‘if God Made Us In His Image, We Have Certainly Returned The Compliment’.

Throughout the history of religion, the teachings of sacred texts and the rituals of religious practice have been considered a way of establishing a spiritual connection with one s deity or deities whilst demonstrating one s undying devotion to the faith. In Christianity, the Bible teaches that man is made in God s image that is to say, humans occupy a higher place in the created order than any other living creature because we alone are imprinted with godlike characteristics. [1] In E a de Queiroz s late 19th century novel O Mandarim and Jos R gio s mid-20th century drama Benilde ou a Virgem-M e , this concept is flipped on its head. In the former, E a critiques the transformation of religion and God into nothing more than human commodities for purchase and exchange, as well as outlets for the release of sexual repression. Meanwhile, R gio s Benilde'#146s exposes the hypocrisy of of selective faith, or confiding in God only when it suits one s own circumstances.

In the same way that different denominations of the same religion interpret sacred texts such as the Bible in contrasting and contradictory ways, we humans also demonstrate a tendency to ascribe our own meanings to religious relics and artefacts, often in a way that the image we formulate of God through such objects is nothing more than a means to personal gain. A perfect example of this appears in the final part of A Rel quia , as Teodorico s increasingly cynical attitude towards his aunt s unerring faith reaches its climax when he becomes aware of the financial rewards to be reaped from setting up shop as a vendor of false relics: Vi inesperadamente a natureza real dessas medalhas, bentinhos, [...], que eu considerara at ent o um lixo eclesi stico esquecido pela vassoura da Filosofia! As rel quias eram valores! Tinham a qualidade omnipotente de valores! Dava-se um caco de barro e recebia-se uma rodela de ouro! By exposing Teodorico s selfish pursuit of the money that the sale of holy artefacts will earn for him, E a launches a scathing critique of the commodification of religion, exposing the moral and spiritual decay of a society where even the possibility of genuine spiritual belief seems to be seriously at risk. Rather than cherishing and worshiping relics as tangible memorials of divine veneration, our habit of transforming them into objects of commercial exploitation strips them of all transcendental value, whilst the God that is so strongly associated with them becomes nothing more than an extension of human rapacity. In Teodorico s view, relics are valuable only as a form of currency, bought and sold by those who have no intention to use them in accordance with their initial religious function. [2] In the words of Emily Apter, this process of almost fetishized commodification is nothing more than a case of object mania .[3]

However, it is not only as commodities that relics are fetishized in E a de Queiroz s novel. As Ernesto Guerra Da Cal has argued, A Rel quia also demonstrates an underlying tension between religious and sexual fervour. [4] For example, the severe Dona Patroc nio is highly respected in Portuguese society for her constant desire to appease God through her chastity and asceticism, but whilst she condemns normal sexual relationships and sentences herself to a rigorous religious regime, she simultaneously revels in the sensuous luxury of meaningless ritual and relic idolatry. [5] The sexual repression imposed on the devout is so great that prayer itself becomes erotically charged, and as a result of their obstinate refusal to embrace what is an essential part of human nature, they are forced to project on to God s image the sexual urges that they are unable to satisfy elsewhere.

These links between lust and religion in the novel are expressed primarily through the use of a set of symbols which are common to both lascivious sensuality and monastic devotion. For example, when Dona Patroc nio arrives in the oratory to greet Teodorico after he returns from his travels, she is described like a high priestess coming to meet her magistrates, but the silks and jewels that she wears are almost identical to those of the prostitutes of Alexandria: A Titi pousava no sof , tesa, desvanecida, com cetins de festa e com j ias. Perhaps the most symbolic of all are the two relics that Teodorico brings back from the Holy Land a nightshirt belonging to an English prostitute named Mary with whom he had shared a passionate affair in Egypt, and a false crown of thorns snapped from an ordinary bush. When Teodorico mixes up these two relics and is expelled from his aunt s house for transgressing the monastic law of sexual abstinence, the reader becomes fully aware of the fluidity between relics and fetish objects in the pages of A Rel quia. Due to the fact that both objects are identically wrapped in brown paper, their fundamental differences are disguised and they are divested of any intrinsic difference. Thus, religion and eroticism or the sacred and the profane are attitudes projected onto relics, and do not reside in the relics themselves. [6]

This is hugely significant when we think of the traditional religious definition of a relic as an object which usually consists of the physical remains or personal effects of a saint that is, a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness or likeness to God. Thus, by fetishizing relics and projecting on to them our naturally erotic tendencies, we are simultaneously projecting those tendencies on to God himself. When Teodorico remembers the note that Mary had left him and retrospectively realizes that he could have lied about the nightgown and persuaded his aunt that it had been bestowed upon him as a gift from the Virgin Mary herself, he once again reveals the ease with which one can interpret religious iconography as one sees fit, using it as a way of manipulating other people. In this way, God and religion in A Rel quia become nothing more than a mirror for human greed and selfishness. Furthermore, in the same way that Teodorico is so easily able to convince Titi that he is a pious and repentant individual, his conviction that she would have believed these false claims about the nightgown demonstrates that the inconsistent way in which we shape our vision of God is based on our blind faith in superficial assertions and appearances rather than a feeling that the world around us is steeped in a divine essence.

