Crusade against the Pope

Chapter 418: Debate on Easter (Part )

Easter is not a fixed date. According to the calculation method, it should be the first Sunday after the full moon after the vernal equinox.

Sunday is the day for worship and mass.

In theory, there is no problem with this, but the fatal point is that the Julian calendar itself has errors.

The vernal equinox was originally measured on March 3 in the Julian calendar, but as time goes by, the Julian calendar now has an error of a full 21 days.

In other words, there is a one-week difference between the Easter in the astronomical sense and the Easter in the original calendar.

What’s even more intriguing is that the day when Gellis was resurrected in the night rain was actually Easter in the astronomical sense.

The impact of this coincidence on the Jerusalem Church was not discovered until 1200, when Gellis announced the renewal of the calendar, and people were quite surprised.

This gave the Jerusalemites a new reason to celebrate Easter, but of course, the reason was completely different from the past.

Due to historical issues, when Christianity emerged, the time of their martyrdom of Jesus was actually no longer verifiable. We can only speculate that it occurred during the Jewish Passover celebration.

According to several gospel accounts, both the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus occurred during the week of Passover, so early Christians placed the annual celebration of Jesus' resurrection during Passover.

But Passover is a Jewish holiday after all, and the church did not want to rely entirely on the Jewish calendar, so it decided to establish a calculation method based on astronomical laws but independent of the Jewish calendar.

This also marks the independence of Christianity.

Theologically speaking, Easter celebrates the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Paul wrote that for those who believe in Jesus’ death and resurrection, “death has been swallowed up in victory.”

1 Peter declares that God has given believers “new life to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Christian theology holds that through faith in God’s actions, those who follow Jesus are spiritually resurrected with Him, allowing them to embark on a new way of life, gain eternal salvation, and hope for a physical resurrection to live with Him in heaven.

Garys has also made discussions and systematic explanations on Easter. From Garys' theological perspective, Easter is not only a testimony of Christians' faith in God's victory over death, but also a symbol of theological protest and hope against all historical oppression systems.

Tianxiong’s death was not an accidental tragedy, but a political murder by the imperial power and religious system to suppress those who uphold the truth. The resurrection of Jesus was the ultimate negation of this oppressive system and a historic victory from the bottom up.

Gellis also reorganized early Christian theology to prove his own correctness.

He quotes early church fathers such as Tertullian, a founder of Christianity, saying that "the blood of Christ is the seed of the Church," and extends a paradoxical view of victory: oppression cannot destroy truth, but rather promotes its rise.

In his own Jerusalem Theology, Gellis wrote: "The faith of Easter allows us to affirm that history is open and the future is possible."

Gellis emphasizes that Tianxiong's resurrection is not a transcendence of individual death, but a complete reversal of the fate of the entire oppressed group.

From this position, Jerusalemist theology defines Easter as a sign of hope held by the marginalized, the crucified, those who suffer, whether because of race, class, gender or colonial history.

It symbolizes liberation on earth, foreshadowing that "the Lord has risen" and "the kingdom of heaven has come", and injustice will no longer be allowed to persist.

The resurrection is therefore not just a metaphysical event; it is a revolution in history, heralding the advent of another world order.

This means that Easter not only calls people to believe in miracles, but also calls people to participate in the liberation project that is heavenly but takes place in the human world.

The meaning of Easter is therefore twofold: it is both a hope for a new heaven and a new earth in the future and a criticism and response to the current historical situation.

The empty tombs are not a myth to escape reality, but a challenge to reality, meaning that the abandoned will be remembered, the despised will be exalted, and the kingdoms of the oppressors will crumble like dust.

Of course, the more subtle point is that the above content is all Gillis’s own explanation.

In fact, there were more than just Gelis, the theologians of the Jerusalem Church. Iraklius also explained it from another perspective.

This old immortal Iraklius is still alive and well after his contemporaries have passed away one by one.

Although he is no longer the Patriarch of Jerusalem, he still has a group of loyal supporters and has made a name for himself in the Jerusalem Patriarchate.

If not for anything else, just based on his age, it is truly unbelievable.

After all, Irakliou is 73 years old this year.

In a sense, such a long life seems to be a blessing from God for ordinary believers.

Iraklius was from Gevaudan in Auvergne, France. Like William of Tyre, the historian of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, he graduated from the University of Bologna (the world's first university from the European and American perspective).

As a man who had received a complete university education and was an excellent student wherever he went in that era, Iraklius was ordained as the Archbishop of Jerusalem the year after he arrived in Jerusalem at the age of 40, and became the Archbishop of Caesarea at the age of 47.

In this position he attended the Third Lateran Council in 1179 alongside William.

This is a historic moment in the entire history of Catholicism. After all, there is only one ecumenical council every hundred years on average.

Afterwards, Iraklius used some connections to successfully become the Patriarch of Jerusalem, reaching the peak of his life.

To be fair, Iraklius fulfilled his duties as the Patriarch of Jerusalem, including but not limited to assisting Balian in defending the city, going up to the walls of Tyre to defend the city, and supporting the King of Jerusalem...

Although, due to personal grudges between him and Balian, there were some conflicts between him and Garys.

But in the face of certain miracles and huge economic benefits, it is still a straightforward choice to become a "hero".

Becoming the official "opposition" of Gérice and Isabella, their main goal is to "sing a different tune" from the government in parliament and even in public opinion.

In terms of the skills of "being rational" and "holding the plate", Irakluo has truly achieved perfection.

With such long service, Iraklius even became a tutor to the royal family after he gave up his post as Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Responsible for providing enlightenment education to some children related to the royal family.

