[In the following essay, Trubiano views El burlador de Sevilla and El condenada por desconfiado as reflective of contemporary debates regarding the relationship between free will and divine grace.]

The problem of whether the “new” man, novus homo, was truly endowed with free will even though, as theology teaches, everything pertaining to second cause, including man's actions, is preconceived and preordained by God, touched the very being and existence of the “new” man, affecting his essence and his metaphysical rights. In the pulse of this “new” man began to beat what Goethe two hundred years later called the “thirst for the infinite” in himself. A qualitative displacement arose in the existence of the “new” man vis-a-vis his Creator: instead of seeing himself as an obedient and reverent creature he began to view himself as His legitimate competitor and challenger—like Paulo in El condenado por desconfiado. Man grows in stature in direct proportion to his Creator's displacement from His center—like Don Juan in El burlador de Sevilla. God simply is relegated in time and space to one side; in this lies the significance of the ironic exclamation “Qué largo me lo fiáis” murmured repeatedly and at times abrasively by Don Juan. It was logical, and even natural, that the problem of human autonomy and free will would emerge in and dominate the whole Golden Age; more significantly, the problem would become so popular and far-reaching as to be hotly debated among theologians, students, and common folks.¹

The popularization of the polemic about man's free will and the determining nature of God's grace was the cause of much concern among theologians, particularly the Dominicans. Because of the difficulty, subtlety, and transcendence of the subject at hand, this order had wanted to restrict all discussions, opinions, and differences to the confines of its schools of theology. The problem, however, could not but filter down and permeate the lives of all people because the seeds of awareness of it already resided in them. Several consequent developments had a significant effect on the daily lives of the people: the new self-awareness of each individual, which urged him on to reach out for new horizons, whether personal, institutional, or national; the ever-increasing number of university students,² anxious to propagate and “to live” their learning; the always-imminent threat of Protestantism and the impetus that the Counter-Reformation added to its defeat; and the publication of Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis (1588) by the Jesuit Luis de Molina, and the acerbic theological and institutional controversies³ that its publication caused among Dominicans and Jesuits. These developments explain to a great degree the popular success of the theological dramas such as El condenado por desconfiado, El burlador de Sevilla, Quien no cae no se levanta and others by Tirso de Molina. Since Lope de Vega the Comedia had been directed to and intended for the people at large. In its very conception and inception it was a popular theater. Considering the depth and diversity of themes and the complexities of the dramatic elaboration of the Comedia of the Golden Age,⁴ it would be difficult to explain both the success of Tirso's theater and the success of the intellectual-religious theater of the great Calderón without a popular audience sufficiently familiar with and knowledgeable about theological and religious matters for the kinds of themes that the Comedia presented to it.⁵

The more passionately active and fertile years of the theological controversies de auxilii began in 1582 with the inquisitional proceedings against Friar Luís de León and Father Prudencio de Montemayor, and ended with the supposed August 18, 1607 resolution of the matter by Pope Paul V. Both the formal aspect and the ultimate intent of these controversies not only mark but define this period: the formal aspect is seen in the dispute between the Dominican group headed by Domingo Báñez and the Jesuit school headed by Luís de Molina; and the ultimate intent is visible in the fight against Protestantism. No other conviction, ideology, or popular and national mood exceeds the fervor of this debate. The struggle clearly is against Protestantism: the religious wars are threatening Flanders; the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), which will have such a profound impact on Spain, is imminent. The nation, its institutions, and its people feed on these theological disputes, if not so much for the disputes themselves then certainly for their ultimate intention.

These years coincide almost precisely with the birth, youth, novitiate, education, theological preparation, and profession of Gabriel Téllez. Our playwright with his vocation, studies, and profession—and his proximity in time and space to the controversies de auxilii and its disputants—could not but absorb and be absorbed by it all. It is important to point out that during the most emotional and intellectually effervescent years of de auxilii, between 1596 and 1607, as Father Penedo Rey indicates and assures us in his edition of Tirso's Historia de la Orden de Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, the future Gabriel Téllez is a student of the Imperial College of the Society of Jesus. We find him immersed in theological studies in Toledo and Guadalajara from 1603 to 1607, at the very moment that de Auxilii was being resolved officially by papal disposition; and also in Alcalá de Henares from 1608-1610, continuing his theological studies,⁶ when the rival Dominicans and Jesuits, free from mutual accusations before the Inquisition, set out to further elaborate and “codify” their respective theological and doctrinal positions and propositions. Some recent critics have suggested that the theological controversies had lost their force by the papal disposition and therefore were of marginal interest to the clergy and of no interest to the people. It is important, however, to point out that for the Order of Mercy and for our playwright friar such controversies continued to be a problem of utmost significance and urgency even two years after the declarative decree by Pope Paul V. In 1609 the Order of Mercy was obliged to reinstate and reaffirm in its conventual colleges the doctrine (teachings) of Saint Thomas:

