IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
PRELIMINARY ESSAY. xciii
Jesuit Semedo of having forged it.' On the other hand, Abel Remusat and Klaproth fully accepted and stoutly maintained its authenticity, which M. Pauthier seems, as far as I can judge, to have demonstrated. . It is not easy to see why a Jesuit should have expended enormous labour in forging a testimonial to the ancient successes of a heretical sect ; though perhaps one could not build entirely on this, as the mysteries of the hoaxing propensity in the human mind are great. But the utter impossibility of the forgery of such a monument at the time and place of its discovery is a more invulnerable argument, and to appreciate this the remarks of Remusat and Pauthier must be read.
69. The monument exhibits, in addition to the Chinese text which forms its substance, a series of short inscriptions in Syriac, containing the date of erection, the names of the reigning patriarch of the Nestorian Church, of the Bishop of China (Tzinist/u n, the form used by Cosmas) and of the chief clerical staff of the capital, which is here styled, as in the early Greek and Arabic sources already quoted, Kicrndécn. To this are added in Syriac characters the names of sixty-seven persons, apparently Western Asiatics, the great majority of whom are characterised as priests (Kashzshd), with those of sixty-one persons of the country in Chinese, all of whom are styled priests except two.2
1 See Pauthier de l'Auth.,pp. 6 segq.; 14 segq.; 83 segq.; and especially 91. The essential parts of the Syriac matter on the monument run as
follows :
In the days of the Father of Fathers MAR HANAN ISHU'A the Catholic Patriarch :
[And] " ADAM Priest and Bishop and Pope of TZINISTHAN :
In the year one thousand and ninety-two of the Greeks [A.D. 781] MAR IDBUZID, Priest and Chorepiscopus of KUMDAN, the royal city, son of ilIilis of blessed memory, Priest of BALKH, a city of THOKARESTHAN, has erected this table of stone, on which are inscribed the Redemption by our Saviour, and the preachings of our Fathers to the King of TzINIA :
" ADAM the Deacon, son of Idbuzid, Chorepiscopus :
" MAR SARGIS [Sergius], Priest and Chorepiscopus :
" SABAR ISHU'A, Priest :
" GABRIEL, Priest, and Archdeacon and Church Ruler of the cities of KUMDAN and SARAGH."
Anan Jesus II, according to Assemanni (iii, i, 155-7) was patriarch of the Nestorian Church from 774 to 778. It is justly pointed out by the same author that the fact of this patriarch's being represented as still
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