Changes in Ethical Worldviews of Spanish Missionaries in Mexico European Expansion and Indigenous Response Editor-in-Chief George Bryan Souza (University of Texas, San Antonio) Editorial Board Cátia Antunes (Leiden University) João Paulo Oliveira e Costa (cham, Universidade Nova de Lisboa) Frank Dutra (University of California, Santa Barbara) Kris Lane (Tulane University) Pedro Machado (Indiana University, Bloomington) Malyn Newitt (King’s College, London) Michael Pearson (University of New South Wales) VOLUME 15 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/euro Changes in Ethical Worldviews of Spanish Missionaries in Mexico An Ethical Transition from Sight to Touch in the 16th and 17th Centuries By Ran Tene LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: Juan Sánchez Cotán, Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber, ca. 1602. Oil on canvas, 27 1/8 in. x 33 1/4 in. San Diego Museum of Art, California, usa. Photo Courtesy of The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. dvd-rom, 2002. isbn 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH, on Wikimedia Commons. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tene, Ran. Changes in ethical worldviews of Spanish missionaries in Mexico : an ethical transition from sight to touch in the 16th and 17th centuries / by Ran Tene. pages cm. -- (European expansion and indigenous response, ISSN 1873-8974 ; VOLUME 15) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-28454-8 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Missions--Mexico--History. 2. Conversion--Christianity. 3. Psychology, Religious. 4. Torquemada, Juan de, 1388-1468. 5. Motolinía, Toribio, -1568. I. Title. BV2835.3.T46 2015 266’.27209031--dc23 2014048622 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1873-8974 ISBN 978-90-04-28454-8 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-28455-5 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. To Dana ∵ Contents General Editor’s Foreword ix Acknowledgments xii List of Figures and Tables xiii Glossary of Foreign Terms xiv Introduction 1 1 Conversion and an Ethical Worldview 1 2 Methodology 16 3 Authors of the Historical Sources 19 1 From Sight to Touch in the Ethical Narrative 23 1.1 Earth, Body, and Clothes 23 1.2 The Body 29 1.3 Poverty 43 1.4 Identity and Will 53 1.5 Sight, Touch and Free Will – A Summary 65 2 Two Ethical Systems: Example and Mystery 72 2.1 The Beautiful and the True 72 2.2 From Example to Mystery (‘ejemplo’‘misterio’) –To Learn from a Human Story 80 2.3 Self-identity and Historical Memory–Homeland, Family, and History 91 2.4 Moral Particularism and the Ethical Dispute 99 3 Cruelty 106 3.1 Cruelty in the SixteenthCentury – the Object of Cruelty 109 3.2 Cruelty in the SeventeenthCentury – Torquemada and the Cruelty of Sacrifice – the Story of the Goddess Toci 111 3.3 Cruelty, Dominion/Rule, and Justice 118 Conclusion 139 Bibliography Index 158 147 General Editor’s Foreword Over the past half millennium, from ca. 1450 until the last third or so of the twentieth century, much of the world’s history has been influenced in great part by one general dynamic and complex historical process known as European expansion. Defined as the opening up, unfolding, or increasing the extent, number, volumes or scope of the space, size, or participants belonging to a defined people or group, location or geographical region, Europe’s expansion initially emerged and emanated physically, intellectually, and politically in general in southern Europe and specifically on the Iberian peninsula in the fifteenth century and developed rapidly to include all of Europe’s maritime and, subsequently, most of its continental states and peoples. Most commonly associated with events described as the discovery of America and of a passage to the East Indies (Asia) by rounding the Cape of Good Hope (Africa), during the early modern and modern periods, European expansion and encounters with the rest of the world multiplied and morphed into several ancillary historical processes including colonization, imperialism, capitalism, and globalization and dealt with themes, amongst others, that relate to contacts, …“connections and exchanges peoples, ideas and products, especially through the medium of trading companies; the exchange of religions and traditions; the transfer of technologies; and the development of new forms of political, social and economic policy, as well as identity formation” (from the series’ original objectives and mission statement). In consequence of its intrinsic importance, extensive research has been performed and much has been written about this field and the diverse topics that embody this subject over this entire period. With the first volume published in 2009, Brill launched the European Expansion and Indigenous Response book series at the initiative of a wellknown scholar and respected historian, Glenn J. Ames, who prior to his untimely passing was the founding editor and guided the first seven volumes of the series to publication. George Bryan Souza, who was one of the early members of the series’ editorial board, was appointed the series’ second General Editor. The series’ founding objectives were and are to focus on publications “that understand and deal with the process of European expansion, interchange and connectivity in a global context in the early modern and modern period” and to “provide a forum for a variety of types of scholarly work with a wider disciplinary approach that moves beyond the traditional isolated and nation bound historiographical emphases of this field, encouraging whenever possible non-European perspectives”… “that seek to understand this x General Editor’s Foreword indigenous transformative process and period in autonomous as well as interrelated cultural, economic, social, and ideological terms” (from the series’ original objectives and mission statement). The history of European expansion is a field that is challenging and interest in it, which is high is likely to continue, if not grow, in spite or perhaps, because of it being so polemical. The heightened dispute about the field has centered primarily on tropes conceived and written in the past by Europeans, primarily, concerning their early reflections, claims, and contestation about the transcendental historical nature of this process and its emergence and importance in the creation of an early modern global economy and society. One of the most persistent complaints about the field is that it is “Eurocentric,” which is a complaint about the perennial difficulty in introducing and balancing different historical perspectives, when one of the actors to some degree is neither European nor Europeanized – a conundrum that is alluded to in an African proverb, which states: “Until the lion tells his tale the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” Another and, perhaps, an even more important and growing historiographical issue is that with the re-emergence of historical millennial societies (China and India, for example) and the emergence of other non-Western European societies successfully competing competitively politically, economically and intellectually on the global scene vis-à-vis Europe, the seminal nature of European expansion is being subjected to greater scrutiny, debate, and comparison with other historical alternatives. Despite and, perhaps, because of these new directions and stimulating sources of existing and emerging debating points or lines of dispute about the field of history of European expansion, Souza and the editorial board of the series will continue with the original objectives and mission statement of the series and vigorously “…seek out studies that employ diverse forms of analysis from all scholarly disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, art history, history, (including the history of science), linguistics, literature, music, philosophy, and religious studies.” In addition, we shall seek to stimulate, locate, incorporate, and publish the most important and exciting scholarship in the field. Towards that purpose, I am pleased to introduce volume 15 of Brill’s euro series, entitled: Changes in Ethical Worldviews of Spanish Missionaries in Mexico: An Ethical Transition from Sight to Touch in the 16th and 17th Centuries. In this intellectually challenging and insightful comparison of two seminal works by Spanish authors (Motolinía in the early to mid-16th and Torequemada in the early seventeenth century) about missions and religious proselytization, Ran Tene employs a richly textured interdisciplinary analysis from the fields of Philosophy, History, and Literary Studies. Although he deviates from focusing General Editor’s Foreword xi on the lives and attitudes of the missionized Indians to examine and explore the changes over time in European missionary mentalities and, hence, will be considered “Eurocentric,” his proposition for the field in general and specifically the intellectual history of expansion, regardless of it being Eurocentric, is, first, that he confronts us or demands that we engage that discourse from approaches or optics that are rarely employed or have been shunned, which is difficult but a net plus and positive. Second, while he acknowledges that his study is primarily about the view of missions and religious proselytization within the context of European expansion, his study does open questions as to whether his methodology and analytical approach might be valid or useful in examining and comparing other historical examples of non-European, nonChristian religious proselytization efforts (i.e. the missions and mentalities of missionaries, for example, of Mohammad and Buddha) with those that he develops. George Bryan Souza Acknowledgments It gives me great pleasure to express my gratitude to Professor Yemima Ben-Menahem of the Hebrew University and Professor Yosef Schwartz of Tel Aviv University, who were the supervisors for the doctoral dissertation written at Haifa University, which was the basis for this book. I am grateful to them for the long years in which they accompanied my scholarly efforts and placed their faith in my attempts to build the bridges between philosophy and history on which this work rests. I wish to thank Professor George Bryan Souza, my editor at Brill and the two anonymous reviewers who helped give this book its final shape, and also Yishai Weiss who read the book, and provided comments and corrections. I would also like to extend my thanks to the staff of the Biblioteca Nacional de España, who assisted me in collecting the source material for this book. In the course of working on the book I presented a number of lectures on the book’s various chapters, and would like to thank the institutions that hosted me for providing me with those opportunities: The Center of Visual Studies, Bar Ilan University, The New Israeli Philosophy Association and The Second Conference on New Studies in Ibero and Latin-American Culture and History, Tel Aviv University. Finally, I wish to thank my wife Dana who read the manuscript countless times and helped make this book clearer. Without her the book would not have been written. Ran Tene Tel-Aviv List of Figures and Tables Figures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 A sixteenth-century stone cross (7 feet, 10 inches high), created by an Indian craftsman probably before 1538, Mexico State Monastery of San Agustín 30 A tree found in the district of Limache, Chile, with an engraved figure of crucified Christ. From Alonso de Ovalle, Historica relacion del reyno de Chile (Rome, 1646) 31 Clothing and identity. A native American young man from Mexico with beautiful clothing. From Cesare Vecellio, De gli Habiti Antichi e Modérni di Diversi Parti di Mondo (Venice, 1598) 42 The Christian world and the devil's world. The devil tries to pull with a chain a native American man suspended from a Christian tree. From Diego Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana (Perugia, 1579) 49 Mechanistic perceptions of the human body. An artificial hand. From Ambroise Paré, Dix livres de la chirurgie, p. 121. (Paris, 1564) 70 Teaching the catechism. From Diego Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana (Perugia, 1579) 84 Teaching the Ten Commandments with two left hands. From Juan de la Cruz, Doctrina christiana en la lengua guasteca co[n] la lengua castellana (Mexico, 1571) 85 Tables 1 2 3 4 Spanish missionaries in New Spain, the authors of the historical texts A comparison between sixteenth-century and seventeenth-century approaches to sight, will, and the concrete 68 Two types of ethical stories 82 Two types of moral stories of cruelty 118 22 Glossary of Foreign Terms The methodology upon which this research is based places a great deal of emphasis on the changes in the meanings of concepts, as it does on the complex dependencies of concepts on entire ethical worlds. Most of the Spanish terms with which this study engages will be subjected to an extended interpretive treatment. This brief list is only a preliminary approximation of the foreign terms which will be employed. hábito historia ejemplo lengua memorial monarquía Motolinía patria primero puntualidad rareza recogimiento remedies reyno relaciones sambenito religious habit chronicle, historical account example language chronicle, chronicle of a religious province monarchy Nahuatl term for ‘poor’ or ‘he is poor’ fatherland first punctuality rarity withdrawal, used for a spiritual practice that entails isolation remedies kingdom informative texts, sometimes of a notarial character the garment that heretics found guilty by the Inquisition were forced to wear Introduction 1 Conversion and an Ethical Worldview In the year 1524, three years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico, Cortés sends a letter to Carlos V, requesting him to send friars “leading an exemplary life” in order to convert the Indians, natives of the newly-conquered land. In his letter to the king, Cortés describes how these friars would settle in the isolated Indian villages. A few months previously, the first mission of twelve Franciscan friars had already arrived in Mexico. These friars and their followers, whose life was intended to serve as a living example of Christianity for the pagan natives, are the main subject of this book. The historical junction in which this small group of friars found itself at the beginning of the modern era turned them into significant persons in the transfer of concepts from one culture to another as part of the first great missionary enterprise of modern times. As soon as these friars from Spain set foot in Mexico, they served as a window between the two cultures. From the perspective of the Indians, they acted as agents of the Christian religion and destroyers of the Aztec religion, and for the Europeans, they were a source of knowledge about the Aztec world, which they were bent on destroying. The friars published their impressions, thoughts, and experiences of the new world in chronicles, history books, ‘relaciones’, and ‘memoriales’. Modern historical research made extensive use of these writings as a window through which they could view the Indian culture. I will attempt to restore the original role of these Christian missionaries as an example in their lives and as a window to the ethical world of Catholic Europe as it is represented by its most authentic representatives, the agents of the missionary movement and the broader process of propagating the Christian worldview. This book is based on historical texts written by Spanish missionaries in Mexico. The main protagonist of the book is the Franciscan brother Juan de Torquemada, head of the Franciscans in Mexico and the author of the book Monarquía Indiana, published in Spain in 1615. The changes occupying a central position in my book are those that he introduced in the beginning of the seventeenth century in texts, written by the first Spanish missionaries in Mexico, dating from the middle of the sixteenth century, which he edited and incorporated in his monumental book.1 At the center of this book is an 1 Juan de Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana. 7 vols. (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1975). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004284555_002 2 Introduction argument concerning the effect of change, a change of values that occurred during the Catholic religious expansion from the mid-sixteenth century to the beginning of the seventeenth century, and included values that stood at the basis of the mission itself. In order to describe the assignment of the missionaries, Cortés uses the concept ‘ejemplo’, that signifies a kind of reflection or transmission of an ethical world. This book will argue that in the course of the sixteenth century, the nature of the relations between the teacher of ethics, his disciple, and the example on which the teaching of ethics is based, are subject to change; the ‘ejemplo’, used by Cortés to describe the basic tool in the European religious propagation, will change its place and meaning. The example given by the first missionaries is not the one given by their followers in the seventeenth century. The following example is taken from a text of Toribio de Benavente ‘Motolinía’, one of the first Franciscan missionaries who arrived in Mexico in the beginning of the sixteenth century: Since this land is covered with high mountains, they built large and tall crosses and worshiped them, and on looking at them, those still engrossed in idolatry were cured while many others were saved by this holy symbol from pitfalls and visions revealed to them, as we will further relate.2 Huge abstract symbols, crosses that could heal from afar anyone who gazed at them, were positioned in the most visible and salient points in space. Even the afflictions of which the patients were cured were connected to the world of vision. The story of the crosses is not meant to express forceful domination – in other cases, Motolinia tells of small crosses that the Indians carried, which were decorated with feathers and gems. These stories emphasize the beauty of the crosses, not their size. What the stories of the crosses share in common is the description of objects with a marked visual presence. Juan de Torquemada repeats stories of crosses from the sixteenth century. However, in his stories the crosses are not anonymous ones erected on mountains with a heathen presence, but “a cross made of rounded wood from the town of Concepción de la Vega,” the remains of which have become relics, because the stick out of which the cross was made healed many an ill person.3 2 Toribio Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España: Relación de los Ritos Antiguos, Idolatrías y Sacrificios de los Indios de la Nueva España, y de la Maravillosa Conversión Que Dios en Ellos ha Obrado, edited by Edmundo O’Gorman. 4th ed. Mexico City: Editorial Porrua, 1984, 25. 3 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana 5: 435. Introduction 3 Eating the cross heals the sick and helps pregnant women to abort dead fetuses in their womb.4 The tall and remote crosses and the beautifully decorated crosses, which were used for purposes of education and conversion and were symbols of European expansion in space, give way to an utterly different type of influence – one centered on objects with a physical presence whose influence is interior. What formerly had been achieved by means of the gaze would now require consumption and proximity. The symbol and example of the early crosses would be replaced by stories about crosses with a historical identity. The vision from which one must be healed is replaced by afflictions hidden in the body, like a dead fetus. This change in the means of conversion went beyond the mere altering of educational methods and involved a change in the worldview transmitted by the friars. The description and clarification of this change is the focus of this book. I would like here to make a more general argument regarding the relationship between the understanding and historical description of deliberate cultural expansion – the object of colonial studies – and the attempt to understand the ethical world of the conqueror. The conversion project is a project of education and instruction – actions that are essentially one of conceptual explication. To teach a concept is to explicate how it is to be used in different ways. Even if the type of explication that a historian seeks is different from that required to transmit Christianity to inhabitants of the New World, there is a connection between a historian’s attempt to understand a concept and the missionary’s effort to explain it. The attempt to convert others and to explain the Christian world to New World inhabitants, through the different uses of the crosses, has much to teach us in respect to the type of God’s presence in that Christian world. Conversely, the missionary’s attempt to admonish against all types and modes of evil will elucidate that same world, but this time, from the reverse direction, by understanding its negation (the topic of the third chapter is the various types of evil and terror). These relations between historical explication, the Mission, and cultural expansion are an additional aspect of the intermingled relations between anthropology, history, and the Mission, which have been investigated since Malinowski’s “Practical Anthropology.”5 Although the stories of the crosses are not paradigmatic stories about education, they can be seen as part of a continuum describing the incorporation 4 Ibid., 5: 328. 