I Doubt Whether An
Athene-Madonna, An Intellectual Goddess, Could Ever Have Been Evolved;
Their Attitude Towards Gods In General Is Too Childlike And Positive.
South Italians, famous for abstractions in philosophy, cannot endure
them in religion.
Unlike ourselves, they do not desire to learn anything
from their deities or to argue about them. They only wish to love and be
loved in return, reserving to themselves the right to punish them, when
they deserve it. Countless cases are on record where (pictures or
statues of) Madonnas and saints have been thrown into a ditch for not
doing what they were told, or for not keeping their share of a bargain.
During the Vesuvius eruption of 1906 a good number were subjected to
this "punishment," because they neglected to protect their worshippers
from the calamity according to contract (so many candles and festivals =
so much protection).
For the same reason the adult Jesus - the teacher, the God - is
practically unknown. He is too remote from themselves and the ordinary
activities of their daily lives; he is not married, like his mother; he
has no trade, like his father (Mark calls him a carpenter); moreover,
the maxims of the Sermon on the Mount are so repugnant to the South
Italian as to be almost incomprehensible. In effigy, this period of
Christ's life is portrayed most frequently in the primitive monuments of
the catacombs, erected when tradition was purer.
Three tangibly-human aspects of Christ's life figure here: the
bambino-cult, which not only appeals to the people's love of babyhood
but also carries on the old traditions of the Lar Familiaris and of
Horus; next, the youthful Jesus, beloved of local female mystics; and
lastly the Crucified - that grim and gloomy image of suffering which was
imported, or at least furiously fostered, by the Spaniards.
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