Overblown Religious Myths: The Inquisition

By: Omar Rushlive L. Arellano

Most atheists use the Inquisition as a religious objection to the Christian faith. Amusing as it may seem, a handful of them say it like a “mic drop magic word,” thinking it ensures the Christian’s defeat in the debate. In all fairness, there are still those who would venture to explain this intriguing moment in history.

For instance, here is an argument from a commenter in a Worldview Summit post:

You don’t seem to actually know any atheists. I’ve met a few, and they reject religion not because they want to be bad people, but because religions have been doing truly horrific things for millennia. Read about those good Christians who worked for the Holy Inquisition. If someone was accused of being a Jew, they would take the accused into the basement of a monastery, strip them, tie their hands behind their backs, then hoist them by their wrists over a roof beam so that their crutches were at face level to the monks who were there to extract a confession. Of course dangling them by their wrists behind their backs would pull their arms out of their sockets, and it’s not too hard to guess why those kindly, so very Christian monks hauled their victims up to that specific height. Then, after torturing a confession out of them, they would often place a spear under the victim between his or her legs and slowly lower them onto it, while giving them the extreme unction. You really should read some history.¹

And columnist Robert Kuttner seems to nod in agreement when he writes, “The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more.”² Kuttner’s article talks about the importance of religious pluralism and the respect of civic rights. He accuses the “Religious Right” of making the government do what the Founders never intended, which is the state promotion of religion. The Inquisition is mentioned as an enumeration of the abuse of state power by religious zealots. Regarding the Inquisition in Spain, he claims that all Muslims and Jews were ordered to convert or face exile, but the converts would later be subjected to trial since their profession of faith was considered suspect. He charges Ferdinand and Isabella (which he labeled as Spain’s Catholic Kings) of having gone on a cultural rampage and ethnic cleansing after the expulsion.

In The Atheist Experience, a caller named Chuck convinces people that reading on the Inquisition sheds light on the nature of religion, particularly on how today’s Christianity came to be. He describes it to have “lasted about seven hundred years in Europe, and pretty much if you didn’t believe in God, they hung you or burned you at the stake or, you know, destroyed you.”³ Then the host Jeff Dee sharply remarks, “The Inquisition was the time when Christianity was like [what] the Taliban is today.”⁴

Chuck weighs in on the similarity of the Taliban’s forced conversion tactics to the Inquisition. Dee, anticipating a Christian defense, states that under this belief, humans are “inherently sinful and will do bad things.” But he uses this and the lack of clarity on Christian teachings to prove that nobody could properly follow them. Dee is proven to be a little less severe when Matt Dillahunty deems the Inquisition to be “the proper application” of Christianity.

Real Picture of the Inquisition

The intention here is not to explain every detail presented, but to give us enough context to see that the widely accepted picture of the Inquisition as an “omnipotent” and “omniscient” tyrannical machine that is used to target Jews and Muslims and trigger-happy for torture and is according to the Bible, as nothing but a popular misconception. We aim to challenge this popular misconception by examining historical evidence. This article, with the help of British historian Henry Kamen’s “The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision” seeks to (1) trace where the religious myths about the Inquisition sprung from (we will focus more on stating what those myths are and where they came from); (2) depict the historical context of Spain during this period; (3) relay facts about the Inquisition itself; and (4) give a realistic list of its victims. In addition, with the help of Wayne Grudem’s “Politics According to the Bible: A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture,” this article will rely on some of his arguments against the “Compel Religion” view, to show that the alleged “Taliban-like” approach is not “the proper application” of the Bible.

