The Paizah represented on Plate V is made of silver, and is about 12.25 inches long and 3.75 inches broad; it was found in the Minussinsk circle of the Government of Yenisei in 1846, and is now preserved in the Museum of the Academy of St. Petersburg. The moulded ring at one end is of iron, and was used for suspending it. The inscription is in the Mongol language and in the Baspa character, and is said to mean .By the strength of the eternal heaven! May the name of the Kakhan (i.e. King of Kings) be holy! He who doth not pay him reverence shall be slain and must die.. On the back of the Paizah is the number 42. On Plate XIII we have a Paizah with the inscription in the Uighur character. The weight of the silver Paizah varies between 12 and 2 pounds. Apparently no Paizah in gold has yet been discovered.
During the short reign of Ahmad, the second son of Hulagu Khan (1282-84), Sawma seems to have lived with or near Yahbh-Allaha III, and to have done what he could to help his friend during that period of anxiety and trouble.
When Argon or Arghon succeeded to the throne the Nestorians rejoiced greatly, for he loved the Christians, and was a close friend of the Patriarch. Some of Arghon’s predecessors had wished to invade Syria and Palestine and capture Jerusalem, but they had never, for various reasons, been able to do so. Argh6n had the same wish, but he realized that he would never be able to capture Jerusalem unless he could obtain the help of the Western kings, and he therefore asked the Patriarch to find him a suitable ambassador to carry letters to the kings of Byzantium, Italy, France, and England. Yahbh-AllAha knew well that there was only one man who was fit to undertake this difficult task, namely, Rabban Sawma, and without more ado he ordered him to prepare for the journey to the West. Sawma rejoiced at the opportunity of going to the country of the Romans, and told the Patriarch that he longed to go.
There upon Arghon wrote dispatches to the kings of the Greeks and Romans, and prepared gifts for each of them, and as marks of royal favour and honour he gave Sawma a Paiza (see above p. 19) and also a Yarlikh, 2,000 mathkale of gold and 30 good riding horses. Sawma also obtained a letter of authority from the Patriarch, who sent by his hands letters and gifts for the Pope. Having chosen a number of priests and deacons to accompany him Sawma set out for Beth-Rhomaye, i.e. Byzantium. The text does not tell us by what route he travelled, but as he embarked in a ship at some port on the Sea of Meka, i.e. the Great Sea, or Black Sea, we may assume that he followed the old caravan road from Baghdad northwards, and passing through Mawsil (Mosul), Jazirat ibn-.Umar, and Diyar Bakr, arrived at Samsun, on the Black Sea. Here he and his party embarked in a ship which carried 3oo passengers, and in a few days he reached Constantinople. He sent messengers on to announce his arrival to the king, and he was honourably entreated and suitably housed by the Basileus, i.e. Andronicus II (1282-1328) Whether Andronicus II promised to help Arghon or not is not stated, but as soon as Sawma had eaten and drunk he asked the king to depute some one to show him the churches, and shrines, and tombs of the saints, and the sainted relics. Having seen the principal churches and relics he returned to the king and asked his permission to continue his journey to the country of the Franks. The king gave him gifts of gold and silver and dismissed him in peace.
