Protestantism and Catholicity

Indeed, the inconsistency of some men is shocking to the last degree. To ridicule all religions, to decry the spirituality and immortality of the soul, and the existence of God, to overturn all morality, and sap its deepest foundations, all this they have considered excusable, and we may even say, worthy of praise; moreover, the writers who have undertaken this fatal task are worthy of apotheosis; men must expel the Divinity from his temples to place there the names and busts of the leaders of their schools; under the vaults of splendid basilicas, where repose the ashes of Christians awaiting the resurrection, they must raise the mausoleum of Voltaire and Rousseau, in order that future generations, when they descend into their dark and silent abodes, may receive the inspirations of their genius. But have they, then, a right to complain that property, and domestic life, and social order are attacked? Property is sacred; but is it more sacred than God? However great may be the importance of the truths relating to the family and to society, are they of a superior order to the eternal principles of morality, or rather, are they any thing more than the application of these principles?

But let us resume the thread of our discourse. When the principle, that there are culpable errors, is once established (a principle which in practice, if not in theory, must be received by all men, but which Catholicity alone can logically maintain in theory), it is easy to see the reason of the punishments which human power decrees against the propagation and teaching of certain doctrines; and we can understand why it is legitimate to punish, without considering the conviction that animated the culprit, the actions which are the result of his doctrines. The law shows that this mortal error has existed, or can exist; but in this case it declares the error itself to be culpable; and if man adduces the testimony of his own conscience, the law reminds him that it is his duty to rectify his conscience. Such is, in truth, the foundation of a legislation which has appeared so unjust; a foundation which it is necessary to point out, in order to vindicate a great many human laws from a deep disgrace; for it would be a great disgrace to claim the right of punishing a man who was really innocent. Such an absurd right is so far from belonging to human justice, that it does not belong even to God. The infinite justice of God would cease to be what it is, if it could punish the innocent.

Perhaps another origin will be assigned for the right which governments possess, of punishing the propagation of certain doctrines and the actions committed in consequence of them, when the criminal has acted from the deepest conviction. "Governments," it may be said, "act in the name of society, which, like every being, possesses the right of self-defence. There are certain doctrines which menace its existence; it has, therefore, of necessity and right, the power of resisting those who promulgate them." Such a reason, however plausible it may appear, is liable to this grave objection, that it destroys at one blow the idea of punishment and justice. To wound an aggressor in self-defence is not to chastise but to resist him. If we consider society in this point of view, the criminal led to punishment will no longer be a real criminal, but the unfortunate victim of a rash and unequal struggle. The voice of the judge condemning him will no longer be the august voice of justice; his sentence will only be the act of society avenging the attack made upon it. The word punishment will then assume quite a different meaning; the gradations of it will depend entirely upon calculations, and not on justice. We must remember this; if we suppose that society, by virtue of the right of self-defence, inflicts a punishment upon the man whom it considers quite innocent, it no longer judges or condemns, but fights and struggles. That which is perfectly suitable with respect to the relations between one society and another, is in no way suitable to society in its relations with individuals. It then appears like a combat between a giant and a pigmy. The giant takes the pigmy in his hand, and crushes him against a stone.

The doctrine which I have just explained evidently shows the value of the much vaunted principle of universal toleration; it has been demonstrated that that principle is as impracticable in fact as it is unsustainable in theory; consequently all the accusations made against the Catholic Church on the subject of intolerance are overturned. It has been clearly shown that intolerance is in some measure the right of all public power; this has always been acknowledged; it is acknowledged still, generally speaking, when philosophers, the partisans of tolerance, attain to power. No doubt, governments have a thousand times abused this principle; no doubt, more than once the truth has been persecuted in virtue of it; but what do men not abuse? Their duty, then, as good philosophers, was not to establish principles that cannot be sustained, and are extremely dangerous; not to declaim to satiety against the times and institutions which have preceded us; but to endeavor to propagate sentiments of mildness and indulgence, and, above all, not to impugn important truths, without which society cannot be sustained, and which cannot be destroyed without abandoning the world to the empire of force, and, consequently, to despotism and tyranny.

