CHINA, is one of the finest Countries in Asia. The Arabians write it Sin; the Persians, and other eastern People Tehin. They tell us, that this Country derives its name from one of the Sons of Japheth¹, called Sin. He was, say they, the eldest and most understanding of Japheth’s Children; he had likewise the best partition, and the large Country of China for his Inheritance. He it was who taught his Sons painting, sculpture, and the art of preparing Silk, so as to make different sorts of Stuffs with it. In a word, some assert, that the Works so much in vogue in China, and so much valued by Foreigners, are for the most part of his Invention.
His eldest Son was Matchin, who peopled the southern part of China, wherein we comprehend Cochinchina, Tunquin, and the Kingdom of Anan, together with those of Siam and Pegu. The antient Histories of the Persians say, that Feridoun King of the first Dynasty, called the Peichadians, gave China and Furkaston to his Son Tour for his Inheritance, with the title of Fagfour, which has continued hereditary to the Kings of this Country, like Pharaoh to those of Egypt. It is a very antient Tradition among the eastern People,1 that there is a very great number of Jews in China, and that they removed thither in the time of Joshua, God having opened a way thither for their arrival. But there is much more probability, that they who are to be met with in this part of the World, went thither after the Captivities of Israel under Salmanesèr, and the other three Kings of Assyria. In reality the passage thither is not very difficult from the Territories of the Medes and Persians.
It cannot be denied, that formerly there was a great number of Jews in China; the oldest relations2 that we have of this Country declare, that at the general desolation of it, principally at the taking of Cumdan, there was a great number of Christians and Jews massacred. But when, and upon what occasion the Jews came thither, we do not know. The Chinese Histories give us no intelligence in this3 this particular, either because the settlement of this People was made there insensibly, and without noise, or because the Chinese Historians, with whom it is a maxim to take no notice of foreign affairs, did not think proper to make mention of them.
At present there are few of them in China, where they lye dispersed in several Provinces, and particularly in the trading Cities. F. Ricci relates, that a Jew of Caisamfu coming to Pekin, in order to take his degrees there, had the curiosity to visit him, upon receiving information that he adored one God only, and was not engaged in the Superstitions practised by the Idolaters of that Country. F. Ricci carried him to a Chapel, where there was a picture of the Blessed Virgin holding the Child Jesus in her arms, and S. John Baptist near him. The Jew imagined these to be Rebekah, Jacob and Esau. He made the like judgment of a Picture representing the four Evangelists. This Father afterwards proposed several Questions to him, and discovered by his Answers, that he was Professor of the old Law, and owned himself to be an Israelite, not a Jew; whereupon he concluded, that he was a descendant of the ten Tribes, which were led into Captivity.
Father Ricci shewed him afterwards the Polyglot Bible of Antwerp; the Jew found out the Hebrew Characters in it, but could not read them; because, as he confessed, he had neglected the study of this Language, and had applied himself to that of the Chinese Letters, upon which account he had been like to be expelled out of the Synagogue. He was likewise informed by him, that there were ten or twelve families of Jews in the same City, where they had a handsom Synagogue, and had preserved the Pentateuch written in Volumes or Rolls for about five or six hundred years; that there was likewise in the Province of Chequiang a greater number of Israelites, and a Synagogue; but that in the other Provinces, their number was very much diminished, and they had no Synagogue.
Father Adam Shaal, a famous Missionary, wrote from Pekin, that he had seen Jews in the Kingdom of Kaschemir, who had preserved Judaism and the Old Testament, and knew nothing of the death of Jesus Christ; that they shewed an inclination to choose this Jesuit for their Chakam, provided he would abstain from eating Swine’s flesh.
Another Jesuit, whose name is Gozani, mentions the discovery of a Synagogue in the Province of Heman in China. He believes that there were Jews in this Country before Jesus Christ: They were acquainted with Esdras and Jesus the Son of Sirach (probably Jesus the Son of Sirach, author of Ecclesiasticus) and followed the method of the Talmudists in their explanations. But all this is more proper to persuade us, that these Jews are modern, than that they are derived from the old dispersion of the ten Tribes; for neither the Talmudists nor Ecclesiasticus, nor the History of Judith, could have been known to them.
There is a long Letter from the Jews of Cochin4, written to the Synagogue of Amsterdam, wherein they say, that they retired to the Indies at the time when the Holy Land was conquered by the Romans; that they have had seventy two Kings succeeding one another, for the space of a thousand years; that a division arising between two Brothers, who contended for the Kingdom, the neighbouring Princes subdued them: From which time they have continued subject to the Kings of China; that by their constant fidelity to these Princes they had merited many marks of esteem and confidence; that in the year 1640, Samuel one of their brethren died Governor of Cochin, and left his Office to a Jew of the same name.
Isai. xlix. 12.Manasseh-Ben-Israel, who was persuaded that there was a great number of Israelites in China, applied the following Passage of Isaiah to them;5 Those from the land of Sinim shall come from far; that is to say, according to him, from the land of the Chinese. S. Jerom translates it from the land of the south. The Septuagint from Persia; but the Hebrew Sin signifies dirt, and the City of Pelusium, or Damietta; so that the Prophet in all probability intended to describe Damietta and Egypt by these words from the land of Sinim.
As to what the eastern People say of Schin or Sin the Son of Japheth, and Father of the Chinese, we believe there is no great account to be made of it, the sacred Books taking no notice of him. Hereafter, under the Article of S. Thomas, we shall speak of the Christians of China, and the famous inscription found in this Country.
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