If Ottoboni and the Inquisition fancied that they had crushed the sect,

they were mistaken. It maintained a secret existence for over twenty

years, which enabled it to spread far beyond its original seat and,

about 1680, it had associations and oratories for mental prayer

established in Brescia, Verona, Vicenza, Treviso, Padua, Pesaro, Lucca

and doubtless many other places, while its votaries expected it to

spread through the world. Ricaldini, at Treviso, was busy in

corresponding with the heads of the associations and receiving their

visits. In Brescia, Bartolommeo Bona, priest of S. Rocco, presided over

an oratory of sixty members and was even said to have six hundred souls

under his direction. They were called Pellegrini di S. Rocco, they

practised mental prayer assiduously and had even procured an episcopal

licence for the association. In Verona, Giovanni Battista Bonioli guided

a membership of thirty disciples, many of them persons of high

consideration. For the most part the devotees seem to have been quiet

and pious folk, humbly seeking salvation by the interior way, but there

were some who were given to extravagance. Margarita Rossi had visions

and revelations, strangely repeating portions of the fantastic theology

of Borri, and when written out by a believer, Don Giovanni Antonio, it

was not difficult to extract from them a hundred and thirty-four errors,

concerning which she was tortured as to intention as well as _in caput

alienum_. Two others, Cosimo Dolci and Francesco Nigra had visions and

prophetic insight, for which the latter was sentenced, in 1684, to five

years' incarceration.[94]

The sect could not continue spreading indefinitely without discovery. In

1682 the Inquisition suddenly awoke to the necessity of action and it

repeated an edict which it had issued in 1656, forbidding all oratories

and assemblages for mental prayer. Ricaldini felt his position critical,

for he had abjured _de vehementi_ and was liable to the stake for

relapse. He disappeared from Treviso and all that the Inquisition could

learn was that he was somewhere on the Swiss border. At length, in 1684,

his retreat was found to be Chiuro, in the Valtelline, and Antonio

Ceccotti, Inquisitor of Brescia, made fruitless attempts to induce the

authorities of the Valtelline and the Podestà of Brescia to unite in

procuring his extradition, but in March, 1685, Ceccotti had the

mortification to learn that he had died on the previous October 6th,

having received all the sacraments and with the repute of a most pious

Christian.[95]

[Sidenote: _MOLINOS_]

The prominent Pelagini were duly prosecuted, but there seems to have

been little vindictiveness aroused in regard to them and little heresy

attributable to them. The punishments inflicted were light, for we hear,

in 1685, of Bona, one of the leaders, having returned to his district

and living in retirement, and of Belleri, another, being in the

Valcamonica, where the bishop had appointed him missionary for the whole

district. Evidently the disciples must have escaped with a warning. What

the ecclesiastical authorities objected to was not Mysticism and its

long-accepted practices, but organization, more or less secret, under

leaders outside of the hierarchy and free from its supervision, when

heated brains, under divine inspiration, indulged in dreams of

regenerating the Church. It was not until the case of Molinos had called

attention to other dangers that there came from Rome strict orders for

the suppression of all oratories and of the practice of mental

prayer--that rapture of meditation which had been the distinguishing

habit of mystics through the ages.[96]

* * * * *

Miguel de Molinos was a Spaniard, born probably about 1630 at Muniesa

(Teruel). After obtaining at Coimbra the degree of doctor of theology,

he came to Rome in 1665, in connection with a canonization--probably of

San Pedro Arbués, who was beatified in 1668. There he speedily acquired

distinction as a confessor and spiritual director. Innocent XI prized

him so highly as to give him apartments in the papal palace; the noblest

women placed themselves under his care; his reputation spread throughout

Italy and his correspondence became enormous. On the day of his arrest

it is said that the postage on the letters delivered that day at his

house amounted to twenty-three ducats; he made a small charge to cover

expenses and, in the sequestration of his property, there were found

four thousand gold crowns derived from this source. The letters seized

were reported variously as numbering twelve or twenty thousand, of which

two hundred were from Christina of Sweden and two thousand from the

Princess Borghese. The mysticism which proved so attractive, when set

forth by his winning personality, had in it--ostensibly at

least--nothing that had not long since received the approbation of the

Church in the writings of the great Spanish mystics and of St. François

de Sales. It is true that Molinos dropped the machinery of ecstasies and

visions, which loom so largely in the writings of Santa Teresa, and

confined his way of perfection to the Brahmanical ideal of the

annihilation of sense and intellect, the mystic silence or death, in

which speech and thought and desire are no more and in which God speaks

with the soul and teaches it the highest wisdom.[97] This spiritualized

hypnotism was in no way original with Molinos, but was the goal which

all the mystic saints sought to attain. To reach it he tells us the

soul must abandon itself wholly to God; it must make no resistance to

the thoughts or impulses which God might send or allow Satan to send; if

assailed by intruding or sensual thoughts, they should not be opposed

but be quietly contemned and the resultant suffering be offered as a

sacrifice to God.[98] This was the Quietism--the Spanish

_Dejamiento_--which was subsequently condemned so severely; there is no

question that it had its dangers if the senses were allowed to control

the spirit, and the adversaries of Molinos made the most of it, but he

taught that the soul must overcome temptation through patience and

resignation. When souls have acquired control of themselves, he says, if

a temptation attacks them they soon overcome it; passions cannot hold

out against the divine strength which fills them, even if the violence

is continued and is supported by suggestions of the enemy; the soul

gains the victory and enjoys the infinite resultant benefit.[99]

[Sidenote: _MOLINOS_]

All this Molinos was allowed to teach for years in the Holy City with

general applause, though it had been persecuted in the Pelagini. In

1675, at the height of his popularity, he embodied his doctrine in the

_Guida spirituale_, a little volume which came forth with the emphatic

approbation of five distinguished theologians--four of them consultors

or censors of the Inquisition and all of them men of high standing in

their respective Orders of Franciscans, Trinitarians, Jesuits,

Carmelites and Capuchins. The book had an immediate and wide circulation

and was translated into many languages. Even in Spain there was a Madrid

edition in 1676, one at Saragossa in 1677 and another at Seville as late

as 1685, without exciting animadversion. Yet such a career as that of

Molinos could not continue indefinitely without exciting hostility, none

the less dangerous because prudently concealed. His immense success was

provocative of envy and, if mystic contemplation was largely adopted as

the surest path to salvation, what was to be the result on the infinite

variety of exterior works to which the Church owed so much of its power

and wealth? It was found that in many nunneries in Rome, whose

confessors had adopted his views, the inmates had cast aside their

rosaries and chaplets and depended wholly on contemplation. It was

observed that at mass the mystic devotees did not raise their eyes at

the elevation of the Host or gaze on the holy images, but pursued

uninterruptedly their mental prayer. Molinos gave further occasion for

criticism by a tract on daily communion, in which he asserted that a

soul, secure that it was not in mortal sin, could safely partake of the

sacrament without previous confession--a doctrine which, however,

theologically defensible, threatened, if extensively practised, largely

to diminish the authority of the priesthood, while encouraging the

sinner to settle his account directly with God.

To attack as a heretic a man so universally respected and so firmly

entrenched as Molinos might well seem desperate, and it is not

surprising that the credit for the work was attributed to the Jesuits,

as the only body daring and powerful enough. The current story is that,

having resolved upon it, they procured Père La Chaise to induce Louis

XIV to order his ambassador, Cardinal d'Estrées to labor unceasingly for

the removal of the scandal caused by the teaching of Molinos. Whether

this was so is doubtful, but it is certain that the first attack came

from the Jesuits, and that d'Estrées, who had professed the warmest

admiration for Molinos, became his unrelenting persecutor. The campaign

was opened in 1678, when Gottardo Bell' Uomo, S. J., issued at Modena a

work on the comparative value of ordinary and mystic prayer, which was

duly denounced to the Inquisition. Molinos had been made to recognize in

various ways the coming storm, and he sought to conjure it in a fashion

which revealed his conscious weakness. February 16, 1680, he addressed

to the Jesuit General Oliva a long exculpatory letter. He had not

attacked the Society but had always held it in the highest honor, and

when, in Valencia, the University had forbidden the Jesuit College to

teach theology, he was the only one who had disobeyed the order and had

come to its aid. He had never decried the Spiritual Exercises of Loyola,

but had recognized the vast good accomplished by them, though he held

that, for those suited to it, contemplation was better than meditation.

He had for some years been persecuted and stigmatized as a heretic, in

writing and preaching, by the most distinguished members of the Society,

but he rejoiced in this and only prayed God for those who reviled him

nor, in his defence of the _Guida_, had he sought aught but the glory of

God and, so far from defending the Begghards and Illuminati, he had

always condemned them. Evidently the work of the Jesuits in discrediting

him had been active and better organized than the records show, and he

thought it wiser to disarm, if possible, rather than to struggle with

adversaries so powerful. Oliva's answer of February 28th was by no

means reassuring. He complimented Molinos on his Christian spirit in

returning good for evil and on the flattering terms bestowed on the

Society and its founder. He had never read the books of Molinos and

could not speak of them with knowledge but, if they corresponded with

his letter, his disciples were doing him great wrong in applying his

system of contemplation, of which only the rarest souls were capable,

indiscriminately to nuns and worldly young women. Finally, he could not

understand why so distinguished a member of the Society as Padre Bell'

Uomo should have been brought before the Congregation of the Index, and

he gave infinite thanks to God for defending him before it.

Promptly on the next day, February 29th, Molinos replied to this

discouraging epistle. At much length he disculpated himself for writings

and sayings falsely attributed to him. He held meditation in the highest

esteem as an exercise suited to all; the loftiest form of contemplation

was a gift of God bestowed on the rare souls fitted for it. He again

spoke of the persecution to which he was exposed and, as for Padre Bell'

Uomo, whom he did not know, if his doctrine was as sound as represented

by Oliva, God would enlighten his ministers to recognize it. Oliva's

rejoinder to this, on March 2d, would appear to be written in a style of

studied obscurity, saying much and meaning little, but one passage

reveals a source of Jesuit enmity, in alluding to the number of convents

which had passed out of the direction of the Society to practise the new

method.[100]

[Sidenote: _MOLINOS_]

The effort of Molinos to propitiate his enemies had only encouraged them

by its confession of weakness. Their next step was a dextrous one. Padre

Paolo Segneri was not only the most popular Jesuit preacher in Italy,

but his favor with Innocent XI was almost as great as that of Molinos.

