Vayonism

Vayonism, also known as Vayonistic Hexadecism and known chiefly among its adherents as the Faith of the Sixteen, is a continuum of religious denominations with a common origin in the writings of the religious scholar and philosopher Vayon of Aratheda, reconciling the Ancient Arnic religion with various contemporary philosophical teachings. The term Vayonism is an coined by non-adherants during the religion's early ascendency; practicioners tend to employ the old label of Faith of the Sixteen already in use before the Vayonistic reform.

Commonalities between the majority of self-declared Vayonistic denominations include a, the belief in sixteen of  modeled after the gods of the Ancient Arnic pantheon, and a  focused on the complementary, interconnected, and interdependent forces of.

History
Vayonism has its origins in the native pagan beliefs of the Ancient Arnic people. It is often believed that many of the Arnic deities shared an origin with other proto-Azoric religions, but from the first historical records of the city of Arnes that we have, the basic concepts of the Arnic pantheon and of the existence of the One were already in place. The expansion of the Arnic realm and its subjugation and assimilation of other cultures was often achieved at a religious level too. Elyrians tended to translate the concepts of foreign deities into their own mythos and to adopt them as their own, either as different deities or as different aspects of already existing deities. This however slowly but surely diluted the concepts of the original deities, which led to a continuous movement of religious resistance, which shunned certain deities or aspects of deities in order to focus on what were considered to be more “Arnic gods”.

The most important event of the Ancient Arnic religion was however the deification of the imperial family and the beginning of the imperial era. What began as a justification of imperial rule slowly took over the fundamentals of the faith itself, with the members of the imperial bloodline being raised over saints, messengers, and finally even over the Gods themselves, with the last few Emperors positioning some of the Gods as aspects of themselves and of their families. This, combined with the incestual relationships that were necessary in order to maintain the purity of the blood, and with the general decadence of the Arnic court life in the final part of the empire, slowly gave birth to more and more resistance against the imperial family and the upper caste of priests. In the tradition of Vayonism, the greatest resistance was represented by the Three Augurs, three humans who received divine inspiration. The first of the Augurs was Narsa the Catechist, who wrote a series of scathing theological works against the corruption and issues of the Arnic faith as a whole, which led to her alienation and eventual exile from the Empire. Megara the Enlighter was the Second Augur, and a representation of the nativist strain of Arnic religious thought, which rejected what they considered to be foreign aspects and foreign deities as false, and as corrupting the native Arnic religion. Megara was a high-priestess, and her writings formed the basis of the later Vayonist conclaves which determined which divine aspects were true and which were false, and her preaching roused the poor population of Arnes to the Smashing of the Idols, a religious revolt that ended with her execution by Emperor Daevon.

The third and most important Augur was Vayon the Foreteller. Born in a poor family in Arnes itself, Vayon somehow became a scholar, and then a respected philosopher. It was from a philosophical perspective that he discussed faith for the first time, and it was with philosophy that he criticized the Faith and the faults he saw in it, turning the foundation of Narsa into a proper concept of how the Faith should be. Criticized for his views, and hunted by the Empire for his criticism of the imperial family, Vayon had his first revelations, and foretold the Calamity of Arnes, a punishment of the Gods for the decadence of the imperial family and of Arnes itself. His writings proved to be true when the Calamity actually happened, and Vayon himself, while old, was alive to witness it, and to ensure the creation of the new faith from the ashes of the old.

The first period of the Age of Ash and Blood was a particularly vicious one, with the collapse of central authority and the birth of several Arnic successor states. It was a period of upheaval in all fields, including religion, and several new religions and interpretations of the old Arnic faith appeared. Vayonism was initially tied to the city of Vathora and the Arnic successor state that it led, which led to the establishment of the Haliarchy. Initially, Vayonists were one of the most violent religious movements present, due to their belief that the Calamity had been a divine punishment and that a second Calamity was possible if humans would not change their ways. This fanaticism, combined with the already strong credence that the Calamity had given Vayon allowed the new faith to expand rather easily, with several proselytizers, known as the Heralds, picking it up in areas away from Vathora’s influence. Vayonism eventually emerged as the unchallenged faith of the post-Arnic Azora, and further theological disagreements within the Faith were solved by war or by Conclaves, resulting in the establishment of the Ecumenical Communion.

