Spanish Inquisition Greatly Exaggerated Peters

Inquisition, by Edward Peters. 1989

The Spanish Inquisition–a Monstrous Exaggeration That is a Mainstay of Attacks on Christianity

Peters has provided an invaluable analysis of the Inquisition. For the longest time, the Inquisition (especially the Spanish Inquisition) has been a mainstay of rationalistic mythology in its attacks on Christianity. It has also served the purpose of German guilt diffusion, wherein the blame for the German-made Holocaust is shifted away from the Germans and unto Christianity. Apropos to this, the Spanish Inquisition has even been made into a sort of “practice Holocaust.”

No wonder that the numbers of the victims of the Spanish Inquisition had been bloated a thousandfold. And never mind the fact that far more people were killed by atheists (such as the Jacobins during the French Revolution, and especially the Communists of the 20th century) than by all the Inquisitions and all religious wars combined.

THE SPANISH INQUISITION WAS HORRIBLE….BUT HORRIBLE COMPARED WITH WHAT?

Peter’s book is aptly summarized by the following quotation (p. 87): “…The Spanish Inquisition, in spite of wildly inflated claims of the numbers of its victims, acted with considerable restraint in inflicting the death penalty, far more restraint than was demonstrated in secular tribunals elsewhere in Europe that dealt with the same kinds of offenses. The best estimate is that around 3,000 death sentences were carried out in Spain by Inquisitorial verdict between 1550 and 1800, a far smaller number than in comparable secular courts.”

Need any more be said?