Chapter V

DEVOTION of Protestants scriptural and reasonable--That of Roman Catholics poetical and affectionate--Religious enthusiasm leads to insanity--Mental devotion as distinguished from physical--Nature of Roman Catholic devotion accounted for by the worship of images--Intercession of saints--Saint Anthony--The illiterate guided by bodily vision rather than spiritual discernment--Horace confirms this--Illustrated by popular errors--Sensual and poetical elements were introduced to devotion by the Greeks--Destruction of images by the Emperor Leo the Iconoclast--Opinion of Pope Leo the Great--Images adorned like human beings perplex the mind between truth and fiction--Familiar examples--Money-contributions for adornment of images--Belief that saints can cure certain complaints--List of these--Saint Anthony of Padua's miracles--The fete of _San Anton Abad_--Virgin Mary, and her innumerable advocations--A list of several--The Rosary--Statues of the Virgin--Immense value of their wardrobes and trinkets--The most ugly of those statues excite most devotion--Virgin of Zaragoza--The heart of Mary--Month of Mary (May)--Kissing images--Anecdote of the Duke of A--- and his courtezan--Habits and promises--Penance.

Devotion in Roman Catholicism is totally distinct in its essence from that of Protestantism. The devotion of Protestants is scriptural and reasonable; that of Roman Catholics poetical and affectionate. The Protestant considers God as a spiritual being, and, as such, incomprehensible, the only object of worship, the only fountain of grace and pardon. The Roman Catholic represents the Eternal in material forms, accessible only through the indirect medium of intercession, and addresses him with the familiarity and tenderness peculiar to the human relations between a father and a son. In prayer the truly devout Roman Catholic weeps, afflicts himself, gesticulates, touches the ground with his forehead, kisses it, strikes his breast, and reveals, by his whole physiognomy and exterior actions, a vehemence and intensity which his physical frame appears scarcely able to sustain. His prayers are full of poetical exclamations, which are called _jaculatorias_; and in addressing the object of his devotion, he feels more complacency in accumulating sonorous epithets, and in repeating groans and sighs, than in imploring, by properly-constructed and continuous phrases, the protection and mercy of the Almighty. Roman Catholic devotion gives a perfect idea of ecstasy, and shows that religious enthusiasm, carried to the utmost extreme, agitates the nervous system, and produces effects very similar to those of mental abstraction; and, in truth, in those asylums provided for the insane, we find many of their inmates to be persons who have fallen into that deplorable state through religious enthusiasm. There are other cases in which these excesses in devotion have ended in catalepsy; and some of those women who have been celebrated for the supernatural state in which it has been pretended they lived for many years, without food, and insensible to all external impressions, have been rather the unhappy victims of mental disease than the instruments of wilful imposture.

Perhaps some one may ask why, seeing that the mysterious principles of the Roman Catholic faith and those of the Protestants are equal, there should be so much difference in their devotional characters, the one being opposed to the other? why in the one case it is entirely mental, while the other largely participates in a physical nature? why in Protestant devotion there is thinking and reflection, while in that of Roman Catholics all is feeling and affection? The problem is resolved in a single expression,--the worship of images.

This practice, which neither the fathers nor the councils have enforced or authorised to the extent to which it has been carried by modern Roman Catholics, and especially by Spaniards, exercises so powerful an influence, or rather so irresistible an imperium, over the mind of man, that it entirely perverts his reason, and radically extinguishes in it the difference between the spiritual and the physical world. This great enigma, the solution of which the Eternal has, in his wisdom, reserved from mortal creatures, loses all its obscurity and ceases to be a mystery to the man who converses with a figure made of wood or painted on canvas; for he not only believes that it sees him, but that it can protect him, grant him favours, and even obtain for him salvation. In vain it will be said that the Roman Catholic sees in the image a symbol, an emblem, a representation. It is not so. In his eyes the image is the saint itself, and therefore he adorns it, covers it with splendid attire, surrounds it with flowers and with lights, kneels down before it, confides to it his griefs, and asks its intercession. If the object of veneration and of worship were the saint itself,--that is to say, a beatified spirit, which is supposed to dwell in heaven, and there enjoy the favour of the Eternal Being,--the prayer made and the homage rendered would be to that pure essence, and would be purged of all the external accidents of humanity. But not so do Roman Catholics generally pray. In order to pray it is necessary for them to have a material object; they must enter with that object into similar relations as those which exist between man and man; they must bring down the saint to their own level, instead of endeavouring to lift up themselves to the level of the saint, by means of a communication purely spiritual.