Scripture
The scripture of Vayonism, as understood by a majority of the branches of the Faith in the present day is divided between the Greater Canon, the works of the Three Augurs, written before the Calamity, the Mesial Canon, the works of the Heralds written after the Calamity, and the Lesser Canon, the works of priests and saints approved by the Conclaves.The Greater Canon is believed to have been written directly by the Augurs while under the influence of the Gods, while the Lesser Canon was written by the Heralds after the revelations given to them by the spirits of the Augurs, with the Augurs interceding on behalf of the Gods in order to protect their message. The exact extent of the Lesser Canon has been endlessly debated by Vayonists over the centuries, and various branches of the Faith have different definitions of what to include and what to condemn as apocrypha.

Greater Canon
The main literary body of the Greater Canon, often equated with the Greater Canon itself, is known as the Greater Truth, or the Three Flowers. It is by itself divided into three scriptures, the Flower of Senses, the Flower of Aspects, and the Flower of Truths. They are ascribed to Narsa, Megara, and Vayon respectively. The Three Flowers describe the Faith and the core concepts that belong to it, and are written in different manners. The Flower of Senses is a religious treaty, underlying the inherent sins and nature of man. The Flower of Aspects is focused on the Gods and on how like the Gods are aspects of the One, humans themselves have various aspects and can be sinful and good at the same time. The Flower of Truths is a philosophical story that describes the history of the world and of the gods, warning of the dangers of man’s arrogance, but also providing the ways through which salvation may be attained.

Vayonist theology also understands that a part of the Greater Canon is missing, and that the last of the Augurs will write a Fourth Flower that will cement the Faith and prepare it for the end of the cycle.

Mesial Canon
The Mesial Canon is from the perspective of the Ecumenical Communion formed by the Sixteen Revelations. The Ecumenicals only acknowledge sixteen Heralds who had revelations in the century following the Calamity, without ever having had a direct contact with Vayon the Forteller or any of the Augurs, and who put their revelations into writing. The Revelations are a complementary work, through their message, though not necessarily through their content, and expand our understanding of the Faith, being written from the perception of regular people from many walks of life who received inspiration from the Augurs and the Divine.

Other branches of Vayonism might recognize more, less, or other Heralds, but all heterodox communions acknowledge the Sixteen Heralds.

Lesser Canon
The Lesser Canon is often considered to be humanly inspired, the attempts of humans to rationalize and to explain the higher canons and their own faith. The Ecumenical Communions considers the Fundamental Creed to be the core of the Lesser Canon, and the foundation of the Faith. It was agreed upon during the Holy Synod of the Ashen Palace, where the leading figures of the Faith gathered in order to commonly decide on the true tenets of the Faith.

Fundamental Creed
The Fundamental Creed is a statement of belief holding near-universal adoption by Vayonistic denominations. It was originally adopted during the Synod of 62 AC, which was held by the prominent leaders of the burgeoning movement in an effort to both reestablish a hierarchical structure of the Faith, brought into disarray by the Calamity of Arnes in 1 AC, as well as bring portions of the rump Hexadecist faith into the Vayonist fold. The result was a comprehensive formula describing the fundamental tenants of the reformed Faith of the Sixteen which is still preached in the vast majority of Vayonistic liturgies.

"We believe in the Hexadecatheon, singular in substance and plural in essence, begotten beyond all time and place from The One, intemporal, innominable and inconceivable, beginning and ending of all things".

Other parts of the Lesser Canon include the Confessions of Alarys, which outlines how the Sacraments, the Vows and the Mysteries should be organized.

Theology
Vayonists believe that the foundation of all-existence is a principle known as “the One”. The One is everything, it’s the beginning and the end, something beyond being, a principle that is beyond the understanding of the mortal mind and soul. The universe and all that is in it is the creation of the One, not because of a thought or desire of the One that humans could understand, but because this is how it was meant to be. The One attempts to create the ideal world, in both being and spirit, as an exact image of itself, but the very act of creation itself removes this world from the One. The Emanation, as it is known, produces a world that has lost a piece of the perfect knowledge that the One embodies, which is unavoidable, due to the inherent imperfection of matter when compared to the spiritual. The world however inevitably attempts to return to the perfection of the One, and in turn, through the Four Creations, the Sixteen Gods, the Messengers, the Archons, the material world, and humans were created, each further away from the truth of the One. The imperfection of matter constantly attempts to harmonize itself, and as such, where there is light, there must also be darkness. Humans and their souls are byproducts of this imperfection, of this constant fight between light and darkness, good and evil, order and chaos, and as such, humans are not intrinsically good or evil, but are a vital battleground for the two concepts, and due to their flaws, have the unique ability to understand it, and to decide where their soul belongs, using this knowledge to return to the One.

