D'Avila possessed the gift of discernment. He did not, indeed, entirely escape the influence of the period and of the country in which he lived; but we find him exposing the pretended revelations of Madeline de la Croix, who deceived so many, and undertaking the defence of the pious Theresa de Cepedre, when persecuted by the Inquisition. Theresa, born at Avila in 1515, of a noble family, had so much zeal even in her childhood that she one day quitted her father's house with her brother to go and seek martyrdom amongst the Moors. A relative met the two children and took them back. She was from that time divided between the love of the world and the love of God, throwing herself alternately into dissipation and into the monastic life. This woman, the famous St. Theresa, was one of those ardent spirits who rush by turns to the two extremes. Happily she met with D'Avila, whose judgment was more mature than her own, received his instructions, and, by his means, became confirmed in spiritual life. Her writings, full of piety, and even attractive in style, were translated by the Jansenists, like those of D'Avila.[20] He was the friend and director to a poor soldier, who, having been discharged in 1536, was converted, and turned his house into an hospital, for which he provided by the work of his own hands, and thus became founder of the Order of Charity. D'Avila gave to this charitable Christian, who was called John de Dieu, the wisest counsels, the sum of which was, 'Die rather than be unfaithful to so good a Master.'
One day a young girl, named Sancha de Carile, daughter of a señor of Cordova, was preparing to go to court, where she had just been appointed maid of honor to the queen. She wished first to have a conversation with John d'Avila, and was so touched by his words that she thenceforth abandoned the court and the world. Instead, however, of entering a convent, she remained in her father's house, and there devoted herself till death to the service of Jesus Christ, whom she had found as her Saviour.[21] It was for Sancha de Carile that D'Avila composed his principal work, entitled Audi, filia, et vide ('Hearken, O daughter, and consider'[22]), Ps. xlv. 10. D'Avila did not side with the doctors and disciples of the Reformation, who were continually increasing in number in Germany. He differed from them, indeed, on several points, but on others approached them so nearly that his preaching could not but prepare men's minds to receive the fulness of evangelical doctrine. The Inquisition understood this.[23]
AN EXAMINATION.
The period which elapsed between 1520 and 1535 was an epoch which prepared the way for reformation in Spain. In the universities, in the towns, and in country places many minds were silently inclining towards a better doctrine. The Reformation was then like fire smouldering under the ashes, but was to manifest itself later in many a noble heart. Nevertheless, from time to time the flame became visible. A peasant, a simple man without any culture whatever, who had busied himself only about his fields, had by some means received Christian convictions.[24] One day, when in company with some relations and friends, he exclaimed, 'It is Christ who, with his own blood, daily washes and purifies from their sins those who belong to him, and there is no other purgatory.' It seems that the poor man had only repeated a saying which he had heard in some meeting, and which had pleased him, without being penetrated by the truth which he had expressed. When, therefore, he was cited before the inquisitors of the faith, he said, 'I have certainly held that opinion, but, since it displeases your reverences, I willingly retract it.' This did not satisfy the priests. They heaped reproaches upon him. 'They may have feared,' says the author of the Artifices of the Spanish Inquisition, 'that their inquisitive faculties would stagnate and rot unless they set about finding some knavery in the man, thus pretending to find knots in a bulrush—nodus in scirpo.' 'You have asserted that there is no purgatory. Ergo you believe that the pope is mistaken—that the councils are mistaken—and that man is justified by faith alone.' In short, they unfolded before him all the doctrines which they called heresies, and charged the unfortunate man with them as if he had actually professed them. The poor peasant protested; he confidently maintained that he did not even know what these doctrines meant. But they insisted on their charge, and showed him the close connection which subsists between all these dogmas. The poor man had been deprived of the ordinary means of instruction; but these priests, who were more opposed to the Gospel than water is to fire, says the narrator, taught and enlightened him. Those who boasted themselves to be the great extirpators of the truth became its propagators. The peasant of whom we speak thus attained to the fulness of the faith which hitherto had only just dawned upon him. It was a striking example of the wonderful way in which Divine Goodness sometimes calls its chosen ones. There were many other such instances.'[25]
RODRIGO DE VALERIO.
The chief reformer of Spain was to spring from a higher class. He was born in Andalusia, the Baetica which in the eyes of the ancients was the fairest and happiest of all the countries in the world. Near rocky mountains, on a vast plain of picturesque and solemn aspect, lies Lebrixa, an ancient town about ten leagues from Seville on the Cadiz side. Here lived Rodrigo de Valerio, a young man of a rich and distinguished family. He had, in common with the Andalusians, great quickness of apprehension; fancy sparkled in his speech, and his temperament was very cheerful. Like them, he was distinguished by his love of pleasure, and it was his glory to surpass in its indulgence all the young men with whom he associated. He generally lived at Seville, a town called by the Romans 'little Rome' (Romula), which had long been a centre of intelligence, and where the Alcazar and other monuments recalled the magnificence of the Moorish kings. Rodrigo had received a liberal education, and had learned a little Latin; but this had been speedily forgotten amidst the diversions of youth. There was not a hunt nor a game at which he was not present. He was to be seen arriving at the rendezvous mounted on a superb horse, richly equipped, and himself magnificently attired.[26] Easy and skilful in bodily exercises, he carried away every prize. Full of grace and elegance, he succeeded in winning the favor of fair ladies. His delight was to mount the wildest horse, to scale the rocks, to dance with light foot, to hunt with horn and hound, to draw the cross-bow or shoot with the arquebus, and to be the leader of fashionable young men in every party and at every festival.