Estaba legislada la enseñanza del tomismo, según la exposición de Zumel, pero ya algunos profesores se apartaban de Santo Tomás, obligando al Capítulo general de Guadalajara de 1609 a dictar prescripciones muy severas para la salvaguardia de la doctrina del Angélico.

(LXXII)

Nurtured in and nourished by these controversies, Tirso carried them in his blood by vocation and profession. Accepting 1621 as the latest date for his El condenado por desconfiado and El burlador de Sevilla,⁷ we see that hardly any time elapsed between this date and the period of his duties as theology lecturer (lector) in Segovia from 1618 to 1620, where he was “giving lessons in scholastic theology of at least one hour every night, conclusions on Sundays, and presiding over one public (theological) forum each year” (LXXII, my translation). Moreover, within the very confines of his Order, and after the papal dissolution of de auxilii, the problem of free will and predestination continued to be a motive of much anguish and perplexity for many theologians and students; according to Father Penedo Rey, this is particularly so for Father Pedro Franco de Guzmán, against whom Tirso directs a caustic satire with his two masterpieces, El burlador and El condenado. In a deposition before the Inquisition in 1628, Father Guzmán himself confirms the anguish and confusion that the problem of God's grace and man's free will caused him and all who ponder it:

… que ningún misterio de nuestra fe congoja si no es el misterio de la Predestinación y Reprobación … discurriendo con personas de estudios de cuántas malas noches y desvelos le había dado esta consideración siendo estudiante en Salamanca [1606-1610, where he met Zumel] y lo mucho que ella congoja a todos los que se la ponen a considerar …

(LXXII)

In his valuable introduction to Historia general de la Orden de Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, Father Manuel Penedo Rey sets out to demonstrate that Father Pedro Franco de Guzmán was the source of and the reason for the satire in El burlador and El condenado; he argues that “Tirso wrote both dramas in accordance with the prevailing popular sentiment, somewhat fanatical, to convert the monk Paulo into a victim of his own blindness: the classical judaic contumacy” (CXXXIX, my translation). Refraining for the moment from dismissing this possibility, it is important to recall that the enmity between Tirso and Guzmán was, as the critic himself confirms, a group rivalry rather than a personal one (such as it was between Guzmán and his conventual brothers Melchor and Gaspar Prieto). Such an impersonal rivalry could not have precipitated such frantic hatred against a person, even an inimical one, of the same conventual Order; Tirso did not show any such hatred toward Father Franco Marcos Salmerón, whom he considered, and so stated in a letter, to be his enemy. Father Penedo Rey himself acknowledges that this would not be consistent with the humble and virtuous nature of Tirso's character. The distinguished critic states, moreover, that El burlador and El condenado, written in 1621, were the cause of the enmity between the Prieto brothers (Melchor and Gaspar) and Guzmán, since in “1620 Guzmán and Prieto were in such excellent relation that the latter sent Guzmán to Rome as his Vicar General and in 1622 they confronted each other criminally, something must have occurred in 1621, i.e., El burlador and El condenado” (CXL, footnote 23, my translation). This is not logical, for Tirso was simply a third-party bystander in the Prieto-Guzmán litigation. It clearly does not follow that his two dramas, however satirically directed they may have been, would cause such deep hostilities among third-party bystanders. Father Penedo Rey seems to forget an obvious fact, lamented by Tirso himself—Guzmán's failure as Vicar General to prevent, as he had been instructed to do in Rome, the September 4, 1621 separation of the discalced Mercedarians from the Mother Order. It is far more likely that this failure is the cause of the Prieto-Guzmán enmity and litigation, since Prieto sent Guzmán to Rome specifically to prevent such a separation. If Tirso wrote the two dramas to satirize Guzmán so directly and vilely, then more concrete, irrefutable evidence of personal antagonism and enmity between the two Mercedarians is needed than mere inference from marginal accounts—even though it is possible that Guzmán saw himself reflected in the two plays. In addition, if the two dramas “are not foreign and alien to the Prieto-Rivera contention for the generalship” (LXXVI, my translation) of the Order in 1622, how can the first version of El burlador de Sevilla known as Tan largo me lo fiáis? and undoubtedly written much before 1621 be explained and reconciled with all these personal rifts?

