that they now began to threaten the downfal of this unfortunate and ever ill-governed monarchy.

37

But what fruits did the King and Inquisitors reap of the constant persecutions raised against the judaizers? None that were of any service to them, if we except the confiscations. These men only brought odium upon the doctrines of the Gospel, which did not authorize them to perpetrate such atrocious and inhuman acts. If this be not the case, let the defenders of the Inquisition show us how many Christians there were in foreign kingdoms where Jews dwelt, and in which the tribunal of the Holy Office did not exist, that abjured their religion and conformed to the Mosaic law. In Spain, on the contrary, the more autos-de-fé, the more deaths and the more losses of caste promoted by the Inquisitors, the more were the persons that judaized; and these individuals did not consist exclusively of persons belonging to the families of the punished, but of those also who were descended through all their branches from old Christians. Let Don Lope de Vera, who was burnt at Valladolid in 1644, and Fray José Diaz Pimienta, who suffered at Seville in 1703, be adduced as instances of what I have just said. The judaizers, instead of deterring others by the example of their deaths, made new proselytes; for multitudes who witnessed the stedfastness and courage with which those unfortunate men underwent the dreadful punishment of the bonfire, were convinced that God had

37 Infamias de linajes.—Translator.

animated their hearts in that bitter and critical moment, and that, inasmuch as they obtained such a blessing as this from heaven, there could be no doubt whatever that they died in defence of the truth. Whereupon they canonized those men as martyrs, and themselves abjured the Christian religion, and went over to the ranks of Judaism. And this is the reason why there were so many judaizers living in Spain in the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, in defiance of the wrath of the Inquisition : which is a very clear proof that persecutions were the means of inciting many to follow the Mosaic rite; for in foreign kingdoms no Christian ever thought of becoming a Jew, while in our own there were many who did so, and these, not persons in the lower ranks of life, but gentlemen and people highly distinguished in every department of literature. Even at the commencement of the present century, or rather in the year 1799, a man named Lorenzo Beltran was punished by the Inquisition of Seville for being a judaizing

heretic.

There were judaizers living in Spain till the time that the tribunal of the Holy Office was abolished in the war of independence, and though afterwards revived, it ceased to be a religious tribunal, but was converted into a political one; in the prisons of which, persons who could not be charged with the commission of any crime, but whom the government considered it unsafe to allow to be at large, were confined for an indefinite period.

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HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN SPAIN.

Let the innumerable narratives of autos-de-fé existing in print and in manuscript from the fifteenth to the commencement of the present century be read, and by them it will be known how large was the number of judaizers then living in Spain. And then let it be seen what is the number of Christians who now forsake the Evangelical doctrine and embrace the Mosaic law-this will show that the Inquisition, instead of destroying Judaism, was, through its barbarous and inhuman punishments, the means of rendering the Christian faith odious, and of inducing many persons of note, who were attracted by the example of the martyrs burnt in its flames, to go over to the ranks of Judaism.

RECAPITULATION.

A LARGE number of the Jews who escaped from Jerusalem, when that city was destroyed by Titus, settled in Spain, where they lived unmolested. The ancient Spaniards, in the Council of Elliberis, began to issue decrees to their prejudice, but the invasion of Spain by the Goths hindered the enactment of decrees still more injurious to the Israelites. While the Goths continued in the Arian faith, the Jews lived free from oppression; but as soon as the former were converted to Christianity, the unhappy Hebrews were cruelly persecuted by them. Every king and every council devised some new law against them more severe than any of those already existing. The fruit which the Goths reaped of their barbarous acts was the invasion of Spain by the Arabs and the overthrow of their empire. The Jews then assisted the conquerors with their arms, garrisoned the principal cities, and regained their liberty.

As the Hebrews were not persecuted by the Arabs, the Christians suffered the former to live in peace in their territories. In those times flourished many learned Jews, particularly at Córdova. The Christians,

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as soon as they began to conquer cities, began also to oppress the Hebrews, and in proportion to the number of the cities they acquired, did they increase their oppressions of that race: and since many of the Christians owed large sums of money to the Jews, they excited the fanaticism of the people against them, thereby causing frequent tumults and murders. In dread of these calamities, many of them became Christians, especially after the famous dispute of the Spanish Rabbins with Jerónimo de Santa Fé, in the presence of the Antipope Pedro de Luna.

Ferdinand the Fifth, styled the Catholic, being engaged in wars, of which his revenues would not cover the expenses, decided on establishing the tribunal of the faith for the purpose of filling his treasury with the proceeds of the confiscations.

He called upon several of the Jews to supply him with money to carry on the Granada war, and promised to pay them as soon as he should conquer that city. Instead of paying his debts, he ordered the Jews who refused to embrace Christianity to depart from Spain within the space of four months.

In spite of its flames and of the robberies it committed, the tribunal of the faith was unable to eradicate Judaism from Spain. Since the abolition of that tribunal, no Spaniard has abjured the Christian faith to embrace the Mosaic law.