togophonebook #246 - The Holy Way is lame
#246 - The Holy Way is lame
The dark red watchtower, covered in white snow, stood like a silent giant amidst a cluster of low, pale houses.
Ascending past the thick door panels, climbing the layered windows.
Each window was protected by iron bars, and above them, rows of exquisite stone carvings of angels and acanthus leaves.
The towering spire pointed straight to the sky, as if to pierce the clouds, the weather vane at the top buried in snow, occasionally flashing with a metallic sheen.
White snow covered both sides of the cobblestone streets, and amidst the snowdrifts were vendors, still gritting their teeth and shouting their wares.
Wheels rumbled, and a fine carriage stopped in front of the watchtower.
Mittenier, carrying a bag of scrolls and having placed his luggage, jumped down from the carriage and trotted to the gate adorned with exquisite bronze ornaments.
After lingering on Autumn Dusk Island for five days, Mittenier and Sisi hastily left with the contract on January 3rd.
Marshall stayed behind as Hohen's legal advisor, helping him organize ancient books and establish laws.
Today, January 10th, Mittenier, traveling by both land and water, finally rushed back to Rapid Current City.
Besides returning the alliance agreement, he came back to apply for blacksmiths and wizards who could cast lightning spells for Hohen.
The guards at the gate recognized Mittenier and naturally let him in. Following the spiral staircase to the second floor, Mittenier smoothly walked to the waiting room.
A middle-aged clergyman was awkwardly chatting with Carter, completely at cross-purposes.
"Carter, where is Lady Catherine?" Entering the waiting room, Mittenier smiled apologetically at the middle-aged clergyman and asked Carter.
Carter, seeing Mittenier, breathed a sigh of relief as if seeing a savior: "She's in the living room, not allowing anyone in for now... This is Friar Martin."
The middle-aged clergyman stood up and bowed: "Good afternoon, you must be Sir Mittenier. I am Friar Martin from the Blago Monastery. Lady Catherine is currently in talks with Ludwig, the new abbot of our Blago Monastery."
Mittenier immediately smiled: "Hello, Friar Martin, just call me Mittenier. It seems my timing is perfect today."
"Why?"
Mittenier took a book from his bag: "We obtained a volume of their theological writings, 'The Holy Path Salvation Doctrine,' from the Salvation Army. We wanted you to examine it, and it just so happens that you arrived today."
Carter looked suspiciously at the title: "The Holy Path is inferior... Could they even have theological writings?"
Martin glanced at the cover and asked, "May I take a look?"
Mittenier handed the book over: "Of course, it was originally intended for you."
Martin took the well-bound book from Mittenier's hand.
This "Holy Path Salvation Doctrine" was only a draft, so it was not thick, only a few dozen pages, a hundred pages of text.
The entire book was more like a collection of essays than a book.
It was divided into five chapters: Messira's Free Will, The Foundation and Origin of Inequality, The Corruption of the Papacy, The Birth of Thousand River Valley, and The Path to the Holy Father.
In the first chapter, "Hohen" argued for the sanctity of free will and cited the Gospels and a long-lost ancient book to prove that "the foundation of moral responsibility is free will."
The second chapter, "Hohen" quoted the Gospels to argue that people are essentially the same, all creations of the Holy Father.
The first two chapters, which accounted for more than half of the space, established the "truth", thus leading to the following three chapters.
The third chapter listed evidence to denounce the corruption of the church, and quoted the "Gospel" "All who believed were together and had all things in common" to prove that church property should be used to serve the poor and vulnerable.
The fourth chapter satirized the secular authority of the monarchical system represented by the Empire from the perspective of the truth of equality, and proposed that Thousand River Valley was oppressed regionally and the people of Thousand River Valley were spiritually oppressed, which was a kind of inequality.
The fifth chapter described what methods ordinary people should use to approach the Holy Father in the absence of the Papacy.
Its core idea lies in the exploration and research of nature, the Holy Father's greatest creation, and provides a series of feasible means.
At first, Martin just skimmed through it, but the more he read, the more concentrated his attention became, and later he turned back to the front to start from the beginning.
He even subconsciously took out red ink and a quill pen and began to make annotations and marks in the blank spaces of the pages.