Origin of the Myth

According to Kamen, the exaggerated vile image of the Inquisition resulted from the production of numerous propaganda by “its opponents through the ages.” He disproves the Inquisition as originally conceived in the Mediterranean with the fact that the Germans and the French had similar systems that preceded it.⁵ He also states that both the Catholics and the Reformation supporters had roles in propagating the myths. The Reformation supporters saw the Inquisition as a Catholic agenda that threatened the “religious [and] civil liberties” especially of the Jews and the Muslims, and used the printing press to distribute horrific illustrations of death by burning, known as auto de fe.⁶ On the other hand, he points out that except for the Holy Roman Empire, the Catholic states in Europe were hostile to Spain, which explains why an early source of propaganda against the Inquisition was Catholic in origin. Kamen cites the observations of Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and Peter Paul Rubens to prove Italy’s long-time hostility towards Spain,⁷ and this hatred “extended also to the Inquisition.” He further notes that this was evidenced by the Italian ambassadors’ (Francesco Guicciardini) poor evaluation of their outward religiosity and the terrifying power the Inquisition possessed was exaggerated to be greater than that of the king (by Soranzo).⁸

Fictional accounts which detail the torture devices and the abuse of women during the Inquisition became prevalent.⁹ Kamen cites the published appendix of the Foxe’s Book of Martyrs as an example:

they found the instruments of torture, of every kind which the ingenuity of men or devils could invent. The first instrument was a machine by which the victim was confined and then, beginning with the fingers, all the joints in the hands, arms and body were broken and drawn one after another, until the sufferer died. The second [was the water torture]. The third was an infernal machine, laid horizontally, on which the victim was bound: the machine then being placed between two scores of knives so fixed that by turning the machine with a crank the flesh of the sufferer was all torn from his limbs into small pieces. The fourth surpassed the others in fiendish ingenuity. Its exterior was a large doll, richly dressed and having the appearance of a beautiful woman with her arms extended ready to embrace her victim. A semicircle was drawn around her, and the person who passed over this fatal mark touched a spring which caused the diabolical engine to open, its arms immediately clasped him, and a thousand knives cut him in as many pieces.¹⁰

To point out that even scholars fabricated accounts on the Inquisition, Kamen cites from The Rise of the Dutch Republic by American historian John Motley (1814–1877). Motley frames the Inquisition to have effectively used fear as a mechanism for conversion. He supports this with the dreadful reaction towards Christianity by “savages… and earlier heretics” and by what he claims as the unmatched authority of the court.¹¹ He describes that in the absence of due process, once suspicion was cast, it was impossible to escape the clasps of the tribunal because there was no higher court to appeal to, and the tortures only served to force its victims to falsely admit of delving into heresy, thereby justifying punishment by fire.¹²

Kamen writes that the 19th century saw the creation of the Spaniards’ own “enduring legend.”¹³ To discredit the Inquisition altogether,¹⁴ Antonio Puigblanch (1755–1840) wrote The Inquisition Unmasked using a myriad of voluminous “published sources” as shown by “footnotes and quotations in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and French” to make up for the disadvantage of the Holy Office documents being out of his reach. Despite its impactful reception, Kamen comments that the value of the work is minimal because it sacrifices substantial arguments on the altar of forceful rhetoric.¹⁵ He points out that Puigblanch claimed that the Inquisition extinguished all scientific endeavors in Spain, but Galileo was his lone proof. While this is presently used to support the accusation of a large-scale conflict between religion and science, the narrative of Galileo’s victimhood by the anti-scientific church is another fiction.

Kamen mentions that Juan Antonio Llorente (1756–1823), unlike Puigblanch, had access to archives of the Holy Office. This made him publish in 1812 his Annals of the Inquisition of Spain (a two-volume work), and the Historical Memoir on National Opinion in Spain about the Tribunal of the Inquisition, with the latter becoming “the main source of information for the deputies in the Cortes of Cadiz when they carried out their own abolition of the tribunal.”¹⁶ In addition, Llorente published four volumes of A Critical History of the Spanish Inquisition in Paris. This achievement earns Kamen’s praise since his “rare impartiality” is not found in Puigblanch. However, despite this more faithful endeavor to uncover the truth, Llorente propagated the pillars of the myth that captivated popular imagination. It was the preface of The History of the Inquisition of Spain which alleged that the Holy Office burned more than three hundred thousand victims, expelled “the Jews and the Moors,” and paralyzed Spain’s artistic, scientific, and economic advancement, leading to her significantly “diminished population.”¹⁷ In opposition, based on current research, Kamen corrects that the Holy Office executed only 1% of Llorente’s supposed victim count, and that it had no significant effect on both, the population, and also for or against production and innovation.¹⁸

