@BillRM,
BillRM wrote:
Quote:and torturing "non-Jewish heretics
Most of those non-Jewish heretics that was tortured was in fact Jews who had claimed to had converted to Christianity in order to remain in Spain.
I do not think so. Many were just part of the pantheon of different versions of Christianity, Anabaptists, or whatever. Most Jews left Spain. A few of those that converted might have been secretly doing some Jewish rituals, but I was under the impression that this was a minority situation. In fact, I have read that within 50 years or so, after the Jews that stayed and converted to Catholicism, there were rumblings by the masses, "Why are there so many Jews that have become fairly important in the Spanish Church hierarchy?" Rumblings of anti-Semitism about descendants of converted Jews. In effect, in the Gentile unconscious, perhaps, the only "authentic" Christian must be descended from the pagans that converted; otherwise anyone does not qualify to be successful clergy in the hierarchy of the church.
And, one wonders why some Jews have an attitude towards the Gentile masses.
