Pagans, Greeks, Bulgarians, Cumans, Ethiopians, Syrians, Iberians, Alans, Cathari, Goths, Zichori, Kussians, Jacobites, Nubians, Nestorians, Georgians, Armenians, Indians, Muscovites, Tartars, Hungarians, and the missionaries to the Christian captives among the Turks ; and however hazy may be the geography of this enumeration, the extent of the ground sought to be covered shows the activity and self-sacrificing energy of the good brethren. Among the Tartars their success was for a while encouraging. The great khan himself was baptized, and the converts were so numerous that a bishop became necessary for their organization ; but the khan apostatized and the missionaries paid with their lives the forfeit of their zeal, nor were they by any means the only martyrs who suffered in the cause. The efficacy of their Armenian mission may be seen in the renunciation of King Haito of Armenia, who entered the Order and assumed the name of Friar John, though the vicissitudes of his subsequent career were not encouraging to future imitators. He was not, however, the only royal Franciscan, for St. Louis of Toulouse, son of Charles the Lame of Naples and Provence, resisted his father's offer of a crown to become a Franciscan. Less authentic, perhaps, are the Dominican accounts of eight missionaries of their Order who, in 1316, penetrated to the empire of Prester John in Abyssinia, where they founded so durable a Church that in half a century they had the Inquisition organized there, with Friar Philip, son of one of Prester John's subject kings, as inquisitor-general. His zeal led him to attack with both spiritual and fleshly weapons another king who indulged in bigamy, and by whom he was treacherously seized and put to death, November 4, 1366, his martyrdom and sanctity being attested by numerous miracles. Be this as it may, the Franciscans record with pardonable pride that members of their Order accompanied Columbus on his second voyage to America, eager to commence the conversion of the New World.[1]
- ↑ Bonavent. Vit. S. Francis, c. 9. — Lacordaire, Vie de S. Dominique, pp. 182-3. — Potthast Regest. No. 7429, 7490, 7537, 7550, 9130, 9139, 9141, 10350, 10383, 10421, 11297.— Raynald. ann. 1233, No. 22, 23; ann. 1237, No. 88.— Hist. Ordin. Praedicat. c. 8 (Martene Ampliss. Coll. VI. 338). — Chron. Magist. Ordin. Praedicat. c. 3 (Ibid. 350-1).— Waddingi Annal. ann. 1258, No. 1 ; ann. 1278, No. 10, 11, 12; ann. 1284, No. 2 ; ann. 1288, No. 3, 36 ; ann. 1289, No. 1 ; ann. 1294, No. 10-12 ; ann.