He was selected as the next athlete and, in 1680, he issued a little

volume--"Concordia tra la fatica e la quiete nell' oratione," in which

he argued that the highest life is that which combines activity with

contemplation. He was promptly answered by Pietro Matteo Petrucci, an

ardent admirer of Molinos, who was rewarded by Innocent with the see of

Jesi. Segneri rejoined in a "Lettera di riposta al Sig. Ignacio

Bartalini" and the controversy was fairly joined. A more aggressive

antagonist was the Minorite Padre Alessandro Reggio whose "Clavis Aurea

qua aperiuntur errores Michaelis de Molinos" appeared in 1682 and boldly

argued that the _Guida_ revived the condemned errors of the Begghards,

that Quietism destroyed all conceptions of the Trinity, while the

practice of prayer without works was destructive of all the pious

observances prescribed by the Church, and the teaching that temptation

should be endured without resistance was dangerous and contrary to

Scripture and to the doctors. Petrucci responded vigorously, while

Molinos remained silent. He had, at least, the advantage of official

support, for Bell' Uomo's book was forbidden _donec corrigatur_;

Segneri's "Lettera" and the "Clavis Aurea" were condemned

unconditionally, and Segneri's "Concordia," while it escaped the Index,

was quietly forbidden and he was instructed to revise it.[101]

The Jesuits, however, were not the only body interested in the downfall

of Molinos. There is a curious anonymous tract devoted to explaining

what it calls the secret policy of the Quietists, assuming their main

object to be the destruction of all the religious Orders and especially

of the Dominicans and Franciscans. Apparently taking advantage of the

development of the Pelagini about this time, it asserts that the

Quietists had organized conventicles and oratories throughout Italy;

that they had a common treasury in which 14,000 ducats were found; that

they flattered the secular clergy and sought to unite them in opposition

to the regulars, whom they systematically decried, raking together all

the stories of their corruption and ignorance. In short, Quietism was a

deep-laid conspiracy, through which Molinos expected to revolutionize

the Church and reduce the religious Orders to impotence.[102] The only

importance of the tract is as a manifestation of the attitude of the

regulars towards Molinos and the hostility aroused by his success in

winning from them, for his disciples, the directorship of souls which

was their special province.

The enormous influence of the elements thus combining for his

destruction left little doubt of the result. The first open attack was

made in June, 1682, when Cardinal Caraccioli, Archbishop of Naples, a

pupil of the Jesuits, reported to the pope that he found his diocese

deeply infected with this new Quietism, subversive of the received

prescriptions of the Church, and he asked instructions for its

suppression, nor was he alone in this for similar appeals came from

other Italian bishops. Molinos was too firmly established in the papal

favor for this to dislodge him, but the hostile forces gradually

gathered strength and, in November, 1684, the Congregation of the

Inquisition formally assumed consideration of the matter. At its head

was Cardinal Ottoboni, a fanatic whose experience with the Pelagini,

when Bishop of Brescia, had sharpened his hatred of mysticism. The

spirit in which he conducted the inquest is revealed in a memorandum in

his handwriting of the points to be elaborated in the next day's meeting

of the Congregation--that this heresy is the worst of all and if left

alone will become inextinguishable; that it is spreading in Spain

through the Archbishop of Seville and in France with many books of the

most dangerous nature; that it destroys the Catholic faith and all the

religious Orders; that in Jesi the canons and the cura of the cathedral

keep a school for its propagation; that a rich and powerful citizen of

Jesi threatens the witnesses and that a vigorous commissioner must be

sent there; that the monasteries of Faenza and Ravenna are infected and

one in Ferrara has a Quietist confessor; that this pestilence calls for

fire and steel.[103] In a court presided over by so bitter a prosecutor,

the judgement was fore-ordained.

For awhile the contending forces seem to have been equally balanced and

eight months were spent in gathering testimony sufficient to justify

arrest. At last, on July 3, 1685, at a meeting of the Congregation,

Cardinal d'Estrées insisted that no one should leave the chamber until

the arrest was ordered and executed. This was agreed to; the sbirri were

despatched and Molinos was lodged in the prison of the Inquisition.[104]

Yet when, on November 9th the Spanish Holy Office condemned the _Guia

espirituale_ as containing propositions savoring of heresy and

Illuminism, the Congregation addressed to the pope a vigorous protest

against its action on a matter which was still under consideration at

headquarters.[105]

[Sidenote: _MOLINOS_]

The influence of Queen Christina, we are told, was exerted to procure

for Molinos better treatment than was usual with prisoners. Of the

details of the trial we know little or nothing, but, as torture was

habitual in the Roman Inquisition, it is not probable that he was

spared. As his books had not been condemned, the evidence employed was

drawn exclusively from the immense mass of his correspondence and MSS.

which had been seized, the depositions of witnesses and his own

confessions, so that we are unable to judge how far it justified the

conclusions set forth in the sentence, though, from the manner in which

that discriminates between what he admitted and what he denied, it is

but fair to assume that it represents correctly the evidence before the

tribunal. The trial was necessarily prolonged. In his defence

interrogatories were forwarded to Saragossa and Valencia, in 1687, where

his witnesses were duly examined.[106] Two hundred and sixty-three

erroneous propositions were extracted by the censors from the mass of

matter before them, to which he of course was required to answer in

detail, and these seem to have been condensed into nineteen for the

consideration of the Congregation.[107]

Petrucci was threatened and his elevation to the cardinalate, September

2, 1686, was ascribed to the desire of Innocent to save him from

prosecution. Shortly afterwards, two of the principal assistants of

Molinos, the brothers Leoni of Como, of whom Simone was a priest and

Antonio Maria was a tailor, were arrested. Then, on February 9, 1687,

followed the arrest of the Count and Countess Vespiniani, of Paolo

Rocchi, confessor of the Princess Borghese, and of seventy others,

causing general consternation, not diminished by the subsequent

imprisonment of some two hundred more. The Congregation was doing its

work thoroughly and it was even said that, on February 13th, it

appointed a commission which examined the pope himself. A revolution in

the traditional standards of orthodoxy could not be effected without

compromising multitudes, and the victors were determined that their

victory should be complete. On February 15th, Cardinal Cibò, the

secretary of the Congregation, addressed to all the bishops of Italy a

circular stating that in many places there existed or were forming

associations called spiritual conferences, under ignorant directors,

who, with maxims of exquisite perfection, misled them into most

pernicious errors, resulting in manifest heresy and abominable

immorality. The bishops were therefore ordered to investigate and, if

such assemblies were found, to abolish them forthwith, taking moreover

especial care that this pestilence was not allowed to infect the

monasteries.

[Sidenote: _MOLINOS_]

There could be but one end to the trial. Every possible accusation was

brought against Molinos, even to a foolish self-laudatory speech made to

the sbirri who arrested him, and his admiring certain anagrams made of

his name. One charge, which he denied, was his giving to a certain

person the soiled shirt in which he had come from Spain, saying that,

after his death, it would be a great relic. He seems to have responded

with candor to the various articles, denying some and admitting others.

Of the articles the most important were his justifying the sacrilege of

breaking images and crucifixes; depreciating religious vows and

dissuading persons from entering religious Orders; saying that vows

destroyed perfection; that, by the prayer of Quiet, the soul is rendered

not only sinless but impeccable, for it is deprived of freedom and God

operates it, wishing us sometimes to sin and offend him, and the demon

moves the members to indecent acts; that the three ways of the spirit,

hitherto described by the doctors, are absurd and that there is but one,

the interior way; that he had formed conventicles of men and women and

permitted them to perform immoral acts and to eat flesh on fast days.

He admitted excusing the breaking of images and crucifixes; he denied

depreciation of solemn vows, but admitted it as respects private ones,

and he had only dissuaded from entering religion those whom he knew

would create scandal. He denied teaching that in Quietism the soul

becomes impeccable, but only that it did not consent to the act of sin

and he said that he knew many persons practising it who lived many years

without committing even venial sin. He denied also that Quietism

deprived the soul of freewill, but said that, in that perfect union with

God, it was God who worked and not the faculties, and when he said that

God sometimes wished sin, he meant material sin (as distinguished from

formal), and that the demon, as God's instrument to mortify the flesh

and purify the soul, causes sometimes the hand and other members to

perform lascivious acts. He denied condemning the three ways of the

spirit, having meant only that the interior way was so much more perfect

that the others were negligible by comparison. He denied forming

conventicles in which lascivious acts were permitted and he had excluded

some persons who would not refrain from them. He admitted eating flesh

on prohibited days, and that he had not perfectly observed a single Lent

since he came to Rome, but said that this was by licence of his

physician. He confessed that for many years he had practised the most

indecent acts with two women, the details of which need not be repeated;

he had not deemed this sinful, but a purification of the soul and that

in them he enjoyed a closer union with God; these were merely acts of

the senses, in which the higher faculties had no part, as they were

united with God. When he was told that these were propositions

heretical, bestial and scandalous, he replied that he submitted himself

in all things to the Holy Office, recognizing that its lights were

superior to his own.[108]

A sentence of condemnation was inevitable. It was drawn up, August 20,

1687; on the 28th an inquisitorial decree was signed embodying

sixty-eight propositions, drawn from the evidence and confessions, which

were condemned as heretical, suspect, erroneous, scandalous,

blasphemous, offensive to pious ears, subversive of Christian discipline

and seditious; they were not to be taught or practised under pain of

deprivation of office and benefice and perpetual disability, and of an

anathema reserved to the Holy See. All the writings of Molinos, in

whatever language, were forbidden to be printed, possessed or read, and

all copies were, under the same penalties, to be surrendered to the

inquisitors or bishops, who were to burn them.[109] This was posted in

the usual places on September 3d, the day fixed for the atto di fede in

which Molinos was to appear.

Under a heavy guard he was brought, on the previous evening, from the

inquisitorial prison to the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, in

which the atto was to be celebrated. In the morning, in a room next to

the sacristy, he was exhibited to some curious persons of distinction,

eliciting from him an expression of indignation, construed as indicating

how little he felt of real repentance. This was confirmed by what

followed, explicable possibly by Spanish imperturbability, but more

probably by the Quietism which led him to regard himself as the passive

instrument of God's will, and superbly indifferent to whatever might

befall him, so long as his soul was rapt in the joys of the mystic

death, which he had taught as the _summum bonum_. Called upon to order a

meal, he specified one which in quantity and quality might satisfy the

most voracious _gourmet_ and, after partaking of it, he lay down to a

refreshing siesta, until he was roused to take his place on the platform

where, in spite of his manacles, his bearing was that of a judge and not

of a convict.

[Sidenote: _CONDEMNATION OF MOLINISM_]

The vast church was thronged to its farthest corner with all that was

notable in Rome, including twenty-three cardinals, and the spacious

piazza in front and all the neighboring streets were crowded. An

indulgence of fifteen days and fifteen quarantines had been proclaimed

for all in attendance, but in Rome, where plenary indulgences could be

had on almost every day in the year by merely visiting churches, this

could not account for the eagerness which brushed aside the Swiss guards

stationed at the portals, requiring a reinforcement of troops and

resulting in considerable bloodshed. As the long sentence was read,

with its details of Molinos's enormities, occupying two hours, it was

interrupted with the frequent roar of Burn him! Burn him! led by an

enthusiastic cardinal and echoed by the mob outside. Through all this,

we are told, his effrontery never failed him, which was reckoned as an

infallible sign of his persistent perversity. The sentence concluded by

declaring him convicted as a dogmatizing heretic but, as he had

professed himself repentant and had implored mercy and pardon, it

ordered him to abjure his heresies and to be rigidly imprisoned with the

sanbenito for life, without hope of release, and to perform certain

spiritual exercises. This was duly executed and he lingered, it was said

repentant, until his death, December 28, 1696. The day after the atto di

fede his disciples performed their abjuration. There was no desire to

deal harshly with them, and they were dismissed with trivial penances,

except the brothers Leoni. Simone the priest, who had been a popular

confessor, was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment; Antonio Maria, the

tailor, who had been a travelling missionary and organizer, was

incarcerated for life. There was still another victim, the secretary of

Molinos, Pedro Peña, arrested May 9, 1687, for defending his master. He

was fully convicted of Quietism and, on March 16, 1689, he was condemned

to life-long prison.[110]

There still remained the publication to Christendom of the new position

assumed by the Holy See towards Mysticism. The sixty-eight propositions,

condemned in the inquisitorial decree of August 28th, were printed in

the vernacular and placed on sale, but were speedily suppressed. There

must still have been opposition in the Sacred College, or on the part of

Innocent XI, for the bull _Coelestis Pastor_ was not drawn up and

signed until November 20th, and was not finally published to the world

until February 19, 1688. This recited the same series of propositions

and the condamnation of Molinos and confirmed the decree of August

28th. The propositions condemned consisted, for the most part, of the

untenable extravagances of Quietism, including impeccability and the

sinlessness of acts committed while the soul was absorbed with God, but

it was impossible to do this without condemning much that had been

taught and practised by the mystic saints, and there were no saving

clauses to differentiate lawful from unlawful converse of the soul with

its Creator. The Church broke definitely with Mysticism, and by

implication gave the faithful to understand that salvation was to be

sought in the beaten track, through the prescribed observances and under

the guidance of the hierarchical organization.[111]

This change of front was emphasized in various ways. Innocent's favor

saved Cardinal Petrucci from formal prosecution; to the vexation of the

Inquisition, his case was referred to four cardinals, Cibò, Ottoboni,

Casanate and Azzolini; he professed himself ready to retract whatever

the pope objected to and, though the Inquisition held an abjuration to

be necessary, he was not required to make it; he was relegated to Jesi

and then recalled to Rome, where he was kept under surveillance. He

could not, moreover, escape the mortification of seeing the books, which

had been so warmly approved, condemned by a decree of February 5, 1688.

