Truth About The Spanish Inquisition
A student of prejudices once said,
"The mind is like a sheet
of white paper in this, that the impressions it receives oftenest and
retains longest, are the black ones."
The
truth of this observation is never more apparent than when
considering the Jews and the Spanish Inquisition. If the teachings of
the Old Testament were dinned into the minds and hearts of Jews as
continually as is this historic calamity, the rabbis would not have
to bemoan the lack of interest in religion on the part of children of
Jewish parentage as they did lately at their Atlantic City
Conference. Jewish book after book, weekly and monthly publication
after weekly and monthly publication, so incessantly harp upon the
Spanish Inquisition that it has become a Jewish "persecution
complex," as Maurice Fueurlich said in the "Forum"
(Sept., 1937). In writing on "Children of a Martyr Race,"
this writer says, that "the Spanish Inquisition has been dinned
into my consciousness so deeply that it became a basic element in my
emotional life."
The
Jewish version of the Spanish Inquisition, which took place four
hundred and fifty years ago, is the source from which has emanated
much Jewish fear of the Catholic Church, and much hostility towards
Jews who enter her communion. This is true even among rabbis who seek
a union of forces with Catholic priests against the injustices of our
time that afflict the Jews. They hold that as long as Christianity is
divided; as long as Catholics are in the minority there is no fear.
But should the Catholic Church ever become the only Christian Church,
as she was during the middle ages, then beware of the Auto-da-Fe (Act
of Faith), a solemn religious ceremony that the uninformed and the
misleaders hold to have been a place of torture and burning at the
stake.
Those in Jewry who speak or
write about the Spanish Inquisition, with minor exceptions, have
received their knowledge of it from prejudicial sources, or from
persons whose data concerning it were taken from poisoned sources of
information. That accounts for your prodding me, as have many others,
with the query:
"How can you join a church that inflicted the cruelties practiced upon your own people during the Spanish Inquisition?"
Your
query could be dismissed with the simple declaration that my journey
to the baptismal font of the Catholic Church was conditioned upon my
belief in her principles, and not upon agreement with everything done
by Catholics during the Spanish Inquisition, or any other intense
historic period. But the import of your query, considering that the
Spanish Inquisition is a bugbear that closes the Jewish mind to
things Catholic, prompts me to deal with the subject at length, and
without any equivocation.
Properly to understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind
the fact that an inquisition is a court of inquiry; that all
societies, including your Masonic lodge, have temporary or permanent
trial courts, under different names, to examine members charged with
violating their principles. If adjudged guilty, such members are
punished, though not by "having their throats cut across, their
tongues torn out by the root, and their bodies buried in the sands of
the sea," as you "solemnly swore" to
permit your
lodge to do when you became a Master Mason, in the event that you
revealed its secrets. If secular societies may legitimately institute
such courts, and impose sentences, then why has not the Catholic
Church a greater reason for the institution of an inquisitorial
court, considering that to violate her sacred principles is to
violate the principles God taught man through Moses and His Son
Jesus, the Messiah?
To properly
understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind the fact
that the Inquisition was instituted in Spain for persons who
professed to be Catholics and not for practicing Jews. It was to
unearth, and to bring to penance, not merely heretics, as many Jews
believe, but also bigamists, adulterers, blasphemers, and other
violators of the principles of the Church to which they, as baptized
men and women, were obligated to be true. George E. Sokolsky,
publicist, of New York City, says
in "We Jews,"
"The task of the Inquisition was not to Persecute Jews but to cleanse the Church of unorthodoxy. The Inquisition was not concerned with infidels outside the Church but with heretics within it" (N.Y., 1935, p. 53).
The
Spanish Inquisition was instituted to weed out those baptized Jews
and Moslems who pretended to be sincere Catholics, while they
secretly adhered to the practices of Judaism and Mohammedanism, which
is a most serious sacrilegious offense. They were also enemies of the
State, which was Christian in principle and carried the Cross in
battle against the
Crescent. As further evidence, consider what
Dr. Salo Wittmayer Baron, one of America's foremost Jewish
historians, has to say about this matter. I quote from "A Social
and Religious History of the Jews" (N.Y., 1937, VOL 2 p. 58) -
"It
appears to be a fact as well as a theory that Jews who never
ceased
professing Judaism were, on the whole, left undisturbed.-In
the fourteen
years of the activity of the Spanish Inquisition,
from its establishment in
1478 to the expulsion of the Jews from
Spain, we hear of only one
persecution directed against a Jewish
community, where the Jewry of Huesca
was accused in 1489 of having
admitted conversos (pseudo-converts from
Judaism to Christianity)
to the Jewish fold. It was precisely the inability
of the
inquisitorial courts to check Jewish influence on the conversos
that
served as a decisive argument for the Catholic monarchs in
banishing Jews
from Spain......
