The History of the Inquisition of Spain from the Time of its Establishment to the Reign of Ferdinand VII.

by Juan Antonio Llorente

Don Antonio Gorrionero, bishop of Almeria, was prosecuted for his favourable opinion of the Catechism, and some letters which he wrote on the subject. He however attended the third convocation of the council of Trent, which took place in 1560, and the following years.

Don Fray Melchior Cano, born in Tarancon, in the province of Cuença: he had resigned the bishopric of the Canaries, and attended the second session of the Council of Trent, in 1552. He was a member of the order of St. Dominic, as well as Carranza, and his rival in the government and administration of the affairs of his order, particularly after Carranza had obtained the preference, when they were both candidates for the office of Provincial of Castile. When the Catechism was denounced to the Inquisition, Valdés appointed Cano to examine it, affecting to favour its author, by choosing qualifiers from the monks of his order, but not doubting, at the same time, that the opinion of Fray Melchior would be unfavourable.

Fray Melchior examined the catechism, and some inedited works of Carranza; but it appears that he did not strictly observe the secrecy recommended by the inquisitors, since Carranza received information of what was passing, while he was in Flanders, and wrote to Fray Melchior, who replied to him from Valladolid, in 1559. About this time, Fray Dominic de Roxas, and some other Lutherans confined in the secret prisons of the holy office, deposed to certain facts, which caused some suspicion of Fray Melchior.

However, the prosecution begun against him had no result; for at the time when Cano was about to be reproved by the inquisitor-general, he offered him the dedication of his Treatise de Locis Theologicis, which was accepted; and as he had not time to publish it, he left it to the inquisitor-general in his will, some time before his death, which happened in 1560. His censure of the Catechism of Carranza, and some propositions which he had maintained against the archbishop, and which caused the faith of that prelate to be suspected, contributed to preserve him from punishment. His calumnious discourse concerning Carranza was no doubt the reason why he was thought to be his denouncer.

Don Pedro del Frago, bishop of Jaca, was born in 1490, in Uncastillo, in the diocese of Jaca. Pedro studied at Paris, and became a Doctor of the Sorbonne: he learnt Hebrew and Greek, and was considered one of the best Latin poets of his age. He was appointed theologian to Charles V., for the first convocation of the Council of Trent; he assisted at it in 1545, and when the second assembly took place in 1551, he preached a Latin sermon to the fathers, on Assumption-day: this discourse forms part of the collection of documents relating to the council. In 1561, Philip II. created him Bishop of Alguer in Sardinia, and he attended the third convocation of the council in that quality. Don Pedro was made, first, Bishop of Jaca, in 1572; and in the following year, when he was sixty-four years of age, the Council of the Inquisition commanded the inquisitors of Saragossa to take informations against this worthy prelate, as suspected of heresy, because he had been denounced as not being known to confess himself, and that he had no regular confessor; he was likewise accused of not celebrating mass with sufficient solemnity. It is surprising that the council should admit these charges, since a bishop is not obliged to have a regular confessor, and it is not necessary for any person to confess, so that the public may be informed of it. The other charge brought against an old man of sixty-four, shows that there was nothing more serious to accuse him of. Philip II., to reward his services, gave Don Pedro the bishopric of Huesca, in 1577, where he founded an episcopal seminary. He died in 1584. He held a synod at Huesca, in which he established constitutions, which he had drawn up and caused to be printed; he also composed a Journal of the most remarkable events in the Council of Trent, from the year 1542 to 1560, and much Latin poetry.

Among the doctors of theology of the Council of Trent, who were persecuted or punished by the Inquisition, the most celebrated is Benedict Arias Montano, perhaps the most learned man of his age in the oriental tongues.

Several towns in Spain have disputed the honour of being the place of his birth. Montano understood Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, English, Dutch, and German: he was almoner to the king, a knight of the order of St. Jago, and doctor of theology in the university of Alcala.

As there were no more copies in the trade of the Polyglott Bible of the Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros, the celebrated Plantin, a printer at Antwerp, represented to Philip II. the advantages which might arise from a new edition, with corrections and additions. The king approved of the scheme, and in 1568 appointed Arias Montano to be the director of the undertaking; he went to Flanders to fulfil the intentions of that monarch, and to compose the Expurgatory Index, known as that of the Duke of Alva's. In order to make the re-impression of the Polyglott Bible as perfect as possible, a great number of unpublished copies of the Bible, in all languages, were procured; this great work is in eight folio volumes. St. Pius V. and Gregory XIII. expressed their approbation of the execution of this undertaking, in particular briefs addressed to their nuncios in Flanders. Arias Montano went to Rome, and presented a copy to the Pope in person: he made a very eloquent speech in Latin on the occasion, which gave great pleasure to the Pope and cardinals. The King of Spain made presents of these Bibles to all the princes of Christendom: it has been called the Royal Bible, because it was done by the king's command; the Philippine, from his name; of Antwerp, because it was printed in that place; Plantinian, from the name of the printer; Polyglott, from being in several tongues; and of Montano, because he had the direction of it, though he was assisted by many learned men of the universities of Paris, Louvain, and Alcala de Henares.

Arias returned to Spain, where the reputation he had acquired caused many persons to become his enemies, particularly among the Jesuits, because he had not consulted Diego Lainez, Alphonso Salmeron, or the other Jesuits of the Council of Trent: he made another enemy in Leon de Castro, a secular priest, professor of the oriental languages at Salamanca, because he did not consult the university, and employ him in the work. The certainty that he should be protected by the Jesuits induced him to denounce Arias Montano to the Inquisition of Rome: this denunciation was in Latin: he addressed another, in Spanish, to the Supreme Council at Madrid. Leon de Castro accused him of having given the Hebrew text of the Bible according to the Jewish MSS., and of having made the version accord with the opinions of the rabbis, without regarding those of the fathers of the church. He also qualified him as suspected of Judaism, because he affected to take the title of Rabbi, master; this, however, may be looked upon as a calumny, for in a copy of this Bible, which I have seen, his superscription is that of Thalmud, which means disciple. Other accusations were brought against him by the Jesuits. Leon de Castro, impatient to see Arias arrested, wrote on the 9th of November, 1576, to Don Fernando de la Vega de Fonseca, a counsellor of the supreme, and renewed his denunciation, showing by his letter that he was only actuated by resentment, at finding his pretended zeal so ill repaid. There is no doubt that Arias would have been arrested, if he had not been protected by the king, and if the Pope had not signified his approbation of his Bible by a special brief; he, however, thought it necessary to go to Rome to justify himself.

Leon de Castro circulated copies of his denunciation, and the Jesuits did the same. He was attacked by Fray Luis Estrada, in a discourse addressed to Montano, in 1574; and his denunciation was also refuted by Pedro Chacon, another learned Spaniard, who proved the injury that would accrue to the Christian religion, if it was admitted that the Hebrew MSS. were falsified. De Castro published a reply, which he called Apologetic.