From Polemics and Apologetics

to Theology and Politics:

Alonso de Cartagena and the Conversos
within the ‘Mystical Body’

Claude B. Stuczynski

I
n an ongoing effort to de-essentialize identity, current historiography is
insisting on hybridism as a major means to understanding Iberian converso
idiosyncrasies. This recent shift has contributed to a re-evaluation of fer-
vent Christians of converso origin, like Alonso de Cartagena, Bishop of Burgos
(1384–1456). Instead of regarding them, as in past scholarship, as ‘renegades’ or
as ‘suspected Judaizers’, hybridism enables us to analyse these cases as coherent,
albeit sui generis byproducts of a sincere Christian faith coupled with a strong
sense of belonging to Jewish notions of peoplehood. However, what began as
a salutatory response to past conceptual and ideological rigidities was rapidly
transformed into over-subjective and simplistic narrations of the converso phe-
nomenon: as if converso complexity was a mere matter of inner Judeo-Christian
dualities. Against this tendency, I endorse a more politicized perception of con-
verso hybridism. This will help us to better understand why and how so many
sincere Christian conversos, like Alonso de Cartagena, chose to elaborate on a
major Christian theological-political concept: that of the ‘mystical body’.
Let us remember that, according to Ernest Kantorowicz, the concept of a
mystical body (corpus mysticum) was a major element in the process of building
 
* This research was supported by the I-CORE Program (The Israel Science Foundation),
Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters (no. 1754/12)

Claude B. Stuczynski (dovstuco@gmail.com) is Senior Lecturer in the Department of General

History, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan.

Conflict and Religious Conversation in Latin Christendom: Studies in Honour of Ora Limor,
ed. by Israel Jacob Yuval and Ram Ben-Shalom, CELAMA 17 pp. 253–275
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2014) BREPOLS PUBLISHERS 10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.1.102017
254 Claude B. Stuczynski

modern notions of statehood and society.1 During the later Middle Ages and
the early modern period, it became fundamental among political actors and
thinkers, ‘when the centre of gravity shifted, as it were, from the ruling per-
sonages to the ruled collectivities’.2 The mystical body was a major theological-
political metaphor, the confluence between two Christian elements. On the
one hand, its meaning was based on St Paul’s descriptions of the community
of believers as different members of the body of Christ (corpus Christi) — an
image elaborated upon in i Corinthians (12. 12–27):
For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one
body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all bap-
tized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free;
and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member,
but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body;
is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I
am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye,
where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But
now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased
him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they
many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have
no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much
more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary:
And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these
we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant
comeliness. For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body
together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked. That there
should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care
one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or
one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of
Christ, and members in particular.3

On the other hand, and particularly from Carolingian times, the term was
understood to be a synonym for the Eucharist.4 Since the middle of the twelfth

1 
Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, chaps 5 and 6. For a recent analysis of Kantorowicz’s
‘mystical body’, as if it was a response to Carl Schmitt’s theological-political views and an over-
simplified reading of Henri de Lubac’s ‘Corpus mysticum’, see: Rust, ‘Political Theologies of the
Corpus Mysticum’, pp. 102–23.
2 
Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, p. 193.
3 
Compare Romans 12. 4–6, 12; Ephesians 4. 15–16 (King James Bible).
4 
Lubac, ‘Corpus mysticum’. See also Mersch, Le Corps mystique du Christ.
From Polemics and Apologetics to Theology and Politics 255

century these terms became interchangeable following debates and reassess-

ments concerning the physical reality of Christ in the host. Corpus Christi
became a reference to the Eucharist, while corpus mysticum was used to denote
the community of believers. This was not the first time that medieval ideas
of society were articulated through Christian theological concepts and met-
aphors.5 What characterized the mystical body concept were the deep links
between its political and theological aspects and the variety of their combina-
tions. Was this concept a call for greater equality between its members, or did
it serve to legitimate the already-existing social order? Was the corpus mysticum
only possible through the intersession of the church headed by the pope and the
ecclesiastical hierarchy, or was it precisely the proof that union between men
has to be covenantal? The complexity of this metaphor demonstrates how, even
after the twelfth century, the two terms — Christ’s body and mystical body —
were not totally divorced;6 however, Kantorowicz argued that a neat evolution
occurred towards secularization. Under the influence of corporeal perceptions
of society coming from the classical tradition, and with the development of
Christian Aristotelian views (Aquinas and subsequent Thomism), the mystical
body metaphor became more politicized, seen as the institutionalized church
with its different members, without abandoning its Christological dimensions.7
At the same time, from the Investiture Contest onwards, the concept became
increasingly instrumental in the struggles between popes and kings, having also
been adopted by the latter to increase their prerogatives against the church as
earthly heads of their own ‘mystical’ polities. Thus, lawyers employed the term
to design many juridical groups, such as cities, corporations or kingdoms. At the
beginning of the early modern period, it became mainly associated with secular
polities, and particularly, with the emerging state. ‘Nevertheless’, Kantorowicz

