In order to assess Cervantes’ knowledge of Catholic doctrine, it is imperative to study the importance of doctrinal and religious themes in his works, especially, in Don Quixote. Nevertheless, this is not enough. The following question has to be answered: Why give credibility to a doctrinal discourse expressed by the characters of a novel, and mainly the protagonist, a madman?
To answer this question successfully, it is essential to understand that Don Quixote is “mad in patches, full of lucid intervals.” According to all the other characters he encounters, including the narrator, the Don is only mad in areas concerning “books of chivalry.” In everything else, he shows intelligence, wisdom, depth of knowledge, and goodness. For instance, in chapter XVIII of the second part, Don Diego de Miranda, the knight of the Green Cloak, will pronounce his first assessment of Don Quixote’s state of mind, right after he observes him during the adventure of the lions:
While Don Quixote was taking off his armor, Don Lorenzo—for this was the name of Don Diego’s son—found an opportunity of saying to his father: “Who on earth is this knight, father, whom you have brought home? His name, his appearance, and his calling himself a knight-errant certainly puzzles both my mother and myself.”
“I don’t know what to say, son,” replied Don Diego. “All I can tell you is that I have seen him act like the craziest madman in the world, and yet to talk so wisely as to blot out and efface his deeds. […] (II, 18; 649)
Just before dinner the conversation between father, son, and Don Quixote continues and Don Lorenzo, once again, expresses his opinion about the Don.
Here their conversation ended, for they were called to dinner. So, when Don Diego asked his son what opinion he had formed of their guest’s wits, he replied: “All the physicians and good scribes in the world could not give a clear account of his ailment. He is mad in patches, full of lucid intervals.” (II, 18; 652)
Other characters of the novel, like the priest and the narrator, make it clear that the protagonist’s madness is only in that which relates to chivalry, but, by contrast, in all other themes he is clever, wise, and prudent: “There is another strange thing about it,” said the curate. “If when you converse with this worthy gentleman you discuss other topics that have no bearing upon his madness, he speaks very reasonably and shows that he possesses a clear head and calm understanding. Indeed, provided one does not broach the subject of his chivalries, he could be considered a man of very sound judgment.” (I, 30; 309)
Upon making comments about the advice that Don Quixote gives Sancho before departing for his governorship, the narrator, also insists: “For as it has often been remarked in the course of this great history, the knight only went astray when he touched upon chivalry, but in every other topic he showed that he possessed a clear-sighted and unbiased mind, with the result that his actions belied his judgment, and his judgment his actions, at every step.” (II, 43; 827)
Concerning the doctrinal discourses of the work, it is appropriate and convenient to stress that the two main characters, Don Quixote and Sancho, amaze each other and label themselves as theologians and preachers.
- Sancho the preacher, according to Don Quixote (II, 20; 671), the Don complains that Sancho is talking so much that he is not going to stop until judgment day, this incites the squire to deliver a meditation about death:
“In good faith, master,” replied Sancho, “it is no use trusting the fleshless one, I mean Death, who devours the lamb as well as the sheep, and as I’ve heard our curate say, she tramples with equal feet upon the lofty towers of kings and the lowly huts of the poor. This dame is more powerful than dainty; she not at all squeamish; she devours all and for all, and she packs her saddlebags with people of all kinds, ages, and ranks. She is not a reaper who sleeps her siestas, for she reaps at all hours and cuts down the dry grass as well as the green. She does not appear to chew, but to bolt and gobble all that is put before her, for she has a dog’s hunger, which is never satisfied. And though she has no belly, she seems to have the dropsy and to be thirsty to drink the lives of those who live, as one who drinks a jug of cold water.”
“Say no more, Sancho,” said Don Quixote; “don’t spoil it and risk a fall, for truly what you have spoken about in your rustic speech is what a good preacher might have said. I tell you, Sancho, that if your wisdom was equal to your mother wit, you could take to the pulpit and go preaching your fine sermons through the world.”
‘He preaches well who lives well,” replied Sancho, “and I know no other theologies than that.”
