Chapter 15 Borrowing Books

Borrow books? The priests would naturally never speak harshly to Ji Xiang. On the contrary, they were extremely willing to lend him their scriptures and books for viewing and reading.

This was not because they were magnanimous, but because in a foreign land, they used the religions of other countries to package themselves in order to gain a more stable foothold. This was their way of dealing with the world. In the beginning, when the priests came to the Great Ming Dynasty in China, they used the identity of Buddhist monks, claiming to be monks from Tianzhu (India).

At first, they wore the clothes of Buddhist monks, so that ordinary people would mistakenly think that they were ordinary monks and would not be hostile to them. Of course, in order to integrate with the local culture, they did not preach in a big way at the beginning, and were very low-key. After all, the first thing they had to do was to try to win the favor of the locals.

However, in the land of the Ming Dynasty, the status of religion was not as high as in the Western lands. If they wanted to use the reputation of Buddhism to preach... that also depended on whether Buddhism agreed or not.

These fake foreign devils still wanted to pretend to be bald donkeys. The average Buddhist disciple was easy-going but not blind. These foreign devils were blatantly competing for incense. How could this be allowed?

In short, due to many problems, the Catholics changed into Confucian clothes, and Confucianism was not too repulsive to these Westerners.

Therefore, the priests believed that whether they would exclude other religions in the future, or suppress other religions, that would all be things for the future. At least for now, they, the Catholic missionaries and priests in the Ming Dynasty, still regarded themselves as harmless little lambs.

Now that the emperor admired Taoism, if they wanted to take root and develop their doctrines in a place like Shuntian, they had to have a good relationship with Taoism.

"The land of the Dongyue Temple was approved by the emperor to build a church, all thanks to the Arctic Perfected Lord. We have long known your great name. Matteo Ricci has informed us that the books of the Lord in the church are all available for the Perfected Lord to read."

An old priest spoke fluent Chinese, communicating with Ji Xiang and expressing his goodwill.

But Ji Xiang knew what they were thinking. Seeing their enthusiastic appearance, although there were some sincere people among them, such as Matteo Ricci, the old priest's gratitude at this time was also sincere. However, among the priests behind him, some were hiding a knife behind their smiles.

After all, people are different. The missionaries came to the Eastern Land not to travel and go shopping, but with a so-called "sacred mission."

If they didn't package themselves as lambs at the beginning, then other religions would not accept them. As for when to tear off the sheepskin and become hungry wolves, that would depend on when their doctrines could develop to the point of influencing the general trend of the world.

After borrowing the books, Ji Xiang did not leave the Catholic Church, but found a corner in the church to sit down and read them. This made the priests start whispering. They walked out of the church and immediately began to discuss.

Some people thought that although Ji Xiang was a heretic, he seemed to be very interested in Catholicism.

Others thought this was a rare "good opportunity."

"The Arctic Perfected Lord, in our holy religion, should he be considered a figure like the Pope or a Bishop?"

"A Bishop, it should be a Cardinal."

In Christianity, the Pope is the highest candidate, the "White-robed Bishop," and the next level is the Cardinal, the "Red-robed Bishop."

In the eyes of the priests, Ji Xiang represented the Taoist Wudang Mountain, and in the Taoist aspect, the generally recognized highest leader should be the Celestial Master of Longhu Mountain, at least for now.

As for the various schools of Taoism, including the other Quanzhen Taoism, in the eyes of the priests, there was no difference between them and the Eastern Orthodox Church. However, the thing that puzzled them was that, given the momentum of the Zhengyi Taoism today, why didn't they encircle and suppress the other Quanzhen Taoism?

Why was this the case? It was really incomprehensible. Shouldn't heretics be more hateful than pagans?

At least in Buddhism, there was also the dispute of the Three Vehicles, and the differences between Esoteric Buddhism and the Eight Schools of Han Buddhism, but Taoism seemed like a group of Fried Salted Fish, only guarding their own mountain and ignoring what was happening outside.

How could such a religion be passed down for thousands of years?

"Taoism is not very aggressive now. Although I heard that they had some disputes with Buddhism in the past, that was a long time ago. If we can pull this black-robed Taoist, who is comparable to a Cardinal, into our Catholic camp, and even convert him to the Lord, then..."

"The law of Christ and the way of the Lord can flourish in the Ming Dynasty and spread throughout the world."

The priest spoke excitedly, and the other priests also showed eager expressions.

Pulling a heavyweight figure from one religion directly into another was a shocking achievement. Similarly, if this kind of thing succeeded, it would mean that Catholicism had a very high degree of superiority, and they themselves were on the right path.

This was like the shock of Qin Huali of the Confucian school defecting to the Mohist school as the second-in-command in the Spring and Autumn Period of ancient China, directly betraying his own doctrines and theories, and turning to agree with others. This had a huge impact on one sect, and had extraordinary significance for another.

"Indeed, if this matter is successful, then the Pope will also be satisfied with the result. He won't be too harsh on our missionary work. It hasn't been many years since Toyotomi Hideyoshi massacred missionaries. The Far East's acceptance of us is still very low. After coming from afar, we can't just die in this small church without doing anything."

The old priest also spoke, revealing his yearning for achieving a career, of course, that must be before he died.

And Ji Xiang, who was sitting in the corner, had already taken in all their words.

"Believe in the Lord? The magic of that Ye fellow does have its unique features, but we are good at making the best use of everything and cultural integration. Although your things are very good, they will be mine in the next second."

"Just like Matteo Ricci's books back then..."

Ji Xiang looked at some of the copies next to him. Although he tried to read the original, these missionaries could not bring too many original scriptures from the St. Paul's College in Haojing Ao (Macau). After all, that was the main camp. If the originals were brought out and burned or fell into the water, what would they do? These were all things that they had painstakingly transported from the West.

However, these Western scriptures had an advantage that Eastern scriptures did not have, that was, even copies had wishes on them.

This was discovered when he first met Matteo Ricci.

For Western missionaries, it was normal for copies to have wishes gathered on them, but for the East, this was a strange situation.

"There is no author's effort and spirit in the copies, but they rely on widespread missionary work to absorb the wishes of all living beings and condense them on them."

One book, two books.

Ji Xiang only glanced at them slightly, but the contents were already memorized in his heart. With Ji Xiang's current cultivation, he had thousands of thoughts running in an instant. Watching every word on a few books was not a problem at all.

And on his finger, white smoke kept rolling.

While absorbing the wishes and spells in them, Ji Xiang also put aside those books that had been used, some of which had not been completely absorbed, because he would "sacrifice" them soon!

"Instead of believing in the Lord, it's better to observe all his methods and create a new Lord's art myself!"

"The true meaning of the Three Teachings, refine them for me!"

The first time to integrate foreign arts was theoretically impossible, because the true meaning of the Three Teachings could only melt the classics within the Three Teachings, including the White Lotus Sect, a heterodox sect derived from the Three Teachings, and the created spells were also limited to the Three Teachings.

The Christian Lord was a pure foreign religion, without any shadow of the Three Teachings.

However, Ji Xiang had an extra option because he cultivated the Jade Purity Hidden Book—the Demonic Art.

........

Outside the church, the old priest suddenly shivered and looked around strangely.

"Strange, I seemed to sense the power of a 'devil' just now? In this distant Eastern Land, could there also be heretics preaching here?"