Men have attacked dogmas; but they have not been willing to see that morality was intimately connected with dogmas, and that it was itself a dogma. By proclaiming unbounded liberty of thought, they have asserted the impeccability of the mind; error has ceased to figure among the faults of which men can be guilty. They have forgotten that, in order to will, it was necessary to know; and that to will rightly, it was necessary to know truly. If we examine the greater part of the errors of our hearts, we shall see that they have their source in a misunderstanding; is it possible, then, that it should not be the duty of man to preserve his mind from error? But since it has been said that opinions are of little importance, that man is free to choose such as please him, even in matters of religion and morality, truth has lost its value; its intrinsic worth is no longer what it was in the eyes of man; and too many consider themselves exempt from attempting to attain it, – a deplorable condition of mind, which is one of the greatest evils afflicting society.25

CHAPTER XXXVI.

ON THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN

I find myself naturally led to make a few observations on the intolerance of certain Catholic princes, on the Inquisition, and in particular on that of Spain. I must make a rapid examination of the charges against Catholicity on account of its conduct during the last centuries. The dungeons, the burnings of the Inquisition, and the intolerance of some Catholic princes, have furnished the enemies of the Church with one of their most effective arguments in depreciating her, and rendering her the object of odium and hatred; and it must be allowed that they have, in attacks of this kind, many advantages, which give them good prospects of success. Indeed (as we have said above, for the generality of readers, who, without undertaking to examine things to the bottom, naïvely allow themselves to be led away by a subtle writer; as we have said, for all those who have sensitive hearts, and are prompt to pity the unfortunate), what is more likely to excite indignation than the exhibition of dark dungeons, instruments of torture, san-benitos, and burnings? Imagine what effect must be produced, amid our toleration, our gentle manners, our humane penal codes, by the sudden exhibition of the severities, the cruelties of another age; the whole exaggerated and grouped into one picture, where are shown all the melancholy scenes which occurred in different places, and were spread over a long period of time. They take care to remind us that all this was done in the name of the God of peace and love; thereby the contrast is rendered more vivid, the imagination is excited, the heart becomes indignant; and the result is, that the clergy, magistrates, kings, and popes of those remote times, appear like a troop of executioners, whose pleasure consists in tormenting and desolating the human race. Writers, who have ventured to act in this way, have certainly not added to their reputation for delicacy of conscience. There is a rule which orators and writers ought never to forget, viz. that it is not allowable to excite the passions, until they have convinced the reason, unless it had been convinced before. Besides, there is a degree of bad faith in appealing to the feelings with respect to matters which ought to be examined by the light of reason alone, if they are to be examined properly. In such a case we ought not to begin by moving, but by convincing; to do otherwise is to deceive the reader.

I am not going to write the history of the Inquisition, or of the different systems which various countries have adopted with respect to religious intolerance; this would be impossible within my narrow limits; besides, it would lead me away from the object of my work. Ought we to draw from the Inquisition in general, that of Spain in particular, or from the greater or less intolerance of the legislation of some countries, an accusation against Catholicity? Can it, in this respect, be put in comparison with Protestantism? Such are the questions I have to examine.