5 
Duby, The Three Orders.
6 
Rubin, Corpus Christi; Beckwith, Christ’s Body; Bauerschmidt, Julian of Norwich and the
Mystical Body Politics of Christ.
7 
For example: ‘[…] passio Christi causat remissionem peccatorum per modum redemp-
tionis. Quia enim ipse est caput nostrum, per passionem suam, quam ex charitate et obedientia
sustinuit, liberavit nos tanquam membra sua a peccatis, quasu per pretium suae passionis; sicut
si homo per aliquod opus meritorium quod manu exerceret redimeret se a peccato quod pedi-
bus comisisset. Sicut enim naturale corpus est unum, ex membrorum diversitate consistens, ita
tota Ecclesia, quae est mysticum corpus Christus, computatur quasi una persona cum suo capite
quod est Christus’ (Summa Theologiae, 3a, 49. 1 ; apud: Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae,
ed. by Gilby, liv (1965), p. 96; Anger, La Doctrine du corps mystique de Jésus-Christ; Michaud
Quentin, Universitas; Morard, ‘Les Expressions “corpus mysticum” et “persona mystica” dans
l’oeuvre de Saint Thomas d’Aquin’; Tierney, Foundations of the Conciliar Theory, pp. 121–28.
256 Claude B. Stuczynski

added, ‘the designation “corpus mysticum” brought to the secular polity, as it

were, a whiff of incense from another world.’8
In his Erasme et l’Espagne (first edition, 1937), Marcel Bataillon’s find-
ings regarding Spain seem to contradict the overall tendency suggested by
Kantorowicz. Bataillon argued that in the Spanish case, only with the irruption
of Christian humanism throughout the Enchiridion of Erasmus of Rotterdam
(Spanish translation, 1524) did the concept of the mystical body become
central.9 Contrary to Kantorowicz’s general overview, in Spain, this ‘striking
Paulinian metaphor’ (‘saisissante métaphore paulinienne’) remained attached
to its sacral connotations and particularly appealed to many conversos, follow-
ers and sympathizers with Erasmian tendencies. These tended to replace the
first-stage ideal of inner Christian religiosity as expressed in Enchiridion by
the less central, but still important, Erasmian meaning of the mystical body,
understood as the group of believers who were equally saved by its head, Christ,
despite their social or ethnic differences. According to Bataillon, this organic
metaphor, disseminated in Spain through Erasmian channels, became a strong
argument against the rejection of conversos in Iberian society based on issues
such as lineage and ‘purity of blood’.10
Bataillon’s views were challenged by José António Maravall, among others.
He showed that the mystical body metaphor was in use in medieval Spain long
before the emergence of Erasmian tendencies, as well as in secularized ways.11
Elsewhere, Maravall showed that the concept of the mystical body was preva-
lent in early modern Spanish political thought, even if usually attached to
some degree of Thomistic or other ecclesiological interpretations. Catholicism

8 
Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, p. 210.
9 
‘[I]mage dont la popularité en Espagne paraît imputable à l’Enchiridion’, Bataillon,
Érasme et l’Espagne, i, 581.
10 
‘Mais, alors que l’Enchiridion érasmien mettait surtout l’accent de son paulinisme sur
la facile opposition de culte extérieur et du culte en esprit, les Espagnols qu’Erasme a conquis à
saint Paul déplacent de plus en plus cet accent vers la notion de corps mystique dont le Christ
est la tête et vers la doctrine des mérites de la Passion, seuls capables de sauver les hommes’
(Bataillon, Érasme et l’Espagne, ii, 10 n. 2).
11 
Maravall, ‘La idea de cuerpo místico en España antes de Erasmo’ (=Maravall, Estudios de
historia del pensamiento español). Another systematic criticism against Bataillon is to be found
in: Asensio, ‘El erasmismo y las corrientes espirituales afines’. Asensio claimed that in Early
Modern Spain the organic metaphor was interpreted in different, even opposed, ways, with-
out always being influenced by Erasmian tendencies. For other criticisms and reassesments, see:
Nieto, El renacimiento y la otra España, pp. 363–80; Sáez, ‘Le Corps mystique comme méta-
phore religieuse’.
From Polemics and Apologetics to Theology and Politics 257

thus became quintessentially Spanish.12 In his response to Maravall, Bataillon

noted that he never said the concept appeared in Spain only with Erasmus and
Erasmism, but admitted that he exaggerated the role initially attributed to
Enchiridion as a means of disseminating the term. Both Maravall and Bataillon
acknowledged that one example of the pre-Erasmian Spanish use of this cor-
poreal concept appeared in the writings of one of the prominent churchmen:
theologian, humanist, and courtier of Castile, Alonso de Cartagena, Bishop of
Burgos (1384–1456).
Alonso de Cartagena’s use of the mystical body metaphor is highly telling in
relation to Bataillon’s views on that subject. He was a converso, baptized when
he was about five years old, along with his brothers and his father, the illus-
trious theologian-bishop Salomon Halevi/Pablo de Santa Maria.13 Like those
conversos who a hundred years later became so attracted by the Erasmian mean-
ing of the mystical body, Cartagena employed the Paulinian-based metaphor
through a common vision of Christianity that endorsed social integration and
spiritual equality.14 Was Cartagena’s articulation of the mystical body meta-
phor merely proto-Erasmian? Both Bataillon and Maravall mentioned that
Cartagena included these corporeal concepts in one of his most powerful and
original books: The Defense of the Unity of the Church (Defensorium Unitatis
Christianae). The tract was a response to the rebels of 1449 in Toledo, who had
excluded Christians of Jewish descent from ecclesiastical and public offices in
the city,15 in an insurrection against the purportedly tyrannical and pro-con-
verso policies of the king’s favourite, Álvaro de Luna.16 It is no coincidence that
the Defensorium was traditionally studied as a polemical tract against converso
social exclusion, as well as an apology on behalf of the integration of Christians
of Jewish descent into Iberian society.17 Nowadays, there is a tendency to ana-

12 
For example, Maravall, Teoría del Estado en España en el siglo xvii. See also Fernández
Santamaría, Natural Law, Constitutionalism, Reason of State, and War; García Cárcel, ‘Cuerpo y
enfermedad en el Antiguo Régimen’; Bennassar, La monarquía española de los Austrias, pp. 15–21.
13 
A political and cultural biography of Cartagena is provided in Fernández Gallardo,
Alonso de Cartagena. For the Jewish and Converso background of Cartagena and his family, see:
Serrano, Los conversos don Pablo de Santa María y don Alfonso de Cartagena; Cantera Burgos,
Alvar García de Santa María y su familia de conversos.
14 
Bataillon, Érasme et l’Espagne, ii, 10, 75–77.
15 
Nirenberg, ‘Was there Race before Modernity?’
16 
Ruano, Los orígenes del problema converso.
17 
Beinart, ‘The Great Conversion and the Converso Problem’; Netanyahu, The Origins of
the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain, esp. pp. 517–77; Meyuhas Ginio, ‘La opción desap-
258 Claude B. Stuczynski

lyse Cartagena’s book as part of a larger ‘converso theology’.18 But little is said
about the place of the Defensorium in the evolution of the mystical body meta-
phor.19 This essay aims to fill this gap: first, through an analysis of the corporeal
images mentioned in the book and secondly, by relocating them within the nar-
ratives and interpretations of Kantorowicz, Bataillon, and Maravall.