Properly
to understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind
the
fact that Spain was at war for more than a half dozen centuries
against
the Mohammedans with whom the Jews were lined up against
the Spaniards. It
was a battle of the Cross against the Crescent.
This is vouched for by
Graetz's "History of the Jews,"
the "Jewish Encyclopedia," the
"Encyclopedia of
Jewish Knowledge," "Vallentine's Jewish Encyclopedia,"
and
other authorities of foremost standing in Jewry. The two last
named say,
"The
Spanish Jews welcomed, it is even said that they invited, the
Arab
invasion. Under the Caliphate (Mohammedan ruler) of the West,
with its
capital at Cordova, their members (the Jews) grew and
they attained great
influence in the State" (Dr. Cecil Roth,
in Vallentine's J.E., p. 612).
"It
is admitted that the African Jews aided the Arabs in the capture
of
Cordova, Malaga, Granada, Seville, and Toledo and these cities
were placed
under Jewish control by the conquerors" (Ency. J.
Knowledge, p. 531).
Properly
to understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind the fact
that as far as the abuses of the Inquisition are concerned, the
Catholic Church is no more responsible for them than she is for the
Spanish bull fights which she condemned. Those abuses were committed,
with a few exceptions, by the civil power, and they were condemned by
Popes Leo X,
Paul III, Paul IV, and Sixtus IV who reigned during
that period of history. That is very likely news to you, as it is to
most Jews, who have been "fed up" with stories of the
Auto-da-Fe that are as far from being true as are the stories about
Jews slaughtering Christian children to use their blood for ritual
purposes.
Properly
to understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind the fact
that the popes were the protectors of the Jews, and not their
enemies. Rome was a haven of refuge for the persecuted Jews when the
Eternal City was ruled by the popes, to which many of the Jews driven
out of Spain migrated. You need not take my word regarding the
friendliness of the popes, as it is confirmed by Dr. Cecil Roth of
London, Jewry's leading present-day historian on the middle ages. He
said a few years ago, while addressing the Zionist Forum in Buffalo,
N.Y.
"Only
in Rome has the colony of Jews continued its existence since
before
the beginning of the Christian era, because of all the
dynasties of Europe,
the Papacy not only refused to persecute the
Jews of Rome and Italy, but
throughout the ages popes were
protectors of the Jews.
"Some
Jews have the feeling that the Papacy has a policy of
persecuting
Jews. But you must remember that English history is
definitely
anti-Catholic' and your views of Catholicism may have
been colored by
English history. We Jews who have suffered so much
from prejudices, should
rid our minds of prejudices and learn the
facts. The truth is that the
popes and the Catholic Church from
the earliest days of the Church were
never responsible for
physical persecution of Jews and only Rome, among the
capitals of
the world, is free from having been a place of Jewish tragedy.
For
this we Jews must have gratitude" (Feb. 25th, 1927).
Properly
to understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind the fact
that many, many centuries before the Catholic Church came into
existence the Jewish Church put to death violators of the Mosaic Law,
for infractions of that Law which were not as serious as the offenses
of which Jews were guilty in Spain. This was done by the priests of
Jewry, whereas
the extreme penalties during the days of the
Spanish inquisition were imposed by the state, as heresy was
considered to be a crime in those days. That abuses took place at
times on the part of the inquisitors is not denied. The Catholic
Church, while divinely protected from error in defining matters of
faith and morals, does not claim to be immune from acts of abuse of
power on the part of some of her children, even in high places. Such
an abuse on the part of officials of the Church caused Pope Leo X to
excommunicate the Catholic tribunal at Toledo, and to have the
witnesses who appeared before its inquisitorial trial arrested for
perjury. This was during Spanish Inquisition days. But such an abuse
of power was rare, as the spirit of charity dominated those historic
inquiries regarding heresy. Persons called before the inquisitors who
repented were released after
promising to mend their ways and to
do the penances enjoined, such as fasting, wearing a special
penitential garb for a time, and imprisonment, which very often was
in the houses of the penitents themselves. Torturing and burning were
no part of the solemn religious ceremony called the Auto-da-Fe, where
the penitents abjured their errors and made public
recantation, by
making an Act of Faith.