Many other works, which had long passed current as recognized aids to

devotion, were similarly treated--those of Benedetto Biscia, Juan

Falconi, François Malaval and of numerous others--even the _Opera della

divina Gratia_ of the Dominican Tommaso Menghini, himself

Inquisitor-general of Ferrara and author of the _Regole del Tribunal del

Santo Officio_, which long remained a standard guide in the tribunals.

What had been accepted as the highest expression of religious devotion

had suddenly become heresy.[112] Apparently it was not until May, 1689,

that instructions were sent everywhere to demand the surrender of all

books of Molinos and to report any one suspected of Molinism.[113]

[Sidenote: _THE BECCARELLISTI_]

Persecution received a fresh impulse when Cardinal Ottoboni, as

Alexander VIII, succeeded Innocent XI, October 6, 1689. Bernino tells us

that he appeared to him an angel in looks and an apostle in utterance

when he declared that there was no creature in the world so devoid of

sense as a heretic for, as he was deprived of faith so also was he of

reason. His first care was to remove from office and throw into

irremissible prison every one who was in the slightest degree suspect of

Molinism; in this he did not even spare his Apostolic camera, for he

arrested an Apostolic Prothonotary and, although in the Congregation of

the Inquisition there were four kinsmen of the prisoner, zeal for the

faith preponderated over blood.[114] Fortunately his pontificate lasted

for only sixteen months, so that he had but limited opportunity for the

gratification of his ardent fanaticism and scandalous nepotism.

In spite of all this, there were still found those who indulged their

sensual instincts under cover of exalted spirituality. In 1698 there was

in Rome the case of a priest, named Pietro Paolo di San Giov.

Evangelista, who had already been tried by the tribunals of Naples and

Spoleto, so that his career must have been prolonged, while references

to a Padre Benigno and a Padre Filippo del Rio show that he was not

alone. He had ecstasies and a following of devotees; he taught that

communion could be taken without preliminary confession and that, when

the spirit was united with God, whatever acts the inferior part might

commit were not sins. He freely confessed to practices of indescribable

obscenity with his female penitents, whom he assured afterwards that

they were as pure as the Blessed Virgin. He was sentenced to perpetual

prison, without hope of release, and to a series of arduous spiritual

penances, while Fra Benigno escaped with seven years of

imprisonment.[115]

Another development of the same tendencies--probably a survival of the

Pelagini--was discovered in Brescia in 1708. The sectaries called

themselves disciples of St. Augustin, engaged in vindicating his

opinions on predestination and grace, but they were popularly known as

Beccarellisti, from two brothers, priests of the name of Beccarelli,

whom they regarded as their leaders. For twenty-five years--that is,

since the ostensible suppression of the Pelagini--the sect had been

secretly spreading itself throughout Lombardy, where it was said to

number some forty-two thousand members, including many nobles and

wealthy families and ecclesiastics of position. They had a common

treasury and a regular organization, headed by the elder Beccarelli as

pope, with cardinals, apostles and other dignitaries. The immediate

object of the movement, we are told, was to break the power of the

religious Orders and to restore to the secular priesthood the functions

of confession and the direction of souls which it had well-nigh lost,

but there was taught the Quietist doctrine of divine grace to which the

devotee surrendered all his faculties. This was allowed to operate

without resistance, and Beccarelli held that Molinos was the only true

teacher of Christian perfection, but we may safely reject as

exaggeration the statement that carnal indulgence was regarded as

earning a plenary indulgence, applicable to souls in purgatory. Cardinal

Badoaro, then Bishop of Brescia, took energetic measures to stamp out

this recrudescence of the condemned doctrines; the leaders scattered to

Switzerland, Germany and England, while Beccarelli was tried by the

Inquisition of Venice and was condemned to seven years of

galley-service.[116]

Probably the latest victims who paid with their lives for their belief

in the efficacy of mental prayer and mystic death were a beguine named

Geltruda and a friar named Romualdo, who were burnt in a Palermitan atto

di fede, April 6, 1724, as impenitent Molinists after languishing in

gaol since 1699.[117]

[Sidenote: _FÉNELON AND BOSSUET_]

If, in the condemnation of Molinos, Mysticism was not wholly condemned,

what was lacking was supplied when the duel between the two glories of

the Gallican Church--Bossuet and Fénelon--induced an appeal to the Holy

See. Beyond the Alps, mystic ardor was not widely diffused in the

seventeenth century, yet there were those who revelled in the agonies

and bliss of the interior way. St. François de Sales, who died in 1622,

was beatified in 1661 and canonized in 1665, taught Quietism as

pronounced as that of Molinos, although he avoided the application to

sensuality. The soul abandoned itself wholly to God; when divine love

took possession of it, God deprived it of all human desires, even for

spiritual consolations, exercises of piety and the perfection of virtue.

He said that he had scarce a desire and, if he were to live again, he

would have none; if God came to him, he would go to meet him but, if God

did not come, he would remain quiescent and would not seek God. Freedom

of the spirit consisted in detachment from everything to submit to the

will of God, caring neither for places, or persons, or the practice of

virtue.[118] It followed that the soul, absorbed in divine love, had

nothing to ask of God; it rested in the quiet of contemplation, while

vocal prayer and all the received observances of religion were cast

aside, as fitted only for those who had not attained these mystic

altitudes. Then there was Antoinette Bourignon (1616-1680) who, in her

voluminous writings, taught the supremacy of the interior light, the

abandonment of the faculties to the will of God, and the utter

renunciation of self in the ardor of divine love.[119] There was Jean de

Bernières-Louvigny (1602-1659) whose writings had an immense circulation

and whose views as to mystic death were virtually the same as those of

Molinos.[120] All these and others taught and wrote without

interference, save from polemics, such as those of Pére Archange Ripaut,

Guardian of the Capuchin convent of S. Jacques in Paris, who devoted a

volume of near a thousand pages to their refutation and reprobation. If

we are to believe him, these superhuman heights of spirituality were

accompanied in France, as elsewhere, with sensuality.[121]

The condemnation of Molinos and the sixty-eight propositions attributed

to him naturally attracted attention to the more or less quietistic

developments of Mysticism, but it is probable that no action on the

subject would have been taken in France had not personal motives

suggested the persecution of one who chanced at the moment to be the

most prominent representative of the interior way--that very curious

personality, Jeanne Marie Bouvières de la Mothe Guyon, whose

autobiography, written with a frank absence of reserve, affords a living

picture of the self-inflicted martyrdom endured in the struggle to

emancipate the soul from the ties of earth. When she reached the final

stage she tells us that formerly God was in her, now she was in him,

plunged in his immensity without sight or light or knowledge; she was

lost in him as a wave in the ocean; her soul was as a leaf or a feather

borne by the wind, abandoning itself to the operation of God in all that

it did, exteriorly or interiorly. She acquired the faculty of working

miraculous cures and her power over demons was such that, if she were in

hell, they would all abandon it. At times the plenitude of grace was so

superabundant and so oppressive that she could only lie speechless in

bed; it so swelled her that her clothes would be torn and she could find

relief only by discharging the surplus on others.[122]

It is beyond our province to enter into the miserable story of her

persecutions, commenced by some of her relatives and carried on by

Bossuet, leading to her reclusion in convents and imprisonment in

Vincennes and the Bastile. It suffices for us that her influence

stimulated Fénelon's tendency to Mysticism and converted into bitter

hostility the friendship between him and Bossuet. A commission,

appointed to examine her doctrine and headed by Bossuet, drew up, in

1694, a list of thirty-four errors of Mysticism, which Fénelon willingly

signed and which Bossuet and Noailles, then Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne,

issued with instructions for their dioceses, including condemnations of

the _Guide_ of Molinos, the _Pratique facile_ of Malaval, the _Règle des

Associés de l'Enfant Jésus_, the _Analis_ of Lacombe and Madame Guyon's

_Moyen court_ and _Cantique des Cantiques_. By this time Madame Guyon

had been put out of the way, and the matter might have been allowed to

rest under the comprehensive definitions of the bull _Coelestis

pastor_, but Bossuet's combative spirit had been aroused and he was

determined to crush out all vestiges of Mysticism, heedless of what the

Church had accepted for centuries. He drew up an Instruction on the

various kinds of prayer, in which he pointed out, in vigorous terms, the

dangers attendant on contemplation. Noailles, now Archbishop of Paris,

signed it with him, and they invited Fénelon to join but he refused, in

spite of entreaties and remonstrances, for it attributed to Madame Guyon

all that was most objectionable in Illuminism.

[Sidenote: _FÉNELON AND BOSSUET_]

The breach between the friends had commenced and it widened irrevocably

when Fénelon, in justification of himself, published, in February 1697,

his _Explication des Maximes des Saints sur la Vie intérieure_, with a

letter to Madame de Maintenon animadverting sharply on Bossuet's

injustice. The book was based chiefly on the utterances of St. François

de Sales, but it carefully guarded the practice of Quietism from all

objectionable deductions. There was no self-abandonment to temptations

and no claim of impeccability; souls of the highest altitude could

commit mortal sin; they were bound daily to ask God for forgiveness, to

detest their sins and seek remission, not for the mercenary motive of

their own salvation but in obedience to the wishes of God. It is true

that they were not tied down to formal observances, but vocal prayer was

not to be decried,--though its value depended upon its being animated by

internal prayer. The indifference, which was the point most objected to

in Quietism, was greatly limited by Fénelon. The senseless determination

to wish for nothing was an impious resistance to the known will of God,

and to all the impulses of his grace; it is true that the advanced soul

wishes nothing for itself but it wishes everything for God; it does not

wish perfection or happiness for itself, but it wishes all perfection

and happiness, so far as it pleases God to make us wish for these

things, by the impulsion of his grace. In this highest state the soul

does not wish salvation in its own interest, but wishes it for the glory

and good pleasure of God, as a thing which he wishes and wishes us to

wish for his sake.

It is difficult to see what objection could be raised to a Quietism thus

strictly limited and guarded, and no one who compares the _Maximes des

Saints_ with the extravagance of the great mystic saints can fail to

recognize that the violent quarrel which arose was a purely personal

matter. In this Fénelon defended himself with dignity and moderation,

while the violence of Bossuet's attack sometimes bordered on truculence.