5 Bronislaw Malinowski, “Practical Anthropology.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 2, no. 1 (January 1929): 22. 4 Introduction into the Christian world and education in the broad sense of the word. Education comprises imitation, practice, reward, punishment, training, play, and everything that later evolves into the full use of cultural tools. The use of crosses, including visual demonstration, place-marking, instruction, as well as rewards and healing, can all be seen as part of the explanation or transmission of an ethical worldview. The immediate connection between education and an ethical worldview is, of course, the very fact that the contents of education represent the worldview which is meant to be communicated. However, one of the arguments in this book is that there is a more intimate connection between ethical concepts and the modes of instruction, and therefore, also between an ethical worldview as embedded in a way of life and the mode of expansion of a culture that professes this worldview. This aspect is underscored when one examines the various modes of cultural transmission which are less explanation-like, such as the example of the crosses. Gazing at the distant crosses of the first Franciscans embeds a different worldview than that embedded by the consumption of pieces of a cross. It is not just a different tool or method of education. This connection, according to which the manner of transmission, instruction, and dissemination of an ethical worldview cannot be separated from the ethical contents, is true of any process of cultural expansion, and indicates the importance of conceptual research for understanding such processes. This approach places in relief some of the limitations of research that searches for fixed patterns of cultural expansion.6 The first Franciscans friars took part in the first great missionary enterprise of modern times; however, the historical study of the period has not, for the main part, focused on them. In 1983, Inga Clendinnen testified that:7 It is true that ethno-historians, while ready enough to exploit missionary writings, has given scant attention to the missionaries themselves, tending to dismiss them as interfering outsiders who came saw little, and 6 Patricia Seed claims that homogenizing colonialism prevented us from understanding distinct political directions taken in different regions of the Americas; see Patricia Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1995, 15. In this context, see Eric R. Wolf, Europe and the People without History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. For a review of the significant trends in the study of colonialism, see Peter Pels, “The Anthropology of Colonialism: Culture, History, and the Emergence of Western Governmentality.” Annual Review of Anthropology 26, no. 1 (1997): 163–183. 7 Inga Clendinnen, “Disciplining the Indians: Franciscan Ideology and Missionary Violence in Sixteenth-Century Yucatán.” Past and Present 94 (1982): 27. Introduction 5 (whether they manage to convert anyone or not) irretrievably changed the societies they intruded upon.8 This picture of the historical research of the period did not change significantly in the subsequent periods, in which cultural and ethno-historical approaches held sway. The most famous book about the Spanish mission is the classic book from the 1930s by Robert Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico.9 In his pioneering work, Robert Ricard described the methods used by the missionary friars to evangelize the Indians. Charles Gibson analyzes Ricard’s book as part of the counter-reaction to the stories of conquests, which presented the Spaniards in the dismal light of the “Black Legend.”10 The description of Christianizing as a unilateral action, a ‘spiritual conquest’, was sharply critiqued. In the 1990s, the unilateral model of spiritual conquest was replaced by a processual model, in which old concepts and ideas take on new meanings through the encounter with a new culture. These studies were part of the trend that challenged the Eurocentric historical view, which focused on the European point of view, while ignoring the local one.11 Another alternative to the model of conceptual merging was that of ‘a dialogue of the deaf’, as in the case of the Spaniard’s attempts to the concept of the Devil 8 9 10 11 Ibid., 27. Robert Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico: An Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain, 1523–1572, translated by Lesley Byrd Simpson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. Additional books that constitute an important foundation in the understanding of the mission in the new world are two books by Greenleaf that deal with the beginning of the inquisition in the new Spain and the trial to implement Catholic ideology in an environment of local religion; see Richard E. Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisition of the Sixteenth Century. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1969 and Zumárraga and the Mexican Inquisition, 1536– 1543. Berkeley, ca: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1961. See also Luis Weckmann, The Medieval Heritage of Mexico. New York: Fordham University Press, 1992. Charles Gibson, “Writings on Colonial Mexico.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 55, no. 2 (1975): 293. For one of the newer studies dealing with the conceptual dialog, see Louise M. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth-Century Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989 and more recently, the study by David Tavarez, The Invisible War: Indigenous Devotions, Discipline, and Dissent in Colonial Mexico. Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 2011. For the concepts connected to the supernatural in Peru, see Sabine MacCormack, Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1991. 6 Introduction explain to the Indians, as demonstrated by Fernando Cervantes.12 This research trend has been critiqued in reference to the Spaniards’ limitations in attempting to understand the New World. Such a critique is sometimes perceived as necessary in modern critical historical research, which attempts to find an external vantage point that does not overlap with that of the subject of research. The focus on the research of the local culture has enriched the historical discussion through its application of new research methods, which ultimately contributed to the understanding of the world of the missionaries themselves, as exemplified in the path-breaking study by William Hanks, who used a linguistic anthropology approach to explain aspects of language use during the Spanish colonization of the Yucatec Maya.13 In parallel to cultural and ethno-historical research, there is also theological/ intellectual historical research. Such studies deal with figures of an intellectual stature who formulated a significant worldview. Examples of this are the Dominican Las Casas or the Jesuit José de Acosta, who have been researched extensively, including in Anthony Pagden’s profound conceptual investigation in “The Fall of Natural Man.”14 The current book deals with figures – missionary authors – who are unique not because of the ideas they expressed. Rather, they were educated men who liked to write, and wrote prolifically; and yet it is difficult to find in their writings innovative arguments or clear formulations of ideology or theology. This fact does not present an obstacle to my present inquiry; the ideas that I investigate are not ones that my research subjects express as propositions. What occupies the attention of this book is the conceptual basis for these missionaries’ descriptions, and not necessarily the official, formalized ideology of the process of religious expansion. The language used and the conceptual world of these missionary writers is the invisible basis of life in the society that spearheaded European expansion.15 12 13 14 15 Fernando Cervantes, The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1994. William F. Hanks, Converting Words Maya in the Age of the Cross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1982. For an important study that revealed the conceptual Catholic world in the new Spain, see Patricia Seed, To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts over Marriage Choice, 1574–1821. Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 1988, 20. For the manner in which the Spanish culture was formed, see George M. Foster, Culture and Conquest: America’s Spanish Heritage. New York: Viking Publications in Anthropology, 1960. Introduction 7 Just as we sometimes notice things only when they begin to move, one of the ways to discern this invisible foundation of language is by drawing comparisons that underscore the shift, in our case the shift between the writings of sixteenth century writers and a seventeenth-century writer/copyist who spared no effort in hiding it. For, after all, their intention was to describe a conceptual continuity. The shift from the tall crosses of the sixteenth century to the cross fragments from the seventeenth century is part of a profound and comprehensive shift reflected in and shaping Europe’s encounter with the New World. In order to understand the nature of the transformation that I am about to describe in the book, I will open with Las Casas’ definition of the essential human qualities which formed part of an attempt to prove the human nature of the Indians. The Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas, the famous defender of the Indians, was one of the writers of the early texts that were used as sources for Juan de Torquemada. The first thing which these people tend to choose and to escape from its opposite is the preservation of themselves [la conservación de si mismos]. Therefore, the primary responsibility of the people is to negotiate concerning their lives according to their own power [en sus individuos] as far as nature allows them to stay alive.16 Torquemada reproduces the main arguments of Las Casas: The tendency to conserve and preserve – de su individuo y persona.17 At this point, I was obliged to retain the original, since any decision concerning its translation would have provided an initial answer to a question that I wish to present. After this, Torquemada returns to the definition that he formulated in re-writing Las Casas’ definition, as follows: The first thing that these people are obliged to do is to negotiate about the possibilities of their lives and ways of supporting themselves by preserving and maintaining sus individuos y personas [emphasis mine]. I will hereby present the passages by Torquemada and Las Casas in order to show to what extent Torquemada tried to preserve the verbal framework of the former. This is what Las Casas wrote: 16 17 Bartolomé de las Casas, Apologética Historia Sumaria, edited by Edmundo O’Gorman. Vol. 1, 220. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1967. The emphasis is mine. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 1: 333. 8 Introduction De aquí es que lo primero que incumbe a los hombres es negociar cómo vivan, y en sus individuos cuanto por natura les fuere posible en la vida se sustenten. And this is how Torquemada reproduced it: De aquí nace que lo que primero que conviene a los hombres es negociar cómo vivan y puedan sustentarse en todo cuanto a ellos les fuere posible en la conservación y duración de sus individuos y personas. Torquemada tries to preserve the use that Las Casas made of the concept of individuos, but while Las Casas uses it to state that the people, as separate individuals, will be responsible for supporting themselves, Torquemada changes the sentence to mean that responsibility will be directed by the people to – sus individuos y personas. What was the change that Torquemada was so anxious to introduce? Jan Watt maintains that the term ‘individual’ was introduced into the English language only at the beginning of the seventeenth century.18 The Oxford dictionary explains some of the meanings of the term, among them: [O]f, pertaining or peculiar to, a single person or thing, or some one member of a class; characteristic of an individual. As an example, they quote a sentence by Francis Bacon from 1605: As touching the Manners of learned men, it is a thing personal and individual.19 Bacon uses both terms chosen by Torquemada: “individuo y persona.” In this book, I will attempt to prove that the use of the term by Torquemada is close to that of Bacon, and its meaning suggests matters concerning the private person. Torquemada’s deviation from Las Casas’ definition cannot be explained only by a comparison of two sentences, but one may assume that Torquemada wishes to stress matters concerning the private person and distinguishing him. This entire conceptual world does not exist in Las Casas’ text that is concerned simply with physical survival. We may summarize by saying that in Torquemada, we have discovered a new attitude to the individual with an emphasis on the unique qualities of the private person. It is no coincidence that the background to the discussion of the individual is the encounter with the members of the 18 19 Ian P. Watt, Myths of Modern Individualism: Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Robinson Crusoe. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning. Whitefish, mt: Kessinger Publishing, 1994, 20. Introduction 9 New World. In essence, the project of cultural expansion is a process that exposes the most basic conceptual structures, for it is always a process involving conceptual retrospection. The encounter with other forms of life, by its very nature, underscores fundamental existential questions. In the present case, Las Casas’ preoccupation with the question of basic human needs and desires, while describing primary conditions, is a thought experiment that is almost completely disconnected from the real world of the natives. However, Las Casas’ thought experiment is closely bound to the concrete questions of converting the Indians, the mission, and cultural expansion. The individual in this case is the native of the New World, and the shifts that I identify between these periods occur in the process of discussing this world. The proper place to open a historical discussion on the concepts of ‘individual’ and ‘individualism’ is a book, written in the nineteenth century by Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy.20 In the chapter, “The development of the individual,” in the sub-chapter “Personality” (as mentioned, Person and the Individual are two concepts that we found in the writings of Torquemada) Burckhardt presents a summary of his thesis: In the Middle Ages, both sides of human consciousness – that which was turned within as that which was turned without – lay dreaming or halfawake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation – only through some general category. In Italy, this veil first melted into air; an objective treatment and consideration of the State and of all the things of this world became possible. The subjective side at the same time asserted itself with corresponding emphasis; man became a spiritual individual and recognized himself as such.21 An interesting element in Burckhardt`s argument is his way of describing the change. “Awakening to reality” – used by Burckhardt – is modeled after the saint’s awakening in the sixteenth century. In these stories, the saint, having experienced a sudden event, awakens from the dream in which he was immersed and 20 21 Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, translated by S.G. Middlemore. London; New York: Penguin Books, 1990. Ibid., 98. 10 Introduction meets the real world and himself.22 I consider the affinity between the two models – Burckhardt’s model of conceptual historical transition and that of the stories of the saints conceptual transition – to be of importance: One of the conclusions of this book is that the concept of realism, shown in the kind of awakening to reality, proposed by Burckhardt and appearing in the saints’ stories of the sixteenth century, will be replaced in the beginning of the seventeenth century by a new kind of realism. Torquemada`s saints are not awakened to the world, but become present and owners of property. But not only saints awaken to reality. The term used for this awakening of saints is ‘conversion’, which is the main concept of the missionary agenda. Not everything that can be said about the way the saints change their life can be said about the conversion of the native people; in this context the concept has a collective meaning.23 But the usage of the same concept is of crucial importance. Here we see again how much the missionary process is bonded to the most basic concepts of private life. The fact that Burckhardt describes the discovery of the individual in terms incompatible with the kind of individualism that I found in the seventeenth century might seem like a detail external to the thesis, but actually there is a connection between different types of objects and the different ways of discovering them, in this case, between the ‘individual’ and the removal of the veil. It is possible to think of the difference between the different way to discover a route, to discover a deceit, and to tell apart things that appeared identical. In each of these cases, we discover something, but the different way of discovering it reveals that entirely different objects are involved. Each of these examples serves to describe a certain type of individualism that characterizes an utterly different way of life and different aspirations. The model proposed by Burckhardt is a realistic model. Awakening to reality, according to this model, presents the individual as an object observed (discovered) in the world. The visual metaphor is important in order to understand Burckhardt’s thesis. Burckhardt`s individual is part of the public world, and recognizing him is tantamount to seeing something, just as we see mountains and houses. The main argument in this book is that the new relation to the individual involves the replacement of the visual model – the model presented by Burckhardt. If individualism is actually discovered, it is through touch and not through sight, but here I am putting the latter ahead of the former. 22 23 Further on, I will examine the descriptions of the sobering of Ignacio de Loyola and of Martín de Valencia, both of which were written in the first half of the sixteenth century. Hanks, Converting Words, 5. Introduction 11 The discovery of the self by Burckhardt was replaced by social theories regarding the formation of the self as part of social processes. These theories regarded the self as part of a system of concepts concerning life in society, as opposed to the isolated object. Michel Foucault joined historical practice to ideas previously evolved in philosophy. As opposed to Burckhardt`s discovered object, always present behind the veil, Foucault provides us with a psychological and conceptual theory concerning the creation of the subject by social mechanisms.24 This book presents a different model for examining the change. This model differs from that of development and scientific discovery proposed by Burckhardt and from Foucault’s model of social mechanisms and forces creating concepts. In fact, I propose to regard the change as an ethical change or, more precisely, as a change and passage between two ethical worlds. For this purpose, I have adopted a comprehensive concept of ethics that I found in the discussions of Iris Murdoch and Cora Diamond, who followed in her footsteps.25 The idea that I adopted is that of two ethical worlds, differing from each other, not in the sense of an ethical disagreement, but rather in the sense of a different way of perceiving the world: We have been led to adopt a method of describing morality in terms of which all moral agents are seen as inhabiting the same world of facts, and where we are unable to discriminate between different types of morality, except in terms of differences of acts and choice. Whereas, I am arguing, it is possible for differences to exist also as total differences of moral vision and perspective.26 Diamond emphasizes the relationship between values and facts identified in the world. She argues that a change of values involves a change in the description of facts in the world. In this book, I will attempt to show that the individual with his/her inner world is one of the facts that appears when the world of ethics is changed. 