108 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. dresses him by the title of " King of the Indies, and Most Holy of Priests."* After having shown, at the commencement of his letter, the supremacy of the successor of St. Peter, and the authority given him to regulate the affairs of the Church, and determine points of doctrine, he speaks of a certain " Master Philip," his physician and servant, who had received from powerful and distinguished people in the East some communications relative to the desire which Priest John had to be instructed in the doctrines of the Church of Rome. Alexander then endeavours to demonstrate how important it is for those who call themselves Christians to hold the true Catholic faith. He exhorts Priest John, therefore, to repent of his errors, and to give his full confidence to Master Philip, who will explain to him the true prin- ciples of the Christian faith, without which " one cannot hope for salvation." This brief of Alexander III. gives us to understand that Prester John and the subjects of his vast empire did not profess a very orthodox creed. In fact, the chronicles of the time are unanimous in representing them as tainted with the Nestorian heresy. As early as the year 1143 the Bishop of Gabala, legate of the Church of Armenia, addressed to the Pope Eugene III. the following report f : — " Some years ago," said the
- The memory of this singular personage has been preserved in
the proverbial expressions in some countries, as for instance in Ger- many, where people say of any one who lives happily, " Er lebt so vergnugt als worre er in der Priestes Johannes Land," He lives as pleasantly as if he were in Prester John's country. f Othoni, Freising. Chronicon, ch. xxxii. p. 146. This recital, which has been transmitted to us by Otho of Freisingen, is also to be found in the " Chronique d'Alberii," p. 307.
