Constantly were his arguments—all founded upon the love of Christ—poured into the ears of the Sovereigns, and to prove the soundness of these arguments he was able to bring forward concrete facts—or, at least, matters upon which the courts of the Inquisition had pronounced—prominent among which would be the affair of La Guardia.
And what Torquemada was doing by the Sovereigns, the brethren of his order were doing by Spain. Popular indignation against the Jews, so easy to arouse, already inflamed by the outrage at Casar de Palomero and the crucifixion at La Guardia, was further and unscrupulously excited by false stories that were set in circulation. It was even alleged that the illness of the Prince Don Juan was the result of Hebrew infamy, and to explain this a foolish, wicked story was invented, put about and universally accepted.
Llorente quotes this story from the “Anonymo de Zaragoza.”[229] It is to the effect that the prince coveted a golden pomander-ball worn by his physician, who was of a Jewish family, and this gewgaw the physician ended by relinquishing to his patient. One day, moved by youthful curiosity, the boy wished to see what the pomander contained. Opening it, he discovered an indecent and blasphemous picture, insulting to the divinity of Christ. The sight of it inspired the princeling with such horror and grief that he fell sick. Nor would he divulge the origin of his illness until the instances of his father succeeded in drawing the secret from him, whereupon “it was resolved to take proceedings against the physician and to sentence him to the fire.”
This trivial, scurrilous, and obviously untruthful story would not be worth repeating did it not serve the purpose of showing the sort of rumours that were being propagated to the hurt of the Israelites.
Another story that was circulated alleged that in Valencia there had also been an attempt by a number of Jews to crucify a Christian boy. This is recorded in that scurrilous, infamous publication, “Centinela contra Judios,” by Frey Francisco de Torrejoncillo. We have already referred to it more than once. It was first printed in 1676, and is the book of a friar of the Order of St. Francis, a disgraceful work which proves its author to have been as barefaced as he was barefooted. It is a collection of stupid lies and forgeries, and, it is scarcely an exaggeration to add, obscenities; it may be another instance of those frauds termed pious, but it is scarcely to the credit of a Church exercising, by means of the “Index Expurgatorius,” a censorship of the press—to have permitted the circulation of a work of this order from the pen of a churchman.
This, however, is by the way.
The story here to be recorded is taken, Torrejoncillo tells us, from the “Sermon de la Cruz” by Frey Felipe de Salazar.[230] On a Good Friday evening a youth who was in a street of Valencia observed several men entering a house. Considering this to be strange—although no suspicious circumstance is mentioned—he approached the door and listened. He heard them say, “There seems to be some one at the door.” Fearing that a brawl might be the result if he were discovered there when they opened, he drew his sword and fled. (How the drawing of his sword was calculated to assist his flight the author does not think it worth while to inform us.) As he was running he came upon a patrol, which seized him, demanding to know whither he was hurrying in this fashion with a naked sword in his hand. He related what he had witnessed, whereupon the officer, not only for the purpose of testing the truth of the story but also that he might ascertain to what end so many men should be assembling, went to the house and knocked.
The door was opened by a Jew, who began to make obvious excuses to him. Suddenly the officer heard a child’s voice within the house, crying, “These men want to crucify me.”
The Jews were taken, the house demolished, and on the site of it was built the Church of Santa Cruz.
In this collection of lies and forgeries are included the “letter of Christ to Abgarus,” another letter of Pontius Pilate to Tiberius dilating upon the miracles of the Saviour, and a letter from the Jews of Constantinople to those of Toledo, which played an important part in this anti-semitic campaign.