24 25 26 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon Books, 1977. In this context, we should mention the pioneering study of Schneewind who is trying to reconstruct the history of ethics in modern philosophy and deals with the philosophical expressions of the ethical debate: J.B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Iris Murdoch, “Metaphysics and Ethics.” In Iris Murdoch and the Search for Human Goodness, edited by Maria Antonaccio and William Schweiker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. 12 Introduction A central axis in the ethical discussion is the attitude towards ethical models. One of Diamond`s arguments is that ethical models should be regarded as an instrument shaping our world and not merely as an aid to clarify our values.27 Martha Nussbaum attempts to show us how our ethical judgment requires proximity to the concrete case, proximity of the kind required of us in reading a novel. There, in the novel, we are developing a proximity to the heroes and not relating to them as models. The ethic models at the center of the philosophical discussion return us to Cortes’ request with which we opened: to send friars that serve as a model (‘ejemplo’) for the Aztec world as a mean in the Christian propagation process. The change in the concept of a personal example, a central theme in the second chapter, is connected to a new way of evaluating events and stories. A key theme of the present book is the relationship between the new way of approaching the world and judging it and the changes in the ethical contents, such as the decline in the status of humility and the rise in the status of concrete objects such as property, body, and place. This new relationship between these two will produce the new concept of individualism. Combining historical and philosophical inquiry is a complicated attempt to combine fields with contrasting tendencies: the historical tendency to tell a story and the philosophical tendency to make abstractions out of the human story.28 This story too, about the drama of philosophy versus history, can also be found in the drama of the tall abstract high crosses from the sixteenth century, and the cross fragments of the seventeenth century, which are carriers of a human story. Although the focus of the book is not in providing an explanation of historical change, but rather in describing it, it is difficult not to suspect that there is some connection between the human encounter with new cultures and a fundamental, philosophical change in the perception of humanity. This change constituting the central theme of this book occurring during the European expansionary process in the new world is dealt with in another 27 28 For an article dealing with indiscrimination in ethics where Diamond describes the use that Socrates makes use of ethical examples and the philosophical blindness that misses the process; see Cora Diamond, “Missing the Adventure: Reply to Martha Nussbaum.” In The Realistic Spirit: Wittenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind, edited by Cora Diamond. Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1995. For another article which deals with the manner by which mental experiments can shape our ethical world, see Cora Diamond, “What If X Isn’t the Number of Sheep? Wittgenstein and Thought – Experiments in Ethics.” Philosophical Papers 31, no. 3 (2002): 227–250. Aristotle, The Poetics of Aristotle, translated by Samuel Henry Butcher, 1999, ch. 9, http:// www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1974. Introduction 13 historical context: the Catholic reformation. The historiography of the Catholic reformation emphasized the history of the church. One of the main points that emerged from the research on the topic was the empowerment of the Catholic establishment and the rigorous standards applied to the conduct of the clergy.29 These conclusions, together with a modernist conception according to which a negative correlation exists between religion and progress, produced the notion that the wider cultural effect of the Catholic reformation was essentially negative and repressive. New researches have not replaced the theory of repression but have rather shown the partial relation between the ideology and its application in the historical reality, which lies at the roots of the everyday activities of men and women.30 The theory of repression has remained one of the main theories describing the central processes involving the Catholic reformation. When Ian Watt researches and demonstrates the concept of individualism by means of two exemplary literary works from seventeenth-century Spain, Don Quixote and Don Juan, he emphasizes that the Catholic reformation did not affect the renaissance tendencies manifested in these works.31 29 30 31 David Martin Luebke, “Editor’s Introduction.” In The Counter-Reformation: The Essential Readings, edited by David Martin Luebke. Malden, ma: Blackwell, 1999, 2. The idea of Catholic reformation was coined with the intent to show change and renewal in the church. Nevertheless, as I will try to show, the change is perceived as contradicting “progressive values.” On the difference in Catholic reformation, see Hubert Jedin, “Catholic Reformation or Counter-Reformation.” In The Counter-Reformation: The Essential Readings, edited by David Martin Luebke. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999, 21–45. Research in social history has attempted to change this picture by emphasizing that the complexity of human reality and human structures does not permit such a schematic and dichotomic description. Some of the new research preferred to focus on the true historical reality, which lies at the roots of the everyday activities of men and women, with an emphasis on the simple folk, members of the lower classes, and those defined in traditional historiography as marginal social groups. Thus, wrote Jean Delumeau, one of the outstanding scholars of the Catholic reformation: For a long time, religious history concentrated on high spots favored the study of popes, saints, and illustrious figures in the church […] now the aim to rediscover the ‘average’ Christian of past ages and to know how and to what extent he practiced his religion and lived his faith. See Jean Delumeau, Catholicism between Luther and Voltaire: A New View of the CounterReformation. London: Burns & Oates, 1977. Faustus, Don Quixote, and Don Juan are all characterized, according to Watt, by positive, individualistic drives of the Renaissance; they wish their own way, regardless of others. But they find themselves in conflict, ideologically and politically with the forces of the Counter-Reformation. See Watt, Myths of Modern Individualism, xiv. 14 Introduction The theory connecting regression with the Catholic reformation, along with the theory of repression, is symbolized in the form of a story – the story of the trial of Galileo. A certain interpretation turns the story of Galileo into a symbol of far-reaching repression more than any kind of scientific repression, to the extent of repressing any kind of rational evaluation.32 We can see from the story of Galileo that scientific repression has turned into repression of rational thinking, thus, to repression of the more liberalizing effects of the Renaissance, and finally to repression, that didn’t succeed, of the individualism of Don Quixote and Don Juan, as Watt argued. The connection between individualism, rationality, and their negative connection to religion is still influential in the writings of modern writers. In this book, I will present a new relation between values, usually regarded as conservative ones connected to the Catholic Church, and individualistic values, usually connected with progress. I will try to describe a conceptual relation between the new Catholic values and individualistic ones. This description is opposed to the analysis describing the relations between Galileo’s research and Catholic values as contingent values or to a description of the relations between the work of Cervantes and the values of the Catholic reformation, as a clash of values.33 I will show how a senior representative of the Catholic Church an agent of the European expansionary process, a contemporary of Cervantes, expresses ideas compatible with the individualistic ideology that Watt discerned in Don Quixote. These are new concepts, not found in the writings of sixteenth-century missionary agents. Although I appreciate complex and detailed descriptions (stories) or pictures, I believe that my story is of no avail if it cannot be organized around several basic lines or pictures. In this book, I will attempt to describe a change based on simple models, two schematic models each characterizing one epoch: The first model is the model of sight. The ethical supporting point according to this model is the world and truth, and the way to truth is through the right way of seeing the world. The other model is the model of touch and material; its supporting point is internal, and its central concepts are control and ownership. What is real is what can be touched, held, and controlled. Knowledge of 32 33 Richard Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible. Notre Dame, in: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991. Feldhay maintains that at the end of the 1950s, the theory of the inevitable conflict between religion and science was replaced by the theory of separate authorities between science and religion, and the case of Galileo was presented as a contingent case, dependent on specific people. See Rivka Feldhay, “Recent Narratives on Galileo and the Church: Or the Three Dogmas of the Counter-Reformation.” Science in Context 14 (2001): 220. Introduction 15 the truth is related to physical effort and contact with material. When I write about ‘vision’ and ‘touch’ as models, I stress the central role that these two basic actions assume in explanations. I will present a comprehensive thesis through three aspects, each of which will be discussed in a separate chapter. The first chapter will indicate the main changes in the ethical contents between the two periods and formulate the main arguments of the book. The central argument in this chapter is that a conceptual connection exists between two seemingly different trends: the first is concerned with the rise in the status of the concrete, the material, and the physical elements, and the second – with that of the psychological, the individual, and the intentional. This chapter deals mainly with conversion and religious integrity – the content of the main ethical values propagated by the European mission. I will show how religious integrity centered around distancing oneself from the concrete, recognizing general and abstract principles and certitude regarding the existence of a world order external to man, that appeared in the writings of sixteenth-century missionaries, is replaced in the writings of Torquemada by a different kind of integrity – integrity centered around non-public matters, that can be touched but not seen, like objects in a closed box. Also, certitude with regard to the external world, emphasized in the sixteenth century, is replaced in the seventeenth century by certitude with an internal focus centered around ambition and volition. The second chapter deals mainly with the connections between the ethical contents, described in the first chapter, and the ethical form, the form of teaching and propagating an ethical world view but also the place occupied by ethics in life, the use of an ethical model for the purpose of teaching or learning, the ethical position of the person telling about the ethical model, the role of the student of ethics and the relation of the person telling the story, and that of the student, to the protagonist of the ethical story. The place where we encounter these students and teachers is in the process of the religious propagation, and changes in understanding their role shed light in understanding the ways of Catholic expansion. In the course of the chapter, we will demonstrate the non-intuitive connection between the change in the world of ethical contents and the change in the place of ethics in life, the way the ethical world is taught and approached. I will connect the discussion to contemporary philosophic discussion concerning the place of ethics and that of rules and ethical models in life. The third chapter will continue the research presented in the first two chapters and show how the conclusions of these chapters make it possible to research and explain the change that I have identified in Torquemada’s 16 Introduction writings with regard to the cruel aspects of the colonization and the Indian life, described in the sixteenth-century writings. Cruelty is one of the identifying marks of the idolatrous world, and as such, is one of the focuses against which the Mission waged war. However, just as the Christian person of the sixteenth century is not the same person that is the object of aspirations in the seventeenth century, thus too, the Devil who must be escaped from in the sixteenth century is not the same embodiment of evil that is being fought in the seventeenth century. We shall see how stories of cruelty of the sixteenth century, centered around physical violence practiced in public, are replaced in Torquemada’s works by stories centered around abuse of the private and the near. Betrayal is the representative type of this kind of abuse. 2 Methodology During the first years of the Spanish Conquest, pagan worship, along with its priestly caste, was still in existence. The Franciscan friar Toribio de Benavente – Motolinía – recounts that one day, one of the Aztec priests wished to demonstrate his power over and against the weakness of the new religion, Christianity, and went out into the marketplace. A confrontation took place when a number of newly converted Indian children, who were pupils at the convent, came outdoors: And when he repeatedly claimed that he was a god and the children said he was no more than a demon, one of them stooped to pick up a rock and told the others: “let us banish this demon and may God help us,” and while saying this he cast the rock.34 This story is familiar to the Western reader because it mirrors the story of the stoning of Jesus. There too, Jesus goes out to the Temple grounds and is stoned by members of the competing religion, for almost identical reasons. Although the converted children do not claim that the priest is mere flesh and blood, as do the stone throwers of the New Testament, and say rather that he is a demon, later in the story the missionaries correct the children’s error and explain that he who claimed divinity is merely a man, and not a demon. What does this comparison teach us? First, we learn the power of strong plots. Second, we learn how unstable and flimsy the connection between a plot and 34 Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 216–217. Introduction 17 its message is. The villains in one story become the heroes of the next; God is replaced by a demon, and at the level of meaning, the relations between power, truth, and justice may shift. This book deals with stories that were copied and transmitted, and with the attendant shift in the story, which, I shall claim, is a dramatic one. The shift I hope to describe is a conceptual change. Any discussion of conceptual change from one historical period to another must rest on two solid legs – the conceptual leg and the historical leg. The latter must prove solid in order establish that the change that I describe is a real one. The analysis presented in this book is based almost entirely on the work of a Spanish missionary copyist in seventeenth-century Mexico, who copied thousands of pages of sixteenth-century sources. The major methodological premise of my argument is that certain kinds of essential changes cannot be understood as the product of an individual’s thoughts or principles, but can only be explained in reference to changes in a society’s deep foundations, which form part of the essence of any language. An individual person cannot invent a language, because language is a social instrument. In its reliance on a single source, my methodology can be compared to the way in which the discovery of one unknown skeleton may provide evidence for the existence of an extinct species. In this instance, too, an observed change may at times evidence no more than a local pathology, and the researcher must be able to discriminate between significant and insignificant changes. The fact that Torquemada was neither an original nor an innovative thinker, and that he did not even entertain such pretensions, can only assist our attempt to understand his words as possessing a representative value. In order to see that Torquemada’s world is a different one from that of his predecessors, one must show that the changes that I shall point out are consistent, meaningful, and pervade his writings. The changes that I shall examine are deliberate, yet not explicit. An explicit change is one that is generally presented as part of a conceptual scheme – one example might be the confrontation of various opinions regarding the status of the Indians.35 The change of which I speak is, rather, one that encompasses the foundational rules and the organization of the conceptual system. A conceptual shift is one that does not permit any 35 An example of a famous discussion from the same period is the controversy between Las Casas and Sepúlveda in 1550–1551, that dealt with the relationships between the occupation and conversion of the pagan Indians while discussing the proper rights for the Indians. An analysis of the discussion can be found in Lewis Hanke, All Mankind Is One: A Study of the Disputation between Bartoleme de Las Casas and Juan Gines de Sepúlveda in 1550 on the Intellectual and Religious Capacity of the American Indians. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1974. 18 Introduction confrontation because it undermines and supplants the accepted criteria for judgment. In my own comparative exercise, I attempted to apply a number of rules for assessing the conceptual power driving the changes entailed in the act of copying and thus, to evaluate the conclusions that could be derived from these changes. I hereunder present a tentative formulation of these rules: The prevalence of the change: The more frequently the change appears and is consistently repeated, the more likely it is that it is a deliberate and not an incidental change. The degree of variation of the change: A change that is apparent only in one aspect, e.g., when one linguistic form is exchanged for another, does not necessarily indicate a change of meaning. Many word changes are purely stylistic, and cannot be taken as evidence of significant change. The more pluriform the change is, or the more the change is evident within an entire world of verbal meanings that supplants another, the more one can assume that this verbal change also reflects a change in meaning. The more the change pertains to content rather than to linguistic formulation, the more force we can lend to the assumption that the change is meaningful. The centrality of the theme: A change can manifest in a word, a sentence, or an entire story; the more significant the story is, the more significant the change is. A large part of the study attends to changes in the hagiographic stories, which were stories of considerable importance. The salience of the change: A large number of the changes that I shall describe are additions or deletion. An addition or deletion is only meaningful in the context of copying. The truer the copy is to the source, the more salient is the change. When a long text is copied with precision, every change gains a high degree of salience. A text, on the other hand, which is a loose transcription, will contain many changes to which it is difficult to attach significance. Sometimes one can actually sense that certain regions of a copied text exercise a magnetic force field on the copyist – a force that he cannot resist. Every time Torquemada encounters in the text concepts tied to property, will, or parent– child relations, the copied text undergoes a veritable upheaval. It is difficult to communicate this aspect of the text to a reader who does not have the full source at her or his disposal. I would like to add a few notes about the conceptual explanation. When Motolinía describes the large crosses that were placed on mountaintops, and how those crosses cured the idolaters, this is a historical fact that may be investigated from a variety of angles: political, religious, psychological, social, colonial, economic, etc. The question that this book examines is how the following sentence is to be understood: “and on looking at them, those still engrossed in Introduction 19 idolatry were cured [Mirando sanaban algunos que aún estaban heridos de la idolatría].”36 How can sight – real sight, not a metaphorical one – and health – real health, not a metaphorical one – be tied to idolatry? The reason this kind of investigation sometimes seems to run counter to the historical intuition is the way in which words are examined: at their originary level, the level in which we use these words. Ignoring personal, political, and social motivations is almost necessary for this type of analysis, because each conceptual transformation that we perform, such as a transformation to the political domain, will make us lose sight of the most important contexts. This is also what sometimes makes the methodology underlying this book profoundly ahistorical and reductionist. 