Christianity has a long tradition of holy relics. Countless people in history have been obsessed with holy relics and have spent vast amounts of manpower and material resources searching for them, hoping to use them to assert their authority and endorse their ideas, and to obtain various benefits from them.
Divine power, like immortality, like resurrection from the dead.
In modern times, due to the overwhelming propaganda of the entertainment media, especially thanks to Hollywood, the world's number one propaganda tool, even many people who know nothing about Christianity have unknowingly become interested in the Christian tradition of sacred objects.
understood.
For example, in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" directed by Spielberg, Dr. Indiana Jones, played by Harry Senford, walks around the world with a whip, fighting with Nazis in a battle of wits and courage to find the legendary Ark of the Covenant for the US government.
Legend has it that the Ark of the Covenant was a cabinet made of gold and acacia wood under the guidance of God. Inside were placed two tablets of the Ten Commandments. They were the covenant between God and the Israelites and were the only handwriting left by God. Any touch
Anyone who touches the Ark of the Covenant will die immediately.
Another example is Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code". Professor Robert Langdon used his serious nonsense to reinterpret the Holy Grail. He interpreted it from a real cup to a blood descendant of Jesus and Magdalene.
The Holy Grail in traditional legend refers to the cup Jesus used in the Last Supper. It is said that drinking from this cup can lead to immortality.
Other famous ones are the shrouds that are said to have wrapped the body of Jesus Christ. There are about 40 of them around the world.
The fragments of Jesus' martyrdom cross, whether real or fake, are probably enough to build a house in the world.
The sacred object I am looking for does not derive its sacredness from gods and saints, nor does it come from legends. It may be the only sacred object whose sacredness comes from itself, and it is the foundation of Christianity.
, it is the "Bible Canon".
To understand the importance of the Bible to Christianity and the meaning of "canon", we must start with Judaism, the predecessor of Christianity.
There are two important differences between Judaism and many other religions in the Roman Empire at that time:
First, other religions in the Roman Empire at that time were polytheistic. They believed in and worshiped various gods and built various temples for them. Judaism, on the other hand, was a monotheistic belief and they only obeyed the only God.
Both, polytheistic beliefs at that time did not advocate learning doctrines and norms from books. They worshiped gods almost entirely through rituals and sacrificial acts. Judaism, on the other hand, emphasized the traditions, customs and laws of the ancestors, and believed that
These are all recorded in sacred books. The most important of them, considered canonical, is the current Hebrew Bible, which is the first half of the Christian Bible, the Old Testament.
Christianity was born out of Judaism and inherited this ancient tradition. From the beginning, Christianity was a religion of scriptures, and they regarded sacred books as the source of divine authority.
And the reason why I say that the sanctity of the canon comes from itself is because it is not a sacred text given by God, flawless, and cannot be changed one word at a time.
If you are as proficient in Greek, Latin, Syriac and Coptic as I am, then it is easy to find countless differences among the many manuscripts of the Bible. Just the New Testament texts alone are different.
There can even be tens of thousands of differences between manuscripts.
Therefore, the Bible is actually a text that is constantly evolving and absorbing. This process lasted for hundreds of years after the martyrdom of Jesus before it gradually became stable. But in fact, this process is still continuing today.
It is a very interesting perspective to study history by examining the changes in the manuscripts of the Bible and sorting out their evolution.
Talking back to the "canon", as the most widely circulated book in the world, from a linguistic point of view, you can call the Bible you are holding in your hand canon, or it can be said to refer to all Bibles.
a concept of.
And what I mean by "canon" refers to the concept between reality and fiction that all believers believe in. It is not only an illusory concept, but also the gathering point of all believers' beliefs, gathering together the infinite divine power of real existence.
This power is fickle and may reside in any Bible. The last time a materialized "canon" appeared with certainty was in Constantinople.
Since Emperor Constantine established Constantinople as the capital in 330 AD, with the support of the royal power, the city's bishops gradually gained supreme authority second only to the pope. Later, they were called "Constants".
Archbishop of Tantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch".
The struggle between divine power and divine power, the confrontation between divine power and royal power, the relationship between them is worth thinking about.
I unbelievably decoded clues about the "canon" in that Taoist document. It was at the beginning of the eighth century AD. The document used extremely clever techniques to hide Constantinople, Nestorianism, the devil,
Canon and other keywords.
By the way, I would like to mention Nestorianism to you, please don’t dislike my verbosity. Nestorius, the founder of Nestorianism, once served as the Patriarch of Constantinople. Although he soon became famous for advocating Jesus
His ideas of separating man from God and depriving the Virgin Mary of her divinity were labeled as heretics, and she eventually fled to Egypt and died in a foreign country.
However, it should be noted that Nestorianism was the first Christian sect to enter China. In the ninth year of Zhenguan reign of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, Nestorianism had entered China. Until it was affected by Wu Zong's extermination of Buddhism, it had developed quite a lot during this period.
Some results.
If what those Taoist documents say is true, combined with my past research, I have reason to believe that the materialized "canon" once appeared in China during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty through some secret channels. Following this line of thinking
, I have the potential to be the closest thing to "canon" in the world.
I have deciphered most of the contents in those documents. Only "devil", I have difficulty understanding its exact meaning. Is it a code or some kind of nickname? Or is there really a literal devil? I
I am convinced that this will be the key to revealing the traces of the "canon". It is to explore this secret that I came to Istanbul.
Thanks to the connections of those people, I will soon be allowed to enter the library of Muhammad II, which only exists in legend. I believe that I can compare the documents in it and find the clues I want. Of course, from that vast collection of books
Finding what I want will be a long-term and extremely hard work. Although I have some clues, I may still find nothing in my life.
However, my child, it may be difficult for you to understand that my pursuit of "canon" is not for faith, nor is it to seek that majestic divine power. For me, the work itself is enough to make my blood boil.
My child, please don’t blame me. It’s because compared to sex, appetite, etc., the desire for knowledge is the ultimate human desire that is difficult to resist. I am its slave, and I can no longer look back.