* * *
The Defensorium Unitatis Christianae was above all a political tract of its time.
It aimed to counter-attack justifications for the exclusion of conversos in 1449
Toledo. Cartagena’s Defensorium played a determinant role in debates raised
in the wake of the uprising in Toledo, influencing the initial decision of Pope
Nicholas V to abolish the anti-converso measures.20 But beyond its immediate
aims, the book was intended to integrate the converso into the mystical body
metaphor.21 Even early on, in the introduction, dedicated to King John II of
Castile, Cartagena invoked the biblical images of the dove and the tunic of
Christ to argue that the purity of the church is achieved through the unity of its
believers.22 He referred to Isidore of Seville as ‘your illustrious Spaniard’ (‘incola
yspanie vestre’) who called on the Christian princes to be the defenders of that
unity. Even if his ideas concerning the mystical body were explicitly ecclesio-
logical and therefore supra-national, the emphasis here is on a unique Spanish
identity. Since Isidore had been the most outstanding church representative of

rovechada’; Seidenspinner-Núñez, ‘Prelude to the Inquisition’; Sicroff, Los estatutos de limpieza

de sangre, pp. 59–88.
18 
Kriegel, ‘Autour de Pablo de Santa María et d’Alfonso de Cartagena’; Rosenstock, ‘New
Men’; Edwards, ‘New Light on the “Converso” Debate?’, pp. 311–26; Giordano, ‘“La ciudad de
nuestra conciencia”’.
19 
Garcia Jalón, ‘La nocion de “cuerpo místico” en Alonso de Cartagena’, identified the
concept only in Cartagena’s ‘Defensorium’ explicit reference regarding the city of Toledo as a
‘mystical body’. He claimed that Cartagena’s views on the subject were intentionally unoriginal
(‘nuestro autor no elaboró una doctrina original, ni era esa su pretensión’, p. 309).
20 
Beltrán de Heredia, ‘Las bulas de Nicolás V’.
21 
von Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle Age, trans. by Maitland. I employ the modern
Latin edition of Cartagena’s book, Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso.
There is also a Spanish translation: Cartagena, Alonso de Cartagena y el Defensorium Unitatis
Christianae, ed. by Verdín Díaz.
22 
‘My dove, my undefiled is but one’ (Song of Songs, 6. 9); ‘the coat was without seam,
woven from the top throughout’ ( John 19. 23). See also Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis
Christianae, ed. by Alonso, p. 61.
From Polemics and Apologetics to Theology and Politics 259

the Visigothic period, an era constantly invoked and idealized by the defend-
ers of the Castilian kings and of conversos (like Cartagena), this evocation was
intended to intervene in this very specific Castilian-Spanish context .23
According to Cartagena, God’s love for mankind’s unity is constant. It was
manifest from man’s creation through to his future redemption (‘qui unitatis
amator in unitate principium humani generis formando possuit et ad unitatem
redimendo reduxit’). The first and second parts if the book explain how and
why this unity was broken in the long period between the beginning and the
end of human history.24 In the first part of the Defensorium, Cartagena noted
that God created human beings from one man alone: Adam, and after the Fall
another forefather of mankind, Noah, tried to re-establish this lost unity. God
chose men according to merit, not birth. One of them was Abraham who, due
to outstanding piety, was made the father of many peoples (‘patrem multarum
gentium’) (Genesis 17. 5; Romans 4. 16). Just before Abraham, God had already
begun to discern between peoples (‘et gente a gente quodammodo segregare’).25
According to the promises given to Abraham, Providence chose certain indi-
viduals ( Jacob over Esau, for instance), and a people: Israel. This selection
was temporary; intended to restore the unity of mankind progressively until
the time of Jesus Christ, the second Adam, who would come from Israel. 26
Cartagena used Christological interpretations, influenced by Augustinian
views, to show these paradoxical and evolutional paths of unification.27 God
gave law to his chosen people so as to prepare the way for the coming of Christ
and his perfect law, the Gospel. In doing so, a fundamental division was created
between Jews and the rest of the world: Jews and Gentiles. But what was the
exact reason for God choosing the former?28 Cartagena quoted St Augustine in
explaining that this was one of God’s most profound secrets, impossible for any
human being to grasp (‘hec enim secreta divina ab hominibus sciri non possunt