Historical Context of Spain

Kamen writes that due to the Islamic conquests in different parts of Europe, Pre-Inquisition Spain was a mixture of Christian, Jewish and Muslim populations. He describes with rigor how the three faiths showed tolerance with each other from time to time. They intermarried with one another, built military alliances, became each other’s vassals, and exchanged cultural knowledge.¹⁹ He notes that over time,

a significant sector of people conformed outwardly to the official faith but retained an inward commitment to their own traditional religion. Throughout the lands where Muslims ruled, Christians and Jews converted to the official religion because it offered advancement, but continued to practice their old faith in secret.²⁰

This, plus the embracing of various cultural practices by Christians led Kamen to comment on the alarming nature of having no true religion. Some laypeople and ministers deny the afterlife and hell, arguing for earthly pleasures as the best life has to offer.²¹ It can be surmised that a person with unconfused beliefs (i.e. Scripture-grounded convictions) who can delineate sound doctrine was a rarity in those times. Still, Kamen points out that there existed purer versions of religiosity, unmixed with other influences, as exemplified by its respective teachers who found their unique faith a sure stronghold during the crisis. Because the Christian religion was so preserved in that it was “untarnished by formal heresy”, the Inquisition was deemed as not needed in Castille, but though it was present in Aragon, it did not do anything there. He continues to say that the church only punished its apostates while being tolerant of outsiders and that the policy of burning was almost a foreign idea to Spain when it was apparent in other European regions.²² Kamen relates that the Inquisition became a serious consideration only during the time of unrest in Andalucia, and he notes that it “failed to bring about the social tranquility” it promised.²³

The Reality About The Inquisition

The reality of the Inquisition was that it only had jurisdiction over Christians. This renders Kuttner’s accusation that the tribunal targeted both Jews and Muslims for forced conversions as groundless. Since non-Christians were exempt from the purview of the Inquisition, it emboldened many Jews to cooperate against the conversos (Jews that converted to Christianity).²⁴ For example, Kamen writes that in 1488, a Jew named Acach de Funes had a reputation for bearing false witness against the conversos in his town by accusations that they were not really Christians. This made him earn the reputation of being a “liar and a cheat”. In 1480, a Jewish resident in Aranda went around looking for witnesses who were willing to testify against a converso before the Inquisition. Kamen comments that this same Jew was said to admit in confidence to a Christian friend that he made false testimony purely out of personal vendetta. In Toledo, false witnesses by Jews were also reported. Kamen cites Hernando de Pulgar as saying about the Jews that commit false witness that they were “poor and vile men who from enmity or malice gave false testimony against some conversos saying that they judaized. Knowing the truth, the queen ordered them arrested and tortured.””²⁵

Furthermore, Kamen writes that the Inquisition discerned that contact with the Jews created this trend that endangered the conversos, thus they saw it necessary that the Jews “from all their realms and territories” must be expelled.²⁶ So to protect the conversos from these excesses, they proposed to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, for the expulsion of the Jews. Kamen explains that the monarchs hesitated for some time over this idea since this meant that they would lose revenue for the disappearance of the community from which taxes were paid directly to them to help finance their war in Granada. But religious reasons led them to decide on this issue. The motivations were not for profit. Even Ferdinand admitted that this policy would hurt his finances. However, providence led to the fall of Granada in January 1492, which encouraged them for this policy. Later, on March 31, they issued the edict of expulsion, which gave the Jews of both Castile and Aragon until July 31 to accept baptism or leave the country. The great harm suffered by the conversos from contact with the Jews was its justification.²⁷

With that said, anti-semitism could not be indicted to the king and queen. They have the heart to protect the Jews.²⁸ In fact, we can see this concretely not only in their words but also in their actions. For example, as early as 1468, they had a Catalan Jew from Tárrega, David Abenasaya, as their physician. Isabella continued to also have Jewish doctors and financiers as their closest collaborators. In 1477, Isabella declared that it was her commitment to care and protect all the Jews in her realms, and to defend, aid, and keep justice for the Jews, were her duty. In 1475, the commercial restrictions placed on Jews in the city of Bilbao, in the town of Medina de Pomar, were revoked due to the order of the crown. In 1480, the Jews had access to the town square, since the town of Olmedo was ordered to construct a gate in the wall of judería. In addition, Kamen also said that both monarchs intervened repeatedly against municipalities that made any effort to eliminate the Jews’ commercial activity. In 1484, the Jews in Burgos were not allowed to sell food. In 1485, the Jews were ordered to close their aljama on all Christian feast days. Both orders were annulled by the crown.²⁹

