The suffering in the church subsided, and it only took a moment from the beginning to the end. The priests outside the church finally got up from the fire, congratulating each other that they had not been turned into human flesh and firewood, and then turned around and took various half-disabled items.
With the half-broken magic weapon, he cautiously entered the silent temple, but the only person he saw was Ji Xiang.
"Ma'am, what about the devil?"
A young priest asked in confusion. He looked around and saw no sign of the Balrog. The other priests around him also looked around fearfully, fearing that the Balrog was lurking somewhere in the cathedral.
Of course, the young priest had another guess that he had not said yet. He asked Ji Xiang for confirmation——
"Have the devil been surrendered by you? We just saw that the holy light seemed to erupt here..."
"Ah, you have been surrendered by me. I gained some insights from reading the scriptures I borrowed from you before, and I was lucky enough to cast this spell. The devil was easily obliterated by the light."
Ji Xiang lied with his eyes open, but the priests believed it because the holy light just erupted was too dazzling, and Ji Xiang was the only one left in the church at that time.
In addition, they know that Ji Xiang is one of the top group of people in Eastern Taoism. In terms of status, he is equivalent to a cardinal. He can understand their God's classics or be selected by God to become a new one.
Agent, these are all very reasonable things.
God needs devout believers. Even if this believer is originally a heretic, God will tolerate him tolerantly.
This is what the young priests think in their hearts. They are still very pure about the spread of faith and think it is simply about spreading good.
But the older priests were filled with turmoil in their hearts.
They backed away, then lowered their heads and talked to each other:
“God came from the West and chose His representative in the Far East, so who are we?”
“Following the missionaries across the ocean to spread the glory of the Lord, so that we can obtain a high status, wealth, glory, knowledge, and wisdom. Are these things that are easily available to us, all of them gone away?
Is it done?"
Originally, these priests really wanted to win over Ji Xiang. According to the old priest who was still smoking and unconscious, they wanted to pull the religious leaders here into the Catholic camp.
This would allow Catholicism to flourish in the Ming Dynasty. After all, there would be an official official to promote them.
but....
However, this kind of wooing and changing of beliefs is limited to the extent that the other party "will not be blessed by God himself." In other words, the priests never thought that a leader of a heretical religion would be so favored by his own gods, or even
Granting the other party the power of "Holy Light" is like treating the other party as a representative in the Far East.
So who are these people?
Are they brave pioneers who work hard to spread their faith, or cannon fodder who doesn't care if they die in the ocean?
"Maybe God has his own ideas."
An older priest’s brows were filled with gloom:
"But our status is about to plummet. Our interpretation of the scriptures comes from the teachings of the bishops. But if the 'apostle of God' came to the world and was a Far Easterner, he would really be able to fully understand our teachings.
The essence?”
But no matter how they discussed, there would be no result, because the owner of this church was Matteo Ricci, not the priests who came to Shuntian from Haojing, Aoxin.
Ji Xiang was communicating with the young priests. At the same time, his ears were slightly twitching, and he had already heard the whispers of the older priests. When the two sides looked at each other, these priests lowered their heads and did not dare to raise them.
, showing great respect for Ji Xiang.
"The final interpretation of foreign Western religions has fallen into the hands of a Far Easterner, which will hinder the spread of religion by missionaries. This result is not bad."
It was an unexpected benefit, and Ji Xiang was quite satisfied with it.
Just imagine, when a missionary or fanatic is spreading a doctrine, and as an "apostle" he goes to refute it, if the other party uses the Bible as a basis for justification, then he can directly show what "Christ God" means.
"Blessed" Holy Light comes.
From the mouths of these priests, we can know that with the status of "apostle", any explanation of doctrine is feeble. Only what the apostle says is the real "oracle".
Perhaps they have never thought that a foreign teacher would take away the right to interpret their own teachings.
This absurd feeling is just like Buddhism interpreting Taoist scriptures, military strategists interpreting peasant classics, and Shintoism interpreting the White Lotus Sect.
