Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/303

291 201 CHAP. VIII. NESTORIAN PROPAGANDISE! IN HIGH ASIA. — THE APOSTATE AHMED. ARGOUN, KHAN OF PERSIA. HIS LETTER TO HONORIUS IV.— LETTERS OF NICHOLAS IV. TO ARGOUN. QUEEN OF TOUKTAN. ARGOUN AND PHILIP THE FAIR. NEWS FROM THE MISSION IN CHINA. CONVERSION OF SEVERAL TARTAR PRINCES. LETTER OF THE POPE TO GAZAN, SON OF ARGOUN. HIS WIFE AND CHILD CONDEMNED TO BE BURNT ALIVE. ATTEMPTS AT ALLIANCE BE- TWEEN THE TARTARS AND CHRISTIANS. EMPIRE OF KUBLAL RELIGIONS OF CHINA. — CONFUCIUS. — LAO-TZE. — BUDDHA. The success of the Catholic missions in Tartary could not, it must be admitted, be compared with the propagation of Nestorianism in those countries. Not only did the Nestorians possess numerous churches in Tartary, but they were spread throughout the Chinese empire, and their disciples were multiplying from day to day, as we learn from their historians and from the testimony of Marco Polo. At Khanbalik, or Pekin, which Kublai had made the capital of his empire, they had a Metropolitan church, dependent on the Patriarch or Catholicos of Seleucia. In 1279*, the Metropolitan of China having died, the Patriarch John Denha hastened to send him a successor, and he had ordained for this office a certain Simeon-Bar-Kalig, formerly a bishop in Khorassan, but who, before setting out for his post at Pekin, revolted against the Patriarch, and was consequently arrested by u 2
 * Assemani, " Bibliotheca Orientalis."