Castile might now boast, the first time for eight centuries, that every outward stain, at least, of infidelity, was purified from her bosom. But how had this been accomplished? By the most detestable expedients which sophistry could devise, and oppression execute; and that, too, under an enlightened government, proposing to be guided solely by a conscientious regard for duty. To comprehend this more fully, it will be necessary to take a brief view of public sentiment in matters of religion at that time.
It is a singular paradox, that Christianity, whose doctrines inculcate unbounded charity, should have been made so often an engine of persecution; while Mahometanism, whose principles are those of avowed intolerance, should have exhibited, at least till later times, a truly philosophical spirit of toleration. [34] Even the first victorious disciples of the prophet, glowing with all the fiery zeal of proselytism, were content with the exaction of tribute from the vanquished; at least, more vindictive feelings were reserved only for idolaters, who did not, like the Jews and Christians, acknowledge with themselves the unity of God. With these latter denominations they had obvious sympathy, since it was their creed which formed the basis of their own. [35] In Spain, where the fiery temperament of the Arab was gradually softened under the influence of a temperate climate and higher mental culture, the toleration of the Jews and Christians, as we have already had occasion to notice, was so remarkable, that, within a few years after the conquest, we find them not only protected in the enjoyment of civil and religious freedom, but mingling on terms almost of equality with their conquerors.
It is not necessary to inquire here, how far the different policy of the Christians was owing to the peculiar constitution of their hierarchy, which, composed of a spiritual militia drawn from every country in Europe, was cut off by its position from all human sympathies, and attached to no interests but its own; which availed itself of the superior science and reputed sanctity, that were supposed to have given it the key to the dread mysteries of a future life, not to enlighten but to enslave the minds of a credulous world; and which, making its own tenets the only standard of faith, its own rites and ceremonial the only evidence of virtue, obliterated the great laws of morality, written by the divine hand on every heart, and gradually built up a system of exclusiveness and intolerance most repugnant to the mild and charitable religion of Jesus Christ.
Before the close of the fifteenth century, several circumstances operated to sharpen the edge of intolerance, especially against the Arabs. The Turks, whose political consideration of late years had made them the peculiar representatives and champions of Mahometanism, had shown a ferocity and cruelty in their treatment of the Christians, which brought general odium on all the professors of their faith, and on the Moors, of course, though most undeservedly, in common with the rest. The bold, heterodox doctrines, also, which had occasionally broken forth in different parts of Europe in the fifteenth century, like so many faint streaks of light ushering in the glorious morn of the Reformation, had roused the alarm of the champions of the church, and kindled on more than one occasion the fires of persecution; and, before the close of the period, the Inquisition was introduced into Spain.
From that disastrous hour, religion wore a new aspect in this unhappy country. The spirit of intolerance, no longer hooded in the darkness of the cloister, now stalked abroad in all his terrors. Zeal was exalted into fanaticism, and a rational spirit of proselytism, into one of fiendish persecution. It was not enough now, as formerly, to conform passively to the doctrines of the church, but it was enjoined to make war on all who refused them. The natural feelings of compunction in the discharge of this sad duty was a crime; and the tear of sympathy, wrung out by the sight of mortal agonies, was an offence to be expiated by humiliating penance. The most frightful maxims were deliberately engrafted into the code of morals. Any one, it was said, might conscientiously kill an apostate wherever he could meet him. There was some doubt whether a man might slay his own father, if a heretic or infidel, but none whatever as to his right, in that event, to take away the life of his son or of his brother. [36] These maxims were not a dead letter, but of most active operation, as the sad records of the dread tribunal too well prove. The character of the nation underwent a melancholy change. The milk of charity, nay of human feeling, was soured in every bosom. The liberality of the old Spanish cavalier gave way to the fiery fanaticism of the monk. The taste for blood, once gratified, begat a cannibal appetite in the people, who, cheered on by the frantic clergy, seemed to vie with one another in the eagerness with which they ran down the miserable game of the Inquisition.
It was at this very time, when the infernal monster, gorged but not sated with human sacrifice, was crying aloud for fresh victims, that Granada surrendered to the Spaniards, under the solemn guaranty of the full enjoyment of civil and religious liberty. The treaty of capitulation granted too much, or too little,—too little for an independent state, too much for one whose existence was now merged in that of a greater; for it secured to the Moors privileges in some respects superior to those of the Castilians, and to the prejudice of the latter. Such, for example, was the permission to trade with the Barbary coast, and with the various places in Castile and Andalusia, without paying the duties imposed on the Spaniards themselves; [37] and that article, again, by which runaway Moorish slaves from other parts of the kingdom were made free and incapable of being reclaimed by their masters, if they could reach Granada. [38] The former of these provisions struck at the commercial profits of the Spaniards, the latter directly at their property.
It is not too much to say, that such a treaty, depending for its observance on the good faith and forbearance of the stronger party, would not hold together a year in any country of Christendom, even at the present day, before some flaw or pretext would be devised to evade it. How much greater was the probability of this in the present case, where the weaker party was viewed with all the accumulated odium of long hereditary hostility and religious rancor!
The work of conversion, on which the Christians, no doubt, much relied, was attended with greater difficulties than had been anticipated by the conquerors. It was now found, that, while the Moors retained their present faith, they would be much better affected towards their countrymen in Africa, than to the nation with which they were incorporated. In short, Spain still had enemies in her bosom; and reports were rife in every quarter, of their secret intelligence with the Barbary states, and of Christians kidnapped to be sold as slaves to Algerine corsairs. Such tales, greedily circulated and swallowed, soon begat general alarm; and men are not apt to be over-scrupulous as to measures which they deem essential to their personal safety.
The zealous attempt to bring about conversion by preaching and expostulation was fair and commendable. The intervention of bribes and promises, if it violated the spirit, did not, at least, the letter of the treaty. The application of force to a few of the most refractory, who by their blind obstinacy were excluding a whole nation from the benefits of redemption, was to be defended on other grounds; and these were not wanting to cunning theologians, who considered that the sanctity of the end justified extraordinary means, and that, where the eternal interests of the soul were at stake, the force of promises and the faith of treaties were equally nugatory. [39]
But the chef-d'oeuvre of monkish casuistry was the argument imputed to Ximenes for depriving the Moors of the benefits of the treaty, as a legitimate consequence of the rebellion, into which they had been driven by his own malpractices. This proposition, however, far from outraging the feelings of the nation, well drilled by this time in the metaphysics of the cloister, fell short of them, if we are to judge from recommendations of a still more questionable import, urged, though ineffectually, on the sovereigns at this very time, from the highest quarter. [40]