23 
King, ‘The Barbarian Kingdoms’, esp. pp. 141–45; on the fifteenth-century Spanish
‘neo-Gothic’ revival, see: Tate, Ensayos sobre la historiografía peninsular del siglo xv; Hillgarth,
The Spanish Kingdoms, ii, 463; Bat-Sheva, ‘The 65th Canon of the IVth Council of Toledo’.
24 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, pp. 62–64.
25 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, p. 68.
26 
‘populum restringere volens et sibi peculiare applicare ex quo extensissimum salutare ad
universalem salutem oriretur’ (Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, p. 74).
27 
On Cartagena’s preference of Thomistic interpretations over Augustinian views, see:
Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain, pp. 530–35.
28 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, pp. 89–90.
260 Claude B. Stuczynski

nec etiam inquirenda sunt’).29 Thus, until the coming of Christ, two different
roles were envisaged by God for Jews and Gentiles, similar to those existing
in Catholicism between churchmen and laymen.30 A display of commitment
to Christ through baptism erased these ethnic divisions: (‘et omnis differentia
populorum et gentium cessavit’), creating a new people made from both eth-
nicities (‘[t]am isarelitas quam gentiles per sacri baptismatis ianuam ad fidem
catholicam ingredients non duos populos aut duas gentes divisas manere sed ex
utrisque venientibus unum populum novum creari’).31 A mystical body com-
posed of ‘one Church, one people, one body with Christ at its head’ was thus
constituted finally on the way to salvation.32
Cartagena acknowledged that both groups came to the Gospel from very dif-
ferent backgrounds: the Jews from a strong sense of familiarity and the Gentiles
from strangeness.33 Like his father, Pablo de Santa Maria, and other converso
and pro-converso writers and thinkers, Cartagena emphasized the closeness
between Judaism, Jews, Christ, and Christianity. Not only was the Gospel the
natural fulfillment of the Old Law;34 Jesus Christ also had the characteristics
of a Jewish prophet (‘quis autem alius propheta de gente sua’), being, in the
flesh, a member of the Jewish people (‘Christus qui de gente israelitarum qui
erant fratres sui secundum carnem, humanitatem assumpsit’). Moreover, even
if divine election became a matter of faith rather than birth,35 those Jews who

29 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, pp. 68–75. ‘Noli velle
diiudicare si non vis errare, hec enim secreta divina ab hominibus sciri non possunt nec etiam
inquirenda sunt’ (idem, p. 75). Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews, esp. pp. 286–89.
30 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, pp. 74–75.
31 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, pp. 89–90.
32 
‘Ex his duabus cohortibus quas ediximus, cum ad fidem catholicam veniunt, unam eccle-
siam, unum populum, unum corpus fieri, cuius caput est Christus’ (Cartagena, Defensorium
Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, p. 131).
33 
‘ut diligenter lector attendat quod non quasi ad inauditam legem et de novo recenter oblatam
ex israelitico populo descendentes accedunt, sed ad implementum legis scripte eiusque plenissimam
perfectionem ….’ ‘Alii vero qui ex diversis nationibus precedentes catholicam fidem recipient, ad
legem ex toto sibi novam videntur accedere’ (idem, p. 78). ‘Nam alter ad intensius cognoscendum
que iam utcumque noverat invitatur. Alter vero ad ea que non audierat vocatur’ (idem, p. 80).
34 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, pp. 77–89. Cf. Kriegel,
‘Autour de Pablo de Santa María et d’Alfonso de Cartagena’; Rosenstock, ‘New Men’; Jones,
‘Paul of Burgos and the “Adversus Judaeos” Tradition’.
35 
‘Sed necque propter hoc ab hac dignitate excludendi sunt illi qui secundum carnem ab
israelitica stripe descendunt, si sensum misticum carnali propagini coniunxerunt’ (Cartagena,
Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, p. 99).
From Polemics and Apologetics to Theology and Politics 261

discovered Christ long after denying him, like St Paul, were particularly cher-
ished by God (‘fideles autem benignius et quadam peculiaritate tractandos’).36
Reading the excerpts from the First Epistle to the Corinthians in this light,37
one could easily conclude that even after baptism, like slaves and freemen, con-
versos should be maintained as different members of Christ’s body. Thus, the
corporeal metaphor, instead of promoting converso integration, could legiti-
mize ethnic difference, even if this time it was to the advantage of Christians of
Jewish descent. This interpretation contradicts other Paulinian statements, par-
ticularly that of Galatians (3. 27–29), quoted by Cartagena in his Defensorium
as a fundamental argument for converso integration:
For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor
female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s
seed, and heirs according to the promise.38

How can these Paulinian descriptions of Christian community be reconciled?

In the Defensorium Cartagena tried to harmonize them, claiming that:
Inside the unified body of the Church, even if someone deserves more respect than
others […] concerning the right to be part of that body […] everyone is equal. In
the same way that the eye cannot tell to the foot you are not a part of my body, not-
withstanding its high function, inside the Body of the Church […] every believer
from any origin is an entire part of it.39

Others, like the converso courtier Fernán Díaz ‘El Relator’, revealed these ten-
sions more blatantly. When arguing against Toledo anti-converso measures El
Relator states, ‘Not only is it forbidden to despise them, but they must be hon-
oured according to the words of the Apostle our relative [St Paul]: “Judeo pri-
mum et Graeco”. He said: “First the Jew and then the Greek”.’40 These views can

36 
‘Gloriatur itaque apostolus qui fidem perfectam et caritatem formatam habeat, ex radice
israelitica carnem sua habuisse, ut qui an oliva excisus fuerat, in eam iterum reinsertum se fuisse
monstraret’ (Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, pp. 117–18); ‘sic suo
modo isarelita, per infidelitatem suam a gratia divina eiectus, per fidei susceptionem in lavacro
regenerationis adoptatus ad divinam gratiam habundantius quam prius habebat reducitur’
(idem, p. 118).
37 
See n. 3.
38 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, p. 90.
39 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, pp. 150–51.
40 
‘que no solo no deben ser desdenados, mas que deben ser favorescidos: lo qual concuerda
262 Claude B. Stuczynski

