Violence, Non-Violence, and Mystic Narratives

Medieval imaginative meditation on the Passion required devotees to visualize the narrative scenes of Jesus’ tortures and Mary’s grieving response. However, in Passion texts composed in the Castilian vernacular during the first decades of an Inquisition whose primary remit was to police judaizing converts, the authors scripted for their readers meditations centering on violent anger and physical anguish, rather than compassionate sorrow. Castilian Christians extended the medieval anti-Semitic “Christ-killing” accusation to include scenes of malicious violence against not only Jesus but also Mary. This rendering of Jews as violent against women definitively shaped mystical experience in sixteenth century Spain: Juana de la Cruz’ visionary sermons included scenes of Mary beaten and knocked down by her fellow Jews, while the influential mystical teacher Francisco de Osuna recommended a visualization of Mary’s crucifixion to aspiring mystics. Mystical practice was thus not divorced from Castilian anti-Semitism, but rather reinforced it.