Sect. 16
The ten Tribes being conquered at severall times, we must thinke they were carried into severall places. As we beleeve they went to the West-Indies by the strait of Anian, so we thinke that out of Tartary they went to China, by that famous wall in the confines of both. Our argument to prove it, is taken from the authority of two Jesuites, who erected their Colledges in those Countries. Nicholaus Trigantius a Dutch-man in his discourse of the Christian expedition under-taken by the Jesuites to Sina, saith, We finde that in former time the Jewes came into these Kingdomes. And when that society had for some yeares seated it selfe in the Court of the Pequinenses, a certaine Jew came to P. Matthæus Riccius; he was borne in Chamfamfu the metropolis of the Province Honan, and was surnamed Ogay; and now being licensed to the degree of a Doctor, he went to Pequin. But when he read in a certaine Booke writ by a Doctor of China, concerning the European affaires, That our fathers are not Sarazens, and know no God but the Lord of Heaven and Earth; and would perswade himselfe that ours did professe the Law of Moses, he went into the Church with P. Matthæas Riccius. On an Altar there was the effigies of the Virgin Mary, and the childe Jesus, whom St. John his fore-runner worshipped with bended knees; now that day was the Holy-day of John the Baptist. The Jew thinking it was the effigies of Rebecca, and her two Sons, Jacob and Esau, he bowed also to the Image, but with this Apology, that he worshipped no Images, but that he could not but honour these who were the Parents of our Nation. And he asking if the foure Evangelists on both sides of the Altar, were not foure of the twelve sons of Jacob; the Jesuite answered, Yes, thinking he had asked of the twelve Apostles. But afterward the Jew acknowledged to the Jesuite that he was an Israelite; and he found the Kings Bible, and acknowledged the Hebrew Letters, though he could not read them. By this occasion our people learnt, that ten or twelve families of Israelites were there, and had built a very neat Synagogue which cost ten thousand Crownes, in which they have kept the five Bookes of Moses with great veneration for six hundred yeares. He also affirmed, that in Hamcheu the Metropolis of the Province Chequiona, there are farre more Families, with a Synagogue; and else-where that many Families live without a Synagogue, because that by little and little they are extinguished. He relating many things out of the Old Testament, he differed but little in pronouncing those names. He said, that some among them were not ignorant of the Hebrew Tongue, but that himselfe had neglected it, having studied the China Tongue from a Childe. For which cause he was counted almost unworthy of their society, by the Ruler of the Synagogue. But he chiefly looked after this, that he might get to be Doctor. Three yeares after P. Matthæus Riccius sent one of our brethren to that Metropolis, who found all those things true. He compared the beginnings, and endings of the Bookes which the Jewes keep in their Synagogue, with our Pentateuch, and saw no difference, this only, that those had no pricks. The other Jesuite is Alfonsus Cimedro, who likewise saith, that there is a great number of Jewes in the Province of Oroensis, on the West part of China, who know nothing of the comming, and suffering of Jesus. And he from thence gathers, that they are of the ten Tribes, (which opinion I also am of) because those Chineses observe many Jewish Rites, which you may see in a manuscript, which the noble Jaochimus Wicofortius hath. And why might not some of them saile from China to New-Spaine, through the streight between China, and Anian, and Quivira, which doe border upon New-Spaine; and from thence they went to the Isles of Panama, Peru, and those thereabouts. These in my judgement are those Chineses of whom Isaiah speakes, Chap. 49. vers. 12. (treating about Israels returne to his Country.) Behold, these shall come from afarre, and these from the North, and from the West, and these from the Land of Sinim. And so Ptolomy in lib. 7. c. 3. tab. 11. cals it The country of Sinim, or Sina; and this is the true sense of the words; Aben Ezra therefore is mistaken, who derives it of Sene, a bush or wood, which he placeth in Ægypt.