History of the Jews, Vol. 4 (of 6)Graetz, Heinrich
History
History of the Jews, Vol. 4 (of 6)
Graetz, Heinrich
Jews -- History
King Ferdinand made good use of the unfortunate conspiracy in the
establishment of the Inquisition in Aragon. The sovereigns carried
public mourning for the murdered Arbues to the verge of idolatry. A
statue was consecrated to his memory, in honor of his services to
religion and the extermination of Jewish heretics. The Dominicans
were by no means displeased at the death of the chief inquisitor.
They were, in fact, in need of a martyr to enable them to surround
their tribunal of blood with a halo of glory. They used every effort
to raise Pedro Arbues to the rank of saint or Christian demi-god. It
was not long before they fabricated a divine communication from the
sainted heretic-slayer, in which he exhorted all the world to support
and carry forward the Holy Inquisition, and soothed the scruples of the
members of the tribunal, on account of the enormous number of men they
had consigned to the flames, by assuring them that the most honorable
places in heaven awaited them as the reward of their pious efforts.
The unsuccessful conspiracy of the Marranos in Saragossa afforded a
vast number of fresh victims to the Christian Moloch. A few of the
conspirators made full confession, and so the inquisitors soon had
a complete list of the culprits. These were pursued with redoubled
vigor as Judaizing heretics and enemies of the Holy Office. Those
who had borne a leading part in the conspiracy, as soon as they fell
into the hands of their judges, were dragged through the streets of
Saragossa, their hands were hewn off, and they were then hanged. Juan
de Abadia escaped this dishonorable fate by killing himself in prison.
More than two hundred Jewish Christians were burnt as accomplices, a
yet greater number were condemned to perpetual imprisonment, among
them a high dignitary of the Metropolitan Church of Saragossa, and
not a few women of gentle birth. Francisco de Santa Fé also died
at the stake. Even those who had given shelter to the conspirators
for a brief period during their flight were compelled to attend an
auto-da-fé as penitents, and lost their civil rights. How far the
inhumanity of the persecutors went is especially shown by one of the
punishments inflicted. A conspirator, Gaspard de Santa Cruz, had been
successful in making his escape to Toulouse, and there died in peace.
The Inquisition, not content with burning him in effigy, laid hands
upon his son as an accomplice in his father's flight, and condemned him
to travel to Toulouse to communicate his sentence to the Dominicans of
that city, and to desire them to exhume the body of his father and burn
it. The weak son performed his disgraceful mission, and brought back
to Saragossa the certificate of the Dominicans to the effect that the
corpse of the father had been dishonored on the prayer of the son.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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