3 Authors of the Historical Sources It is time to introduce the main characters featured in this book: Two of the central authors in this study are Fray Juan de Torquemada and Friar Toribio de Benavente – Motolinía. Both were Franciscans, born seventy years apart: Motolinía was born in 1490, and Fray Juan de Torquemada was most likely born in 1562.37 Both came from the geographical region of the cities Castile and León, northeast of Madrid – Motolinía from Benavente, and Torquemada from a village of that name near Valladolid.38 Torquemada arrived in Mexico with his parents at the age of ten and received his religious and philosophical education at Convento Grande in Mexico City. Motolinía was educated at the Franciscan provinces of Santiago and San Gabriel in Extremadura in Spain, and arrived in Mexico with a delegation of twelve Franciscans, who were (nearly) the first to arrive in Mexico in 36 37 38 Toribio Motolinía, Memoriales, o Libro de las cosas de la Nueva España y de los naturales de ella. Nueva transcripción paleoráfica del manuscrito original, con inserción de las porciones de la Historia de los indios de la Nueva España que completan el texto de los Memoriales. Edición, notas, estudio analítico de los escritos históricos de Motolinía y apéndices. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1971. Vol. 1, 25. Miguel León-Portilla, “Biografía De Torquemada.” In Monarquía Indiana: De los Veinte y Un Libros Rituales y Monarquía Indiana, edited by Juan de Torquemada. Vol. 7, 13–56. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1975. Edmundo O’Gorman, “Noticias Biográficas Sobre Motolinía.” In Memoriales: O Libro de las Cosas de la Nueva España y de los Naturales de ella, edited by Edmundo O’Gorman, xcvix– cxx. México City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1971. 20 Introduction 1524, three years after its conquest, following a request from Cortés to Carlos V.39 Two of the most important biographical facts about Torquemada are his appointment in 1609 as chronologist of the Franciscan order in New Spain, and in 1614 as provincial superior of Franciscan order in Mexico, an office he held until 1617. One of the few biographical facts known about Torquemada, but not from his own testimony, is the accusation that while overseeing the construction of a new church in Santiago Tlatelolco, he forced the Indians in his charge to work on Sundays and holidays, withheld their wages, and publicly flogged one of them, almost mortally endangering him. This is an isolated piece of data, but it is interesting that it evokes a presentiment regarding the type of relations that would pertain between Spanish friars and Indians, while also reflecting the positive aspects of a legal system and the norms it attempted to establish, even if they were not adhered to in practice.40 Other than Torquemada’s texts, the remainder of the texts that I will analyze were authored in the mid-sixteenth century and served as sources for Torquemada. My choice of Motolinía is dictated by necessity, due to the fact that Motolinía’s writings together with those of Francisco Jiménez are the only documents remaining from the first twelve Franciscans,41 who belonged to the Discalced Franciscan congregation. A few words are in order regarding this branch of the Franciscan order: The Discalced Franciscans were a small and radical congregation founded at the end of the fifteenth century in Spain, under the influence of principles imported from the convent near Assisi, where Juan de le Puebla (1453–1495) had stayed. In 1495, the Discalced combined their strict lifestyle with missionary activity in Muslim Granada, which had been conquered three years before. The new congregation, with its radical approach to begging and asceticism, 39 40 41 Richard E. Greenleaf, “The Inquisition and the Indians of New Spain: A Study in Jurisdictional Confusion.” The Americas 22, no. 2 (1965): 138. These were based upon the bull Alias Felices of Leo X in 1521 that granted the Franciscans the right to administer sacraments in the new world (as long as there was no bishop present). See also Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana 5: 20–22. The investigation against Torquemada was opened in 1605 in the traces of a complaint lodged against him by the Archbishop of Mexico, García de Mendoza y Zúñiga. For the known results of the investigation, see León-Portilla, “Biografía de Torquemada.” 7: 13–56. For The Discalced Franciscans see Antolín Abad Pérez and Cayetano Sánchez, “La Descalcez Franciscana En España, Hispanoamérica Y Extrmo Orienta”, Archivo Ibero American 59 (1999): 457–481. For Francisco Jiménez’s writings see Atanasio López, “Vida De Fray Martín De Valencia, Escrita Por Su Compañero Fr. Francisco Jiménez”, Archivo Ibero Americano 26 (1926): 48–84. Introduction 21 aroused opposition within the Franciscan order. The tensions instigated by the Discalced would trouble the royal and papal offices for the next twenty years. In 1503, the Discalced were expelled from Spain and relocated to the mountains of Portugal and the Island of Contienda, which at the time was the focus of a territorial dispute between Spain and Portugal. The number of Discalced during the early sixteenth century is estimated at no more than a few scores of followers. Beginning with the second decade of the sixteenth century, the congregation’s fortunes turned for the better, and in 1517, they regained the support of Pope Leo X. The Discalced received their first mission in America and a delegation of twelve friars led by Martín Valencia arrived in Mexico in 1524. Martín of Valencia was born in the middle of the fifteenth century at Valencia de Don Juan in the province of León and began his career as a member of the Franciscan Order in the province of Santiago. From there, he moved to Extremadura, where he joined the Franciscan Discalced.42 In 1534, Martín died in an open area outside Tlalmanalco. His death, ten years after the start of the Franciscan Mission, turned him into a symbol of that enterprise. The story of the life of Martín of Valencia is recounted by nearly all the Franciscan writers in the new world, as well as in Franciscan chronicles in Spain. An earlier version is that of Francisco Jiménez which was written in 1537, three years after Martín’s death.43 Later, we find his story retold by Motolinía, then by Mendieta, and later by the Franciscan chronicler Moles,44 as well as by Torquemada.45 Tracking the variations in the story is tantamount to following the transformation of Christianity’s central concepts from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century.46 42 43 44 45 46 Ibid. López, “Vida de Fray Martín de Valencia.” Juan Bautista Moles, Memorial de la Provincia de San Gabriel, edited by Hermenegildo Zamora Jambrina. Madrid: Editorial Cisneros, 1984, 50. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5: 14. Bernardino de Sahagún was born in 1499 and was educated at the University of Salamanca. He arrived in Mexico in 1529, and there he taught the children of the Indian elite Latin at the Colegio de Santa Cruz at Tlatelolco. He wrote the most comprehensive anthropological study of the Indian culture. De Sahagún used pioneering methodologies in order to gather information about the Indian world. He collected information provided to him by Nahuatl native speakers transcribed in Nahuatl, and then translated it into Spanish (Sahagún also described events that he personally observed); see Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia General de Las Cosas de Lanueva España. Madrid: Dastin, 2001. Vol. 1. Klor de Alva wrote about Sahagún’s pioneering ethnographical work; see José Jorge Klor de Alva, The Work of Bernardino de Sahagún: Pioneer Ethnographer of Sixteenth-Century Aztec Mexico. Albany: State University of New York , 1988. 22 Introduction Two other sixteenth-century writers, both born at the end of the fifteenth century, whose writing served as sources for Torquemada, are the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún, and the Dominican Bartolomé de Las Casas. Sahagún is known for the comprehensive anthropological researches that he conducted, and Las Casas is remembered chiefly for his criticism of the Spanish conquerors’ cruelty and for his defense of the rights of the Indians in a debate with Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, which took place in 1550–1551 in Valladolid in Spain.47 Another important author is Gerónimo de Mendieta, who was born in Vitoria in Castile in 1535 and wrote during the years 1570–1597. Mendieta’s writings represent the connecting link between the two periods that I describe.48 Table 1 summarizes the chief facts about the central figures discussed in the work. Table 1 Spanish missionaries in New Spain, the authors of the historical texts Name of the missionary Place of birth Date of birth Date of death Writing period Toribio de Benavente – Motolinía Benavente (Zamora) End of the fifteenth century 1565 Francisco Jiménez Bernardino de Sahagún Bartolomé de las Casas Jerónimo de Mendieta – Sahagún León Seville Vitoria, Álava País Vasco Torquemada Castilla la Vieja – 1499 1484 1525 – 1590 1566 1604 Most of his book was written in the 1530s 1537 1540–1585 Until 1566 1570–1597 1562 1624 1592–1613 Juan de Torquemada 47 48 Bartolomé de Las Casas, In Defense of the Indians, translated by Stafford Poole. DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1992. Hanke, All Mankind Is One. Gerónimo de Mendieta wrote two central books: Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, edited by Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1971 and a book with the life stories of Franciscan missionaries: Gerónimo de Mendieta, Vidas franciscanas. México City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma, 1945. Phelan analyzed the writings of Mendieta and identified in them millenarian attitudes: John Leddy Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World: A Study of the Writings of Gerónimo de Mendieta (1952– 1604). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970. chapter 1 From Sight to Touch in the Ethical Narrative 1.1 Earth, Body, and Clothes 1.1.1 Earth and Matter The Cholotecas began to build an enormous temple. Today, only the structure of this temple is the size of the distance of a shot from a bow and arrow, and one must use a superb arrow in order to cross it from the base to the top. According to the Cholotecas, originally it was much larger and much higher than it appears today. These people wanted to do a crazy thing, like the builders of the Babylon Tower and started to build it to make it higher than the highest mountain in that country. When they began this madness, God confused them as he did the builders of the Tower of Babylon, with a large stone, the shape of a toad, that crashed violently on that place and from then, the work there was stopped. Today, snakes and rabbits can be found there and in some places, plots of maize. On the top, there was an altar [teocalli] small and old, in the shape of a pyramid. This was broken, and a big cross was set up there, and it was broken by lightening, and then another was set up and was broken again. When the third was set up, I was present because it was last year, in 1535; therefore, they dug there and found plenty of idols and objects of idolatry offered to the devil, and we explained to the Indians that God had sent lightening because of these idols.1 1 Toribio Motolinía, “Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España,” In Colección de Documentos Para la Historia de México, edited by Joaquín García Icazbalceta, Mexico City: M. Andrade, 1858. Motolinía’s description of the ruins of the Tower of Babylon reminds us of the description of Babylon in the travels of Benjamin Mitudela, the Spanish Jew who lived in the twelfth century. Motolinía, like Benjamin, describes the height of the ruins, the transformation of the Tower of Babylon into a wild area inhabited by snakes and scorpions, and the destruction created by the fire from the sky: “The ruins of ancient Babylon are thirty miles long in its streets, the palace of Nebuchadnezar is in ruins, and people are afraid to enter because of the snakes and scorpions inside”; Benjamin Mitudela, son of Jonas, The Travels of Rabbi Benjamin. Brisgoya [Freiburg]: Hazifroni, 1582, 18 (in Hebrew). “The length of its base is two miles and its width – about one hundred” (Ibid., 19); “and inside a fire dropped down from the sky and smashed them to the abyss.” (Ibid., 31, 4; 8). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004284555_003 24 chapter 1 This passage was written by Motolinía, as reported by him in 1536. I chose it because it is a brief example of the way the early Franciscan friars conceived the mission and the conflict between religions. This demonstrates some of the main themes which I intend to discuss. I will mention three themes: Motolinía describes the conflict between Christianity and Paganism as a conflict between the cross and the idols. In the background, there is a reminder of what the first Franciscans regarded as a mortal sin – the sin of pride. The world in which the conflict occurred is a world governed by cosmic justice – a world in which every sin is met with an appropriate reward. Thus the sin of pride inherent in the attempt to reach the sky is punished by a stone in the shape of a toad – the symbol of pride – fallen from the sky.2 In the course of the research, I will establish a connection between the cross, opposition to the idols, hostility toward pride, and the idea of a reward. I will attempt to understand the relation between these concepts through the change they had undergone in the period between the passage written by Motolinía and that of Torquemada in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Motolinía’s story of the Tower of Babylon of the Chololtecas was rewritten in the seventeenth century by Torquemada.3 The first thing that disappeared from this description was the sin of pride, although the Tower of Babylon was mentioned. Not only does Torquemada refrain from criticizing the aim of reaching the sky, but he actually marvels at the skill of the Indians. Since pride is not mentioned as a sin, the appropriate punishment, in the form of the toad falling from the sky, also disappears. The next omission is that of the story of the lightening that hits the crosses and the idols hidden beneath it. On the other hand, Torquemada emphasizes several new points: he adds an explanation connecting the belief to the site. Instead of Motolinía’s explanation that connects the erection of the structure to an excess of pride, Torquemada explains it in terms of heathen religious emotions related to the site. He also turns the cross into a temporary cross, the height of which is not mentioned, 2 “After your death a worm is born from your tong…from your head a toad, which means the sin of pride.” Alanus, The Art of Preaching. Kalamazoo, mi: Cistercian Publications, 1981, 26. 3 “Instead they offered sacrifices and oblations and kept their promises and oaths. As a result they felt a feeling of adoration out of their false idolatry, which was one of the reasons that made the site sacred. In the center of this settlement, they began to build a new temple (cu) and an altar that at first resembled the Tower of Babylon. The building is so large that one wonders how man could have built it… Their aim when they built it was to show the greatness of their power and also that this was a sacred site. As soon as they arrived, the Franciscans set up a cross until they built a small praying room devoted to Our Lady of Healing [‘nuestra Senora de los remedios’]”; see Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 1:386 (the emphasis is mine). From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 25 and which was erected quickly, pending the erection of the permanent Christian structure that was to make it into a holy site. The transition from the cross as a symbol of Christianity and the mission, to the temple and the holy site, is not a coincidence but rather the result of a change in the attitude towards the sin of pride and the notion of justice. I will attempt to show that the transition from the cross to the site is inherent in the change between two ethical universes. In the center of the first universe are sight, abstraction, and the world, while in the center of the second are the site, matter, the concrete body, property, and the internal center of the person. Motolinía’s story of the cross is not unique. Crosses were erected as a matter of course against paganism, along with the destruction of the idols. Motolinía tells other stories also about crosses, all of them large ones: Since this land is covered with high mountains, they built large and tall crosses and worshiped them, and on looking at them, those still engrossed in idolatry were cured while many others were saved by this holy symbol from pitfalls and visions revealed to them, as we will further relate.4 This passage emphasizes the manner by which the crosses contested paganism: the crosses healed those that looked at them. Instead of the little idols that could be approached and touched, there were the big crosses, permanent and distant. These crosses act directly on the sense of sight that works from a distance and does not require touch. A connection exists between objects seen by everyone and belonging to no one and ‘abstraction’. Jose de Acosta, the Jesuit, in the discussion of various kinds of paganism, names the large objects that we observe from a distance, such as celestial bodies, universal objects, as opposed to particular objects.5 Idolatry involving the worship of such universal objects is less offensive. Acosta makes use of the concept ‘universal’, the Aristotelian root of which is ‘concept’ as opposed to ‘particular’, in reference to distant objects seen by everybody, such as the sun, connecting the distant object to the abstract concept, and the look from a distance to abstraction. I would like to establish a relationship between this kind of abstraction that differentiates private from public objects 4 “como en esta tierra hay muy altas montañas, también hicieron altas y grandes cruces, a las cuales adoraban, y mirando sanaban algunos que aún estaban heridos de la idolatría. Otros muchos con esta santa señal fueron librados de diversas asechanzas y visiones que se les aparecían, como adelante se dirá en su lugar”: Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 25. 5 José de Acosta, “Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias,” In Obras del P. José de Acosta, edited by Francisco Mareos. Madrid: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 1999, 313. 