But how admirable, continues Paramo, is the Lord in all his ways! That which the sovereign pontiffs had been unable effectually to obtain with all their urgency, King John granted spontaneously to a dexterous impostor, whom God made use of as an instrument for accomplishing the good work. In fact, the wicked are frequently useful instruments in God's hands, and he does not reject the good they bring about. Thus, when John remarks to our Lord Jesus Christ, "Lord, we saw one who was not Thy disciple casting out demons in Thy name, and we prevented him from doing so," Jesus answered him, "Prevent him not; for he who works miracles in My name will not speak ill of Me; and he who is not against Me is for Me."
Paramo relates afterwards that he saw in the library of St. Laurence, at the Escorial, a manuscript in the handwriting of Saavedra, in which that knave details his fabrication of a false bull, and obtaining thereby his entrée into Seville as legate, with a train of a hundred and twenty domestics; his defrauding of thirteen thousand ducats the heirs of a rich nobleman in that neighborhood, during his twenty days' residence in the palace of the archbishop, by producing a counterfeit bond for the same sum, which the nobleman acknowledged, in that instrument, to have borrowed of the legate when he visited Rome; and finally, after his arrival at Badajoz, the permission granted him by King John III., to whom he was presented by means of forged letters of the pope, to establish tribunals of the Inquisition in the principal cities of the kingdom.
These tribunals began immediately to exercise their jurisdiction; and a vast number of condemnations and executions of relapsed heretics took place, as also of absolutions of recanting and penitent heretics. Six months had passed in this manner, when the truth was made apparent of that expression in the Gospel, "There is nothing hid which shall not be made known." The Marquis de Villeneuve de Barcarotta, a Spanish nobleman, assisted by the governor of Mora, had the impostor apprehended and conducted to Madrid. He was there carried before John de Tavera, archbishop of Toledo. That prelate, perfectly astonished at all that now transpired of the knavery and address of the false legate, despatched all the depositions and documents relative to the case to Pope Paul III.; as he did also the acts of the inquisitions which Saavedra had established, and by which it appeared that a great number of heretics had already been judged and condemned, and that the impostor had extorted from his victims more than three hundred thousand ducats.
The pope could not help acknowledging in this the finger of God and a miracle of His providence; he accordingly formed the congregation of the tribunal of the Inquisition, under the denomination of "The Holy Office," in 1545, and Sixtus V. confirmed it in 1588.
All writers but one agree with Paramo on the subject of the establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal. Antoine de Sousa alone, in his "Aphorisms of Inquisitors," calls the history of Saavedra in question, under the pretence that he may very easily be conceived to have accused himself without being in fact guilty, in consideration of the glory which would redound to him from the event, and in the hope of living in the memory of mankind. But Sousa, in the very narrative which he substitutes for that of Paramo, exposes himself to the suspicion of bad faith, in citing two bulls of Paul III., and two others from the same pope to Cardinal Henry, the king's brother; bulls which Sousa has not introduced into his printed work, and which are not to be found in any collection of apostolical bulls extant; two decisive reasons for rejecting his opinion, and adhering to that of Paramo, Hiescas, Salasar, Mendoça, Fernandez, and Placentinus.
When the Spaniards passed over to America they carried the Inquisition with them; the Portuguese introduced it in the Indies, immediately upon its being established at Lisbon, which led to the observation which Louis de Paramo makes in his preface, that this flourishing and verdant tree had extended its branches and its roots throughout the world, and produced the most pleasant fruits.
In order to form some correct idea of the jurisprudence of the Inquisition, and the forms of its proceedings, unknown to civil tribunals, let us take a cursory view of the "Directory of Inquisitors," which Nicolas Eymeric, grand inquisitor of the kingdom of Aragon about the middle of the fourteenth century, composed in Latin, and addressed to his brother inquisitors, in virtue of the authority of his office.
A short time after the invention of printing, an edition of this work was printed at Barcelona, and soon conveyed to all the inquisitions in the Christian world. A second edition appeared at Rome in 1578, in folio, with scholia and commentaries by Francois Pegna, doctor in theology and canonist.
The following eulogium on the work is given by the editor in an epistle dedicatory to Gregory XIII.: "While Christian princes are everywhere engaged in combating with arms the enemies of the Catholic religion, and pouring out the blood of their soldiers to support the unity of the Church and the authority of the apostolic see, there are also zealous and devoted writers, who toil in obscurity, either to refute the opinions of innovators or to arm and direct the power of the laws against their persons, in order that the severity of punishments, and the solemnity and torture attending executions, keeping them within the bounds of duty, may produce that effect upon them which cannot be produced in them by the love of virtue.
"Although I fill only the lowest place among these defenders of religion, I am nevertheless animated with the same zeal for repressing the impious audacity and horrible depravity of the broachers of innovation. The labor which I here present to you on the 'Directory of Inquisitions,' will be a proof of my assertion. This work of Nicolas Eymeric, respectable for its antiquity, contains a summary of the principal articles of faith, and an elaborate and methodical code of instruction for the tribunals of the Holy Inquisition, on the means which they ought to employ for the repression and extirpation of heretics; on which account I felt it my duty to offer it in homage to your holiness, as the chief of the Christian republic."