Yes, I concealed what I knew: that the shepherd lad who served as model for our Chronicler had alternated his sodomite afternoons with nights in the bed of La Señora. Guzmán communicated the crime against nature to El Señor, and El Señor, with no further formality, ordered the death of the youth, who was sentenced to burn at the stake beneath the kitchens of his sinful, although not unique, amours. I consulted with La Señora, convincing her that she should sacrifice her private pleasure to her public rank, and promising her, in exchange for her present sacrifice, renewed and increased pleasures in the future. “For the powers of re-creation are much more vast than those of extinction, Señora, and for every thing that dies three are born in its place.”
From the Chronicler’s cubicle, to which I had free access because of our frequent and delightful conversations, I removed some culpable papers in which my erudite friend related, mistakenly, the multiple possibilities of the judgment of Christ Our Lord at the hands of Pontius Pilate; I showed the papers to Guzmán, who did not understand their content but took me to El Señor, to whom I pointed out that in the guise of fable that narration evoked the anathematized heresies of Docetism, which affirms the phantasmal nature of the corporeal body of Christ; of the Syrian Gnosticism of Saturninus, which proclaims the unknowable and untransmissible character of a unique Father; of the Egyptian Gnosticism of Basilides, which has Simon of Cyrene supplant Christ upon the cross, and Christ becomes merely a witness to the death agonies of another; of the Judaizing Gnosticism of Cerinthus and the Ebionites, combated by the Father of the Church, Irenaeus, for declaring that Christ the God occupied only temporarily the body of Jesus the man; of the Patripassianist monarchism that identifies the Son with the Father; of the Sabellian variant that conceives of a Son who is emitted from the Father like a ray of light; of the Apollinarian heresy and of extreme Nestorianism, which attributes to two different persons the acts of Jesus and of Christ; and finally, of the doctrine of Pelagian freedom, condemned by the Council of Carthage and by the writings of the saintly Bishop of Hippo, which denies the doctrine of Original Sin.
“I shall be even more explicit, Señor; the fable is worse than the heresy it illustrates, for in one instance the most Pure Virgin, Our Lady, admits adultery with an anonymous camel driver; in another, Our Lord Jesus Christ declares that he is a simple political agitator of Palestine; and, in the most evil of these examples, our St. Joseph declares himself criminally responsible not only for having betrayed our Sweet Jesus but for having built as well the cross that served as the rack of torture that redeemed our sins. And there is more, Señor. I investigated the palace archives; my suspicions were well founded: the Chronicler is a marrano, a pig, a filthy Jew, the son of converted Jews.”
But instead of being scandalized by the crushing weight of my most careful explication, El Señor asked me to repeat it, again and again; his eyes shone, his curiosity changed to delight, but delight did not give way to shock. I requested, as was natural, that the Chronicler be handed over to the Holy Office; El Señor waited a long while, his eyes closed, before answering me; finally, he placed one hand on my shoulder and asked this most unexpected question: “Brother Julián, have you never seen an uneducated soldier vomit and defecate upon the altar of the Eucharist?”
I answered no, not understanding the sense of his question.
El Señor continued in these terms: “Should I deliver you to the Holy Inquisition for having repeated these heresies?”
Hiding my alarm, I told him I repeated them only to denounce an enemy of the Faith, but that I myself did not sustain them.
“And how do you know whether the Chronicler has not done the same: merely recounted them, without approving them?”
“Señor, these papers…”
“When I was young, I met a student. He, too, believed that there was no Original Sin. He lived, fought, and loved (perhaps died, I do not know; one day I thought I had seen his ghost in the profaned Cathedral), because he believed that God could not have condemned us to misery even before we were born. Others died in the halls of my father’s castle for believing what that student believed … but they were not redeemed by the grace of their thought. Not they, or those crude Teutonic soldiers who besmirched the altar of my victory. Imagine, Friar, that I had challenged those rebels and soldiers: explain in writing the ideas that move you to action, and you shall remain free; if not, you will be executed. None would have been capable of reply; none could have saved himself from death. On the other hand, the student and the Chronicler…”
This frail Señor seized my hand with great strength, squeezed my fist in his, and looked at me with terrifying intensity. “Brother Julián, we must have faith unto death in the values of our religion; let us condemn the idolaters and the infidels, but not the heretics, for they do not deny religion, rather they buttress it by revealing the infinite possibilities for combining our holy truths; let us burn the rebels who rise up against our necessary power in the name of a freedom that they themselves, should they obtain it, would be incapable of exercising, but let us not act against the heretics who in the saintly solitude of their intelligence fortify, unknowingly, the unity of our power by multiplying the alternatives of Faith.”
“But you yourself crushed the Adamite heresy in Flanders, Señor, how then…?”
“That heresy was a pretext employed by the Princes and merchants of the North in order to free themselves from the protection of Rome, and the payment of tithes and indulgences, and in order to name docile bishops who would work on behalf of the power of Mercury, not St. Peter. I acted at the behest of the Pope, not against the heretics, but against those who incited and manipulated them. Do you understand me, Friar?”
With the utmost respect, I bowed my head and then shook my head that I did not; I looked up, seeking my master’s eyes; he was smiling with acerbic pity.
“But you, better than anyone, should understand. Theological skirmishes, Friar, are less dangerous than political ones. Political contention first debilitates me, but then forces me to act, whereas theological arguments divert and channel energies that otherwise would be turned against the government of these kingdoms. I know that the extent and the unity of my power removes very vast powers from the hands of men, but still, that men maintain reserves of uneasiness and strength that someday might menace me; I know that, Friar. I prefer that these reserves be spent in arguing whether Mary conceived without sin, whether Christ was God or man, rather than in discussing whether my power is of divine origin and if, in short, I am deserving of it. Heresy, then, is tolerable as long as it is not employed directly against power.”
“Señor, the prelate who resides here in the palace might think differently.”
“And who will show him these papers, tell me that, Brother Julián … who?”
“You would discourage those of us who try to watch out for your interests. The cause is clear: the Chronicler is a heretic, a Jew reverted to his beliefs…”
“And it is your wish that he be delivered to the Holy Inquisition?”
“It is, Señor.”
“And you say you are safeguarding my interests? Is it your wish that I strengthen, by constantly offering it more jurisdiction, a power that I prefer remain marginal, expectant, dependent upon me, not I upon it? For if I nourish it, the Inquisition will grow at my expense. No, Julián. I prefer to be a little more tolerant in order to remain a little stronger. Our Chronicler does not deserve the renown you would accord him by prosecuting him before the Holy Office, nor do I deserve that for so slight a reason such a tribunal be aggrandized to the degree that someday it might impose its policies upon me. Always minimize your enemy, Friar, particularly if with that action you also diminish a dangerous ally.”