A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4 — John Shaqi
A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4Lea, Henry Charles
History
A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition -- Spain
It is noteworthy that here there is no allusion to ecstasies or trances
or to sexual aberrations, as in subsequent edicts, although Páramo, some
twenty years later, in his frequent allusions to the Alumbrados, dwells
especially on the latter and on the dangers to which they led in the
confessional.[59] That this danger was not imaginary is indicated by the
case of Fray Juan de la Cruz, a discalced Franciscan, so convinced of
the truth of alumbrado doctrine that, in 1605, he presented himself to
the Toledo tribunal with a memorial in which he argued that indecent
practices between spiritual persons were purifying and elevating to the
soul, and resulting in the greatest spiritual benefit when unaccompanied
with desire to sin. He was promptly placed on trial and six witnesses
testified to his teaching of this doctrine. Ordinary seduction in the
confessional, as will be seen hereafter, when the culprit admitted it to
be a sin, was treated with comparative leniency, but doctrinal error was
far more serious, and the unlucky fraile, who maintained throughout the
trial the truth of his theories, was visited with much greater severity.
Humiliations and disabilities were heaped upon him; he received a
circular scourging in a convent of his order and a monthly discipline
for a year, with six years of reclusion.[60]
Simple mysticism, however, even without the advanced doctrines of
Illuminism and Quietism, was becoming to the Inquisition an object of
pronounced hostility. The land was being filled with _beatas
revelanderas;_ mystic fervor was spreading and threatening to become a
part of the national religion, stimulated doubtless by the increasing
cult paid to its prominent exemplars, for Santa Teresa was beatified in
1614 and canonized in 1622, while San Pedro de Alcántara was beatified
in the latter year. Apart from all moral questions, the mystic might at
any moment assert independence; his theory was destructive to the
intervention of the priest between man and God, and Illuminism was only
a development of mysticism. The Inquisition was not wholly consistent,
but its determination to stem the current which was setting so strongly
was emphatically expressed in the trial of Padre Gerónimo de la Madre de
Dios by the Toledo tribunal in 1616.
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