Just as the clock strikes twelve, a priest in his cloak and cassock ascends the pulpit, and delivers a preparatory address of his own composition. He then reads the printed meditations on the seven words, or sentences, spoken by Jesus on the cross, allotting to each such a portion of time as that, with the interludes of music which follow each of the readings, the whole may not exceed three hours. The music is generally good and appropriate, and if a sufficient band can be collected, well repays to an amateur the inconvenience of a crowded church, where, from the want of seats, the male part of the congregation are obliged either to stand or kneel. It is, in fact, one of the best works of Haydn, composed a short time ago for some gentlemen of Cadiz, who showed both their taste and liberality in thus procuring this masterpiece of harmony for the use of their country. It has been lately published in Germany under the title of the “Sette Parole.”
Every part of the performance is so managed, that the clock strikes three about the end of the meditation, on the words, It is finished. The picture of the expiring saviour, powerfully drawn by the original writer of the Tres Horas, can hardly fail to strike the imagination when listened to under the influence of such music and scenery; and when, at the first stroke of the clock, the priest rises from his seat, and in a loud and impassioned voice, announces the consummation of the awful and mysterious sacrifice, on whose painful and bloody progress the mind has been dwelling so long, few hearts can repel the impression, and still fewer eyes can conceal it. Tears bathe every cheek, and sobs heave every female bosom. After a parting address from the pulpit, the ceremony concludes with a piece of music, where the powers of the great composer are magnificently displayed in the imitation of the disorder and agitation of nature which the evangelists relate.
The passion sermons for the populace might be taken for a parody of the three hours. They are generally delivered in the open air, by friars of the Mendicant orders, in those parts of the city and suburbs which are chiefly, if not exclusively, inhabited by the lower classes. Such gay young men, however, as do not scruple to relieve the dulness of Good Friday with a ride, and feel no danger of exposing themselves by any unseasonable laughter, indulge not unfrequently in the frolic of attending one of the most complete and perfect sermons of this kind at the neighbouring village of Castilleja.
A movable pulpit is placed before the church door, from which a friar, possessed of a stentorian voice, delivers an improved history of the passion, such as was revealed to St. Bridget, a Franciscan nun, who, from the dictation of the virgin Mary, has left us a most minute and circumstantial account of the life and death of Christ and his mother. This yearly narrative, however, would have lost most of its interest but for the scenic illustrations, which keep up the expectation and rivet the attention of the audience. It was formerly the custom to introduce a living saint Peter—a character which belonged by a natural and inalienable right to the baldest head in the village—who acted the apostle’s denial, swearing by Christ, he did not know the man. This edifying part of the performance is omitted at Castilleja; though a practised performer crows with such a shrill and natural note as must be answered with challenge by every cock of spirit in the neighbourhood. The flourish of a trumpet announces, in the sequel, the publication of the sentence passed by the Roman governor; and the town crier delivers it with legal precision, in the manner it is practised in Spain before an execution. Hardly has the last word been uttered, when the preacher, in a frantic passion, gives the crier the lie direct, cursing the tongue that has uttered such blasphemies. He then invites an angel to contradict both Pilate and the Jews; when, obedient to the orator’s desire, a boy gaudily dressed, and furnished with a pair of gilt pasteboard wings, appears at a window, and proclaims the true verdict of heaven. Sometimes, in the course of the preacher’s narrative, an image of the virgin Mary is made to meet that of Christ, on his way to Calvary, both taking an affectionate leave in the street. The appearance, however, of the virgin bearing a handkerchief to collect a sum for her son’s burial, is never omitted; both because it melts the whole female audience into tears, and because it produces a good collection for the convent. The whole is closed by the descendimiento, or unnailing a crucifix, as large as life, from the cross, an operation performed by two friars, who, in the character of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, are seen with ladders and carpenters’ tools letting down the jointed figure, to be placed on a bier and carried into the church in the form of a funeral.
I have carefully glided over such parts of this absurd performance as would shock many an English reader, even in narrative. Yet, such is the strange mixture of superstition and profaneness in the people for whose gratification these scenes are exhibited, that, though any attempt to expose the indecency of these shows would rouse their zeal “to the knife,” I cannot venture to translate the jokes and sallies of wit that are frequently heard among the Spanish peasantry upon these sacred topics.[94]
Judas is a particular object of execration on Good Friday, in the Spanish and Portuguese navy. An eye-witness relates the following occurrences at Monte Video. “The three last days had been kept as days of sorrow; all the ships in the harbour expressed it by having their colours hoisted only half-mast high, as a token of mourning, and the yards crossed as much as possible, to make them resemble a crucifix, while apparent solemnity prevailed both on shore and in the harbour; but immediately on a signal, when the minute arrived, all being in waiting, the yards were squared, the colours hoisted wholly up, and the guns fired from all the ships in the harbour, while the bells on shore were set ringing promiscuously, as fast as possible; and at the bowsprit, or yard-arm of the ships was suspended an effigy of Judas, which they began to dip in the river, acting with the greatest possible enthusiasm and ridiculous madness, beating it on the shoulders, dipping it, and then renewing their former ridiculous conduct.”[95]
Relics of the Crucifixion.
Sir Thomas More, in his “Dialogue concernynge Heresyes, 1528,” says, “Ye might upon Good Friday, every yere this two hundred yere, till within this five yere that the turkes have taken the towne, have sene one of the thornes that was in Cristes crowne, bud and bring forth flowers in the service time, if ye would have gone to Rodes.” The printing press has done more mischief to miracles of this sort than the Turks.
Patience seems to have been wearied in supplying relics to meet the enormous demand. Invention itself became exhausted; for the cravings of credulity are insatiable. If angels are said to weep at man’s “fantastic tricks before high heaven,” protestants may smile, while, perhaps, many catholics deplore the countless frauds devised by Romish priests of knavish minds, for cajoling the unwary and the ignorant. “The greater the miracle the greater the saint,” has been assuredly a belief; and, according to that belief, the greater the relics, the greater the possessors must have appeared, in the eyes of the vulgar. In this view there is no difficulty in accounting for hordes of trumpery in shrines and reliquaries.