The greatest land empire that ever existed was the Mongol Empire. It stretched from the Pacific ocean, they conquered China, all the way up to the mediterranean and Europe. The Mongols were Pagans. When they reached Europe the Medieval Europeans did not know what had hit them.

At this time they were busy fighting with the Moslem in the Crusades. Common sense should have told them that when their Muslim adversaries came running to them begging them that it is time to stop fighting their stupid petty crusades and to unite because there is a far greater threat that is about to wipe out both Islam and Christianity, they should have taken notice. Anyway, they didn't.

The christians were even happy that some strange people were wiping out the muslims in the east, not know that the strange people had been given an order by none less than God himself (their version of God) to bring the entire world under their rule. After the muslims the Christians would be the next to feel the wrath of the Khan. In fact their first leader Chinngis Khan gave himself a title, The Scourge of God.

When It dawned on western Europe that their existence was about to be obliterated the Pope sent a cheeky letter to the Khan proposing peace. When translated to Mongolian, like the arab word Islam, Peace actually means submission.

This is what happens when a religious doctrine is introduced to a people that have no idea of the concepts of that religion, who have no concepts of sin, or trinity or Virgin birth. The people are left bemused and nonplussed. This is further exacerbated by the fact that these people were not some primitive pagan peoples but were the greatest ever military machine of that age. A band of about 10,000 mongol soldiers (on a mere reconnaissance mission of Europe) wiped out an entire army of 70,000 of Europe's troops.

The mongols simply replied, 'o bobs, We don't understand what you are talking about, or how you claim to be representing God, but if it is Peace (submission) you want then you yourself personally (the pope) and all the monarchs of Europe need to come here and bow down. Otherwise we will know who God is really favouring'. I paraphrase of course.


Here is the full letter sent from the Pope to the Khan, and the Khans response back to the Pope.



CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN ROMAN POPE AND MONGOL GREAT KHAN


A Letter from Pope Innocent IV to the King of the Tartars

Seeing that not only men but even irrational animals, nay, the very elements which go to make up the world machine, are united by a certain innate law after the manner of the celestial spirits, all of which God the Creator has divided into choirs in the enduring stability of peaceful order, it is not without cause that we are driven to express in strong terms our amazement that you, as we have heard, have invaded many countries belonging both to Christians and to others and are laying them waste in a horrible desolation, and with a fury still unabated you do not cease from stretching out your destroying hand to more distant lands, but, breaking the bond of natural ties, sparing neither sex nor age, you rage against all indiscriminately with the sword of chastisement.

We, therefore, following the example of the King of Peace, and desiring that all men should live united in concord in the fear of God, do admonish, beg and earnestly beseech all of you that for the future you desist entirely from assaults of this kind and especially from the persecution of Christians, and that after so many and such grievous offences you conciliate by a fitting penance the wrath of Divine Majesty, which without doubt you have seriously aroused by such provocation; nor should you be emboldened to commit further savagery by the fact that when the sword of your might has raged against other men Almighty God has up to the present allowed various nations to fall before your face; for sometimes He refrains from chastising the proud in this world for the moment, for this reason, that if they neglect to humble themselves of their own accord He may not only no longer put off the punishment of their wickedness in this life but may also take greater vengeance in the world to come.

On this account we have thought fit to send to you our beloved son [Giovanni DiPlano Carpini--see Strayer, p. 336] and his companions the bearers of this letter, men remarkable for their religious spirit, comely in their virtue and gifted with a knowledge of Holy Scripture; receive them kindly and treat them with honour out of reverence for God, indeed as if receiving us in their persons, and deal honestly with them in those matters of which they will speak to you on our behalf, and when you have had profitable discussions with them concerning the aforesaid affairs, especially those pertaining to peace, make fully known to us through these same Friars what moved you to destroy other nations and what your intentions are for the future, furnishing them with a safe-conduct and other necessities on both their outward and return journey, so that they can safely make their way back to our presence when they wish.

Lyons, 13th March 1245



A Letter from Kuyuk Khan to Pope Innocent IV

By the power of the Eternal Heaven, we are the all-embracing Khan of all the Great Nations. It is our command:

This is a decree, sent to the great Pope that he may know and pay heed.

