Easter Sunday – Fuente Fría. Christ comes out of his own church door this time, a tall, mildly-golden Christ, standing on a mildly-golden cloud, the wound on the bridge of his right foot showing very clearly. He’s up on a float – and somehow leaning slightly leftwards all the way – carried by the Cofradía de la Vera y Santa Cruz, the Brotherhood of the True and Holy Cross. Their impressive purple banner goes before; members wear a cross around their necks, on a yellow chord.
Once again, I miss the setting-out. Not realising Christ had gone – in this like the Three Maries – I popped into the church, where I found the image of the Virgin, soon also to sally forth. She is much smaller, white flowers in a tumult at her feet, the women bearers lined up having their photos taken on mobiles before they hoist her aloft. I suddenly realise I’m the only man in all-female throng. So out I scoot, then see that the crowd at the church door, through which I had already passed un-noticing, is also entirely female. The mayor, turns up, a little later even than I am, looks embarrassed, makes a gesture acknowledging the multiplicity of his duties and scoots off to join the procession of the Resurrected Christ – which is of course an all-male affair. I follow the mayor and walk among the men, cap in hand.
The two floats meet, mother and son, which is the point of the whole little affair, in the main square, among the cafe bars, with their tables and umbrellas all set out for Easter. Don Fulgencio, the priest, is in charge. Frankly, it’s a bit perfunctory. Not much emotion flowing.
I judge from quite a lofty viewpoint. Gaby and I have seen an awful lot of Easter processions in Extremadura. There is a particularly striking meeting of mother and son in Zafra, in the south, on the Wednesday of Holy Week – the timing of the Biblical incidents that processions refer to varies from town to town with only the sombre processions of Thursday evening common to all.
In Zafra the two very elaborate floats meet one another deep into darkness, bands playing behind them, in a delightful little opening in the old tanners’ district. After a bit of hob-nobbing, up they are hoisted on the shoulders of their bearers and off they go again. Local people, here and everywhere, are tremendously knowledgeable about float-carrying, and a good lift always gets applause. Next Christ’s tall float has to pass under low electric wires – well done, thinks the crowd and applauds again as the image dips and rocks and rises. And right there, on a balcony by an open window, a singer starts the tremendously- Arabic-sounding ululations of the ‘saeta’. Saeta means arrow – these are lamentations and cries of love aimed at the attention of the Lord Above and they are often moving, very moving, a vocal element to punctuate the processions at odd and often unexpected moments. The music of the bands is moving too – brass bands with drum support, odd and unusual rhythms, quite a lot in common with bullfight music, not to mention flamenco. I love its wildness and, to my ear, unpredictability.
Today, though, as in every Easter Week, my thoughts stray to the remarkable similarities between the cults of Christ and Attis, Phrygian God, often shown in sculpture in a tall Phrygian cap, just like Mithras. Attis too died, in many versions attached to a tree, usually a pine – having rashly cut off his own genitals – and rose again after three days. Both cults revolve around a Resurrection – happening at or near the vernal solstice. The cult seems to have reached Rome at the time of the emperor Claudius with followers of both in serious, head-splitting rivalry with one another.
One shouldn’t be surprised. One of the strengths of early Christianity was its ability to absorb elements of other religions and take on board their sense of immanent godhead and the magic of holy place and the turning of the years through spring and winter equinoxes. The Venerable Bede, 7/8th century historian of the English church, points out that the name of Easter comes from Eostre, a Celtic deity, and it is he who gives us the full text of the marvellous letter sent by Gregory the Great, in the year 601 ( through an intermediary) to St Augustine of Canterbury, urging the take-over and capture – for Christ, of course – of pagan rituals and temples. If one ever wants proof of a conscious policy of infiltration and take-over by Christianity, then this is it. Christianity also picked up a lot of fertility symbols around its Easter celebrations, Easter eggs and Easter rabbits and all that.
I know that Catholic reformers and serious-minded Protestants took – and take – a dim view of all this. Only this morning, John Sentamu of York was arguing that children will soon learn that reality consists of more than Easter eggs and Easter bunnies. I heard it on the BBC, as maybe you did too. Cool it, archbishop, let it go.