Rossellini takes numerous liberties with the original source material, rearranging and omitting events at will, presenting everything in a highly undramatic fashion. The film begins in the time of the Old Testament, allowing Rossellini to present the story of Jesus in its ancient, historic context.

A second coming? This time our savior chose a shantytown outside Turin, in the north of Italy, overcrowded by poor families coming from the south in search of a job in a factory, or less legal ways to survive. Young Maria (Cinzia De Carolis) can predict the future during her epileptic seizures, or at least that's what everyone believes, and her mother (Clelia Matania) sells her predictions and responses to the superstitious neighbors, after inducing her "trance" with electricity. One night the shock is too strong, and Maria seems to die: when she wakes up, she is found pregnant. And being a honest unmarried girl from the south, she is obviously still virgin... Notwithstanding the opposition of the local priest (Turi Ferro), everyone, including her, believes in the miracle, and prepares for a second coming, in a crescendo of fanaticism that is soon noticed by the press, and by the official church..

Joe Dallesandro plays a hungry young buck who aspires to be a career criminal. He starts out working at a warehouse for a gangster where he helps to relocate illegal contraband, and because of his ruthlessness and dependability he begins to ascend the ladder of organized crime. Of course, the more powerful he becomes, the more "Climbers" come out of the shadows to take his place.