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identification with Prester John of Unk Khan, whom Rubruquis and others had declared to be the brother of a Nestorian King John, who had ruled over the Naymans, but had gained the throne of the Catai or Caracatai after the death of Coir Khan. Others saw in the Tibetan Lama an apostate descendant of the mythical king, and still others brought the so-called Christians of St. John into the discussion. In 1839 M. A. P. Avezac-Macaya investigated the legend of Prester John (Recueil de voyages et de memoires public par la Societe de Geographie, IV., 547-654), and identified the Coir Khan of Rubruquis with the Ghaur Khan, the founder of the kingdom of Qara-Khithay, who was a Buddhist, but apparently had many Nestorian subjects. This prince, called Yeliu Tashe by the Chinese, was succeeded in 1136 by his son Yeliu Yliei, and in 1155 by his grandson Tchiluku. In 1208 the latter made the Nayman Prince Kushluk his son-in-law, only to meet his death at the hands of his thankless protege, who in his turn was killed in 1218 by Genghis Khan. Rubruquis took the title Ghaur Khan as a proper name, fused the first three princes into one, and finally gave ground to the confusion with Unk Khan, who was killed by Genghis Khan fifteen years before Kushluk.
According to Gustav Oppert Ghaur Khan or Kor Khan was changed by phonetic laws to Yor Khan, which was corrupted through the Hebrew Yohannan and the Syriac Yuhanan into Johannes. It is a historic fact, moreover, that Kushluk's wife, the daughter of the last Ghaur Khan, was a Christian, and that descendants of this royal family who later raled in Tenduch were also Christians and ruled over a Christian population. (W. Germanm")"-)
Bibliography: F. Zarncke, in the Abhandlungen of the Saxon Academy of Sciences, philological-historical class, vol. vii., 1879, vol. viii., 1883-86; G. Oppert, Der Presbyter Johannes in Sage und Geschichte, 2d ed., Berlin, 1870; G. Brunet, La Legende du Pretre-J ean, Bordeaux, 1877; S. Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, London, 1884; Schaff, Christian Church, v. 1, pp. 437-439.
PRESTON, JOHN: Puritan; b. at Upper Heyford (6 m. w. of Northampton) in the latter half of 1587; d. at Preston-Capes (12 m. w.s.w. of Northampton) July 20, 1628. He was educated at King's College (1604-06) and Queen's College, Cambridge (1606-07), and became fellow at the latter, 1609. He took orders and became dean and catechist at Queen's. On the nomination of the duke of Buckingham, he was made chaplain to Prince Charles, preacher at Lincoln's Inn, and master of Emanuel College (1622). He was the chaplain-in-waiting at the death of King James I. (1625). In his closing years, his stanch Puritanism cost him the duke's patronage. As a preacher, he attracted great attention. He was also a vigorous defender of Calvinism. His writings were very popular; a few of which are: The New Covenant, or the Saints' Portion (London, 1629) ; The Saint's Daily Exercise (1629) ; and The Breastplate of Faith (1630).
Bibliography: The Life of the Renowned Doctor Preston, written by Thomas Ball in 1628, was abridged by Samuel Clarke and several times printed, e.g., in Lives of Thirtytwo English Divines, pp. 75 sqq., London, 1677, and is edited by E. W. Harcourt, Oxford, 1885. Consult further: D. Neal, Hist, of the Puritans, ed. J. Toulmin, ii. 124 sqq., 5 vols., Bath. 1793-97; B. Brooke, Lives of the
Puritans, ii. 356 sqq., 3 vols., London, 1813; DNB, xlvi. 308-312 (gives a list of twenty-four works).
PRESTON, THOMAS SCOTT: Roman Catholic; b. at Hartford, Conn., July 23, 1824; d. in New York Nov. 4, 1891. He was brought up in the Protestant Episcopal Church; was graduated from Trinity College, Hartford, 1843, and from the General Theological Seminary, New York, 1846; was ordained in 1846, and served as assistant rector at the Church of the Annunciation and subsequently at St. Luke's, both in New York City, till 1849, when he entered the Roman Catholic Church; he studied a year at St. Joseph's Seminary, Fordham, and was ordained priest in 1850; served as assistant at the cathedral in New York and at St. Mary's, Yonkers; became chancellor of the diocese of New York in 1853 and vicar-general in 1873, and was also rector of St. Anne's, New York, after 1861. Among his books are: Sermons for the Principal Seasons of the Sacred Year (New York, 1864); Christian Unity (1867); Reason and Revelation (1868); Christ and the Church (1870) ; Catholic View of the Public School System (1870); The Vicar of Christ (1871); Divine Paraclete: Sermons (1880) ; Protestantism and the Bible (1880); and God and Reason (1884).
PREUSCHEN, ERWIN FRIEDRICH WILHELM FERDINAND: German Protestant; b. at Lissberg (not far from Frankfort), Hesse, Jan. 8, 1867. He was educated at the University of Giessen (lie. theol., 1891), and after being an assistant to A. Harnack at Berlin in the preparation of his Bestand der altchristlichen Literatur (1S91-93); held various pastorates in Hesse-Darmstadt until 1897; was a teacher in a gymnasium at Darmstadt (1897- 1907), where he was appointed professor in 1907. In theology he holds that " an investigation of the original form of Christianity as an absolute religion is the only justifiable foundation of theological activity and Christian knowledge, such an investigation to be uninfluenced by philosophical categories and ecclesiastical dogmas." He has written Analekta, kurzere Texte zur Geschichte der alten Kirche und des Kanons (Freiburg, 1893); Palladius und Rufinus (Giessen, 1897); Antilegomena, die Reste der ausserkanonischen Evangelien und urchristlichen Ueberlieferungen (1901) ; Zwei gnostische Hymnen (1904); Leitfaden der biblischen Geographie (1904); Kirchengeschichte fur die deutsche Familie (Reutlingen, 1905); and Vollstandiges griechisch-deutschcs Handworterbuch zu den Schriften des N T (Giessen, 1908 sqq.). He has also edited Tertullian's De poznitentia et de pudicitia (Freiburg, 1891) and De prwscriptione hareticorum (1892), as well as Origen's commentary on St. John (Leipsic, 1903), while in 1900 he founded the Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, of which he has since been the editor. He has translated E. Hatch's Greek Ideas and Usages, their Influence upon the Christian Church (London, 1890) under the title Griechentum und Christentum (Freiburg, 1892) and the Armenian version of the sixth and seventh books of the church history of Eusebius (Leipsic, 1902).
PRICE, HORACE MACCARTIE EYRE: Church of England bishop; b. at Malvern (36 m. s.w. of
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