In no Catholic country does the cherishing of a fervent faith, in itself, imply respect for the clergy. Nor, for that matter, does the respect of any religion in itself signify respect for those who administer it. It appears to do so; it is even prescribed that it should; but in point of fact it seldom does, other than with simple peasant classes. The ministers, after all, are men; but by virtue of their office they labour under disadvantages greater than the ordinary man’s. When they display the failings to which all men are subject, these failings wear a much graver aspect by virtue of the office they hold and the greater purity which that office implies. Holiness is looked upon as the priest’s trade, and it is expected that he should conduct that trade honestly, as any layman conducts the affairs by which he earns his livelihood. The only test of honesty in the priest, of whatever denomination, lies in his own conduct; and when this falls short of that high standard in which he claims to deal, he earns a contempt akin to that which overtakes the trader who defrauds his creditors. It is remembered then, to his disadvantage, that under his cassock the cleric is a man, and so subject to all the faults that are man’s heritage. But it happens that in addition to these he is subject to other failings that are peculiarly of the cassock, failings which the world has never been slow to discern in him. The worst of these is the ecclesiastical arrogance, the sacerdotal pride which has been manifested by priests of all cults, but which in none is so intolerable as in the Christian, who expounds a gospel of humility and self-abnegation. He is akin to a feudal tyrant who grinds the faces of his serfs whilst he lectures them upon the glories of democracy.
Of such priests Spain of the fifteenth century had an abundant share. She knew them and mistrusted them, and hence she mistrusted any organization of theirs which should transcend the strict limits of their office.
Now, the tribunal of the Inquisition laid itself peculiarly open to this mistrust in consequence of the secrecy of its proceedings—a secrecy, as we know, greatly increased by the enactments of Torquemada. Its trials were not conducted in open court; the examination of witnesses took place in secret and under the veil of anonymity, so that the world had no assurance of the honesty of the proceedings. When it happened that a man was arrested, the world, as a rule, knew him no more until he came forth, candle in hand, arrayed in a sanbenito to play his tragic part in an Auto.
By virtue of this secrecy the Inquisition had invested itself with a power far greater, more subtle, and farther-reaching than that of any civil court. The might of the Grand Inquisitor was almost boundless, and he was unanswerable to any temporal authority for the arbitrariness with which he exercised it. Rivalling the sovereign power in much, in much else the Grand Inquisitor’s went above and beyond it, for not even the King himself could interfere in matters of the Faith with one who held his office directly from the Pope.
The net which Torquemada cast was of the very widest; the meshes of that net were of the closest, so that no man, however humble, could account himself safe; its threads were of the strongest, so that no man, however powerful, could be sure of breaking through were he once brought within its scope.
What, then, but terror could Torquemada and his grim machinery inspire? It is not difficult to believe the sometime secretary of the Inquisition when he assures us that the Holy Office was not favourably viewed in Spain. The marvel is that whilst the Castilians were chilled by awe into inactivity and meek submission, it should have remained for Aragon, which already had known an inquisition for a century, to rise up in rebellion.
And yet what may seem at first glance a reason why Aragon should have submitted to Torquemada’s rule in matters of the Faith, may be the very reason of its rash and futile rebellion. For a hundred years already the court of the Holy Office had been operating there; but its operations, never vigorous, had become otiose. In this inactive form Aragon had suffered it to continue. But of a sudden it was roused from that lethargy by Torquemada. It was bidden to enforce its stern decrees and other sterner decrees which he added to those already in existence, and to follow the course of arbitrary procedure which he laid down. Never welcome in Aragon, it now became intolerable. The New-Christians, who knew the fate of their Castilian brethren, went with fear in their countenances, and despair and its fierce courage in their hearts.
In the spring of 1484 Ferdinand held his Cortes at Tarragona. He was attended on the occasion by Torquemada, and he seized the opportunity to present to his kingdom the gaunt Prior of Holy Cross, its pontifically-appointed Grand Inquisitor.
Torquemada’s activity matched his boundless zeal. At once he convened a council composed of the Vice-Chancellor of Aragon, Alonso de Caballeria—himself a New-Christian—the Royal Councillor Alonso Carillo, and some doctors of canon law, that they might decide upon the course to be adopted in Aragon to the end that the Inquisition might be conducted with absolute uniformity there, as in Castile. This done, he proceeded to appoint inquisitors to the Archbishopric of Zaragoza, and his choice fell upon Frey Gaspar Yuglar and Frey Pedro Arbués de Epila, Master of Theology and Canon of the Metropolitan Church of Zaragoza.
After the publication of the “Instructions” drawn up that same year in Seville, Torquemada further appointed to the Holy Office of Zaragoza a fiscal advocate, an apparitor, notaries, and receivers, whereupon that office began immediately to exercise its functions under the new system.