Tang Ruowang got his wish and soon met Pope Innocent X. As soon as they met, he was startled by the Pope's appearance.
The Pope had the most ferocious and cunning appearance that Tang Ruowang had ever seen. His face was asymmetrical, with a bald forehead. He looked somewhat deformed and even more ferocious and violent.
The Pope is wearing a white robe, a red shawl, and a red hat on his head, sitting upright in the audience hall of the Vatican Palace. Standing next to him was a cardinal with an elegant appearance and a gentle expression.
After calming down for a while, Tang Ruowang walked to the Pope's seat, knelt down and kissed the Pope's boots, then kissed the back of the Pope's outstretched palm, and then called him in Latin: "Holy Father."
"Brother John, welcome back to Rome," the pope's voice was a little hoarse. "The President of the Society of Jesus has told me... that the cause of spreading the gospel has encountered some difficulties in the East?"
"Holy Father, we have encountered huge difficulties!" Tang Ruowang looked very painful. He still believed that Zhu Cihong had seen angels and that what happened to Ming Dynasty in the past few years was a miracle.
But Catholicism was in big trouble in the Ming Dynasty, no, not just in the Ming Dynasty, but in the entire Eastern world.
The Pope thought for a while and asked: "But the number of churches and believers is growing!"
Zhu Cixi's open policy is certainly beneficial to the spread of Catholicism in China, so the data sent to the Pope by the Jesuits and Dominicans is very good.
The number of churches and believers has been increasing year after year, and the missionary situation looks good.
But this growth has no quality - most of the growth is "free customers", and it is difficult to convert into "paying customers". So Catholicism does face huge difficulties in the Eastern world!
This Catholic Church relies on tithes and donations from believers to maintain its operation. If the members are all poor people at the bottom, then the church will not be able to survive!
Tang Ruowang shook his head: "Holy Father, we will soon face a serious crisis of faith!"
The Pope was a little surprised and asked: "What? A crisis of faith? Is it that serious?"
"Yes!" Tang Ruowang replied, "For China's missionary work, the crisis will be fundamental!"
"A fundamental crisis?" the pope asked. "What happened?"
Tang Ruowang took out a copy of "Zi Lun Ge Wu Pian" written in Latin and handed it to the Pope with both hands. "Holy Father, this is an ancient Chinese philosophical work that has just been discovered. It is the work of Confucius in his life. What he wrote in the last few years... is of very high value, but for unknown reasons, it has not been handed down. It was not until recently that Confucius's tomb was robbed by the Tatar regent Dorgon, and the remains were discovered. The buried bamboo slips record the contents of "Zi Lun Ge Wu Pian"."
Dorgon has taken another step forward and become a leader in the international kickboxing world!
"How can a philosophical work..."
The Pope took the Latin version of "On the Investigation of Things" and read a few pages. "It looks a bit like Aristotle..." He thought for a moment, "There is also something like this in Europe. Maybe it's a little bit of a threat to faith, but not a crisis."
If you compare the status of Catholicism and Orthodoxy in European social life before and after the Renaissance, he would not say this!
"Holy Father," Tang Ruowang shook his head, "As a servant of the Lord who has a deep understanding of Chinese Confucianism, I am very aware of the great significance of "Zi Lun Ge Wu Chapter" to Confucianism. Confucianism will have the tools to explore God!"
"Search for God!" The pope's originally fierce face suddenly became very ferocious, "This is blasphemy against the Lord!"
According to Catholic regulations, Christians cannot bypass God's servants to communicate with God themselves.
"Holy Father," Tang Ruowang nodded and said, "But Chinese Confucianism doesn't think so? They believe that there is some mysterious connection between God and man that we don't know. They call it: the unity of heaven and man.
And exploring God's behavior is what they call: understanding through reason.
They believe that everything is rational, that is, everything is the same as human beings and has some kind of connection with the House of the Lord. God can be found by studying all things. They call it: studying things to achieve knowledge. "
Van Diemen and the Dutch profiteers all knew the tricks Zhu Cihong had done, let alone Tang Ruowang? Tang Ruowang just didn't say it in front of Zhu Cixiang, but he couldn't hide the matter from the Pope under any circumstances.
He said in a solemn tone: "Although Confucianism has always been exploring the principles of heaven, in the past more than a thousand years, due to the loss of "Zi Lun Ge Wu Chapter", Chinese Confucian scholars did not have the tools to explore all things to reach God. This caused Confucianism to stagnate, and some people among them had doubts about the line of "studying things to gain knowledge through exhaustive principles", which allowed the spread of the gospel of God.
And the knowledge of natural philosophy is also spread together with the gospel of God, because Chinese Confucian scholars have not completely abandoned the arrogant idea of "studying things to gain knowledge through exhaustive reasoning". But now, they have better tools! This means that the universal church will encounter a huge crisis throughout East Asia! "
Exploring the principles of nature, or exploring the great road, or searching for God, Allah, etc., has always been one of the driving forces for the development of science!
Confucianism’s enthusiasm for seeking truth and truth is by no means worse than that of the three Apocalypse religions. It is believed that Confucianism does not pay attention to natural philosophy, so the reason for China’s technological backwardness is basically because they have never read any Confucian classics...
In fact, Confucians also have "ultimate questions" and want to explore the truth of all things in the universe. Moreover, Confucians also know that all things have reason, and they must examine all things to gain knowledge.
But the problem is that Confucianism has needs but no tools, so needs cannot be converted into motivation.
"Why the whole of East Asia?" The cardinal standing next to the Pope suddenly interrupted.
"Brother John," the Pope pointed at the cardinal and said to John Tang, "he is Brother Fabio Chigi, the cardinal in charge of the diplomatic affairs of the Holy See."
"Is it Jiji from Siena?" Tang Ruowang asked.
The Chigi family of Siena is one of the few wealthy families in Rome, a financial family and extremely rich. Later, the official residence of the Prime Minister of the Italian Republic was called Palazzo Chigi, which was their original old house.
"Exactly." The red archbishop nodded, "Brother John, can you answer my question?"
"Cardinal," Tang Ruowang replied, "because China is the Rome of the East, a kingdom of heaven, and has extraordinary influence east of Malacca!"
"But isn't this country already in decline?" asked the cardinal.
"It's just a temporary weakness," Tang Ruowang said. "Once the Ming Dynasty cheers up, its former vassals will soon return to its side.
Moreover, the Ming Dynasty has begun to cheer up. In order to find a way out and food for the surplus population, they have begun to return to the ocean. Now, Annan and Siam have returned and become vassals of the Celestial Dynasty! "
"Excessive population? How many?" asked the cardinal.
"One hundred and thirty million... In just eight provinces including Four Rivers, Two Lakes, Fujian and Guangdong, a land roughly the same size as France and Spain combined, there are 120 million people!"
"So many people!"
"Oh God! How can we have enough food in such a small space?"
The pope and the cardinal were shocked and crossed themselves.
France has a population of just over 16 million, and the two "red prime ministers" Richelieu and Mazarin have always been worried about the French people's problem of eating bread. The 120 million is almost the total population of France and Spain. Six times that, it’s only a small amount of space, what if we don’t grab it? And robbing cannot rely solely on swords, but must also be combined with faith and culture!
The expansion of Ming Dynasty will inevitably lead to the expansion of Confucianism!
"With overpopulation and the truth in hand, it is natural to look for a way out!" Tang Ruowang said, "So the cause of the universal church in the East will face a great crisis!"
