5.3.11 Christianity struggles for power, and Eurasia is in turmoil

By the 4th century, Christianity was the largest religion in the Roman Empire. But its supreme leader, the Pope (also known as the Pope), has always been appointed by the emperor and is only a vassal of the emperor in terms of political status. In the centuries that followed, the Christian Church repeatedly received land grants from the rulers of various countries, and then used the means to force small landowners to go bankrupt and earn new land. By the 11th century, the total number of ecclesiastical territories accounted for one-third of the arable land area of Western Europe, and it had the economic power to challenge the monarchs and feudal lords of various countries and compete for their secular power.

The most important land grant took place in 756, when the Frankish Carolingian king "Pepin the Short" sacrificed the "22 cities", including Rome, from Italy to Pope Stephen II, mainly to thank him for usurping the Merovingian throne as a court minister five years earlier, and the last Pope Zacharias anointed him with holy oil and granted royal power.

In order to legitimize the acquired land, the Pope proclaimed the document of the "consecration of Constantine" – a document that proved to be a forgery in the 15th century and became one of the scandals of the Church – so that the Christian pope was henceforth not only the spiritual leader of the West, but also a secular monarch of Italy. This put the ecclesiastical power above the royal power and laid the foundation of the "Papal States" with "Rome" as the core.

In addition, through the "Cluny Reform", Christianity promoted celibacy among monks and banned the buying and selling of the priesthood, which gradually restored the reputation and sacred image of the Church in various countries as "chastity" among the people, and at the same time put an end to the dispersion of property caused by the transfer of church land to secular people. At this time, the power of the feudal lords grew, and they often supported the pope and opposed the centralized emperor for their own interests. This emboldened the Christian pope to challenge the authority of the emperor, and even won a transcendent political position that could check and balance the kings of various countries.

The famous dispute over the "right to appoint bishops" in the history of Christianity took place between Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073-1085) and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV (r. 1056-1106). At this time, Zhao Ji (reigned 1067-1085) and Wang Anshi of the Song Dynasty were busy with the "Xining Reform" to further rectify the hierarchical social value system of the feudal monarchy in China that had lasted for more than 1,000 years—the monarchs, kings, and feudal lords of other countries in Europe and Asia, and suddenly began to worry about the arrogance of the Christian pope's theocracy to challenge their secular power.

In 1075, Gregory VII issued the Papal Edict, which spelled out the status and powers of the pope. It contains so many things, including that "the Pope has the right to depose the emperor", "the Pope is never judged", and that he concentrated many local clergy in Rome in the Churches of various countries, so much so that he dared to claim: "God has given St. Peter the right to take life and death in heaven and on earth".

As a matter of fact, due to the small size of the territory under the direct jurisdiction, the small number of subjects, and the absence of an army, the only means available to the "Seventh Dynasty" were to remove the monarch's membership, incite believers to rebel and do things, induce the monarch's brothers to kill each other, and provoke the monarch to fight the monarch. The last three axes are very lethal to the baby monarch who has just ascended to the throne, the young monarch who is unstable, the weak monarch and the king of small countries, and the feudal lord. As the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the "Fourth" controlled the state apparatus that would capture Rome and set up a puppet pope at the slightest disagreement.

The two sides fought for several rounds. The "Seventh Generation" once forced the "Fourth Generation" to lead his wife and children to be unkempt and barefoot, wearing penitential clothes, for three days and three nights in the ice and snow. The "Fourth" used blackmail, slander, kidnapping and other means against the "Seventh", until finally he personally led the army across the Alps, captured the city of Rome, and appointed Clement III as the Pope - the "Seventh" went into hiding in Tibet and died soon after.

The "July Fourth Controversy" ushered in Catholicism (the Orthodox Church formally split from Christianity in 1054; Protestantism in the 16th century; these two factions did not challenge secular power). The rest of the proto-Christians constitute the main body of the Catholic congregation) of theocratic and secular power for more than 200 years. The power of the Holy See reached its peak during the reign of Pope Innocent III (r. 1198-1216) and then slumped.

Innocent III was committed to building a unified empire of Christian theocracy and feudal monarchy in Europe. To this end, he promoted the centralization of Catholicism at home, bringing the churches of Western Europe into a strict system of obedience to Rome; he collected taxes from the churches under his jurisdiction and solidified the "eleven tax" system for the people; he regulated the seven sacraments, including baptism, confirmation, wedding, mass, confession, ordination and consecration on deathbed; he strengthened the inquisition and burned the infidels at the stake; he organized the legions of jihad to purge the Christian ascetics who believed in the dualism of good and evil. The Albigens, who once massacred more than 20,000 people at once after taking the city......

Externally, he launched the Fourth Crusade and organized the "Children's Crusade" in which more than 30,000 children participated in the war; he instigated feudal lords in various countries to fight, and the country fought with each other, taking advantage of the opportunity to reap the benefits; and he once forced Britain, Denmark, Portugal, Switzerland, and other countries to pay tribute to him......

Innocent III proved the bankruptcy of using Christianity to unify theocracy and royal power and create a theocratic "priesthood". Without the support of a strong land, subjects, and army, especially the Chinese-style divine authority of the monarchy, the patriarchal system, the political system, and the ethical and moral system to win the trust of the people, and only taking advantage of the fanaticism of believers will only lead the burning power of the people to one extreme after another.

In addition, relying on conspiracy, sowing discord, dividing and conquering, and leveraging the political skills of power to control the secular power of the kings of various countries is tantamount to taking the heat out of the fire; apart from being able to temporarily make some money and fame and be touted as the "emperor of all emperors" by later generations, there is not the slightest practical value for the political ideal of a unified empire that he wants to realize.

On the contrary, it will attract the backlash of kings and feudal lords of all countries, until his projectile-sized "Papal State" spits out everything that has been robbed while the fire is in his hands, and vomits until he is bleeding and dying, leaving only a phantom so that the believers can still feel the greeting from the "kingdom of heaven" and not despair.

If it is not profitable, the monarchs of various countries will not allow Innocent III to form a "crusade" on his own land with his own people, bloodied the infidels, and launch an eastward crusade......

In short, as long as you do not cede territory to him, do not assign subjects to him, do not hand over the army to him, and do not give him taxes and tribute...... The foundation of the kings of each country in relation to the "papal state" has not been moved, and the strength has not been lost. And everything he did with all his brains and painstaking efforts was in vain except to drain the blood of millions of people in Eurasian countries, take food from millions of people, strip millions of people of their clothes, and destroy the houses of millions of people!

Chapter 3 Man's faith is right and wrong for 5,000 years

Chapter 5 Since he became a god, man has fallen into the abyss

One Study: The Theory of Creation: "The Awakening of Human Nature"