"Ahem, teacher, there's another businessman here who wants to sell you a product."

In the still bright room, Melisende pushed open the door, holding a heavy purse in her hand. Iraklius, who was dozing off in front of the desk, came to his senses after noticing the movement behind him, and then he became a little more alert.

Melisende was the daughter of Sibylla and Guy. After Sibylla's death, her four daughters were adopted by the Guerisses, and the issue of education was entrusted to Iraklius, a university graduate who was in his 60s at the time.

After other students were born, Melisende was favored by Iraklius more, so she stayed by his side and took care of his daily life.

In a sense, to Iraklius, Melisende was his granddaughter.

"Oh? How much?"

When the topic of money came up, Irakliou couldn't help but feel a little excited.

He no longer has anything worth pursuing in his life, but talking about money still makes him happier.

When Melisende put the bag of money on the table with some difficulty and heard the crisp sound, Iraklius couldn't help but smile, and the age spots on his face and the surrounding areas came alive.

The reason for his feud with Balian was that Balian robbed him of his money to redeem the civilians of Jerusalem. But now he has earned ten times the original money under the system of the New Kingdom, so there is nothing to complain about.

After retiring from politics, Irakliou's influence did not dissipate.

Considering his age, he already has no rivals in the kingdom's political arena. In addition, he has influence in religion and publishes some theological arguments in newspapers from time to time. It is inevitable that some people will come to ask him how he can live so long.

Iraklius certainly couldn't say that the reason he lived a long life was because he enjoyed making money.

So, he said that besides being blessed by God, he lived a long life because he paid attention to hygiene, ate cooked food, had a regular schedule, and so on.

He even published an article in the newspaper, claiming that the sulfur soap produced in Transjordan not only inhibits sebum secretion, but also kills bacteria, fungi, mold, mites, parasites, etc., and has a certain preventive and auxiliary therapeutic effect on some skin diseases.

After this article was published, sulfur soap in Transjordan was sold out in a short period of time, and the sales volume of sulfur soap in the entire kingdom nearly doubled in a short period of time.

As a result, some businessmen with a keen sense of smell realized the effect of inviting celebrities to advertise in newspapers.

After communicating with Garys, Iraklio, a well-known centenarian in the kingdom, actually made great progress in the business of selling goods.

He has written quite a few articles, explaining the benefits of using towels and drinking hot water, and what the corresponding theological effects are. He said that these are necessary means to obtain God's blessings for a pious life, and he also listed a bunch of items and brands that are necessary for a healthy life.

These include some simple water heaters, honeycomb coal, alcohol, medicines...

During this process, Irakliou naturally made a lot of money.

As he counted the money Melisende brought, Iraklius sighed every time he counted a banknote.

Today, the Kingdom of Jerusalem has built a complete production system that can meet everything from basic food, clothing, housing and transportation to high-end pharmaceutical production and even self-sufficiency in weapons.

Except for some restricted items, most of the goods produced can be purchased at supply and marketing cooperatives in towns across the kingdom.

Although Jerusalem does not promote pure credit currency today, it has begun to issue its own gold certificates.

For the people of the kingdom, since they can use commodity coupons to exchange for physical goods from state-owned stores, they can also use gold coupons to exchange for physical gold from banks.

The one dollar note was constant at 3 grams of gold, roughly equivalent to one gold dinar.

However, although there are paper currencies, not all goods can be purchased directly with money.

This is because the kingdom has adopted a method of distorting supply and demand to forcibly lower prices for some commodities, so that as many people as possible can buy the commodities cheaply.

After receiving the advertising leaflet from the businessman, Iraklue felt that he could still make more contributions.

Due to his old age and poor mental condition, he is now quite dependent on coffee.

So he took out some banknotes from the money and then took out a few coffee bean supply coupons from the drawer of the desk.

He gave it to Melisende beside him and asked her to go to the supply and marketing cooperative to exchange it for real goods.

"By the way, don't forget to buy some more honeycomb coal." Iraklio reminded again.

Coffee needs to be brewed, and cooking requires fuel. For the kingdom today, relying solely on charcoal or firewood is not impossible, but the cost is still a bit high.

After the development of some small local coal mines, new options emerged.

The coal mines in the kingdom are basically lignite mines, which are generally of low quality and are not suitable for steelmaking.

But after some processing, it can be used by residents for their daily lives, which is still pretty good.

Especially those lignite coals that are beaten into honeycomb coal can provide heat energy simply, quickly and efficiently, and are very convenient to use for boiling water, cooking and frying vegetables.

You have to know that the most troublesome thing about burning firewood is that there is a basic starting amount every time you start a fire.

If too little wood is used, it will not be enough to boil the water, and if too much wood is used, it actually means waste.

Many times the reason why farmers and citizens are reluctant to drink boiled water is not simply because firewood is expensive, but because it is troublesome, difficult to handle, and wastes firewood.

Even after the kingdom vigorously promoted drinking hot water, if farmers or citizens wanted to drink boiled water, they could only wait until they cooked some rice.

Honeycomb coal combined with a suitable stove can solve this problem relatively conveniently. You only need to use as many pieces as the amount of food you want to burn. It is relatively easier to quantify. When not in use, you can cover it with ashes to extend the burning time and make it easier to use later.

After Melisende's child left the room, Iraklius couldn't help but think about the questions he had been thinking about before he fell asleep.

Unlike Gillis, who seldom used theology to explain his own uniqueness, Irakliou was quite different.

Many of his theological discussions are from a more simple and mystical perspective, which actually has a considerable readership.

This also represents some of the less official but actually quite mainstream theological understandings of the current Jerusalem Church.

(End of this chapter)