PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

propagation of Christianity in the Far East in the eighth century. Let us leave the word to the great scholar Assemani. He says (B. O. t. II, p. 255, n. 2): "It is clear from the stone monument unearthed in the metropolis of the province of Xensi in the year 1625 that bishops and priests were sent by the Nestorian Patriarch of the Chaldeans to the vast regions of the Indians and Chinese for the sake of disseminating the Gospel... where, among the words impressed in Chinese characters, in which the names of seventy preachers of the Gospel (sent from Assyria or Chaldea to the kingdom of the Chinese) are listed, this annotation is read in Syriac Estrangelo or round Chaldean letters to the right and left and at the bottom of the same monument:"

"In the year 1909 [of the Greeks, i.e., 781 A.D.], Mar Hnanisho, the Catholicos Patriarch, (1) (That is, the bishop of Syria, or the learned one who served over other bishops, like the archdeacon of the bishop. N. E.) great learned one and chorepiscopus a regional bishop of Kumdan, the royal city. In the year 1092 of the Greeks [781 A.D.], Mar Yazdbuzid, priest and chorepiscopus of Kumdan (2) (Kumdan: that is Nanking, a city of China. N. E.), the royal city, son of the late Milis, priest from Balkh (3) (Balkh: that is Balk. N. E.), city of Tahuristan (4) (Tahuristan: it is the region in which the city of Balkh is located. N. E.), erected this stone tablet, in which is written the government of our Savior and the preaching of our fathers to the kings of the Greeks... Adir the deacon, son of Yazdbuzid, chorepiscopus. Mar Sergius..."