He was secure in the support of the court. Louis XIV had been won over,

and it soon became to him a matter of personal pride to overcome all

resistance to his will. Fénelon was banished to his diocese of Cambrai

and deprived of his position of preceptor to the royal children, showing

that he was in complete disgrace and warning all time-servers to abandon

him.

It was soon evident that the matter would have to be settled in Rome.

Bossuet sent an advance copy of his Instruction to Innocent XII,

pointing out that he was applying in France the principles affirmed in

the condemnation of Molinos. Fénelon followed his example and, on April

27th, sent the _Maximes_, stating that he submitted it to the judgement

of the Holy See. The curia gladly accepted the task, rejoiced at the

opportunity of intervening authoritatively in a quarrel within the

Gallican Church. Fénelon was refused permission to go to Rome and

defend himself, but he had a powerful protector in the person of the

Cardinal de Bouillon, then French ambassador and a member of the

Congregation of the Inquisition, who loyally stood by him even at the

expense of a rebuke from his royal master. He also secured the support

of the Jesuits, whose Collége de Clermont had approved of the _Maximes_,

and who promised to manifest as much energy in his defence as they had

shown in procuring the condemnation of Cornelis Jansen. These weighty

influences might secure delay and discussion, but they could not control

the result against the overmastering pressure of such a monarch as Louis

XIV who, on July 27, 1697, wrote to the pope that he had had the

_Maximes_ examined and that it was pronounced "très mauvais et très

dangéreux," wherefore he asked to have judgement pronounced on it

without delay. Then, on May 16, 1698, the nuncio at Paris reported that

the king complained of the delay; it was in contempt of his person and

crown, and if Rome did not act promptly he would take such measures as

he saw fit. Threats such as this were not to be lightly disregarded, and

still more ominous was an autograph letter to the pope, December 23d,

expressing his displeasure at the prolongation of the case and urging

its speedy conclusion.

[Sidenote: _FÉNELON AND BOSSUET_]

To Bossuet's representative and grand-vicar, the Abbé Phelippeaux, we

owe a minute report of the long contest, which affords an interesting

inside view of the conduct of such affairs, showing how little regard

was paid to the principles involved and how completely the result

depended on intrigue and influence. The case passed through its regular

stages. A commission of seven consultors had been found, to whom, after

a struggle, three were added. These disputed at much length over

thirty-seven propositions extracted from the book and, when at length

they made their report to the Congregation of the Inquisition, they

stood five to five, showing that each side had succeeded in putting an

equal number of friends on the commission. In the Congregation, the

struggle was renewed and continued through thirty-eight sessions. Had

the fate of Europe been at stake, the matter could not have been more

warmly contested. At length the inevitable condemnation was voted, and

then came a fresh contest over the phraseology of the decree. Bossuet's

agents were not content with the simple condemnation of twenty-three

propositions and the prohibition of the book, and they struggled

vigorously for clauses condemning and humiliating Fénelon himself,

showing how purely personal was the controversy. In this they failed,

as well as in the endeavor to have the propositions characterized as

heretical; they were only pronounced to be respectively rash,

scandalous, ill-sounding, offensive to pious ears, pernicious in

practice and erroneous. The principal doctrine aimed at was that the

pure love of God should be wholly disinterested, and that its acts and

motives should be divested of all mercenary hope of reward. The brief

was finally agreed to, on March 12, 1699, and published on the 13th. It

was in the form of a _motu proprio_ which, under the rules in force in

France respecting papal decrees, precluded its acceptance and

registration by the Parlement, but Louis, ordinarily so tenacious about

papal intrusion, found indirect means of eluding the difficulty.

Fénelon, however, had not awaited this cumbrous procedure. In a

dignified letter of submission to the pope, April 4, 1699, he stated

that he had already prepared a _mandement_ for his diocese, condemning

the book with its twenty-three propositions, which he would publish as

soon as he should receive the royal permission. This was promptly given

and, on April 9th he issued it, forbidding the possession and reading of

the _Maximes_, and condemning the propositions "simply, absolutely and

without a shadow of restriction." Innocent XII, who had more than once

indicated sympathy with Fénelon, responded May 12th, in a brief

expressing his cordial satisfaction, bestowing on him his loving

benediction and invoking the aid of God for his pastoral labors.

Bossuet, with the royal assistance, had triumphed, at the cost of a

stain on his reputation; what the Church had gained, in condemning the

sublimated speculations of a rarefied and impracticable Mysticism, it

would be hard to say.[123]

Yet, as though to indicate that there is no finality in these matters,

Pius VI, in 1789, beatified the Blessed Giovanni Giuseppe della Croce

([dagger symbol] March 5, 1734), who was much given to contemplation and to

union with God, in which all his faculties were lost, as completely as

in the trances of his prototype, San Juan de la Cruz, or as in the

mystic death of Molinos. That his Mysticism did not forfeit the favor of

heaven was shown by his possessing the gift of bilocation--of being in

two places at one time--of which numerous instances were cited in the

beatification proceedings.[124]

* * * * *

The Spanish Inquisition which had so long carried on single-handed the

struggle against Mysticism, watched with satisfaction the Roman

proceedings against Molinos. As we have seen, his arrest, on July 3,

1685, was promptly followed, November 9th with a condemnation of the

_Guida_ which, for nine years, had been allowed to circulate freely in

Spain. The edict pronounced it to contain propositions ill-sounding,

offensive to pious ears, rash, savoring of the heresy of the Alumbrados,

and some erroneous ones, and the title was denounced as misleading

because it spoke only of the interior way.[125] When the sentence of the

Roman Inquisition was published, September 3, 1687, although as a rule

the Spanish Holy Office paid no attention to its decrees, the

sixty-eight propositions were speedily translated into the vernacular

and widely distributed. On October 11th, sixty copies were sent to

Valencia to be posted, with orders to print more if they should be

required. These were accompanied with an edict, commanding obedience and

threatening the most rigorous prosecution for remissness, while all

persons were ordered to denounce, within ten days, contraventions of any

kind coming to their knowledge. This edict was to be published in all

churches of the capitals of _partidos_ and an authentic record of such

publication was to be affixed to the doors. In due time, when the bull

_Coelestis pastor_ was issued, it was circulated with the same

prescriptions.[126] There was evidently a determination to make the most

of this new ally in the struggle with Mysticism.

[Sidenote: _MOLINISM_]

The Seville tribunal, indeed, had not waited for this, as it had

already, April 24, 1687, arrested a canon of the church of San Salvador,

Joseph Luis Navarro de Luna y Medina, who was a correspondent of

Molinos and had sent him his autobiography, in order to obtain

instructions for his spiritual guidance. He had previously been deprived

of his licence as confessor, on charges of imprudent conduct as

spiritual director of a nunnery, but Jaime de Palafox, Archbishop of

Seville, who was a warm admirer of Molinos, had restored the licence,

introduced him in all the convents and adopted him as confessor of

himself and his family. For four years Navarro endured incarceration and

the torture which was not spared, but he succumbed at last, confessed

and sought reconciliation. His sentence declared him guilty of the

errors of the Lutherans, Calvinists, Arians, Nestorians, Trinitarians,

Waldenses, Agapetæ, Baianists and Alumbrados, besides being a dogmatizer

of those of Molinos, with the addition that evil thoughts arising in

prayer should be carried into execution, and also that, when his

disciples assembled in his house, the lights would be extinguished and

he would teach doctrines too foul for description. The tribunal itself

could scarce have believed all this, for he was only required to abjure,

to be deprived of benefice and functions, to be recluded for two years

and be exiled for six more. When the term had expired he returned to

Seville and then, until his death, in 1725, he passed his days in the

churches, where the Venerable Sacrament was exposed for adoration,

carrying with him a hinged stool on which he sat, gazing at the

Host.[127] He was not the only Molinist in Seville for in 1689, after

three years' trial, Fray Pedro de San José was condemned as a disciple

of Molinos, for committing obscenities with his penitents and

foretelling his election as pope and his suffering under Antichrist, who

was already in Jerusalem, twenty years old. He was sentenced to abjure

_de vehementi_, to undergo a circular discipline in his convent, to

perpetual deprivation of teaching and confessing, and to six years'

reclusion in a convent, with the customary disabilities.[128] Soon

afterwards there was penanced in an auto, May 18, 1692, a woman named

Ana Raguza, popularly known as _la pabeza_, as an Alumbrada and

Molinista. She had come from Palermo as a missionary to convert the

wicked, probably in the train of Palafox, who had been Archbishop of

Palermo. She called herself a bride of Christ, she had visions and

revelations, she denied the efficacy of masses and fasts, and she had

the faculty of determining the condition of consciences by the sense of

smell. She escaped with two years of reclusion and six more of

exile.[129]

[Sidenote: _MOLINISM_]

The condemnation of Molinos seems to have stimulated the Inquisition to

greater activity in the suppression of mysticism, for cases begin to

appear more frequently in the records and henceforth the term Molinism,

to a great extent, takes the place of Illuminism. We hear of a Molinist

penanced in a Córdova auto of May 12, 1693,[130] and he cannot have been

the only one there for Fray Francisco de Possadas of that city tells us

that he was led to write his book against the carnal errors of Molinos

by his experience in the confessional, showing that some of his

penitents had been misled by them.[131] The report of the Valencia

tribunal, for 1695, contains three cases then on trial. The Franciscan,

Fray Vicente Selles, had been arrested in 1692. He had led a life

exteriorly austere, practising meditation and contemplation, and he

freely admitted that when Molinos was condemned he held that the pope

was wrongly informed. His overwrought brain gave way under the stress of

confinement; at times he was full of religious emotion and solicitous as

to his salvation, while at others he was violently insane, performing

various crazy freaks. On August 24th he attempted suicide by dashing his

head against a projecting piece of iron, causing a wound so serious that

several pieces of skull were discharged and, on February 6, 1693, the

surgeons reported his life to be still in danger. He remained

_melancolico_, variable in mood, confessing and retracting until, on

October 23d, he confessed fully to Molinism, naming eleven women with

whom he had had relations in the confessional and also admitting

unnatural crime and other offences. At the date of the report his trial

was still unfinished. Another phase of these eccentric methods of

salvation is presented in the case of Vicente Hernan, a hermit of San

Cristóbal of Concentayna, accused by three women of teaching them the

way of bruising the head of the serpent by sleeping with them and

resisting temptation, and of attempting indecencies, which they denied

permitting. He was arrested September 23, 1692, and in two audiences he

was a _negativo_. Then on December 17th he asked for an audience in

which he said that for eight days some little flies and black pigeons

had been biting him and reminding him of things forgotten, whereupon he

told of the women whom he had got to sleep with him, sometimes two or

three at a time, and he also mentioned numerous miraculous cures which

he had wrought. In January 1693, he said that the demons with the voice

of flies had been recalling his sins, and he told of three other women.