All at once Valerio disappeared from society. He was sought at the games, in the dance, at the races, but was nowhere to be found. Every one was asking what had become of him. He had abandoned every thing. The pleasures of the world had oppressed and wearied him, and he had found all void and bitterness. What! thought he, play the lute, make one's horse caper, sing, dance ... and forget what it is to be a man! A voice had cried in his heart that God was all in all. He had yielded to no human influence; God alone had touched him by his Spirit.[27] The change was for this reason all the more remarkable. The lively affections of his heart, which had hitherto rushed like a tempestuous torrent downwards towards the world, now rose with the same energy towards heaven. 'A divine passion,' says a contemporary, 'suddenly seized him.[28] Casting off his old inclinations, and despising human judgment, he applied his whole strength, both of mind and body, so zealously to the pursuit of piety, that no worldly affection seemed to be left in him.' If Rodrigo had then retired to a convent, all would have been en règle, and every one would have admired him; but no one could understand why, while renouncing pleasure, he did not immediately shut himself up in one of those human sanctuaries to which alone the world at that time gave the patent of a devout life. Some, indeed, of the remarks made on him were very natural. He had passed from one extreme to the other, and in his first fervor he exposed himself to the ridicule of his old companions. The young man who had hitherto been remarkable for the delicacy of his manners, the elegance of his discourse, and the splendor of his dress, displayed now a somewhat repulsive roughness and negligence.[29] Sincere and upright, but as yet unenlightened, unacquainted indeed with any other pious life than that of ascetics, it is not astonishing that he threw himself at first into an exaggerated asceticism. He thought that he should thus renounce the world more completely and make a more perfect sacrifice to the Lord. He has lost his head, said some; he is drunk, said others. But on closer observation the true fear of God was to be seen in him, a sincere repentance for the vanity of his life, an ardent thirst for righteousness, and an indefatigable zeal in acquiring all the characteristics of true piety. But one thing above all occupied his mind. We have seen that he had learned Latin. This knowledge, which he had despised, now became of the greatest service to him. It was only in this language that the sacred writings could be read; he studied them day and night;[30] by means of hard toil he fixed them in his memory, and he had an admirable gift for applying the words of Scripture with correctness and promptitude. He endeavored to regulate his whole conduct by their teaching; and people perceived in him the presence of the Spirit by whom they were dictated.
Valerio became one of the apostles of the doctrines of Luther and the other reformers.[31] 'It was not in their own writings that he had learned these. He had derived them directly from the Holy Scriptures. Those sacred books, which, according to some, are the source of such various doctrines, then produced in every country of Christendom the same faith and the same life.' He soon began to diffuse around him the light he had received. People were astonished at hearing this young layman, who had recently made one of every party of pleasure, speaking with so much fervor. 'From whom do you hold your commission?' asked some one. 'From God himself,' replied he, 'who enlightens us with his Holy Spirit, and does not consider whether his messenger is a priest or a monk.'
JOHN DE VERGARA.
Valerio was not the only one to awaken from sleep. A literary movement in the path opened by Erasmus had, as we have already said, prepared the way of the Gospel in Spain. One of its chiefs was John de Vergara, canon of Toledo, who had been secretary to Cardinal Ximenes. An accomplished Greek and Hebrew scholar, he had pointed out some errors in the Vulgate; and he was one of the editors of the Polyglot of Alcala. 'With what pleasure do I learn,' wrote the scholar of Rotterdam to him in 1527, 'that the study of languages and of literature is flourishing in that Spain which was of old the fruitful mother of the greatest geniuses.' John de Vergara had a brother named Francis, a professor of Greek literature at Complutum (the present Alcala de Henares). Alcala, near Madrid, the seat of the foremost university in the kingdom next to Salamanca, was at this epoch a centre of intelligence, and had acquired a European renown. A breath of freedom and life seemed to have passed over it. John and Francis, with another Spaniard, Bernardin de Tobar, apparently their brother, put forth their united efforts to revive the pursuit of literature in their native land, and kindled bright hopes in the breast of the prince of the schools. Calling to mind, as was his wont, the stories of ancient times, Erasmus compared these three friends of letters to Geryon, king of the Balearic Islands, the most powerful of men, of whom the poets had made a giant with three bodies. 'Spain,' said he, 'has once more its Geryon, with three bodies but one spirit, and the happiest anticipations are excited in our minds.'[32] The modern Geryon, however, failed to win the honor of the triumph promised by Erasmus. In the Inquisition he met the Hercules who vanquished him. These eminent men had found their way through the love of learning to the love of the Gospel; and John had carried his audacity to such a pitch that he aimed at correcting the Vulgate. Hereupon certain monks who knew nothing of Latin beyond the jargon of the schools raised the alarm. John and Tobar were arrested by the inquisitors of Toledo, cast into a dungeon, and called upon to renounce the heresies of Luther. This charge they had not at all anticipated. It was not by the reformer, but by his opponent, Erasmus, that they had been attracted to the Holy Scriptures. Being as yet weak in faith, they thought they might declare themselves unacquainted with Lutheranism; and they were released. Certain penances, however, were imposed on them, and they were placed under the surveillance of the Inquisition?[33]