be explained as pro-converso responses to opposing anti-converso arguments, as

a byproduct of a certain Iberian-Sephardic aristocratic self-image, or at least,
as an expression of Cartagena’s own Judeo-Christian familial sense of pride, as
he claimed to be a descendant of the illustrious tribes of Levi, Judah, and the
Virgin Mary.41 Yet theologically this position reflected the inner tensions exist-
ing within the mystical body metaphor in reconciling equality and differences
between Jews and Gentiles. In its more secularized adaptations the mystical
body metaphor served to justify group cohesion by appealing to respect for
hierarchies and social roles. Aristotelian political and anthropological organic
criteria found their way into these discourses easily. However, when the status
of Christians of Jewish or Gentile descent, whose particularities were deter-
mined by Providence, Faith, and Grace, were at stake, the abovementioned
textual difficulties could generate contradiction, particularly through the
politicized interpretations of the mystical body that characterized Cartagena’s
Defensorium. That is why the second part of the book may be seen as a response
to these inconsistencies in his work. I shall show here the shortcomings of some
of his answers.
Regarding God’s preference for Jews over Gentiles, Cartagena claimed
historical-providential compensation, showing that the majority of believers
in Christ were actually not Jews, but Gentiles. As in his explanation of Israel’s
prior election, Cartagena invoked St Paul’s mystery from the Epistle to the
Romans 11, to argue that the ways of mankind’s final reunification were aston-
ishing in this case as well (‘sed ordo huius vocationis cum devota admiratione
contemplandum est’). Like his father, Pablo de Santa Maria, Cartagena clari-
fied a pivotal role for the conversion of Jews as announcers and bringers of final
salvation (‘[q]uanto ergo crebior et habundantior infidelium israeliatrum con-
versio sit, tanto verisimilius est iudicii universalis diem appropinquare’).42 Thus,
at the beginning of God’s election, at the foundation of the Church (‘quoniam
de iudeis conversis ecclesia fundata fuit’) and throughout human history, the
role of the Jews remained central. Was it possible to endorse complete converso
integration from such selective teleology? The most influential commentator

bien con las palabras del Apostol, aunque era nuestro Pariente, donde dice: Judeo, primo, et
Graeco: y sobre todo esto a mi no cabe espender papel, pues hablo con quien mucho major lo
sabe’ (Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, p. 345). Cf. Round, ‘Politics,
Styles and Group Attitudes in the “Instrucción del Relator”’.
41 
For example, Nirenberg, ‘Mass Conversion and Genealogical Mentalities’.
42 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, p. 127. Cf. Pablo de Santa
Maria, La segunda parte del ‘Scrutinium scripturarum’, ed. by Martínez de Bedoya, pp. 162–65.
From Polemics and Apologetics to Theology and Politics 263

on Cartagena’s theology, St Thomas Aquinas, claimed that after the coming

of the messiah the Jews completely lost their past superiority over Gentiles.43
Moreover, even if Aquinas conceded a similar pivotal role to the Jews in the his-
tory of mankind, his lesser concern for the immanency of their final conversion
probably appeased these theological tensions.44 Cartagena, however, saw things
differently. Like other converso theologians, he was led towards some ‘philo-
Semitic’ Joachimite-like perception of Jews as promoters of salvation.45
One of Cartagena’s most convincing answers regarding converso integration
was articulated by underlying biblical patterns of miscegenation.46 Cartagena
interpreted the genealogy of the Virgin Mary, the mother of the bearer of the
unity of mankind, as a paradigm of Judeo-Gentile integration. For according
to the bishop of Burgos, she had, at the same time, both Gentile female lineage
(Rehab and Ruth) and Jewish male progeny ( Judah and Levi). Thus, their son
was not only divine and human, but also both Jew and Gentile. 47 Cartagena
interpreted biblical excerpts dealing with reconciliation as Christological
prophecies concerning the future unity between Jews and Gentiles in one
church. Isaiah’s prediction of the wolf (the virile Gentiles) living together
with the lamb (the pacific Israelites) and other bellicose and pacific animals
(Isaiah 11. 6) was one such case.48 Moreover, for Cartagena, miscegenation
improves human qualities since the Jews’ ‘Davidic mildness’ (daviditica man-

43 
‘Dicendum est, quod Iudaei et Graeci possunt considerari dupliciter: uno modo secun-
dum statum in quo erant ante fidem; et sic amplius fuit Iudaeo propter beneficium legis. Alio
modo quantum ad statum gratiae, et sic non est amplius Iudaeo’ (Thomas Aquinas, Super
Epistolam B. Pauli ad Galatas lectura).
44 
Hood, Aquinas and the Jews, pp. 76–77; Boguslawski, Thomas Aquinas on the Jews.
Cf. Cohen, ‘The Mystery of Israel’s Salvation’.
45 
Against the tendency to identify inherent ‘philo-Semitic’ predispositions in Joachimite
millenarianism (Lerner, The Feast of Saint Abraham, p. 120) Maurice Kriegel pointed out the
existence of ‘confrontational stances’ that it usually endorsed towards Judaism (Kriegel, ‘The
Reckonings of Nahmanides and Arnold of Villanova’). This more dialectic perception of
Joachimite traditions has also to do with the problem of Converso integration within Millenarian
discourses: Must they be perceived as completely diluted group within Christendom or rather,
as a differentiated group of Judeo-Christians fulfilling a specific Providential role?
46 
Rosenstock, ‘Alonso de Cartagena’.
47 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, pp. 131–36.
48 
‘Quid ergo aliud est lupum cum agno simul habitare aut pardum cum edo accubare,
nissi effrenatam bellicositatem gentilium et strenuitatem armorum mansuetudini populis lega-
lis intra unam ecclesiam coniugi’, Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso,
pp. 136–40.
264 Claude B. Stuczynski

suetudo) moderates the Gentiles’ ‘Cesarean ferocity’ (ferocitate cesaree).49 These

