Observations on the State of Religion and Literature in Spain

by John Bowring

There are in Spain, according to Antillon’s [3a] calculations, two hundred thousand ecclesiastics. They possess immense revenues and an incalculable influence over the mass of the people; though it is certain that influence is diminishing, notwithstanding the countenance and co-operation of a government deeply interested in preserving their authority.

It would be great injustice to the regular clergy of Spain to class them with the immense hordes of monks and friars, scattered over the face of the Peninsula, some possessing rich and well-stored convents, large estates and accumulating wealth, and others (the mendicant orders) who prey more directly on the labours of the poor, and compel the industrious to administer to their holy, uninterrupted laziness. The former, though, doubtless, by far too numerous, are for the most part intelligent and humane: dispensing benevolence and consolation in their respective parishes; friendly, in many instances, to liberty and devoted to literature. The latter, with few, but striking exceptions, [3b] are unmanageable masses of ignorance and indolence. [3c] They live (as one of the Spanish poets says) in a state of sensual enjoyment between the organ-loft and the refectory, to which all other enjoyment is but purgatory; [3d] the link which should connect them with the common weal for ever broken; the ties of family and friend dissolved; their authority founded on the barbarism and degradation of the people, they are interested in stemming the torrent of improvement in knowledge and liberty, which must in the end inevitably sweep away these “cumberers of the soil.” No society in which the sound principles of policy are at all understood, would consent to maintain a numerous body of idle, unproductive, useless members in opulence and luxury, (at the expense of the active and the laborious,) merely because they had chosen to decorate themselves with peculiar insignia—to let their beards grow, or to shave their heads; and though the progress of civilization in Spain has been greatly retarded, or rather it has been compelled to retrograde under the present system of despotism, yet, that great advances have been made since the beginning of the late Revolution, is happily too obvious to be denied. [4a]

That Revolution, in fact, has produced, and will continue to produce, a very favourable influence on the ecclesiastical government of Spain. Leaving out of consideration the immense number of priests and friars who perished during the atrocious invasion of their country, the destruction of convents, the alienation of church property, and the not unfrequent abandonment of the religious vow, unnoticed amidst the confusion and calamities of active war, more silent, but more extensive changes have been going on. The Cortes, when they decreed that no Noviciates should be allowed to enrol themselves, [4b] gave a death-blow to the monastic influence, and since the re-establishment of the ancient despotism, the chasm left by this want of supply has not been filled up, nor is likely to be; for, the greater part of the convents (except those very richly endowed) complain that few candidates propose themselves, except from the lower classes of society, who are not likely to maintain the credit or add to the influence of the order. Examples are now extremely rare of men of family and fortune presenting themselves to be received within the cloisters, and offering all their wealth and power as the price of their admission. Another circumstance, the consequence of the Revolution, has tended greatly to lessen the influence of the regular clergy, where it is most desirable it should be lessened, among the lower classes. Driven from their cells by the bayonets of enemies, or obliged to desert them that their convents might become hospitals for their sick and wounded friends, they were compelled to mingle with the mass of the people. To know them better was to esteem them less, and the mist of veneration with which popular prejudice had so long surrounded them, was dispersed, when they became divested of every outward distinction, and exhibited the same follies and frailties as their fellow-men. [4c] He who, in the imposing procession, or at the illumined altar, appeared a saint or a prophet, was little, was nothing, when mingling in the common relations of life he stood unveiled before his undazzled observers. For the first time it was discovered that the monks were not absolutely necessary for the preservation even of religion. Masses were celebrated as before: the host paraded the streets with its accustomed pomp and solemnity: the interesting ceremonials which accompany the entrance and the exit of a human being in this valley of vicissitude, were all conducted with their wonted regularity. Still less were they wanted to implore the blessing of Heaven on the labours of the husbandman, whose fruits grew and were gathered in with unvarying abundance. Without them the country was freed from the ignoble and degrading yoke of the usurper, while success and martial glory crowned the arms of their military companions, (the British,) who cared little for “all the trumpery” of “friars white, black, or grey;” and if the contagion of their contempt did not reach their Catholic friends, they lessened, at least, the respect with which the inmates of the convent had been so long regarded.

