Eleď

From Almeopedia

Eleď [ˈɛ lɛð] is an aspect of God in three Almean religions: Cuzeian theism, Arašát, and Eleďát. As the first of these is based on iliu religion, his worship on Almea can be said to date back up to 40,000 years ago.

Cuzeian theism

In Cuzeian theology, there were three gods, or three mētū (roles) of one God:

• Iáinos, the abstract Idea, whose eternal and perfect conception and law underlies all creation.
• Eīledan, the Shaper (edrouvas), who turns Iáinos's conception into real matter and time.
• Ulōne, the Divine Response, the divinity created by Eīledan's and Iáinos' activity, and the response of love and worship evoked in every created being.

The same roles are present, they believed, in human (and other species’) creation. Iáinos corresponds to the artist’s abstract, holistic perception of the entire work; Eīledan to the messy process of creating the work in time and physical materials; Ulōne to the spectator's response of delight and understanding. (The artist must deal with all three roles, while the spectator is mostly response; thus the emphasis in Cuzeian theology on subcreation, which allowed a better understanding of all three divine mētū.)

References to the mētū in Cuzeian literature are fairly balanced. They were certainly not interchangeable: each one had a specific nature, and was approached with different needs. (In general one went to Iáinos to praise, or to seek to grasp his vision; to Eīledan for practical help in the world; and to Ulōne for inner help or growth in holiness.) Eīledan did not particularly stand out from the other two mētū.

There was some tendency in the south (the original duchy of Tevarē) to put Eīledan first, in the north (the duchy of Eleisa to put Iáinos first. Since Eleisa became the capital of united Cuzei, Iáinos was considered the chief mētu and the stand-in for all three; to indicate one’s religious allegiance a Cuzeian would say that he was Iáinex, of Iáinos.

There was a special reverence attached to the mysterious hero of one of the Cuzeian epics, the Sojourner (Enōtivas). Some Knowers (priests) felt that devotion to a human and probably fictional character neared blasphemy; others maintained that the Sojourner was an avatar of Eīledan. As the mētu most associated with the physical world, he was certainly the one to have an avatar in it.

Arašei conceptions

The Arašei lived under heavy Caďinorian persecution, and became used to hiding their doctrines— they were not even to name the mētu. Their deepest identity was with the Idea of Iáinos, which they alone in the empire knew; this became their deepest secret as well, not often spoken of except during rituals. And yet, ruled and persecuted by barbarian polytheists, truly grasping Iáinos’s Idea, or hearing from him directly, seemed a remote prospect.

Eileďan, as we call him in Caďinor, was a much more approachable figure. He actually did things in the material world— lived in it, one could say. At the same time, Arašei theology became much more overtly and strictly monotheistic: no more loose talk of ‘gods’; Iainos, Eileďan, and Ulone were aspects of one god. There was no better name for this God than Cuêzi Nūmiu or Caď. Aiďos, both meaning ‘god’; but inevitably Eileďan was used as well— it felt a good deal more personal and descriptive. Thus, it’s no accident that the Arašei scriptures are the Book of Eleď.

Stories of avatars of Eleď increased in the Dark Years; like the Sojourner, but with more explicitly supernatural powers, these would come to solve some crisis and depart suddenly. It was also expected that Eleď would someday return as a figure of vengeance, defeating the oppressors and restoring a larger, perhaps universal holy nation.

Already in Old Verdurian we find Eleďe used to name the followers of Eleď, though in Almean studies we prefer to use the older term Arašei until the Union of 2987.

Eleďát

The arrival of the Elenicoi in Avéla in 2870 transformed a somewhat retiring community into a dynamic, evangelizing force for change. After some theological struggle, the Elenicoi and the Arašei merged, officially forming the Aďeton Naurondise i Avéla, the Universal Avélan Church, but commonly called Eleďát.

The Council of Avéla agreed to identify the Elenico trinity with the Cuzeian mētū; Eleď is thus identified with the Son, and Iesu as his avatar on the far-off but crucial world of Oikumene. This identification even informs the Verdurian translation of the New Testament, the Book of Iesu, which freely uses Cuzeian theological terms and names.

The effects of the Union are different in different areas.

• In the Eärdur valley, the heartland of Cuzeian theism, practice is still largely Arašei, with the addition of a yearly communion meal at which the story of Iesu is related.
• In Érenat and Kebri, where Elenico influence was strongest, Arašát is viewed as a precursor religion setting the stage for Iesu’s work and for the story of the Elenicoi themselves, told in the Book of Mihel, the third of the Eleďe scriptures. They are happy to use the name Eleď, but they more or less consider it a name of Iesu.
• In Verduria and in the southern states, the two beliefs have more completely merged, and Eleď is worshipped for both his Almean heritage and his work as Iesu.