Martin Luther, a German professor, priest and monk, inadvertently sparked the protestant reformation ablaze across Europe with the nailing of the 95 theses to the Wittenberg church door on October 31, 1517. With the invention of the printing press in the century before, Luther’s 95 theses (or academic disputation on the Power of Indulgences) were taken from the church door, reproduced and distributed throughout Europe, stirring a movement that would forever change the face of the Western world.
What the 16th-century protestants sought was the reformation of the catholic church by returning to the teaching of the ultimate and sole authority of God’s word for all of life and thought. The Roman Catholics, however, in an effort to preserve their hierarchical authority and religious tradition, sought to quell the reformation by means of the Inquisition. While the Catholics did experience an ecclesiastical reform under cardinal Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros (1436-1517), as it concerned doctrine they remained largely unchanged, even after the council of Trent (1545-1563).[1] Several books lay out the history of the protestant reformation and its contributions to Western society, such as The Reformation in England by J.H. Merle d’Aubigné, The Legacy of Luther by Dr. Stephen Nichols, and Protestants: The Faith that Made the Modern World by Alec Ryrie. But what about Ibero-America? How was the reformation received in the Spanish colonies of the New World? And what contributions did it make to society, if at all?
Poisoned Waters
While there were certainly pre-reformationists, such as John Hus (1369-1415), who said before being burnt at the stake that “You are going to burn a goose, but in a century you will have a swan which you can neither roast nor boil”, Luther, the swan Hus had predicted, is credited with being the reformation’s catalyst.[2] For this reason, the leaders of the Roman Catholic church surmised that any attack upon Protestantism must involve an attack against the person of Luther. Whereas, by his own right, Luther was a thinker, theologian, linguist and reformer, the Roman Catholic elites made every effort to portray him as a corrupter and “necrotic, contagious cancer.”[3] The thought was that by removing the founding person from the picture you would have dealt with the movement. And while this tactic was far from successful in Europe, the Inquisition did find success in indoctrinating the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, which were, for the most part, free from foreign influence. The reformation was perceived by Ibero-americans as an infection, a heresy that threatened the orthodoxy of the church, and the blame was laid at the feet of the German reformer. As Lutheran scholar Andrew L. Wilson explains:
Luther in Ibero-America is not a man, or even a heretical theologian; he is a cipher when not an outright demon. If for the Germans Luther was Moses’ bronze serpent, held aloft to chase away evil snakes and heal the sick in the wilderness, for the Spanish he was rejected as a foul and misleading idol, as happened to the same bronze serpent under Hezekiah.[4]
This demonization is why, even today, Protestantism is seen from a negative light in the eyes of Ibero-american Catholics. What made matters worse was that the reformation had begun around the same time as a heretical, mystical movement in Spain, the Alumbrados. To keep it short, the alumbrados were originally Catholics and Jews who adopted certain elements of Lutheran theology and incorporated it into a renewed Gnosticism for the sixteenth-century, revived from their Visigoth heritage.[5] They were mystics who sought to do away with the sacraments, redefine sin and reality, and experience direct contact with God. Given that some Lutheran teachings had been accepted by the alumbrados, the Inquisition believed it convenient to lump both together as if they were one and the same, making the false image of Luther as a corrupter instead of a reformer all the more easier to believe. But why such malice? Why such resistance to what could have reinvigorated Christian faith in Spain?
Ever since Spain had been reconquered from the Muslims in 1492, the monarchal authorities had sought to solidify Spain as a united nation under one religion, Roman Catholicism. This is what birthed forth the Inquisition, a religious institution dedicated to combating heresy. The Inquisition was ruthless, heresy was punishable by death, and whatever evil Christians had suffered while under Muslim occupation was now being committed by Catholic authorities as the tables turned. Muslims were the first target of the Inquisitors, then came the Jews, and once they had dealt with both groups by expelling them from the land, “Luther came on the scene just in the nick of time to save an institution in an identity crisis.”[6] The protestants were the next in line, and to even consider a tinge of their reformational teachings would have meant weakness in the religious constitution of Spain and Portugal.
What reached Ibero-America?