The proof of this is, that, among the images which represent the same original and the same type, there are some which are believed to have more power, and to be capable of working more miracles, than others. The Saint Antonio, for example, which is venerated in one church in Madrid, called La Florida, is much more popular than the Saint Antonio venerated in another, called the Church de los Portugueses. In Burgos there is a crucifix to which infinitely more solemn worship is paid than to one in any parish church, or even in any chapel of the same city. The popes have encouraged this absurd aberration of the human mind, by conceding, and permitting the bishops to concede, indulgences to certain statues, certain pictures, and even certain engravings, which represent objects of devotion. The person who prays in front of that favoured object gains so many years of indulgences; he who prays to the same saint, but before another statue, another picture, or another engraving, obtains nothing. Of course, all these concessions which are obtained are paid for in ready money.

Now to the point. Are not these means the most efficacious that can be imagined in order to materialise religion, and to subjugate it entirely to the senses? Is it not infinitely more easy and shorter, especially for rude and illiterate men, to believe in what they actually see, than in any metaphysical notions, far above the reach of their understanding, like those of a spiritual kind? From very ancient times it has been thought that the impressions which the mind receives through the medium of sight, are more striking and efficacious than those which are communicated to it by all the other organs of the senses. Horace has followed out this idea in his well-known lines:--

"Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem
Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quae
Ipsi sibi tradit spectator."

_De Ar. Poe._, 180.

Thus it is explained why men imagined for many centuries that the sky was a solid superficies, and that the earth was a superficial plane, bounded by the horizon; that the sun moved round the earth; that the existence of the antipodes was a chimera; that the dew fell in the same way as the rain from the upper regions of the atmosphere; and other popular errors which science has corrected, but which were in a certain way justified by the undeniable testimony of the senses. How difficult then is it, on such evidence, to doubt the existence of a soul in a human representation to which one speaks as to a person alive, and to which are tendered all marks of respect and veneration, and before whom even the priests, those masters of the people and depositaries of all true doctrine, kneel down as would a son before his father, a subject before his sovereign, and a culprit before his judge? Who would forbid this delusion to that simple and ignorant mind, whose relations with the exterior world form the only source of all his knowledge and all his feelings?

The Christian religion, purely spiritual in its dogmas and practices, never would have admitted into them this profanation of their sublime essence, if the Greek empire, by virtue of the great religious revolution conducted by Constantine, had not been placed at the head of Christendom. But the Greek Christians were descendants of those who had condemned Socrates, and had not been purged, nor have they yet been purged, of their sensual propensities, of their artistic tastes, and of their attachment to whatever is pompous and ornamental. When the Emperor Leo wished to uproot this abuse, and ordered the images venerated in the temples to be destroyed, his orders were executed with so much imprudence and cruelty, and the persecution raised against those who participated in the common error was conducted in so sanguinary and implacable a manner, that the general opinion rose against the new doctrine, and the name of _iconoclast_ denoted in that day one of the most odious forms of heresy, and one most severely condemned by the apostolical see. {107}

The Latin Church was long preserved from that contagion. When John, the patriarch of Alexandria, consulted the great Pope Leo, whether it would be right to adorn the Christian temples with pictures representing pious objects, that eminent man answered him, that he could only be permitted to have the representations of the historical facts related in the Bible, in order that those believers who were unable to read might in this way instruct themselves in sacred history, but that great care must be taken that such a practice might not degenerate into idolatry.

