The Bible in Spain

“ It is true that Protestantism became at times a political engine, but God worked through it in fulfillment of his own word: "Every valley shall be exalted and every hill brought low." It was in the thirteenth century, when all Europe was arousing from the torpor of the Dark Ages, that translations of the Bible into several vernacular languages first appeared. In this great movement Spain was a leader. King Alphonso the Wise caused a Spanish translation of the Bible to be made in 1260 "for the improvement of the Castilian language;" ”

“ I have no doubt that such an edition as you propose to print would have a most beneficial influence on the minds of the people, who, between ourselves, know nothing of pure religion; how should they? seeing that the Gospel has always been sedulously kept from them, just as if civilization could exist where the light of the Gospel beameth not. The moral regeneration of Spain depends upon the free circulation of the Scriptures; to which alone England, your own happy country, is indebted for its high state of civilization and the unmatched prosperity which it at present enjoys. ”

“ The clouds of bigotry and superstition which for so many centuries cast their dreary shadow upon Spain, are to a considerable degree dispelled, and there is little reason for supposing that they will ever again conglomerate. The Papal See is no longer regarded with reverence, and its agents and ministers have incurred universal scorn and odium; therefore any fierce and determined resistance to the Gospel in Spain is not to be apprehended either from the people themselves, or from the clergy, who are well aware of their own weakness. ”

“ It appears to me that a glorious reform is commencing in Spain; indeed matters have lately come to my knowledge, which had they been prophesied only a year ago by the Spirit of truth itself, I should have experienced much difficulty in believing. You will be surprised when I tell you that in two churches of Madrid, the New Testament is regularly expounded every Sunday evening, by the respective curates, to about twenty children who attend, and who are provided with copies of the Society’s edition of Madrid, 1837. ”

“ There was only one translation, however, with a value of its own, and that was the Spanish, for this was made from the Hebrew Old Testament by the help of some Spanish Jews. Both the king of Spain and the high clergy showed at that time a remarkable breadth of view in trying to get a trustworthy translation. All other versions in the West were based upon the Latin Vulgate as the recognised Bible of the church, and they were made with more devotion than knowledge. The translators usually did not know Latin well nor were they masters of their own language. ”

“ I believe that the fear of the Bible and the hatred of the Jews of Spain, first imprinted in the page of history by the Council of Illiberis in the beginning of the fourth century, was in course of time much aggravated by the earnest love of the Spanish Jews for the original scriptures of the Old Testament. It was not until the eleventh century that rabbinical tradition gained much hold in the Jewish mind in Spain, but, from the first, Christians had cursed Jews in sincere but blind zeal against the descendants, as they thought, of those who crucified our Lord in Jerusalem. ”

“ Every house in this street is supplied with its Testament, and the same may be said with respect to the Puerta del Sol; nay, in some instances every individual in the house, man and child, man-servant and maid-servant, is furnished with a copy, which we have invariably sold, and never given. My Greek Antonio has made wonderful exertions in this quarter, and it is but justice to say that but for his instrumentality, on many occasions, I might be by no means able to give so favourable an account of the spread of the Bible in Spain, as I now conscientiously can. ”

“ We have had considerable difficulty hitherto in circulating Testaments, and we have merely been enabled to scatter about the thousands, which are now being read, by very extraordinary exertions. Nevertheless when I take a large view of the subject I feel inclined to believe that we were right in commencing our labours in the interior of Spain by printing an edition of the New Testament at Madrid. ”

“ It may be replied, that New Testaments separate are in great demand, and of infinite utility in England, but England, thanks be to the Lord, is not a papal country; and though an English labourer may read a Testament, and derive from it the most blessed fruit, it does not follow that a Spanish or Italian peasant will enjoy similar success, as he will find many dark things with which the other is well acquainted, and competent to understand, being versed in the Bible history from his childhood. ”

“ I replied; “more especially if they would attempt to do so by circulating the Bible, the book of Christians, even as the English are doing in Spain. But your excellency is not perhaps aware that the Pope has a fair field and fair play in England, and is permitted to make as many converts from Lutheranism every day in the week as are disposed to go over to him. He cannot boast, however, of much success; the people are too fond of light to embrace darkness, and would smile at the idea of exchanging their gospel privileges for the superstitious ceremonies and observances of the church of Rome.” ”

“ The laws concerning the publishing the Scripture have been diligently and minutely examined, and it has been discovered that by none of the laws of Spain, ancient or modern, whether made by Cortes or by kings, is the publication of the Scripture, in the whole or in parts, with or without comment, forbidden—but merely and solely by particular Bulls of various Bishops of Rome, which Bulls though respected by many of the Spaniards form no part of the law of Spain. ”

“ The most learned Spanish Humanists assembled there, together with many foreigners, and works of note were produced, such as the famous polyglot Bible in Hebrew, Greek, Chaldean, and Latin, with accompanying grammars and vocabularies. Not a little of the advancement in intellectual manifestations was due to the encouragement of the Catholic Kings, especially Isabella. Books coming into Spain were exempted from duty; ordinances were made regulating university life, and ridding it of much of its turbulence and abuses ”

“ Let us hope that the present is the dawning of better and more enlightened times, and though little has been accomplished, still it is more than nothing that Testaments are being sold in unhappy benighted Spain, from Madrid to the northernmost part of Galicia, a distance of nearly four hundred miles. ”

“ In many instances, when the peasants of the neighbourhood came with an intention of purchasing some of the foolish popular story-books of Spain, he persuaded them to carry home Testaments instead, assuring them that the sacred volume was a better, more instructive, and even far more entertaining book than those they came in quest of. ”