As such, the Emanation of the Original World, through its imperfection, created both light and darkness, which Vayonists envision as the Eight Principles and the Eight Assumptions, also known as the Eight Virtues and the Eight Sins.

Human beings can be divided into three parts, the material, the psychical and the spiritual. The material side is the body itself and our connection to the world, while the latter two parts, combined, form our soul. The psychical is our mind, our consciousness, the gift from the gods and the one part that we can access and control. One can not access or even attempt to understand the spiritual part of our soul without knowledge of the divine and of our role in it.

Vayonism believes that all mortal beings should pursue the notion of spiritual knowledge. It is only with this knowledge that humans can understand their flaws and the battle between good and evil, and armed with this knowledge, they can make the decision that can bring them closer to the Gods and to the One.

A human soul that does not attempt to understand the knowledge of the divine will simply be lost, left to wither for all eternity at the edge of Light and Darkness, the Fields of Languishing. A soul that understands the knowledge of the divine but decides to follow the call of the assumptions, will fall into the Eight Hells, which is not a punishment, but simply the broken, flawed, material understanding of truth, where these souls will have to experience these assumptions as they truly are. The souls that will understand the knowledge of the divine and will choose the true principles of life will rise to the Eight Heavens, where they will ascend as close to the One as they can in this plane.

Mythos
The Vayonist world begins with the existence of the Nothingness, the state of the universe before creation itself. From a material perspective, the universe is empty and devoid of all things, except for the One, which is beyond the material and the spiritual, beyond any form of comprehension or understanding. From the One begins the Emanation, which initially, for a brief moment, creates a perfect world, being and spirit at the same time, the perfect image of the One. But the perfection of the One can not be replicated through mere matter, and imperfection arises. The material world can not understand the glory of the divine and the spiritual entirely, and the world that was emanated breaks into two. The spiritual world-soul, and the material world-being, which are together and separated at the same time, intermingling and yet incomprehensible for each other. The spirit is good, light, and order, while the being is evil, darkness, and chaos. It is their contention that leads to the Four Creations. During the First Creation, the divine emanations of the One turn into divine manifestations of his aspects, Gods that are omni-potent and omni-existing as themselves, while still being aspects of the One. The First Creation begins the creation of the mortal world by the combination of the world-soul and the world-being, with the first four gods appearing and with the creation of the Realm Above and the Realm Below, the sun, and the stars. The Second Creation brings forth four more gods and creates the Earth, and parts of nature, while the tensions between the Realm Above and the Realm Below grow, with the creation of the Messengers and the Archons respectively. The Third Creation is the one that creates life and the animals, and the one that begins the conflict between the two sides of gods and their hosts. The Fourth Creation leads to the creation of humans from the seeds of the conflicts, and as marks of the conflict, with souls and both light and darkness trapped inside them. Azora, the Mother of Light, and Dagon, the Father of Fire, send the First Man and the First Woman to battle the forces of darkness, with the First Man armed with eight shields of light, and the First Woman with eight spears of fire. The First are given a choice, between light and darkness, and while their manage to stop the darkness from engulfing the world, they lack the knowledge of the One that would have allowed them to purify their souls, and as such, they simply delay the inevitable conflict, creating the mortal world as we know it.

Vayonism also considers that the material world is finite, and that in the eventual end of all things, the material world, the Gods, the world-soul and the world-being will all merge back with the One from where they came from, but the way this will be achieved is in the hands of mortals. The decisions of each mortal, and the fate of each mortal soul before the end of the world will play a role. As the end times will approach, the Gods will send a Fourth Augur to prepare mankind for the upcoming end. Some will of course, listen to its message, while others will shun it. The cycles will repeat in an opposite way, with Aylal heralding the Four Destructions, which will one by one, end a part of the mortal world. A conflict for the very existence of the world will start from among the mortals, then spread among the Messengers and the Archons, and then finally among the Gods themselves. A victory for Light will be a victory of the spiritual over the material, while a victory for Darkness will be a victory of the material over the spiritual, but what exactly what would happen is something that the Greater Canon does not cover, and that has been greatly debated among Vayonists.