Those young priests, on the other hand, have a slightly simpler mind. They think that they came here and traveled across the ocean for lofty ideals and to spread truth, goodness and beauty. And it is also from these young priests that Ji Xiang can learn about the Holy Spirit.
Some facts about Po Loc College.
The base camp of missionaries in the Far East, the original station of the Unitarian Church here, has many missionaries, but according to the descriptions of these young priests, it seems that there have never been any Western priests at the level of "apostles".
"The agents of Christ and God are also called agents. Apostle is a respectful title. They can also use the words of the Holy Light, and their rank is obviously higher than that of missionaries."
"Perhaps, higher than those regional bishops."
The young priests told Ji Xiang that in the Holy See, a cardinal is not necessarily an apostle, but an apostle must be one of the cardinals, which gave Ji Xiang some doubts.
Whether it is the three religions or the alchemists, the reason why they have many followers is because they have various factions fighting with each other. Needless to say, there is no need to say more about the three religions. There are various factions in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and each faction has its own sects.
There are agents in the human world, and among the alchemists, there are also pre-Qin alchemists like Xu Fu, as well as the Han Dynasty alchemists represented by Dongfang Shuo, and behind them there are groups of alchemists from the Wei and Jin Dynasties. There are at least three categories.
However, in monotheistic religions, Christ God is the supreme and only God. If he is the agent sent by him, how can there be multiple agents gathered together?
Ji Xiang asked the reason in detail.
Soon, a learned young priest said excitedly:
"Although it is said that the Lord gave the apostles power, it is said that this large amount of blessings only emerged in the first two hundred years."
"About two hundred years ago, a large-scale death crusade was launched by rats. The gods of the old era had not appeared for a hundred years. Four dark shadows rode on war horses from the end of the earth and attacked, covering the entire Europe.
Under the darkness and clouds, rats gnaw at everything that can
Survival things, crows stand on the rotting corpses and howl, doctors with beaks in black are walking in the streets, the air is filled with dust and unknown gases, people who have been touched by rats will soon rot and die.
, there are more ghosts than living people.”
"At that time, the corrupt former Holy See took the Bible and declared to the world that the ancestors of mankind were Adam and Eve. Because they violated God's prohibition and ate the forbidden fruit of paradise, they committed a great sin, and sin came from then on.
We have entered the world, and everything we have experienced is to pay for the sins of our ancestors."
"They sell a kind of coupon, measure its value in money, and then give it to the buyer to atone for the sins of the world."
"But more and more people died, but the sins could never be repaid, so people began to attack the former Holy See and tear up indulgences. And just when the chaos broke out, the Lord came."
"After this terrible conquest, the Lord casts a concerned eye on us."
"The main purpose is to revive the corrupt and dark Holy See, and to wipe out all sins, wars, plagues, and famines from the earth. So God began to frequently give us and give revelations of wisdom to everyone who is still alive on the entire earth."
"The Lord has sent countless angels down to the world. Just as it is said in the Bible, angels will come down when believers are in danger. However, the shapes of angels are different from those in the Old Testament. Angels were depicted in all kinds of strange and weird shapes.
They look like men, but the angels who come to the world are all handsome and mighty."
"Florence is one of the cities that the Lord first paid attention to. Change began here, and a new era set sail. The devil was suppressed and crushed here, miracles were displayed here, and wisdom took root and sprouted here. In two hundred years,
Grow into a towering tree."
A group of old gods that have disappeared for hundreds of years.
The outbreak of the Black Death.
The arrival of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
religious reformation.
Renaissance.
At this time, Ji Xiang understood the cause of all this, but at the same time, his heart did not relax, and his expression became a little solemn.
Heaven’s state of mind performs miracles in person, which means that Christ God can directly intervene in the human world!
And before that, according to the description of the young priest, the chaos and corruption of the former Holy See had been going on for a long time, at least for more than a hundred years. During such a large window, no gods showed their power.
Until the emergence of this "Christ God".
