How different an
image does this plump and futile infant evoke to the stately Minister of
the Lord, girt with a sword of flame! We see it in the Italian Madonna
of whom, whatever her mental acquirements may have been, a certain
gravity of demeanour is to be presupposed, and who, none the less, grows
more childishly smirking every day; in her Son who - hereabouts at
least - has doffed all the serious attributes of manhood and dwindled
into something not much better than a doll. It was the same in days of
old. Apollo (whom Saint Michael has supplanted), and Eros, and
Aphrodite - they all go through a process of saccharine deterioration.
Our fairest creatures, once they have passed their meridian vigour, are
liable to be assailed and undermined by an insidious diabetic tendency.
It is this coddling instinct of mankind which has reduced Saint Michael
to his present state. And an extraneous influence has worked in the same
direction - the gradual softening of manners within historical times,
that demasculinization which is an inevitable concomitant of increasing
social security. Divinity reflects its human creators and their
environment; grandiose or warlike gods become superfluous, and finally
incomprehensible, in humdrum days of peace. In order to survive, our
deities (like the rest of us) must have a certain plasticity. If
recalcitrant, they are quietly relieved of their functions, and
forgotten. This is what has happened in Italy to God the Father and the
Holy Ghost, who have vanished from the vulgar Olympus; whereas the
devil, thanks to that unprincipled versatility for which he is famous,
remains ever young and popular.
The art-notions of the Cinque-Cento are also to blame; indeed, so far as
the angelic shapes of south Italy are concerned, the influence of the
Renaissance has been wholly malefic. Aliens to the soil, they were at
first quite unknown - not one is pictured in the Neapolitan catacombs.
Next came the brief period of their artistic glory; then the syncretism
of the Renaissance, when these winged messengers were amalgamated with
pagan amoretti and began to flutter in foolish baroque fashion about
the Queen of Heaven, after the pattern of the disreputable little genii
attendant upon a Venus of a bad school. That same instinct which
degraded a youthful Eros into the childish Cupid was the death-stroke to
the pristine dignity and holiness of angels. Nowadays, we see the
perversity of it all; we have come to our senses and can appraise the
much-belauded revival at its true worth; and our modern sculptors will
rear you a respectable angel, a grave adolescent, according to the best
canons of taste - should you still possess the faith that once
requisitioned such works of art.
We travellers acquaint ourselves with the lineage of this celestial
Messenger, but it can hardly be supposed that the worshippers now
swarming at his shrine know much of these things. How shall one discover
their real feelings in regard to this great cave-saint and his life and
deeds?
Well, some idea of this may be gathered from the literature sold on the
spot. I purchased three of these modern tracts printed respectively at
Bitonto, Molfetta and Naples. The "Popular Song in honour of St. Michael
" contains this verse:
Nell' ora della morte
Ci salvi dal!' inferno
E a Regno Sempiterno
Ci guidi per pieta.
Ci guidi per pieta. . . . This is the Mercury-heritage. Next, the
"History and Miracles of St. Michael" opens with a rollicking dialogue
in verse between the archangel and the devil concerning a soul; it ends
with a goodly list, in twenty-five verses, of the miracles performed by
the angel, such as helping women in childbirth, curing the blind, and
other wonders that differ nothing from those wrought by humbler earthly
saints. Lastly, the "Novena in Onore di S. Michele Arcangelo," printed
in 1910 (third edition) with ecclesiastical approval, has the following
noteworthy paragraph on the
"DEVOTION FOR THE SACRED STONES OF THE GROTTO OF ST. MICHAEL.
"It is very salutary to hold in esteem the STONES which are taken from
the sacred cavern, partly because from immemorial times they have always
been held in veneration by the faithful and also because they have been
placed as relics of sepulchres and altars. Furthermore, it is known that
during the plague which afflicted the kingdom of Naples in the year
1656, Monsignor G. A. Puccini, archbishop of Manfredonia, recommended
every one to carry devoutly on his person a fragment of the sacred
STONE, whereby the majority were saved from the pestilence, and this
augmented the devotion bestowed on them."
The cholera is on the increase, and this may account for the rapid sale
of the STONES at this moment.
This pamphlet also contains a litany in which the titles of the
archangel are enumerated. He is, among other things, Secretary of God,
Liberator from Infernal Chains, Defender in the Hour of Death, Custodian
of the Pope, Spirit of Light, Wisest of Magistrates, Terror of Demons,
Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the Lord, Lash of Heresies, Adorer
of the Word Incarnate, Guide of Pilgrims, Conductor of Mortals: Mars,
Mercury, Hercules, Apollo, Mithra - what nobler ancestry can angel
desire? And yet, as if these complicated and responsible functions did
not suffice for his energies, he has twenty others, among them being
that of "Custodian of the Holy Family " - who apparently need a
protector, a Monsieur Paoli, like any mortal royalties.
"Blasphemous rubbish!" I can hear some Methodist exclaiming. And one
may well be tempted to sneer at those pilgrims for the more enlightened
of whom such literature is printed. For they are unquestionably a
repulsive crowd: travel-stained old women, under-studies for the Witch
of Endor; dishevelled, anaemic and dazed-looking girls; boys, too weak
to handle a spade at home, pathetically uncouth, with mouths agape and
eyes expressing every grade of uncontrolled emotion - from wildest joy to
downright idiotcy.
