The Promethean Cult

Set down first as the teachings of the Primarch Vulkan in written form and as ritual practice, the Promethean Cult formed a body of doctrine that codified and promoted the spirit and culture the Primarch desired for his Legion. A work of both clear vision and deep allegory, it drew both upon ancient Terran philosophical and martial thought, and the rich culture and mythic history of Nocturne on which Vulkan had been raised. Core to its tenets was the conviction that the Legiones Astartes had been created to fulfil a single and irrevocable purpose: the protection and liberation of all of humanity, and that they were each and every one a savage weapon given physical and spiritual form to this single end. As living weapons they were shaped and honed on the anvil of destruction and by the hammer of war, just as a blade is shaped in the fires of the forge to its perfect edge. The teachings of the cult emphasised self-reliance, loyalty, duty, patience, awareness, selfsacrifice and, above all, self-discipline and endurance, and drawing from Nocturne's culture of craft and trial, fire as a dual symbol of creation and destruction was the cult's symbol and sign, as were the emblems of the anvil and the hammer.

普羅米修斯教派最初是作為原體伏爾甘書面形式的教導(dǎo)和儀式實(shí)踐的團(tuán)體，他們形成了一套信條，這些信條編纂并推廣原體伏爾甘期望軍團(tuán)所擁有的精神和文化。信條中既有明確的構(gòu)想，也有深刻的寓言，它借鑒了古代泰拉哲學(xué)與戰(zhàn)爭思想，而且也借鑒了養(yǎng)育伏爾甘的夜曲星世界的豐富文化與虛構(gòu)歷史。信條原則的核心是一條信念:帝皇創(chuàng)造阿斯塔特軍團(tuán)是為了實(shí)現(xiàn)一個(gè)獨(dú)立且不可更改的目的，那就是保衛(wèi)和解放全人類，每名阿斯塔特都是一件為了這一目的而被賦予生理與精神形式的野蠻武器。作為活生生的武器，他們要在毀滅的鐵砧上經(jīng)受戰(zhàn)爭重錘的塑造和磨礪，就像一柄利刃要在鍛爐的火焰中塑造出自己完美的鋒口。教派的教義強(qiáng)調(diào)自力更生、責(zé)任、耐心、認(rèn)知觀察、自我犧牲以及最重要的：自律與忍耐。教義也從夜曲星的工藝和磨練文化中進(jìn)行了吸取，作為創(chuàng)造和毀滅雙重象征的火焰也成為了教派的標(biāo)志與象征，就像火焰是鐵砧和重錘的象征。

Implacable determination and the ability to endure any hardship is of equal importance within the teachings of the Promethean Cult, and trials of endurance and strength, often marked by ritual scarring or branding became commonplace in their training and on-going spiritual discipline. These practices, alongside overtly mystical elements of the Salamanders?belief systems, became commented on as barbaric by their few detractors, some of whom saw the growing strength of the Promethean Cult within the Legion as superstition and falsehood contrary to the Imperial Truth. That the cult promoted the worship of no gods and set as its fundamental tenet the primacy of humanity in the cosmos was enough to deflect such criticisms in most cases however, and it is worthy of note that some have since theorised that the strength of this mythos within the Legion served in part to 'inoculate’?it, so to speak? ,from the perfidious machinations of the Word Bearers whose emissaries never received more than polite indifference in their reception by the Legion or its master, and no Warrior Lodge to spread the Warmaster's poison was founded in its ranks, nor would such a thing likely have been possible.

在普羅米修斯教派的教義中，不可動(dòng)搖的決心與忍耐一切艱難的能力同等重要，在他們的訓(xùn)練和持續(xù)性的精神克制鍛煉中，耐力和力量的試煉是常見情況，這些試煉通常以儀式性的疤痕或烙印為特征。這些行為與火蜥蜴?zhèn)冃叛鲶w系中明顯都神秘主義要素被他們的少數(shù)貶損者詆毀為野蠻，當(dāng)中的某些人將軍團(tuán)中普羅米修斯教派不斷增長的實(shí)力視為與帝國真理背道而馳的迷信與謊言。但是，普羅米修斯教派宣揚(yáng)的是：不可崇拜神明，并將基本信條設(shè)定為人類在宇宙中的首要地位，這在大多數(shù)情況下足以轉(zhuǎn)移這些批判。不過，值得記錄的是，某些人曾經(jīng)提出過一種理論，認(rèn)為可以說是軍團(tuán)中這些神話的力量使其部分地“接種了”針對懷言者軍團(tuán)背信棄義陰謀的“疫苗”——后者的密使在火蜥蜴軍團(tuán)及其主宰者處只得到了禮貌而冷漠的接待，我們也未發(fā)現(xiàn)有戰(zhàn)士結(jié)社在軍團(tuán)中傳播戰(zhàn)帥的荼毒，這種事情也不可能實(shí)現(xiàn)。