Doubts arose as to his sanity and, at the end of 1693 steps were taken

to investigate it, which were still in progress at the time of closing

the report. The third case was that of Mosen Antonio Serra, whose

doctrines the calificadores reported to be Molinistic. He was arrested

December 19, 1695, so that his trial had only begun.[132]

In 1708 the Toledo tribunal arrested Fray Manuel de Paredes, a

contemplative fraile, who encouraged mystic practices among his

penitents, leading to several trials, which illustrate the increased

severity visited upon these condemned forms of devotion.[133] The same

tendency is visible soon afterwards at Córdova, where a little

conventicle of _Molinistas alumbrados_ was discovered in the Dominican

convent of San Pablo, under the leadership of a beata named Isabel del

Castillo. Her disciples abandoned to her their free-will and all their

faculties; they had no need of fasts and penances but could transfer

their sins to her and the path of salvation lay through sensual

indulgence. In the auto of April 24, 1718, there were seven of them

penanced, Isabel being visited with two hundred lashes and perpetual

prison; the friars were reconciled, deprived of their functions and

imprisoned, some irremissibly and some perpetually, while the laymen had

penances of various degrees of severity.[134]

During this period there occurred a case deserving of consideration in

some detail, not only because of the prominence of the culprit but

because it affords a clearer view than others of the strange

intermixture of sensuality and spirituality, which was distinctly known

as Molinism, and of the self-deception which enabled men and women to

indulge their passions while believing themselves to be living in the

mystic altitude of Union with God. Perhaps this may partly be

explicable by the teachings of the laxer morality, current in the

sixteenth century and known under the general name of Probabilism, and

by the distinction between material and formal sin, whereby that alone

was mortal sin which the conscience recognized as such, the conscience

being still further eased by refinements as to advertence and consent.

In the skilful hands of the casuists, the boundaries between right and

wrong became dangerously nebulous, and arguments were plentiful through

which men could persuade themselves that whatever they chose to do was

lawful.

[Sidenote: _BISHOP TORO OF OVIEDO_]

Joseph Fernández de Toro was an inquisitor in Murcia, deeply imbued with

quietistic Mysticism. In 1686 he issued anonymously in Seville a little

tract with the significant title of "Remedio facilissimo para no pecar

en el uso y exercicio de la Oracion," which in time duly found its way

into the Index.[135] As inquisitor he had manifested his tendencies,

when a prelate of high repute and station in a religious Order was tried

before him for solicitation _ad turpia_ in the confessional. Guided by

the light within, Toro was satisfied that it was merely a case of

obsession by the demon; he persuaded the Suprema to accept this view,

and the culprit escaped with suspension from celebrating mass and

hearing confessions until the obsession should pass. In 1706, he was

promoted to the see of Oviedo, of which he took possession October 1st.

Unluckily for him there was at Oviedo the Jesuit college of San Mathias;

his reputation for Quietism seems to have preceded him, and the heads of

the college resolved themselves into a corps of detectives. Professing

the utmost friendship, they speedily acquired his confidence and he

talked with them freely. They were prompt in action for, in January

1707, Padre José del Campo drew up for the inquisitor-general an

elaborate secret denunciation, setting forth how Toro in conversation

had offered to explain to him the contemplation of Molinos; since coming

to Asturias, he had spoken to no one about these things, for he knew

that they had occasioned much murmuring against him, but he described

the mode in which the soul reached the summit of perfection in Union

with God, while the inferior sensual part might be abandoned to the

foulest temptation. These dangerous speculations were reported in full

detail and were accompanied by a long and skilful argument to prove that

Toro was in every sense a Molinist.

Other Jesuits drew up similar denunciations, or attested their truth,

and the case was fairly before the Holy Office. It was too serious for

hasty action and investigation was made in Murcia, where his female

accomplices were arrested, and ample confirmatory evidence was obtained

from their confessions and from eighteen of his letters. The Carranza

case had taught the lesson that bishops could be reached only through

papal authority and, on November 7, 1709, Inquisitor-general Ybáñez

forwarded to Clement XI the accumulated evidence, to which the pope

replied, March 8, 1710, that the matter would be thoroughly examined and

the necessary action be taken. Toro had at first been disposed to make a

contest, asserting that God would work miracles in defence of the women,

and that their imprisonment was a martyrdom; that the light infused in

him by God rendered him superior to the Inquisition, and that he was

illuminated above all other men. By this time, however, he realized his

position; on February 8, 1710, he made, through his confessor, a partial

confession, and he followed this with several letters to the pope,

begging permission to come to Rome for judgement. Then a papal brief of

June 7th ordered Ybáñez, within three years and under the advice of the

Suprema, to frame a prosecution, for which full powers were granted; if

the evidence sufficed, Toro was to be arrested and the case carried on

up to the point of sentence, when all the documents were to be

transmitted to Rome, where the pope would render the decision.

Toro was duly imprisoned and his trial proceeded. Ybáñez died, September

3, 1710 and was succeeded by Giudice, who was empowered, by a brief of

October 3, 1711, to carry on the process. Toro was found to be

_diminuto_ on a hundred and four of the articles of accusation; he was

reticent and refused to answer interrogations, begging earnestly to be

sent to Rome. His request was granted, by a brief of June 7, 1714, but

his departure was delayed, and it was not until June 11, 1716, that he

reached Rome and was lodged in the castle of Sant'Angelo. Andrés de

Cabrejas, fiscal of the Suprema, accompanied him, to represent the

Spanish Inquisition in the trial which proceeded slowly. Toro's

confessions and letters were a rich mine for the calificadores, who

extracted from them four hundred and fifty-five propositions of various

degrees of error--some of them being identical with those of Molinos.

Finally he abandoned all defence and acknowledged that he had been a

dogmatizing heretic, a soliciting seducer, a blasphemer against the

purity of God, Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin, a reviver of the

filthy sects of the Begghards, Illuminists and Molinists and subject to

the same penalties.

[Sidenote: _MOLINISM_]

In fact he seems to have recognized his errors and to have confessed

with a freedom indicative of sincere repentance. Much of his confessions

is unfit for transcription, but a brief extract will indicate the

self-deception that reconciled the grossest sensuality with aspirations

for perfection. Thus of one of his accomplices he says that, believing

himself to be illuminated in the sacrifice of the mass, he had written

that none of her directors could estimate her spiritual state as regards

her perfection and Union with God, in spite of the concussions of her

inferior part, excited by obsession, through which those could be

deceived who were unable to understand her interior virtues and perfect

state. Although in obscene acts the woman might seem externally to be a

sinner, yet, by asserting that she had not yielded consent, she might

internally be perfect and be in Union with God. That, as the Incarnate

Word did not contract original sin in his union with humanity, so with

persons annihilated, purged and perfected, God could direct them to

supernatural operations in such wise that the operations of the inferior

part worked no prejudice to their state of perfection, and that the

woman's obscene acts might proceed from obsession, and she be passive

without consent.... That he had believed this doctrine to be infused in

him by God, and thus to be true, like the doctrine of the Church, to be

held unhesitatingly, especially by those obsessed, and he had written

that he was ready to give his life in its defence.... That he had

believed the indecencies committed with this same woman might be an

exercise and martyrdom sent by God for the humiliation and purification

of both, but nevertheless he made confession of them, and took care that

she should do so. She was accustomed to say that, in the inferior part,

she was without sensuality and in the superior part was absorbed in

contemplation and love of God.... That in his oratory after mass and her

communion he had embraced her and told her that she received the light

and that this was the love of God for his creatures.... That Jesus was

in him and worked in him, because neither he nor the woman experienced

sensuality in what they did nor did it from corrupt intention.... That

he had had this belief for seven years prior to his episcopate, and had

maintained it subsequently up to July 1708, but then, in confessing his

sins, a worthy confessor enlightened his blindness, and since then he

had detested his errors and had followed the way of Catholic truth.

At length the pope designated July 27, 1719 for pronouncing sentence.

Cabrejas had the records of Carranza's condemnation looked up, and the

same ceremonial was observed. Toro was brought from the castle of

Sant'Angelo to one of the halls of the papal palace, and there the

sentence was read. It deposed him from his bishopric and all other

benefices, it incapacitated him from holding any preferment, and

suspended him perpetually from sacerdotal functions; it required him to

abjure his heresy and errors, it called upon him to pay for pious uses,

as far as he could, all revenues accrued since his lapse into heresy,

and it burdened his see with a pension for his support, to be determined

by the pope; it condemned him to reclusion, in some convent outside of

Spain, when he was to perform perpetual penance, on the bread of sorrow

and water of grief, and it prescribed certain spiritual observances.

After listening to his sentence, Toro made the required abjuration,

accepted the penance and disappeared from view.[136]

Another prominent culprit was the priest, Don Francisco de Leon y Luna,

a Knight of Santiago and member of the Council of Castile, who was tried

by the tribunal of Madrid for Molinism and formal solicitation. As a

_negativo_ he was liable to relaxation but, on November 24, 1721, it was

voted to give him nine audiences, in which the inquisitors, with some

calificadores, should exhort him to confession and conversion, under

threat of administering the full rigor of the law. He seems to have

yielded and, on August 11, 1722, his sentence _con méritos_ was read in

the presence of twelve members of the Councils of Castile, Indies,

Orders and Hacienda. He was required to abjure _de vehementi_, he was

deprived perpetually of confessing men and women, of guiding souls and

instructing them in prayer, and of the honors of the Order of Santiago;

half of his property was confiscated, and he was recluded for three

years with suspension of all sacerdotal functions, to be followed by

five years of exile.[137]

[Sidenote: _MOLINISM_]

Llorente gives, in great detail, an account of a Molinist movement

which, soon after this, afforded ample occupation to the tribunals of

Logroño and Valladolid. Juan de Causadas, a prebendary of Tudela, was an

ardent disciple of Molinos and propagator of his doctrines. He was burnt

at Logroño, but whether for pertinacity or denial we are not informed.

His nephew, Fray Juan de Longas, of the Barefooted Carmelites, was also

a dogmatizer and was sentenced, in 1729, to two hundred lashes and ten

years of galleys, followed by perpetual prison. This severity seems not

to have discouraged the proselytes who, apparently, were not betrayed by

Longas. The principal among them was Doña Agueda de Luna, who had

entered the Carmelite convent of Lerma in 1712, with the reputation of a

saint. Her ecstasies and miracles were spread abroad by Juan de Longas,

by the Prior of Lerma, by the Provincial of the Order, Juan de la Vega,

and by the leading frailes, who found their account in the crowds of

devotees seeking her intercession. Juan de la Vega himself acquired the

name of _el extático_ and was represented as the holiest mystic since

the days of Juan de la Cruz. A convent was founded at Corella for Madre

Agueda, of which she was made prioress, and the nuns were fully

indoctrinated in the principles and practice of Molinism. By Madre

Agueda, Juan de la Vega had five children who were strangled at birth

and, with other untimely fruits of the prevailing licence, were buried

in the vicinity. After a long course of iniquity and deception, Madre

Agueda was denounced to the Logroño tribunal; her accomplices and

disciples were arrested and their trials were pushed with unsparing

severity. She perished under torture and, in 1743, the frailes were

recluded in various houses and the nuns were distributed among convents

of their Order.[138] Madre Agueda's case had been decided some years

previously for, in the Supplement to the Index of 1707, published in

1739, the first entry relates to her, "of whom the apocryphal life has

been written, and of whom are circulated stones, cloths, medals and

papers as relics," all of which were to be surrendered as well as

relations of her prodigies and virtues. The stones here alluded to are

evidently those described by Llorente, made of brick-dust and stamped

with a cross on one side and a star on the other, which were said to be

voided by her with child-birth pains, and were universally treasured as

amulets. It may be assumed that this case led to the issue, in 1745, by

the Inquisition of an edict directed against five Molinist errors.[139]

Cases still continued to occur, but infrequently and of minor

importance. The inquisitors had begun to merge immoral mysticism with

solicitation in the confessional, of which more hereafter, while the

more harmless kinds were classified as _embusteros_ (impostors) or

_ilusos_ (deluded). There is a Mexican case, however, which is so

illustrative of the abuses to which inquisitorial methods were liable,

that it deserves mention. The Franciscan, Fray Eusebio de Villaroja, was

distinguished for learning, eloquence and blameless life. He was

inclined to mysticism and had written a work entitled _Oracion de Fe

interior_, which the Inquisition admitted to contain no reprobated

doctrine but yet to be dangerous for popular use. The convent at Pachuca

obtained his assignment there and in 1783, at the age of 38, he arrived

in Mexico, where his kindly earnestness speedily won universal regard.