We have already mentioned the fact that the Council of Granada prohibited the worship of images; but when the thrones founded by the invading nations of the north became settled, their monarchs--men profoundly ignorant, and exclusively devoted to war and conquest--placed their consciences and the direction of public affairs in the hands of the clergy, who were then the monopolisers of learning and literature. The clergy spared no means of consolidating their power, and it was their interest to brutalise the people, in order to domineer over them with the greater facility; and nothing could contribute more certainly to carry out that view than the puerilities of a worship solely limited to the adoration of the physical man. The pageantry of processions, the jewels, the splendid vestments and ornaments with which their images were covered, the miracles attributed to them, and the incense burned on their altars, were so many other soporiferous drugs administered to the understanding to lull its energy, and deprive it of every devoted thought and of all liberty of examination. There is, moreover, in the representation of a human being of the size and colour of life, a certain character of reality, which at first sight cannot do less than make a profound impression on the mind, leaving it for a time in a state of some perplexity between truth and fiction. That immovable attitude, those fixed eyes, those features which never alter the expression of the grief or the joy impressed upon them by the hand of the artist, have in themselves something of the awful and mysterious, which powerfully affects us, despite our reason and experience. How many persons are there who could look, without shuddering, on the statue of Fieschi, the celebrated French murderer, in the collection of Madame Tussaud? How many, on coming out from the chamber of horrors, in the same establishment, resolve and vow never to go into it again? How many, who would not, for any money, pass a night in the apartment in which these disagreeable objects are exhibited? And to what extreme may not that imperium extend, which these works of art exercise on the imagination, if, in addition to their resemblances to nature, superstition endows them with a supernatural power, and when reason persuades us that they hear what we say to them,--that they receive our homage, and are able to favour us with their protection?

But the Roman Catholic clergy have had another motive for promoting a belief in such things, viz., the immense wealth which they draw from them in the name of oblations, alms, and legacies. To contribute money to the adornment of a saint, and to the celebration of rites which are consecrated to it, is a meritorious work, which ensures its protection to the contributor. By this fiction the people have been made to believe that every human complaint, every one of the misfortunes that can occur in life, depends on some particular saint who defends their respective devotees against it. Saint Ramon favours women in the season of parturition; Saint Demas preserves travellers on their journeys from robbers; Saint Apollonius cures the toothache; Saint Lucy heals diseases of the eyes; Saint Lazarus cures the leprosy; Saint Roque the plague; Saint Joseph protects carpenters; Saint Casianus and Saint Nicholas preserve children; Saint Luis Gonzaga, young people; Saint Hermenegild, soldiers; Saint Thomas Aquinas, students; Saint Gloi, silversmiths; and Saint Rita, superior to all the celestial court, obtains, by her mediation, the _realization of impossibilities_! {110}

And yet, after all, the most popular of all the saints which the power of the Vatican has placed on its altars is Saint Anthony of Padua. The miracles which he wrought in his life are quite out of the ordinary course, and some of them appear rather preposterous and ludicrous to the incredulous. On one occasion, when he was preaching by the sea-shore, and his audience had gone away, the fishes came out to hear him. Whenever he was present at a banquet, and a plate or a soup tureen was accidentally broken, he joined the fragments so completely together that the piece recovered its former integrity. The superior of his convent forbade him to perform miracles; but, one day, seeing a man falling from a high tower, he ordered him to remain suspended in the air until the superior should give the saint permission to let him fall without injury. The devotees of Saint Anthony treat him with great familiarity, and even punish him when he does not satisfy their desires. When they wish to obtain some favour from his protection,--for example, to draw a prize in a lottery, to find a lost cow, or to find a husband for a damsel,--they burn tapers before his image, and adorn it with flowers. If they do not still obtain his favour, they place the image with its face towards the wall, in the darkest corner of the house, and even treat it with other indignities, of which decency forbids the mention.

