Rabban Sauma

The History says that Sauma was the long-awaited son of a Christian nobleman of Khanbaliq, that he was ordained and betrothed, and that at twenty he gave up the world. He received the monastic tonsure from the metropolitan, shut himself in a cell for seven years and then lived in a cave in the mountains a day’s journey from the city, where Mark joined him (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, chs. 1–2 (Budge, pp. 124–132)). In Rome he described himself as a deacon in the cell of the catholicos, director of the disciples and visitor-general (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 7 (Budge, p. 173)). The papal letter calls him “Bersauma, bishop in the parts of the East” (Nicholas IV, letter to Arghun, 2 April 1288 (Chabot, p. 200)).

When the Mongol king Arghun asked for an envoy to the kings of the West, the catholicos chose him because he knew the language (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 7 (Budge, pp. 165–167)). In Rome he received communion from Nicholas IV on Palm Sunday (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 7 (Budge, pp. 189–192)). The History says that he fell ill at a royal feast and dates his death to 10 January in the year 1605 of the Greeks, AD 1294; he was buried, it says, among the patriarchs (History of Mar Yahballaha and Rabban Sauma, ch. 10 (Budge, pp. 205–207)). See Rabban Sauma, a Monk from Beijing, Visits Rome and Paris.