292 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. him, thrown into prison, in the monastery of St. Abraham, in the town of Sahaka, and forfeited of all his possessions. The Metropolitan of Pekin, however, found means to escape from his dungeon, and fled to the mountains, but was retaken by the mountaineers, and brought back to the Catholicos, who again sent him to prison. A few days afterwards, he died, as well as several bishops who had been the accomplices of his revolt and shared in his cap- tivity ; and it was believed they all perished of a violent death by order of the Patriarch. In the meantime, two monks, belonging to the nation of Oigours, presented themselves to the Patriarch Denha. They had left China and gone on a pilgrimage to Jeru- salem, to visit the place sanctified by the life and death of the Saviour of men ; and the Patriarch now created one of them, named Jaballaha, Metropolitan of Pekin, in the place of Simeon-Bar-Kaly. Jaballaha was just on the point of setting out to take possession of his see, when John Denha died, and a Tartar chief, who was related to these two monks, in announcing the death of the Patriarch to Abaga, pointed out Jaballaha as worthy to be his successor ; though Aboulfarage reports that he was a rude and illiterate man, though pious.* Abaga, in consequence of this recommendation, imme- diately issued a proclamation, by which he ordered the consecration of Jaballaha to the dignity of the Patri- archate, and the Nestorian bishops, docile to the injunc- tions of the Khan of the Mongols, betook themselves in all haste to Seleucia, and proclaimed with pomp and so- lemnity the new Patriarch or Catholicos. The other
- " Eum rudem quidem et indoctum, sed pium tamen fuisse." —
Aboulfaradje apud Assemani, vol. xiii. p. 257.