Tirso's preoccupation with the relationship between man's free will and the grace of God—predestination and reprobation—is a constant theme from Tirso's earliest plays; the protean semblances of Don Juan, Enrico and Paulo also begin to appear early in his dramatic production. Don Jorge and Don Luis of La Santa Juana (1614) serve as the progenitors of Don Juan and Enrico. Whatever “antagonistic” relationship Tirso may have had with Father Guzmán, it had to be minimal and marginal, and not due to the philojudaic roots and posture of Father Guzmán. Neither can Father Penedo Rey's assertion that Tirso wrote the two plays in accordance with the popular anti-judaic sentiments be accepted: first, because the thematic thrust of the two plays is predominantly theological and adheres strictly to the problem of the nature of God's grace and man's free will—a national and conventual preoccupation of the time—; second, because the supposed judaism of Franco de Guzmán did not come to life publicly until his Inquisitorial trial from 1628-1629. Would the fact that he was absolved indicate that the Inquisition itself was philojudaical? As the distinguished critic himself states, the Holy Office only intervened in matters concerning purity of faith. If Tirso satirizes Guzmán, it is not because of Guzmán's judaic roots. Rather, Tirso is motivated by one of two reasons: Guzmán's daring and dangerous theological positions in matters of faith and his impudence toward the divine mystery, or his siding with the hated Spanish institution, the Privanza, object of many satirical darts by Tirso in the two plays in question. If, on the other hand, we consider Guzmán's Calvinistic temerity in matters of faith as a derivation of the “judaic contumacy,” then there is no problem in accepting it, since it then would revolve around theological positions very much in dispute and under scrutiny at the time.

It is important to point out once again that this problem, the “most terrible a Christian faces” did not arise suddenly in the dramatic repertoire of Friar Gabriel Téllez; it does not first appear in, nor is it limited to, El condenado and El burlador. It is not possible, therefore, as Father Penedo Rey seems to indicate, to establish a cause-and-effect relationship with the Guzmán affair. Predestination, the salvific grace of God and man's free will were constant theological and dramatic preoccupations of Tirso de Molina. Nor does the preoccupation end with El condenado and El burlador; the same theme and thematic elaboration are repeated in Quien no cae no se levanta in 1628. The appearance of this very same theme and the presence of the embryonic semblances of Don Juan, Enrico, and Paulo, the three protean characters of El burlador and El condenado, in La madrina del Cielo, La ninfa del Cielo, and the trilogy of La Santa Juana⁸ establish the roots and define the thrust of Tirso's religious theater from the very beginning of his dramatic activity. The unfortunate and accursed Don Juan, the disbelieving and unfaithful Paulo, and the confiding and trusting Enrico were not men born overnight. These three unforgettable characters acquire and shape their respective unique personalities in time as the theological conscience and artistic maturity of their creator deepen and solidify, until they are able to live the immortality that awaits them. Therefore, Father Guzmán could not have been the direct source or cause, since our future immortal characters already were living in embryonic though recognizable stages before he entered the scene. Whatever connection there may have existed between the two plays and Father Guzmán, it has to be understood only as one possible element available to Tirso, and interwoven by him in the two dramas in his intent to satirize the Court's confidants and favorites (validos) and the pestiferous influence such institutionalized power (privanza) had on Spain. This assumes that Tirso had a real person such as Guzmán in mind when writing El condenado and El burlador. Tirso, together with Quevedo, is the most caustic and daring critic of the society of the Spanish Golden Age. Father Guzmán could have seen himself reflected and satirized in these two works, as could have the Conde-Duque of Olivares, the king himself, or any person weak, obstinate, or over-confident in matters of Faith. The Conde-Duque of Olivares, the powerful confidant (valido) of King Philip IV, attacked Tirso because he was within range—as the Council of Reform (La Junta de Reformación) and his banishment (destierro) confirm—to avenge the satiric darts he thought Tirso had launched against him and his relative Guzmán.