As is the case in A Rel quia, Jos R gio s Benilde ou A Virgem-M e demonstrates how we selectively believe in God s powers and capabilities only when it suits our own needs, formulating our own image of him and betraying the way in which he is presented to us in the Bible. Benilde was written in the midst of Ant nio Salazar s authoritarian dictatorship, at a time when the distinction between church and state was virtually erased. By manipulating the messianic Sebatianist myth that had for so long captivated the Portuguese imagination and placing himself in the position of the redemptive saviour whose objective was to redeem the nation, Salazar led the Portuguese Catholic church to believe more than ever in the epiphanic return of their Messiah. A contradiction arises, however, when none of the characters in Benilde trust the claims of the title character that she has been impregnated by God himself. The protagonists claim to be good Catholics, but by refusing to confide in the possibility of a second Virgin birth, they forcibly call into question both the veracity of the first miracle and the Christian dogma which subtends it. In addition, by denying the omnipotence of God which enabled the Virgin Mary s conception by the Holy Spirit, they are creating an image of their lord and saviour in which he is stripped of one of the qualities which most distinguishes him from mere mortals.[7]

Similar to the way in which Teodorico exploits the superficial value of sham relics for financial gain in A Rel quia, there are a number of characters in Benilde ou A Virgem-M e who create God in their own image for the purpose of their own personal advancement. One such example is Etelvina, who appears to be an exemplary citizen in the way that she takes good care of her son Eduardo and regularly frequents confession and mass. However, when she realizes that Benilde s purported virgin pregnancy and undivided devotion to God is undermining her son s desires to marry into Benilde s rich family, she reveals both her hypocrisy and her lack of faith when she declares that she might not even believe in the original virgin birth, let alone the second: N o acredito que tenha santas na fam lia, nem que se gerem filhos por milagre . As a result, she begins to view God as a direct threat to her pursuit of wealth rather than the benevolent lord that is depicted in sacred texts. Meanwhile, Benilde s devout language, which Etelvina herself no doubt uses every day that she attends church, begins to come across as a provocation. As such, when Benilde insists that her own imperfections are offenses committed against God ("#233 sobretudo a Deus que eu fa o mal, com as minhas imperfei es ), Etelvina s reaction is that of disdain with regard to the apparent suffering of a God that (according to Christian discourse) acts only with love towards a sinful humanity.[8]

A similar dilemma is faced by Etelvina s son Eduardo, who begins to despise God as a rival in his quest to take Benilde s hand in marriage: N o vou deixar que Deus me roube a minha mulherzinha . By assuming that God would be capable of committing despicable human acts such as betrayal and theft, he constructs God in humanity s own image and desacralizes the Lord that he had previously been so faithful to. In this way, Eduardo could be compared with Teodorico, who views God as a rival in the pursuit of his aunt s inheritance. However, although both display a strong level of distrust towards their Lord, the weakness of Christian faith is demonstrated most significantly here in Benilde by none other than the town s priest, Padre Crist v o. As a mediatory agent between humans and God, his role is to communicate to others the dogma of his deity s omnipotence, which he apparently considers to be the keystone of Christianity: digo que nada imposs vel a Deus. N o o que diria o Sr. Padre Crist v o? N o o que lhe tenho ouvido tantas vezes? Nevertheless, the strangeness of Benilde s situation leads to the retraction of his initial statement, and he consequently denies the theological basis of the religion that he claims to represent: Deus..., sim, Deus tudo pode. Mas tudo isto demasiado estranho! Sinto que a raz o se me perde... Padre Crist v o s reaction demonstrates the contradiction that even men of faith will not always believe in something unless they have empirical evidence for it, and this was increasingly becoming the case in light of the plethora of scientific discoveries which were made in the first half of the 20^th century. In other words, miracles that were previously attributed to God could now be explained by science, and the more that this happened, the more that we began to superimpose our own human image on to that of God.

In conclusion, both E a de Queiroz s A Rel quia and Jos R gio s Benilde ou a Virgem-M e demonstrate the hypocrisy of those who view themselves as devout and pious but are ultimately unable to confide in the image of God that is presented to them through Christian dogma. Whilst A Rel quia reveals to us the harsh consequences of stifling moral conservatism and the false, manipulable nature of religious iconography, Benilde is a testament to the weakness of faith and the failure to reconcile scientific rationality with the basic tenets of Christianity. In both cases, God s image is constructed according to the characters own individual circumstances, whilst the significance that they artificially ascribe to relics and scri pture is merely a way of satisfying their own greed and repressed sexual desires.