As in other areas of the Purple Horde, the church was largely needed to maintain education in these places. Even improving seeds and researching and introducing excellent crops are actually the traditional work of the church.
Zhu Wenkui told Guo Kang that he was puzzled by this situation. But Guo Kang thinks it's normal not to understand - he didn't understand it himself at first, but later he understood it when he thought about ancient times.
In order to explain this reason to Zhu Wenkui and others, he thought about this issue for a period of time, and finally decided to use an example from ancient times.
The church is a religious organization, but in ancient times, historians, wizards, Confucian scholars, and even musicians, these professions related to sacrifices, secretaries, etiquette, music, etc., were also integrated.
For example, "Shuowen Jiezi" says that Confucianism means sorcerer. Since the Yin and Shang Dynasties, there have been people responsible for presiding over various ceremonies, especially on important funeral occasions. These people who master etiquette rules and specialize in presiding over ceremonies for people are called "Confucians". Later, due to frequent contact with books and understanding of etiquette and culture, the scope of this term gradually expanded, and finally became a synonym for various scholars.
The same is true here in Europe. Those who manage religion must preside over ceremonies and sacrifices, and those who are responsible for presiding over these important ceremonial occasions must also take on other duties. If they want to manage sacrifices, they must have certain knowledge and the ability to educate and learn. Various etiquette rules also require a large number of records as support, and can be disseminated and promoted everywhere.
Therefore, when the church develops normally, it will naturally have both of these functions.
The only problem is that Europe is relatively backward. Compared with the Central Plains, they are still at the level of the three ancient generations.
But fortunately, their organizational ability is much stronger than that of Confucian scholars - in other words, according to the standards of the Central Plains, there are not even normal countries at the level of the three ancient generations. Contrary to the strict crackdowns on Taoist organizations in the past dynasties, the local government has neither the motivation nor the ability to prohibit these "Western Confucianists" from establishing organizations, and even has to support their organizations and allow them to maintain basic management order. In the end, it became what it is now.
If you deduce it from this perspective, you will understand why the church has so many additional functions.
Teaching is one of the most basic requirements for Confucian students in the Central Plains, and it is also a rare ancestral skill that is timeless in all eras. Here in Europe... we can't rely on illiterate tribal leaders to teach. Therefore, naturally only the church can build schools.
The same goes for the introduction of improved seeds and the selection and breeding of various high-yielding grains, cash crops and even bees. In the Central Plains, this is called "encouraging farmers", and it is a basic professional requirement for intellectuals in the government. However, as we all know, there is no government of this level in Europe... Therefore, related industries can only be left to the church.
Likewise, the church is one of the largest patrons of music and the arts. Europeans also have a need for "rituals and music". It is a misunderstanding on the same level as thinking that only people from the Central Plains are poor in etiquette, while Europeans do not pay attention to etiquette and hierarchy, and that they cannot bend their legs.
And it is naturally the church that provides this kind of talent support. Liu Bang had no Confucian scholars, but his ministers were just lax in their behavior; European kings had no church, and not only were there no ceremonies and music in the court, but there was no one who could count...
As for various ceremonies, including funerals, of course the church takes care of them. The church and early Confucian scholars were also on the same page regarding the importance of funeral rituals.
Even if you look at etiquette, music, books, and mathematics directly in the church, you can find that most of their functions overlap. As for the other two, it's not obvious. It's not that priests don't know how to do it - many remote places are extremely dangerous, and if you want to preach, you really need to have martial arts skills. But the church here really can't defeat the barbarian tribes, so these things have no sense of existence.
From this point of view, we can find that the church is actually an ancient witchcraft organization whose functions have not been separated. Although knowledge in all aspects has developed and changed, and today's society is more developed than the past three generations, the organizational capabilities of the secular government are so limited that even if these functions are divided, they cannot be separated and can only continue to work together. , squatting in the church frame…
After explaining it in this way, guests from the East can understand it.
In fact, grassroots priests not only preside over ceremonies and serve as teachers, but also often play the role of the third elder. Even during the rebellion, these people were the same core talents as the lower-class scholars in the Central Plains. Guo Kang had previously suspected that the English had no organizational skills, but that was a special case in England, not a common feature in Europe. In the German region and even Eastern Europe, it was very common for priests to take the lead in rebellion and war. This situation is brewing now, and will continue to occur in the next few hundred years.
In this way, it is easier to understand why the church thinks it can help when it is just a matter of purchasing raw materials.
Although the teachings of the Roman Church are very heretical in the eyes of other sects, the most important thing about the church is not these teachings, but its organization.
Lama Wang himself understands this very well. In the early years, when Guo Kang first went to church and tried to get support for his research, Lama Wang told him about it.
He told Guo Kang not to care too much about the scriptures and meanings, as long as he had a general understanding of those things. As a child of the war commander and a future leader, he should focus on more essential things.
What believers care about are the various public services provided by the church—of course, spiritual services are also very important. But the key point is the services themselves. All you need is a sutra that is reasonable and self-consistent. Ordinary people actually don’t think too deeply about it, so they don’t care which sutra you specifically talk about.
The so-called doctrine is actually a rule that is followed by everyone. Its greatest role is to establish a common belief across regions and organize people through common theological concepts and ritual rules.
——Like the countries in the Central Plains, they cannot rely on those barbarian countries, or the legitimacy of the barbarian countries must in turn rely on the churches they provide. They also need such a common concept to maintain the existence of the organization.
And many times, the accumulation of civilization here is far from enough to come up with the various methods in the Central Plains. I have no choice but to continue to work hard for Heavenly Father and Heavenly Brother...
Even the church hates heretics very much. To them, the pagans were the enemy, and everyone was aligned. But heresy will destroy this "common understanding" which is very rare and valuable in Europe.
Therefore, even if ordinary people may not understand the difference, the church still has to strike hard at heresy and strive to detect and eliminate it immediately in its budding stage. It seems to be much more sensitive than its counterparts in the Central Plains. In fact, this is also a very realistic reason.
(End of chapter)