But in anticipating a period in which the Spaniard shall be released from monkish influence, it must not be forgotten how interwoven is that influence with his most delightful recollections and associations. His festivities, his romerias, [5a] his rural pastimes, are all connected with, and dependent on the annual return of some saint’s-day, in honour of which he gives himself up to the most unrestrained enjoyment. A mass is with him the introductory scene to every species of gaiety, and a procession of monks and friars forms a part of every picture on which his memory most delights to dwell.—And a similar, though, perhaps, a stronger impression is created on his mind by the enthusiastic “love of song,” [5b] so universal in Spain. He lives and breathes in a land of poetry and fiction: he listens with ever-glowing rapture to the Romanceros, [5c] who celebrate the feats of his heroes, and surround his monks and hermits with all the glories of saints and angels: he hears of their mighty works, their sufferings, their martyrdom; and the tale, decorated with the charms of verse, is dearer to him than the best of holy writ. The peculiar favourites of the spotless Virgin, their words fall on his ear like the voice of an oracle, their deeds have the solemn sanction of marvellous miracles. To them he owes that his country is the special charge of the queen of angels, the mother of God; and in every convent he sees the records of the wondrous interpositions of heaven, which has so often availed itself of the agency of the sainted inmates, while every altar is adorned with the grateful offerings of devout worshipers, miraculously restored to health or preserved from danger. He feels himself the most privileged among the faithful. On him “our Lady of Protection” (del Amparo) smiles; to him the Virgin of Carmen [6a] bows her gracious head. In his eye ten thousand rays of glory encircle the brow of his patron-saint, the fancied tones of whose voice support, assure and encourage him: he believes that his scapulary [6b] (blessed by a Carmelite friar) secures him from every evil: his house is adorned with the pope’s bull of indulgences—a vessel of holy water is suspended over his bed, and what more can he want, what danger can approach him? His mind is one mass of undistinguishing, confiding, comforting faith. That faith is his religion, his Christianity! How difficult will it be to separate the evil from the good, if, indeed, they can be separated! What a fortress must be overthrown before truth and reason can advance a single step! What delightful visions must be forgotten, what animating recollections, what transporting hopes! Have we a right to rouse him from these blessed delusions? This is indeed the ignorance that is bliss. Is it not folly to wish him wise?

But, alas! this is only one side of the picture! for, however soothing, however charming the contemplation of contented ignorance may be to the imagination, in the eye of reason the moral influence of such a system is baneful in the extreme. All error is evil; and the error which substitutes the external forms of worship for its internal influence on the heart, is a colossal evil. Here we have a religion, if such it may be called, that is purely ceremonial. Its duties are not discharged in the daily walk of life, not by the cultivation of pure and pious and benevolent affections, but by attending masses, by reciting Paternosters and Ave Marias, by pecuniary offerings for souls in purgatory, and by a thousand childish observances, which affect remotely, if they affect at all, the conduct and the character. The Spaniard attends his parish church to hear a service in an unknown tongue; [6c] he bends his knees and beats his bosom at certain sounds familiar to his ear, but not to his sense; he confesses and communicates with undeviating regularity; [6d] and sometimes, perhaps, he listens to a sermon in the eloquent style and beautiful language of his country, not, indeed, instructing him in the moral claims of his religion, but celebrating the virtues and recounting the miracles of some saint or martyr to whom the day is dedicated. He reads his religious duties, not in a Bible, but an Almanack; and his Almanack is but a sort of Christian mythology. His saints are more numerous than the deities of the pantheon; and, to say the truth, there are many of them little better than these. [7a]

He is told, however, that his country exhibits the proudest triumphs of orthodox Christianity. Schism and heresy have been scattered, or at least silenced: and if in Spain the eye is constantly attracted, and the heart distressed, by objects of unalleviated human misery; if the hospitals are either wholly unprotected, or abandoned to the care of the venal and the vile; if the prisons are crowded with a promiscuous mass of innocence and guilt, in all its shades and shapes of enormity [7b]—what does it matter? Spain, Catholic Spain, has preserved her faith unadulterated and unchanged, and her priests assure us that an error in creed is far more dangerous, (or to use their own mild language,) far more damnable, than a multitude of errors in conduct. A depraved heart may be forgiven, but not an erring head. This is, in fact, the fatal principle, whose poison spreads through this strongly-cemented system. To this we may attribute its absurdities, its errors, its crimes. This has created Dominicks and Torquemadas.