“ It is scarcely necessary to remark that every country which has been long subjected to the sway of popery is in a state of great and deplorable ignorance. Spain, as might have been expected, has not escaped this common fate, and the greatest obstacle to the diffusion of the Gospel light amongst the Spaniards would proceed from the great want of education amongst them. Perhaps there are no people in the world to whom nature has been, as far as regards mental endowments, more bounteously liberal than the Spaniards. ”

“ In fact, a few days afterwards, I had an interview with Isturitz at the palace, and for the sake of brevity I shall content myself with saying that I found him perfectly well disposed to favour my views. “I have lived long in England,” said he; “the Bible is free there, and I see no reason why it should not be free in Spain also. I am not prepared to say that England is indebted for her prosperity to the knowledge which all her children, more or less, possess of the sacred writings ”

“ In Spain,—yes, in Spain,—the Bible is read, and people write and speak freely against the errors of the Church of Rome; nay, the Cortes denounce the vices of the clergy, and defend liberty of conscience; they propose means which, a few years ago, would have been visited with the most cruel persecution, and with the brutum fulmen of anathema. The government expatriate reactionary bishops without so much as a murmur from the people against these strokes of severity ”

“ Yet such acts and formalities constitute what is termed religion at Compostella, where, perhaps, God and His will are less known and respected than at Pekin or amid the wildernesses where graze the coursers of the Mongol and the Mandchou. Perhaps there is no part of Spain where the Romish religion is so cherished as throughout Galicia. In no part of Spain are the precepts and ordinances of that Church, especially fasting and confession, so strictly observed, and its ministers regarded with so much respect and deference. ”

“ When the early colonists left Spain for the New World, they took with them the Creed of Pius IV. That creed expressly states that the Bible is not for the people. "Whoever will be saved must renounce it. It is a forbidden book."
"In 1850, when the Christian world was first being roused to the darkness of South America, and philanthropic men were desirous of sending Bibles there, Pope Pius IX. wrote an Encyclical letter in which he spoke of Bible study as 'poisonous reading,' and urged all his venerable brethren with vigilance and solicitude to put a stop to it. ”

“ The poor people no sooner heard their curate recommend the volumes, than all were eager to secure one, and hurried here and there for the purpose of procuring money, so that between twenty and thirty copies were sold almost in an instant. This adventure not only affords an instance of the power still possessed by the Spanish clergy over the minds of the people, but proves that such influence is not always exerted in a manner favourable to the maintenance of ignorance and superstition. ”

“ Then all her Andalusian blood would be roused, and she would declaim for hours in no measured terms against the spoliation of the monasteries, those centres of education and civilization in the villages and outlying districts; against the introduction of schools without religion, and colleges without faith; and the propagation of infidel opinions through the current literature of the day.
Previous acquaintance with the people had already made some of our travellers aware of the justice of many of her remarks. Catholicism in Spain is not merely the religion of the people; it is their life. ”

“ Preaching has rarely any other object than the explanation of some article of the faith, or a panegyric on the life of some saint. There are no interpreters of the gospel to be heard from the Spanish pulpit, except during the period of Lent. The preachers like rather to refer to and expatiate largely on miracles, than to unfold the morals of the New Testament; and, in general, it may be taken as a fact that the immense majority of the Spanish population, and especially those of the poorer class, have the most incomplete and erroneous ideas of the life and doctrines of Jesus Christ. ”

“ They believe uncompromisingly in the Roman Catholic religion, but have a ready eye for the faults of its ministers; they love and reverence{40} the Church as a refuge from reality, but continue to be realists in their mysticism. The Church in Spain has done noble work, but it has been a retreat more than a morality, encouraging hollow shows rather than love of truth, [40] patience and submission rather than enterprise and a persistent search for remedies. ”

“ A Church which had inspired the seven-hundred-years' battle against the Moors, which had produced miracles of holiness and of genius like Santa Teresa and San Juan de la Cruz, which had stemmed the flood of the Reformation and rolled it back from the Pyrenees, was regarded as the one moral authority, the sole possible form of religion, and as the symbol of Latin unity under Spain's headship. ”

“ A good test of the sincerity of religious conviction is what it costs the purse; new churches, like those of Barcelona, are not built by lip-religion. I spent several Sunday mornings sitting on one of the side benches of the Cathedral, learning that the Catalan, disunited from his mother land on many points, is ineradicably national in his creed. This was Spain, with the grave reverence of the smallest child, where the church is a loved home, a frequented refuge for meditation and strengthening prayer. ”

“ It has not within its fold the philosophers, the statesmen, and the thinkers, who are the leaders of the human race.
It is claimed that Catholicism "interpenetrates all the nations of the civilized world," and that "in some it holds the whole nation in its unity."
I suppose the Catholic Church is more powerful in Spain than in any other nation. The history of this nation demonstrates the result of Catholic supremacy, the result of an acknowledgment by a people that a certain religion is too sacred to be examined. ”

“ The immense majority of the people are professed adherents of the Roman Catholic faith, so that, so far as numbers go, Spain is still the most “Catholic” country in the world, as it has long been styled. With liberty of conscience during the Revolution, from 1868 to 1877, the Church lost ground, and anti-clerical ideas prevailed for a while in the centres of republicanism in Catalonia and Andalusia; but a reaction set in with the Restoration. ”

“ And so powerful was this impression in the minds of the deputies that the article only accords freedom of worship to foreigners in Spain, and adds, hypothetically, that if any Spaniards should profess any other religion than the Catholic, they are entitled to the same liberty as foreigners. The Inquisition has been dead half a century, but you can see how its ghost still haunts the official mind of Spain. It is touching to see how the broken links of the chain of superstition still hang about even those who imagine they are defying it. ”