the Sacred Heart: a case for stimulus diffusion

Abstract

The Roman Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart, symbolized by a realistically depicted human heart, often flaming, first appeared in Europe in the seventeenth century. Officially sanctioned by the visions of a French nun in 1673–1675, the devotion had in fact been proselytized by liberal French theologians from the beginning of that century. During the prior century, realistic human hearts appear in Mexican colonial art, probably the missionaries' efforts to transliterate Preconquest symbols into Christian icons. This paper suggests that the fervent interest of humanistic European theologians in the Mexican missionary field resulted from stimulus diffusion in the development of the Catholic devotion addressed to Jesus' human heart.