PROTESTANTISM - The Library of Iberian Resources Online

the contest over the Enchiridion. (7) We shall have occasion hereafter to treat of the adventures of the
alumbrada Francisca Hernández and the men whom she entangled in her toils; among them was
Bernardino de Tovar, also an Erasmist, half-brother of Vergara, who incurred her enmity by rescuing
him from her clutches. To revenge herself, when on trial in 1530, she accused Vergara of holding all of
Luther's doctrines, except as to confession, and of possessing some of Luther's works--the latter
accusation being true, but when, in 1530, Manrique ordered the surrender of all such books, Vergara,
after some delay, carried them to the tribunal. Another of Francisca's disciples, Fray Francisco Ortiz,
when on trial, also accused Vergara of denying the efficacy of indulgences and abusing the University
of Paris for condemning the writings of Erasmus, in which, he said, the Church had found no heretical
errors. The tribunal collected some other evidence against Vergara and industriously searched for more,
even as far as Flanders. In May, 1533, a willing witness was found in Diego Hernández, a buffoon of a
priest, whom Maria Cazalla had employed as confessor until she dismissed him for seducing a nun and
asserting that it was no sin. This worthy produced a list of seventy Lutheran heretics, qualified
according to their degrees of guilt, among whom Vergara figured as fino lutherano endiosado
(mystically abstracted). Whatever hesitation there may have been in arresting such a man, however,
disappeared when it was found, in April, 1533, that he had been communicating with Tovar in prison,
by bribing the officials. The fiscal presented his clamosa, May 17th, accusing [417] Vergara of being a
fautor and defender of heretics, a defamer of the Inquisition and a corrupter of its officials, and his
arrest and imprisonment followed on June 24th.
This occasioned general surprise. Archbishop Fonseca was deeply moved and endeavored to obtain his
release under bail for fifty thousand ducats, or to have him confined in a house under guard, but the
only result of his efforts was to lead the tribunal to shut up the windows of Vergara's cell, converting it
into a dungeon and seriously affecting his health. The trial proceeded through the regular stages. He
refused the services of an advocate and, on January 29, 1534, he presented his defence, denying nearly
all the errors attributed to him and explaining the rest in a Catholic sense. After this a fresh accusation
was presented based on his friendship for and correspondence with Erasmus, to whom he had induced
Archbishop Fonseca to grant a pension. Fonseca had died, February 24th, so that his evidence was
unattainable, but Vergara pronounced the story as to the pension to be false, though had it been true it
would have been innocent. Everyone knew that Erasmus had neither income nor benefice, never having
been willing to accept either, and that he was supported by the liberality of gentlemen who contributed
to him from all parts. Fonseca had only offered him an income if he would come to reside at Alcalá, an
offer which Ximenes had previously made. It was true that, when Erasmus dedicated to him his edition
of St. Augustin, Fonseca sent him two hundred ducats, scarce enough, in the case of so large a work, to
give the printers their customary pour-boire. Fonseca felt this, and, when he heard of the death of
Archbishop Warham of Canterbury (d. 1532), who was accustomed to provide liberally for Erasmus, he
said that he ought to pay for the printing of the book, whereupon Vergara wrote that he would send
something, but it was not done. As for corresponding with Erasmus, popes and kings and the emperor
himself were gratified to have letters from him and, in the printed collections of his epistles, were to be
found his answers to Vergara, showing that the latter had urged him to write in confutation of Luther.
The day after this defence was presented, there came the most serious evidence as yet offered against
him. This was from another distinguished Erasmist, then on trial, Alonso de Virués, who testified that,
four years before, in a discussion whether the sacrament worked ex opere opéralo, Vergara ridiculed it
as a fantastic opinion, [418] and further, that he did not hold as he should, certain pious and Catholic
doctrines. It is true that the Council of Trent had not yet pronounced, as it did in 1547 (Sess. VII, De
Sacramentis, can. viii) the self-operation of the sacrament to be de fide, but the doctrine was coeval
with the development of the sacramental theory in the twelfth century and was indispensable in
vindication of its validity in polluted hands against the Donatist heresy. To deny it, even in disputation,