A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4

by Henry Charles Lea

GERONIMO DE LA MADRE DE DIOS

In all this there was nothing beyond the manifestations of devotional fervor customary to Spanish piety, but an accusation was brought against Padre Gerónimo, September 20, 1615, for teaching that the soul could reach a state of perfection in which it would be an act of imperfection to ask God for anything. This, which was one of the refinements of mysticism, was subsequently proved by the calificadores to be subversive of existing observances, because the saints in heaven were in a state of perfection and, if they could ask nothing of God, what would become of their suffrage and intercession and what would be the use of the cult and oblations offered to them? Still, at the time, the tribunal took no action beyond examining a few witnesses, and Gerónimo would probably not have been disturbed in his useful career had he not written a book. In his mystic zeal he imagined himself inspired in the composition of a work entitled El Discipulo espiritual que trata de oracion mental y de espiritu, which he submitted to several learned theologians, whose emendations he adopted. This had considerable currency in MS.; a demand arose for its printing, and he laid it before the Royal Council for a licence, when he was informed that the approbation of the episcopal provisor of Toledo was a condition precedent. After sending it to that official and receiving no answer for six months, he submitted a copy to the Suprema, October 20, 1615, explaining what he had done and asking for its examination; if there was in it anything contrary to the faith, he desired its correction, for he wished the work to be unimpeachably orthodox and would die a thousand deaths in defence of the true religion.

He waited some seven months and, on May 17, 1616, he ventured an inquiry of the Suprema, but a month earlier three calificadores had reported on it unfavorably, the Suprema had ordered the Toledo tribunal to act and, on May 28th, the warrant for his arrest with sequestration was issued. A mass of papers, MS. sermons, tracts and miscellaneous accumulations were distributed among fifteen calificadores, who, as scholastic theologians, were not propitiated by his contempt for schoolmen. They performed their task with avidity and accumulated an imposing array of a hundred and eighty-six erroneous propositions—many of them the veriest trifles, significant only of their temper, but, after all his explanations, there was a formidable residuum of twenty-five qualified as heretical, twenty-nine as erroneous, three as sacrilegious, and numerous others as scandalous, rash and savoring of heresy.

Despite the piteous supplications of his aged father, his trial lasted until September, 1618—some twenty-seven months of incarceration, during which his health suffered severely. Throughout it all he never varied from his attitude of abject submission; kneeling and weeping he begged for penance and punishment, as he would rather be plunged in hell than commit a sin or give utterance to aught offensive to pious ears. This availed him little. He was sentenced to appear in the auto of September 2, 1618, as a penitent, to abjure de vehementi and to retract publicly a list of sixty-one errors. He was forbidden for life to preach or to hear confessions, or to write on religious subjects; he was recluded for a year in a designated convent and for five more was banished from Madrid and Toledo, and a public edict commanded the surrender of all his writings. Thus he was not only publicly proclaimed a heretic, but his career was blasted, he was virtually deprived of the means of subsistence, yet his first act on reaching his place of confinement was to write humbly thanking the inquisitors for their kindness. Seven months later he appealed to them, saying that he was sick and enfeebled, he had been bled four times and he begged for the love of God that he might be spared the rest of his reclusion and be allowed to comfort his aged father. To this no attention was paid and we hear nothing more of him.

THE MYSTICS OF SEVILLE

For us the interest of the case lies not so much in the cruelty with which the bruised reed was broken, as in the revelation of the silent revolution in the Spanish Church with regard to mysticism. In the sixty-one condemned propositions there were one or two properly liable to censure, the most dangerous being that ascribed to the Begghards—that the perfected soul enjoys the spirit of liberty, going at will without laws or rules, and that in this state God gives it the power of working miracles. Another which asserted that devotion to images, rosaries, blessed beads etc. was an error so great that souls so employed could have no hope of salvation was scarce more than an exaggeration of the precepts of Francisco de Osuna and Juan de la Cruz. For the most part, the condemned propositions were merely the common-places of the great mystics of the sixteenth century—that the perfected soul enjoys absolute peace, for the appetites and passions are at rest and the flesh in no way contradicts the spirit—that trances are the highest of God’s gifts—that the supreme grade of contemplation becomes habitual, and that the soul at will can thus enter God’s presence—that, in the trance, God can be seen—that the perfected soul should ask only that God’s will be done. Other condemnations were directed against the claims of inspiration and revelation, against the suspension of the faculties in mental prayer, against the Union with God which had been the aim of all the mystics. In short, it was a condemnation of the doctrines and practices which, for centuries, had been recognized by the Church as manifestations of the utmost holiness. Had Francisco de Osuna, Luis de Granada, San Pedro de Alcántara, Santa Teresa, San Juan de la Cruz and their disciples been judged by the same standard, they would have shared the fate of Padre Gerónimo unless, indeed, their convictions had led them to refuse submission, in which case they would have been burnt.[61] This was shown at Valladolid when, in 1620, Juan de Gabana, priest of San Martin de Valverri and Gerónima González, a widow, were prosecuted for mysticism. He died in prison, pertinacious to the last and was duly burnt in effigy, in 1622. She was less firm and was voted to reconciliation, but the Suprema ordered her to be tortured; this she escaped by dying, and her effigy was reconciled.[62]

