No matter the era or profession, everyone had to start as an "apprentice," even Catholic clergy.
Father Bruner had begun serving as an altar boy at the Vatican at fourteen. He and sixteen other boys had been permitted to live within Vatican City.
Every morning, he had to rise very early and prepare the altars before school, making ready for morning Mass in ten underground chapels.
The elderly slept poorly, while the young could never seem to wake up. As Bruner moved through the Vatican church before it opened to the public, he felt as though he were walking through a tomb.
The first thing he did when preparing an altar was light the candlesticks.
Later, the Arab Empire conquered Persia. During the Islamization process, Zoroastrianism was rejected by Islam and forced to migrate eastward. The sacred fires were extinguished, believers were forbidden from wearing white, and some went to India while others entered China through the Western Regions.
Among these believers was one people—the Sogdians. Like the Jews, they were natural merchants and among the ethnic groups that traveled the overland Silk Road most frequently.
A baby boy was born among them. An Lushan meant "God of War" in Sogdian. It was said that his mother had been unable to bear children for years and only conceived him after praying to the God of War.
Meanwhile, in the Middle East far from the Western Regions, there was a virgin named Maria. Gabriel, the Angel of Death, told her that she would conceive through the Holy Spirit and give birth to God's son.
Solomon's Temple was extraordinarily lavish. Its gates, every colonnade, ceilings, doors, and windows were all inlaid with gold. The lamps, ritual vessels, and the Ark of the Covenant that housed the Ten Commandments were also made entirely