You know, all along, the local priests of Thousand River Valley have been thinking about how to break through the career ceiling.
After countless attempts and failures, they desperately gathered at the Blago Monastery and, under the leadership of Juan Nuo, began to try to resist the church.
But saying to resist the church, why resist, and how to resist, was all a vague topic.
These questions were all answered in the book, and in Martin's view, they were very much in line with his understanding of the people of Thousand River Valley.
Standing in the position of the people of Thousand River Valley, not opposing Messira, but only saying to expel the Thousand River Valley Church, can win over small landlords, lower nobles, and lower priests.
Calling for freedom, abolishing the "Fugitive Slave Law" to win over public farmers, advocating equality, and abolishing the "Labor Law" to win over citizens and laborers.
The only ones standing on the opposite side were the great nobles and great landlords, who were branded as devils and demons by Hohen.
After unifying everyone's demands, he can also round the words back, proving that it is not that he deliberately caters, but that Messira had ordained it thousands of years ago.
Making all the actions of the rebels who unite the majority just, and clearly resisting the church, there will be no psychological barriers.
As a program for the uprising, although there are many small flaws, there is no problem in the overall situation.
This book is not without errors. Many times, they insist on citing questionable ancient sources when they could use orthodox doctrines.
And there are too many apocryphal ingredients. Always overturning the case will greatly reduce credibility.
Some problems can obviously be said to be just isolated cases that do not affect the massive phenomenon, or simply ignore the facts.
The latest novels are first published on Liиg Jiu Shu Ba!.
But the book insists on using questionable sources from who knows where to overthrow the doctrines that have been patched countless times, which is puzzling.
This makes the book, which was originally very appetizing to Martin, a follower of Juan Nuo, always pop up with a poisonous point, reversing his appetite and making him unable to resist picking up a pen to revise it.
"There is an error in this explanation." Just as he was writing furiously in the blank spaces of the book, an old finger stretched out from his hand and pointed to a sentence Martin had just finished writing.
Martin looked up in astonishment, only to find that the new abbot of Blago, Ludwig, was standing behind him: "You have confused the concepts of sensation and perception. The reasoning here is obviously wrong. Theirs is correct."
In this small waiting room, Carter had already left, leaving only Mittenier smiling beside Catherine.
"Abbot Ludwig." Martin quickly stood up and saluted, "I was engrossed in reading and deliberately, oh no, accidentally wrote annotations in the book."
Ludwig was a tall, thin old man, born with a worried look on his face. He drooped his eyelids, took the book from Martin's hand, and flipped through it.
"The intention is very high, there are too many apocryphal texts, and the doctrines and classics cited have not been heard of much." With Ludwig's theological foundation, he can naturally see that the underlying level of this book is actually average.
Obviously, this is a work compiled by a few seminary students and small monks from monasteries.
But even Ludwig had to admit that the overall thesis may not be very good, but the intention is very high.
The entire proposition, from establishing two major truths to extending the truth to reality, to specific means, the logic is self-consistent.
If such a collection of essays were placed in a seminary, his tutor might ask him to reduce the apocryphal content, increase credible classics and orthodox doctrines, and graduate after three to five years of polishing.
But the propositions put forward in this paper, such as the public ownership of church property and the abolition of the "Labor Law", actually coincide with the propositions of the Juan Nuo faction.
Ludwig even had the feeling that "he is saying all my words."
After all, as a theological faction, the core idea of the Juan Nuo faction has not been established, and it cannot be explained as a whole and reasonably from the root.
In other words, there is a sign but no substance, and this book is a perfect reference for the core ideas of the Juan Nuo faction.
"Those... Salvation Army, what exactly do they want to do with this book?" Ludwig asked, weighing the book in his hand.
Mittenier glanced at Catherine before answering: "They need you to jointly study and create this 'Holy Path Salvation Doctrine' as the programmatic document for their uprising."
Pinching the "Holy Path Salvation Doctrine" in his hand, the old abbot fell silent, his squinting eyes making it impossible for others to understand his gaze.
"Martin."
"I am here, teacher." Martin stood respectfully.
"I will open the monastery's library to you, give you all permissions, you can choose any young priests with deep learning, can you bind and revise this book well?"
"In the name of Messira, give me two weeks, I think I can definitely do it!"