assumptions, however, admit the existence of some essential traits that Jews and
Gentiles bring with them to the mystical body after baptism. They also contra-
dict another central claim made in the Defensorium, whereby there are indi-
viduals with common qualities among Gentiles and Jews — for example, some
of them are aristocrats and other plebeians; some courageous warriors while
others labouring peasants; some were born to govern and others to be governed
— who deserve to intermarry according to their social stratum.50
These inconsistencies perhaps result from the difficulties of interpreting
the mystical body metaphor while including Jews and Gentiles for concrete
theological-political purposes. Let us briefly compare Cartagena with Aquinas
again. In the Commentary to i Corinthians 12. 12–31 traditionally attributed
to Aquinas, there is a distinction between two sorts of human differences: of
rite, in the case of Jews and Gentiles (‘Una ex parte ritus cum dicit: Sive Judaei,
sive Gentiles’) and of condition, for the slaves and the free-men (‘Alia ex parte
conditionis cum dicit: Sive servi, sive liberi’).51 In Aquinas’s Commentary to
Galatians 3. 27–29, three qualitative differences are identified: those result-
ing from previously practised religious rites; status or condition of slaves vs.
free men; and the nature that defines men and women. All of these conditions
benefit from the salvific virtues of baptism; however, only the first completely
disappears, since it is a matter of mere education, culture, or belief.52 In the
Defensorium, Cartagena, like Aquinas, discerns types of human differentia-
tion. But this time, the differences are between ‘chair’ or ethnic origin (carnem)
and ‘grade’ or social hierarchy (graduum), and more closely resemble those
advanced in Nicholas of Lyra’s hermeneutics.53 With Christ the first sort of dif-
ference disappears, since the ‘great sea of the Christian Republic’ (‘mare mag-

49 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, p. 141.
50 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, pp. 158–66, 203: ‘ut rus-
ticus cum rusticis, plebeyus cum plebeyis, popularis cum popularibus, mercator cum merca-
toribus, miles cum militibus, nobilis cum nobilibus, sacerdos cum sacerdotibus et sic einceps per
omnes ecclesiastice et politice gubernationis gradus discurrendo psriter numeretur nobelium
virorum ac excellentum familiarum honore et preeminentia super servatis.’
51 
Thomas Aquinas, In Omnes D. Pauli Apostolo Epistolas Commentaria, p. 472.
52 
Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistolam B. Pauli ad Galatas lectura.
53 
‘et sic faciunt sub capite Christo unum corpus mysticum […]. Siue iudei sive gentiles q.d.
hanc unitatem non impedit diversitatis gentis praecedentes baptismum. Sive servi sive liberi,
q.d. diversitas conditionis hanc unitatem non impedit’ (Lyra’s Commentary to i Corinthians
12. 12–27 in Biblia Latina cum glossa ordinaria, vi).
From Polemics and Apologetics to Theology and Politics 265

num christianae reipublicae’) is comprised of believers coming from different

origins (‘cum populi multi diversarum nationum in unam sanctam ecclesiam
reducuntur’). United by the same faith and mixed together, Jews and Gentiles
are thus reunited into one body.54 The second criterion, that of of grade, results
from civic virtue and natural predisposition. As with Aquinas, the last criterion
is, to Cartagena, compatible with Christian faith and highly recommended for
the proper function of the Christian republic. In the political arena, just as in
the human body (‘sicut in corpore humanum’), the most able members must
govern the less acquainted (‘sic in societate humana qui inferiores sunt discre-
tione, gubernari per prudentiores debent’).55 Thus, grade (civic or natural) is
the only sphere in which Cartagena legitimizes hierarchies and social roles.56
Cartagena employed more corporal and political designations than Aquinas,
preferring ‘chair’ to ‘rite’, and ‘civic’ rather than ‘status’. The question remained:
In which sphere should the alleged Jewish proclivity for mildness be placed? In
the Defensorium Cartagena argues that nobility is transmitted through lineage,
being one of the ‘grade’ qualities. But in disputations he publicly held in the
name of the Spanish kings about the superiority of Castile over Portugal and
England, he stressed the existence of higher qualities among the former, includ-
ing the qualities of Visigothic courage and ferocity.57 Toledo’s rebels endorsed
a homogeneous perception of community, led by the king as Vicar of Christ,
but guided by the Holy Spirit. Paradoxically, these more horizontal-egalitar-
ian tendencies justified the exclusion of the conversos, traditionally perceived
as aliens within the old Christian fraternal community.58 That is why, in order

54 
‘Omnibus undecumque venientibus at in unum corpus redactis.’ Cartagena, Defensorium
Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, pp. 149–50.
55 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, p. 171. ‘[p]rerogativam
ergo ex his differentiis iuxta rectam et congruam proportionem observari iustissimum est, et
fidei catholice non adversum, dum tamen ex illa generali carnis differentia proportion aliqua non
sumatur’ (p. 148). Cf. Cartagena’s discernment between ‘theological’, ‘civil’, and ‘natural’ quali-
ties in Alonso de Cartagena, Edición crítica, ed. by Echeverría Gaztelumendi, esp. pp. 201–22.
56 
For example, ‘Nam, licet multa membra habeamus et alterum altero honorabilius sit
propter diversitatem officiorum, que ut toti deserviant, eis incumbent, tamen quicquid noci-
vum uni membrorum inferur, in alia membra redundat’ (Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis
Christianae, ed. by Alonso, p. 150). On Cartagena’s social ideals, see: Alonso de Cartagena,
Doctrinal de los cavalleros, ed. by Viña Liste, pp. 20–24.
57 
Tate, ‘The “Anacephaelosis” of Alfonso García de Santa María’ (=Tate, Ensayos sobre la
historiografía peninsular del siglo xv, pp. 55–73); Rosenstock, ‘Alonso de Cartagena’, pp. 189–90.
58 
Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain, pp. 584–605.
266 Claude B. Stuczynski