The solemnity of the day of San Anton Abad, the protector of all horses and mules, is of a different kind, and is considered as one of the most noisy and brilliant of all public amusements. The equestrians of the city, mounted on their steeds, which, on this occasion, are splendidly caparisoned, give three gallops round the church dedicated to the saint, and, on finishing the third, they receive from the hands of the priest the blessed barley, which is designed that night as provender for their happy animals. The streets are filled with people anxious to witness this grand exhibition of luxury and of horsemanship, and the balconies are filled with ladies, whose plaudits compensate the dexterity of the heroes of the feast, or rather of the day.

But of all the devotions of Spaniards, none is so general, none so fervent, none so varied in its forms and ceremonies, as that which has for its object the mother of the Saviour. All travellers know that Spain is the classic country of _Mariolatry_; and certainly, if we could divest it of the idea of intercession, which is its foundation, we should find in it much of the poetical, the affectionate, and much of analogy to the temper of a people in which the imagination predominates, and which still preserves many traits of the knightly spirit of its progenitors. Mary is, in the estimation of Spaniards, a tender mother, the confidante of all their woes, and the support of all their hopes. In their prayers to her, they are prodigal of the most expressive epithets of endearment and admiration. They call her the spouse of the Holy Spirit, the door of heaven, the star of the morning, the tower of David, the tower of ivory, the house of gold, the ark of the covenant, the health of the sick, the queen of heaven, the queen of angels, of prophets, of apostles, of martyrs, and of virgins. We will not do Spaniards the injustice of suspecting them capable of believing that Mary is superior to God in power, but there is no doubt that there are in that country many benighted souls who, when they have addressed their prayers to God, asking some special favour which has not been granted, have recourse to the Virgin under a persuasion that through her means they shall obtain it. Innumerable authors of religious books have written, and it has daily been repeated from the pulpits, that the Virgin never denies a favour to her devotees; that in the mere fact of being her worshippers, they have salvation assured to them; and that it is enough to implore her by name, in order to preserve both body and soul from all danger. "Hail, most immaculate Mary!" (_ave Maria purisuma_) is the formula with which a visitor salutes persons in a house, and the response is, "conceived without sin" (_sin pecado concebida_) {113} These words are engraven on the facades of many public buildings and private houses. They are used also by way of exclamation in familiar conversation, in order to express surprise and admiration. Relate to a Spaniard some extraordinary act,--as, for example, a murder, an incendiarism, an earthquake,--and you will hear him exclaim, "Ave Maria!" just as an Englishman would say, "Dear me, is it possible? You don't say so!" Such is the prestige that hovers about the name of the Virgin in the national customs of Spain.

Although the Virgin is in the eyes of Spaniards but an only being, and although they do not believe that there is more than one mother of God, yet the devotion which they tender to her is diversified in its forms according to the various _advocations_ which the clergy have invented, which the popes have sanctioned, and to which the liturgy has given an official character. But the word _advocation_ extends itself to a special name, a name significant of that with which the name of the Virgin is coupled, and which is sometimes derived from the facts in her history, from the endowments of her mind, or from the places in which her image has miraculously appeared. To the first class pertain the Virgin of the Nativity, the Virgin of Candlemas, the Virgin of the Assumption, the Virgin of Griefs, the Virgin of the Seven Griefs; the Virgin of Anguish or Agonies; and the Virgin of Solitude. To the second class, the Virgin of the Conception, of the Rosary, of Mercy, of Remedies, and of Pity. To the third class, the Virgin of Carmen, of Zaragoza, of Guadaloupe, of Copacabana, of Olivia de la Victoria, of Penacerada, of Regla, of Cavadoraga, of Montserrat, of Nieves, of Fousanta, of Atocha, {115} and innumerable other places.

The Virgin of the Rosary is so called, because it is before her image that her devotees pray the rosary. This pious exercise consists in a paternoster and ten _Ave Marias_, repeated five times. The advocations of the Virgin _de las Carretas_, the Virgin of the Dew, and some others, are of an origin now unknown. In truth, this multiplication of the same religious type has no fixed limits.