26 chapter 1 and another kind of abstraction also connected to the relations between the private and the general. Toribio of Benventa changed his name to ‘Motolinía’ expressing the concept ‘poor’, which not only replaces a first name but carries the meaning of a minimum of worldly goods. My argument is that replacing the first name and erecting crosses on mountain peaks are both actions centering on the gap between the concrete and the abstract. In this sense, the choice of the name Motolinía, instead of the former first name, resembles the act of erecting crosses on the mountain peaks. Torquemada repeats the stories of the crosses from the sixteenth century, but he makes use of a contrasting conceptual universe. He tells of a cross erected by Columbus on his second journey to Espaniola. This time the cross is not an anonymous one erected on mountains with a heathen presence, but “a cross made of rounded wood from the town of Concepción de la Vega,” the remains of which have become relics, because the stick out of which the cross was made healed many an ill person.6 The healing is not connected to sight any more, as in the sixteenth century, but to the physical presence, the material out of which the cross was made. Something had happened at the end of the sixteenth century that changed the Spanish sensibility and weakened the fear of paganism involving the concrete. Here are some other changes introduced by Torquemada in the stories of earlier authors that support my argument concerning the shift toward matter. The following sentence appears in the writings of the Franciscan friar Geronimo de Mendieta at the end of the sixteenth century: They called this cross whose name was unknown to them, Tonaca cuauitl, namely “the tree providing us with the foundation of our life.” After Torquemada copied the words of Mendieta, he added an explanation: [The name] was taken from the etymology of maize which they call tonacayutl, namely: a thing of our flesh, meaning the thing that nourishes our body, and they spoke the truth.7 Torquemada’s explanation connects the cross to the body through its material dimension. I will go into details below concerning the relation to the body. 6 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5:435. 7 Gerónimo de Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, edited by Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1971, Lib 3 Cap 27.; Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5:301. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 27 Torquemada adds many tales of miracles to the sixteenth-century texts, all connected with matter. If the Virgin Mary in the sixteenth century calms the storms from the sky, Torquemada recommends throwing a piece of the cross into the sea. Eating the cross heals the sick and helps pregnant women to abort dead fetuses in their womb.8 In contrast to the later stories in which the visual crosses are replaced by matter, the Indian story about the Tower of Babylon, cited above, is a story about the sanctification of a site. My argument is that the sanctification of a certain site and the relation to matter are concepts related to proximity and as such, are not public in the way that visual objects, seen by everybody from any distance, are.9 Torquemada’s story about the erection of the altar in honor of “Our Lady of Medicines” (“Nuestra Señora de los Remedios”) on the ruins of the Indian Tower of Babylon, is a story of a familiar type. William Christian studied the phenomenon of the sanctification of a wild site outside the town as a result of a revelation in Spain, but he also describes its decrease in the sixteenth century. Christian’s main source is a book by Narciso Camos, a Dominican friar from Gerona, who wrote in the seventeenth century about events in the previous centuries. Even if the book reflects the preceding centuries which it describes, it is still interesting to find out what happened in the seventeenth century that brought about an interest in a book like this.10 In my opinion, in the seventeenth century, especially in Mexico, we witness a return to conceptions encouraging local forms of worship. Christian confronts local worship 8 9 10 Two examples of healing and asking for help: Motolinía describes asking the celestial virgin for help, while Torquemada describes relics affecting the body and the world; see Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 21; Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5:328. The division that I have shown is connected to the division of S.C. Peirce between three types of representation: representation through imagination, causal metonymic representation, and conventional representation. Relics are a clear example of causal metonymic representation while pictures are represented through imagination; see Charles S. Peirce, Nathan Houser, and Christian J.W. Kloesel, The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, 2 vols. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. Humanism tends to conventional representation – see the rise of portraits and sculptures. Judaism preferred causal metonymic representation to pictorial representation based on imagination. The relation between the picture and the body lies at the heart of the conflict between Catholicism and Reform, and within the Reformation itself; this is an argument concerning the proximity and involvement of God in human life. William A. Christian Jr., Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1981, 15; Camós Narciso, Iardin de Maria Plantado en el Principiado de Cataluña. Barcelona: Orbis, 1949. 28 chapter 1 with the power of the central church and thus, presents a political interpretation of the phenomenon. I will examine the ethical conceptual roots of this phenomenon.11 The most famous story of local worship in Mexican history is that of the worship of the Virgin of Guadalupe,12 which is the story of a revelation experienced by a villager in the wake of which a picture from a supernatural source was found, and the site of the Revelation becomes a place of worship. The early sources of the sixteenth century are skeptical about the story of the revelation. Thus, the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún emphasizes the fact that an Indian temple existed on the site.13 In a sermon by the Franciscan Francisco Bustamente in 1556 on the subject of the Virgin of Guadalupe, he stressed that a picture painted by a man, such as that of the Virgin of Guadalupe, does not possess supernatural powers.14 Only in the beginning of the seventeenth century, the story of the miracle, according to which the picture was created out of flowers picked on the site of the revelation in front of the skeptical Bishop, in order to convince him, became widespread.15 The emphasis on the 11 12 13 14 15 According to Christian, the revelations occurred outside the populated (settled) area and as a result a non-populated (an area that was not settled) area was annexed to the Christian world. The result of the revelation was that a wild plot of land was turned into a site of an altar. The researcher also argues that the occupation of the landscape was carried out against the power of the central church. Concerning the term ‘local religion’ used by Christian, I am referring only to the relation between religion and the earth and not to the political context. The legend motif of the return of the image to the country site, rejecting the parish church, may be an echo or a metaphor for what was in some sense a liberation from parish control or, put in another way, the resistance of local religion to the growing claims of the church; see William A. Christian, Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1981, 91. The original Guadalupe in Extremadura is connected to earth seized from non-Christians; see Christian, Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain, 88–93. Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España, edited by Juan Carlos Temprano. Vol. 2, 1051–1056. Madrid: Dastin, 2001. The second Bishop of Mexico, Alonso Montufar, encourages the worship of the Virgin of Guadalupe in his sermon. Following this sermon, the Franciscan preaches a sermon in which he criticizes the worship of the picture (Francisco de Bustamante [1555–1562]). The available sources are taken from a research conducted by the Archbishop following the sermon by Bustamante; Francisco de Bustamente, “Información por el Sermón de 1556,” In Testimonios Históricos Guadalupanos, edited by Ernesto de la Torre Villar, and Ramiro Navarro de Anda, 43–72. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1982 . The text Nican Mopohua was probably written by Luis Laso de la Vega; Luis Laso de la Vega, The Story of Guadalupe: Luis Laso de la Vega’s Huei Tlamahuiçoltica de 1649, translated and edited by Lisa Sousa, Stafford Poole, and James Lockhart. Vol. 84. Stanford, ca; Stanford University Press, 1998. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 29 fact that the picture was miraculously created out of the landscape is unique.16 Statues are usually discovered below the ground and are connected with the site in which they were found, as opposed to bodies that were transferred from place to place,17 but the picture created from the landscape contains an additional dimension, the desire to emphasize the exclusive connection of matter to the local earth and not only to the place.18 The accepted interpretation of the story is a political interpretation connecting the phenomenon to the beginning of Mexican nationalism.19 My intention is to connect it to a widespread religious phenomenon in which matter, the earth in this case, obtains a new religious status. As we have seen in the previous examples, the attempt of the sixteenthcentury writers to take a stand against concrete manifestations was replaced in the seventeenth century by worship connected to the earth and the location (see Figures 1 and 2). 1.2 The Body So far I have founded the argument concerning the move from sight to proximity and matter on stories emphasizing the holiness of a site or an object. In this part, I will show how proximity and earth are connected to a new status afforded to the body.20 The link to the human body will help to extend the 16 17 18 19 20 The Jesuit historian Francisco de Florencia examined various revelations of the Virgin Mary and her pictures at the end of the seventeenth century. Francisco maintains that the picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe is the only one created naturally and not painted; Francisco de Florencia, Zodiaco Mariano, edited by P. Juan Antonio de Oviedo. Mexico City: Colegio de San Ildefonso, 1755. Christian, Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain, 21. The story describes the source of the various plants and emphasizes the fact that they are local plants; D.A. Brading, Mexican Phoenix: Our Lady of Guadalupe: Image and Tradition across Five Centuries. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001, 86. Brading links the awakening of worship with the tension between Spain and the New World. Ibid., 35–54. Following several researches published in the 1980s and the 1990s by the historians of the Middle Ages, the preoccupation with the body became a specialized branch of study in the historical research of Catholicism. One of the outcomes of these studies was that between 1200 and 1500, a new identification between the body of Jesus and his humanity was created; see Sarah Beckwith, Christ’s Body. Identity, Culture and Society in Late Medieval Writings. London: Routledge, 1993, 46; David Aers, “Figuring Forth the Body of Christ: Devotion and Politics” Essays in Medieval Studies 2 (1995): 1. The researcher most closely identified with this field of study is Carolyn Walker Bynum; Carolyn Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987 and 30 Figure 1 chapter 1 A sixteenth-century stone cross (7 feet, 10 inches high), created by an Indian craftsman probably before 1538, Mexico State Monastery of San Agustín photograph courtesy of alejandro linares garcía From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative Figure 2 A tree found in the district of Limache, Chile, with an engraved figure of crucified Christ. From Alonso de Ovalle, Historica relacion del reyno de Chile (Rome, 1646) Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University 31 32 chapter 1 argument concerning the exchanging relations between matter and sight, to a more general argument, thus facilitating our understanding of the ethical meaning of the change. The following passage is founded on a comparison between the description of the death of Martín de Valencia by Motolinía to the description of the same event by Torquemada.21 The story of the death of Martín de Valencia appears in several versions in the writings of various chroniclers. The fact that he died in a field (campo) outside the town of Tlalmanalco is repeated in all of them. An indication of the importance of this fact is that Martín de Valencia had dreamed about it many years before. The writers emphasize the importance of the death in the field. I will argue that in spite of the similarity between the various stories, the significance that they attach to the event is quite different. Motolinía describes Martín de Valencia who, in his old age, thought of going on a missionary journey to China, as a man whose home is the world, in other words, a homeless man. The home is a symbol of belonging; it is perhaps the main asset that belongs to a man, but more than any other possession, it ties him to a certain place. The home represents the relation between a man and a place, between a man and his possessions, and between him and the circle of relatives who will be near him in his last moments. Martín de Valencia, the man who left his family and his country, completes the circle when he died in a field outside his house or his private room. The field in which Martín died is first of all a public and visible domain, as opposed to a room hidden behind its walls. Let us now pass on to the way in which Martín de Valencia ends his life in Torquemada’s version. His last moments are described accurately, the description is much longer than that of Motolinía, and they are considered to be the most important and pure moments of his life. In his last moments, Torquemada’s Martín is taken in a boat to Mexico and when he feels that death is near, he asks to be removed from the boat sailing on the water, to the earth, in order to enable him to suffer its hardness. We do not find this emphasis on the earth as matter in Motolinía’s writings. In his version, the earth is not even mentioned, and Martín de Valencia dies in an undefined field (campo o ribera). The contrast between water and earth emphasizes the physical aspect of the earth. Torquemada continues to describe the physical aspect of the event in which Martín dies on the hard naked earth with his eyes turned to the sky, in the arms of his friend Antonio Ortiz. The description emphasizes contacts of various 21 Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. New York: Zone Books, 1991. Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 159–160, Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6:166. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 33 kinds with matter – from water to the earth, to the friend’s body, and to the air of the sky touching his head. The plastic aspect of the earth is stressed again when Torquemada mentions its relation to the human body; the bed on which he died is the naked earth out of which he was created. The detailed description with the emphasis on touch and the reference to the earth all belong to the naturalistic conceptual universe. The earth is not simply the earth but naked, basic earth.22 In the naturalistic world, the contrast to the naked and the basic is the embellished. What can we learn from the discrepancy between the two stories? In the example to which I will refer below, Motolinía describes a Franciscan ideal in which all the believers lose their identity like a river flowing into the sea.23 The story of Martín de Valencia is also about the loss of identity; Martín dies in an unknown location outside his private room devoid of personal belongings and mingles with the visual field. The ideal of the person losing his identity and merging with the world means that he regards the world as a focus of confidence and security. The person abandons his focus of internal security in favor of total confidence in the world. In Torquemada’s story, the material earth replaces the visual earth and in the meantime, replaces sight with touch. Torquemada’s Martín de Valencia returns to his original identity as a result of the proximity to matter and the feeling of touch. Touching the body is perhaps the most intimate relationship, and in his death, Martín holds on to matter and gains his safety from concrete objects that can be touched and held. Returning to the field in which Martín de Valencia died, we can say that while in Motolinía’s story, the field is the visual world; in Torquemada’s, the earth is the body and the man. Martín, who in Motolinía’s story died in the open space devoid of any belongings, becomes material, concrete, and present in Torquemada’s story. The lack of any belongings is one of the ways to become non-present. The wider framework of non-presence is humility. The sin of pride, appearing in the Indian story of the Tower of Babylon, is a leading motive in the stories of the early Franciscans; the Franciscan response to the danger of pride is extreme to the point of negating the self. Stories about self-negation are turned, in Torquemada’s writings, into stories about becoming concrete and possessing a body, as in the story of the death in the field. One of the ways to self-negation is self-humiliation, of a kind that negates a person’s value in his environment. Martín de Valencia, in the sixteenth-century stories, is an 22 23 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6:166. Ibid., 5:138; Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 167. 34 chapter 1 example of self-humiliation. The following story about Martín de Valencia is told by Francisco Jiménez: After he became a man of religion he suggested that he return to his land (Torquemada changed it to homeland [Patria]) to Valencia de Don Juan the natural place for him, as he was born there and known by all the inhabitants. Before he arrived at the village he took off the friar’s clothing and entered the village in the middle of the day, naked but for his underwear, with a rope around his neck, his friend leading him on the rope like a habitual criminal and everybody staring at him until he reached the church, so there would be no doubt that the inhabitants and relatives regarded him as a madman impaired in his mind, and would scorn and belittle him as he wanted.24 Torquemada repeats the story almost word for word but adds an interpretation: As the famed father, the holy Augustinus said, true humility is not imprisoned and left in the mind, but exposed to the eye through deeds and unconcealed emotions. The Lord has provided us with an example (according to Paulus) by turning himself into a man and while he was in divine form, belittling himself by becoming a slave like other people and being covered by flesh like them.25 Martín’s action, according to Torquemada, is actually the realization of abstract qualities by turning them into concrete ones, by converting them into flesh and blood. Martín’s humiliation is not a deed whose aim is to defy pride, but a measure to convert humility into a presence. At the center of Jiménez’s story is the look of the villagers humiliating Martín, this being its aim, while in the center of Torquemada’s story is Martín’s deed of turning abstract qualities into concrete flesh and blood. I will further refer to the reversal to the body found in the last stories about Martín in Torquemada’s writings, by means of additional examples emphasizing the new significance attributed to the body, all of which concern corpses.26 24 25 26 Atanasio López, “Vida de Fray Martín de Valencia, Escrita por su Compañero Fr. Francisco Jiménez,” Archivo Ibero Americano 26 (1926): 62. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6:149. Weckmann quotes tens of stories about corpses of Spanish missionaries exhumed at the end of the sixteenth and in the seventeenth centuries bearing signs of sanctity; Luis Weckmann, The Medieval Heritage of Mexico. New York: Fordham University Press, 1992. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 35 The wholeness of the body is the most obvious sign of holiness both in the stories of Motolinía in the sixteenth century and in those of Torquemada in the seventeenth century.27 I do not intend to go into depth concerning the engagement with the body and holiness, but to focus on the change of emphasis between the descriptions of the body by Motolinía and those by Torquemada, and the way in which they are in accordance with the scheme that distinguishes between sight and touch. The distinction made by William Christian between the local pattern of worship based on statues found in the earth and bodies that can be transferred thus strengthens the tie to the heritage, is confirmed with the arrival of the Jesuits. In the 1580s, an unknown Jesuit begins his book on the history of the Jesuits in Mexico with the story of the way the holy relics were brought (to Mexico). One of the main fruits was a delivery from Pope Gregorius XIII containing a large number of relics. They arrived at our school in the year 77. With the aim of inculcating faith, religiosity, and veneration upon the souls of these new Christians, as the relics and bones of the saints deserve, it was decided to arrange a ceremonial feast to arouse enthusiasm in their souls for the treasure vested in them [the relics and bones of the saints].28 These relics that can be touched replaced the large crosses set up by the Franciscans on the mountain peaks. In contrast to the Franciscan God who does not distinguish between countries and nations, the Jesuits strove to create an identity based on the heritage of historical personages, the relics of the saints. Memory is an important component of the new identity. The Jesuits attempted to forge a material relationship in which objects (relics) replace stories with a moral, such as the plays staged by the early Franciscans, or the painted signs developed by the Flemish Franciscan friar Pedro of Ghent who founded a school in Texcoco where he taught with the help of picture books.29 The new Christians are created through connections to objects and historical events that form a Christian community. The important thing is not to 27 28 29 Carlos M.N. Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of Dying in SixteenthCentury Spain. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Francisco González de Cossío, Relación Breve de la Venida de los de la Compañía de Jesús a la Nueva España Año de 1602, Manuscrito Anónimo del Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Hacienda. Mexico City: Imprenta Universitaria, 1945, 45. Luis Resines, Catecismos Pictográficos de Pedro de Gante, Incompleto y Mucagua. Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 2007, 13. 36 chapter 1 achieve a cold and abstract understanding, but rather an emotional tie, enabling every believer to connect to the most physical part of the Christian heritage – the relics of the saints.30 Let us first return to the story of the death of Martín de Valencia, focusing on what happened after his death. Motolinía mentions several stories about miracles performed by the body of Martín de Valencia, but he, Motolinía, does not attach great importance to them.31 Torquemada, on the other hand, devotes two long chapters to the body of Martín de Valencia (in addition to the chapter that tells about his death).32 Finally, according to Torquemada, the remains of the body were found in 1584, after it was discovered that the Indians had hidden them even from the Franciscan brothers.33 Naturally, the relics became a site of pilgrimage and worship. The story reported by Motolinía is the story of Cristóbal, an Indian boy converted to Christianity who broke his father’s idols and was consequently murdered by him. The father conceals the body of the boy martyr, but it was discovered in the end. After it was known where his father buried him, a friar called Andrés de Córdoba went from this house together with many respected Indians to take the body of the boy who had been buried there for more than a year and confirmed before some of the people who went with the brother Andrés de Córdoba that the body was dry but not decomposed.34 Cristóbal’s body bears witness to holiness, and those entitled to view it are representatives of the village, who have the authority to decide whether or not Cristóbal is holy and are not personally connected to him in any way. After reviewing the evidence, the representatives return to transmit the confirmed information. Torquemada is not content with the evidence alone, as found in Motolinía’s story, but adds a description of the transfer of the body, the burial in Convento, and the subsequent transfer of the bones to the central church by Motolinía.35 The evidence of the men of authority was replaced by intimacy. 30 31 32 33 34 35 About the rise of the number of relics in Mexico at the end of the sixteenth century, see Weckmann, The Medieval Heritage of Mexico, 256. Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 160. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6:168. Ibid., 6: 178. Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 221. The story on the delivery of the corpse Torquemada borrows from the preface to the Spanish translation of the story written in 1595 by Juan Bautista; Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5:145; José Fernando Ramírez, “Noticias de la Vida y Escritos de Fray Toribio de From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 37 The most detailed story of the discovery of the body of a saint, enabling us to learn about the new relation of Torquemada and his contemporaries to the bodies of the saints, is the story of the body of Bishop Juan de Zumárraga. Torquemada tells that thirty-five years after the death of the Bishop Juan de Zumárraga, the first bishop of Mexico, Pedro of Nava, requests to see the body. And this is how Torquemada explains this request: In his youth he had served the Bishop, Pedro de Nava, son of noble and respected parents from that city, and devoted to everything connected with the church, who had learned to be a priest and conduct Mass….and he therefore regarded him more as a father (when he served him) than as an owner or master and loved him from the depth of his heart and what helped him to love him with such unique love was the fact that he had known the inside of his room in which the Bishop had fasted his long and rigorous fast and as in this case he saw it intimately connected with his will, he felt a desire to see the body of the saint in order to set his mind at rest regarding his state because he was convinced that a unique life like that of the saint should be reflected in certain attributes of his body.36 Pedro goes out to view the body together with his brother and another friar. The author repeats the argument that Pedro of Nava wanted only to see the body several times, but in the end, he is not content with this. Possibly the comments are meant to show that we are not dealing with relic thieves, but the contrast between viewing, and taking a part of the body remains significant in the description, according to Torquemada, a true relationship cannot be content with viewing. The description of the body is detailed: when the table is removed, a wonderful scent spreads all over. There are rings on the hands, and the head is separated from the neck. The beard has grown by four or five fingers – an important indication of a miracle. The believer cannot leave the site without taking with him a simple ring with a finger attached.37 Torquemada’s description transfers the emphasis of the story from evidence of a miracle to an intimate relationship. The entire introduction is an attempt to explain the fact that Pedro of Nava took Zumárraga’s finger. We pass from a description of Pedro’s family to a description of the intimate relation with the saint, a parental relationship that 36 37 Benavente, O Motolinía,” In Colección de Documentos para la Historia de México, edited by Joaquín García Icazbalceta. Vol. 2, cxxix. Mexico City: J.M. Andrade, 1858. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6:224. Ibid., 6:226. 38 chapter 1 reaches its peak in the description of the intimacy in Zumárraga’s private room. Even the description of the body itself by Torquemada transcends the proof of sacredness according to the established criteria; rather it is a revealing plastic detailed description. Instead of Martín de Valencia, the man who denies his room and dies in the open space, whose family is unknown because nobody knows them,38 we find Zumárraga with whom the relationship is defined by the private room and the family, serving as an explanation for the intimate relationship with the body. Zumárraga’s memory is not based on familiarity with the biographical details but rather on vital emotions, the physical dimension playing an important part in the reconstruction of memory. Instead of visual evidence of the miracle of the wholeness of the body, passed on by persons of authority, we find a friendly relationship and the ownership of parts of the body. 1.2.1 The Indian Body The bodies discussed previously were bodies of saints. Besides the change in the relation between the body and holiness, there is a change on the other side of the religious universe – the world of sin and the devil. Torquemada’s treatment of the Indians indicates a new connection between the body and the world of idolatry and sin. In the first years of the Spanish conquest, the worship of idols with their priests still existed in Mexico. The Franciscan brother Toribio de Benavente – Motolinía – tells that one day, one of the Aztec priests wanted to show his power as against the weakness of the new religion – Christianity – and went to the market. The confrontation occurred when the Indian children, the new converts, studying in the convent, left the premises: And when he repeatedly said that he was a God and the children said that he was but a demon, one of them bent down to lift a stone and said to the others “let us banish the demon and God will help us” and saying that he threw the stone.39 The story is familiar to the western reader as it reconstructs the plot of the stoning of Jesus. There too, Jesus goes to walk in the Temple and is stoned by the believers in the other religion for similar reasons: 38 39 López, “Vida de Fray Mart.n de Valencia,” 48–74. Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 148. Ibid., 216. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 39 John 10:32 Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.” Although the converted children do not claim that the priest is a man like any other, as do the stoners in the New Testament, in the course of the story, the missionaries correct them and explain that the man who aspired to be a God is just a man and not a demon. The reversal of the story of the New Testament shows us the power of good plots and also the fragility and lack of consistency between the plots and the messages conveyed. The evil ones in one story become the virtuous ones in the other, God is exchanged for a demon, and with regard to significance, the relations between might, truth, and justice are reversed. When the story reaches Torquemada, it will be subjected to another reversal. Motolinía’s story is complicated and revolves around misunderstandings and confusions between the human and the supernatural and between various types of the supernatural; the Indians claim that the priest is the God Ometochtli (Nuestro dios Ometochtli), the converted children claim that he is the devil and not God, while the friars claim that they are referring to a regular man. After the murder, the children return to the convent and tell the friars that they have killed the devil, and the friars do not understand how this could have happened until “the interpreter told them that they had killed somebody dressed like the devil with signs of the devil.” The frightened friars ask one of the children, the one who threw the first stone, “how did you do such a thing and killed a man?” and the child answered that “they did not kill a man but a demon and if they do not believe it, they could go and see for themselves.”40 The friars go into the market and “see that the dead man was clothed in the priest’s garb of the devil and was as ugly as the devil himself.” Motolinía regards the event in a positive vein, since as a result, many people learnt to recognize the lies of the devil. Torquemada repeats the story written by Motolinía.41 40 41 The story of the stoning of the Aztec priest resembles in character the attempt of the Jews to stone Jesus: “Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God” (St. John 10:32). Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5:106–107. 40 chapter 1 They entered and told how they had killed the demon but the friars could not understand them until an Indian who spoke the language came from the market and they understood what they had done. The entire conceptual confusion connected with the distinction between God and man and between clothing and substance is lost in Torquemada’s story in favor of a simple problem of communication lacking any conceptual, ethical or religious context. The discrepancy between the approaches is related to the attitude towards language, which is at the center of the intellectual interest in the sixteenth century. Motolinía’s description is sensitive to the difficulties of transferring concepts from one culture to another, while Torquemada’s description turns the problem of translation into a technical one. For Motolinía the difference between a different language and a different creed is blurred. After the friars understood the children, Torquemada repeats the description of the inquiry employed by the friars in order to try to understand the murder. Here, as in the original, the children respond by saying that it was not a man who was killed but a demon, and request that the friars see the events through their own eyes. The friars do this and this is what they discover: The officials of religion went down to the market and found a large heap of stones under which the priest of hell, representing the God Bacchus and appearing in his terrible image, was buried. They found him and saw his body that did not look human, but resembled a smoking ember from hell. They showed him all over the village, and this was the reason that many of its inhabitants were converted to the true religion of Jesus.42 Torquemada’s solution is contrary to that of Motolinía. According to Torquemada the children were right; the body of the priest provides evidence of his demonic and inhuman nature. Torquemada turns a story based on the distinction between the human and the demonic into a story of a body of demonic nature. Motolinía focuses on the problem of language, whereas Torquemada focuses on the body. Unlike Motolinía, Torquemada regards it as self-evident that the priest had no right to live. The twisted unhuman body is proof enough that he does not belong to humanity. Finally, both Motolinía and Torquemada believe that the murder of the Aztec priest is justified. For us, both stories represent a kind of moral failure – a justification of murder – but the justification results from two completely different approaches. Motolinía justifies the murder on the basis of a cold 42 Ibid. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 41 instrumental approach that weighs the value of a man’s life against the conversion of an entire village. According to Torquemada, however, the direct proximity to the body suffices to justify the murder. By comparison, there is a difference in the way the two chroniclers describe the conversion of the village: according to Motolinía, the story of children defeating an Aztec priest proves who the true God is, whereas according to Torquemada, the presentation of the demonic body of the priest is the motive for conversion. Here we gain a new understanding as to how ethical considerations operate. Proximity replaces abstract arguments, and a scene of a public murder in the town square that leaves its mark in peoples’ minds, is replaced by a body that preserves demonic attributes in material form. In the course of the story, Torquemada omits the distinction made by the translator in Motolinía’s story in which the reference is to a man dressed in the garb of the devil and not to the devil himself. This omission is not incidental. Torquemada’s attitude to clothes differs completely from that of Motolinía. Torquemada regards clothes as part of the body and substance of a man. At one point, Torquemada tries to explain the inferiority of the Indians, about which the majority of Franciscans are in agreement, by connecting the color of the Indians’ skin to the skin color of black people; Torquemada explains this by the story of Noah’s sin: “and this skin like eternal sambenito was a proof of their sin and guilt.”43 The sambenito is a robe worn by those found guilty by the Inquisition, forced to wear their shame on their body in public.44 Torquemada does not regard clothing or skin as external to substance. The confusion between body, clothing and substance at the center of Motolinía’s story is not clear to Torquemada. Clothes are located at the crossroads of several central concepts, among them poverty, belongings, and identity. In the next section, I will clarify this new relationship to clothes (see Figure 3).45 43 44 45 “Y fuese aquel color como sambenito perpetuo demonstrativo en su culpa y pecado”; Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 4:364. Luis González Obregón, Época Colonial. México Viejo, Noticias Históricas, Tradiciones, Leyendas y Costumbres. Mexico City: Editorial Patria, 1945, 107–108. The environmental explanation does not conform to the genetic explanation; however, in both explanations, Torquemada keeps the tendency of looking for justifications of the link between body and morality. It is a good idea to compare the link between body and morality to the treatment of converted Jews in Spain in the sixteenth century. In recent studies, Popkin argues that Cardinal Jiménez, the highest- positioned person in the Spanish religious establishment, considered the converted Jews as an integral part of the Christian world, and according to him, the 1449 laws of pure blood were not enforced, and the Jewish origin of many of the highest-positioned persons in the Spanish religious 42 Figure 3 chapter 1 Clothing and identity. A native American young man from Mexico with beautiful clothing. From Cesare Vecellio, De gli Habiti Antichi e Modérni di Diversi Parti di Mondo (Venice, 1598) Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 1.3 43 Poverty Poverty is one of the most important ideals of the early Franciscans. Motolinía is ‘the poor man’, and the simplicity of the Indians is mentioned with appreciation many times.46 However, poverty has two meanings. The Franciscan leadership in the second half of the thirteenth century tried to promote theories of poverty differentiating between ownership and usage, and thus between non-ownership and non-usage. The Franciscan friar is entitled to use anything necessary but cannot be the owner of anything. In the fourteenth century, Dons Scotus will refer to the state of non-ownership as the primary state of man, and ownership to a social solution.47 Against this theory that places the emphasis on ownership, there was the conception of poverty primarily as simplicity and lack of sensual pleasures. The simple clothes mentioned by the sixteenth-century chroniclers in the missionary and Indian context are intended primarily to show simplicity. The meaning which the early Franciscans attached to simplicity was asceticism. Their ideal of poverty was a state of want tormenting the body. Going barefoot is an example of this; first of all, it is a kind of asceticism, and only in the second place, a proof of having no possessions. There are many stories of such torment. Motolinía reports that if Martín de Valencia found the food tasty, he would immediately pour water on it.48 The goal of asceticism is to suppress emotions and passions, the high point of which is self-negation as shown in the following text: One of the qualities of the friars in this country is humility, since many of the Spaniards humiliate them by cursing them and speaking ill of them. As for the Indians, they have no reason to treat them condescendingly because the latter are superior to them in humility and repentance. 46 47 48 established was common knowledge. “El cuerpo recibe la calidad de la tierra donde se cría y el ánima la recibe del cuerpo, en cuanto a la inclinación”; see Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 4:366; Richard H. Popkin, “Savonarola and Cardinal Ximines: Millenarian Thinkers and Actors at the Eve of the Reformation,” In Catholic Millenarianism: From Savonarola to the Abbé Grégoire, edited by Karl A. Kottman. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer, 2001, 23. Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 76. At issue is a controversy that divided the Franciscan order during the thirteenth century and brought about ongoing tension with the Papacy; see Richard Tuck, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1979, 20–24; Malcolm Lambert, Franciscan Poverty: The Doctrine of the Absolute Poverty of Christ and the Apostles in the Franciscan Order 1210–1323. London: SPCK for the Church Historical Society, 1961. Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 154. 44 chapter 1 When a new friar arrives from Castile, where he is considered a penitent over and above all the others, upon his arrival here, he is like a river flowing into the sea because the entire community lives humbly and observes what must be observed.49 Self-negation is expressed by a person losing his individuality, just as a river loses its uniqueness when it enters the sea. Motolinía’s comparison does not differentiate between Spanish voluntary asceticism and Indian asceticism which is not voluntary. Torquemada, following Mendieta, treats the subject from an opposite point of view, that of the Indians. In contrast to Motolinía’s argument stating that the asceticism of the Spaniards is absorbed by the simplicity of the Indians, Torquemada claims that the Indians appreciated the Spanish simplicity because they realized that it was voluntary.50 The new emphasis on choice and voluntarism is accompanied by a reversal of the attitude towards poverty. Against the argument presented by Motolinía praising the positive influence of the Indians’ poverty on the missionaries, Torquemada, again following Mendieta, presents an almost contrasting attitude. The garment of the simple Indian consists of ancient cloth made of a thousand patches. If father Francisco were alive today to see these Indians, he would be ashamed and confused and would admit that poverty is not his brother anymore, and he would praise it no more.51 Torquemada adds an interesting sentence stating that “this actually happened to poor religious missionaries who came from Spain.” The last example shows that the change pertaining to the generalized positive attitude to poverty is accompanied by a new kind of relation to clothing, a radical change from the stories of Motolinía. The change in the significance of clothes is manifested in the widespread use of clothing as a metaphor for substance, for instance in the following example: With the garments that that evil man (Martin Luther), this imitator of the Evangelic truth, had taken off from the Christians, whom he had led away from the true path and cheated, Martín de Valencia clothed the Christian plants who had chosen Christianity on their own free will.52 49 50 51 52 Ibid., 167. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5:348. Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, XVI, Lib 3 Cap 21. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5:346. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 45 The same comparison between Martin Luther and Martín de Valencia appears in Mendieta’s writings, but the metaphor of clothing is a new addition by Torquemada.53 In Motolinía’s history, clothes ‘vestidos’ are mentioned dozens of times, and every time, they are related to identification with function or status. There are clothes of the priest and clothes of the king and clothes of the priest of the devil and clothes of a certain god and of course clothes (‘habito’) of the Franciscan friar. In none of these instances are clothes associated either with substance or with a sense of belonging or property.54 Torquemada is interested in the relation between clothes and ownership, and this is illustrated in the stories of sins and remorse.55 The following story was related by Mendieta and copied by Torquemada. Another [Indian] confessed that he possessed a cloak saying that he had no other, nor any valuable object save this one with which he covered himself. The confessor wanted to test the nature of his confession and his readiness to fulfill whatever is required of him and told him that he already knew that the law of the Lord required that he return whatever belongs to another, to its owner. The penitent immediately took off the cloak that covered him and placed it away from him in order to return it to its owner. Kneeling and naked the Indian said: “now I have nothing and I don’t want anything, now I have nothing, I don’t owe anything and don’t want anything.” The confessor, faced with such a free deed [acto tan liberal], was satisfied by the readiness of the Indian, ordered him to cover himself with the cloak, and told him that he owed nothing as long as he had no way to pay for another cloak.56 The main theme of the story is intention and will. Torquemada adopts Mendieta’s story and enhances the emphasis on free will and intention. However, it is 53 54 55 56 Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, XVI, Lib 3, Cap. 1. “El traje que el rey ama y se viste, de aquel se visten los cortesanos”; Motolinía, Memoriales: O Libro de las Cosas de la Nueva España y de los Naturales de ella, 3. Klor de Alva deals extensively with some aspects of the confession within the setting of the power relationships in society between Spaniards and Indians. He analyzes the confession within the framework of the attempt, abortive in his opinion, to form the new Indians according to the dictated life-story model. I am examining what the model of this dictated story is; José Jorge Klor de Alva, “Telling Lives: Confessional Autobiography and the Reconstruction of the Nahua Self,” In Spiritual Encounters: Interactions between Christianity and Native Religions in Colonial America, edited by Nicholas Griffiths, and Fernando Cervantes. Birmingham, uk: The University of Birmingham Press, 1999. Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, Lib 3, Cap. 43. Torquemada, 5:272. 46 chapter 1 important to understand the basic motives serving to describe the ethical situation. Along with the discussion of the concept of intention, there is a discussion of a more basic motive, the concept of ownership and the relation between ownership and morals. The story is one of property and ownership. The complete person has a legitimate right to his property. The story mentions a new kind of legitimacy that could be regarded as an early discussion of rights; a man has a right to clothing, and this right lends validity to ownership. Torquemada’s story can be regarded as a challenge to the model presented by Motolinía, according to which the ideal of self-negation is achieved by want and resignation. The Indian declares: “now I have nothing and I do not want anything, now I have nothing, I do not owe anything and do not want anything,” but the confessor corrects him and presents a different model. The argument concerning the change in the religious attitude to poverty is supported by another comparison in which a later version of Mendieta omits a central sentence from another confession by Motolinía containing a positive description of an Indian who prefers to remain poor.57 1.3.1 Poverty and a Model of Conversion The change in the attitude to poverty is expressed in the model that I presented, distinguishing between ethics of sight and ethics of ownership. The ideal at the root of Franciscan asceticism is self-negation, the goal of which is focusing in the world – the man who denies all personal desires and focuses entirely on the world. The relation between asceticism and viewing the world emerges from the following story describing a demonic experience of Martín de Valencia: In the course of the experience, Martín is in a state of general decline in vitality. He finds it difficult to love his fellow-friars, to be happy, to celebrate, and to pray. The trees look like ghosts to him, and he loses his appetite. The culmination of his experience is the feeling that when reciting Mass, he is not purified. The culprit responsible for Martín’s deplorable state of mind is the devil. Martín de Valencia undergoes a transformation as a result of a remark by a woman, a messenger of God, who refers to his emaciated appearance: And like a person awakening from a deep sleep, he began to open the eyes of comprehension and think of how he had eaten almost nothing, saying 57 For the dictated story of Mendieta, see Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica Indiana., Lib 3 Cap. 43. The deleted sentence: “queriendo él más quedar pobre, que no que se le negase la absolución”; see also Toribio Motolinía, Memoriales: O Libro de las Cosas de la Nueva España y de los Naturales de ella, edited by Edmundo O’Gorman. 2nd ed. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1971, 131. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 47 to himself: “this is really the temptation of the devil” and he prayed to God to shed light on his path and deliver him from the blindness in which the devil had held him, and decided to transform his life. The devil realized that he had been exposed, withdrew from him, and ceased to tempt him. After that, the saint (Man of God) began to feel weak and faint and could hardly stand on his feet and thereafter, began to eat and remained attentive to the devil’s plot. After he had freed himself from these temptations, his soul remained clear and rested. He regarded the uncultivated fields with pleasure and the trees which he had disdained before with the birds singing on them, as well. They seemed like paradise to him.58 The story describes as state of exaggerated asceticism by self-induced starvation, causing disengagement from the world. Indirectly it teaches us that the important goal of asceticism is engagement with the world. Pride, a man’s great enemy, is one way for a man to disengage himself from the world by concentrating on himself. Asceticism strives to fight against pride but is apt to bring about another kind of disengagement from the world. Another lesson that we learn from the story is that religious transformation is expressed in terms of viewing the world (“he began to open the eyes of comprehension”). These concepts, expressing the central axis of religious transformation, undergo a massive change. Torquemada, following Mendieta, tells another story about a religious transformation in the life of Martín de Valencia. In this last way, the man of God gained a lot in spiritual and material assets, because by turning to hard physical labor, it was a matter of devoting himself more and more to God with greater drive and energy of the spirit. It was clear that on his return from the journey, he had become a new and different man, not because he became good instead of bad, as he had always been good, but because he returned equipped with new feelings of the love of God and accustomed to deeds of humility and the love of others, as mentioned, showing this by an example of a life of humility, more profound and complete.59 In the story of Motolinía, as well as in that of Torquemada/Mendieta, a person’s state changes – for the better. I am concerned with the axis of this change, the parameters for the examination and description of the human condition. 58 59 Motolinía, Memoriales: O Libro de las Cosas de la Nueva España y de los Naturales de ella, 149–150. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6:165. 48 chapter 1 My conclusion is that Motolinía describes the human condition by means of the visible world (see Figure 4), while Torquemada does so by means of the change in a man’s belongings, from the ownership of bad deeds to that of good deeds (“he returned equipped with new feelings of the love of God”). The concept of belonging is the central concept defining the world of property. Another argument of mine is that a relation exists between the parameters serving the description of the human condition and values. According to Motolinía, a man is supposed to empty himself of personal attributes in order to attain salvation; Torquemada, on the other hand, develops a model of the ownership of life. The result of Motolinía’s awakening was a clear view of the world. The good deeds of his Martín, according to Torquemada, result in a product of a completely different order – objects belonging to a man, described by him as gains, but I will argue that they are property. The relation between clothes, assets, and transformation is not new, but usually the metaphor operates in the opposite direction. In the legend of the three friends, in one of the biographies of St. Francis from the thirteenth century, his new clothes symbolize his religious transformation, but it is apparent that the new clothes are the opposite of the individual clothes – the clothes of a friar – “vestía hábito de ermitaño.” The story of the transformation of St. Francis centers around the parting from personal clothes symbolizing assets and personal identity.60 The process that Martín de Valencia undergoes is described as amassing gains; the gains are things that now belong to Martín: he is dressed in new feelings of love of God, and the confidence that he has gained by his good deeds also belongs to him. The love of God which, in Motolinía’s stories, was described as a way to self-negation, now becomes a mainstay of his inner world. Even when Torquemada speaks of the love of people near and dear to him, that could be understood as a reference to the external environment of Martín, he speaks of it in the context of a person’s inner qualities, part of the training that makes him a better man. The transformation that Martín de Valencia undergoes before his death is ontological. The relation of a man to the world, expressed in a new view, is not mentioned here. The merging of life as a journey and wholeness as the amassing of property creates a parallel between the new concept of wholeness and the descriptions of the sixteenth-century conquerors, the ones whose lives are centered around 60 Lázaro Iriarte, “Leyenda de los Tres Compañeros,” In Escritos. Biografías. Documentos de la Época, edited by José Antonio Guerra. Vol. 2, 6. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1998. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative Figure 4 49 The Christian world and the devil’s world. The devil tries to pull with a chain a native American man suspended from a Christian tree. From Diego Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana (Perugia, 1579) Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University 50 chapter 1 their own good and who are motivated by the desire to amass property, and in the meantime, ignoring the world around them. Motolinía praises the Indians while at the same time criticizing the Spanish conquerors: “The Indians do not wake up to acquire property and do not die to gain treasures or honor,” and it is quite clear who does so.61 My argument is that Torquemada uses the same concepts that Motolinía criticizes for the purpose of describing the process that Martín de Valencia is undergoing. True, the gains are spiritual and not mundane and the land reached is heaven and not the lands of the new world, but the terminology is similar. The discrepancy between the ideals of Torquemada and those of Motolinía is even more prominent when Torquemada’s description is compared to the way that Motolinía describes the good qualities of the Indians: A life without ambition or property is the ideal presented by Motolinía.62 In contrast to the descriptions of extreme humility of the sixteenth century, Torquemada’s description focuses completely on the saint. There are more significant examples showing a reversal from focusing on the world to focusing on man – the saint. The story of the death of Martín de Valencia is one example, and the following story is another. Motolinía tells of a tree that filled with birds when Martín de Valencia came to pray beneath it. They [the birds], when singing, created a sweet harmony, in the presence of which, he felt great consolation and praised the Lord. As he [Martín de Valencia] left, the birds also left the tree, and after the death of the servant of God, they never again assembled in the same way.63 Torquemada repeats the story in the chapter devoted to the miracles performed by Martín de Valencia. The plot is almost identical, but for the fact that the birds in the story play a different part “Apparently they came to help him to praise his creator.”64 This time, the birds do not emphasize the relation between religion and the discovery of the beauty and harmony of the creation in nature. Instead of 61 62 63 64 Motolinía, Memoriales: O Libro de las Cosas de la Nueva España y de los Naturales de ella, 76. “Con su pobre manta se acuestan, y en despertando están aparejados para servir a Dios, y si se quieren disciplinar, no tienen estorbo ni embarazo de vestirse ni desnudarse”; Ibid., 76. The comparison between the spiritual and the physical occupation is frequent in Torquemada which adds the following comparison that is absent in Mendieta; see “Como a los que venían a hacerle más guerra en lo espiritual que el .capitán Cortez hizo en lo temporal” in Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5:43, see also Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, Lib 3 Cap 12. Motolinía, Memoriales, 158. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6:177. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 51 Martín marveling at nature, we see nature marveling at Martín and attempting to help him. The religious experience related to observing nature that appears in Motolinía’s story of the birds is the same experience that appears in the story of waking up to reality after the demonic experience; in both cases, Torquemada omits Martín’s marveling at the world. The story of waking up to the world that is transformed into a Garden of Eden is a reversal of the story of the Garden of Eden, the story of the first awakening that led to a discovery of the self, of leaving the Garden of Eden, and entering the world of labor. Here, the awakening is a return to the Garden of Eden, this time by turning the world into a Garden of Eden. The world of the Garden of Eden is a world in which the economic world, centering around property and ownership, does not exist.65 On the other hand, the story of the re-awakening of Martín de Valencia prior to his death, as described by Torquemada, is founded on private property. My conclusion is that from the end of the sixteenth century, we witness a new approach to poverty and property. Moreover, this new approach infiltrates the deepest layers of the discussion about man. The world of property and ownership relations defines and constructs the inner world. Clothes, according to Torquemada and Mendieta, become personal. Such are the feelings worn by Martín de Valencia. Feelings – the metaphorical clothes of Martín de Valencia – replace his real clothes, but still preserve some of the important attributes of clothes. On the one hand, they define the identity of the saint in the same way that clothes define the identity of the person wearing them, but on the other hand, they are property, of the kind that Saint Francis attempted to get rid of. The approach that I presented, according to which the economic world is the model for the inner world, coalesces with another, familiar, and upsidedown argument, stating that the new emphasis on free will shaped the economic world. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, several Spanish theologians teaching at the University of Salamanca are regarded by many as the founders of modern economic science. One of their important innovations is the theory of the subjective value derived from the belief in free will.66 65 66 Marc Shell describes the quest for the Holy Grail as a yearning for the sustenance of the Garden of Eden; Marc Shell, Money, Language, and Thought: Literary and Philosophical Economies from the Medieval to the Modern Era. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982, 24–48. It is within their systems of moral theology and law that economics gained a definite if not separate existence, and it is they who come nearer than does any other group to having been the ‘founders’ of scientific economics; see Joseph Alois Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1954, 97. 