It is
the cult of the feminine principle - a relic of that aboriginal obsession
of mankind to shelter in some Cloven Rock of Ages, in the sacred womb of
Mother Earth who gives us food and receives us after death.
Grotto-apparitions, old and new, are but the popular explanations of
this dim primordial craving, and hierophants of all ages have understood
the commercial value of the holy shudder which penetrates in these
caverns to the heart of worshippers, attuning them to godly deeds. So
here, close beside the altar, the priests are selling fragments of the
so-called "Stone of Saint Michael." The trade is brisk.
The statuette of the archangel preserved in this subterranean chapel is
a work of the late Renaissance. Though savouring of that mawkish
elaboration which then began to taint local art and literature and is
bound up with the name of the poet Marino, it is still a passably virile
figure. But those countless others, in churches or over house-doors - do
they indeed portray the dragon-killer, the martial prince of angels?
This amiable child with girlish features - can this be the Lucifer of
Christianity, the Sword of the Almighty? Quis ut Deus! He could
hardly hurt a fly.
The hoary winged genius of Chaldea who has absorbed the essence of so
many solemn deities has now, in extreme old age, entered upon a second
childhood and grown altogether too youthful for his role, undergoing
a metimorphosis beyond the boundaries of legendary probability or common
sense; every trace of divinity and manly strength has been boiled out of
him.
