Sonderlinge reysen van Joseph, den geboornen Indiaan; bevattende een aanmerklijke beschrijvingh der landen,...

two patriarchs, along with many archbishops and bishops.

Priest or Pope; named Catholica.

Joseph the Indian also recounted that he had traveled with a bishop of the city of Caranganor to the island of Ormus, over fifteen hundred miles away. Thereafter, he traveled for three months by land, as far as Greater Armenia, to speak to their Great Bishop there: who made (or confirmed) the aforementioned bishop as a bishop and ordained Joseph the Indian as a priest. Thus act all the Indian Christians, and those of the Kingdom of Cathay China/Central Asia.

Further report of this leader.

Their Supreme Bishop they call Catholica. He has a tonsure shorn in the manner of a cross. He appoints the patriarchs: one in India, and the other in Cathay. He sends the bishops where he sees fit, to govern this or that province.

Of this supreme leader.

Marcus Paulus Venetus Marco Polo writes of this Catholica in his report on Armenia and says that there are two types of Christians, called Jacobites and Nestorians, whose Pope bears the name Jacobita. This is the Catholica of whom we speak here. [The words of Marcus Paulus are: The Christians are Nestorians and Jacobites. These have a great Patriarch, by them called Jacelich. We follow the Antwerp edition of the year 1563].

Answer of Joseph the Indian to Pope Alexander VI.

But since this Pope grants the dignity of spiritual offices to many and makes many bishops, one might ask, from whom does this power come, seeing as the Holy Roman Church, which is one in faith, has no more than one Roman Bishop? Here one must report that Joseph the Indian traveled to Rome when Pope Alexander VI was reigning; he asked Joseph where that Catholica had the power to make bishops in the lands of the East? He gave him the answer: St. Peter had been Bishop at Antioch.

On the same.

When at that time a great discord had arisen at Rome, caused by