Cardinal Ximenes.
The greatness of Cardinal Ximenes has weathered the storms of time. It has spread far beyond the people by whom it was first recognized and proclaimed. All Europe has done it homage, and the whole civilized world hails it with gratitude and joy. It is a small thing in comparison to excel as a prelate, a statesman, a general, or a man of letters; but to shine foremost in each and all of these capacities, as did Ximenes, to make a lasting impression on the age in a fourfold character, and to mould anew the destinies of a nation in virtue of it, have been the lot of few, and scarcely the ambition of any. Ximenes de Cisneros is part of the Spaniard's nationality. They admire, they love him, they boast of him; and so lately as April, 1857, they assembled in vast numbers in the city of Alcalá to deposit his remains in the Iglesia Magistral, just 340 years after his decease. The precious memoirs left by Gomez have never been employed with greater effect than by Dr. Von Hefele, who, from these—the basis of all lives of Ximenes—and from a variety of collateral sources, has produced a complete and most valuable history of the illustrious cardinal.
Like many eminent prelates in the Catholic Church, Ximenes was a self-made man. He was born at Tordelaguna—a small town—in 1436. His father, though of noble descent, was comparatively poor, and collected tithes for the king. His mother likewise came of a valiant stock decayed in fortune; so that Ximenes enjoyed on both sides the advantage of gentle blood. From an early age he was destined for the Church; at Alcalá he was well schooled, and at Salamanca he studied canon and civil law, theology, and the Scriptures. It was here that his love of biblical lore first displayed itself, and gave promise of that abundant growth which afterward made the name of Ximenes famous in the literary world. Poverty was his good angel. It urged him to exertion, and he supported himself at the university by giving lessons. Then, having taken his bachelor's degree in canon and civil law, he boldly turned his face toward Rome, and resolved to better his fortune, if possible, in the heart of Christendom. Twice on the way he was plundered by robbers, and but for the kindness of a former school-fellow would have been stopped at Aix, in Provence, and compelled to return, minus money, clothes, and horse. To Rome, however, he came, and worked steadily in the ecclesiastical courts during six years, till his father died, and he was recalled to Spain to perform a parent's part to his bereaved family. Happily he carried in his pocket an expectative letter, by which the pope granted him the first vacant benefice in the diocese of Toledo. The right of bestowing benefices in this manner had often been questioned, often resisted; but with such controversies Ximenes had nothing to do. It was not till the Council of Trent that Gratia Expectativae were finally suppressed; [Footnote 166] and it was clearly his interest to obtain a living from the holy father, if he could, according to established precedent. Uzeda soon fell vacant, and though Ximenes laid claim to it immediately, Carillo, the archbishop, was in no degree inclined to yield it to him. The more Ximenes pressed his claim, the more stoutly Carillo resisted, and the result was that the claimant, though backed by papal authority, soon found himself a prisoner in the very parish of which he sought to be pastor. Nothing could break his iron resolution, and being removed to the fortress of Santorcaz, he there spent six years in confinement, till the archbishop, wearied by his firm and constant refusal to forego his claim, at length yielding the point, restored him to liberty, and confirmed him in possession of the benefice.
[Footnote 166: Sess. xxiv. cap. 19.]
His constant study of the Scriptures could not escape observation, and he was often referred to as an authority in Hebrew and Chaldee. Being made vicar of the diocese of Sigüenza, and agent for the estates of a nobleman who had been taken prisoner by the Moors, Ximenes sighed for retirement, and entered as a novice a convent of the Franciscan order. But his interior life was still disturbed. Numbers resorted to him for counsel and instruction. He prayed to be sent to some more lonely retreat, and accordingly found his home in a small convent near Toledo, called after our Lady of Castañar. It stood in the midst of a forest of chestnuts, and here, like an anchorite of old, he built a hermitage and supported life on herbs and roots, with water from the neighboring rill. Though a scourge was in his hand and a hair-shirt on his body, the Bible he so prized was before him, angels surrounded him, and the Holy Ghost established within him a reign of serenity and light.
