d
since he fled of Seville in 1557 to evade the Holy Inquisition, Antonio del Corro clearly expressed criticism of the persecution for reasons of conscience. He wandered through various parts of Europe in search of conditions in which he could express his ideas favorable to tolerance and freedom of thought.
Corro identified with the postulates of the Protestant Reformation, which had several aspects, and at the same time distanced himself from actions that he considered erroneous. In 1558, he was in Lausanne and learned, Carlos Gilly points out, “of the bitter controversies of the Geneva reformers” with Sebastian Castellio “regarding the Servetus case.” Corro expressed disgust at the treatment of his compatriot in Geneva, which caused him to draw a parallel about having emerged from “the tyranny of the Pope to fall into another similar one.” Michael Servetus suffered the death penalty at the stake on October 27, 1553, on Champel Hill, in Geneva, on charges of being an anti-Trinitarian and Anabaptist. It is important to remember that Servetus had been cremated in effigy by the Catholic Inquisition on June 17 of the same year in Vienna dauphine, in France.
In November 1566, when Antonio del Corro arrived in the city of Antwerp, the Walloon community asked him to sign the confession recognized by all the Calvinist churches in the Netherlands. It was the Confession of Faith written by Guido de Brès in 1561 and which had been adopted by the Synod of Antwerp. Antonio del Corro refuses to sign the document, he does so because he does not share the anti-Anabaptist tone of articles 34 and 36. “He said that he would subscribe to the word of God, not the opinion of men,” according to Francisco Ruiz de Pablos, Spanish translator of Corro’s Latin works.
Antonio del Corro raised his voice against violence in matters of faith, perpetrated in both Catholic and Protestant territories. In the Letter to the Lutheran Pastors of Antwerp (1567), echoed the ideas of Sebastian Castellio, calling the censors of the Reformation churches “supreme new inquisitors,” who “with a more than pharisaical arrogance, call some dogs and worldlings: these poor presumptuous people not considering that this word worldly or mundane entails a suppression of the body of Christ.” He was not against having doctrinal convictions, he had them, but he was opposed to imposing them on others who differed in the meaning, for example, of the sacraments, and declaring them heretics.
Del Corro, in the document addressed to the ecclesiastical leaders of Antwerp, stated that he had in common with them that they had emerged from the “slushy and miserable dunghill of superstitions and idolatries of the Papacy.” His position did not imply agreement with the mutual violent treatment of Roman Catholics and Protestants/Reformed, but rather encouraged them, maintaining doctrinal differences between them, to maintain a respectful coexistence.
Knowing the atrocities perpetrated by the Spanish Inquisition, acts carried out to, supposedly, safeguard the Christian faith, Antonio del Corro wrote the Letter to Philip IIfrom 1567, in order to try to convince him of how counterproductive it was to use violence in matters related to religious beliefs. His argument before Philip II centered on the fact that the only resource to win people’s consciences should be persuasion, following the example of Christ. Del Corro raised reasons similar to those defended by Bartolomé de las Casas in The only way to attract all people to the true religionfrom 1536.
In some illuminating lines, Del Corro told Philip II that the relentless inquisitorial persecution to impose a single religion was contrary to the teachings of the Gospel: “If we are heretics (as they say), why do they not have compassion for our souls, since they do not want to have it for our bodies? Why do they kill us by persevering in our error (as they consider), since that would be the cause of eternal damnation? Why do they not try to convert us and persuade us of the truth? Why do they taking our lives, they strive to choose the cruelest torments imaginable to throw into despair those who should rather be converted? […] I am also of the opinion, sir, that kings and magistrates have their power reduced and limited without it being able to reach the conscience of man, according to what Jesus Christ sovereign and heavenly doctor says; that we give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s […] Conscience belongs only to God to direct it by his holy word, which teaches us what we should believe and the spiritual service he wants us to render to him.”
Reluctant to be part of any of the doctrinal orthodoxies of the 16th century, he rather advocated interpretive diversity in matters of faith. Finally, in the last decade of his life (1581-1591), Antonio del Corro chose to develop his ministry in the Anglican Church, in London. He was a professor of theology at the University of Oxford. He died at the age of 64 and, as José C. Nieto wrote, the “pilgrim of the earth and the spirit found rest outside his sunny Seville in the London mist.”