to promote converso integration into Spanish Christian society, without los-

ing hierarchy or cohesiveness, Cartagena deliberately articulated the mystical
body metaphor and loaded it with socio-political and anthropological conno-
tations. By doing so he had to dismember the metaphor at two levels in order
to assert that conversos, although within the mystical body, do not constitute
a specific and separate grade.59 On the one hand, once baptized, Jews blend
into a diluted, equal, homogenized, and unique body, headed by Christ. On
the other hand, birth, class, and gender retain their hierarchical characteristics,
being seen as the distinct organs that comprise the whole mystical body.60 This
juxtaposition aimed to reconcile converso integration and social stratification,
but it left some residues of Jewishness (and ‘Gentility’) in its interstices. Ben-
Zion Netanyahu argued that contrary to the position of the Toledo’s rebels, the
theological prerogatives that pro-converso writers and thinkers conceded to the
Jews could not be perceived as racism, since they were endowed by God and
not by nature.61 Yet, we must bear in mind that late medieval and early modern
proto-racist opinions were often constructed on such grounds.62 The inclusion
of the conversos in the mystical body was a means used by Cartagena to dimin-
ish inconsistencies, albeit with partial success.
Cartagena’s corporeal metaphor in the Defensorium aimed to be Christian,
Paulinian, and ecclesiologic. For this reason, according to the bishop of Burgos,
the observant Jews living in Christian lands without converting to Christianity,
and who were tolerated, protected, and useful to the Republic, could never
reach full membership in the Christian polity.63 As briefly mentioned in his

59 
See also Stallaert, ‘La España de la limpieza de sangre’.
60 
‘Sic ergo sub unitatis corpori ecclesiastici, licet unum individuum alio honorabilius
sit propter diversas excellentias, que in eo forsan concurrunt, sed tamen quo ad generalitatem
totum corpus integrandi ac se membrum aliud quodcumque vocandi, nullum contemptibile
est. Sed omnia equalia sunt et sicut neque oculus pedi dicere potest, non esse membrum, licet
respectu ocularis officii escellentior, delicatior et honorabilior sit. Sic in eccleiastico corpore
in quo fideles membra diversa offitia habemt et alii oculo, alii lingue, alii brachiis, alii pedibus
quodam modo similes sunt, et alios alio ratione excellentioris offitii aut clarioris nobilitatis alte-
riusve cuiuscunque particularis eminentie, amplioris honoris habendus sit, unusquisque tamen
fidelis undecumque venerit membrum integrum est et habilis, ut sub typo congruentis mem-
bri ab ecclesiastica providentia directi in ordine collocetur’ (Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis
Christianae, ed. by Alonso, p. 151).
61 
His analysis on Juan de Torquemada’s perceptions on race and the Jewish people
(Netanyahu, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain, pp. 1110–12).
62 
For example, Gliozzi, Adamo e il nuovo mondo; Kidd, The Forging of Races.
63 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, pp. 176–81.
From Polemics and Apologetics to Theology and Politics 267

dedication to the King of Castile, Cartagena elaborated in the third part of

the Defensorium the idea that the prince’s duty is to preserve the unity of the
church, quoting Aristotle and Aquinas.64 The Toledo rioters broke church
unity in 1449, transgressing both levels of the mystical body — the theologi-
cal and the social. They were heretics for excluding conversos from ecclesiastical
and public offices and rebels for transgressing royal law and social hierarchy.
Cartagena noted that heresy and rebellion are very close (‘quasi contigua sint
heresias et lese maiestatis delicta’), usually the former leading the latter (‘[r]
aro enim reperietur quin hii qui aliquid erroris contra fidem catholicam stagare
temptant, in magestatem principum terrenorum non irruant’).65 Like other
conversos and pro-conversos who promoted social unity, Cartagena had in mind
contemporary ecclesiastical schisms and social uprisings, such as Hussitism,
that endangered the integrity of the mystical body.66
Cartagena’s ecclesiological conception of the mystical body metaphor in
the Defensorium contrasts with the more sociopolitical statements he made in
his profane-humanistic writings.67 In the Defensorium he succinctly displayed
his knowledge of the secularized articulations of the mystical body in order to
condemn and delegitimize the Toledo rebels against conversos and the king in
the name of urban autonomy: ‘as colleges, universities or multitude of people
properly reunited, who are usually called mystical bodies.’68 In 1449 Toledo, he
claimed, the rioters also attacked this specific category of mystical bodies (the
cities). The plebeians seized Toledo’s government, transgressed previous laws,
broke social order, and established new institutions. Using a rhetoric based on
envy against the ablest and most successful conversos, the rebels transformed that
once glorious city of Toledo into a mere agglutination of persons.69 Cartagena

64 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, esp. pp. 306, 309–10. On
Cartagena’s overall political views, see Fernández Gallardo, ‘Las ideas políticas de Alonso de
Cartagena’.
65 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, pp. 276, 278–79, 285. In
order to demonstrate the relationship between heresy and rebellion, Cartagena quoted his-
torical some cases like King of Israel Jeroboam raised against Rehoboam, King of Judah and
Muhammad, influenced by Arian and Nestorian heresies, revolting against Emperor Heraclius.
66 
Fernández Gallardo, Alonso de Cartagena.
67 
Alonso de Cartagena, La anacephaleosis, ed. by Espinosa Fernández, iii, 221; Castilla
Urbano, ‘La metáfora organicista […] en la obra de Alonso de Cartagena’.
68 
‘[S]icut sunt collegia, universitates ac populorum multitudines civiliter congregate, que cor-
pora mistica solent vocare’ (Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, p. 305).
69 
Cartagena, Defensorium Unitatis Christianae, ed. by Alonso, pp. 309–12. Cartagena
268 Claude B. Stuczynski

