An Appeal to the People in Behalf of Their Rights as Authorized Interpreters of the Bible

by Catharine Esther Beecher

From this resulted religious persecutions, in this manner: Men are to obey God as their first duty. The church is God's mouth-piece to interpret his commands to mankind. If men refuse to obey God, speaking through his church, they must be forced to do so by pains and penalties. And as in view of eternal happiness and eternal misery, all earthly interests [pg 275] are as nothing, every temporal consideration must be put out of account. Moreover, whoever leads men to disobey the church and thus to disobey God, and so to peril not only their own eternal welfare, but that of others, commits a greater crime than is done by violating any human ordinances. Therefore, the heaviest penalties should be employed to enforce obedience to the church, and the church must take precedence of the civil government.

Thus it came to pass that the more sincere, conscientious and benevolent a person was, while holding these views, the more surely would he become a persecutor.

The pages of history give many mournful illustrations of this truth. One of the most striking will be here introduced.

Isabella of Spain, by whose generosity this western world was discovered, was one of the most gentle, conscientious, benevolent and lovely characters that ever adorned a throne.

She was trained to believe the church to be the representative of God on earth, and her father confessor, Torquemada, the originator of the Inquisition, was the guide of her conscience. By his commands the Inquisition reared its horrid dungeons. By his counsel the industrious, cultivated and chivalrous Moors, the most useful of all her subjects, were driven from their native soil. By his commands the Jews were brought to the cruel alternative of giving up their religion or relinquishing all that made life dear. And thus the historian narrates this dreadful tale of religious persecution:

“The experiment of conversion was tried upon the Jews, and it utterly and totally failed. In the first place, their position in [pg 276]Christian society was a source of continual discussion. ‘If we admit them to public offices, we have gained nothing,’ said the mercantile classes. ‘If we exclude them,’ said the clergy, ‘what motive is held out for the rest to join us?’ But as a religious experiment, the failure was even more complete. The fathers were nominal converts, and nominal converts the children continued to be. Ostentatiously they attended mass; but in their own houses their Sabbath was kept, their ritual was read, their psalms were sung. Meantime, intercourse and intermarriage with Christians became more fatally easy than it had been before. Shunned by the middle classes, they intermarried with the 'blue blood' of the nobility, they entered the priesthood, and ascended the highest steps of the Catholic hierarchy. Nay, they became, more than once, inquisitors, and wielded against their foes with cynical hatred the terrors of the Holy Office. Of the Inquisition there is no space to speak here;[21] sufficient to say that the ‘New Christians’ were the chief cause of its institution, and that during the eighteen years that Torquemada held office, ten thousand persons were burned alive.

“But two thirds of the Jews of Spain had remained unconverted; and with them the Inquisition had nothing to do; for they were under special laws and under royal protection. But Torquemada had not forgotten them. Working on the pride of Ferdinand, on the conscience of Isabella, he persuaded them to sign the celebrated Edict of Exile. They were to leave Spain in three months. They were to take neither silver nor gold with them. If it pleased God to change their hearts, the church would most willingly receive them.

“Ruinous alike to banisher and banished, this edict had cost a struggle. Isaac Abarbenel, wealthy, learned, high in royal favor, rushed into the queen's audience-chamber, on hearing what till [pg 277]then had been carefully concealed from his nation, threw himself at her feet, and doubtless won her over for the moment. To Ferdinand he offered thirty thousand ducats. But, in the wavering of debate, Torquemada appeared suddenly. ‘Judas,’ he said, ‘sold his master for thirty pieces. Your Majesties, it seems, want thirty thousand. Here He is; take Him; and what ye do, do quickly!’ Dashing a crucifix on the table, he left them. The omen was clear, and the die was cast.

“To the Jews one road of deliverance was still left. To renounce the outward garb of their religion, never again to pass the threshold of a synagogue, never to chant a Hebrew hymn nor keep a Hebrew Sabbath; to change every household custom, to break all the rules of life, dear from the nursery and clung to on the bed of death; to repeat a false creed, to enter an idolatrous temple, to kneel down with God's enemies;—this road was open, though treading it they would have trampled on their fathers' tombs. Yet, on the other hand, thousands had taken that course; and would tell them that strict adherence to the laws of the land they lived in, abstinence from all that might offend, performance of harmless superstitions, bowing down for a season in the house of Rimmon, that this was a course plainly marked out by Providence. The loss, too, that they would suffer in exile was immense; and we must estimate this loss before we can estimate the worth of those who chose to suffer.

“We have seen the Jews of France leave it, enter it, leave it again, and count the value of their sojourn at exactly the price at which reëntrance could be bought. It was a market-stall, a field for acquisition; but it was not the seat of Jewish learning, it was not the resting place of their fathers for many generations.