Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 334

In these places, as in other parts of the Purple Horde, the church was largely needed to maintain education.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 very puzzled by this situation.But Guo Kang thinks it’s normal not to understand—he himself didn’t understand it at the beginning, but later he understood it when he thought about ancient times.

In order to explain this reason to Zhu Wenkui and others, he specially thought about this issue for a while, 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 industries related to sacrifices, secretaries, etiquette, music, etc., were also integrated.

For example, "Shuowen Jiezi" says that Confucianism means a warlock.Since the Yin and Shang Dynasties, there have been people who have been responsible for presiding over various ceremonies, especially on important occasions of funerals.Those who master the rules of etiquette and preside over ceremonies for people are called "Confucians".Later, because of frequent contact with books and understanding of etiquette culture, the scale of this noun gradually expanded, and finally became a synonym for various scholars.

And it's the same 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 hold other positions.If they want to manage sacrifices, they must have certain knowledge and the ability to educate and learn.And various etiquette rules also need a lot of records as support, and can be spread and promoted everywhere.

Therefore, when the church develops normally, it will naturally have 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 is not even a normal country at the level of the three generations of ancient times.Contrary to the strict crackdown on Taoist organizations in the past dynasties, the local government has neither the motivation nor the ability to prohibit these "Western Confucians" from establishing organizations, and even has to support their organizations so that they can maintain basic management order.In the end, it became what it is now.

Deduce from this angle, you will know why the church has so many additional functions.

Teaching is one of the most basic requirements of Confucian scholars in the Central Plains, and it is also a rare ancestral skill that is timeless in all ages.On the European side...you can't expect those illiterate tribal leaders to teach.Therefore, the establishment of schools is naturally only done by the church.

The same is true for the introduction of improved species and the selection and breeding of various high-yield grains, economic crops and even bees.In the Central Plains, this is called "persuading farmers", which is the basic occupational requirement for intellectuals in the government. However, as we all know, there is no government of this level in Europe... so related industries can only be left to the church.

Likewise, the church is one of the greatest patrons of music and the arts.Europeans also have the need for "rituals and music". It is a misunderstanding of the same level to think that only the Central Plains people are poor and pay attention to etiquette levels, and that Europeans do not pay attention to etiquette levels, and that they cannot bend their legs.

Naturally, it is the church that provides this kind of talent support.Liu Bang has no Confucian scholars, and the ministers just don’t pay attention to their behavior; the European kings have no church, not only there are no festivals and music in the court, but even no one who can count...

As for various ceremonies, including funerals, of course, the church also arranges them all.In terms of the importance of funeral rites, the church and the early Confucian scholars are the same thing.

Even if you directly look at the rituals, music, books, and numbers, and face the church, you can find that most of their functions overlap.As for the other two, it is not obvious.It's not that priests don't know how - many remote places are extremely dangerous, and if you want to preach, you really need to have martial arts.But the church here really can't beat the barbarian tribes, so these things don't have any sense of existence.

From this point of view, it can be found that the church is actually an ancient witchcraft organization whose functions have not been separated.Although all aspects of knowledge have developed and changed, and the current society is more developed than the three generations of ancient times, the organizational capabilities of the secular regime are too stretched, causing these functions to be differentiated, and they cannot be separated. They can only continue to hold together , squatting in the church frame...

After explaining it in this way, the guests from the east can understand it.

In fact, grassroots priests do not only preside over ceremonies, act as teachers, but also often play the role of three elders.Even at the time of the rebellion, these people belonged to the core talents just like the lower-class scholars in the Central Plains.Guo Kang previously suspected that the English had no organizational skills, but that was a special case of England, not a common feature in Europe—in Germany and even Eastern Europe, it is very common for priests to take the lead in rebellion and war.This situation is brewing now, and it will continue to emerge in the next few hundred years.

In this way, it is easy to understand why the church thinks it can help when it is only 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 part of the Church is not these teachings, but its organization.

Lama Wang himself understood very well.In the early years, when Guo Kang first went to the church and tried to get support to do research, Lama Wang told him.

He told Guo Kang not to care too much about the scriptures, as long as he has a general understanding of those things. As a child of the Warmaster and a future leader, he should pay attention to more essential things.

What believers care about is the various public services provided by the church—of course, spiritual services are also very important.But the key point is the services themselves.As long as you have a reasonable and self-consistent sutra, ordinary people actually don’t think too deeply, and they don’t care which sutra you specifically talk about.

The so-called doctrine is actually a rule to be followed in common.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 in other words, the legitimacy of the barbarian countries has to rely on the churches they provide. They also need such a common idea to maintain the existence of the organization.

In many cases, the accumulation of civilization here is far from enough, and it is impossible to come up with various methods in the Central Plains.I have no other choice but to continue to work hard on Heavenly Father and Heavenly Brother...

It is even true that the Church hates heresy very much.For them, heretics are the obvious enemy, and everyone is already in line.But heresy will destroy this "common understanding" that is very rare and valuable in Europe.

So even if ordinary people may not understand the difference, the church still has to fight hard against heresy, trying to find and eliminate it at the embryonic stage immediately. Compared with its counterparts in the Central Plains, it seems to be much more sensitive.In fact, this is also a very practical reason.

(End of this chapter)