After holding counsel with the monarchs under your suzerainty, you have sent us an offer of subordination which we have accepted from the hands of your envoy.

If you should act up to your word, then you, the great Pope, should come in person with the monarchs to pay us homage and we should thereupon instruct you concerning the commands of the Yasak.

Furthermore, you have said it would be well for us to become Christians. You write to me in person about this matter, and have addressed to me a request. This, your request, we cannot understand.

Furthermore, you have written me these words: "You have attacked all the territories of the Magyars and other Christians, at which I am astonished. Tell me, what was their crime?" These, your words, we likewise cannot understand. Chinggis Khan and Ogatai Khakan revealed the commands of Heaven. But those whom you name would not believe the commands of Heaven. Those of whom you speak showed themselves highly presumptuous and slew our envoys. Therefore, in accordance with the commands of the Eternal Heaven, the inhabitants of the aforesaid countries have been slain and annihilated. If not by the command of Heaven, how can anyone slay or conquer out of his own strength?

And when you say: "I am a Christian. I pray to God. I arraign and despise others," how do you know who is pleasing to God and to whom He allots His grace? How can you know it, that you speak such words?

Thanks to the power of the Eternal Heaven, all lands have been given to us from sunrise to sunset. How could anyone act other than in accordance with the commands of Heaven? Now your own upright heart must tell you: "We will become subject to you, and will place our powers at your disposal." You in person, at the head of the monarchs, all of you, without exception, must come to tender us service and pay us homage; then only will we recognize your submission. But if you do not obey the commands of Heaven, and run counter to our orders, we shall know that you are our foe.

That is what we have to tell you. If you fail to act in accordance therewith, how can we forsee what will happen to you? Heaven alone knows.

what is striking is the difference in attitude towards knowing God's will.

The Full Letter by the Pope to someone who has no idea what he's talking about. I think the Pope was just taking a wild shot and hoping to bamboozle the Khan with some lofty concepts. -


