Today is celebrated as Little Easter in Italy, a recovery from yesterday’s religious blow-out.

For those of you who think that Catholicism saved the ancient Italic people from their pagan ways, think again.  It’s a question of theory vs practice.  Peter and Paul supplied the mysticism, but Rome created the structure.  On almost every count our version of Christianity is a far cry from its Jewish roots.

You can rattle off the easy stuff like a Pope, nuns, saints, street processions, and graven images; all of which had their Roman origins:  Pontifex Maximus, Vestal Virgins, and a pantheon of gods and goddesses.  Even the Greek Orthodox gave up statuary, which Italians turned into an entire category of art.  We also opted for a pagan solar timetable leaving Jews, Muslims and Asians to follow the erratic moon.

Our pagan ways didn’t include a heaven or hell.  Death was pretty much the end of things, although honoring dead ancestors hedged our bets.  So, selling pagans on an afterlife found ready buyers.  Hell was another story.  The old gods didn’t expect us to turn the other cheek or lead a goodly life because the consequences were limited to Earth.  Eternal damnation was a new and frightening concept especially when the average lifespan was only 40 or 50.  Often, it closed the deal for conversion.

The old gods were far from the paragons of virtue like Joseph, Mary, and John (the Baptist).  In fact, the gods were as corrupt as their earthbound worshippers.  Gods formed alliances with each other, screwed around with the mortals below and sometimes mated with them.  Convincing pagan Romans that Jesus was the son of God was blasphemy to Jews but not to our ancestors.  Julius Caesar claimed his distant ancestor was Venus.  Emperors themselves entered the pantheon as “divine” or god-like.  Many a temple was built to Caesar Augustus.

Many Protestants sects are appalled by our Catholic elevation of saints, a practice dating to the Roman concept of patron/client—don’t bother the Big Guy, he has agents and go-fors to handle the load.  (This applied to Jupiter, the chief god, his standard abbreviation was IOM—Iupiter Optimus Maximus, the best and greatest.) So, we used to wear St. Christopher medals, still pray to St. Jude or the Holy Mother, and may bury a statuette of St Joseph in the yard to sell a house.  These are all vestiges of our pagan roots.

The ancient Italic people were superstitious not religious.  Worshipping the gods meant keeping them on your side. Morality was instead taught through family values and civic laws.  Pagans observed many of the Ten Commands before Moses – honor the gods and your parents, do not kill or steal.  They believed in public works, feeding the poor, protecting orphans, freeing slaves and allowing them social and economic progress.  They exceeded the Jews in the education and socialization of women as well as allowing divorce.  And, of course, stoning adulterous wives was not a Roman penalty.

Our pagan ancestors had the equivalent of baptism in Praenomio, bestowing the first name on newborn males.  When the boy reached puberty his rite of passage (“Confirmation”) was the Liberalia, a civic ceremony allowing him to vote.  Their bible was the Sybilline Books, kept in Rome’s Temple to Jupiter.  Purchased by an Etruscan king from the Greek colony at Cumae (near Naples), the writings were Nostradamus-like (i.e., vague) predictions, that often guided Roman decisions for war and peace.  Pagans had their version of a pilgrimage to Lourdes or Fatima.  They journeyed to the Greek city of Delphi where the Oracle resided or to Egypt, home of the healing goddess Isis.

It may be an inconvenient truth to say that our pagan side wasn’t totally lost.  –JLM