When we reflect how often the Church has skilfully contrived to
plant the seeds of the new faith on the old stock of paganism, we
may surmise that the Easter celebration of the dead and risen Christ
was grafted upon a similar celebration of the dead and risen Adonis,
which, as we have seen reason to believe, was celebrated in Syria at
the same season. The type, created by Greek artists, of the
sorrowful goddess with her dying lover in her arms, resembles and
may have been the model of the _Piet?_ of Christian art, the Virgin
with the dead body of her divine Son in her lap, of which the most
celebrated example is the one by Michael Angelo in St. Peters. That
noble group, in which the living sorrow of the mother contrasts so
wonderfully with the languor of death in the son, is one of the
finest compositions in marble. Ancient Greek art has bequeathed to
us few works so beautiful, and none so pathetic.
In this connexion a well-known statement of Jerome may not be
without significance. He tells us that Bethlehem, the traditionary
birthplace of the Lord, was shaded by a grove of that still older
Syrian Lord, Adonis, and that where the infant Jesus had wept, the
lover of Venus was bewailed.
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