“You are of course aware of the matters on which the holy office exercises its functions. I need scarcely mention sorcery, Judaism, and certain carnal misdemeanours.”
“With respect to sorcery,” said I, “what is your opinion of it? Is there in reality such a crime?”
“Que sé yo?” [247] said the old man, shrugging up his shoulders. “How should I know? The church has power, Don Jorge, or at least it had power, to punish for anything, real or unreal; and, as it was necessary to punish in order to prove that it had the power of punishing, of what consequence whether it punished for sorcery or any other crime?”
“Did many cases of sorcery occur within your own sphere of knowledge?”
“One or two, Don Jorge: they were by no means frequent. The last that I remember was a case which occurred in a convent at Seville. A certain nun was in the habit of flying through the windows and about the garden over the tops of the orange-trees. Declarations of various witnesses were taken, and the process was arranged with much formality: the fact, I believe, was satisfactorily proved. Of one thing I am certain, that the nun was punished.”
“Were you troubled with much Judaism in these parts?”
“Wooh! Nothing gave so much trouble to the Santa Casa as this same Judaism. Its shoots and ramifications are numerous, not only in these parts, but in all Spain; and it is singular enough, that, even among the priesthood, instances of Judaism of both kinds were continually coming to our knowledge, which it was of course our duty to punish.”
“Is there more than one species of Judaism?” I demanded.
“I have always arranged Judaism under two heads,” said the old man, “the black and the white: by the black, I mean the observance of the law of Moses in preference to the precepts of the church; then there is the white Judaism, which includes all kinds of heresy, such as Lutheranism, freemasonry, and the like.”
“I can easily conceive,” said I, “that many of the priesthood favoured the principles of the Reformation, and that the minds of not a few had been led astray by the deceitful lights of modern philosophy, but it is almost inconceivable to me that there should be Jews amongst the priesthood who follow in secret the rites and observances of the old law, though I confess that I have been assured of the fact ere now.”