At This Time, Too, The Old Hellenic Curiosity Was Not Wholly
Dimmed; They Took An Intelligent Interest In Imported Creeds Like That
Of Luther, Which, If Not Convincing, At Least Satisfied Their Desire For
Novelty.
Theirs was exactly the attitude of the Athenians towards Paul's
"New God"; and Protestantism might have spread far in the south, had it
not been ferociously repressed.
But after the brilliant humanistic period of the Aragons there followed
the third and fiercest reaction - that of the Spanish viceroys, whose
misrule struck at every one of the roots of national prosperity. It is
that "seicentismo" which a modern writer (A. Niceforo, "L'Italia
barbara," 1898) has recognized as the blight, the evil genius, of south
Italy. The Ionic spirit did not help the people much at this time. The
greatest of these viceroys, Don Pietro di Toledo, hanged 18,000 of them
in eight years, and then confessed, with a sigh, that "he did not know
what more he could do." What more could he do? As a pious Spaniard he
was incapable of understanding that quarterings and breakings on the
rack were of less avail than the education of the populace in certain
secular notions of good conduct - notions which it was the business of
his Church not to teach. Reading through the legislation of the
viceregal period, one is astonished to find how little was done for the
common people, who lived like the veriest beasts of earth.
Their civil rulers - scholars and gentlemen, most of them - really
believed that the example of half a million illiterate and vicious monks
was all the education they needed. And yet one notes with surprise that
the Government was perpetually at loggerheads with the ecclesiastical
authorities. True; but it is wonderful with what intuitive alacrity they
joined forces when it was a question of repelling their common
antagonist, enlightenment.
From this rank soil there sprang up an exotic efflorescence of holiness.
If south Italy swarmed with sinners, as the experiences of Don Pietro
seemed to show, it also swarmed with saints. And hardly one of them
escaped the influence of the period, the love of futile ornamentation.
Their piety is overloaded with embellishing touches and needless
excrescences of virtue. It was the baroque period of saintliness, as of
architecture.
I have already given some account of one of them, the Flying Monk
(Chapter X), and have perused the biographies of at least fifty others.
One cannot help observing a great uniformity in their lives - a kind of
family resemblance. This parallelism is due to the simple reason that
there is only one right for a thousand wrongs. One may well look in
vain, here, for those many-tinted perversions and aberrations which
disfigure the histories of average mankind. These saints are all
alike - monotonously alike, if one cares to say so - in their chastity and
other official virtues. But a little acquaintance with the subject will
soon show you that, so far as the range of their particular Christianity
allowed of it, there is a praiseworthy and even astonishing diversity
among them. Nearly all of them could fly, more or less; nearly all of
them could cure diseases and cause the clouds to rain; nearly all of
them were illiterate; and every one of them died in the odour of
sanctity - with roseate complexion, sweetly smelling corpse, and flexible
limbs. Yet each one has his particular gifts, his strong point. Joseph
of Copertino specialized in flying; others were conspicuous for their
heroism in sitting in hot baths, devouring ordure, tormenting themselves
with pins, and so forth.
Here, for instance, is a good representative biography - the Life of
Saint Giangiuseppe della Croce (born 1654), reprinted for the occasion
of his solemn sanctification. [Footnote: "Vita di S. Giangiuseppe della
Croce . . . Scritta dal P. Fr. Diodato dell' Assunta per la
Beatificazione ed ora ristampata dal postulatore della causa P. Fr.
Giuseppe Rostoll in occasione della solenne Santificazione." Roma,
1839.]
He resembled other saints in many points. He never allowed the "vermin
which generated in his bed" to be disturbed; he wore the same clothes
for sixty-four years on end; with women his behaviour was that of an
"animated statue," and during his long life he never looked any one in
the face (even his brother-monks were known to him only by their
voices); he could raise the dead, relieve a duchess of a devil in the
shape of a black dog, change chestnuts into apricots, and bad wine into
good; his flesh was encrusted with sores, the result of his fierce
scarifications; he was always half starved, and when delicate viands
were brought to him, he used to say to his body: "Have you seen them?
Have you smelt them? Then let that suffice for you."
He, too, could fly a little. So once, when he was nowhere to be found,
the monks of the convent at last discovered him in the church, "raised
so high above the ground that his head touched the ceiling." This is not
a bad performance for a mere lad, as he then was. And how useful this
gift became in old age was seen when, being almost incapable of moving
his legs, and with body half paralysed, he was nevertheless enabled to
accompany a procession for the length of two miles on foot, walking, to
the stupefaction of thousands of spectators, at about a cubit's height
above the street, on air; after the fashion of those Hindu gods whose
feet - so the pagans fable - are too pure to touch mortal earth.
His love of poverty, moreover, was so intense that even after his death
a picture of him, which his relatives had tried to attach to the wall in
loving remembrance, repeatedly fell down again, although nailed very
securely; nor did it remain fixed until they realized that its costly
gilt frame was objectionable to the saint in heaven, and accordingly
removed it. No wonder the infant Jesus was pleased to descend from the
breast of Mary and take rest for several hours in the arms of Saint
Giangiuseppe, who, on being disturbed by some priestly visitor,
exclaimed, "O how I have enjoyed holding the Holy Babe in my arms!" This
is an old and favourite motif; it occurs, for example, in the Fioretti
of Saint Francis; there are precedents, in fact, for all these divine
favours.
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