16th century AD

Past & Present, Nov, 1995 by Maureen Flynn

The inquisitors' understanding of blasphemy seemed to link every speech act with conscious intent, as if language always referred to pre-existing categories contained within the human mind. This "instrumentalist conception of language", as Julia Kristeva has called it, which "presupposes the existence of thought or symbolic activity without language", has been characterized in recent deconstructionist thought as the very essence of theology, for it makes an appeal to a world beyond language, a "metaphysical" realm of pure ideas, in order to guarantee stable meaning to speech.(33)

It was precisely this notion that speech faithfully duplicated prelinguistic ideas or intentions that compelled inquisitors to assign moral culpability to blasphemy. Expressions like "Reniego de Dios" were not merely part of a person's cultural baggage, an unconscious "textual" heritage that might swell spontaneously and arbitrarily into the mind during moments of anger. Every expression had a source that, originated silently in rational thought. Curse-words, like memorized prayers, oaths and magical formulas, were therefore regarded as authentic revelations of the contents of the intellect, the core of the Christian soul.

And yet what happened when inquisitors tried to impose this literal translation of language on to everyday speech habits is altogether striking. Lay men and women charged with committing offences of blasphemy almost unanimously objected to the moral assessment of their words. The records of the Holy Office indicate, indeed, that the Spanish public made more protestations about the literal way in which the clergy interpreted their blasphemous ejaculations than about any other of their activities. In this period of widespread religious revolt, when in parts of Europe the authority of the pope was being challenged, the role of works in salvation doubted and the value of the sacraments rejected, in Spain it was the issue of whether or not blasphemy constituted heresy that sparked controversy. Catholics who were compelled to answer charges that in their familiar speech they wilfully disobeyed Christianity's moral codes raised pertinent challenges to traditional theological notions about language and its relation to moral identity.

A remarkable exchange about the meaning of verbal profanities occurred, for instance, between inquisitors and a modest, if not particularly reticent, sacristan from a small town in the province of Avila. In 1516 Juan Gutierrez was hauled before the tribunal set up in Cuenca to explain why he had uttered the words "Dios no es nada". As the inquisitors challenged Juan to defend his remarks, accusing him of denying the existence of God, he responded with a thoughtful and reasoned assessment of his inner motivations. He carefully explained to his prosecutors that obviously he did not mean what he had said about God being nothing, "for even Jews and Moors believe in God, and furthermore everyone knows that there must be a first cause [in the universe]". Arguing against a literal interpretation of his remarks, he asserted that "the existence of God cannot be denied with a few mere words". This matter, the sacristan granted, had already been confirmed ontologically by Aquinas: "God's existence does not depend on faith, it is rather a basic truth which has been proven by philosophy".