After two or three years he happened to assume the spiritual direction

of two girls, Gertrudis and Josefa Palacios, who were adepts in the

mystic devices of ecstasies and revelations. Gertrudis died and

Villaroja became completely engrossed in Josefa. He reduced to writing

her visions and prophecies, until he had filled seventy-six books and,

in his ardor, he committed freaks attracting undesirable attention. The

convent physician suggested that undue austerity had engendered

hypochondriac humors, and the Guardian interposed by ordering him to

attend to other duties, to limit Josefa to an hour in the confessional,

and never to go to her house. His obedience was implicit and prompt; he

ceased to talk of her visions and prophecies, and she naturally ceased

to have them. A year later, when questioned by Fray Juan Sánchez, the

visitor of the Province, he said that, as soon as the Guardian reproved

him, he recognized his error and would not relapse into it--so the

affair seemed to have died a natural death.

Unluckily the Guardian, not anticipating such docility, had reported the

matter to the Inquisition, which commenced to gather testimony, but when

he was, some months later, in the city of Mexico and was summoned as a

witness, he stated that Villaroja's eccentricities had ceased, and he

evidently regarded the matter as closed. Still the tribunal persisted

and, in July 1789, it seized Villaroja's diaries, in which the latest

entry was one humbly submitting to the judgement of the Church both

himself and the authenticity of the visions.

After a formidable mass of testimony was accumulated, bearing witness to

Villaroja's eminent piety and virtue, he was summoned, in July 1790, to

present himself. He was not informed that he was on trial for, in his

profound humility, he would at once have submitted his opinions to the

judgement of the tribunal, but he was drawn into a discussion as to

whether God, for the greater perfection of the creature, would permit

the demon to incite to foul and obscene actions--a position which he had

taken to justify some filthy habits of Josefa. This was, as we have

seen, one of the dangerous tenets of Quietism, and over this there was a

prolonged and subtle disputation. He subsequently declared that he

supposed the inquisitor to be only seeking to learn his opinions when in

fact he was being cunningly led to pile up evidence against himself, at

the same time arousing the controversial pride of Inquisitor Prado y

Obejero, who pronounced futile his efforts to differentiate his doctrine

from that of Molinos.

He was thrown into the secret prison, October 13, 1791, and his trial

proceeded in regular form. Nothing could exceed his submissive humility.

On every fitting occasion he protested that he had been miserably led

into error by ignorance; he begged to be undeceived in whatever he had

erred and he submitted himself to the correction of the Holy Office, for

he desired above all things the discharge of his conscience and the

salvation of his soul. It required uncommon perversity in his judges to

make a pertinacious heretic out of so humble and contrite a spirit but,

when his sentence was pronounced, April 26, 1793, it represented him as

a hardened and obstinate Alumbrado and Molinist, condemning him to

abjure _de vehementi_, to be forever deprived of the faculty of

confessing, to be recluded for three years in the Franciscan convent of

Mexico, and to be sent to Spain whenever the inquisitors should see fit.

Had he been an habitual seducer of his spiritual daughters, the sentence

would have been less severe.

[Sidenote: _DELUSION_]

The treatment of a fraile recluded in a convent of his brethren was

usually harsh in the extreme, but Fray Eusebio's kindliness and

gentleness so won on his hosts that they declared his daily life to be

an edification, while those of Pachuca, who had to bear the expenses of

his trial, continued to regard him with undiminished affection. His

punishment, however, was far more severe than the mere provisions of

his sentence. Incarceration for eighteen months in a humid cell had

developed a former rheumatic tendency and he was crippled. His request

to be transferred to Pachuca was refused and, in March, 1795, he

appealed to Inquisitor-general Lorenzana. His sufferings, he said, were

on the increase and, if he were kept in the city of Mexico or sent to

Spain, he would surely die. The result of this was a command to transmit

him to Spain, which was notified to him, in June 1796, when he

protested, to no purpose, that it would kill him. His removal was

postponed until October, when he was carried by easy stages to Vera Cruz

and placed on board the good ship Aurora, November 9th, consigned to the

commissioner at Seville. The Aurora sailed the next day, but his

prophetic spirit proved true and, when nine days out, his gentle spirit

passed to a judge more merciful than his earthly ones.[140]

* * * * *

Fray Eusebio would have fared better in Spain, where there was a growing

tendency to regard the accused as subject to delusion, when there was no

conscious imposture and no teaching of dangerous Mysticism. Delusion was

recognized at an early period, but the first case which I have met in

which it formed the basis of prosecution occurs in the Barcelona

tribunal which, in 1666, reported that it had found a process brought,

in 1659, against Sor María de la Cruz, nun of the convent of la

Concepcion of Tortosa, _por ilusa_, which had never been concluded.[141]

In 1694, Don Francisco de las Cuevas y Rojas, of Madrid, was sentenced

by the Toledo tribunal, as an _iluso pasivo_, to reprimand, absolution

_ad cautelam_, retractation of certain propositions, abstention from

spiritual matters, and a year's reclusion, during which a calificador

would teach him the safest method of prayer, while all his writings were

to be suppressed. The same year a beata named María de la Paz, _as

ilusa_, was required merely to abjure _de levi_, to be severely

reprimanded and to be handed over to a calificador for instruction. So,

in 1716, Don Eugenio Aguado de Lara, cura of Algete, was sentenced, by

the same tribunal, for suspicion of illusion in the direction of a

beata, to abjure _de levi_, with reprimand and prohibition of further

communication with her, while he was to abstain from the direction of

souls as far as was compatible with his priestly functions. The beata

his accomplice, Agustina Salgado, was regarded as more reprehensible

for, besides being _ilusa_, she was held guilty of false revelations;

she abjured _de levi_, with perpetual exile from Algete and reclusion in

a hospital for two years, for instruction.[142]

Even this moderation increased with time. In 1785, the Valencia tribunal

suspended the case, and sent to an insane hospital, Esperanza Bueno of

Puig, popularly known as _la Santa_, denounced for pretended revelations

and asserting that she could absolve from sin.[143] The same tendency

appears in the case of María Rivero, of Valladolid, in 1817, whom the

Suprema characterized as erroneously and presumptuously believing

herself to be adorned with revelations and special graces. She was

ordered to place herself unreservedly under the guidance of a spiritual

director, with the warning that otherwise she would be treated with

judicial rigor, while the director was instructed to disillusion her,

and to call in medical advice as to her sanity, which was doubtful.[144]

Although the Inquisition was thus growing rationalistic in its treatment

of these cases, it was impossible to eradicate popular credulity with

its accompanying temptation to exploitation. In the last case before the

Córdova tribunal, it ordered, July 9, 1818, the incarceration in the

secret prison, as an _ilusa_, of the beata Francisca de Paula Caballero

y Garrida of Lucena, while her sister María Dominga Caballero was

confined in the _carceles medias_, and the two curas of Lucena, Joaquin

de Burgos and Josef Barranco, were recluded in a convent without

communication with each other. The beata performed miracles and had

revelations, which seem to have found credence among a circle of

disciples for when, after full investigation, the Suprema, on July 5,

1819, ordered the prosecution of the four prisoners, it directed

proceedings to be commenced against seven other parties, including

clerics and laymen of both sexes. Fortunately for this group of ilusos,

the revolution of 1820 came to put an end to all proceedings, and when

the Córdova tribunal was suppressed, the only inmates found in its

prison were the two beatas of Lucena.[145]

[Sidenote: _IMPOSTORS_]

While the Inquisition was thus merciful towards those whom it

considered to be merely deluded in claiming spiritual graces, it grew to

be severe with those who traded on popular credulity. That credulity was

so universal and so boundless that the profession of _beata revelandera_

was an easy and a profitable one. The people were eager to be deceived;

no fiction was too gross to find ready credence, and the believers

invented miracles which they ascribed to the objects of their reverence.

The punishment of the impostor and the exposure of the fraud failed to

repress either belief or imposition, and the land in time was overrun by

a horde of these practitioners, mostly female. It was a spiritual

pestilence of the most degrading character, shared by all classes, with

the extenuating circumstances that some of the boldest cases of

imposture enjoyed the approbation of the Holy See. The Inquisition did

good work in its ceaseless efforts to repress this prostitution of

Mysticism--a work which no other tribunal could venture to attempt. If

it found suppression impossible, at least it checked the development

which at one time threatened to render the popular religion of Spain a

matter of hysterics.

In its inception, there was some hesitation as to the treatment of these

speculators on the credulity of the people. When the Beata of Piedrahita

was allowed to continue her career, she naturally had imitators. In

1525, Alonso de Mariana, a Toledan inquisitor, on a visitation of his

district, had his attention called to Doña Juana Maldonado of

Guadalajara, widow of the alcaide of la Vega de la Montaña. She was

arrested and presented written statements or confessions of her dreams

and visions of the Virgin and Christ, St. John the Evangelist and St.

Bernard. The proceedings were informal and, in an audience, March 27th,

at Alcalá de Henares, after publication of the evidence, she admitted

its truth, stating that she had talked about her visions in order to

obtain some aid in her poverty and she begged for mercy and penance.

There was evidently no desire to treat her harshly or to regard her as

an impostor, for she is spoken of as an _ilusa_ or _soñadera_ (dreamer)

and she was required only to fast on five Fridays and Saturdays, in

honor of Christ and the Virgin, with fifteen Paters and Aves each day,

to keep her house as a prison until released by the tribunal, after

which, on six Saturdays, she was to visit the church of the Virgin,

outside of the town.[146] A century later she would have fared much

worse.

The exposure, in 1543, of a more accomplished practitioner, Magdalena de

la Cruz, removed any further hesitation in dealing with such cases. She

had long been the wonder of Spain and even of Christendom.

Tempest-tossed mariners would invoke her intercession, when she would

appear to them and the storm would subside. The noblest ladies, when

nearing confinement, would send the _layette_ to be blessed by her, as

did the Empress Isabel before the birth of Philip II. When, in 1535,

Charles V was starting from Barcelona for the expedition to Tunis, he

sent his banner to Córdova that she might bestow on it her blessing.

Cardinal Manrique, the inquisitor-general, and Giovanni di Reggio, the

papal nuncio, made pilgrimages to her, and the pope sent to ask her

prayers for the Christian Republic. It is true that Ignatius Loyola was

incredulous and, in 1541, severely reproved Martin de la Santa Cruz, who

endeavored to win him over, for accepting exterior signs without seeking

for the true ones; the Venerable Juan de Avila was also sceptical and,

when he was in Córdova, he was discreetly denied access to her.

