Crusade against the Pope

Chapter 328: Religious Reformation is to reduce the price of atonement

The sentence "eat meat and drink cheese, and do not engage in planting" often appears in ancient books of the Celestial Empire. In fact, it is the Celestial Empire's stereotyped prejudice against nomads.

The vast majority of herdsmen actually have certain farming habits.

For example, Tajik herders, in addition to herding sheep, goats and yaks, also grow barley and wheat.

They usually start grazing their livestock on summer pastures in the mountains after planting in the spring, and occasionally send people to water or weed before the autumn harvest.

In autumn, the herders from the summer pastures bring their herds back to the fields to harvest, and in winter they leave again to live in the winter pastures at the foot of the mountain.

Poor shepherds often cooperate with rich shepherds.

Rich herders had more livestock, so even after they had sown seeds and planted the land, they had to leave for summer pastures.

Poor herders, on the other hand, have smaller herds and can graze nearby, so they can stay on the farm and take care of their own and other people's fields.

When the rich shepherd returns, he will give part of his harvest to the poor shepherds.

As for the Yuktu tribe where Gailis is currently located, it has retained a certain concept of tribal public property.

The large piece of farmland where he was located was not allocated to any individual, but was regarded as clan property. Each household sent people to cultivate and harvest the land together, and then the crops were distributed equally among the households.

This model, for this era, is not really unorthodox.

In fact, there is relatively little extreme disparity between the rich and the poor within nomadic tribes.

It can even be said that the identities of individual nomads and individual farmers are often exchanged.

For example, when a nomad's herd is large enough, he or she will have the opportunity to go to the city to set up business, or buy land in the countryside and escape from his or her previous life of sleeping in the open air.

Serfs and tenant farmers who were extremely poor often fled to the grasslands on their own initiative in order to escape the labor of their lords and the government and the usury of landlords.

Therefore, compared with farming areas, the internal conflicts among pastoral groups are not particularly intensified, nor are they completely ignorant of agricultural farming.

For them, life is not just about wandering around with the sheep, farmland is actually their place of residence during spring and autumn.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, many tribes would gather together to exchange information, hold festivals, and provide opportunities to arrange marriages between men and women.

Now it is already October.

Almost all the people of the Yuktu tribe came to the junction of the foot of the mountain and the grassland.

Although most of them were still afraid of Garys.

After all, there were Osman's people who witnessed Geiris's massacre in Erzurum with their own eyes, and boasted about it as a legendary story.

Many people who have had little contact with Garys have already regarded him as a legend that cannot be messed with.

But the farmland here is indeed intact under Garys' care.

You know, although the arable land area here is not large, it is still dozens of feddan, which is about a few hundred acres of land.

The per-acre yield of these fields is extremely low.

All the grain added up was only a little over 20,000 pounds, and if distributed evenly among each household in the Yuktu tribe, it would only be 300 to 400 pounds of grain.

Although the amount is not large, it is the tribe's savior during the winter.

The harvested wheat straw can be used as fodder to feed livestock.

Barley, wheat, and rye can be used as concentrated feed to supplement nutrition for pregnant ewes in winter.

The flour ground from wheat can be made into cakes and used as dry food during migration to winter pastures.

When winter is over, there will be enough wheat left to feed people and provide enough seeds to sow in the fields.

It can be said that Gellis saved their tribe from the predicament of declining herds.

Faced with such a legendary figure who has done favors for the tribe, during the festival after the autumn harvest, young girls in love would often come to express their love.

But they were basically all turned away and rejected by Arsalan.

But there are occasional accidents, such as the tribal girl who came to Gellis's hut.

After Arslan told the other party that Gairis already had a wife and daughter and had no plans to have another wife.

Unexpectedly, the girl with a slightly shy face directly stuffed a scarf embroidered with knotted ropes and birds into Arsalan's hands, then turned around and ran away.

It seemed that the girl felt that it was very embarrassing that she was mistakenly thought to be looking for Garys.

After a while, when Gailis came out of the house, he saw Arsalan standing there, and then saw the back of the girl running towards the village.

Then he noticed the scarf in Arsalan's hand and had the answer in his mind.

Then Gairis tapped Arslan on the shoulder, waking him up.

At this time Arsalan said: "I suddenly realized something..."

"what?"

"Many girls have proposed to me before...but I never seemed to give them a chance to explain their intentions..."

Garys rolled his eyes and didn't want to say anything.

Although Arsalan is not a blockhead, he is also very slow in this regard.

If what just happened is correct, perhaps many of the girls who came before were actually looking for Arsalan.

Actually, it is normal to think about it. After all, no matter what, even if Garris looks younger, he is actually 30 years old. In this era, he is a definite uncle.

It is not ruled out that there will be some years of control, like Garys, but it should not be too many.

On the contrary, Arsalan, as the son of the tribal leader, was young and strong, and he was brave and fearless, not to mention his handsome young face.

In addition, Osman's status in the Bey Kingdom is now at its peak, and many families should regard him as a hot commodity and want to marry him.

However, Arsalan had rejected all the girls too quickly before, without even bothering to make a careful distinction.

Now that he has figured it out, Arsalan feels a little regretful.

Patting Arsalan on the shoulder again, Gailis returned to the cabin.

In the days after the autumn harvest, Gellis not only sorted out some technical information to facilitate the transition from nomadic to settled life.

Gellis was also thinking about something more important. During the Jerusalem period, there were systematic Christian churches in Transjordan, Tyre, Cyprus, Tripoli, and other places.

After finding a way to recruit them, Gellis easily obtained a group of religious people with a certain level of knowledge.

Although those religious figures are not so reliable, at least they are organized and can be used to help spread Garys theology.