GOD the Father, of His graciousness regarding with unutterable loving-kindness the unhappy lot of the human race, brought low by the guilt of the first man, and desiring of His exceeding great charity mercifully to restore him whom the devil's envy overthrew by a crafty suggestion, sent from the lofty throne of heaven down to the lowly region of the world His only-begotten Son, con- substantial with Himself, who was conceived by the operation of the Holy Ghost in the womb of a fore-chosen virgin and there clothed in the garb of human flesh, and afterwards proceeding thence by the closed door of His mother's virginity, He showed Himself in a form visible to all men. For human nature, being endowed with reason, was meet to be nourished on eternal truth as its choicest food, but, held in mortal chains as a punishment for sin, its powers were thus far reduced that it had to strive to understand the invisible things of reason's food by means of inferences drawn from visible things. The Creator of that creature became visible, clothed in our flesh, not without change in His nature 2 , in order that, having become visible. He might call back to Himself, the Invisible, those pursuing after visible things, moulding men by His salutary instructions and pointing out to them by means of His teaching the way of perfection: following the pattern of His holy way of life and His words of evangelical instruction, He deigned to suffer death by the torture of the cruel cross, that, by a penal end to His present life, He might make an end of the penalty of eternal death, which the succeeding gener- ations had incurred by the transgression of their first parent, and that man might drink of the sweetness of the life of eternity from the bitter chalice of His death in time. For it behoved the Mediator between us and God to possess both transient mortality and ever- lasting beatitude, in order that by means of the transient He might be like those doomed to die and might transfer us from among the dead to that which lasts for ever. He therefore offered Himself as a victim for the redemption of mankind and, overthrowing the enemy of its salvation, He snatched it from the shame of servitude to the glory of liberty, and unbarred for it the gate of the heavenly fatherland. Then, rising from the dead and ascending into heaven, He left His vicar on earth, and to him, after he had borne witness to the constancy of his love by the proof of a threefold profession, He committed the care of souls, that he should with watchfulness pay heed to and with heed watch over their salvation, for which He had humbled His high dignity; and He handed to him the keys of the kingdom of heaven by which he and, through him, his successors, were to possess the power of opening and of closing the gate of that kingdom to all. Wherefore we, though unworthy, having become, by the Lord's disposition, the successor of this vicar, do turn our keen attention, before all else incumbent on us in virtue of our office, to your salvation and that of other men, and on this matter especially do we fix our mind, sedulously keeping watch over it with diligent zeal and zealous diligence, so that we may be able, with the help of God's grace, to lead those in error into the way of truth and gain all men for Him. But since we are unable to be present in person in different places at one and the same time for the nature of our human condition does not allow this in order that we may not appear to neglect in any way those absent from us we send to them in our stead prudent and discreet men by whose ministry we carry out the obligation of our aposto- lic mission to them. It is for this reason that we have thought fit to send to you our beloved son Friar Laurence of Portugal and his companions of the Order of Friars Minor, the bearers of this letter, men remarkable for their religious spirit, comely in their virtue and gifted with a knowledge of Holy Scripture, so that following their salutary instructions you may acknowledge Jesus Christ the very Son of God and worship His glorious name by practising the Christian religion. We therefore admonish you all, beg and earnestly entreat you to receive these Friars kindly and to treat them in considerate fashion out of reverence for God and for us, indeed as if receiving us in their persons, and to employ unfeigned honesty towards them in respect of those matters of which they will speak to you on our behalf; we also ask that, having treated with them concerning the aforesaid matters to your profit, you will furnish them with a safe-conduct and other necessities on both their outward and return journey, so that they can safely make their way back to our presence when they wish. We have thought fit to send to you the above-mentioned Friars, whom we specially chose out from among others as being men proved by years of regular observance and well versed in Holy Scripture, for we believed they would be of greater help to you, seeing that they follow the humility of our Saviour: if we had thought that ec- clesiastical prelates or other powerful men would be more profit- able and more acceptable to you we would have sent them. Seeing that not only men but even irrational animals, nay, the very elements which go to make up the world machine, are united by a certain innate law after the manner of the celestial spirits, all of which God the Creator has divided into choirs in the enduring stability of peaceful order, it is not without cause that we are driven to express in strong terms our amazement that you, as we have heard, have invaded many countries belonging both to Christians and to others and are laying them waste in a horrible desolation, and with a fury still unabated you do not cease from stretching out your destroying hand to more distant lands, but, breaking the bond of natural ties, sparing neither sex nor age, you rage against all indiscriminately with the sword of chastisement. We, therefore, following the example of the King of Peace, and desiring that all men should live united in concord in the fear of God, do admonish, beg and earnestly beseech all of you that for the future you desist entirely from assaults of this kind and especially from the persecution of Christians, and that after so many and such grievous offences you conciliate by a fitting penance the wrath of Divine Majesty, which without doubt you have seriously aroused by such provocation; nor should you be em- boldened to commit further savagery by the fact that when the sword of your might has raged against other men Almighty God has up to the present allowed various nations to fall before your face; for sometimes He refrains from chastising the proud in this world for the moment, for this reason, that if they neglect to humble themselves of their own accord He may not only no longer put off the punishment of their wickedness in this life but may also take greater vengeance in the world to come. On this account we have thought fit to send to you our beloved son [John of Piano Carpini] and his companions the bearers of this letter, men re- markable for their religious spirit, comely in their virtue and gifted with a knowledge of Holy Scripture; receive them kindly and treat them with honour out of reverence for God, indeed as if receiving us in their persons, and deal honestly with them in those matters of which they will speak to you on our behalf, and when you have had profitable discussions with them concerning the aforesaid affairs, especially those pertaining to peace, make fully known to us through these same Friars what moved you to destroy other nations and what your intentions are for the future, fur- nishing them with a safe-conduct and other necessities on both their outward and return journey, so that they can safely make their way back to our presence when they wish. Lyons, i3th March 1245

I must confess, I dont understand your intention with this thread.

Can you pls break it down to my level?

FOLYKAZE:
I must confess, I dont understand your intention with this thread.

Can you pls break it down to my level?

Just an historical anecdote. There are lots of possible points that can be extracted from it.

- How christianity sounds to someone who has no prior knowledge of it's concepts. Especially when that person is technologically and militarily superior to the christians. The letter the pope wrote can only make sense if you were taught such things from birth, OR if you just admired the culture of the pope without much real understanding of what he's talking about. That latter is the position I believe a lot of africans are in.