Furthermore, the Jews were not prevented from having prominent roles. In the court of Castile, Cardinal Juan de Torquemada (uncle of Tomas de Torquemada) was a converso, and also four bishops there. The three secretaries of the queen, Fernando Alvarez, Alfonso de Avila, and Hernando del Pulgar, and her chaplain Alonso de Burgos, were conversos. Her official chroniclers, Diego de Valera, and Alonso de Palencia, were also conversos, which shows that there was no hatred based on race on their part.³⁰

Now, even after the expulsion, the Muslims are said to fully enjoy their religious freedom in Castile for another decade, and in Aragon for another thirty years.³¹ So the allegations were totally fictional.

Kamen states that the need for an overwhelming amount of monetary and human resources and the perfect cooperation of institutions to perform massive executions was something the Inquisition lacked, and so its terrorizing impression of “omniscience” and “omnipotence”, from which its shadow was cast on every square inch of the land can only be illusory.³² This was the power they lacked to enjoy a “sinister tyranny on an unwilling people.” He maintains with his scholarship that the establishment of the Inquisition was due to the “converso situation,” and while its lethal influence was a reality in some regions, in some the tribunal seemed to be virtually non-existent. He mentions that it fulfilled the role of being a “guardian against foreign ideas, as keeper of public morality, as arbiter between factions, as tribunal for small causes — that no other institution fulfilled.”³³ Furthermore, Kamen comments that for long periods, the tribunal was “inactive and all but disappeared.” It did not exist in northwest Spain during the entire century after it came into existence in Andalucia. In the 140 years between 1536 and 1675, when it was set up in Mallorca, it did virtually nothing.³⁴

Victims of the Inquisition

As for Kuttner’s accusation that the Inquisition murdered millions of people, on the contrary, Kamen mentioned that their victims were only 1% of the number that Llorente mentioned, which is only 3,000 in number if we compute it ourselves.³⁵ And in Kamen’s book, in the “Chronology of the Inquisition”, from the founding of the Inquisition (1478) until its final abolition (1834), they had this number of victims for 356 years.³⁶

The specter of the figure of the Inquisition’s victims turns out to be just an exaggeration. In fact, Kamen mentioned that in 1481–1530, the Toledo tribunal may have dealt with over 8,000 cases, from which the “overwhelming majority” were never even tried in court. He said that “they were disciplined as a result of the edicts of grace, and had to undergo various penalties and penances, but escaped with their lives.”³⁷ Those that were brought to trial were said to be exiguous, and mostly the absentee refugees were those pronounced as worthy of the death penalty. But since many of them had already fled, effigies were burnt in their stead, which the chroniclers have put into writing as part of the total figures of the executions. Thus, the reality about those who suffered the penalty of death were only a very small number. As Kamen had accounted for the executions³⁸:

• That of Saragossa is 130.
• That of Valencia possibly is 225.
• That of Barcelona of 34.
• Ciudad Real: 30 people were burned; 40 in effigy.
• Valladolid: 32 were burned alive.

Now, the executions were only engrossed in the early stages of the Inquisition and were scarce. People perishing under their shadows only occurred in the first thirty years of their establishment. Furthermore, Kamen mentioned that the lack of documentation makes it impossible to arrive at a totally reliable estimate. Taking into account all the tribunals of Spain up to 1520, he was able to come up with more than 2,000 people.³⁹

Teachings of the Bible

There are no good reasons to agree with Dillahunty that the “Taliban-like approach” he attributes to the Inquisition is the proper application of religion. Grudem’s three reasons against the “Compel Religion” view, can be used to argue against this,⁴⁰ which are the following:

1. Jesus distinguished the realms of God and Caesar.

In Matthew 22:21 says: “They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.””