Although Christianity has existed since ancient times, this sudden appearance of "Christ God" does not look like the "Christ" of the old times.
"It can't be the same situation as Longhu Mountain. The power of the ancestral Celestial Master has been turned into a god card, and generations of Celestial Masters have offered sacrifices with their wishes... Until two hundred years ago, a being with a heavenly state of mind appeared and completely assimilated it.
Having received the power of Christ, he considers himself to be the true form of Christ.”
"And all the demons in Florence were suppressed. When the Balrog appeared, he said this was not Florence..."
Ji Xiang felt more and more that the appearance of this Christian God was very strange, and that all the changes he brought about were exactly the "Renaissance".
In this plane, religious reform and outward expansion are driven by a heavenly state of mind. In addition to missionary work and colonization, there may be other purposes.
Ji Xiang faced the learned priest and asked again:
"Then, what kind of power did the angels have back then? Can they perform 'miracles' anytime and anywhere?"
The learned priest became excited when talking about this topic:
"Preachers need to spread the faith and glory of the Lord, and only believers can perform miracles. This is because God and man have an agreement. Angels are messengers of God, and apostles are apostles of angels and the Lord, so the miracles performed by apostles
Miracles are not simply called miracles, but are called 'miraculous power'."
"That is, specifying a thing so that it appears in the same state as what you describe. For example, an apostle said to a sinner: 'Whoever deceives the Lord is guilty, and such a person will die.' So the sinner
He would literally fall to the ground and die."
Ji Xiang's pupils shrank slightly.
Isn't this... the magical power of speaking the law?
How could a mere apostle be so powerful? Isn't this the level of a mortal? Generally speaking, earthly immortals cannot do such a thing.
Is it because of “Heaven’s Heart Blessing”?
"Did God give the apostles this power?"
"Yes, all the power of the apostles comes from the Lord. They believed in the Lord with a devout heart, and the Lord gave them the power to describe all things."
The learned priest spoke piously, and then continued to emphasize:
"But the power of angels is stronger than this. If the power of apostles is limited to 'describing' a single existence, then the power of angels can expand and implement this description to a large range of the world, and also
It is to describe and embody multiple existences.”
"For example, angels said that the mountains will move on their own, the sea will be calm, and the plague will subside within three days. Their words follow a certain law in the world, even if the probability of this law happening is small, under the orders of the angels
, will also be the biggest and achieve it.”
The priest's words made other priests look at him involuntarily and express their surprise:
"I've never heard of such a thing!"
"Father Pondy, where did you see all these things you mentioned?"
The other priests were surprised. They even blushed a little at this time. After all, they didn't even know everything about their own families.
"This is normal. Your Majesty the Pope will not teach you some classics on the surface. Besides, it is useless if you know these. As for me, I am just very interested in it."
Ji Xiang figured out the abilities of these angels, and couldn't help but look at the "Zhen Wu Er First Book" in his hand.
Zhenwuer's ability to write a letter sounds like it can restrain these angels and apostles. After all, it changes the opponent's state of existence. If the power is borrowed from Christ God, it can be directly covered with Zhenwuer's letter, so that the other party cannot borrow it.
It's over now.
but....
What if there are more than one angel and apostle, but your own wish reserve is not enough?
"Let's... build more temples."
This is a good idea, but it is not an easy thing to do. In the Ming Dynasty, if you wanted to build a temple for a certain person or god on a large scale, you had to get the approval of the Forbidden City. Even in a place like Nanhai, where Dharma and teachings were prosperous, it was the only place with such temples.
The only deity worshiped by all religious sects, and also granted the seal of the Forbidden City... is Mazu, the Concubine of Heaven.
Ji Xiang couldn't help but have his mind set on the young missionaries in front of him.
If we talk about missionary work, this group of Western priests can obviously make good use of it.
Monotheism can be spread.
Can a demon sect also be taught?
But how to influence their scriptures must start from St. Paul's College. The scriptures and chapters used by these priests all flowed from there.
So at this time, we have to use the "Inner Demon Return Technique"——