Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/112

100 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. had established his residence at Bagdad, and who, under the title of Catholicus, exercised jurisdiction over all the Xestorian Churches of Persia, India, and China.

"Unfortunately," observes M. Reinaud, "the narrative of Golius presented obscurities and even contradictions. It did not appear to be very clear who was this writer of the name of Aboulfarage, on whose authority the account rested. It was asked by what route ecclesiastics from Bagdad could have proceeded to China, at an epoch when travelling was extremely difficult. Besides, if towards the end of the tenth century these ecclesiastics had made their way to China, why were not others subsequently charged with the same mission?"

These questions, however, have been triumphantly answered by M. Reinaud himself. The learned professor of Arab literature in the "Ecole des Langues Orientates," whose zeal for all that can promote the true progress of science is indefatigable, has discovered, in a valuable manuscript, the confirmation of the fact advanced by M. Reinaud on the authority of Golius.

"The Royal Library," says M. Reinaud, " has received from Constantinople, by the intervention of M. Le Baron de Slane, a copy of the second volume of the Kitab-al-Fihrist, made from one in a library of that capital. The Kitab-al-Fihrist, of which the Royal Library has hitherto possessed only the first volume, is a kind of Arab bibliography, classed according to subjects, and arranged in the year 377 of the Hegira" ( 987). The greater part of the