A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

When, about 1632, the New Christians made an effort to procure a removal of their disabilities, Juan Adan de la Parra who, though an inquisitor was a poet and a man of culture, opposed it in an elaborate essay, cautiously couched in Latin, for the matter was too delicate for popular discussion. He did not pander to vulgar prejudice, but addressed himself to arguments of state policy, which are a curious illustration of what, on such a subject, an intelligent man regarded as conclusive. He deplores the decline of population, of agriculture, of shipping and of the mechanic arts, which he attributes to the insidious practices of the Jews, their avoidance of manual labor and their addiction to usury. Look at Portugal, he says, where this traitorous race stimulated the ardor of foreign conquest, until it embraced the East and West Indies, and then cunningly corrupted the native virtue with the wealth and luxury thus acquired, until they have succeeded in eliminating the heroes and destroying the heroic spirit which rendered Portugal so formidable. It is this craving for oriental luxuries, shrewdly stimulated by the New Christians, which is undermining the robustness of Spanish virtue; the useful is neglected for the superfluous, and thus agriculture declines. He scarcely seems to recognize the tribute which he pays to the superior endowment of the Jew, when he winds up by foretelling that, if the restrictions and disabilities imposed on the New Christians are removed, they will acquire such power that they will reduce the Old Christians to subjection.[802]

There was some foundation for the fear that the barriers between the races would be removed. In the exhaustion of Spanish finance, Olivares, in 1634, opened negotiations with the Jews of Africa and the Levant, and royal licences were granted for the admission of individuals. In 1641, relations were resumed; they sent representatives whom he received and kept with him for a considerable time, silencing the remonstrances of the Suprema with the assertion that they were there on the service of the king. It was proposed that they should be allowed to reside in the suburbs of Madrid, in a separate quarter, with a synagogue, as in Rome. He won over some members of the Royal Council and some theologians to his plans, but the Inquisition was inexorable, and Cardinal Monti, the nuncio, told the king, in public audience, that Olivares must be dismissed if the harvest of the Lord was to be cleansed of tares and the risk be averted of ruining the faith of Spain. Incidentally Olivares interfered with the Inquisition, by demanding the papers in certain cases; Inquisitor-general Sotomayor refused but, finding himself powerless to resist, placed the documents at the foot of a crucifix, whence they were carried to Olivares, who burnt them and released a number of prisoners. It is even said that he contemplated abolishing the Inquisition, but Philip IV was too profoundly convinced of its necessity to both Church and State to entertain the project, and there may well be truth in the assertion that his quarrel with the Holy Office was contributory to his downfall. This put an end to all negotiations and, in 1643, we find the Suprema instructing the Valencia tribunal to forbid the landing of the Jews who were coming from Oran.[803]

PROSELYTISM

Some stir was caused, in 1645, by two Jews, Salamon Zaportas and Bale Zaportas, who presented themselves in Valencia with a royal licence, dated in 1634, and one from the Marquis of Viana, Governor of Oran. They applied to the tribunal for permission to attend to their business in the city and to wear Christian garments, so as not to be mobbed. The tribunal was puzzled and ordered them not to leave the city under pain of two hundred pesos, while it consulted the Suprema. The latter represented to the king the danger impending on the faith from this disregard of his orders by ministers who issued licences, to which he responded with instructions to send them back to Oran: the causes leading to the cédula of 1634 no longer existed; if in future their coming were considered necessary, the Governor of Oran must report and await the royal decision and a special licence.[804] There is no reason to suppose that the venturesome Israelites had anything more important in view than private business.

One of the most prominent reasons urged for the establishment and perpetuation of the Inquisition was the zeal of the crypto-Jews in proselyting and the danger to which the purity of religion was thus exposed—an argument which served its purpose, however discrediting to the firmness of Spanish faith. Cases, however, were never cited in proof, nor could they be, for Judaism is a matter of race as much as of dogma; the Jews have never sought to convert the Gentiles and, in Spain of all lands, it was clearly preposterous that men, who could only exist by concealing their belief, would incur the certainty of detection and of pitiless punishment, by the unpardonable offence of seeking the apostasy of their Christian neighbors. What conversions there were were spontaneous, and these served to intensify the horror of Judaism and to keep alive the sense of danger arising from the presence of those suspected of cherishing the ancient faith. Fray Diogo da Assumpçao, burnt in Lisbon, in 1603, as a convert to the Law of Moses, is said to have been led to this fatal step by witnessing the constancy in martyrdom of those who suffered for their belief.[805] A more remarkable case was that of Lope de Vera, which aroused universal interest throughout Spain, and pointed the moral that the safety of religion lay in the ignorance of the faithful, thus justifying the prescience of Valdés, when he placed on the first Spanish Index a translation of Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews.[806]

