Rabban Sauma, a Monk from Beijing, Visits Rome and Paris

The story is told in a Syriac history from the Church of the East, written, in its translator’s judgment, probably in the first half of the fourteenth century (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, Budge’s introduction, p. 5). Its author says that he has abridged what Rabban Sauma “himself wrote in his narrative in Persian” (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 7 (Budge, p. 197)).

According to the History, Sauma was born to Christian parents in Khanbaliq, which its translator identifies as Peking, and became a monk and hermit. With his disciple Mark he set out for Jerusalem (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, chs. 1–3 (Budge, pp. 124–135)). They had passed through Armenia and were making for Georgia when they heard that the road was cut, and they turned back (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, chs. 3–4 (Budge, pp. 145–146)). In 1281 the bishops at Baghdad chose Mark, by then a metropolitan with the name Yahballaha, as catholicos, the head of their church; the History gives as the reason that the Mongols ruled and he knew their customs and language (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 5 (Budge, pp. 151–156)). The Mongol king Arghun wished to take Palestine and Syria and wanted the help of the Christian kings of the West. He asked the catholicos for an envoy, and Rabban Sauma was sent with letters and gifts (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 7 (Budge, pp. 165–167)).

He travelled by Constantinople and Naples to Rome, where the pope had died and twelve cardinals were governing (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 7 (Budge, pp. 167–173)). They asked which apostle had taught his people and what he believed. Thomas, Addai and Mari, he said; no one had come to the East from the pope (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 7 (Budge, pp. 173–174)). He then recited his creed: one God in three persons, the Father begetting, the Son begotten, the Spirit proceeding; and in Christ perfect God and perfect man, with “two Natures” and, as the translator renders the Syriac word qnome (his ḳĕnômîn), “two Persons”, in one parsopa (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 7 (Budge, p. 175)). On the Spirit the two sides differed. Sauma held that the Father is the cause both of the Son and of the Spirit, and that the Son is not the cause of the Spirit; the cardinals said they confessed that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. He answered that he had come not to dispute but to be blessed by the pope and to deliver his message (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 7 (Budge, pp. 175–178)).

With no pope to answer him he went on to Paris, where the king of France showed him the Crown of Thorns (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 7 (Budge, pp. 182–185)), and to the king of England, who received the Eucharist from his hands (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 7 (Budge, pp. 185–187)). After a winter at Genoa he was called back to Rome. The new pope, Nicholas, was, he was told, the bishop who had talked with him on his first visit. Sauma celebrated his own liturgy before a crowd, who said, the History reports, “The language is different, but the use is the same”, and on Palm Sunday Nicholas IV gave him communion (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 7 (Budge, pp. 187–192)).

The History says that the pope sent Yahballaha a crown, vestments, a ring and a bull giving him patriarchal authority over all the “Children of the East” (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 7 (Budge, pp. 195–196)). The pope’s own letter addresses Yahballaha as a bishop “in the parts of the East”. It thanks him for his kindness to the Franciscans and sends a profession of faith for him to teach, which states that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and that the Roman church holds the primacy over the whole Catholic Church (Nicholas IV, letter to Yahballaha, 7 April 1288 (Chabot, pp. 195–199)). To Arghun the pope wrote that he should be baptised at once and not wait for Jerusalem to be freed (Nicholas IV, letter to Arghun, 2 April 1288 (Chabot, pp. 200–203)). Sauma returned to Arghun, who set up a church at the door of his camp and put him in charge of it (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, chs. 7–8 (Budge, pp. 196–199)).