To properly
understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind the fact
that extreme punishments meted out during the middle ages, such as
burning at the stake, which you and I abhor, were common throughout
the world at that time. They did not originate during the middle
ages, having been the law before the Christian era. Such punishment
did not shock the people then any more than the people of our country
are shocked at the present time by the lethal chambers, hanging,
lining men up against the wall before firing squads, and
electrocution, penalties imposed for kidnapping and sometimes
burglary, as well as for murder and treason, Please do not conclude
from this that the people in former times were less merciful than we
are. Such punishments were meted out more often, and for lesser
offenses, in Protestant England (the source from whence
most
anti-Catholic history emanated) than in Catholic Spain. As
evidence, I recommend reading "The Protestant Reformation,"
by William Cobbett, aProtestant historian.
Properly to understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind
the fact that Jewry inflicted the same sort of severe punishments
long before the Christian era, when blasphemy was rightly considered
to be a major offense, being directed against Almighty God. It is for
that offense, falsely charged, that the Sanhedrin, under the
direction of the high priests, declared Jesus to be worthy of death,
for claiming to be the Messiah. In answering the inquiry, "What
are the types of capital punishment according to Jewish law?"
the "Oracle," a Jewish publication, replied,
"According
to the Jewish law there are four kinds of execution,
stoning,
burning, the sword and strangling. Death by strangling is
not in the
scriptures, but the rabbis interpreted that wherever
death is mentioned
without specific mode, strangling is generally
meant" (Carl Alpert, Boston.
1935, p. 77).
Such
capital punishments were inflicted in Jewry not only for blasphemy,
but for Sabbath-breaking, witchcraft, idolatry, refusal to submit to
the decrees of the priests or judge, and for a dozen other offenses,
as well asmurder.
Properly to
understand this question, it is necessary to bear in mind the fact
that the Catholic Church can no more be judged by the abuses of the
Spanish Inquisition, which ended in the deportation of about 160,000
Jews (including many who were not guilty of offenses against the
Church or the State), than Judaism can be judged by the persecution
of the people of Edom, descendants of Esau. Jewish minds have been
poisoned against the Catholic Church through stories about the
Inquisition; whereas it is most difficult to find Catholics who have
even heard the story of Jewish persecution of the Idumeans. I quote
it from "The History of the Jews," by Graetz, though the
same thing can be found in the life of Josephus, the Jewish
Encyclopedia, and many other authoritative Jewish publications,
"After the victory over the Samaritans, Hyrcanus marched against the Idumeans, laid siege to their two fortresses, and after having demolished them, gave the Idumeans the choice between acceptance of Judaism, and exile.... For the first time Judaism, in the person of its head, John Hyrcanus (high priest), practiced intolerance against other faiths, but it soon found out with deep pain how highly injurious it is to allow religious zeal for the preservation of the faith to degenerate into the desire to effect violent conversion of others...."
These
forced conversions of the people of Edom did bring a painful
experience upon Jewry from which it never recovered. It robbed Jewry
of more than Esau (of whom the Idumeans are descendants) robbed his
brother Jacob. It gave Jewry the Herods (Idumeans) who ruthlessly
ended the Judaean Maccabean dynasty and its Hasmonaean high priestly
family; the Herods who "appointed the high priests (including
Caiaphas and Annas) - and took over the government of the Jews,"
as Josephus says, and finally lined up with Titus in the siege of
Jerusalem.
After all that has been
said, the fact remains that the Spanish Inquisition was a much to be
regretted calamity; it was necessitated by the conditions of the
time, and it cannot be rightly understood by the conditions of our
time. Our "third degree," drastic though it is, cannot be
compared to the in. human methods in the world during inquisition
times, and for many centuries before the Christian era. Deportation,
which climaxed the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, is always to be
deplored irrespective of the cause of it or whom it afflicts. It was
resorted to because, as Dr. Baron the Jewish historian said, "the
inquisitorial courts
could not check the Jewish influence on the
conversos," the fake converts from the Synagogue to the Church,
"who," the Encyclopedia of Jewish Knowledge says, "were
the direct cause of the inquisition" (p. 331).
Whatever may be said about the abuses of the Spanish Inquisition,
which are to be deplored, the following two simple facts ought to
remove from Jewish minds that historic obstacle to an open-minded
examination of the teachings of the Catholic Church. First, the
Catholic Church has as legitimate a right to weed out pseudo converts
from Judaism as the priests
and Sanhedrin in Jewry had to bring to
book the members of their Church who violated the Mosaic Law. The
Catholic Church had a much sounder right to do so than had the
descendants of the deported Spanish Jews to excommunicated Spinoza
and other pantheistic Jews from the Synagogue in Amsterdam, finally
driving them out of Holland. Heinrich Graetz says,
"The Amsterdam rabbis introduced the innovation of bringing religious opinions and convictions before their judgment seat, of constituting themselves a sort of inquisitional tribunal, and instituting autos-da-fe which, even if bloodless, were not less painful to the sufferers" ("History of the Jews," Vol. 4, p. 684).