All this notwithstanding, it does not follow that Tirso would direct so vile and personal a satire against a fellow friar from the same Order. This comportment does not conform to the humble, noble, and virtuous character of Gabriel Téllez. Tirso declares and affirms his innocence in the Guzmán affair in his Historia … and considers himself, in the words of Father Penedo Rey, “victim of envy, mordacity and calumny … nor is there any motive for not believing him” (CXXXI, my translation).

The consideration whether Tirso composed El condenado and El burlador “to defend his party, fighting the Conde-Duque's relative (Father Guzmán) with the weapon at his disposal, i.e., theater, or whether he was swept by the thematic force of the topic [the theological disputes and their implications for man]” (CXXXI, my translation) does not have to rest on either one or the other case. Both together are possible and even probable. What does stand out clearly, however, is the conscious and deliberate presence and dramatization of the theological disputes concerning predestination and free will and the implications for the destiny of man from Tirso's earliest dramatic creation of works later than those under discussion. This is, and constitutes, the axis and the thrust of Tirso's religious theater. El burlador and El condenado cause and provoke both excitement and repulsion, somber reflection and chilling disbelief, because they combine and fuse in a perfect, irrevocable, and, for Don Juan and Paulo, tragic symbiotic antagonism, the quest and “thirst for the infinite” of the “new” man with the mysterious force of God's will and design. This is what makes Don Juan and Paulo unforgettable, and in this lies their “tragedies” and the tragedy of modern man. The theological disputes then—predestination or reprobation—which, as Father Penedo Rey states “[were] being discussed by everyone, friars and lay people” (CXXXI, my translation), are the motor that moves the religious theater of the Mercedarian Friar Gabriel Téllez, notwithstanding the presence and intention of social criticism and satire in the two works. The work of art is and remains always open-ended and inexhaustive of possibilities.

Notes

1. See my study, Libertad, gracia y destino en el teatro de Tirso de Molina (Madrid: Ediciones Alcalá, 1985), pp. 9-36.

2. “Mais Salamanque, que déjà une renommée ancienne, de resources plus grandes, une affluence exceptionnelle d'étudiants, plačaient à la tête des autres …” Raoul de Scorraille, Frančois Suarez de la Compagnie de Jesus I (Paris: P. Lethiellieux, 1911), 72.

3. See my study op. cit., pp. 9-44.

4. For an interpretation of the comedia of the Golden Age and the controversy over its “unicity” or “universality,” precipitated by Arnold Reichenberger, see Everett W. Hesse, La comedia y sus intérpretes (Madrid: Castalia, 1972).

5. See Karl Vossler, Lecciones sobre Tirso de Molina (Madrid: Taurus, 1965) (chapters XVII-XIX in particular).

6. See Manuel Penedo Rey's introduction to his edition of Tirso de Molina, Historia general de la Orden de Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes I (Madrid: Estudios, 1973), pp. XL, XLIV, XLV. Father Luis Vázquez Fernández, Director of Estudios, expressed to me, at the First International Symposium on Tirso de Molina (The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. Nov. 21-23, 1985), his doubts about Tirso studying at Alcalá de Henares, stating that there is no concrete proof of Tirso's stay in this city between 1608-1610. My sincere gratitude to the distinguished Tirsista. Be that as it may, the fact remains that Tirso never abandoned or separated himself from the study of theology, regardless of his place of residence.

7. Father Manuel Penedo Rey convincingly assigns 1621 as the date of composition for the two plays. See his introduction, op. cit.

8. See the respective introductions by Blanca de los Ríos in her edition of Tirso de Molina, Obras dramáticas completas 3 vols. (Madrid: Aguilar, 1962-68). See also Rafael María Hornedo, S.J., “El condenado por desconfiado, su significación en el teatro de Tirso,” in Razón y Fe, CXX (1940), pp. 170-91; Mario F. Trubiano, “El condenado por desconfiado: odisea de un dictamen teológico” en Segismundo, 33-34 (1981), pp. 185-226 and “El Burlador: herejía y ortodoxia de una existencia desdoblada” in Libertad, gracia y destino en el teatro de Tirso de Molina (Madrid: Ediciones Alcalá, 1985).