was careful to indicate that cities ‘were usually called mystical bodies’ (que cor-
pora mistica solent vocare); that is, only in a larger sense of the concept, but
not strictu sensu. However, this was the only place in the Defensorium where
Cartagena explicitly employed the term. The question is: why? I previously
showed that his conception of corpus mysticum elaborated in the Defensorium
was strongly Christian and universal. Like Aquinas, Cartagena celebrated bap-
tism as the means to become a member of that salutary body.70 Cartagena’s pre-
dilection for Aquinas’s interpretations of the ‘mystical body’ reflects his intel-
lectual debt to Thomism. At the same time, it stood against the growing secular
connotations of the term that could undermine the integration of the conversos
on political grounds. Let us remember that at the beginning of the seventeenth
century, when the ‘mystical body’ became ever more secularized, the expulsion
from Spain of the Christians of Muslim descent — the Moriscos — as well as
the debates held in Portugal concerning the eventual expulsion of the conver-
sos, were based on the grounds that, albeit baptized as New Christians, both
groups formed mystical bodies of their own.71 These later articulations of the
organic metaphor were closer to the classical imperium in imperio and to the
modern ‘state within a state’, than to Paul’s corpus Christi. Like Henri de Lubac
in the twentieth century, during the fifteenth century Alonso de Cartagena
aimed to preserve as much as possible the sacramental-ecclesiological mean-
ing of the Paulinian metaphor against all forms of reductive secularization.72 In
order to avoid confusion between the ecclesiological and the political uses of
the concept, being contiguous and porous (that is, theological-political), in his
Defensorium Cartagena probably opted to offer implicitly a long elaboration of
the former meaning.

* * *
The uses made of and roles assigned to the corporeal metaphors by Cartagena
in his Defensorium may help illuminate some of the insights of Bataillon,
Maravall, and Kantorowicz. The Defensorium was more than a polemical tract
and a brilliant apology. It systematically expressed political, juridical, social,

analysed Toledo compared to Italian cities, like Florence, Venice and Milan through the
Aristotelian classification of polis.
70 
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, ed. by Gilby, pp. 102–04.
71 
For example, Pulido Serrano, ‘La expulsión de los judíos y de los moriscos’, v, 565–76;
Cohen, The Canonization of a Myth.
72 
Rust, ‘Political Theologies of the Corpus Mysticum’, pp. 104–08.
From Polemics and Apologetics to Theology and Politics 269

and theological converso and pro-converso views. Cartagena employed corporeal

metaphors in his Defensorium and other contemporary pro-converso treatises73
because he believed that a return to ancient Paulinian substrates would legiti-
mate converso integration. Bataillon and his followers were right to suggest that
one of the reasons conversos were so predisposed to sympathize with Erasmian
views was the centrality that Erasmus conceded to St Paul’s life and teachings.74
Converso and pro-converso use of the mystical body metaphor was an effort to
preserve its Paulinian meanings against secular tendencies. Cartagena was well
aware of the secular uses of the ‘mystical body’ term, but deliberately chose not
to follow this path when dealing with the converso phenomenon. This con-
scious choice reveals one of the most fascinating Iberian specificities in the evo-
lution of the concept.
Cartagena was certainly not a proto-Erasmian thinker. He remained
Thomistic-Aristotelian, albeit highly receptive to Italian and Iberian human-
istic concepts and ideas. His return to the Paulinian roots of the mystical body
metaphor through Thomism enabled him to argue that it was comprised of at
least two autonomous levels: one ethnic and egalitarian, the other social and
hierarchical. Other conversos, pro-conversos and Spanish Erasmists continued
on the path traced by the bishop of Burgos, enhancing and enlarging the first
level. Fray Luis de Leon’s The Names of Christ (De los nombres de Cristo, 1585),
may be seen as a byproduct of this evolution.75 In the long run, such a resa-
cralization led to a spiritualization of the concept, and contributed to a certain
depolitization of the converso integration problem. Like Michel de Certeau’s
explanation for the early modern outburst of mysticism, the insistence on the
head rather than on other members of the mystical body denoted the scissions
between sacral-spiritual and secular-political uses of the term.76 This had not
been Cartagena’s intention, nor the unique product of his own views. Contrary
to the claims made by José C. Nieto,77 in Cartagena’s Defensorium, at least, the

73 
Like Cardinal Juan de Toquemada’s Tractatus contra madianitas et ismaelitas, which was
influenced by Cartagena’s Defensorium (Torquemada, Tratado contra los madianitas e ismaelitas,
ed. by del Valle, esp. pp. 104–06.
74 
Márquez Villanueva, Investigaciones sobre Juan Álvarez Gato; Giordano, Apologetas de la
fé; Pastore, Un’Eresia Spagnola; Ianuzzi, El poder de la palabra en el siglo xv.
75 
Gutiérrez, ‘La doctrina del cuerpo místico de Cristo en fray Luis de León’; Hervás,
‘Nuestra unidad en Adán y en Cristo según Fray Luis de León’; Parello, ‘Entre honra y deshonra’,
esp. p. 151.
76 
De Certeau, La Fable mystique, pp. 107–21.
77 
Nieto, El renacimiento y la otra España.
270 Claude B. Stuczynski

Thomistic interpretations of the mystical body metaphor did not counter pre-
vious Paulinian meanings. On the contrary, through his purportedly ‘vulgar-
ized’ Thomism,78 Cartagena’s interpretations of the corporeal metaphor rein-
stated most of its pristine political meaning, avoiding the transformation of
converso equality into a matter of mere spiritual concern. By doing so Cartagena
uncovered some inconsistencies within the mystical body metaphor regarding
the precise boundaries of the Judeo–Gentile Christian condition, as well as
between the theological and the political spheres. These inconsistencies would
become manifest even further later on, when some conversos and pro-conver-
sos adopted the concept in order to promote social converso integration in the
name of a certain ‘reason of state’, as part of an Iberian economic, social and
political revival.79 But by then, the slight tensions and inconsistencies appear-
ing in Cartagena’s Defensorium turned out to be more overtly dialectical and
problematic.80

78 
Fernández Gallardo, ‘Legitimación monárquica’.
79 
Stuczynski, ‘Religious Identity and Economic Activities of the New Christians’.
80 
Stuczynski, ‘Harmonizing Identities’.
From Polemics and Apologetics to Theology and Politics 271

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