But the most extraordinary thing in this peculiarity of Roman Catholic worship is, that not only is the Virgin not worshipped at all without some one of these titles which a mistaken piety has conferred upon her, but that every one of these titles has a particular class of persons singled out from among the faithful, so that some are the devotees of one Virgin and some of another; and they who profess such devotion, for example, to the Virgin of the Rosary, never pray to the Virgin of Griefs. To such a point does this exclusive affection arrive, that the devotees are apt to dispute among themselves as to the respective merits of the advocations to which each consecrates his worship. In some cities and towns the inhabitants are divided into parties, some defending one Virgin, and some another, which state of discord has resulted in angry disputes, animosities, and even acts of violence.

The statues of the Virgin are of two classes; some are made entirely of wood, including the draperies. Among these are some of superior merit. {116} Others have only the head and hands of sculpture, the rest being only a kind of frame-work, fit to support the dress, which is made of worked velvet and other rich textures.

The statues consecrated to a popular advocation have immense treasures, consisting of clothes, of crowns and collars, bracelets, and other trinkets, brilliants, pearls, emeralds, and other precious stones. The custody of these things is confided to one of the principal ladies of the city, and she is called the mistress of the robes to the Virgin (_camarera mayor de la Virgin_), and it is her duty, assisted by other ladies of inferior degree in the sacred household, to dress and undress the statue, varying the costume and ornaments according to the solemnity of the day.

Some few of those advocations require particular colours to be observed in the vestments appropriated to the respective statues; the Virgin of Carmen, for example, must be dressed in white and dark grey; that of the Conception in white and blue; that of Griefs in blue and red; that of Solitude in white and black, and so on. The greater number of those statues of the Virgin have in their arms a figure of the infant Christ.

It is worthy of remark, that the images which most excite devotion are generally those which are most ugly and most disproportionate. The Virgin of Zaragoza, the devotion of all Spain to which touches the borders of enthusiasm, and on which statue Ferdinand VII. conferred the office of field marshal (_capitan general_), is very small, and has the appearance of a carbonised mummy.

Roman Catholics, not satisfied with this indefinite multiplication of the personality of the Virgin, this innumerable variety of names and attributes ascribed to the same individuality, have gone a step farther, and worshipped one part of her body separately from the rest; and this singular idea has given birth to another, viz., "devotion to the heart of Mary,"--recently adopted in France, propagated in all the Papal dominions, converted into an especial rite which the Church of Rome celebrates with mass, vespers, and other services comprised in the missal and the breviary. If, by the words, "heart of Mary," is to be understood that muscle which serves as the centre of the circulation of the blood, or the common metaphor which attributes to the heart the affections, the desires, and all the other acts of the will, it is a mystery which hitherto has not been explained either by the Roman Catholic church, or any of the devotional books which have been written on the subject,--it is a dilemma from which Roman Catholics never will be able to escape; and, in the first case, nothing can be more preposterous than to divide adoration between the entire person and one of its parts; and, in the second case, the object of adoration is reduced to a mere verbal artifice, depending on vulgar custom or on the caprice of men. If the heart of the Virgin is adored under a supposition that it is the centre of the most pure and virtuous sentiments, why has there not been adoration of her head, which is supposed to be nourished with noble and elevated thoughts? Why not her womb, in which lay the Saviour of the world? Why not her hands, which nursed him, and performed all those various acts and offices which are dictated by maternal solicitude?