Lope de Vera was the son of a gentleman of San Clemente, of gentle blood and limpieza. At the age of nineteen he was a student at Salamanca, so deeply learned in Hebrew and Arabic that, in July, 1638, he competed for a chair of Hebrew. His studies led him to embrace Judaism and, with the zeal of a convert, he sought to win over a fellow student, who denounced him to the Inquisition. There was a second witness, and yet the consulta de fe of Valladolid was not unanimous in voting his arrest; it had to be ordered by the Suprema, and was executed June 24, 1639. He freely admitted the truth of the accusation and much more, but denied intention, assuming that what he had said was for the sake of argument, and asserting that he went to confession and communion and carried a rosary. There was variation and equivocation in his successive audiences; there was delay and doubt on the part of the Inquisition, and the trial dragged on. On April 16th and May 23, 1641, he revoked all that he had confessed and then suddenly, on May 29th, he announced that he wished to be a Jew and to hold all that the Jews believed, for this was the truth revealed to them by God, which he would defend with his life. Hitherto he had believed what the Church taught, but now he adhered to the Law given by God to Israel; the religion of Rome and all other religions were false; he had never practised the Jewish observances but would do so in the future; no one had taught him this, but God, in his mercy, had brought him to the truth. Learned men were called in to wean him from his errors, but they declared his pertinacity to be terrible and that, with his knowledge of Hebrew, he would be most dangerous. He refused to have an advocate or to make defence, persisting that he was a Jew and would die for the Law of Moses. On August 8th the alcaide reported that he had circumcised himself with a bone, and the physician sent to examine him verified this and reported that he said he hoped to be burnt alive, for he sought the honor of martyrdom and would go to paradise.

PROSELYTISM

Earnest and protracted efforts were made to reclaim him but in vain. Then he was asked to set forth the Hebrew texts on which he relied, so that the calificadores could confute them. To enable him to do this he was furnished, December 23d, with a Bible, paper, ink and a goose-quill, but the latter he rejected, saying that it was forbidden by the Law of Moses, and a bronze pen (pluma de bronce) was given to him. Further conferences followed, and much patience was manifested, until he refused absolutely to speak in the audiences. The baffled tribunal appealed to the Suprema, which ordered fifty lashes; he endured them unflinchingly on June 17, 1642, and maintained his unbroken silence. This was most obstructive, for his ratification of his confessions was necessary but, when they and the evidence were read to him, he closed his ears with his fingers and refused even to listen. It was proposed to torture him, but the Suprema humanely discarded formalities and ordered the case to be closed and voted upon. The vote was taken, January 27, 1643, to relax him with confiscation, but in confirming it the Suprema ordered further efforts for his conversion. There was no haste in executing the sentence. In January, 1644, he was still persisting in silence, except that, when the inquisitors made their weekly visits, he would cry “Viva la ley de Moisen,” after which not another word could be extracted from him. At length, on June 25, 1644, he was burnt alive, maintaining to the end his unalterable constancy. The inquisitor Moscoso, in a letter to the Countess of Monterey, declared that he had never witnessed so ardent a desire for death, such perfect assurance of salvation, or such unconquerable firmness. His fate made a profound impression on his co-religionists. Some years later, Juan Pereira, a youth on trial before the Valladolid tribunal, referred to him repeatedly and declared that he had seen him after death, riding on a mule and glistening with the sweat that was on him when he was taken to the quemadero.[807]

Lope de Vera was a most undesirable convert, for his case could not fail to arouse afresh the dread of infection and to stimulate the Inquisition to increased activity. Yet such stimulus was scarce needed, for it was incessantly vigilant and was troubled with few scruples when on the track of a suspect. An illustrative case offers itself when, in September, 1642, the tribunal of Galicia wrote to Valladolid that a prisoner on trial testified that Antonio López, in Manzaneda de Tribes, had practised Judaism, and it asked for his arrest. An Antonio López was readily found in Valladolid and was promptly thrown in prison, September 16th. He denied the accusation; no other testimony could be found against him and his trial dragged on until, February 3, 1644, there was a vote in discordia. The case went to the Suprema, which ordered further inquiry to be made of the Galician tribunal, when it was discovered that the prisoner had never been in Manzaneda. This should have been conclusive but, when another vote was reached, August 13th, it was again in discordia, and the Suprema again ordered investigations which proved fruitless. A third inconclusive vote was taken in 1645, and then the Suprema ordered the arrest of a second Antonio López, a painter, who had been discovered in Sanabria. He was arrested in December, 1645, and easily proved himself to be an Old Christian of strict observance, but to no purpose, for the blundering consulta de fe voted in discordia, April 30, 1646, and the Suprema ordered him to be exposed to threatened torture. He was stripped and bound on the trestle, but his nerves did not give way and he steadily asserted his orthodoxy. The resources of the baffled tribunal were now exhausted and, on July 14th, the Suprema ordered the cases to be suspended, when the two Antonio López were released—not acquitted—after one had been in prison nearly four years, and the other had been subjected to the agony of impending torture, merely because they bore a name which chanced to be mentioned in a distant tribunal as that of a Judaizer. Not quite so hard was the case of Gaspar Rodríguez, arrested by the tribunal of Valladolid, October 4, 1648, on the strength of advices from Cuenca, and discharged October 2, 1649, because it was tardily recognized that he did not correspond with the description of the real culprit.[808]

ACTIVITY OF PERSECUTION