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• About Marco Polo
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About Marco Polo

The devout Catholic

He reached further than any predecessors from the West, beyond Mongolia to China. He became a confidant of Kublai Khan (1214-1294) who kept China under Mongol rule.
      The Great Khan, Kublai, was hospitable. Marco mastered four languages, and became a favorite with the khan. He was appointed to high posts in his administration and served at the court where he achieved, by report-stories, greater and greater respect in the eyes of his master - and so Marco became a kind of court writer. He was sent on special missions in China, Korea, Burma, Tibet and India. The Brahmins there were the most honest tradesmen in the world, he wrote. They never lied and they helped foreigners to sell their goods without profit to themselves.
      He travelled a great deal in China and also served as a governor in the province of Manzi in southeast China. Manzi comprised the greater part of China. Marco was amazed with China's enormous power, great wealth, and complex social structure. His writings tell of someone who was thoroughly impressed with the nature of Chinese civilization. As a matter of fact, many of the organized and efficient systems that he saw working in China had yet to be developed in Europe. And many places which Marco saw were not seen again by Europeans till the 1800s.
     

Bathers.

Marko liked to watch the skills of the Buddhist lamas, who mostly came from Tibet. He says that they could stop storms, and one of them made a wine vessel fly from the table into Kublai's hand and back to the table again, after the Khan had drunk it.
      Marco somewhere described what he thought was the most beautiful baths in the world; some hot baths large enough for 100 persons to bathe in together. They were in Kinsai [Kinsay, the modern Hangchow], a city with 3000 baths, and one of the greatest centres of culture, education and art at the time. [Link]
      He also told about the monstrous birds which dropped elephants from a height and devoured their broken carcasses. In the story of Sinbad the Sailor - from the 600s AD - the Arabian Nights tells of the "roc" bird from Madagascar - so strong that it could carry three elephants.
      Marco Polo discovered the use of coal and eye glasses, of ice-cream, fireworks and spaghetti, of jade, porcelain, silk, and ivory. He noted regional histories, very impressive cities, architecture, languages and governments, lifestyles, diets, styles of dress, marriage customs, rituals, religions, trading practices, crafts, manufactured products, plants, animals, minerals, and terrain.
      And he came back to tell after Kublai Khan reluctantly had agreed to let his trusted men, the Polos, return after seventeen years in his service . . . the best years of Marco's life, filled with exciting happenings, merchant business, diplomatic missions, and love affairs.
      When Marco was forty-one years old, the Polos returned in rags to a Venice at war with Genoa. No one believed Marco's stories of the vast riches and culture he had witnessed in Asia. Much because his tales showed that China and other parts of Asia were superior to and more advanced than Europe in many repects, the explorer was not hailed. Instead, the phrase "It's a Marco Polo" came to denote an exaggerated tale. He was considered the "man of a million lies".
      But Marco knew what strings to pull: He organised a banquet. During it, to the amazement of the incredulous Venetians, rubies, sapphires and emeralds started to fall from their rags. Marco showed off! Kublai Khan had given him and his relatives ivory, jade, jewels, porcelain, silk, and other treasures. That made Marco Polo famous.
      In 1296 he was taken prisoner by the Genoese, long-time rivals of Venetians. While in jail, aided by his notes, he dictated to a fellow prisoner what he had seen and heard on his travels. The other was a popular writer, Rustichello of Pisa. He translated the tales into Old French, the literary language of Italy at the time. The book was completed in 1298 and is one of the most famous travel book in history, if not the most famous one. It has captured readers through the centuries.
      After Genoa and Venice made peace in 1299, Marco was freed and returned to trading in Venice. When he was near death, a priest came in his room to ask him if he would like to admit that his stories were false. Instead, Marco said as his last words,
      "I did not tell half of what I saw because no one would have believed me."

It can be terrible not to be believed when you have something important to tell.

Sex Grace?

Utter nonsense or the wisdom of God?

HERE a Christian can be put at ease about having many wives as well. There is no demand in the Bible to have just one at the time, although is best to have just one, according to Jesus, but then again it is in fact allowable to have several. Big guys in the Bible had their harems - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Solomon, David, and so on. They are not the only ones that the Bible talk well of. And note as well:

The Holy Spirit and we have agreed not to put any other burden on you besides these necessary rules: eat no food that has been offered to idols; eat no blood; eat no animal that has been strangled; and keep yourselves from sexual immorality. You will do well if you take care not to do these things. With our best wishes." (TEV)

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell. (NIV) [Acts 15:28-29]

The Lord said to Moses, "The man who obeys [My laws and decrees] will live by them.
      Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father's wife, born to your father. Do not have sexual relations with your neighbour's wife and defile yourself with her. Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable [and in part impossible; an organ is missing -].
      Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways . . . Everyone who does any of these detestable things - such persons must be cut off from their people. [Leviticus 18:1-29, passim]