THE INQUISITION OF SPAIN. BOOK III. JURISDICTION. CHAPTER I. HERESY. THE Inquisition was organized for the eradication of heresy and the enforcement of uniformity of belief. We shall have occasion to see hereafter how elastic became the definition of heresy, and we have seen how far afield its extinction led the operations of the Holy Office but, to the last, the suppression of unorthodox belief remained the ostensible object of its existence. It is not easy at the present day, for those accustomed to universal toleration, to realize the importance attached by statesmen in the past to unity of belief, or the popular abhorrence for any deviation from the standard of dogma. These convictions were part of the mental and moral fibre of the community and were the outcome of the assiduous teachings of the Church for centuries, until it was classed with the primal truths that it was the highest duty of the sovereign to crush out dissidence at whatever cost, and that hatred of the heretic was enjoined on every Christian by both divine and human law. The heretic was a venomous reptile, spreading contagion with his very breath and the safety of the land required his extermination as a source of pestilence.1 1 Hæreticus animal pestilentissimum est: quamobrem punire debet antequam virus impietatis evomat, forasque projiciat.-Simancæ de Cathol. Institt., Tit. II, VOL. II 1 (1) In the earlier periods of the Inquisition, moreover, when the hierarchy was filled with New Christians of doubtful orthodoxy, it was essential to know that the sacraments necessary to salvation were not vitiated by the apostasy of the ministrant, for his intention is indispensable to their validity. No man could tell how many priests there were like Andrés González, parish priest of San Martin de Talavera, who, on his trial at Toledo, in 1486, confessed that for fourteen years he had secretly been a Jew, that he had no intention when he celebrated mass, nor had he granted absolution to the penitents confessing to him. There was also a classical story, widely circulated, of Fray Garcia de Zapata, prior of the Geronimite monastery of Toledo, who, when elevating the Host, used to say "Get up, little Peter, and let the people look at you" and who always turned his back on the penitent to whom he pretended to grant absolution.1 The merciless zeal of the Holy Office might gradually relieve the people of this danger, but it intensified by its methods the unreasoning abhorrence of heresy. The honest cavalier Oviedo, about the middle of the sixteenth century, merely phrases the current opinion of the time when he says that all possible punishments prescribed by the canons and admitted by the laws should be visited on the persons and property of heretics; they eat the bread of the good, they render the land infamous, by their conversation they lead souls to perdition and, with their marriages and kinships, they corrupt the blood of good houses.2 As time wore on this increased rather than diminished. Galceran Albanell, Archbishop of Granada, who had been tutor of Philip IV, wrote to his former pupil April 12, 1621, to express his horror at learning that the English ambassador had been allowed to have divine service performed in his house, after the rites of his sect. The king should not allow it; it is the greatest of sins and unless it is remedied we shall all perish. It is an accursed reason to allege that that accursed king permits the Spanish ambassador to have mass celebrated in London. The English ambassador should be dismissed and the English king can send away the Spanish ambassador; if the Council of State interferes, let Philip show them the way of God. The Licenciado de Angulo should have a bishopric because he resigned his office as fiscal of the 1 Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 153, n. 331.—Burriel, Vidas de los Arzobispos de Toledo (Bibl. nacional, MSS. Ff, 194, fol. 8). Las Quinquagenas, I, 342 (Madrid, 1880). Council rather than affix his name to a paper in which the English king was styled Defender of the Faith and Albanell declares his readiness to resign his own see in Angulo's favor. To a population sedulously trained in such sentiments the awful ceremonies of the auto de fe were a triumph of the faith, of which they felt proud, and they were filled with pious exultation when the flames of the brasero consumed the bodies of heretics who passed through temporal to eternal fire. It was a vindication of the honor of God, and it is necessary to understand and bear in mind this temper when considering the performance by the Inquisition of its allotted task. The jurisdiction of the Holy Office over heresy was confined to the baptized, for baptism is a condition precedent to heresy; the unbaptized are outside of the Church and it has no spiritual authority over them. In the auto de fe of 1623, at Valladolid, a woman taken out to be relaxed for Judaism, declared that she was not baptized, whereupon the proceedings respecting her were stopped and she was remanded for investigation. Although baptism can be validly administered by a heretic, yet in the trial of foreign Protestants, minute inquiry was made as to the details of their baptism in their sects, so as to be assured that they were truly baptized; in the case of Jacques Pinzon, at Toledo, in 1598, his advocate ingeniously but vainly argued that this could not be assumed, because it could not be proved that the minister had the proper intention, without which the rite was invalid.3 Age placed slender limits on inquisitorial jurisdiction. Children were considered capable of committing heresy as soon as they were doli capaces, at six or seven years, but were not held responsible until they reached years of discretion. This was fixed by Torquemada at twelve for girls and fourteen for boys, below which they were not to be made to abjure in public, but the limit was frequently infringed. In 1501, Inesita, daughter of Marcos Garcia, between nine and ten years old and Isabel, daughter of Alvaro Ortolano, aged ten, were sentenced to appear in an auto de fe. They had confessed to fasting once or twice and the latter 1 Revista crítica de Historia y Literatura, V, 148. had been told by her father not to eat pork.' In 1660, at Valladolid, Joseph Rodríguez, aged eight, accused of Judaism, was regularly tried, with all the complicated formalities of procedure, occupying a year, and was made to give evidence against his father and brother; he was absolved secretly and placed in the penitential prison for instruction. Of course there was no maximum limit of age. In 1638, at Valladolid, María Díaz, a hundred years old, was thrown into the secret prison for Judaism and her trial went forward." Responsibility to the Inquisition varied with the grade of heresy, which was carefully classified by the theologians. Material heresy is error in a baptized person arising from ignorance and, if the ignorance is inculpable, it is scarce to be considered as true heresy deserving of punishment. Formal or mixed heresy is voluntary and pertinacious error, pertinacity being adherence to what is known to be contrary to the teachings of the Church. This formal heresy is again distinguished into internal, or mental, and external. Internal, or mental, heresy is that which is secretly entertained and is not manifested by either word or act. External heresy is subdivided into occult and public. Occult external is that which is manifested by words or signs, either in secret or to one or two persons only-as though a man in the solitude of his chamber should say "There is no God," or should utter his thought in the presence of another. Public external is that which is manifested openly, either in public or to more than two persons. The bearing of these distinctions on the work of the Inquisition will be apparent hereafter. There was still another definition of even greater importance. Heresy was both a sin and a crime. As a sin it was subject to the forum internum, or forum of conscience; as a crime, to the forum externum or judicial forum. A penitent in sacramental confession, admitting heretical belief, might receive sacramental absolution and be pardoned in the sight of God, but the crime, like 1 Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 158, n. 431, 435. 2 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Leg. 552, fol. 44. 3 Ibidem, fol. 23. 4 Still, Protestant sailors arriving in Spanish ports, when not protected by treaty, and even prisoners of war in the American colonies, as we shall see hereafter, were claimed by the Inquisition. Ferraris, Prompta Bibliotheca, s. v. Hæresis, n. 1–10. — Avila de Censuris ecclesiasticis, P. 1, Dub. 10 (Lugduni, 1609).—Páramo, p. 570. |