People venerating the Malkioni saints do not become more like those saints nor do the saints directly provide any magic. Saints are holy people who are venerated for their spiritual purity, insight, deeds, or righteousness. Perhaps Tzadik, Wali, or Bhagat would have been a better word than "Saint" (with all its loaded baggage).
Here's another way of thinking about it, to the Malkioni philosophers such as Socrates or Aristotle would be saints. They do not directly provide any magic ("Socrates give me strength!") but they show (through deeds, speeches, or writings) how to understand the workings of the Invisible God, and therefore sorcery. Certain Malkioni sects (but not all!) honor their saints, giving them the respect such holy individuals are due.
That being said, sometimes the veneration of a saint crosses into divine worship - and sometimes the entity being venerated is actually a divine being or Eransaschula.
> > We also know that sorcery is something you know. I can grok how the
> > sorcery that the sorcerers use works, but saints, veneration and
> > blessings are beyond me. I get how you can decode scripture to learn
> > wizardly magic, but how is worshiping a saint something you know? How
> > are the blessings something you know as opposed to something you are
> > or have?
>
> The worship of Saints does not involve sacrifice therefore it is not
> theistic worship.
The saints do not provide direct magical benefit. A specific ritual of veneration may be a spell that provides a benefit, but you get the benefit not because of saintly intercession but because you know the incantation, prayer, or whatever.
> The olde christian distinction - worship flows through the saints to God
> - isn't really helpful.
I agree.
> So what follows is my brief stab...
>
> Saints are Malkioni that have acquired some critical understanding of
> God that is not readily apparent/Hidden/Invisible to mortals.
>
> When lesser Malkioni worship a Saint, they are performing a little spell
> that allows some sharing of this understanding to occur. But because
> their brains are so small, they eventually forget and have to repeatedly
> worship the saint to maintain access to this understanding.
Or to put it more simply - the veneration of the saint is simply a spell as that term is used in HQ2. People who have not been educated in the workings of wizardry (ie most people) often believe the saint performs the magic, although any wizard would be quick to correct that (if they care too).
FWIW, the wizardly castes of the Malkioni are least likely to make that sort of mistake.
Jeff
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