Central Asia. !hForew~rd.
'This information is corroborated by Friar William (ibid. p. 64) : " So
then if it happens that an ox or a horse dies, they dry its flesh by cutting it
into narrow strips and hanging it in the sun and the wind where at once and
without salt it becomes dry without any evil smell." And Rockhill adds in
a footnote : '' Sun-dried meat is used in Mongolia and among the nomads
of Tibet. It is usually eaten without any other ~re~aration."
 364 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
In their dresses they d o not differ from the Turks who are pagan.
All the people of the town speak another language called Yabatai,'
and their script is in their own language. From there Eastwards, to
the distance of two months' journey, there are many towns that contain
pagan Turks who worship idols, and have script in their own language.
T h e border town is called Karagur[am],l and the name of its King is
Idi-Kuta3 Five days' journey from there lies the habitat of the Turks
who are Christians and of whom we spoke above. They are true
believers and God-fearing folk, and they dwell under tents, and have
no towns, no villages, and no houses ; but they are divided into
powerful and great clans, who journey from place to place.
They have many possessions : sheep, cattle, camels, and horses.
Each camel of theirs has two humps like a Salm' (?) They have
four great and powerful kings, each one living farther from the other,
whose names are : the first Cawirk,' the second Cirk,' the third

' Is it possible that this word is connected in any way with " Chagatai "
the old dialect of the Turkic group of languages ?
I believe that this Karagur is a copyist's error for /ilarafiurartt or
Karakurum. A t the end of the Synac word there is a partly obliterated letter
which appears to have been a mint. In the second half of the eighth Christian
century (i.e. the time in which we believe that the document was written) the
Christian Uighur Turks were all-powerful in Eastern Asia and had their
capital at Karakurum. Howorth's History of the Mongols, i. 21.
a A s stated in the text Idi-Fut was the nickname of all the kings of the
Uighur Turks. Juwaini expressly states in his Tariikh-ijahcin-Gus& (i.
32, Gibb Mem.), that the Uighur Turks called their kings by this name,
which means " Lord of the Kingdom." Barhebraeus (Chron. Syr., p. 427,
edit. Bedjan) asserts also the same thing. In his Chron. Arab. (edit. of the
Jesuits of Beirut, 1890, pp. 399 and 402), the word is wrongly spelt Idi-
KCb. See also Rashid'sJGm" at-Tawiirikh, ibid. p. 298, etc.
'Is it possible that this word is the Arabic sarzinz, " big-humped "
camel ?
The name is tentatively identified in the Foreword, p. 35 1. W e may
here compare for a certain similarity in the names of later enerations:
Gaur-Khan, which was used as a title of the kings of Kara-$itai Turks
and Tartars inhabiting Eastern Turkestan. See Juwaini (TZriikh-i J d i n
Gush2, Gibb Mem.), i. 46-48, 52, 56, 57, and cf. also Cuyuk, the
grandson of Chingis Khan (Barhebraeus, Chron. Syr., ibid. p. 481).
Juwaini (ibid. ii. 86), says that the word means "King of Kings."
The name is tentatively identified in the Foreword. W e may
here compare for a certain similarity in the names of later generations:
Garik, or Charik, son of Chichi Khin (Rashid's JGm2 at-Tawa'riRh,
p. I 5 ( i d ) ) . Cf. also Churika, son of Tiili (ibid.), p. 200.
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 365
Tiisahz,' and the fourth Langu.' They have a name common to all :
T ~ t a r , h n dthe name of their country is Sericon.' It is said that
each one of these kings has with him four hundred thousand families,
when they congregate at the time of their halts. Their country is
broad and reaches as far as Magog,' the city of the pagans, and
v beyond them everybody is heathen. But the Christian Turks of
whom w e have spoken receive ordination from the Bishop whose see
is in that large town of the pagans6 which has five big churches.
These Christian Turks dwell under tents and pavilions, and have
from themselves priests, deacons, and monks. They have many places
of worship with them in their pavilions, and they ring the bells and
read the Books in our Syriac tongue. They celebrate like us all the
Festivals of the Dispensation of our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ.

' The name is identified in the Foreword, p. 35 1. For a certain similarity

in the names of later generations we may compare TGisi the Mongolian Emir
v and general spoken of by Juwaini in his iririkh-i ]a'lZn-GwAZ (Cibb
Mem.), i pp. 1 13, 128, 136. Cf. also in Rashid's /G9tzi' (ibid. p. 466)
"Tiishi " who proclaimed himself King of North China, and ibid., p. 584.
T h e name has been tentatively identified in the Foreword, p. 35 1 ; it can
be illustrated by scores of North Chinese vocables, some of which may be
seen in the excellent index to Yule-Cordier's Cathay, 1916, iv. pp. 3 18-320.
The earliest date to which the name Tatar has so far been traced is
A.D. 732. Mention is made of To&uz Tatar "nine (tribes of) Tatars " in
a Turkish inscription found on the river Orkhon and bearing that date. See
r
Thornsen, Ittswiptions de Orkhon, 98, 126, 140, and Rockhill, of. n't.,
p. 113. How far the word Tatun can refer to Tatar or is to be
identified with it is discussed by Cordier in his Notes and Addenda to
P Yule's edition of Marco Polo, 1920, p. 55.
'Is the name Serkon related in any way to the Sarihs, those Turkish
tribes now living in the neighbourhood of Panjdeh and Yulatan, but whose
former habitat was central Turkestan? That Serzcon is to be identified
with Seres and SeriRe of Ptolemy is discussed in the "Foreword."
pp. 326-327.
The Geography of the document has been rendereddl more confused
by the use of the word Mag-og which was often employed by both Eastern
and Western writers to denote almost any Central Asian country of which
little was known. Barhebraeus in his Chron. Syv., sometimes calls the
Empire of the Mongols that of the Magogians," and on p. 579 (edit.
6g

