A History of the Inquisition of Spain (Vol. 1-4). Henry Charles Lea

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СКАЧАТЬ greatest churchman of the day, St. Isidor of Seville, whose career of forty years commenced with the Catholic revolution, did what in him lay to stimulate and justify persecution. His treatise against the Jews is not vituperative, as are so many later controversial writings, but he proves that they are condemned for their fathers’ sins to dispersion and oppression until, at the end of the world, their eyes are to be opened and they are to believe.[120] That he should have felt called upon to compose such a work was an evil sign, and still more evil were the conclusions which he taught. They could not fail of deplorable results, as was seen when Sisebut ascended the throne in 612 and signalized the commencement of his reign by a forcible conversion of all the Jews of the kingdom. What means he adopted we are not told, but of course they were violent, which St. Isidor mildly reproves, seeing that conversion ought to be sincere, but which yet he holds to be strictly within the competence of the Church.[121] The Church in fact was thus brought face to face with the question whether the forcible propagation of the faith is lawful. This is so repugnant to the teachings of Christ that it could scarce be accepted, but, on the other hand, the sacrament of baptism is indelible, so the convenient doctrine was adopted and became the settled policy that, while Christianity was not to be spread by force, unwilling converts were nevertheless Christians; they were not to be permitted to apostatize and were subject to all the pains and penalties of heresy for any secret inclination to their own religion.[122] This fruitful conception led to infinite misery, as we shall see hereafter, and was the impelling motive which created the Spanish Inquisition.

      Whatever may have been the extent and the success of Sisebut’s measures, the Jews soon afterwards reappear, and they and the conversos became the subject of an unintermittent series of ecclesiastical and secular legislation which shows that the policy so unfortunately adopted could only have attained its end by virtual extermination. The anvil bade fair to wear out the hammer—the constancy of the persecuted exhausted the ingenuity of the persecutor. With the conversion to Catholicism ecclesiastics became dominant throughout the Wisigothic territories and to their influence is attributable the varied series of measures which occupied the attention of the successive councils of Toledo from 633 until the Saracenic invasion in 711. Every expedient was tried—the seizure of all Jewish children, to be shut up in monasteries or to be given to God-fearing Christians; the alternative of expulsion or conversion, to the enforcement of which all kings at their accession were to take a solemn oath; the gentle persuasives of shaving, scourging, confiscation and exile. That the people at large did not share in the intolerance of their rulers is seen in the prohibitions of social intercourse, mixed marriages, and the holding of office. The spectre of proselytism was evoked in justification of these measures as though the persecuted Jew would seek to incur its dangers even had not the Talmud declared that “a proselyte is as damaging to Israel as an ulcer to a healthy body.” The enforced conversions thus obtained were regarded naturally with suspicion and the converts were the subjects of perpetual animadversion.[123]

      THE JEWS UNDER THE WISIGOTHS

      Thus the Church had triumphed and the toleration of the Arian Goths had been converted into persecuting orthodoxy. History repeats itself and, eight hundred years later, we shall see the same process with the same results. Toleration was changed into persecution; conversions obtained by force, or by its equivalent, irresistible pressure, were recognized as fictitious, and the unfortunate converts were held guilty of the unpardonable crime of apostasy. Although the Goths did not invent the Inquisition, they came as near to it as the rudeness of the age and the looseness of their tottering political organization would permit, by endeavoring to create through the priesthood a network of supervision which should attain the same results. The Inquisition was prefigured and anticipated.

      As apparently the Jews could not be exterminated or the Conversos be trained into willing Christians, the two classes naturally added an element of discontent to the already unquiet and motley population consisting of superimposed layers of Goths, Romans and Celtiberians. The Jews doubtless aided the Gallo-Roman rebellion of Flavius Paulus about 675, for St. Julian of Toledo, in describing its suppression by King Wamba, denounces Gaul in the bitterest terms, ending with the crowning reproach that it is a refuge for the blasphemy of the Jews, whom Wamba banished after his triumph.[124] In spite of the unremitting efforts for their destruction, they still remained a source of danger to the State. At the council of Toledo in 694, King Egiza appealed to his prelates to devise some means by which Judaism should be wiped out, or all Jews be subjected to the sword of justice and their property be appropriated, for all efforts to convert them had proved futile and there was danger that, in conjunction with their brethren in other lands, they would overthrow Christianity. In its response the council alludes to a conspiracy by which the Jews had endeavored to occupy the throne and bring about the ruin of the land, and it decrees that all Jews, with their wives, children and posterity, shall be reduced to perpetual servitude, while their property is declared confiscated to the king. They are to be transferred from their present abodes and be given to such persons as the king may designate, who shall hold them as slaves so long as they persevere in their faith, taking from them their children as they reach the age of seven and marrying them only to Christians. Such of their Christian slaves as the king may select shall receive a portion of the confiscated property and continue to pay the taxes hitherto levied on the Jews.[125]

      Doubtless this inhuman measure led to indiscriminate plunder and infinite misery, but its object was not accomplished. The Jews remained, and when came the catastrophe of the Saracen conquest they were ready enough to welcome the Berber invaders. That they were still in Spain is attributed to Witiza, who reigned from 700 to 710 and who is said to have recalled them and favored them with privileges greater than those of the Church, but Witiza, though a favorite target for the abuse of later annalists, was an excellent prince and the best contemporary authority says nothing of his favoring the Jews.[126]

      THE MOZÁRABES

      If the Jews helped the Moslem, as we may readily believe, both from the probabilities of the case and the testimony of Spanish and Arab writers,[127] they did no more than a large portion of the Christians. To the mass of the population the Goths were merely barbarous masters, whose yoke they were ready to exchange for that of the Moors, nor were the Goths themselves united. At the decisive battle of Xeres de la Frontera, Don Roderic’s right and left wings were commanded by Sisebert and Oppas, the dethroned sons of Witiza, who fled without striking a blow, for the purpose of causing his defeat. The land was occupied by the Moors with little resistance, and on terms easy to the conquered. It is true that, where resistance was made, the higher classes were reduced to slavery, the lands were divided among the soldiery and one-fifth was reserved to the State, on which peasants were settled subject to an impost of one-third of the product, but submission was general under capitulations which secured to the inhabitants the possession of their property, subject to the impost of a third, and allowed them the enjoyment of their laws and religion under native counts and bishops. In spite of this liberality, vast numbers embraced Mohammedanism, partly to avoid taxation and partly through conviction that the marvellous success of the Moslem cause was a proof of its righteousness.[128]

      The hardy resolution of the few who preferred exile and independence, and who found refuge in the mountains of Galicia and Asturias preserved the Peninsula from total subjection to Islam. During the long struggle of the Reconquest, the social and religious condition of Spain was strangely anomalous, presenting a mixture of races and faiths whose relations, however antagonistic they might be in principle, were, for the most part, dominated by temporal interests exclusively. Mutual attrition, СКАЧАТЬ