As to what reformational material reached Ibero-America, we can say with certainty that the works of a Catholic preacher in Sevilla, Constantino Ponce de la Fuente, made it into the hands of Ibero-american people groups. Ponce was a covert protestant, heavily influenced by Luther’s writings. He wrote several books, such as the Exposición del Primer Salmo,[7] Confesión de un Pecador,[8] Sermón de Nuestro Redentor en el Monte,[9] and Suma de Doctrina Cristiana.[10] His works were imported and distributed throughout the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, where, for example, the Franciscan bishop Juan de Zumarraga (first bishop of Mexico) applied his teachings to the Mesoamerican mission field.[11] There is evidence, in fact, that the Nahua and Zacatecas of Mexico were instructed by Ponce’s writings in the biblical basics of the Christian faith.[12] But Ponce could not avoid the inevitable result of a covert protestant at work in Spain, Ponce was condemned by the Inquisition when Lutheran documents written by him were ceased from one of his imprisoned followers. He had hoped as a learned theologian and exegete to reform the Roman Catholic church from within, and through his writings lay the doctrinal foundation for the missional work of the Ibero-american colonies, his protestant convictions, however, meant his martyrdom.[13]
Given the religious fervor of the Inquisition, it is not believed that Luther’s works, or that of the other reformers – aside from Ponce’s, made it to Ibero-America. There may have been some isolated cases in which they were smuggled in by small protestant cells, but based on present historical evidence (or at least, evidence that is easily accessible to us), it isn’t likely that they would have been preserved. Sending Protestant works to the New World was a perilous task, the Inquisition often screened imported publications and destroyed anything protestant that they would find. And, if possible, the sender could also be traced if he/she hadn’t sufficiently covered his/her tracks. The thinking behind the Inquisitorial censorship was that, if Protestantism was growing in Europe, Spain must ensure that Roman Catholicism was growing throughout the rest of the world. It was, after all, the pride of Spain to be the champion of Roman Catholicism, and it sought to achieve this end by whatever means possible.
We can, however, say with certainty that we do have evidence of the first Spanish translation of the Bible, the Biblia del Oso, being successfully smuggled into Latin America shortly after its publication in 1569. Casiodoro de Reina, a Spanish protestant reformer who was exiled from his home land, completed his translation of the Old and New Testaments in the Spanish vernacular tongue. His edition was followed by a later revision by his friend Cipriano de Valera, the Biblia del Cantaro, in an effort to perfect the translation. These Bibles were smuggled into the New World, with protestant communities willing to run the risk to receive them; and they would have been an invaluable treasure, given how long its texts had been kept in the ivory towers of Catholic scholarship. Unfortunately, given the Inquisition’s presence in Ibero-America, the Biblia del Oso was soon after discovered and destroyed. As the scholar Cornelius Hegeman informs us:
It was informed that the bishop Agustin Davila Padilla (1599, arrived from Mexico to Santo Domingo) took 300 copies of the protestant Bible in 1599 and ordered them burnt in public. The council of Trent forbade the laity from reading the Bible.[14]
The protestant Bible would have experienced a similar fate in other Spanish colonies, leading to protestant printers and smugglers to experiment with their general practice, such as altering the appearance of future prints in order to fool the Inquisitorial inspectors. We have evidence of this, for example, in the antiquities collection of the Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia, where La Biblia del Oso of 1622 is housed.[15] This Bible belonged to the Colombian linguist Rufino Cuervo, who received it as a gift after it had been rejected by the Compañía de Jesús (Jesus Company) upon discovery of its protestant contents.[16] In place of the usual cover images of the Oso or the Cantaro, a Pegasus was featured in an attempt to throw off the Inquisitorial inspectors, given that both the Biblia del Oso and Cantaro were on the list of prohibited books.[17] While details as to how it arrived in Latin America has been lost to time, we can conclude that it had crossed over the Atlantic on an import ship. For those who may be interested, this copy of the Bible has been digitized and made available for public viewing.[18]
How Cuervo got away with having possession of the Bible is a mystery, though we could surmise that both the cover image of the Pegasus and its opening Latin text were sufficient to keep it from Inquisitorial detection. If someone in the New World were to have ever been found with the Biblia del Oso, or any other protestant literature, it would have meant either martyrdom, if the person did not renounce it, or ostracization – in Luther’s case, demonization, given his safe sanctum in Germany. There were safe havens in the New World that were under foreign protection, the only reason why some protestants would have escaped the Inquisition.[19] Nonetheless, the colonial period proved to be a dark period in the history of Ibero-America, no religious tolerance was permitted in the empire of Roman Catholic Spain, whether it was Protestantism, Judaism, or anything else for that matter. It was a quest for the realization of an enforced religious uniformity.