[Sidenote: _IMPOSTORS_]

When, in 1504, at the age of 17, she entered the Franciscan convent of

Santa Isabel de los Angeles of Córdova, she was already regarded as a

vessel overflowing with divine grace, a belief confirmed by a series of

ecstasies, trances, visions, revelations and miracles. Space is lacking

to recount the varied series of marvels, many of which do infinite

credit to her imaginative invention, while some of them required

confederates, who seem not to have been lacking, in view of the benefit

to the convent accruing from its containing so saintly a person. Elected

prioress in 1533, she retained the position until 1542, and during this

time she devoted to it the large stream of offerings which poured in on

her. Defeated for re-election in 1542, she no longer made this use of

her funds and the successful faction denounced her to the Guardian and

the Provincial as an impostor, but the credit of the Order was at stake

and they were silenced. She was not destined however to adorn the

calendar of mystic saints for, in 1543, she fell dangerously sick and

was warned to prepare for death. Under this pressure she made a full

confession, ascribing her deceits to demoniacal possession. She

recovered and the Inquisition seized her. The trial lasted until May 3,

1546, an immense body of testimony being taken, corroborative of her

confession, which was skilfully framed to throw the blame on her demons

Balban and Patorrio. In short, she had commenced as a mystic, had been

unable to resist the temptation of accepting the miracles thrust upon

her by popular superstition, she had stimulated this with her frauds,

and finally sought extenuation by alleging demonic influence. An immense

crowd attended the auto held May 3, 1546, when the reading of her

sentence _con méritos_ occupied from 6 A.M. to 4 P.M., while she sat on

the staging with a gag in her mouth, a halter around her neck and a

lighted candle in her hand. Her sentence was moderate--perpetual

reclusion in a convent, without active or passive voice, and occupying

the last place in choir, refectory and chapter, together with some

spiritual penances. She was relegated to the convent of Santa Clara, at

Andujar, where she lived an exemplary life and, at her death, in 1560,

it was piously hoped that her sins were expiated.[147]

Had human reason any share in these beliefs, such an exposure would have

put an end to the industry of the _beatas revelanderas_, but the popular

appetite for the marvellous was insatiable, and there were abundant

practitioners ready to dare the attendant risks for the accompanying

glory and profit. Everywhere there were women accomplished in these arts

and skilled in impressing their neighbors with their revelations and

prophecies; every town and almost every hamlet had its local saint, who

was regarded with intense veneration and assured of an abundant

livelihood.[148] All branches of the supernatural were exploited: some

could predict the future; others had prophetic dreams or could expound

those of their devotees; others could release souls from purgatory;

others could perform curative miracles; popular faith in these gifted

spirits was boundless and innumerable sharpers of both sexes fattened

upon it.

The people might well be credulous when they but followed the example of

those highest in Church and State. Magdalena de la Cruz had a worthy

imitator in the Dominican Madre María de la Visitacion, of the convent

of the Annunciada of Lisbon, whose intimate relations with Christ began

at the age of 16, in 1572. About 1580 Christ crucified appeared to her,

when a ray of fire from his breast pierced her left side, leaving a

wound which on Fridays distilled drops of blood with intense pain. In

1583 she was elected prioress and, in 1584, in another vision of Christ

crucified, rays of fire from his hands and feet pierced hers and thus

completed the Stigmata. No time was lost by the Dominican Provincial,

Antonio de la Cerda, in spreading the news of this, in a statement dated

March 14, 1584, and sent to Rome to be submitted to Gregory XIII. It was

corroborated by the signatures of several frailes, among which is the

honored name of the great mystic, Luis de Granada.[149] The Provincial

followed this, March 30th, with another letter to Rome stating that the

impression produced had been so great that many gentlemen had been

induced to abandon the world and enter the Order, and even that three

Moors had come to look upon Sor María, whose appearance had so impressed

them that they sought baptism on the spot--to which he added two

miraculous cures effected through articles touched by her.[150]

Sor María's fame penetrated through Christendom and even, we are told,

to the Indies. Gregory XIII was duly impressed and wrote to her urging

to persevere without faltering in the path which she had entered. She

might have continued to do so, with the reputation of a saint, if she

had abstained from politics. Unluckily she allowed herself to be drawn

into a movement to throw off the Spanish yoke, and the authorities, who

had been content to allow her to acquire influence, found it necessary

to expose her, when that influence threatened to be potent on the side

of rebellion.

[Sidenote: _IMPOSTORS_]

The Annunciada was not without internal jealousies which facilitated the

obtaining of information justifying investigation. A commission was

appointed consisting of the Archbishops of Lisbon and Braga, the Bishop

of Guarda, the Dominican Provincial, the Inquisitors of Lisbon and

Doctor Pablo Alfonso of the Royal Council. Assembling in the convent

they took the testimony of many of the nuns that Sor María's sanctity

was feigned and her stigmata were painted. She was then brought before

them and sworn, when she persisted, in spite of threats and adjurations,

in the story of the stigmata and of her communications with Christ. The

next day, hot water and soap were called for; she protested and

pretended to suffer extreme agony, but a vigorous application of the

detergents to the palms of her hands caused the wounds to disappear,

when she threw herself at the feet of her judges and begged for mercy.

At a subsequent audience she gave a detailed explanation of the devices

by which she had deceived the faithful--how she had managed the apparent

elevation from the ground and the divine light suffused around her and

the cloths stained with blood from her side. The severity of the

sentence, rendered December 6, 1588, shows how much greater than mere

sacrilegious imposture was the offence of her meddling with politics.

She was recluded for life in a convent of a different Order from her

own; for a year she was to be whipped every Monday and Friday for the

space of a Miserere; in the refectory she was to take her meals on the

floor, what she left was to be cast out and, at the end of the meal, she

was to lie in the door-way and be trampled on by the sisters in their

exit; she was to observe a perpetual fast; she was incapacitated from

holding office; she was always to be last and was to hold converse with

none without permission of the abbess; she was not to wear a veil; on

Wednesdays and Fridays she was to have only bread and water, and

whenever the nuns assembled in the refectory she was to recite her

crimes in an audible voice. In this living death she is said to have

performed her cruel penance with such patience and humility that she

became saintly in reality.[151] It is not improbable that she may have

been from the beginning a tool in designing hands. A contemporary

relates that, before the exposure, he wrote to Fray Alberto de Aguajo in

Lisbon, asking whether he should go thither to consult her on a case of

conscience, and was told in reply that there was nothing wonderful about

her except the goodness of God in granting her such graces, for she was

as simple as a child of six. She was, however, a rich source of income,

for the Portuguese in the Indies used to send her gold and diamonds and

pearls to purchase her intercession with God.[152] Even her condemnation

did not wholly disabuse her dupes. Four years later, a certain Martin de

Ayala, prosecuted in 1592 for revelations and impostures, claimed to

have spiritual communication with her and foretold direful things about

the conquest of Spain by foreigners, when a cave in Toledo would be the

only place where the few elect could find safety. He had a colleague,

Don Guillen de Casans, who was likewise prosecuted.[153]

One would have supposed that a case like that of Sor María, to which the

utmost publicity must have been given, would have discredited the

stigmata as a special mark of divine favor, but it seems rather to have

stimulated the ambitious to possess them by showing how easily they

could be imitated. They became a matter of almost daily occurrence. In

1634 a Jesuit casually alludes in a letter to two new cases just

reported--one of a nun of la Concepcion in Salamanca and the other in

Burgos--adding that they had become so common that no woman esteems

herself a servant of God unless she can exhibit them.[154]

[Sidenote: _IMPOSTORS_]

When uncomplicated with politics, imposture continued to be leniently

treated and it was an exception when, in 1591, the Toledo tribunal

visited with two hundred lashes María de Morales for trances and

revelations and other deceits to acquire the reputation of a saint.[155]

Thus at the Seville auto of 1624, when Pacheco was intent on suppressing

the errors of Mysticism, there were eight impostors guilty of every

device to exploit superstition, six of whom escaped with a year or two

of reclusion. Only two were more severely dealt with. Mariana de Jesus,

a barefooted Carmelite, was a _Maestra de Espiritu_, who taught

Illuminism and had a record of endless visions, prophetic inspiration

and conflicts with Satan. She maintained herself in luxury by selling

her spiritual gifts, and it was in evidence that poor people had pledged

their household gear to purchase her intercession for the souls of their

kindred, but she was only paraded in vergüenza with four year's

reclusion in a convent and perpetual exile from Seville. The heaviest

punishment was that visited on Juan de Jesus, known as _el Hermito_, who

professed to be insensible to carnal temptation, for God had deprived

him of all free-will and he was governed only by the spirit. Religious

observances for him were superfluous, for he was always in the presence

of God, and so fervent was his love for God that water hissed when he

drank it. He not only claimed that he healed the sick but that once he

had prayed eight thousand souls out of purgatory, thirty thousand at

another time, then twenty-two thousand and finally all that were left.

In general his relations with women are unfit for description, and he

shrewdly had a revelation that all who gave him alms would be saved. His

devotees were not confined to the ignorant, for he was received in the

houses of the principal ladies of Seville and men of high distinction

admitted him to their tables. He received less than his deserts when he

was sentenced to a hundred lashes and life confinement in a convent or

hospital, where he was to work for his board and to pray daily a third

of the rosary.[156]

In its persistent and fruitless efforts to stamp out this pestilence,

the Inquisition was beginning to adopt severer treatment, as in the case

of Sor Lorenza Murga of Simancas, a Franciscan tertiary, who for sixteen

years enjoyed great reputation in Valladolid. She had ecstasies and

revelations whenever wanted, and her little house was an object of

pilgrimage, when she would throw herself into a trance at the request of

any one. It was a profitable pursuit, for she rose from abject poverty

to comfortable affluence. Her arrest, April 29, 1634, caused no little

excitement, and it was whispered that she had been detected in keeping

two lovers besides her confessor. In her audiences she persistently

maintained the truth of her revelations, constantly adding fresh

marvels, till the inquisitors tortured her smartly, when she confessed

it to be all an imposture. Her career was cut short with two hundred

lashes and exile for six years from all the places where she had

lived.[157]

The experienced inquisitor whom I have so often quoted tells us, about

this time, that these impostors were very common; that there were rules

for teaching them their trade and, as it was so prejudicial and so

discreditable, they must be punished with all rigor. He mentions a case

at Llerena, where the woman persisted in asserting the truth of her

revelations and miracles, until she was tortured, when she confessed the

fraud and was condemned to scourging and reclusion, at the discretion

of the tribunal, with fasting on bread and water.[158] Yet one cannot

help feeling sympathy for María Cotanilla, a poor blind crone, sentenced

in 1676, by the Toledo tribunal, to a hundred lashes and to pass four

years in a designated place, where she could support herself by beggary,

reporting herself monthly to the commissioner.[159]

Severity might check, but could not suppress, a profession which was the

inevitable outcome of popular demand. How it was stimulated is well

exemplified in the case of María Manuela de Tho--, a young woman of 23,

arrested by the Madrid tribunal, in April, 1673. She confessed

unreservedly a vast variety of impostures, pretended diabolical

possession, visits from the angels Gabriel and Raphael and numerous

others. She told how she was venerated as a saint; her signature written

on scraps of blank paper was distributed by her confessor and was

treasured as though it were that of Santa Teresa; he had crosses made of

olive wood which she blessed and they were valued as relics and amulets;

she cured the sick and performed many other miracles. The origin of all

this, as she related it, is highly illuminating. She chanced to tell

certain persons that in a dream she saw a soul in purgatory; they shook

their heads wisely and said it was more than a dream and contained great

mysteries. Then they began to admire her and she, finding that she was

esteemed and admired and regaled with presents, and that money came to

her without labor, went on from one step to another with her visions and

miracles. She knew that it was wrong but, as there were learned and

distinguished persons cognizant of it, who could have undeceived her and

did not and, as there was no pact with the demon, she continued for,

though she had been a miserable sinner, she had always been firm in the

faith of Christ as a true Catholic Christian.[160] When the appetite for

marvels was so universal and unreasoning, the supply could not be

lacking, no matter what might be the efforts of the Inquisition.