- Don Quixote theologian, according to Sancho (II, 27; 725-726); master and squire meet a young man going to war who tells them about a town in which a councilman lost his donkey in the mountain and another councilman who has seen it, offered help; both councilmen go to the mountain and bray to find the donkey, finally, they find it dead. Since that day, all the neighboring villages make fun of the people from the donkey’s town, who at the moment that Don Quixote and Sancho meet them, have assembled an army and are ready to fight their neighbors. Don Quixote takes this opportunity to deliver a very wise speech in favor of peace:
“Prudent men and well-ordered states must take up arms, unsheath their swords, and imperil their persons, their lives, and their goods for four reasons.
Firstly, to defend the Catholic faith; secondly, in self-defense, which is permitted by natural and divine law; thirdly, in defense of honor, family, and estate; fourthly, in the service of the king in a just war; and if we wish to add a fifth (which can be included in the second), in defense of one’s country. To these five principal causes we can add others that are just and reasonable and compel one to take up arms. But he who rushes to arms for childish trifles and for things that should be regarded as laughable and highly diverting rather than an affront, is, in my opinion, completely devoid of common sense. Besides, to take unjust vengeance—and no vengeance can be just—goes directly against the sacred law we profess, which commands us to do good to our enemies and to love those who hate us, a commandment that, though it may seen rather difficult to obey, is only so for those who have less of God than of the world and more of the flesh than of the spirit. For Jesus Christ, God and true man, who never lied, nor could, nor can lie, for He is our lawgiver, said that His yoke was easy and His burden light. He would not then have commanded us to do anything that was impossible to perform. So, my dear sirs, you are bound by laws both divine and human to keep this peace.”
“The Devil take me,” said Sancho to himself at this point, ‘If this master of mine isn’t a thologian[sic]; and if he isn’t one, he’s as like one egg to another.”
Because of discourses such as the previous ones and many others, Paul Descouzis, in his book, Cervantes, a nueva luz (Cervantes Under New Light), believes that Cervantes was like a professor of moral theology and a promoter of the decrees of the Council of Trent. Salvador Muñoz Iglesias disagrees; for him, this would be an exaggeration. At the same time, in his book, Lo religioso en el Quijote (Religion in Don Quixote), he does recognize that in Cervantes’ masterpiece we find most of the same themes of Catholic doctrine that the Council emphasized in clear contrast to Protestant positions such as: the need of good works for salvation, the need and importance of confession, the convenience of praying to the saints, the prominent role of the Church’s Magisterium and the primacy of the Pope, etc. (p. 316)
Marian devotion plays a central role in Cervantes’ life and in his work. Salvador Muñoz Iglesias concludes that the constant invocations to the Virgin Mary in the tale of liberation of the captive, a highly autobiographical story, (Chapters 39 to 41 of the first part of Don Quixote) are a reflection of the author’s devotion and gratitude to the Virgin for her help in his own journey towards freedom from captivity in Algiers. (p.201)
In conclusion, Cervantes shows, by the way he treats religious and doctrinal matters in his works, that he has a solid grasp of Catholic doctrine, and more knowledge about the subject than what was considered normal in a layman at his day and age. In addition, his religious formation is in total agreement with the way in which the writer lived out his life. Therefore, Cervantes, in the scholarly opinion of Salvador Muñoz Iglesias, was a layman fully committed to the project of evangelization of the Church through his profession as a secular writer (p.336). Hence, in his masterpiece, Cervantes attained the goal of “teaching and entertaining” through the best and most extraordinary work “of honest entertainment whose language delights and its invention amazes and astounds” as was the dream of his character, Don Diego de Miranda.
Egberto Bermúdez
Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote. Trans. Walter Starkie.
New York: New American Library, 1979.
Descouzis, Paul. Cervantes, a nueva luz. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio
Klostermann, 1966.
Muñoz Iglesias, Salvador. Lo religioso en El Quijote. Toledo: Estudio
Teológico de San Ildefonso (Seminario Conciliar), 1989.
