In
Confirmation Of This, The Goldsmith Told Me They Had Brought A Person From
Kathay, Who, By The Size Of His Body, Appeared To Be Only Three Years Old,
Yet Was Capable Of Reasoning, And Knew How To Write, And Who Affirmed That
He Had Passed Through Three Several Bodies.
Even one of the wisest of the
Nestorians demanded of me whether the souls of brutes could fly to any
place after death where they should not be compelled to labour.
To the before-mentioned question of the Kathayan, I answered: "Friend, this
ought hot to be the commencement of our conference. All things are of God,
who is the fountain and head of us all; and therefore we ought first to
speak concerning God, of whom you think otherwise than you ought, and Mangu
desires to know which of us hath the better belief." The arbitrators
allowed this to be reasonable, and I proceeded: "We firmly believe that
there is but one God in perfect unity; what believe you?" He said, "Fools
say there is but one God, but wise men say there are many. There are great
lords in your country, and here is still a greater, even Mangu-khan. So it
is of the Gods, as in divers countries there are divers gods." To this I
answered: "You make a bad comparison between God and men; for in this way
every mighty man might be called a God in his own country." And when I
meant to have dissolved the similitude, he prevented me, by asking, "What
manner of God is yours, who you say is but one?" I answered: "Our God,
beside whom there is no other, is omnipotent, and therefore needeth not the
help of any other; whereas all have need of his help. It is not so with
men, as no man can do all things; wherefore there must be many lords on
earthy as no one can support all. God is omniscient, or knoweth all things;
and therefore hath no need of any counsellor, for all wisdom is from him.
God is perfectly good; and needs not therefore any good from us. In God we
live and move and have our being. Such is our God, and you must not hold
that there is any other." "It is not so," said he; "for there is one
highest in heaven, whose origin or generation we know not, and there are
ten under him, and on earth they are infinite in number." To this he would
have added other fables. I asked him respecting the highest God, of whom he
had spoken, whether he were omnipotent, or if any of the inferior Gods were
so? And fearing to answer this, he demanded, "Why, since our God was
perfectly good, he had made the half of all things evil?" To this I
answered, that this was false; for whosoever maketh any evil is no God, and
all things whatsoever are good. At this all the Tuiuians were astonished,
and set it down in writing as false or impossible.
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