Three things at first present themselves to the eyes of the observer: 1st, the legislation and institutions proceeding from the principle of intolerance; 2d, the use which has been made of this legislation and these institutions; 3d, the intolerant acts which have been committed illegally. With respect to the latter, I must say at once that they have nothing to do with the question. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and other atrocities committed in the name of religion, ought not to trouble the apologists of religion: to render her responsible for all that has been done in her name, would be to act with manifest injustice. Man is endowed with so strong and lively a sense of the excellence of virtue, that he endeavors to cover the greatest crimes with her mantle; – would it be reasonable to banish virtue from the earth on that account? There are, in the history of mankind, terrible periods, where a fatal giddiness seizes upon the mind; rage, inflamed by disorder, blinds the intellect and changes the heart; evil is called good, and good evil; the most horrible attempts are made under the most respectable names. Historians and philosophers, in treating of such periods, should know what ought to be their line of conduct; strictly accurate in the narration of such facts, they ought to beware of drawing from them a judgment as to the prevailing ideas and institutions. Society then resembles a man in a state of delirium; we should ill judge of the ideas, character, and conduct of such a man, from what he says and does in that deplorable condition. What party, in those calamitous times, can boast of not having committed great crimes? If we fix our eyes on the period just mentioned, do we not see the leaders of both parties assassinated by treason? Admiral Coligny died by the hands of the assassins who began the massacre of St. Bartholomew; but the Duke of Guise had been also assassinated by Poltrot, before Orleans. Henry III. was assassinated by Jacques Clement; but this same Henry III. had treacherously murdered the other Duke of Guise in the corridors of his palace, and his brother, the Cardinal, in the tower of Moulins; this same Henry III. had taken part in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. We see atrocities committed by the Catholics; but did not their opponents also commit them? Let us throw a veil over these catastrophes, over these afflicting proofs of the misery and perversity of the human heart. The tribunal of the Inquisition, considered in itself, is only the application to a particular case of that doctrine of intolerance, which, to a greater or less degree, is that of every existing power. Thus, we have only to examine the character of that particular application, and see whether its enemies are correct in their charges against it. In the first place, we must observe that those who extol antiquity, sadly falsify history, if they pretend that intolerance only appeared after the time when, according to them, the Church had degenerated from her primitive purity. As for myself, I see that from the earliest times, when the Church began to exert political influence, heresy began to figure in the codes as a crime; and I have never been able to discover a period of complete tolerance. I must here make an important remark, which shows one of the causes of the rigor displayed in later centuries. The Inquisition was first directed against the Manichean heretics; that is, against the sectaries who at all times were treated with the greatest severity. In the 11th century, when the punishment of fire had not yet been applied to the crime of heresy, the Manicheans were excepted from this rule. Even in the time of the Pagan emperors, these sectaries were treated with extreme rigor. In the year 296, we see Diocletian and Maximilian, by an edict, condemning to different punishments the Manicheans who had not abjured their dogmas, and consigning their leaders to the fire. These sectaries have always been considered as great criminals; and to punish them has always been judged necessary, not only for the interests of religion, but even for the morals and good order of society. This was one of the causes of the rigor of the Inquisition at its commencement: if we add to this, the turbulent character of the sects which, under various names, arose in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, we shall have two of the causes that contributed to produce those scenes which now we can scarcely credit. In studying the history of those centuries, and fixing our attention on the troubles and disasters which ravaged the south of France, we clearly see that it was not a dispute as to a particular dogma, but that the whole social system was compromised. The sectaries of those times were precursors of those of the 16th century; with this difference, that the latter, if we except the frantic Anabaptists, were less democratic, less apt to address the multitude. Amid the cruelties of those times, when long ages of violence and revolution had given an excessive preponderance to brute force, what could be expected from governments incessantly menaced with such imminent danger? It is clear that the laws, and their application, must savour of the times.

As to the Spanish Inquisition, which was only an extension of that which was established in other countries, we must divide it, with respect to its duration, into three great periods; – we omit the time of its existence in the kingdom of Aragon, before its introduction into Castille. The first of these comprehends the time when the Inquisition was principally directed against the relapsed Jews and Moors, from the day of its installation under the Catholic sovereigns, till the middle of the reign of Charles V. The second extends from the time when it began to concentrate its efforts to prevent the introduction of Protestantism into Spain, until that danger entirely ceased; that is, from the middle of the reign of Charles V. till the coming of the Bourbons. The third and last period is that when the Inquisition was limited to repress infamous crimes, and exclude the philosophy of Voltaire; this period was continued until its abolition in the beginning of the present century. It is clear that, the institution being successively modified according to circumstances at these different epochs, – although it always remained fundamentally the same, – the commencement and termination of each of these three periods which we have pointed out cannot be precisely marked; nevertheless, these three periods really existed in its history, and present us with very different characters.

