A COMMENTARY ON THE CITRINE CREED

[Malins Welcome 1519]

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A COMMENTARY ON
THE CITRINE CREED
By Fr. James Vursur

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First, the text of the creed in full:
 

⊱༺ I confess one Lord and GOD, The Singular, Almighty, Most-Merciful Creator, fashioner of the heavens and the firmament, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Master of the Universe. Singular, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent. I kneel in obeisance to His will, and I keep faith with the Covenant between Him and our Forefather Horen. GOD alone do I confess, worship, and seek after.

I confess the one Holy, Apostolic, and True Faith of the Temple. I bend to the successors of Saints Evaristus and Clement - the Pontificate, the Episcopacy, and the Presbyterate who bear their laurel and cloth themselves in their authority. I profess that the Pontiff is the High Priest and Vicar of GOD, able to speak on His behalf. I acknowledge the Holy Scrolls and believe in the Four Sacraments and their efficacy as holy mysteries.

I believe in four sons of Man, the Fathers of Mankind. I profess to the two Sons of Spirit - Owyn, and Godfrey. I await with anticipation the coming of the Third Son of Spirit and the healing of the world, and place my faith in the mercy of God for hope of my ascension to the Seven Skies.

This is not to be a comprehensive account of the doctrines of the Citrine Creed, only an attempt to illuminate certain aspects as one who took part in its formulation. God grant that it be helpful to all those who hold these articles of faith as their own, and be a testimony of wisdom for those who do not.

⊱༺ I confess one Lord and GOD,

To confess in this context means to acknowledge and profess. By this statement, the Temple states that it acknowledges only one Lord and only one God, which it proceeds to describe.

⊱༺ The Singular, Almighty, Most-Merciful Creator,

Three attributes of God are described, first that He is one. We can know from natural reason that the origin of all things must be only one. Natural reason also tells us that this origin must have all power, here expressed as almighty and later expressed with the more technical omnipotent. 

The mercy of God has been revealed to us, and for many it is the most difficult to believe. The temple places this title as the last and most significant, and connects it to His identity as Creator. The creation was the first act of benevolence, by which He granted all things the precious gift of existence itself, and He continues to sustain us in this and grants us more gifts beyond it, even after we creatures betray His will and have used His gifts to spite Him.

⊱༺ fashioner of the heavens and the firmament

The creed specifies two objects of His handiwork, both connected to the sky, the Heavens, God's own realm toward which we strive, and the firmament, which refers literally to the sky, but implies the firmness of the created natural order, which was decreed by God and can not be unsettled except by His will.

⊱༺ King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Master of the Universe.

The original draft of the creed read "King of Kings, and God over gods". Though this could be understood in a theologically correct manner, that phrasing was rejected as the temple did not wish to dignify the created spirits with the term "gods". Rather, this expression was chosen.

It may seem that King of Kings and Lord of Lords is redundant, but this need not be so. For a King is chiefly considered in relation to the people over which he is king, and a Lord is considered chiefly in relation to the domain over which he is Lord. (Thus, as a digression, it is more proper to speak of "King of the Burgundians" rather than "King of Burgundy", though such technicalities are not observed in our day and age.) Therefore by use of the two titles the Temple signifies both the authority of God over all mankind personally, from which flows all authority in which Kings and other sovereigns partake, as well as his dominion over the physical creation.

Master of the Universe can signify both the relationship between a Master and his household, thereby signifying a close, personal ownership, or the relationship between a Master and apprentice, signifying that the universe ought to heed closely his instructions and strive to emulate him.

⊱༺ Singular, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent

The creed mostly reiterates. Briefly,  but in the strongest possible terms, it professes that God is one, that He has all power, that He is in all places, and that He is all benevolence itself.

⊱༺ I kneel in obeisance to His will, and I keep faith with the Covenant between Him and our Forefather Horen.

Here, the belief is translated into action, for mere belief is of no benefit to anyone. No mortal believes in the omnipotence and omnibenevolence of God more than does Iblees, the Deceiver. Well indeed could the enemy and his demonic hosts recite this creed up to this point, but here they must stop, for their kind kneels in obeisance to nothing but their own pride and envy, and they keep no faith even amongst themselves.

