Chapter V: Mysticism.1 (4)

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]