The Imprint of Tyranny Part 1

Today Evangelists preserve the error by claiming their followers who accept in silence and without question what they are told, are the “real Christians,” and intellectuals are the instruments of the Devil.

(PASO ROBLES, Calif.) - Tyranny is a rational and also cultural phenomenon generally born of custom, and always reinforced by fear. It can exist at every level of the social milieu. Michel de Montaigne, writing at the beginning of the seventeenth century, saw its essence as follows:

“For truly custom is a violent and deceiving schoolmistress. She little by little, and, as it were by stealth, establisheth the fact of her authority in us; by which mild and gentle beginning, if once by the aid of time, it have settled and planted the same in us, it will soon discover a furious and tyrannical countenance unto us, against which we have no more the liberty to lift so much as our eyes.”

Montaigne was referring to the dynamic of collective emotionalism in his day. Rousseau spoke of it as "general will," that abstract force which derives its power from the felt, rather than codified values and norms of a community. The individual comfort of each of us depends on how successful we are in suppressing unacceptable impulses and in harmonizing our individual wills with the greater will of the community of which we are a part. Those who fail to adjust will, in addition to the weight of public displeasure, suffer the punishments prescribed by law; public penance, ridicule, fine and/or one of the varied forms of banishment.

In Montaigne's day a variety, or all forms of banishment [enslavement, exile, or death [the most permanent form of banishment] and confiscation was used to reduce the accused to obedience or to the level of reprobate. Ex-communication meant the loss of all things civilized as an example to others of the consequence for failing to abide by community values and norms consistent with the demands of Christianity.

Christianity had long been the symbol of western civilization. As a social institution its ostensible purpose was to bring order out of chaos. It can persuasively be argued, however, that it was as much political as it was spiritual in that, so far as the Church was able to make its members conform, the Church was able to consolidate a terrible power unto itself. The Inquisition was the instrument created by the Church to achieve its goal. It is perhaps the best example of a coercive social device ever devised by man. The example was not lost on later generations; Fascism and the Stalin era of Russian Communism - two of many instances of dictatorial regimes - drew heavily upon the example provided by the Christian hierarchy.

Many Inquisitors exhibited morbid tendencies, their disregard for human dignity and the disgusting habit of using familiars to spy on and report to the Holy Office persons suspected of deviating from the faith - children were even expected to report members of their family - all contributed to the awesomeness of the Catholic Inquisitions in Rome and Germany, but in Spain the power of Inquisitors was legend.

To be Spanish was to be Catholic, and heretics were the prey at a time that coincided with the early period of the Reformation and Counter Reformation, as well as the discovery of the New World subsequent to the expulsion of the Moors in 1492. Jews were expelled too, unless they converted to Christianity. Still, the character of any community is never an accurate description of the attitude of every member of a society. Social and institutional conduct was geared to the demands of Catholicism, but privately individuals tended to be what they were born to be, and to think as they liked so long as their thoughts posed no threat to the religious order. Otherwise, beware!

Tyranny, as here defined, refers to the exercise of power from whatever source - institutional, social, and individual [usually in the form of givens] - in such a way as to rob individuals of the freedom to think for themselves, and to consider alternative points of view. Tyranny runs the gamut from subtle and gentle persuasion to abusive power in the extreme, but its imprint both primary and residual is upon the person who experiences it as well as upon descendants.

Those who live comfortably within a community’s values and norms tend to bend willingly to a subtle and silent-tyranny that gently re-enforces expectation within familiar ranks. If the force for conformity is severe, the effect produced upon free-thinkers can be decisive [see below]. But in both instances beliefs imposed by force or by givens, once internalized can be transmitted to future generations that receive them unquestionably. Imprinting [total commitment] of attitudes and beliefs of others can perpetuate them for generations, be they right or wrong.

The common denominator that made Spain a nation was Catholicism. The Inquisition was a Roman invention that Spain adopted early, but with vigor in the 15th century coincident with its national unification when Queen Isabella of Aragon married her consort from Castile. Thereafter, Spaniards residing in the peninsula and the New World territories were expected to be of the Roman-Catholic persuasion, and few were more exuberant in this regards than the Conquistadores.

Thousands of Jews in Spain, faced with choice of survival or expulsion, accepted baptism rather than the alternative, but in fact retained the rituals of Judaism in private. They were referred to as “conversos” or in derogatory terms, “marranos” [pigs]. Torquemada was a notorious Inquisitor who also was a “converso,” a Jew turned Catholic, who had risen to the rank of Confessor for Isabella as a child. Spain’s Inquisitors were known for their severity and insistence that lives be lived in the homogenized whole of an Apostolic Oneness, or not at all.