Sawma left Constantinople, and on his road to the quay visited (?) a monastery on the sea-shore which contained the head of John Chrysostom, and other precious relics, and then he embarked on a ship and sailed into the Mediterranean. During his voyage westwards, he saw either Mount Vesuvius, or Mount Etna, or, perhaps, as Bedjan suggests, Stromboli, which was then in eruption, and, after two months of weariness and exhaustion, he and his party landed at Naples. Here he waited upon the king who, according to Chabot was Charles Martel, the son of Charles IL, and explained to him the object of his mission, and the king treated him honourably. Whilst there he witnessed from the roof of a house a naval fight between the ships of Charles II and those of the king of Aragon, James II. About the time of Sawma’s visit there was war between the two kings because Charles II had seized the town of Agosta in Sicily. In the naval action which followed, Charles II was defeated and a large number of his ships were sunk; for details of the engagement see the extracts from the historians quoted by Chabot
From Naples Sawma set out by land for Rome, and on the road he heard that the Pope, Honorius IV (1285-87), was dead. After a few days he and his party arrived in Rome, and he at once sent a message to the Cardinals who were administering the papal throne, to tell them that he had brought letters to the Pope from Arghon, King of Kings. The Cardinals received him courteously and begged him to defer the discussion of his mission for a season; they provided him with suitable quarters and installed him therein. Three days later they sent for him and discussed his mission, and Sawma, explained to them the close relationship which existed between the Nestorian Church and the kings of the Mongols, and told them of King Arghon’s desire to rescue Jerusalem from the infidels. Then the Cardinals questioned him closely as to his Creed, and drew from him the very interesting confession of the Nestorian Faith, which is given on pp. 53.
After much talk Sawma told the Cardinals that he did not come to. Rome to discuss questions of faith, but to be blessed by the Pope and to transact Arghon’s business with him, and then he asked the Cardinals to allow him to see the holy places in Rome. They at once summoned an official and certain monks and directed them to show him everything.
He was greatly interested in St. Peter’s, but he seems to have misunderstood what he was told about the crowning of Emperors by the Pope, and the way in which the crown was placed on their heads (see p. 54). When he had seen all the sights he returned to the Cardinals and asked their permission to go and see the other kings for whom he had dispatches, and as he was leaving them they told him that they could not give him an answer to King Arghon’s letter until a new Pope was elected.
From Rome, Sawma and his party went into Tuscany, where they were well received, and thence to Genoa, where the people were living under a democratic regime. He visited the cathedral church of Saint Lawrence (founded in 985), and saw and greatly admired the famous vessel which is now known as the Sacro Catino. This object was captured by the Genoese at Caesarea in 1101, and brought to Genoa, but was carried off to Paris by Napoleon I in 18og. One tradition says that it was given to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba, and another says that our Lord and His disciples ate the Paschal lamb from it, and that Joseph of Arimathea caught in it some of the drops of Christ’s Blood on the day of His Crucifixion.
It is a beautiful green colour, and it was believed by everyone to have been made out of a single emerald. But it was broken in Paris, either by accident or design, in 1815, and it was then found to be made of green opaque glass. From Genoa Sawma went to Onbar, a town or city which has not been identified; Bedjan in a footnote suggests Lombardy or Ambron.
Leaving Italy, Sawma entered France, and after a journey which seems to have lasted a month, arrived in Paris, and sent a messenger to announce his arrival to the king, Philippe IV le Bel. The king received him with great honour, and when he had read King Arghon’s letter, and accepted his presents, he told Sawma that he was prepared to send a force to help the Mongols to wrest Jerusalem from the hands of the infidels. Sawma remained in Paris for a month and during this time he was shown the educational institutions of Paris, with their 30,000 pupils, who were maintained by the king. One day he was taken into the church of St. Denis, containing the mausoleum of the Kings of France, and on another day into the famous Sainte Chapelle. In the latter the king led him up to a gilded chamber, and brought out a beryl or crystal coffer and showed him the Crown of Thorns which, he said, his ancestors had brought from Constantinople. The king promised to send one of his nobles to carry his answer to Arghon, and Sawma, having received from him gifts and valuable apparel, set out for Gascony (?) to see the king of England, Edward I. After riding for twenty days Sawma arrived at the chief city (which Chabot thinks was Bordeaux), and had an audience of the king there at which he presented Arghon’s letter and gifts. Having stated that his views were the same as those of Arghon, the king commanded Sawma to celebrate the Eucharist, and he and his nobles partook of the Mysteries. After further talk the king gave Sawma many gifts and money to defray his travelling expenses. Having delivered his dispatches to the various kings Sawma returned to Italy and passed the winter in Genoa.