Yet the mystic cult was too firmly planted in the religious habits of Spain to be readily eradicated, nor was the Inquisition prepared to be wholly consistent. While Padre Gerónimo was thus harshly treated for unpublished writings, the Minim Fray Fernando de Caldera was allowed undisturbed to publish, in 1623, his Mística Teología, perhaps the craziest of the mystic treatises. It is cast in the form of instructions uttered by Christ, in the first person, and teaches Illuminism and Quietism of the most exalted kind. The intellect is to be suspended and the will abandoned to God, who does with it as he pleases, infusing it with divine light and admitting it to a knowledge of the divine mysteries. Lubricious temptations, if they come from the flesh are to be overcome with austerities; if from pride, with humility; if they are passive, they are to be met with patience and resignation, for God who sends them will remove them at his own time and with great benefit to the soul.[63] No teaching more dangerous is to be found in Molinos but, although a translation of the work appeared in Rome in 1658, it escaped condemnation both there and in Spain.

During this time there was a storm gathering in Seville which enabled the Inquisition to impress its definite policy on the mystically inclined. We have seen how mysticism flourished there under the patronage of Archbishop Rojas, and the persecution in Extremadura seems not to have extended to Andalusia, so that it continued unrepressed. While Padre Gerónimo was awaiting his doom in Toledo, a much more extravagant performer was enjoying the cult of the devout in Seville. A priest named Fernando Méndez had a special reputation for sanctity; when celebrating mass he fell into trances and uttered terrible roars; he taught his disciples to invoke his intercession, as though he were already a saint in heaven; fragments of his garments were treasured as relics; he gathered a congregation of beatas and, after mass in his oratory, they would strip off their garments and dance with indecent vigor—drunk with the love of God—and, on some of his female penitents, he would impose the penance of lifting their skirts and exposing themselves before him. His disciples were not drawn merely from the lower classes, for we are told that as many as thirty coaches could be counted of a morning around the gate of the Franciscan convent to which he had retired.[64]

THE MYSTICS OF SEVILLE

This hysteric contagion spread through Seville, affecting a considerable portion of the population. There was no concealment and evidently no thought that it involved suspicion of heresy, or that it departed in any way from orthodoxy. A special group of mystics, known as la Granata, under successive spiritual directors, had long held their meetings in the chapel of Nuestra Señora de la Granada, without exciting animadversion or calling for interference from the Inquisition.[65] When, however, the imperious Pacheco, in 1622, assumed the office of inquisitor-general, he speedily ordered the Seville tribunal to investigate and report as to the mystic extravagances current in the city, and there could have been no difficulty in collecting ample material for condemnation according to the new standard. This resulted in the publication of a special Edict of Grace, May 9, 1523, granting the customary thirty days in which those feeling themselves inculpated could denounce themselves and their accomplices and be admitted to absolution with salutary penance and without confiscation or disabilities affecting their descendants. That all might understand what these new heresies were, the edict embodied a list of seventy-six errors ascribed to the Alumbrados, which marks the advance made since 1578 in suppressing mysticism in general and in attributing to it additional evil practices. There was a fuller condemnation of the beliefs common to all mystics, which had so often earned canonization—that their trembling or burning or fainting was a sign of grace and of the influence of the Holy Spirit—that a stage of perfection could be reached in which they could see the Divine Essence and the mysteries of the Trinity and that, in this state, grace drowned all the faculties—that they were governed directly by the Holy Spirit in what they did or left undone—that in contemplation they dismissed all thought and concentrated themselves in the presence of God—that, in the state of Union with God, the will is subordinated—that in trances God is clearly seen in his glory—that mental prayer renders other works superfluous—that other duties, both religious and worldly, can be neglected to devote oneself wholly to this supreme devotion.