[46] Ibid., tom. i. p. 216.—Zurita, Anales, tom. iv. fol. 324.—Salazar de Mendoza, Monarquía, tom. i. fol. 337.—It is easy to discern in every part of the odious scheme of the Inquisition the contrivance of the monks, a class of men, cut off by their profession from the usual sympathies of social life, and who, accustomed to the tyranny of the confessional, aimed at establishing the same jurisdiction over thoughts, which secular tribunals have wisely confined to actions. Time, instead of softening, gave increased harshness to the features of the new system. The most humane provisions were constantly evaded in practice; and the toils for ensnaring the victim were so ingeniously multiplied, that few, very few, were permitted to escape without some censure. Not more than one person, says Llorente, in one or perhaps two thousand processes, previous to the time of Philip III., received entire absolution. So that it came to be proverbial that all who were not roasted, were at least singed.
"Devant l'Inquisition, quand on vient à jubé,
Si l'on ne sort rôti, l'on sort au moins flambé."
[47] Montanus, Inquisition of Spayne, fol. 46.—Puigblanch, Inquisition Unmasked, vol. i. chap. 4.—Every reader of Tacitus and Juvenal will remember how early the Christians were condemned to endure the penalty of fire. Perhaps the earliest instance of burning to death for heresy in modern times occurred under the reign of Robert of France, in the early part of the eleventh century. (Sismondi, Hist. des Français, tom. iv. chap. 4.) Paramo, as usual, finds authority for inquisitorial autos da fe, where one would least expect it, in the New Testament. Among other examples, he quotes the remark of James and John, who, when the village of Samaria refused to admit Christ within its walls, would have called down fire from heaven to consume its inhabitants. "Lo," says Paramo, "fire, the punishment of heretics; for the Samaritans were the heretics of those times." (De Origine Inquisitionis, lib. 1, tit. 3, cap. 5.) The worthy father omits to add the impressive rebuke of our Saviour to his over- zealous disciples. "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. The son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."
[48] Puigblanch, vol. i. chap. 4.—The inquisitors, after the celebration of an auto da fe at Guadaloupe, in 1485, wishing probably to justify these bloody executions in the eyes of the people, who had not yet become familiar with them, solicited a sign from the Virgin (whose shrine in that place is noted all over Spain) in testimony of her approbation of the Holy Office. Their petition was answered by such a profusion of miracles, that Dr. Francis Sanctius de la Fuente, who acted as scribe on the occasion, became out of breath, and, after recording sixty, gave up in despair, unable to keep pace with their marvellous rapidity. Paramo, De Origine Inquisitionis, lib. 2, tit. 2, cap. 3.
[49] San benito, according to Llorente, (tom. i. p. 127,) is a corruption of saco bendito, being the name given to the dresses worn by penitents previously to the thirteenth century.
[50] Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 9, art. 16.— Puigblanch, Inquisition Unmasked, vol. i. chap. 4.—Voltaire remarks (Essai sur les Moeurs, chap. 140) that, "An Asiatic, arriving at Madrid on the day of an auto da fe, would doubt whether it were a festival, religious celebration, sacrifice, or massacre;—it is all of them. They reproach Montezuma with sacrificing human captives to the gods.—What would he have said, had he witnessed an auto da fe?"
[51] The government, at least, cannot be charged with remissness in promoting this. I find two ordinances in the royal collection of pragmáticas, dated in September, 1501, (there must be some error in the date of one of them,) inhibiting, under pain of confiscation of property, such as had been reconciled, and their children by the mother's side, and grandchildren by the father's, from holding any office in the privy council, courts of justice, or in the municipalities, or any other place of trust or honor. They were also excluded from the vocations of notaries, surgeons, and apothecaries. (Pragmáticas del Reyno, fol. 5, 6.) This was visiting the sins of the fathers, to an extent unparalleled in modern legislation. The sovereigns might find a precedent in a law of Sylla, excluding the children of the proscribed Romans from political honors; thus indignantly noticed by Sallust. "Quin solus omnium, post memoriam hominum, supplicia in post futuros composuit; quîs prius injuria quàm vita certa esset." Hist. Fragments, lib. 1.
[52] The Aragonese, as we shall see hereafter, made a manly though ineffectual resistance, from the first, to the introduction of the Inquisition among them by Ferdinand. In Castile, its enormous abuses provoked the spirited interposition of the legislature at the commencement of the following reign. But it was then too late.
[53] 1485-6. (Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. p. 239.)—In Seville, with probably no greater apparatus, in 1482, 21,000 processes were disposed of. These were the first fruits of the Jewish heresy, when Torquemada, although an inquisitor, had not the supreme control of the tribunal.
[54] Llorente afterwards reduces this estimate to 8800 burnt, 96,504 otherwise punished; the diocese of Cuença being comprehended in that of Murcia. (Tom. iv. p. 252.) Zurita says, that, by 1520, the Inquisition of Seville had sentenced more than 4000 persons to be burnt, and 30,000 to other punishments. Another author whom he quotes, carries up the estimate of the total condemned by this single tribunal, within the same term of time, to 100,000. Anales, tom. iv. fol. 324.