Towards the end of the winter a Cardinal Legate arrived in Genoa from Germany on his way to Rome, and he and Sawma met and held converse together. This great ecclesiastic who is styled a periodeutes or .Visitor .in the Syriac text can only have been, as Chabot has shown (p. 83), John of Tusculum, whom Pope Honorius IV had sent to Germany at the close of 1285 to arrange for the coronation of the Emperor Rudolf of Habsburg. In the course of his talk with the Visitor,. Sawma complained to him that he had spent a whole year in waiting for a new Pope to be appointed, and told him that he did not know what to do, and what answer he could carry back to his master’s letter to the Pope. The Visitor, saying that he would go and see the Cardinals and urge them to act promptly, went on his way to Rome.
When he reached that city he found that a new Pope had been appointed, and he told him of his conversation with Sawma. Thereupon the Pope, Nicholas IV (1288-g2), sent a messenger bidding Sawma and his companions to come to Rome, and deputed a Metropolitan bishop and many clergy to go and meet him. The Pope received him with great honour and Sawma presented to him Arghon’s letter and gifts, and the letter and gifts of Mar Yahbh-Allaha III, and the Pope invited him to stay and keep the Easter Festival with him in Rome. A few days later Sawma celebrated the Eucharist according to the Nestorian rite, and the congregation agreed that though the language was different the order was the same; during the Festival the Pope celebrated High Mass, and Sawma partook of the Offering at his hands.
The description of the Easter Festival in Rome is of great interest for the student of Oriental Liturgies, but a discussion of it would be out of place here. When the Festival was ended and Sawma wished to leave Rome, the Pope tried to persuade him to remain there and live under his protection. In reply to his words Sawma said that the interests of the Christians in the East dernanded his return, and then asked the Pope to give him some sacred relics to take back with him. The Pope gave him portions of the apparel of sour Lord and His Mother, and some small pieces of the relics of some of the saints. To Mar Yahbh-Allaha he sent a gold crown inlaid with precious stones, some vestments of red and gold brocade, stockings and sandals, a ring from his finger, and a Bull authorizing him to rule the Eastern Church. To Sawma he gave, a Bull confirming his appointment as Visitor-General, and his blessing, and he ordered his officers to provide him with 1,500 mathkale of red gold for the expenses of his journey home.
Of Rabban Sawma’s route on his return journey we know nothing, because the translator of his narrative from Persian into Syriac found himself obliged to abridge the original considerably. All we know is that he returned safely to King Arghon, who rejoiced to hear of the success of his mission to the kings in Europe. As a reward the king promised to build a church in his capital and to make Sawma priest thereof. Arghon kept his promise, and following the example of the Mongol king Kuyuk Khan (1248-57) he set up a church so close to the royal tent that the ropes of the curtains of the church crossed those of his own tent. When the king’s tent was moved, the church was moved also. The direction of everything connected with the church was committed to Sawma, who was ordered to arrange that service should be performed in it all day long. In 1289 Arghon had his son Kharbande baptized by the Patriarch in Maraghah, and in i2gi he died and was succeeded by Kaikhato.
A year or two later Sawma, feeling that he was no longer able to bear the hard manner of life of the Mongols and the fatigues of travelling, obtained permission from Kaikhato to build a church in Maraghah. Taking with him from the Royal Camp the vessels and vestments which he had used in the church there, he went to Maraghah and built a church in the names of Mar Mari and Mar George. By some means or other he obtained relics of forty martyrs to place in it. On the building, furnishing, and endowment of this church he spent 105,000 zuze, or nearly £4,400.
The church was finished in 1293, and he went down to Baghdad to assist the Patriarch. He attended the banquet at Shaharzur in Kurdistan, which King Baidu gave in honour of the Patriarch, but was taken ill and collapsed with an attack of fever. With the help of his co-religionists he journeyed from Arbil to Baghdad where he died in January, 1294. He was buried in the church of Der ar-Rhomaye, near Baghdad.
Source: THE MONKS OF KUBLAl KHAN, EMPEROR OF CHINA
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