Grudem comments that this statement shows that Jesus affirms two different spheres of influence, which are that of the government and that of religious life. Some things belong to the government, which implies that religion should not control these things, and some things belong to religious life that the government should not control. He further comments that though Jesus did not specify which belonged to which, it was clear that he established a broad outline of a new order that was far different from the theocracy of the Old Testament.⁴¹

2. Jesus did not compel people to believe in him

Luke 9:52–54 said: “And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?””.

Grudem comments that the disciples thought it best to convince people by making fire come down from heaven to wipe out the Samaritan village that rejected Jesus. Though this may seem to be a persuasive method to “compel religion,” he explains that Jesus distances Himself from this idea, since in v. 55 it said: “But he turned and rebuked them.” So even Jesus does not force people to believe in Him.⁴²

3. Genuine faith cannot be forced

Here, Grudem explains that the nature of genuine faith is that it must be voluntary (cannot be compelled by force). He sees this as a reason why governments should never compel any adherence to any religion. Furthermore, he points to the ministry of Jesus and the disciples, for we can see that they always taught, reasoned, and appealed to people to make a personal decision to follow Jesus. He cites Matthew 11:28–30; Acts 28:23; Romans 10:9–10; Rev. 22:17.

Indeed, as Grudem maintains:

Genuine religious belief cannot be compelled by force, whether by fire from heaven or by the force of civil government, and Christians should have no part in any attempt to use government power to compel people to support or follow Christianity or any other religion.⁴³

Conclusion

The allegations that the Inquisition is akin to the Taliban in victimizing millions, targeting the Jews and Muslims in the name of ethnic cleansing and that it is a proper Biblical application do not correspond to history and scripture and are therefore imaginary.

While recognizing the tragic aspects of the Inquisition, it is crucial to dispel the myths and exaggerations that have shaped its historical perception. By evaluating historical evidence, cultural contexts, and religious teachings, we can gain a more nuanced understanding of the Inquisition and its complexities. Mischaracterizing the Inquisition as a religious tool of oppression overlooks the multifaceted factors at play during that period in history.

References:

1. “Do Scientists Become Atheists Because Of Their Focus On Science?” Worldview Summit, entry posted, October 7, 2023, https://www.facebook.com/WorldviewSummit/posts/pfbid0tTFzgY2hTZpJEL3T8Lz3fs5im1bAcYAvLFxTxdsVf2kuRC5bjEUSnsp6qemk4jrFl. It’s hard for me to see the exact source of this quote anymore. I tried to check again the “Dr. Ecklund” post of Worldview Summit in their Facebook page in order to get an accurate citation, but I was not able to find anything. Fortunately, I pasted this on my own notes about the objections I get from people online before. The only clue I see in my notes is that this is a reply of Paul Shen-Brown to Kevin Marcum.
2. Robert Kuttner, “What Would Jefferson Do?“ The American Prospect, entry posted October 17, 2004, https://prospect.org/culture/jefferson-do/ (accessed Feb. 13, 2024).
3. Jeff Dee and Matt Dillahunty, “Christians, read about the Inquisition!,” The Atheist Experience, YouTube video, 0:56, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tyvsdF8ueY
4. Dee and Dillahunty, “Inquisition,” at 1:59.
5. Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, 4th ed. (US: Yale University Books, 2014), 374.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., 375.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., 378.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., 379.
14. Ibid., 381.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., 382.
17. Ibid., 383.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid., 1–2.
20. Ibid., 6.
21. Ibid., 7.
22. Ibid., 9.
23. Ibid., 12.
24. Ibid., 22.
25. Ibid., 23.
26. Ibid., 25.
27. Ibid., 24–25.
28. Ibid., 70.
29. Ibid., 21.
30. Ibid., 38.
31. Ibid., 70.
32. Ibid., 90.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., 91.
35. Ibid., 383.
36. Ibid., 395–396.
37. Ibid., 68.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible: A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture (MI: Zondervan, 2010), 26. These three reasons were taken from Grudem’s reasons against the “Government Should Compel Religion View”.
41. Grudem, Politics According to the Bible, 25.
42. Ibid, 26.
43. Ibid.