The practice of consecrating the month of May to the Virgin, and designating it the month of Mary, has the same origin, and been in the same way brought into general use in the Roman Catholic world. The religious feasts of those thirty-one days have a certain character of splendour and of gladness, which makes them resemble those of the Greeks and Romans consecrated to Flora. The altars, on which is placed the image of the Virgin, are adorned with an extraordinary profusion of feathers, flowers, rich silks, and precious jewels; the smoke of incense ascends perpetually before the image; the temples are illuminated by numerous candles, chandeliers, tapers; troops of women, dressed in white, surround the image; and the most celebrated singers from the public theatres chant hymns to the accompaniment of the organ and a numerous orchestra. Enough has been said to enable the reader to perceive the strict analogy that exists between the worship of saints and true idolatry; but still, Spaniards have carried the personification of these fragile works of men's hands far beyond the idolatries of ancient and modern times. Not content with addressing words to them, as if they possessed intelligence and the sense of hearing, they kiss their feet and their hands, as though the marble, the plaster, or the wood, of which they are made, were sensible of these demonstrations of tenderness. To kiss an image is an act of merit which confessors recommend, and one to which the popes have conceded spiritual privileges.

There is an anecdote related in Madrid, which proves to what an extreme vices deserving the severest censure may be associated with the grossest superstition. There was in that capital, towards the end of the reign of Charles IV., a grandee of Spain, the Duke of A---, who professed especial devotion to an image of the Virgin, which he was continually kissing. Having taken under his protection a notorious courtesan, whose house he furnished sumptuously, he ordered an image of the Virgin to be placed in a corner of the staircase, which he never ascended without bestowing his accustomed tokens of affection upon that representation of the object of his devotion. One day, however, the favoured paramour had capriciously elevated the image far above the reach of the lips of her protector. Deprived of the exercise of his daily ceremony, the duke contented himself with throwing up his handkerchief against the image, and on its descent kissing it as an object which had been blessed by its mere contact with the idol!

We could adduce several other proofs of the belief, prevalent in the minds of Spaniards, that images can exercise many of the faculties of animate objects, and therefore are capable of reciprocal intercourse in the same way as living persons. For example, if it is intended that an immoral act shall be committed before a picture, or a piece of sculpture, representing the Virgin or any saint, in the first case it is turned towards the wall; or, in the second, it is covered over with a sheet, in order that it may not be a witness of the sin. In asking a favour of an image, it is a common practice for the devotee, in order to propitiate it, to inflict upon himself some punishment or privation; such, for example, as that of absenting himself from the theatre, or the bullfights (_corridas de toros_), abstaining from eating dessert, or from going to the promenade, balls, and routs. This is called making _a promise_. To wear the habit (_llevar habito_) signifies to dress modestly, and in clothes of a dark colour, and without any ornaments, until the desired favour from the image be obtained, and, at the same time, wearing a medal of the Virgin on the arm. Those persons who desire to carry these acts of penance and mortification to a greater degree of perfection, adopt much severer practices and even more painful, such as putting hard peas into their shoes, wearing _cilicios_,--which are belts made of hogs' bristles, and having sharp iron goads which penetrate the flesh,--sleeping on the ground, and other foolish practices.

All those inflictions are performed only when the favour stipulated for with the Virgin or the saints is obtained; so that if what is asked be not granted, the devotee remains absolved from the conditional obligation which he has contracted.

The practice of self-scourging has been established in the Roman Catholic Church from time immemorial. In the religious orders, particularly those of the Capuchines, there were appointed days, such as Good Friday, on which a whipping, self-inflicted, was a rigorous obligation. Among devotees it is a voluntary act, except when imposed by the confessor by way of penance. The number of lashes depends on the time which it takes to pray the _Miserere_. The instrument employed is exactly the same as that known to the English as the "cat o' nine tails."

There is a society, or brotherhood, designated the school of Christ ("_La Escuela de Cristo_"), very much addicted to this self-castigation. They meet together regularly in a subterranean chapel, which is kept in total darkness during their exercises. The priest who conducts them ascends a pulpit, and all his performance consists in the most lamentable exclamations, which excite not only the grief, but the horror, of the hearers. Every thing in these meetings breathes obscurity, and is calculated to appal the human mind. There nothing is heard of the goodness of God, or of his mercy, but, on the contrary, he is represented as an inexorable tyrant, always disposed to punish with the most horrible pains those who have offended him.