Sanguinary Priesthood origin?

[Joe]

Just throwing this out here as well.

 

Did the Sanguinary Priesthood originate during the Great Crusade/Horus Heresy, or were they a post-Heresy thing? Everything I've found so far has pointed towards Sanguinius having a hand in their creation during the Crusade/Heresy, however a quick in-store conversation with one of the staffers left him a bit confused on their origin.

[Charlo]

I imagine we'll find out when we get our turn in the Heresy books (fingers crossed for book 8!) but I'd imagine it was during the Crusade. BA were notoriously hard to create and the Primarchs blood helped that process a lot. The priesthood Could be in charge of this process and safe keeping the Sanguine lineage.

[Servant of Dante]

I imagine we'll find out when we get our turn in the Heresy books (fingers crossed for book 8!) but I'd imagine it was during the Crusade. BA were notoriously hard to create and the Primarchs blood helped that process a lot. The priesthood Could be in charge of this process and safe keeping the Sanguine lineage.

I always though it would have been post-heresy once the flaw started to manifest, but I guess there really is no grounds for this assumption.

[Joe]

There's a line on the wiki page for the Sanguinary Priests that suggests they existed prior to the Heresy, however I can't trace the source as there doesn't seem to be a very coherent citation system in place. It might be in the 7th ed. codex, though, which is the most recent source cited on the wiki. I'm afraid I don't own it myself, so I can't check.
 

 

Every Space Marine Legion, and every Chapter since the Second Founding, has maintained a corps of Apothecaries to safeguard its gene-seed and the health of its Battle-Brothers. Yet the Primarch Sanguinius knew that his sons would require more than physical curatives if they were to endure the endless war that was to be their mission in the years to come. The Blood Angels Primarch foresaw the darkness that would manifest itself in his children, and knew that it must be guarded against. He knew the shadow of death would come to nestle in his scions' hearts -- though he knew not how it would descend -- and judged that constant guidance would be needed to put this darkness to the proper use. So he transformed the IX Legion's Apothecaries into Sanguinary Priests, setting them as high in honour as the Chaplains of the Reclusiam, and just as vital to the spiritual guidance of the Blood Angels.

 

Hopefully we'll get a more direct confirmation in the near future.

[Xenith]

As ever, the answer can be found in the Blood Angels codex, unsurprisingly in the Sanguinary Priest section:

 

"[The Order of Sanguinary Priests] was raised to a position of honour in ancient times by Sanguinius himself..."

 

So the Legion had a normal Apothecarion, then Sanguinius made them better trained, and more prestigious within the chapter.

 

Somewhere else, it says that this is because his foresight had seen the degeneration of the gene seed, so he made sure that the apothecaries were suitably skilled to be able to stymie the rot.