CHAP. III.
Of Presbyter Iohn: and of the Priest-Iohns in Asia: whether that descended of these.
HAuing now declared the Antiquities of Aethiopia, drawne out of anci∣ent Authors, let vs neerer hand behold, what neerer out times, Authors haue reported thereof. Wherin first we will here insert out of a 1.1 Scaligers Annotations, vpon the Aethiopian Ecclefiasticall Calendar or Compu∣tation of times, somewhat remarkable, and fitting to our present pur∣pose. The name (saith hee) of the Christian Aethiopians is not now first made knowne to vs. For their Church not onely at Hierusalem and Constantinople, but at Rome also and Venice, hath had libertie a good while to vse their owne rites. The Portugales, and Francis Aluares haue further discouered them: Before wee onely heard the name of Aethiopia. A wonder it is, that some ages since, b 1.2 their Emperors name was made knowne to vs out of Asia, rather then out of Aethiopia it selfe. Three hundred yeares agoe, the Ethiopian Kings reigned in Asia, especially in Drangiana, the borders of Susiana, India & China, vntill the Tartars dispossessed them of the Asian Empire. For Cingis first, the first Tartar King, slew Vncam, the Aethiopian Emperour: & his posteritie chased the Abissines out of Moin and China, and forced them to flee into Africa. Often haue I maruelled that a people of no knowledge in these times of sea affaires, could at∣chieue so mighty exploits, as to propagate their Empire, from Aethiopia to China. Since that time the knowledge of that Emperour hath come to vs in the name of Prestegiano: which in the Persian tongue (as much now of reckoning in Asia, as the Latine in the West) signifierh, c 1.3 Apostolike, inferring thereby that hee is a Christian King of the right faith. For Prestegan signifieth Apostles, and Prestegani Apostolicall; Padeschaprestegiani, the King Apostolicall, in Arabian Melich ressuli, in Aethiopian Negusch Chawariawi. Of this greatnes of their Empire, in Asia are witnesses those Aethiopian crosses, which are seene in Giapan, China, and other places. Yea, the Temple of Thomas the Apostle in the Region of d 1.4 Malabar, hath nothing in it but is Aethiopian, the crosses, building, and name it selfe. It is called; e 1.5 Hanariya, which in Aethiopian is as much to say, as, Apostle: which Marcus Paulus falsely expoundeth, a Holy-man. (This name in the Author see∣meth to be giuen not to the Church, but to the Apostles himself) Paulus addeth that the remainder of the Christians subiect to Prestegian abode in Tenduch. The neighbou∣ring Arabians call them now Habassi, and we from thence Abissines, or Abassenes: they call themselues Chaldaeans: for their ancient and elegant language, in which their bookes are written, is neere to the Chaldaean and Assyrian. Moreouer, the Eccesiasticall Historie testifieth, and out of the same Nicophorus l.9.c.18, that many Colonies vvere sent out of Assyria into Aethiopia. They are there called Axumitae, of their chiefe citie but by themselues as Aluares affirmeth Chaschumo. More may we say hereafter of their rites and other things worthy of knowledge, in the Institutions f 1.6 of that tongue which we haue diligently, and methodically written. These words of Scaliger haue made me take some paines in the search of the premisses; for he differeth from the opinion of o∣thers which haue written any thing of Presbyter, or Priest Iohn (as they terme him) in Asia, whom the Tartars subdued. Ortelius g 1.7 maketh a Presbyter Iohn in Asia, and an other in Africa, if I vnderstand him. As for that Vncam, William de Rubruquis, which trauelled those parts in the morning of the Targar-greatnes, An. 1523. reporteth that one Con Can reigned in Kara-Catay, or blacke Catay, after whose death a certaine Ne∣storian Shepheard (a mighty Gouernour of the people called Yayman, which were Ne∣storian-Christians) exalted himselfe to the Kingdome, and they called him King Iohn, reporting of him ten times more then was true, as is the Nestorians wont. h 1.8 For not∣withstanding all their great boasts of this man, when I trauelled along by his territories, there was none that knew any thing of him, but onely a few Nestorians. This Iohn had a brother, a mighty shepheard called Vut, which inhabited three weeks iourny beyond