RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Spain
SPAIN, EVANGELICAL WORK IN.
I. The Reformation in Spain. The Early Movement (§ 1). Protestant Movement (§ 2). II. Anticlerical Movements. Political Opposition (§ 1). Dissent and Unbelief (§2). III. Evangelical Activities.
Protestant Societies (§ 1). Schools and Other Agencies (§ 2). Summary of Conditions (§ 3). Opportunities (§4).
I. The Reformation in Spain: At the close of the Middle Ages the type of Christianity prevailing in Spain was more militant, more independent, more Evangelical, that is, more nearly Proti. The estant, than that to be found in any Early other nation of Christendom. More Movement, militant, because the 700 years' war which the Christians of Spain had waged with the Mohammedans had given strength and tenacity to their religious sentiments; more independent, because the unbroken spirit of the Spanish rulers and people had secured the interposition of the secular authority to combat the deteriorating influence of the Roman Curia upon the local church; more Evangelical, because twenty years before Luther nailed his theses to the church door at Wittenberg the Spanish church had felt the purifying and regenerating influence of a reformation largely Protestant in spirit and aims. This reform was the outcome of a plan conceived by Queen Isabella, upon the union of the peninsular states to form the Spanish kingdom in 1492. Its execution was accomplished under the leadership of Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros (see Ximenes de Cisneros), a Franciscan monk and confessor to the queen. The concordat of 1482 had given the Spanish crown the right of visitation and of nomination to benefices. Cisneros was permitted to use these powers to restore the strictest monastic discipline in the convents, and to purge the secular clergy of those abuses which were common to the time. Having improved the morals of the Spanish clergy he set himself to overcome their ignorance and lack of culture. The reading and study of the Bible were made a special feature in their training, something previously unknown; new schools of theology were established, with courses in Bible exegesis; and a band of scholars was collected at Alcala in 1502, who undertook at the expense of Cisneros the preparation of the celebrated Complutensian Polyglot (see Bibles, Polyglot, I.). About the same time he was instrumental in the establishment of universities at Alcala, Seville, and Toledo, where the study of the classics was fostered and a large sympathy was shown with the labors of Erasmus and the Humanists. Unlike Luther, Cisneros made no direct attack on the abuses or authority of the papacy, yet when he encountered the opposition of the pope, in dealing with the abuses of the local church, he assumed an attitude of virtual independence, and was protected in it by the Spanish rulers. The immediate influences of this movement were largely confined to the clergy, but it gradually wrought a distinct change in the religious life of the whole nation and developed in Spain a unique
type of Roman Catholicism. In its essential features it represents a partial and limited development of the Protestant thesis, and, with its Humanistic and Evangelical tendencies, it was fitted to serve as the natural forerunner of a truly Protestant Reformation. At the same time, catching up as it did the religious zeal and initiative of the Spanish people and fusing them into a relatively pure and intelligent form of Catholicism, it forged the very weapon that was destined to give the death stroke to Evangelical Christianity on Spanish soil, and trained the leaders who were to rally the forces of Roman Catholicism in the sixteenth century for the long and bitter struggle against Protestant principles throughout Western Christendom.
The advancement of the Spanish monarch to the imperial throne in 1520, as Charles V., opened a wide channel for the introduction of Lutheran and Reformed teachings into Spain. At first, 2. Protes- Luther's doctrines were generally retant ceived among the educated classes with Movement, interest and favor, and their spread was helped for a time by the liberal tendencies prevailing among the Spanish hierarchy, as well as by the temporizing policy of Charles V. in dealing with Luther and the Protestant princes of Germany. With respect to Charles' attitude, it was even asserted by the confessor of the emperor, who himself favored the Protestants, that Charles secretly sympathized with the movement and that he hoped to use Luther as a lever for forcing upon the German church a Reformation after the Spanish model. Subsequently a gradual reaction against reform among the Spanish clergy and a change in the policy of Charles made Protestantism a proscribed religion in Spain, narrowed the circle of its adherents to the more earnest and daring spirits, and, after the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, subjected the Protestants to a persecution constantly growing in severity. The principal features marking its growth were its almost exclusive confinement to the privileged and educated classes; the lack of organization, except small congregations at Seville and Valladolid; the large numbers from the Roman Catholic clergy and theologians who embraced it; and especially the large numbers of persons among its converts, illustrious either for their rank or learning. Notable among them are the following: Alphonso Valdes, secretary of Charles V.; Alphonso de Bernaldez, chaplain to the emperor, who suffered condemnation in 1537; Bartalome Carranza y Miranda, archbishop of Toledo, who was condemned for holding Protestant views; Roderigo de Valera, who laid the foundations of the church in Seville and was condemned by the Inquisition in 1541; Juan Gil, otherwise known as Doctor Egidius, a famous preacher of Seville who was nominated in 1550 to the bishopric of Tortosa, but before his installation was condemned for heresy; Don Carlos de Seso, a distinguished nobleman who did much f<">r the Protestant cause throughout Spain; Jayme Enzinas and his brother Francesco de Enzinas (qq.v.), two young men of noble birth who were converted while students abroad, the former of whom suffered martyrdom in Rome in 1546, and the latter translated the first Spanish ver-
Spain