Secondly,
if our country may rightly put men through the "third degree";
into concentration camps and prisons; deport them, as well as line
them up before firing squads, for sabotage, espionage, "fifth
column" activities and other treasonable acts during our short
wars; then was the Spanish Government doubly warranted in so doing,
considering that she was at war
for centuries.
To come back once more to your query, if "what is good for the
goose is good for the gander"; if I should not have become a
Catholic on account of the injustices perpetrated upon the Jews by
the Catholics of Spain, then ought you to refuse to remain a Jew on
account of the injustices of the Jews in Edom. Such logic, which
follows from the sentiment expressed in your query, is strongly
against yourself, because the abuses of the Spanish Inquisition were
committed by the State; whereas the forced circumcision of the
Idumeans was the work of official Jewry.
* * * * * * * * *
...I
called to see Mr. C... F.....
His understanding of
Judaism, like that of most Americanized Jews, was limited to knowing
that Jews are circumcised, barmitzvah, keep the Saturday Sabbath, Yom
Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, refrain from eating pork, & etc. When
it came to principles that are Jewish, he was so lacking in knowledge
of them that it was necessary to talk Judaism to him, for without
that
knowledge it is impossible to understand that Judaism in its
fullness is Christianity. Ah, he did know of the Spanish Inquisition.
He wanted to know if "the Catholic Church still holds
non-Catholics to be heretics, as she did the Jews and Moslems in
Spanish Inquisition days." This was not a surprise, because of
all things related to the Catholic Church during the twenty centuries
of her existence, the Spanish Inquisition is foremost in the minds of
Jews. Considering that my conversation with your friend came right
after I had written to you about the Spanish Inquisition, a word
regarding heresy and heretics will add to your understanding of the
subject, as I hope my outline of it last night enlightened Mr. C...
F.....
It is a commonplace for
non-Catholics to assume that the Jews in Spain were all held to be
guilty of heresy; that both Jews and Protestants are considered by
Catholics to be heretics. This is a false notion, based upon failure
to realize that heresy charges by the Catholic Church are brought
against Catholics, and not against persons who openly profess to be
Jews,
Moslems, or Protestants, though they may believe in some
things that are heretical....
The
Maranos were tried, and rightly found guilty of heresy. They were
under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church through baptism, hence
their public declaration that they were Catholics, while they were
secretly following Jewish practices, was heretical. It was their
action that caused the Inquisition to be instituted in Spain in 1480,
which lasted until 1492....
Heresy is
a sin. It is so declared in Jewish as well as Christian law. St. Paul
enumerates heresies among "works of the flesh" (Gal. 5:20).
A Catholic who denies one or more of the teachings of Christ is held
by the Church to be a heretic. The Catholic Church teaches with
absolute authority in matters of faith and morals, hence she is
obligated to declare, as did St. Paul,
"Even
if an angel from heaven should preach a gospel to you other than
that
which we have preached to you, let him be anathema"
(Gal. 1:8).
This
applies to the denial of a single basic Christian teaching, for to
deny one of God's teachings is to deny God. Hence a Catholic who
proclaims belief in only nine of the Ten Commandments, for instance,
is a heretic, as the denial of one of the Commandments is a denial of
God, its Author. The same thing applies to every article in the
Apostles Creed, and other
teachings of the Church.
Heresy, properly understood, is worse than murder. Murder robs man of
his physical life, which at best is limited to a short term of years;
whereas heresy robs man of his spiritual inheritance; it murders the
soul, with the result that the heretic is deprived of an eternity of
happiness, in the event of dying unrepentant.
Trial and punishment for Heresy is of Jewish and not of Catholic
origin, its objective being to keep pure in hearts the teachings of
God; and to safeguard the attainment of eternal life. Look under
"Heresy and Heretics" in "Vallentine's Jewish
Encyclopedia" for an understanding of the Orthodox Jewish
concept of the subject. This is what you will find,
"The
term 'heretic' in connection with Judaism may conveniently be
applied
to any one who does not accept the two Torahs-the Written
and Oral-in which
Jewish teaching is contained. Apart from the
idolaters of ancient times,
the Talmud knows four main kinds of
such heretics, which however, it is not
always careful to
distinguish: (1) the Cutheans or Samaritans, who accepted
only the
Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua as inspired, and rejected the
rest
of the Scriptures; (2) the Sadducees and Boethusians, who rejected
the
Oral Law; (3) the MINIM - Judaeo-Christians (that is converts
from the
Synagogue to the Church) and Gnostics-who desired to
supplement the TORAH
Of Moses with some other TORAH Of superior
authority; (4) the APIKORSIM,
who denied the divine origin of the
TORAH. The Karaite heresy, which
appeared later, was essentially
the same as that of the Sadducees" (p. 279).