Bedjan), he writes of the Emperor Kaigatu, "And when he was surely

established as the head of the Empire of Magog." The author does not
know the name of Mongolia and North China or Cathay, but applies to both
of them the name Sericon, the appellation by which they are known in
Ptolerny's geographical work. Michael the Syrian calls constantly the
Turks as '' people of Mago " (i. 103 ; iii. 149 and 222, etc).
7
W e believe that the a1 usion is to Baghdad.
 366 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
T h e y d o not practise circumcision like pagans, but are baptised like u s
with the holy baptism and the holy chrism. They believe that Mary
is the mother of God, and profess that Christ is Cod. They keep
the Festivals and the Sundays like all other Christians.
N o bread at all is found in their country, no cornfield, no vineyard,
no wine, and no raisins ; and all their food consists of meat and milk
of sheep ; and they have a great quantity of flocks.'
T h e occasion of this arose at the time when persecution was
aflame against the Christians of the countries of the Persians, at the
'
hand of the accursed Barsauli of Nisibin, who killed seven thousand
priests, monks, and clerics, and an innumerable multitude of believing

'This information about the food of the Turks and Tartars is well at-
tested in history. See the Syriac authors quoted in the I ~ o r e w u ~ d .For
Western writers we will only refer to Friar William's account in Rockhill
(0). cit. pp. 62-63) : "They drink great quantities of mare's milk, if they
have it ; they drink also sheep's, goat's, cow's and camel's milk. Wine they
have not unless it is sent from other nations or is given to them. ... Of
their food and victuals you must know that they eat all their dead animals
without distinction, and with such flocks and herds it cannot be but that many
animals die."-Pian de Carpine writes also: "They have no bread nor
oil nor vegetables, nothing but meat, of which, however, they eat so little
that other people could scarcely exist on it" (ihid. pp. 63-64). See also
Barhebraeus, Chron. Syr., pp. 408-409. juwaini, /ah& G'ushZ i. 15,
writes : Their food was flesh of dogs and mice and other dead carrion, and
l1

."
their drink was milk of animals (Lnkcii?)~) Michael the Syrian (iii. 152)
says : " They slaughter and eat all that moves on the earth : domestic animals,
savage beasts, reptiles, insects, and birds. They eat also dead canion."
'The copyist writes the name of the famous Barsauma, Bishop of
Nisibin, in a derisive way, as Barsaula. The same thing is done by the
copyist of Barhebraeus's Ecclesiastical history (Chron. Eccles., ii. 69).
Further, Barhebraeus (ibid.) puts the number of the faithful done to death
by Barsauma at 7700, while the author of the present document counts 7000
priests, monks, and clerics, and an innumerable multitude of laymen. This
fantastic travesty of the history of the introduction of Nestorianism into the
Persian Empire has been well exposed by J. Labourt (Christzanisnle h ? r s
CEmpive Perse, p. 134 sq.). By hatred for the memory of Bapuma his
name is written very often as " Barsaula" by modern Jacobite scribes, and it
is also as often as not written upsid; down like the name of "Satan ". It is
purely an affair of the copyists, and has absolutely nothing to do with the
writers whose books they transcribe. Sharnrnas Matti, the well-known
Jacobite copyist of the present MS., assured me verbally that he has always
written, and he will always write, the name of Barfjauma in this way, even if
he was transcribing a Nestorian MS. What other means have we, said he,
to distinguish this Barpuma from our Saint Barsauma?
 EARLY SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY 367
laymen. It is because of this that the Holy Spirit does not come
down to sanctify the sacrament ( = the Eucharist) of the Nestorian
heretics. Since it has been made known that the Holy Spirit does not
come down and sanctify the Sacrament of these heretics, the spirit that
comes down on their altars and their sacrament is, therefore, that of
Satan. And as those who were baptised by Judas Iscariot, before
his fall, were truly baptised, because of the truth that he was pro-
claiming, so also are those who took part in the unholy Synod of
Chalcedon. Indeed, before they blasphemed and took part in it the
Spirit used to come down on them, on their sacrament, and on their
altars, but after they blasphemed and rent asunder the true faith, and
went out of the fold of life, they became anathematised and rejected,
ceased to possess the Holy Spirit, and have only the spirit of error
and of Satan. They also were deprived and dispossessed of baptism,
ordination, and of all the sacraments of the Holy Church. May the
Lord God deliver us together with all the children of the Holy
Church from any intercourse and communion with them, through the
intercession of Mary, the mother of Cod, and of all the saints ! Glory-
be to Cod ! and may His grace and mercy be upon all of us ! Amen.
fZcve aids the Getler o f Mar P h i k n u s , BzShof o f IMabbiig,
to Abi ' Af r, Jlililavy Governor of K r t a of Nu'mZfz.

NOTE(to pp.
SUPPLEMENTARY 323 and 325).
According to Ibn at-Tayib who died in 1043 (see Vat. MS. Borgia
153 fol. 198b in Sachau's Ausb., p. 24) the Bishoprics of Mem, Herat,
Samarkand, India, and China were elevated to the rank of Archbishoprics
at a much earlier date : Meru by the Patriarch Isaac (399-410) and the rest
by the Patriarch IshG6-Yahb(628-643). China and Samarkand might have
been, therefore, the seats not only of Bishops but of Archbishops more than
a century before the time that we were disposed to assign to them.
368 THE JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
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