[Sidenote: _IMPOSTORS_]

These practitioners naturally continued to give occupation to the

tribunals, but their cases can teach us little except to note the

severity with which they were occasionally treated. In the Madrid auto

of 1680 there were four impostors, of whom a carpenter named Alfonso de

Arenas was visited with abjuration, two hundred lashes, and five years

of galleys followed by five more of exile.[161] In the little

conventicle arrested, in 1708, by the Toledo tribunal (p. 71), four

women and a man were punished, in 1711, as impostors, the man, Pablo

Díez, an apothecary of Yepes, with reconciliation, confiscation and

perpetual prison, while one of the women, María Fernández, had two

hundred lashes and exile.[162] In 1725, the Murcia tribunal inflicted

the same scourging and eight years of exile on Mariana Matozes, who

added to her other impostures a claim to the stigmata, and in 1726, in

Valencia, Juan Vives of Castillon de la Plana had the same allowance of

stripes, with a year's reclusion and eight years' exile from Valencia

and Catalonia.[163] It is therefore not easy to understand the clemency

shown by the Toledo tribunal, in 1729, to Ana Rodríguez of Madridejos,

who is described as a scandalous impostor, deluded and deluding,

audacious, sacrilegious, boasting of her exemption from the sixth

commandment, heretically blasphemous, vehemently suspect and formally

guilty of the heresy of Molinos and the Alumbrados, insulting to the

Blessed Virgin and St. Bernard and contumacious in all her errors. Her

contumacy gave way, thus saving her from relaxation and she escaped with

formal abjuration, reconciliation and confinement for instruction in the

Jesuit college of Navalcarnero, during such time as the tribunal might

deem necessary for her soul.[164]

Further enumeration of these obscure cases is scarce worth while and we

may pass to one which excited lively interest. María de los Dolores

López, known as the Beata Dolores, had a successful and scandalous

career for fifteen or twenty years, commencing at the age of twelve,

when she left her father's house to live as a concubine with her

confessor. Her fame spread far and wide and, for ten years, the

Inquisition received occasional denunciation of her misdeeds without

taking action until, in 1779, one of her confessors, to relieve his

conscience, denounced both himself and her to the Seville tribunal. On

her trial she resolutely maintained the truth of the special graces

which she had enjoyed since the age of four. She had continued and

familiar intercourse with the Virgin, she had been married in heaven to

the child Jesus, with St. Joseph and St. Augustin as witnesses, she had

liberated millions of souls from purgatory, with much more of the kind

so familiar to us, to which she added one of the errors of Molinism by

maintaining that evil actions cease to be sinful when God so wills it.

She was thus not merely an impostor but a formal and impenitent heretic,

for whom relaxation was the only penalty known to the Inquisition.

Burning, however, had well-nigh gone out of fashion, and the tribunal

honestly spared no effort to save her from the stake. Eminent

theologians wasted on her their learning and eloquence. Fray Diego de

Cádiz, the foremost preacher of his time, labored with her for two

months, and finally reported that there was nothing to do but to burn

her. It was all in vain. God, she said, had revealed to her that she

should die a martyr, after which, in three days, he would prove her

innocence. The law had to take its course and, on August 22, 1781, she

was formally sentenced to relaxation. As this left her unmoved the

execution was postponed for three days to try the effect of fresh

exhortations. This failed and, during the sermon and ceremonies of the

auto, she had to be gagged to suppress her blasphemy. As so frequently

happened however, her nerves gave way on the road to the brasero; she

burst into tears and asked for a confessor, thus gaining the privilege

of strangulation before the faggots were fired.[165]

[Sidenote: _IMPOSTORS_]

Imposture continued to flourish. In 1800 the Valladolid tribunal was

occupied with an extensive "complicidad," resulting in the prosecution

of Madre María Ignacia de la Presentacion, a Mercenarian of the convent

of Toro, for pretended miracles, along with nine frailes of the same

Order as accomplices.[166] Contemporary with this was a case at Cuenca,

which almost transcends belief. The wife of a peasant of Villar del

Aguila, Isabel María Herraiz, known as the Beata de Cuenca, who had a

reputation for sanctity, announced that Christ had revealed to her that,

in order to be more completely united to her in love, he had transfused

his body and blood into hers. The theology of the period is illustrated

by the learned disputation which arose, some doctors arguing this to be

impossible because it would render her more holy than the Blessed

Virgin and would deprive the sacrament of the exclusive distinction of

being the body and blood of the Lord; others held it to be possible but

that the proofs in the present case were insufficient; others, again,

accepted it and urged the virtues of the beata and the absence of motive

for deception. The people felt no scruple, and were encouraged in their

credulity by two Franciscan frailes, Joaquin de Alustante and Domingo de

Cañizares, and a Carmelite, Sebastian de los Dolores. Her believers

worshipped her, carrying her through the streets in procession, lighting

candles before her and prostrating themselves in adoration. The scandal

attained proportions calling for repression, and the Inquisition

arrested her, June 25, 1801, together with her accomplices. It is

possible that she was severely handled, for she died in the secret

prison without confession, and was consequently burnt in effigy. The

cura of Villar and two of the frailes were banished to the Philippines;

two laymen received two hundred lashes each, with service for life in a

presidio, and her hand-maid, Manuela Pérez, was consigned for ten years

to the _Recojidas_ or house of correction for women.[167]

While this comedy was in progress in Cuenca, a similar one was

performing in Madrid, in the highest social ranks. Sor María Clara Rosa

de Jesus, known as the Beata Clara, had acquired great reputation by her

visions and miracles. She was, or pretended to be, paralyzed and unable

to leave her bed and, when she announced that a special command of the

Holy Ghost required her to join the Capuchin Order, Pius VI granted her

a dispensation to take the vows without residence. Atanasio de Puyal,

subsequently Bishop of Calahorra, obtained licence to erect a private

altar in her chamber, where mass was celebrated daily, and she received

communion, pretending to take no other nourishment. All the great ladies

of the court were accustomed to implore her intercession in their

troubles and gave her large sums to be expended in charity. It is to the

credit of the Inquisition that it broke up this speculative imposture by

arresting her, in 1801, together with her mother and confessor as

accomplices. It was not difficult to prove their guilt and, in 1803,

they were mercifully sentenced to reclusion.[168]

For three hundred years, up to the time of its suppression, the

Inquisition, thus vainly labored to put an end to these speculations on

the credulity of the faithful. It did its best, but the popular craving

for the marvellous, for concrete evidence of divine interposition in

human affairs, was too universal and too strong to be controlled, even

by its supreme authority. After its downfall, the career of the

notorious Sor Patrocinio proves how ineradicable was this and serves to

bring medievalism down to our own time.

[Sidenote: _IMPOSTORS_]

María Rafaela Quiroga, known in religion as Sor María Cipriana del

Patrocinio de San José, in 1829 took the veil in the convent of San

José, and soon commenced to have visions and revelations, followed by

the development of the stigmata. Her reputation spread and cloths

stained with the blood of her wounds were in request as curative

amulets. When the death of Fernando VII, September 29, 1833 was followed

by the Carlist war, the clericals, who favored Don Carlos, saw in her a

useful instrument. She was made to prophesy the success of the Pretender

and to furnish proof of the illegitimacy of the young Queen Isabel. As

in the case of the Portuguese María de la Visitacion, this dangerous

factor in the political situation called for governmental intervention

and, after some resistance, in November 1835, the Sor was removed from

the convent to a private house, where she was kept under the care of her

mother and of a priest, while three physicians were summoned to examine

the stigmata. They pronounced them artificial and promised a speedy cure

if interference was prevented. This was verified and, in spite of a scab

being torn off from one of them, they were healed by December 17th. On

January 21, 1836, an official inspection by a number of dignitaries

confirmed the fact, which was assented to by the Sor and, on February

7th, she made a full confession, stating that a Capuchin, Padre Firmin

de Alcaraz, had given her a caustic with directions to use it on hands,

feet, side and head, telling her that the resultant pain would be a

salutary penance. Prosecution was duly commenced against her and the

Vicar, Prioress and Vicaress of the convent, Padre Firmin having

prudently disappeared. Sentence was rendered, November 25, 1836, from

which an appeal was taken, resulting in a slight increase of rigor. The

convent was suppressed; the vicar, Andrés Rivas, was banished from

Madrid for eight years, and the three women were sent to convents of

their Order, Sor Patrocinio being conveyed, on April 27, 1837, to the

nunnery at Talavera.[169]

Years passed away and she seemed to be forgotten when the reaction of

1844 suggested that she might again be utilized. In 1845 the convent of

Jesus was built for her; she returned with the stigmata freshened and

her saintly reputation enhanced. Imposing ceremonies rendered her

entrance impressive, and she was conveyed to her convent under a canopy,

like a royal personage. In conjunction with Padre Fulgencio, confessor

to Don Francisco de Asis the king-consort, and with her brother Manuel

Quiroga, whom she made gentleman of the royal bed-chamber, she became

the power behind the throne. Dr. Argumosa, who had cured her stigmata,

was persecuted and Fray Firmin Alcaraz, who had emerged from his

hiding-place, was made Bishop of Cuenca. In 1849 she was held to have

forced Isabel to dismiss the Duke of Valencia (Narvaez) and his cabinet.

This was followed by what was known as the _Ministerio Relámpago_, or

Lightning Ministry, which held office for three hours on October 19,

1849, and was forced to retire by the threatening aspect of the people.

Narvaez was recalled and forthwith relegated to a distance Sor

Patrocinio, her brother, Padre Fulgencio and some of their confederates.

She was soon recalled, however, and wielded an influence which Narvaez

could not resist. His successor, Bravo Murillo, sought to get a respite

by persuading the Nuncio Brunelli to send her to Rome, but this availed

little, for she soon returned, more powerful than ever, with the

blessing of Pius IX. Under her guidance, during the remainder of the

reign of Isabel II, the camarilla practically ruled the kingdom and

precipitated the revolution of 1868, which, for a time, supplanted the

monarchy with a republic. With the fall of Isabel she disappeared from

public view, in the retirement of the convent of Guadalajara, of which

she was the abbess. There she lingered in seclusion, until January 27,

1891, when she died serenely, comforted in her last moments with a

telegraphic blessing from Leo XIII.[170]

The Inquisition could suppress Judaism, it could destroy Protestantism,

it could render necessary the expulsion of the Moriscos, but it failed

when it sought to eradicate the abuses of Mysticism, which not only

signalized the ardor of Spanish faith, but were so difficult of

differentiation from beliefs long recognized and encouraged by the

Church. There seems to be, in the average human mind, an insatiable

craving for manifestations of the supernatural. Modern science, with its

materialism, may weaken or even eradicate this in the majority, and may

explain psychologically much of what seems to be marvellous, but the

success in our own land of the curious superstition known as Christian

Science shows us how superficial is latter-day enlightenment, and should

teach us sympathy rather than disdain for the fantastic exhibitions of

credulity which we have passed in review.