In a word, intolerance, in its widest and worst extent, is the foundation on which the whole of the Spanish ecclesiastical edifice rests. It has been called the main pillar of the constitution, and is so inwrought with the habits and prejudices of the nation, that the Cortes, with all their general liberality, dared not allow the profession of any other religion than the “Catolica Apostolica Romana unica Verdadera.” [7c] The cry of innovation there, as elsewhere, became a dreadful weapon in the hands of those who profess to believe that errors become sanctified by age. Too true it is, that if long usage can sanction wrong, persecution might find its justification in every page of Spanish history, from the time when Recaredo, the gothic monarch, abandoned his Arian principles (with the almost solitary exception of the tolerant and ill-treated Witiza). Long, long before the Inquisition had erected its frightful pretensions into a system, or armed itself with its bloody sword, its spirit was abroad and active. Thousands and tens of thousands of Jews and Moors had been its victims, and its founders did no more than obtain a regal or a papal licence, for the murders which would otherwise have been probably committed by a barbarous and frenzied mob, excited by incendiary monks and friars.

The Inquisition has, no doubt, been greatly humanized by the progress of time; as, in order to maintain its influence in these more enlightened and inquiring days, it has availed itself of men of superior talent, these have softened the asperity, or controlled the malignity and petty tyranny of its inferior agents. Its vigilance and its persecutions are, indeed, continually at work, yet, I believe its flames will never again be lighted. Its greatest zeal is now directed against Freemasons, of whom immense numbers occupy its prisons and dungeons. I have conversed with many who have been incarcerated by the Inquisition, and they agree in stating that torture is no longer administered. [7d] But its influence on literature is perhaps greater than ever; for though Spain possesses at the present moment a great number of admirable writers, the press was never so inactive. The despotism exercised over authors [8a] and publishers is so intolerable, that few have courage voluntarily to submit to it. Often after authorizing the publication of a work, they order it to be suppressed, and every copy to be burnt, and never think of reparation to those who are so cruelly injured. Their presumption in condemning whatever they cannot understand, [8b] their domiciliary visits, their arbitrary decrees, against which there is no security and no appeal, make them fearful enemies and faithless friends.

With the difficulty, delay, expense and frequent impossibility of obtaining a licence for the publication of any valuable work, may be well contrasted the ridiculous trash which daily issues from the Spanish press. Accounts of miracles wrought by the different virgins, [8c] lives of holy friars and sainted nuns, romances of marvellous conversions, libels against Jews [8d] and heretics and Freemasons, histories of apparitions, and so forth, are generally introduced, not by a mere licence of the inquisitor, but by long and laboured eulogiums.

It is no novel observation, that the most cruel and intolerant persecutors have often been men wholly devoid of religious principle; men, who consider the religion of the state only as a part of its civil policy, and who treat the denial of a national creed with the same severity as the infraction of an established law, or rather as a species of treason against the supreme authority. No plea of modest inquiry, of conscientious doubt, or honest difference of opinion, is allowed to oppose for a moment their sanguinary and despotic sway. There are no terms of safety but those of unresisting, instant, absolute prostration. Such men are generally the prime movers of the gagging engine of religious intolerance; and such men are to be found too abundantly in Spain. Others there are who imagine they see in the pomp and parade of the Romish ritual, a system of delusion admirably adapted to beguile, or even to bless the ignorant. They fancy themselves beings of a higher and nobler order, and that, while they bask in the sunshine of intellect and knowledge, they may be well content that the uninstructed mass should trudge on in darkness below. Why should they throw their pearls to senseless swine; or shower down truth and virtue on those who fatten on vice and error?