But after arriving in Anatolia, Gailis discovered that not only had the Christian system collapsed, but even the Islamic system was not sound.

The long-term war caused extremely serious damage to Anatolia, and the Islamization of the Turks was not thorough enough.

Therefore, Gaillis found that he might not be able to find anyone available for a while.

Doing it yourself now, having enough food and clothing, and teaching from scratch is certainly one way, but the efficiency is really too low.

As for asking Antiochus to send people to support, that is naturally one way, but Garys is not a person who will sit and wait for things to be done.

Therefore, during this period, Gellis was also reviewing religious history and thinking about countermeasures.

First of all, although Gillis is a religious prophet, he is not very fond of the integration of church and state.

According to some of Gellis's early ideas, the soul should belong to God and the body should belong to the secular world. The purpose of the Taiping Sect's existence is to make the secular world a kind of heaven.

To allow the secular world to have a kind of heaven, this means that we do not want the rule of a religious group to be heaven.

Out of distrust of the abilities of future generations, Gellis does not intend to give the Order too much authority in theology.

But no matter what, this is the Reformation.

As for the Reformation, historically speaking, regardless of country or period, there is actually a peculiar commonality.

The common point is that after the Reformation, the sects that were able to gain missionary advantages actually lowered the threshold for indulgences.

The most classic one is Martin Luther's Reformation in the 16th century.

At that time, the Catholic Church widely sold indulgences. Believers only needed to pay money to obtain forgiveness of their sins, and could even atone for the sins of their deceased relatives.

Faced with such a low threshold for salvation, Martin Luther published the "Ninety-Five Theses" in 1517, opposing the indulgence system and emphasizing justification by faith.

From another perspective, it can actually be understood that Martin Luther believed that paying money to atone sins was too high a threshold, and that it would be better to get it for free.

Other Catholic religious reforms of the same period were also like this, beginning to abandon the concept of indulgences and emphasizing that salvation can be obtained through faith and repentance.

Coincidentally, the rise of Islamic Sufism actually proves Gellis's idea.

In early Islam, orthodoxy (such as the early Caliphate) emphasized observance of religious law (Sharia) and good deeds in exchange for God's forgiveness.

Then Sufism arose between the 9th and 13th centuries, advocating a direct approach to God through love and devotion rather than strict religious law or pilgrimage.

The actual manifestation is that one can be forgiven by reciting the name of Allah, which greatly lowers the threshold and allows Islam to spread to a wide range of areas. This was even more true when the Wahhabi reform emerged in the 18th century...

As for Buddhism, early Buddhism also emphasized precepts and meditation, requiring practitioners to practice for a long time to achieve liberation.

Later, some sects believed that just saying "Amitabha" could lead to rebirth in the Pure Land.

It can be said that almost all religions that have become widely popular have entered a situation where their doctrines are constantly being degraded, simplified, and made easier to spread in order to attract more believers.

The lower-class believers do not need to understand the true doctrine at all, they believe that they can be reborn and saved.

However, those sects that still cannot bring themselves to lower the threshold of "indulgences" often disappear easily in history.

You know, when faced with the Protestant Reformation, Catholicism also took the initiative to reform in order to adapt to the changes of the times.

However, although history gave Gillis the answer, he was very, very cautious about this method.

After all: [The suffering in religion is both a manifestation of real suffering and a protest against this real suffering. Religion is the sigh of oppressed souls, humanity in a world without humanity, and soul in a situation without soul. It is the opium of the people.]

Ma's criticism of religion is not to say that religion itself is inherently harmful, but to criticize religion for hindering people's understanding of the cruel reality and giving the cold reality a warm covering.

This causes the final battle between good and evil to be postponed and delayed all the time...

As for what future generations think and do, Gellis has no control over it.

But for Gillis himself, the ends and the means must be clearly distinguished.

Gellis's purpose is definitely not to package this universe with an average temperature of only minus 270.42 degrees Celsius. For him, using religion as a tool to strongly push mankind to take a few steps towards the universe is his pursuit.

Man is the end and religion is the means.

If one deceives people in order to ensure the continuation of the cult, this would be putting the cart before the horse.

What’s the point of putting the cart before the horse?

A body without a soul is just a walking corpse.

Therefore, it is impossible for Garys to lower the threshold indefinitely, at least he can't.

After thinking for such a long time, some ideas in Gailis' mind gradually solidified.

Gellis does not want his Order to be a hotbed of narcotic reality, but rather a torch for human action.

His religion should not be a "destination" where people arrive and then stop, but should be the starting point of a journey through which people move forward.

In this way, he can use religion as a tool without letting religion itself numb the human "soul".

But the reality is that this is indeed the case, so he needs to find a balance between lowering the threshold to expand influence and maintaining the real power of faith.

First, Gellis divides believers into two precise categories.

One is for the general public. For this type of believers, Gellis wants to reverse some of their subconscious thoughts and condense the sect's beliefs into "practical beliefs", that is, the core of faith is not to obtain salvation through prayer or rituals, but to gain a sense of value through participating in actions.

Faith is not about waiting for happiness in the afterlife, but about driving people to create a better world.

It is to encourage believers to participate in social construction, such as building schools, hospitals, factories... so that their "faith" can be reflected in their labor and contribution, rather than just ritual prayers.

To put it simply, it means: labor creates man himself and gives labor theological meaning.

On the other hand, we need to spread those ideas that are more prominent, progressive, and forward-looking.

It should not only be printed into books, but also be easy to remember and penetrate into all aspects of social culture.

Whether it is nursery rhymes, dramas, or any other form of art, as long as it is culture that comes into contact with the people, it should be infused with Gellis's theology.

(End of this chapter)