Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/73

61 THE ESCAPE OF PEROSES. — GREEK EMBASSY. CI emperor of the Thang dynasty. After the death of Hormisdas, and the definitive conquest of Persia, Peroses, his son, succeeded in making his escape to China, where he was recognised as King of Persia, and did homage to the emperor for the dominions which he never possessed. The emperor appointed him to the office of captain of his guard, and allowed the title afterwards to descend to his son, whom the Chinese pretended to wish to re-establish in his kingdom. They even sent him off with an army ; but their real design was to surprise the people of Thibet, by which country they were to pass. This stratagem having succeeded, their general brought back the Persian prince, who died at Si-ngan-Fou, without leaving any descendants. At this time, the Greek emperor sent an embassy to the Emperor of China, to endeavour to excite his hos- tility against the Arabs. The disciples of Manes and Zoroaster had spread in Upper Asia, and had obtained permission to build temples in China, as we shall see in the sequel, even according to the testimony of Chinese writers. It is, therefore, the more easily to be believed that the founders of the dynasty of Thang, who held such frequent communication with foreign powers, may have permitted the Christians, as well as others, to establish themselves in the empire. The monument of Si-ngan-Fou affords incontestable proof that they did so, for the doctrines whose propaga- tion in China it records can be those only of Christianity. The inscription is, in the first place, as we have said, surmounted by a cross ; then it contains a concise, and tolerably clear exposition of Christian doctrine. The existence of God in three persons, the Creator of all things, and this God named O-lo-ho, a transcription of