The Absence of Protestant Influence
As a result of the Inquisition’s efforts and the counter-reformation in Ibero-america, the protestant reformation had little to no influence on the development of Ibero-american religion and society. On the contrary, its absence gave way to animism, religious syncretism, and later modernism. As pastor and scholar Miguel Núñez writes:
The Latin American worldview has been mostly animistic, syncretistic and modernist… Animism has not only influenced the traditional Church of Rome, but also many of the anti-biblical beliefs manifested in “evangelical” churches that abuse the practice of the supernatural gifts of the Spirit. “Modernism” is the best way of labelling the worldview of the continent, mixed with Roman Catholicism, Deism and Animism.[20]
All these facts paint a picture that explains why Christian life in the region didn’t experience the same transformation and flourishing as that of Europe and North America, and why it failed to serve as an instrument for the transformation of its culture.[21] In the end, culture can only possibly reflect the religious worldview of the people, culture is the people’s religion externalized. It should be of no wonder then that Ibero-American culture failed to exhibit the fruits of biblical, protestant convictions in its history, this is because there were none, and if there were, it was certainly anemic. That is not to discredit the present-day protestant churches that are working the mission fields, or the past missionaries who have long suffered to plant biblically reformed churches, it simply means that Protestantism, as a major cultural influencer, has been absent for much of Ibero-America’s history, but Lord-willing, not for long.
Read the extended edition in La Fuente, Vol. 1: A Call to Reformation, No. 1/2021
[1] Joyce E. Salisbury, The History of Spain: Land on a Crossroad (USA: The Great Courses, 2017), Chapter 14, Audiobook.
[2] Greg Morse, “Jan Hus c. 1369-1415”, Desiring God. Accessed Dec. 10, 2018, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-goosefather
[3] Andrew L. Wilson, “The Unfortunate Fate of Luther in the Ibero-American World” in Studies in Luther (USA: Lutheran Forum, Summer 2009), 29.
[4] Ibid.
[5] See Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, Historia de los Heterodoxos Españoles (Madrid, Spain: Editorial Católica Española, 1880), Book II, 521-585; Book III, 403-408.
[6] Wilson, “The Unfortunate Fate of Luther in the Ibero-American World”, 31.
[7] Exposition of the First Psalm
[8] Confessions of a Sinner
[9] Sermon of Our Redeemer on the Mount
[10] The Sum of Christian Doctrine
[11] Wilson, “The Unfortunate Fate of Luther in the Ibero-American World”, 32.
[12] Ibid.
[13] A. Gordon Kinder, Casiodoro de Reina: Spanish Reformer of the Sixteenth Century (London, UK., Tamesis Books Limited, 1975), 9.
[14] Cornelius Hegeman, La Reforma en America Latina y el Caribe (Guadalupe, Costa Rica: Editorial CLIR, 2017), 37-38.
[15] Pablo Rodriguez J., “La Biblia del Oso,” Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia. Accessed November 09, 2018, http://bibliotecanacional.gov.co/es-co/colecciones/biblioteca-digital/publicacion?nombre=La%20Biblia%20del%20Oso&fbclid=IwAR25Mq14IT6lhaA0ykv7i_3Fji582npAe-Ncdstu7-zEI1d6jaqlzuppfj8/.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] See “Indices: fcuervo_2933,” Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia. Accessed November 09, 2018, http://bibliotecanacional.gov.co/content/conservacion?idFichero=133565/.
[19] See Hegeman, La Reforma en America Latina y el Caribe, 37-38.
[20] Miguel Núñez, El Poder de la Palabra para Transformar una Nación (Medellín, Colombia: Poiema Publicaciones, 2016), 10.
[21] Ibid., 11.