It may be objected that I, a son of Malin, should claim Horen as my forefather, but the creed does not here refer to the fathership of Horen in a physical sense, but is recited only by the sons of Horen according to their faith to the Covenant. This I have by virtue not of my ordination, but of my baptism in the waters of Gamesh, and my faithfulness to that baptism. In this sense the sons of Horen are all who follow the God of Horen and keep the covenant God made to Horen.

Thus we may say that persons such as myself, or Saint Pius of Sutica, or Saint Sertog the twice-born are true sons of Horen of whom it is said "where the virtuous are cast out of this world, He gathers them in the Skies" (Silence, 42) and we need not say that such men as Augustus of Blackmont or Ostromir of Dobrov or the pagan nations have any share in the glory of God in eternity.

⊱༺ GOD alone do I confess, worship, and seek after.

God is Truth itself, and by confessing God alone the Temple affirms all truth that partakes in Him, and renounces falsehoods that flow from some other source. The Temple intends by the word "Worship" both sacrifices and divine honor, which are rightfully directed only to the Creator of all things. 

To say that we seek after God alone is to say that we direct our attentions always to the Heavens, pursuing always the Will of its Master through outward actions, and pursuing the Master Himself through our interior disposition, and discarding such distractions the world dangles before us, which draw our attention downward and away from eternal things.

⊱༺ I confess the one Holy, Apostolic, and True Faith of the Temple. I bend to the successors of Saints Evaristus and Clement, the Pontificate, the Episcopacy, and the Presbyterate who bear their laurel and cloth themselves in their authority. 

Horen was selected from among his brothers to lead the faithful in the fight against the Deceiver. The scrolls record how the priesthood of Horen was scattered among many separate rites, each with a only fraction of the authority which had been placed in their father. Therefore God sent the Prophet Owyn to gather the rites together into a single laurel, so that the people of God would more easily act in a single accord with the fullness of authority. 

Owyn appointed the first Pontiffs, Saints Clement and Evaristus, to lead the institution he had established, and the Pontiff of the True Faith is nothing more nor less than the successors of those two. 

⊱༺ I profess that the Pontiff is the High Priest and Vicar of GOD, able to speak on His behalf. 

The Pontiff is High Priest of God, as it is through whom and with whom we direct our worship to God, and he is Viceroy of God, as He is authorized to act on God's behalf. The Temple knows that she has had faithless Viceroys, but their authority remains, and it is not for a subject to stand in judgement over  a Viceroy, but for the King himself, who sees all that is done in daylight and in the dark, and who reads perfectly the intentions of the heart, and Whose judgement upon those whom He has given such great responsibility will be terrible indeed.

Therefore, if one is to stand, in service to the King, against the Viceroy, they must examine themselves closely, scourging themselves of any impurity of intention. They must take counsel with the wise, and make themselves fully aware of the circumstances the Viceroy is facing, and proceed with great humility and steadfast virtue, knowing that they have, in a sense, taken their souls into their own hand. The same is the case for one who is to become Viceroy themselves.

⊱༺ I acknowledge the Holy Scrolls 

The Holy Scrolls are the Scrolls of Virtue, Spirit and Gospel, which were delivered to us by the Prophets Horen, Owyn and Godfrey, whose authenticity was verified by miracles witnessed and known to the people of their times. They were given to us that we might have assurance in those things of God we can know by reason, knowledge of those things we can know only by revelation, instructions concerning a life of virtue, understanding of our place in the history of the world, and many other things besides.

⊱༺ and believe in the Four Sacraments and their efficacy as holy mysteries.

The Four Sacraments are Baptism, Confession, Holy Orders and Matrimony. These four have been promised by the giver of all Grace, through the Temple, to effect the working of grace in the soul. Every working of Grace in the soul is a miracle greater than any miracle, for when all things were created, they offered no resistance to this action of God. Nor do the laws of material objects resist when He who declared them declares their temporary suspension, but souls with intellect, unlike all other beings, have the capacity to resist the will of their Maker. Therefore is the working of Grace beyond the understanding of mortalkind, and they are therefore called Holy Mysteries.

