The Inquisition, Kamen points out, “only had authority over Christians.” The idea that the Inquisition targeted Jews is a fantasy. The only Jews who came under the purview of the Inquisition were Jews who had converted to Christianity. There were quite a few of these, as King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had issued an ordinance in 1492 expelling Jews from Spain. The only way to stay was to convert. Of course, many Christians suspected that some of these conversos or “new Christians” were not Christians at all. They were Jews pretending to be Christians. Interestingly the main source of allegations against the “new Christians” came from other Jews who were angry about their fellow Jews relinquishing their Judaism. These Jews had no qualms about testifying before the Inquisition courts because as Jews they were exempt from its jurisdiction. Kamen points out that the grand inquisitor himself, Tomds de Torquemada, had known Jewish ancestry.
Inquisition trials, according to Kamen, were fairer and more lenient than their secular counterparts, not only in Spain but also across Europe. Frequently the only penalty given was some form of penance, such as fasting or what we would today call “community service.” How many people were executed for heresy by the Inquisition? Kamen estimates that it was around 2,000. Other contemporary historians make estimates of between 1,500 and 4,000. These deaths are all tragic, but we must remember that they occurred over aperiod of 350 years.
The best example of religiously motivated violence in America is the Salem witch trials. How many people were killed in those trials? Thousands? Hundreds? Actually, fewer than twenty-five. Nineteen were sentenced to death, and a few others died in captivity. Yet the witch trials have been memorialized in books, movies, and plays like Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Miller tried to use the Salem trials as a historical precedent to show the extensive harms of McCarthyism, but little did he realize that his historical example actually proved the opposite. Wrong though the trials were, they harmed a relatively small number of people. Few casualties, big brouhaha.
It’s interesting to see the way in which atheist writers try to magnify the horror of the witch trials. In The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan writes of the witch trials in Europe, “No one knows how many were killed altogether—perhaps hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions.” That’s one big “perhaps.” Sagan cites no sources, and the most reasonable conclusion is that he has no idea. His fellow atheist Sam Harris, who has actually done some reading on the subject, cites contemporary historical sources that put the number of witches burned much lower, at 100,000. That’s a substantial figure, but it’s a far cry from Sagan’s demon-haunted estimate, and 200 percent lower, Harris notes, than some previous absurd estimates.
Still, Harris argues, “Such a revaluation of numbers does little to mitigate the horror and injustice of this period.” Why not? Let’s apply his logic to other historical events and the absurdity will become apparent. The two atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused an estimated 100,000 civilian deaths, and the debate continues over President Truman’s decision to end the war in this way. But let’s reduce the casualty figures by a factor of 200, in the manner of Harris, and we are down to 500 deaths for both bombs. Would this, in Harris’s words, “do little to mitigate the horror and injustice” of the bombs? On the contrary, it would dispel much of the horror and virtually eliminate any moral debate over the legitimacy of Truman’s action.