Every one knows the peculiar circumstances in which the Inquisition was established in the time of the Catholic sovereigns; yet it is worthy of remark, that the Bull of establishment was solicited by Queen Isabella; that is, by one of the most distinguished sovereigns in our history, – by that queen who still, after three centuries, preserves the respect and admiration of all Spaniards. Isabella, far from opposing the will of the people in this measure, only realized the national wish. The Inquisition was established chiefly against the Jews; the Papal Bull had been sent in 1478; now, before the Inquisition published its first edict, dated Seville, in 1481, the Cortes of Toledo, in 1480, had adopted severe measures on the subject. To prevent the injury which the intercourse between Jews and Christians might occasion to the Catholic faith, the Cortes had ordered that unbaptized Israelites should be obliged to wear a distinctive mark, dwell in separate quarters, called Juiveries, and return there before night. Ancient regulations against them were renewed; the professions of doctor, surgeon, shopkeeper, barber, and tavern-keeper, were forbidden them. Intolerance was, therefore, popular at that time. If the Inquisition be justified in the eyes of friends to monarchy, by conformity with the will of kings, it has an equal claim to be so in the eyes of lovers of democracy.

No doubt the heart is grieved at reading the excessive severities exercised at that time against the Jews; but must there not have been very grave causes to provoke such excesses? The danger which the Spanish monarchy, not yet well established, would have incurred if the Jews, then very powerful on account of their riches and their alliances with the most influential families, had been allowed to act without restraint, has been pointed out as one of the most important of these causes. It was greatly to be feared that they would league with the Moors against the Christians. The respective positions of the three nations rendered this league natural: this is the reason why it was looked upon as necessary to break a power which was capable of compromising anew the independence of the Christians. It is necessary also to observe, that at the time when the Inquisition was established, the war of eight hundred years against the Moors was not yet finished. The Inquisition was projected before 1474; it was established in 1480, and the conquest of Granada did not take place till 1492. Thus it was founded at the time when the obstinate struggle was about to be decided; it was yet to be known whether the Christians would remain masters of the whole peninsula, or whether the Moors should retain possession of one of the most fertile and beautiful provinces; whether these enemies, shut up in Granada, should preserve a position, excellent for their communication with Africa, and a means for all the attempts which, at a later period, the Crescent might be disposed to make against us. Now, the power of the Crescent was very great, as was clearly shown by its enterprises against the rest of Europe in the next century. In such emergencies, after ages of fighting, and at the moment which was to decide the victory for ever, have combatants ever been known to conduct themselves with moderation and mildness? It cannot be denied that the system of repression pursued in Spain, with respect to the Jews and the Moors, was inspired, in great measure, by the instinct of self-preservation: we can easily believe that the Catholic princes had this motive before them when they decided on asking for the establishment of the Inquisition in their dominions. The danger was not imaginary: it was perfectly real. In order to form an idea of the turn which things might have taken if some precaution had not been adopted, it is enough to recollect the insurrections of the last Moors in later times.

Yet it would be wrong, in this affair, to attribute all to the policy of royalty; and it is necessary here to avoid exalting too much the foresight and designs of men; for my part, I am inclined to think that Ferdinand and Isabella naturally followed the generality of the nation, in whose eyes the Jews were odious when they persevered in their creed, and suspected when they embraced the Christian religion. Two causes contributed to this hatred and animadversion. First, the excited state of religious feeling then general in all Europe, and especially in Spain; 2d, the conduct by which the Jews had drawn upon themselves the public indignation.