Charges
of heresy are not so frequent among non-Catholics today as they were
in the religious past, on account of religious indifference, and
theological incoherence. In our country, in which about one-third of
the Jews of the world reside, a man may believe anything or nothing
and be, designated by sons of Israel as a Jew. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise
could stand up
in his "Free Synagogue," in Carnegie
Hall, and shout out,
"I do not believe that the Ten Commandments were given by God on tablets of stone and handed to Moses on Mount Sinai. If that be heresy, then banish me from the Synagogue."
This
sensational statement obtained the desired front page in the public
press throughout the country. Of course, no one can be charged with
heresy in a Synagogue that is "Free" from dogma, and from
control of any one but the Rabbi himself. Heresy assumes an
authoritatively defined belief and practice, such as obtains in the
Catholic Church. Hence I asked at the time, "Who has any right
to try Rabbi Wise for heresy, in a pulpit where he may speak on any
thing he desires, in any manner that suits him personally? The Rabbi
was only making a 'stageplay' when he challenged any one to try him
for denying the Mosaic miracle." The so-called Jew of Jews,
Einstein, went a step further. He denied belief in a personal God,
while speaking in a Jewish Theological Seminary. Was he tried for
heresy? Not at all. He would very likely have been, and rightly so,
were he a member of an Orthodox Synagogue.
I told in my last letter of Spinoza, whose denial of belief in a
personal God caused him to be excommunicated by the sons of Jews who
were deported from Spain and Portugal on account of the heretical
conduct of the Maranos. Spinoza was banished from Amsterdam, and to
avoid assassination, after "a fanatic made an attempt on his
life with a knife," he left his native city where the "curses
had been pronounced upon him" by the rabbis in their leading
Synagogue. Gabriel da Costa, is another leading Jew whose tragic life
and treatment by these Amsterdam Jews, on account of his heretical
teachings, was most dramatic. It inspired Gutzkow's tragedy, "Uriel
Acosta"; and Zangwill's "Dreamers of the Ghetto." His
denial of the
immortality of the soul was rightly called a heresy.
The Rabbis caused him to be arrested in Amsterdam, fined 300
guilders, and his "heterodox book to be publicly burned."
Let the Encyclopedia of Jewish Knowledge say a further word about
him:
"He
fled to Hamburg, but soon returned to Amsterdam, and in 1633 became,
in his own words, 'an ape among the apes' offering his submission to
the Synagogue. Formalist he could not be, and his contrariness
resulted in his being made subject to the 'great ban.' For seven
years he lived silent and solitary, boycotted even by his relatives.
Then he yielded, made confession
of error and suffered the
ignominy of a public scourging and 39 stripes. He went home, wrote an
impassioned sketch of his own life, 'A Specimen of Human Existence,'
and shot himself" (p. II).
That
the charges against Spinoza and da Costa were warranted, no one can
rightly deny, for the Jews of Amsterdam had a definite doctrinal code
which they had a right to uphold, as did the Church and the State in
Spain. Yet these Rabbis, who belonged to the Amsterdam community that
was started by the Maranos (the pretended-to-be-Catholics), who
cursed the Catholic Church and Spain for the deportation of their
forbears, deemed it legitimate to curse, scourge, excommunicate, and
drive from Amsterdam those of their fellow-Israelites who were guilty
of heresy. To these Iberian descendents a Dutch Auto da. Fe was
perfectly legitimate, but not one in Spain or Portugal, where the
welfare of the State as well as the Church was at stake.
I carried a four page leaflet with me on my visit to the Copley Plaza
Hotel, that was being distributed on the streets of Boston, called
"Sucker Bait." It told of "Rumors-Lies-Deceits"
being circulated by agents of Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito. It
called upon citizens to report such "fifth columnists" to
the Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety. I asked Mr. C... F....,
and I ask you, Mr. Isaacs, if it is proper during the present World
War, as we three believe it is, to report such "whisperers,"
who
are trying to "Divide and Conquer"; to have them placed
into concentration camps if found guilty, then why was it not
perfectly legitimate to punish heretics in Spain who pretended to be
Catholics in order to undermine the State as well as the Church?
Remember that the Maranos were the fifth columnists of the fifteenth
century.
__________________________________________________
Other chapters from David Goldstein's book can be found at the Catholic Dispatch web site [below].
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