- The presumption of knowing God's will. In many ancient societies it is the person that wins the battle that God favoured. You cannot claim to have God on your side before the the battle. Thus the mongols say they cannot know what will happen, Only God can, Whereas the Pope says he knows God will punish the Mongols.

- The belief that if you're worshipping God right then nothing bad can happen to you and you automatically have God's favour is an ancient one. That is why the Mongol conquest is the blow that shook Islamic confidence and began the decline of Islamic culture (not British conquest of middle east) and in many ways is the cause of the crisis with Islam that we are experiencing today.
It had a similar effect on christianity. Wars were not just military conflicts, they were conflicts to see who was right with God.

I'm sure that there are other points. But I'm not trying to focus on any one in particular. I just wanted to share a bit of history and discuss it's religious implications.

just passing

Very interesting indeed.

The part that caught my attention and made me laugh is the part where the the Mongols asked the pope in the letter about those that the Christian empire has laid to waste, what was their own crime?


He was thus calling the pope a hypocrite for asking for something that he had not been able to grant others:peace.

plaetton:
Very interesting indeed.

The part that caught my attention and made me laugh is the part where the the Mongols asked the pope in the letter about those that the Christian empire has laid to waste, what was their own crime?


He was thus calling the pope a hypocrite for asking for something that he had not been able to grant others:peace.

Furthermore, you have written me these words: "You have attacked all the territories of the Magyars and other Christians, at which I am astonished. Tell me, what was their crime?" These, your words, we likewise cannot understand. Chinggis Khan and Ogatai Khakan revealed the commands of Heaven. But those whom you name would not believe the commands of Heaven. Those of whom you speak showed themselves highly presumptuous and slew our envoys. Therefore, in accordance with the commands of the Eternal Heaven, the inhabitants of the aforesaid countries have been slain and annihilated. If not by the command of Heaven, how can anyone slay or conquer out of his own strength?
- Kuyuk Khan

Actually what Kuyuk Khan was saying in the letter was Why he, Kuyuk, destroyed the christian nations that he had come across so far, not a reference to those the christian empires had laid waste to.

What the mongols do is they first send an envoy with the 'good news' (gospel?). The GoodNews being that God had declared Chinngis Khan to be the overlord of the entire world. All the recipients of the gospel then had two choices. To Submit, or to die. The first christian princes that received his message reacted by slaying the Mongol Envoys. So they got the full Mongol treatment. Namely, Annihilation.

Stating the Maxim that Might is Right, the simple fact that he was militarily superior obviously meant that God was on his side and not on the side of the Pope.

Nice piece to remember how the Mongols don't play.

Religion involves man's interaction with the known and unknown aspects of the universe. Certainly, if a pagan experiences success in these interactions, then as far as he/she is concerned the gods are (or the supreme God is, if they believe in any) in agreement with their religion.

It seems i missed d thread.

The pope was pretty funny, he was trying to preach to d mogols, he didnt look at d letter from their prespective. What would "consubtantial" mean to khan? A fine word, nothing more but that didnt stop d pope from attempting to sell his brand of truth. I read d letter again and it seems to contain a summary of christian beliefs, it seem pope innocent thought dat would convert d mongols.

That pope's letter wasn't even read as the pope wrote it. it had to be translated into mongolian. Confusion break bone.

Languages develop to convey the concepts that the people using it have. How do you translate the concepts from one culture to another culture and not distort the the original concept.


The same goes for Christianity. I don't feel that it crossed very well from European culture to african. Worse still, before it made that crossing it had already crossed from Latin to English/french/etc. And from Greek to Latin (which should be easier). The old testament crossed from Hebrew to Greek and that crossing had a lot of interesting repercussion, some christian doctrines being some of the biggest repercussions.

^^ ^
Indeed.
When a simple and innocous statement like ,
" The kingdom of God is WITHIN you" ,
gets translated to ,
" The kingdom of God is AMONGST you " ,
It can have grave repercussions for many millennia.
It can mean the difference between day night, between mental sovereignty and mental enslavement.