The necessity of restraining the cupidity of the Jews, for the sake of the independence of the Christians, was of ancient date in Spain: the old assemblies of Toledo had attempted it. In the following centuries the evil reached its height; a great part of the riches of the peninsula had passed into the hands of the Jews, and almost all the Christians found themselves their debtors. Thence the hatred of the people against the Jews; thence the frequent troubles which agitated some towns of the peninsula; thence the tumults which more than once were fatal to the Jews, and in which their blood flowed in abundance. It was difficult for a people accustomed for ages to set themselves free by force of arms, to resign themselves peacefully and tranquilly to the lot prepared for them by the artifices and exactions of a strange race, whose name, moreover, bore the recollection of a terrible malediction.

In later times, an immense number of Jews were converted to the Christian religion; but the hatred of the people was not extinguished thereby, and mistrust followed these converts into their new state. It is very probable that a great number of these conversions were hardly sincere, as they were partly caused by the sad position in which the Jews who continued in Judaism were placed. In default of conjectures founded on reason in this respect, we will regard as a sufficient corroboration of our opinion, the multitude of Judaizing Christians who were discovered as soon as care was taken to find out those who had been guilty of apostacy. However this may be, it is certain that the distinction between new and old Christians was introduced; the latter denomination was a title of honor, and the former a mark of ignominy; the converted Jews were contemptuously called marranos, – impure men, pigs. With more or less foundation, they were accused of horrible crimes. In their dark assemblies they committed, it was said, atrocities which could hardly be believed, for the honor of humanity. For example, it was said that, to revenge themselves on the Christians and in contempt of religion, they crucified Christian children, taking care to choose for the purpose the greatest day among Christian solemnities. There is the often-repeated history of the knight of the house of Guzman, who, being hidden one night in the house of a Jew whose daughter he loved, saw a child crucified at the time when the Christians celebrated the institution of the sacrifice of the Eucharist. Besides infanticide, there were attributed to the Jews, sacrileges, poisonings, conspiracies, and other crimes. That these rumors were generally believed by the people is proved by the fact, that the Jews were forbidden by law to exercise the professions of doctor, surgeon, barber, and tavern-keeper; this shows what degree of confidence was placed in their morality. It is useless to stay to examine the foundations for these sinister accusations. We are not ignorant how far popular credulity will go, above all when it is under the influence of excited feelings, which makes it view all things in the same light. It is enough for us to know that these rumors circulated everywhere and with credit, to understand what must have been the public indignation against the Jews, and consequently how natural it was that authority, yielding to the impulse of the general mind, should be urged to treat them with excessive rigor.

The situation in which the Jews were placed is sufficient to show, that they might have attempted to act in concert to resist the Christians; what they did after the death of St. Peter Arbues shows what they were capable of doing on other occasions. The funds necessary for the accomplishment of the murder, the pay of the assassins, and the other expenses required for the plot, were collected by means of voluntary contributions imposed on themselves by all the Jews of Aragon. Does not this show an advanced state of organization, which might have become fatal if it had not been watched.

In alluding to the death of St. Peter Arbues, I wish to make an observation on what has been said on this subject, as proving the unpopularity of the establishment of the Inquisition in Spain. What more evident proof, we shall be told, can you have than the assassination of the Inquisitor? Is it not a sure sign that the indignation of the people was at its height, and that they were quite opposed to the Inquisition? Would they otherwise have been hurried into such excesses? If by 'the people' you mean the Jews and their descendants, I will not deny that the establishment of the Inquisition was indeed very odious to them; but it was not so with the rest of the nation. The event we are speaking of gave rise to a circumstance which proves just the reverse. When the report of the death of the Inquisitor was spread through the town, the people made a fearful tumult to avenge his death. They spread through the town, they went in crowds in pursuit of the new Christians, so that a bloody catastrophe would have ensued, had not the young Archbishop of Saragossa, Alphonsus of Aragon, presented himself to the people on horseback, and calmed them by the assurance that all the rigor of the laws should fall on the heads of the guilty. Was the Inquisition as unpopular as it has been represented; and will it be said that its adversaries were the majority of the people? Why, then, could not the tumult at Saragossa have been avoided in spite of all the precautions which were no doubt taken by the conspirators, at that time very powerful by their riches and influence?