For over 350 Years, 1478-1834, the purpose of Spain’s Inquisition was the destruction of everyone not a sincere Roman Catholic, Jews in particular, then Protestants, and eventually non-conformists of every conceivable sort. The tendency of conversos to be less than sincere sufficed to provide a constant flow of grist for the gore of the Inquisitor's mill.

Its effect was overwhelming, and to a large extent, everlasting. THE SPANISH INQUISITION, by Cecil Roth, W.W. Norton & company, New York - London; 1964 - should be read by all if they are at all interested in what is written here.

The awesome power of Inquisitions generally is best understood in light of the events leading up to them. For the rise to power of Christianity would not have occurred without the impetus provided by Emperor Constantine who in 312 AD (as told by his biographer, Eusebius):

“Being convinced he needed some more powerful aid than his military forces could afford him - on account of the wicked and magical enchantments which were so diligently practiced by his adversary, the tyrant Maxentius - he considered therefore on what god he might rely for protection and assistance” [The Medieval World, 300 to 1300, by Norman Cantor contains primary documentation in support of this and what follows].

Clearly, Constantine was seeking magic by which to influence the outcome of the impending battle in his favor; a power that, because of his invocation, would work to his advantage. Christians offered him a banner that said, "CONQUER WITH THIS,” and the battle was won. As a result, Constantine became the patron of Christians, and influenced the development of the Church in ways that have endured for centuries.

He enunciated the doctrine of Caesaropapism [a political system in which the head of state has authority over the Church and all religious matters], and established the Holy Roman Empire; he imposed the Nicene Creed [325 AD] on the membership of the then national hierarchies to end their continuing controversy on how best to describe the nature of the Trinity. He helped the Church by imperial decree, lending to it the power of the secular sword of steel as an added persuasion to ameliorate dissension in the empire. It was expected that every citizen should be of the same faith as was the emperor.

If the Church condemned a non-Christian of a crime against religion, the victim was "relaxed" to the secular authority for execution, but if a Christian was accused and convicted under canon-law, the Church had the culprit burned at the stake for all to see. In the first instance, the Church symbolically washed its hands, but the outcome was never in doubt. Either way, the message was the same, anything that might reduce the authority of the Church and the Empire would not be tolerated.

For centuries the influence of the Church increased under the auspices of the Holy Roman Empire while Church and State became ever more intricately inter-dependent. The combined authority of the ecclesiastical [celestial] and secular arms of government, called “celesianemptor,” exercised its authority over the masses. In the eleventh century, Rome began advocating "Liberty to the Church;" that sought to control all matters pertaining to religion, and the Reforms of Pope Gregory VII provoked a debate on the Nature of a Christian Society that marked the beginning of changing attitudes.

The self-interest of the Church evoked a reaction on the part of secular Lords who, within their domains, ordained bishops based on their Right of Caesaropapism, and they initiated the move toward Monarchy as counter-force to the growing ambition of the Church. The Renaissance watered the seed of change.

The Renaissance was the catalyst that gave new meaning to the spirit of individualism, and an ancillary product of expanding trade was the rediscovery of manuscripts of Greek philosophy prior to and coincident with Christianity. Moslem and Jew intellectuals in Spain translated them which allowed secular Lords with education enough, or someone to read to them, to contrast and compare the character of the Church as it was viewed in their time with the purity of its beginning. These translations were disseminated to persons throughout the empire who could afford and wanted them.

[NOTE: Moslems and Jews lived outside the Church, and were not subject to the rule of ignorance imposed on members by the Church. Hence, they became the vehicle of transmission and enlightenment of others, not by design, but by chance. About the end of the 15th century Spain banished Moslems and Jews from the Peninsula, robbing itself of the greatest part of its Intelligentsia that marked the beginning of Spain’s decline at the very moment of its greatest achievement, the discovery of the New World with all its riches. An error Spain was never able to correct].

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Kenneth G. Ramey was a 79-year old "writer without a Website" who is generating excellent, provocative articles on the subject of religion and world affairs. We are pleased that Ken's "lone wolf" presence as a writer in the world has been replaced by a spot on our team of writers at Salem-News.com. Raised in Minnesota and California during the dark years of the Great American Depression, Ken is well suited to talk about the powerful forces in the world that give all of us hope and tragedy and everything in between. You can write to Ken at: darken1@sbcglobal.net