⊱༺ I believe in four sons of Man, the Fathers of Mankind. 

The four sons of Primordial Man were Malin, Urguan, Krug and Horen. They were born of Man and Woman, therefore they are of the kind of Man, and so also are the tribes given to them. To exclude any of the sons from the term Mankind, therefore, constitutes not only a denial of the creed and the clear teaching of the scrolls, but a denial of all histories told of our origin by faithful and unfaithful alike from the very dawn of the world.

⊱༺ I profess to the two Sons of Spirit - Owyn, and Godfrey. 

The Holy Scrolls record that Horen was promised three sons of Spirit through Julia. These are distinct from his sons according to the flesh as well  his sons according to the covenant, being sons according to the spirit of prophecy held by both the patriarch and his wife. 

The first was Owyn, called the Purifier, who reunited the Hurinaic priesthood and established the Church, and Godfrey, called the Redeemer, who established the first Empire which, though not in his lifetime, would create the conditions for relative peace among Mankind. Each played pivotal roles in the working out of Divine providence in mortal history.

⊱༺ I await with anticipation the coming of the Third Son of Spirit 

The Third Son of Spirit, called the Preserver, has been foretold and not yet fulfilled. He will likewise be a pivotal figure, perhaps, and I speculate, saving the Faith during a time when it would seem to be overcome by her enemies.

⊱༺ and the healing of the world,

At the end of history, the Deceiver will be finally overthrown, and the war of Horen against the agents of malice shall be concluded, and the Eternal Word will descend once again to put the world in order on that day as He had done at the beginning, and the virtuous of Mankind will be free to complete their commission of completing the creation of the world without the interference of our infernal foe.

⊱༺ And place my faith in the mercy of God for hope of my ascension to the Seven Skies.

Created beings are made in a state of debt for the enormous gift of our own existence, which we can never repay, for we have nothing to offer Him except that which He first granted to us. Who would say to a King "As I have not broken any of your laws, you therefore should allow me into your feast and grant to me a fiefdom." Thus would be even the most righteous angels, and perhaps even some of the Holiest mortals. But God owes them nothing from obligation, and we, who have broken his laws, can claim even less, except that God is eternally merciful and delights in rewarding the faithful, as an outpouring of goodness from He who is Himself Goodness. 

This is the hope, in which, more than all things, we can place our trust.

[Nectorist 12869]

Even in straightforward interpretation of a direct creed, there is much to be said about the necessity of contemplation even in the most common and vastly-repeated of creeds, prayers, and verses. If one is to demonstrate a purposeful, intentional life of faith, it must be guided by contemplation. Think of the commendable piety that is shown by converts to the Faith, who gave their lives to God despite the cultural and familial currents which they swam against. Few converts demonstrate a lack of understanding of the basic principles of the Faith, and fewer treasure the worldly bounty of their sin over the bounty of the spirit that comes with virtue. It is of little doubt that a principle reason for this is that their faith, provided it was not compelled by force of arms, was the product of deliberation undergone over time, or the witnessing of a miracle so great that the glories of the Lord could not be denied.

 

Inversely, we have many who were born into the Faith, taught their prayers, given the Scrolls to read, yet exercise only the mind of memory. It is an easy thing to keep to one's faith when they are born in it and are expected to remain in it, but it is an unfulfilling life, to not think once of the mysterium of the Lord, nor of its place in our lives. Even our daily prayers and creeds, words that have become engrained memories, are positive affirmations, carrying with them promises that are central our very existence. Continue this good work, for it shall serve as a most useful reference in future teachings, so that Faith may be instilled within the heart, rather than solely recited from the tongue.

 

HIS HOLINESS, CAIUS II

 

High Priest of the Temple of the True Faith, Successor of Clement and Evaristus, High Pontiff of the Church of True Faith, Servant of the Servants of Heaven, Servant of the Holy Flame, Apostle of Saint Lucien, Envoy of Aeldin, High Servant to the Prophet’s Testaments, Humble Servant of the Faithful and Vicar of GOD