The crowds of people who spent the evening and part of the night
of Thursday in visiting the numerous churches where the host is
entombed, are still seen, though greatly thinned, performing this
religious ceremony, till the beginning of service at nine. This is,
perhaps, the most impressive of any used by the Church of Rome.
The altars, which, at the end of yesterday’s mass, were publicly
and solemnly stripped of their cloths and rich table-hangings by
the hands of the priest, appear in the same state of distressed
negligence. No musical sound is heard, except the deep-toned voices
of the psalm, or plain chaunt singers. After a few preparatory
prayers, and the dramatized history of the Passion, already
described, the officiating priest, (the archbishop at the cathedral)
in a plain albe or white tunic, takes up a wooden cross six or seven
feet high, which, like all other crosses, has for the last two weeks
of Lent been covered with a purple veil; and standing towards the
people, before the middle of the altar, gradually uncovers the sacred
emblem, which both the clergy and laity worship upon their knees.
The prelate is then unshod by the assistant ministers, and taking
the cross upon his right shoulder, as our Saviour is represented
by painters on his way to Calvary, walks alone from the altar to
the entrance of the presbytery or chancel, and lays his burden upon
two cushions. After this, he moves back some steps, and approaching
the cross with three prostrations, kisses it, and drops an oblation
of a piece of money, into a silver dish. The whole chapter, having
gone through the same ceremony, form themselves in two lines, and
repair to the monument, from whence the officiating priest conveys
the deposited host to the altar, where he communicates upon it
without consecrating any wine. Here the service terminates abruptly;
all candles and lamps are extinguished; and the tabernacle, which
throughout the year contains the sacred wafers, being left open,
every object bespeaks the desolate and widowed state of the church,
from the death of the Saviour to his resurrection.
The ceremonies of Good-Friday being short and performed at an early
hour, both the gay and the devout would be at a loss how to spend the
remainder of the day but for the grotesque _Passion Sermons_ of the
suburbs and neighbouring villages; and the more solemn performance
known by the name of _Tres Horas_--three hours.
The practice of continuing in meditation from twelve to three o’clock
of this day--the time which our Saviour is supposed to have hung on
the cross--was introduced by the Spanish Jesuits, and partakes of
the impressive character which the members of that order had the
art to impart to the religious practices by which they cherished
the devotional spirit of the people. The church where the _three
hours_ are kept, is generally hung in black, and made impervious
to day-light. A large crucifix is seen on the high altar, under a
black canopy, with six unbleached wax-candles, which cast a sombre
glimmering on the rest of the church. The females of all ranks
occupy, as usual, the centre of the nave, squatting or kneeling on
the matted ground, and adding to the dismal appearance of the scene,
by the colour of their veils and dresses.
Just as the clock strikes twelve, a priest in his cloak and cassock
ascends the pulpit, and delivers a preparatory address of his own
composition. He then reads the printed Meditation on the _Seven
Words_, or Sentences spoken by Jesus on the cross, allotting to each
such a portion of time as that, with the interludes of music which
follow each of the readings, the whole may not exceed three hours.
The music is generally good and appropriate, and, if a sufficient
band can be collected, well repays to an amateur the inconvenience
of a crowded church, where, from the want of seats, the male part
of the congregation are obliged either to stand or kneel. It is, in
fact, one of the best works of Haydn, composed, a short time ago, for
some gentlemen of Cadiz, who shewed both their taste and liberality
in thus procuring this masterpiece of harmony for the use of their
country. It has been lately published in Germany, under the title of
“Sette Parole.”
Every part of the performance is so managed that the clock strikes
three about the end of the meditation, on the words _It is
finished_.--The description of the expiring Saviour, powerfully drawn
by the original writer of the _Tres Horas_, can hardly fail to strike
the imagination when listened to under the influence of such music
and scenery; and when, at the first stroke of the clock, the priest
rises from his seat, and in a loud and impassioned voice, announces
the consummation of the awful and mysterious sacrifice, on whose
painful and bloody progress the mind has been dwelling so long; few
hearts can repel the impression, and still fewer eyes can conceal it.
Tears bathe every cheek, and sobs heave every female bosom.--After a
parting address from the pulpit, the ceremony concludes with a piece
of music, where the powers of the great composer are magnificently
displayed in the imitation of the disorder and agitation of nature
which the Evangelists relate.
The _Passion Sermons_ for the populace might be taken for a parody
of the _Three Hours_. They are generally delivered, in the open
air, by friars of the Mendicant Orders, in those parts of the city
and suburbs which are chiefly, if not exclusively, inhabited by the
lower classes. Such gay young men, however, as do not scruple to
relieve the dulness of Good-Friday with a ride, and feel no danger
of exposing themselves by any unseasonable laughter, indulge not
unfrequently in the frolic of attending one of the most complete
and perfect sermons of this kind, at the neighbouring village of
Castilleja.
A moveable pulpit is placed before the church door, from which a
friar, possessed of a stentorian voice, delivers an _improved_
history of the Passion, such as was revealed to Saint Bridget, a
Franciscan nun, who, from the dictation of the Virgin Mary, has left
us a most minute and circumstantial account of the life and death of
Christ and his mother. This yearly narrative, however, would have
lost most of its interest but for the scenic illustrations which
keep up the expectation and rivet the attention of the audience.
It was formerly the custom to introduce a living Saint Peter--a
character which belonged by a natural and inalienable right to the
baldest head in the village--who acted the Apostle’s denial, swearing
_by Christ_, he did not know the man. This edifying part of the
performance is omitted at Castilleja; though a practised performer
crows with such a shrill and natural note as must be answered with
a challenge by every cock of spirit in the neighbourhood. The
flourish of a trumpet announces, in the sequel, the publication
of the sentence passed by the Roman governor; and the town crier
delivers it with legal precision, in the manner it is practised in
Spain, before an execution. Hardly has the last word been uttered,
when the preacher, in a frantic passion, gives the crier the _lie
direct_, cursing the tongue that has uttered such blasphemies.[40] He
then invites an angel to contradict both Pilate and the Jews: when,
obedient to the orator’s desire, a boy gaudily dressed, and furnished
with a pair of gilt pasteboard wings, appears at the window, and
proclaims the _true verdict of Heaven_. Sometimes in the course of
the preacher’s narrative, an image of the Virgin Mary is made to meet
that of Christ, on his way to Calvary, both taking an affectionate
leave in the street. The appearance, however, of the Virgin bearing
a handkerchief to collect a sum for her son’s burial, is never
omitted, both because it melts the whole female audience into tears,
and because it produces a good collection for the convent. The whole
is closed by the _Descendimiento_, or unnailing a crucifix as large
as life from the cross; an operation performed by two friars, who,
in the character of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, are seen with
ladders and carpenters’ tools, letting down the jointed figure, to be
placed on a bier and carried into the church in the form of a funeral.
[40] “_Calla, maldita lengua_,” the usual exclamation which stops
the crier, has become a jocular expression in Andalusia.
I have carefully glided over such parts of this absurd performance
as would shock many an English reader even in narrative. Yet such is
the strange mixture of superstition and profaneness in the people
for whose gratification these scenes are exhibited, that though any
attempt to expose the indecency of these shows would rouse their zeal
“to the knife,” I cannot venture to translate the jokes and sallies
of wit that are frequently heard among the Spanish peasantry upon
these sacred topics.