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The Syrian Christians, through whom the report came, misinterpreted his Mongolian title Ung-Khan as denoting a priest-king named John, and it was this distant Eastern potentate who came to be known in Europe as Presbyter Johannes or Prester John.
He went farther, and promulgated an eclectic creed of his own and constituted himself a sort of priest-king in which his own dictum should override everything excepting the letter of the Quran. His own creed is set forth in the following words of India's greatest poet, Abul Fazl: "O God, in every temple I see those who see thee, and, in every tongue that is spoken, thou art praised.
It has been shown by the author of La Cite Antique that the history of all the ancient Greek and Latin communities included four revolutionary periods.* The first revolution had everywhere for its issue the withdrawal of political power from the priest-king; who was nevertheless allowed to retain the religious authority.
The news of the success of the Priest-King opened a door of hope to the desponding Christian world. Pope Alexander III. determined at once to effect a union with this mysterious personage, and on the 27th of September, 1177, wrote him a letter, which he intrusted to his physician, Philip, to deliver in person. Philip started on his embassy, but never returned.
About that time news had reached Europe that a powerful Christian king named Prester John, who reigned over a people coming from Central Asia, had invaded Western Asia and inflicted a crushing defeat upon a Moslem army. Pope Alexander III conceived the hope that a useful ally could be found in this priest-king, who would support and uphold the Christian dominion in Asia.
Lifting our eyes from the world, let us fix them on the likeness of a throne above the firmament that is above the cherubs, and rejoice since there we behold 'the likeness as the appearance of a man upon it. 'Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy King cometh unto thee. III. Our text still further reminds us that the Priest-King of men builds among men the Temple of God.
Or, in other words, we have here the very heart of the Christian character set forth as being willing consecration; then we have the work which Christian men have to do, and the spirit in which they are to do it, expressed in that metaphor of their priestly attire; and then we have their refreshing and quickening influence upon the world. I. The subjects of the Priest-King are willing soldiers.
So, here, the kingless band of exiles, painfully striving to rear again the tabernacle which had fallen down, are heartened for their task by the thought of the priest-king of the nation, the builder of an imperishable dwelling-place for God. To-day we need these truths not less than Zechariah's contemporaries did.
In the States of the Church the old ideal of the Priest-King was degraded to its lowest point, and neither on the side of Pontiff, nor on the side of King, was the ruler of Rome the father, the shepherd of his people, but often only a devouring wolf. Hence the last degradation of a once magnificent office.
The place in fact was a sort of appanage of the priests of Amen at Thebes, and when the last priest-king evacuated Thebes, leaving it to the Bubastites of the XXIId Dynasty, it was to distant Napata that he retired.
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