Does the Ecclesiarchy have a "bible?"
I mean, look at how Emperor Worship is done in the Imperium: you have cunts who are ministered to by the Ecclesiarchy, and there are those like in feudal worlds who have their own understanding of the Emperor, but isn't considered heretical.
The Lectio Divinitatus, but it is more of an argument for the Empra's divinity.
The Imperial Cult is more like a religion with an official doctrine, but shitloads of local intepretations founded on that doctrine.
The Leticio Divinitatus was definitely a sort of Bible-like holy book dedicated to the worship of the Emperor during the latter years of the Great Crusade and during the Horus Heresy. I'm unsure as to whether the Imperium still uses a version of this book, or if it uses a different text in M41. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that the Leticio Divinitatus is still used, but just like the Codex Astartes, it has been added to and edited throughout the years by senior members of the Ecclesiarchy and other branches of the Adeptus Terra.
>Lectio Divinitatus
They DO know Lorgar wrote that, right? It's like having the Bible written by Lucifer.
Probably someone, somewhere does. Probably just the top Ecclesiarch and a few high ranking dudes beneath him.
That and Logar and all his disciples but who gives a fuck what they have to say.
Wasn't that thing STUPIDLY long at the end of whatshisface's career as a loyalist?
>They DO know Lorgar wrote that, right?
>They DO know Lorgar [...], right?
Wrong.
Here is the thing. Anything a Primarch makes is unless proven otherwise the best of its field.
If you gave the Codex Astartes to any tinpot dictator today he'd beat the united states within four weeks by sheer strategic brilliance.
It's similar to how STCs are not only good because they're 'clean' but also because they're as good as the kind of stuff you'd find in TNG-era Star Trek.
>Probably just the top Ecclesiarch and a few high ranking dudes beneath him.
Just the exact dudes that should know basing ALL your scripture from the writings of the First Heretic himself might not be the best idea.
>Just the exact dudes that should know basing ALL your scripture from the writings of the First Heretic himself might not be the best idea.
Why not? Lucifer used to be an angel of light after all.
>inb4 gnostic sophistry and random picking apart of verses to prove lucifer isn't satan etc blah blah blah
>gnostic sophistry
Gnosticism is not more or less sophistic than Christianism, you know.
Ten thousand years is a stupidly long period, and even the most augmented humans in the Imperium tend to top out at a thousand (and are almost always completly insane by that point). Even if some people at the top of the heap knew, they and hundreds of generations of their successors are long dead and thousands of years of drift has gone on. Leaving aside all the wars, there's been at least one major reformation in that time too, with Sebastian Thor, the Sisters and friends, and even that was four to five thousand years before the "present". Its pretty unlikely that even copies of copies of copies of the original survive in anything more than fragments by now.
Even if they did know, why would they care?
It keeps the masses in line and doesn't burst into flames when crossing the threshold of a cathedral.
Beyond that, replacing the Leticio Divinitatus with some new book would be a logistical nightmare, with the uncountable number of worlds that would need thousands to trillions of this new Imperial Bible. Printing alone would take centuries, and then there is the distribution.
Yeah, but it's a book written by Lucifer before he rebelled.
It's also worth mentioning that the Ecclesiarchy is surprisingly flexible. When a lost human world is reconquered by the Imperium, they study the local religeons, make sure there's no chaos or xenos taint, then slowly replace the god(s) with big E, but leave the other stuff intact. As a result there is a huge variety in the way the Emperor is worshiped across the galaxy.
Yeah, I remember reading somewhere that that members of Ecclesiarchy get very annoyed by the Rough-Riders believing in 'cloth spirits', but the impression I got was that they just get into arguments with them about it, which I imagine no one important really cares about enough to do anything with them. And let's not forget that Death Cult assassins leave the skulls of their targets on temple alters. The Ecclesiarchy doesn't really care what you do, so long as it isn't blatantly heretical and you claim it's for the Emperor.
Makes me wonder if this ever came up when the Word Bearers did something. I mean, go to a world, pretend you're an overly zealous (but loyal) Space Marine Chapter and teach a feral/feudal world your version of the Lectitio Divinatus.
A better question would be to ask if Lorgar is mad that his book is used by the Imperium without his name even being mentioned.
Imperial Cult is more directly comparable to the Roman cult of the Emperor rather than say, any flavour of Christianity. The trappings are space-Catholicism, but it borrows a lot more from Rome.
>Word Bearer dark crusades to reclaim the royalties on the LD
IIRC it's mentioned in the Word Bearers Omnibus that they find it hilarious.
Yep, it's all about the outcome for the Imperium. It doesn't matter how you do things for the Emperor, as long as what you do is for the Emperor.
Lorgar personally probably is (he's been writing the replacement for 10'000 years), but as says, other Word Bearers see it as a joke
>he's been writing the replacement for 10'000 years
That's one hell of a case of writers block.
I recall fluff mentioning Lorgar killing anyone who mentions the book in his presence with the other Legions finding it hilarious that the words of the Galaxis biggest Chaos fanatic are holy to the Imperium
STC's are a bit more brilliant than that.
An STC isn't just good because they let you build God-tech, an STC is good because they can let ANYONE build what's stored in their databanks; a caveman could quite literally build a cold fusion reactor if he had his hands on an STC for fusion reactor technology.
No he wrote it millenia ago in the Book of Lorgar.
A shame this prevents us from seeing a space reformation.
A lot of it has to do with there being no strict religious doctrine to have built on from the get go, similar to how Jesus never say down and made up holidays and shit. Thus, the church was able to take pagan holidays, replace everything and bam. It's the same damn thing.
And what a blessing that was, life without saturnalia would suck.
>Just the exact dudes that should know basing ALL your scripture from the writings of the First Heretic himself might not be the best idea.
Also the exact dudes that have the most to lose from saying shit about it. Don't rock the boat, Septimus.