According to the rule of the Franciscans, he was, ere long, again removed. He became guardian of the convent of Salzeda, and it was here, in his fifty-sixth year, that his career, so far as it concerns history, began. A confessor was required for the devout and beautiful Queen Isabella, and Cardinal Mendoza, who had been Bishop of Sigüenza, and knew Ximenes well, recommended him as the fitting person to guide her conscience. Being summoned to court on pretence of business, the Franciscan recluse was introduced, as it were by accident, into the royal presence. Isabella was charmed by his candor, his modesty, and native dignity. In vain he declined the office for which he was designed. The queen would take no refusal, but consented to his residing still in his monastery, away from the splendor and temptations of a court. He strove to avoid interference in politics, but Isabella so much the more applied for his advice in the affairs of state. Thus influence over others is often given to those whose only aim is to acquire the mastery over themselves. Not long after being made confessor to the queen, Ximenes was elected Provincial of the Franciscan order for Old and New Castile. He made his visitations on foot, begged his way like any other of his brethren, and often lived on raw roots. The order had relaxed its original strictness, and was divided into Conventuals and Observantines, of whom the latter only adhered to the letter and spirit of their founder's laws. The report, therefore, which the provincial had to make to his royal mistress was anything but favorable, and he consequently became himself an object of calumny and dislike to those whose vices he sought to correct. Many of the Conventuals who would not reform were ejected from their sanctuaries by his order, and his conflict with evil was silently and surely preparing him for the high post of Archbishop of Toledo, Primate of Spain, and Chancellor of Castile. This see had generally been filled by one of noble birth, and Ferdinand was anxious to bestow it on his natural son, Alfonso, Bishop of Saragossa. But Isabella was strong in her resolve to promote Ximenes. On Good Friday, 1495, she sent for her confessor, and placed a paper in his hands. It was addressed by his holiness Alexander VI., "To our venerable brother, Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros, Archbishop-elect of Toledo." As he read this the friar turned pale. "It cannot be meant for me," he said, and abruptly left the apartment, dropping the packet. "Come, brother," he exclaimed to his companion, "we must be gone in haste." But the royal messengers overtook him on the road to Ocaña, trudging along bravely in the noontide heat. He was flying from an archbishopric with 80,000 ducats a year, from power and influence second only to that of the king, and from towns and fortresses with numerous vassals. No arguments could induce him to accept these earthly goods. During six months he persisted in refusing them, and yielded at last only in obedience to a command from the sovereign pontiff.
He was now in his sixtieth year. In October, 1495, he was solemnly consecrated in presence of the two sovereigns, and when, after the ceremony, he came to do them homage, he said: "I come to kiss the hands of your majesties, not because they have raised me to the first see in Spain, but because I hope they will assist me in supporting the burden which they have placed on my shoulders." Ximenes was, on the whole, the model of a prelate; and accordingly we see in him modesty and self-confidence singularly combined. In the well-balanced mind they react upon each other and produce each other. Hence, humility is the source of moral power. No silver adorned Ximenes's table, no ornaments hung on his walls. His garment was the habit of St. Francis, his food was coarse, his journeys were made on foot or on a mule's back, and his palace was turned into a cloister. But many persons cavilled at this austerity and ascribed it to spiritual pride. The pope thought it undesirable in the case of a primate of Spain, and exhorted Ximenes, by letter, to "conform outwardly to the dignity of his state of life in his dress, attendants, and everything else relating to the promotion of that respect due to his authority."
In private, however, Ximenes continued as mortified as before. The hair-shirt was next his skin, and he mended with his own hand the coarse garments concealed by the silks and furs of office. The sumptuous bed, adorned with ivory, purple, and gold, which stood in the palace, was never used by him; he slept, though, his attendants knew it not, on the bare floor, and thus, by night and day, he kept up in his own person a ceaseless protest against the prevailing luxury of the times. He feared the seduction of wealth, and was ever on his guard against the temptations of his princely domain, consisting of fifteen cities, besides many villages and towns. But if any presumed on his unworldly habits, and thought that he must be pliant because he was devout, they were soon disabused of their mistake. He refused, at the outset of his primacy, to make any appointments at the instance of great men, and declared that he was willing at any time to return to his convent and his beads; but that "no personal considerations should ever operate with him in distributing the honors of the Church." Even the brother of Cardinal Mendoza was unable to obtain from Ximenes the confirmation of his appointment to the governorship of Cazorla, and his relations, highly incensed, could gain no redress from the queen. Having thus established his own independence and freed himself from importunate suitors, Ximenes saluted Don Pedro de Mendoza one day by the title of Adelantado of Cazorla, saying that, as no suspicion of sinister influence could now attach to him, he was happy to restore Don Pedro to a post for which he knew him to be qualified.
In the biographies of Gomez and Quintanilla, of Oviedo and Robles, Marsollier, Fléchier, Baudier, Von Hefele, and Barrett, a number of such anecdotes may be found, illustrating the diocesan life of Ximenes, his wonderful penetration, piety, and zeal. But these, for the most part, we must pass over, and dwell rather on those events in his career with which the history of his country is concerned. Several years had passed since the last Moorish king in Spain had been defeated and stripped of his dominions. The genius of Washington Irving, the research of Prescott, and the fancy of Southey and Bulwer have found full scope in detailing the history of the war of Granada, the surprise of Zahara, the exploits of the Marquis of Cadiz, the fierce resistance of the Moors, and the capture of Alhama. But the Moors, though conquered, had reason to be satisfied with the terms of the victors. They were allowed by treaty to retain their mosques and mode of worship, their property, laws, commerce, and civil tribunals. They had some privileges of which even the Spaniards were deprived; and if, during the governorship of Tendilla and the archbishopric of Talavera, the Moors of Granada were brought under various Catholic influences, they could not complain of any force or severity being employed by those who sought to convert them. Talavera, indeed, whom Ximenes had succeeded as confessor to the queen, was ceaseless in his efforts for their salvation. He learned Arabic at an advanced age, and required his clergy also to do the same. He caused portions of the Scriptures, Liturgy, and Catechism to be translated, and so recommended the religion he professed by his consistent life and amiable temper that Mohammedanism in Granada melted away before the genial light of the gospel, and the Moors themselves came to love and revere the Christian bishop, whom they called "The Great Alfaqui," or Doctor.