52 chapter 1 1.3.2 Hard Work Another characteristic of the Garden of Eden, related to the economy of ownership, is the fact that in the Garden of Eden, there is no need to work. The anonymous friar who describes the story of the Garden of Eden, converted into a play in Tlaxcala in 1538, emphasizes the strong feelings of the Indians when Adam was removed from the Garden of Eden and placed in the world focused on work.67 Afterwards the earth was a very different land from the one they had left, because it was full of thorns and snakes. …When the new inhabitants of the earth arrived there, the angels showed Adam how to work and till the land and provided Eve with a spinning wheel to spin and make clothes for her husband and children.68 The Indians whose world consisted of hard work, which was often the cause of their death, identified with the fate of Adam who was banished from the Garden of Eden. Martín’s fate was more benevolent, because the new world revealed by his awakening is essentially connected to departure from the world connected to property and hard work. Martín’s visual pleasure contrasts hard work. The sixteenth-century ideal of transformation and spiritual life in general is an ideal of lack of effort. The following story by Francisco Jiménez is an expression of this: One night the man of God saw, in a vision or a dream, beasts carrying a heavy burden, tired and exhausted from work, unable to go on and carry the burden on their backs, but with all the pain and effort they managed to complete their journey, rested and relieved themselves. After that he saw other beasts resembling them, carrying burdens like the others, but they did not tire of carrying their burdens, but reached their destination, untroubled, without effort and with feelings of pleasure.69 The animals who experienced difficulty were the Indians, while those that enjoyed it were sons of other nations who would be converted, the eastern nations. The interesting point is that verbs related to work, intended to describe the good qualities of Martín de Valencia, according to Torquemada, are those 67 68 69 Motolinía, Memoriales: O Libro de las Cosas de la Nueva España y de los Naturales de ella, 106. Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 86. López, “Vida de Fray Martín de Valencia,” 74. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 53 describing the inferiority of the Indians according to Jiménez, whereas the good qualities of other nations are manifest in the effortlessness of their labor. Physical hardship is found in the stories of asceticism in the sixteenth century, but while their aim then was to conquer man’s will, the efforts of Martín, according to Torquemada, are meant, first of all, as an expression of this will. I will discuss the most conspicuous change in the attitude toward free will below. What I would like to emphasize is the relation between the will and touch; the strong will of Martín de Valencia is manifested in great effort and hard physical labor, involving touch and sweat. 1.4 Identity and Will 1.4.1 Self-identity and Uniqueness Self-negation is the ethical ideal of the first Franciscan friars in Mexico. The erasure of the self is the realization of the ideal of humility in its most extreme form. Asceticism is a way of erasure of the self by the erasure of desire. Torquemada distances himself from the ideal of self-negation. The private place, the body, and personal clothing create an individual self-identity. In the following quotation, Torquemada expresses the idea of the uniqueness of every man and connects it to the concept of creation. As God relishes the array of colors of the flowers, he also relishes the differences between people, in whose array of colors his omnipotent essence is praised and blessed, as he wished to appear – boundlessly wise in his creations and paintings.70 Torquemada repeats the argument in favor of variety, this time in a context placing him directly in opposition to Motolinía’s demand of the friars for self-negation. On account of one or two, all the holders of the role or office, should not be blamed so harshly. What a pity that this rule is not applied to the brothers, since whenever one of them acts foolishly or falls unintentionally or because of weakness, the brothers are considered evil people who do such things, as if all of them had done them, just like mice; whenever 70 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 4:363. 54 chapter 1 one of them nibbles at a piece of cheese, people say that the “mice have eaten the cheese.”71 The problem in collective blame, according to Torquemada, transcends that of blaming the innocent. The ‘story of the mice’ reveals the fear of losing self-identity which Torquemada connects directly to the world of monasticism. What Motolinía regards as an ideal is Torquemada’s great fear. The tendency toward the individual appears in many other places in this period. In 1597, the time in which Torquemada wrote, the Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suárez presents a 150 page-long discussion dealing with the problem of individuation.72 He presents a realistic approach intended to save the concrete individuals as opposed to abstract conceptions: Man does not exist in reality more than Pedro or Pablo etc. …the personal uniqueness of every man belongs to the essence of humanity.73 Even if Suárez fails to make a clear distinction between concepts and objects, it is clear that he strives to turn the individual, with all his diversity and uniqueness, into an important and necessary factor. Torquemada turns the demand for uniqueness into a motivating force in public life. In the chapter copied from Las Casas, the latter argues that the first and foremost aspiration of people is the preservation of their self [“es la conservación de si mismos”], and therefore, the first thing they will do is to negotiate the possibility of living [“negociar como vivan”]. As I have suggested in the introduction, Torquemada turns Las Casas’ theory of survival into a theory of the preservation of the individual conservación y guarda de su individuo”]. Therefore, the first thing he has to do is to discuss the 71 72 73 Ibid., 5:405. The concept of haecceitas, the famous Christian treatment of the individuation problems, belongs to Duns Scotus who placed the haecceitas as a concept related to matter and uniqueness at the basis of reality in contradiction to common nature (natura communis): John Duns Scotus, “Ordinatio,” In Opera Omnia, edited by C. Balic. Vatican City: Civitas Vaticana: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950, II, dist. 3, pars 1. For a discussion of the individuation problem, see, pp. 1–6. Francisco Suárez, Suárez on Individuation: Metaphysical Disputation V, Individual Unity and Its Principle, translated by Jorge J.E. Gracia. Milwaukee, wi: Marquette University Press, 1982, 32; Stefano Di Bella, The Science of the Individual: Leibniz’s Ontology of Individual Substance, Dordrecht, New York: Springer, 2005, 6: 26. Francisco Suárez, “Disputacion V: Sobre la Unidad Individual y Su Principio,” In Los Filósofos Escolásticos de los Siglos XVI y XVII, edited by Clemente Fernández, 511–512. Madrid: La Editorial Católica, 1986. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 55 attitude towards the preservation of the individual and his ‘persona’ [“la conservación y duración de sus individuos y personas”].74 The main question is how does this persona express itself? My argument is that the body, the clothes, and every other thing near and dear to a person, serve as a model of ownership relations, because these are things that belong to a person. Ownership is important for Torquemada in order to develop a theory of control. The realization of the ideal of human uniqueness lies in a person’s control over his life, which is manifested in the choice of his way of life and in the decisions taken in the course of his life. The story of the path trodden by Martín before he died, along with the gains he achieved, is a model of a worthy life. 1.4.1.1 Maturity and the Control of Life In this section, I would like to show the transition to a model of making life controllable by means of a state, conceptually close to the concept of conversion – maturing. The relation between religious conversion and maturing is illustrated in a story written by an anonymous writer and published in 1554 in Alcala de Henares. At the beginning, the writer describes the process of maturing of the boy Lazarillo de Tormes: We left Salamanca and came to the bridge. At the city end of it, there’s a stone figure of an animal that looks something like a bull. The blind man ordered me to go up to the animal. When I was standing there, he said: “Lazaro, put your ear next to this bull, and you’ll hear a big noise inside it.” In my naivety, I did so, believing what he said. When he sensed that my head was alongside the stone, he stiffened his hand and knocked my head hard against that damned bull, so that the pain of the “goring” lasted more than three days, and he said: “Dumbbell, learn that a blind man’s boy needs to know a little more than the Devil does.” And he had a good laugh over his trick. I felt that at that very moment I awoke from the naivety in which I had been childishly sleeping, I said to myself: “He’s speaking the truth: it’s up to me to keep my eyes peeled and to stay alert, because I’m alone in the world and must plan how to look after myself.”75 74 75 las Casas, Apologética Historia Sumaria, 2:220. The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes: A Critical Edition Including the Original Spanish Text, translated and edited by Alfonso J. García Osuna. Jefferson, nc: McFarland & Co., 2005, 11. 56 chapter 1 The Inquisition forbade the publication of the book, and only fourteen years later, the publication of a corrected version of the book was permitted. The process of the awakening to the life of Lazarillo can be regarded as a clever satire of similar processes of the sixteenth-century saints, among them the event of awakening from a demonic temptation to which Martín de Valencia was subjected. Like a person awakening from a deep sleep, he began to open the eyes of his comprehension and think of how he had eaten almost nothing, saying to himself: “this is really the temptation of the devil,” and praying to God to shed light on his path and deliver him from the blindness in which the devil had held him, thus transforming his life.76 This eye-opening event of the saint is replaced in the story of Lazarillo by a blow on the head, resulting from an act of demonic mischief. Seeing the world as it is, guided by the senses, does not suffice to banish the devil as in the stories of the saints, but rather shows his presence everywhere. The world revealed is the opposite of Martín’s Garden of Eden and closer to the world to which Adam and Eve, the first creatures awakened, are banished. Finally, the person responsible for this awakening is himself blind. Nevertheless, the satire enables one to reconstruct the criticized world, including the comparison between the religious conception and the conception of the child, and the awakening as a reverse transition from the world of children to that of adults. Lazarillo’s awakening describes a parallel between a change in the way of looking at the world and maturation. Lazarillo awakens – matures – as a result of a blow on the head. The story of Lazarillo criticizes the idea of the fantastic awakening in which the devil and the Garden of Eden confront each other. His awakening is not from the world of the devil to the world of God – the Garden of Eden – but from a world in which there is a conflict between the devil and the Garden of Eden, to a world in which life exists in all its variety and complexity. Lazarillo connects awakening and realism, the recognition of all the little hardships and joys. At one point the description of Lazarillo’s awakening remains true to the concept of waking up as a result of conversion. The change which the boy undergoes in the process of waking up is essentially a change in the relationship between man and the world – getting to know the world. The same connection between maturing, religious belief, and sight appears in the writings of the most important theologian of the first half of the sixteenth century in Spain – Francisco de Vitoria. 76 Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 149–150. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 57 The source of the lack or deficiency or the lack of understanding, is always or in most cases, the result of a defect of the sensitive and cognitive part, namely the senses and especially the internal ones. Vitoria gives two examples illustrating his statements – the children and the sleeping. In both cases, the lack of understanding is not the result of mental deficiency but rather of a deficiency in the realm of the senses.77 The sleeping (blind) child of the sixteenth-century texts is replaced by Torquemada with the child lacking a sense of direction who is not in control of his desires and his life. The wonder of maturing is replaced by Torquemada by another wonder characteristic of youth and maturity. The inspiration for the description of maturity as a marvel is taken from the Book of Proverbs, Chapter 30, after changing the phrase to suit his needs. This is the biblical phrase: There are three things that are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: the way of the vultures in the air; the way of a snake upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a young woman (taken from the Holy Scriptures, Koren Publishers, Jerusalem). Mishley 30, 18–20 Torquemada takes the first part of the proverb with its three metaphors – the three kinds of journey – and transfers it to another area. According to him, the fourth marvel, for which the first three serve as models, is the process of maturing: Like this and even more surprising and frightening is the path and the course that a man passes in his youth, because it is unstable and temporary. And when it appears as if the youth has already chosen a path, he abandons it and longs for another. Torquemada repeats the description of the eagle and the snake and adds: Like them, the youth flies in the air for a moment with a wish to attain lands and honor and then crawls along the earth meandering in 77 Francisco de Vitoria, “De Aquello a Que Esta Obligado el Hombre Cuando Llega al Uso de Razón (1535),” In Relecciones Teológicas. Tomo III, edited by Teófilo Urdanoz. Madrid: Editorial Católica, 1960, 1318. 58 chapter 1 confusing and unreasonable ways or else throws himself into dangerous conditions at sea.78 From maturing as awakening, which constitutes a reversal in the relations to the earth, we pass to maturing, primarily focused on the formation of the self. The story of the maturing of Cortés integrates two kinds of journey: the first is the journey from youth to adulthood, and the second is the journey that a man chooses for himself in his youth. The stable path of the mature person testifies to the fact that his decisions were calculated and controlled, in contrast to the youth whose decisions do not derive from calculation characterizing control. The emphasis on control and on free will as characteristics of maturity in contrast to the lack of stability characterizing youth is repeated several times, among them in Torquemada’s reconstruction of Motolinía’s story of two converted Mexican children who set out on a mission to smash the idols. In Motolinía’s version, Martín de Valencia talked to the children about his concern for their lives, and the children answered by reminding him of their duty to God and the saints who died as martyrs. After hearing this, Martín allows the children to go.79 Torquemada regards the kind of conviction sought by Martín in a different light: the reasonable and controlled father realized that this inclination and strong desire were not the result of a sudden or chance impulse and not born of a youthful fancy, but were guided by such a good feeling that he turned his heart into a sealed closet in which he kept the weight and importance of these words, gave them his blessing with tearful eyes, and sent them to the Dominican friars.80 The central concept in the process of maturing described by Torquemada is that of control. The facile spirit of youth is changed into “the guided will” characterizing the mature person. What Torquemada’s Martín seeks is the children’s control over their decision, and he takes the opportunity to emphasize the internal source of the decision of Martín himself – the friar withdraws in order to decide. His withdrawal, according to Torquemada, is into the box 78 79 80 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 2:13. Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 222. “Viendo el prudente y discreto padre que aquella moción y determinada gana no era acaso y repentina, nacida de ánimo liviano de muchachos, sino guiada por tan buen sentimiento, haciendo cofre de su pecho, encerró en el la consideracion y peso grande de estas palabras, y los ojos llenos de agua dio le su bendición y enviólos con los religiosos de Santo Domingo”; Torquemada, 4:150. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 59 into which his heart had transformed; the most common place among the friars for the purpose of withdrawing is the private room for which the box serves as a metaphor, the very room that defined the closeness between Bishop Zomarga and his assistant. 1.4.1.2 Two Kinds of Wonder The distinction between the closed room and the world became a model for private affairs. Martín’s decision is made in a private closed domain in order to avoid external influences, but things carried out in the private domain cannot be seen or understood from the outside. One of the attributes for things that cannot be understood from the outside is their wondrous nature, the fact that they cannot be explained. The impossibility of understanding the other person becomes one of the characteristics of his individualism. The terms that Torquemada uses to state that the deeds of youth are inexplicable resemble the terms that he uses to describe the ways of God which are likewise inexplicable: We cannot understand his judgments (according to St. Paul) and his ways and deeds are so extraordinary, he does not heed our wishes but does what his holiness wants and sees fit.81 We can compare the wondrous inexplicability appearing in Torquemada’s stories to wonders appearing in the sixteenth-century stories. The kind of wonder described in the story of the awakening of Lazarillo is an echo of the wonder found in the awakening of sixteenth-century saints.82 The awakening of Martín de Valencia, previously described, reminds us of the awakening of Ignacio de Loyola, who awakens on the river shore: He was once on his way, out of devotion, to a church a little more than a mile from Manresa, which I think was called Saint Paul. The road followed the path of the river, and he was taken up with his devotions; he sat down 81 82 “Y siendo incomprensibles sus juicios (como dice san Pablo) y tan desusados y sin senda sus huellas y pisadas, no hace lo que queremos sino lo que su majestad santísima quiere y ve que conviene”; Ibid., 4:156. The terms describing ‘admiration’ whereby Torquemada dealt with adolescence are “mucho más admira y espanta.” The attitude of Torquemada towards the phenomenon reminds the type of discussion held at that time on the concept of the ‘theater’ in Spain where the concepts ‘asombrar’, ‘espantar’, and ‘admirar’ created jointly ‘admiration’, a new concept that combined the Aristotelian concepts of terror and pity; see Bruce W. Wardropper, “Poetry and Drama in Calderon’s El Medico de Su Honra,” Romanic Review 49 (1958): 5. 60 chapter 1 for a while facing the river flowing far below him. As he sat there the eyes of his understanding were opened, and though he saw no vision, he understood and perceived many things, numerous spiritual things as well as matters touching on faith and learning, and this was with an elucidation [illustración] so bright that all these thing seemed new to him.83 The wonder in these cases is connected to its startling nature, a radical change that is quite unexpected. In Torquemada’s story, the startling nature of the awakening is replaced by an inexplicable process. The journey is the model of the process, and the wonder lies in the fact that although we are able to see the various events, we cannot understand the relation between them because we miss the intermediate stages. The conflict that Torquemada presents is not between a process and a random sequence of events, but between processes that the observer can understand and those hidden from him. The journey of the ship, the snake, and the eagle are wonders for those attempting to understand them from the outside, by means of the traces left behind; they are not wonders for the man steering the ship or for the snake and the eagle themselves, and such is the nature of the deeds of God. This is not the kind of wonder caused by a blow in the head or a word of a woman that turns a man’s life upside down. 1.4.1.3 The Inner Voice The metaphor comparing personal affairs and those happening behind closed doors or those that we are unable to understand from the outside, leads to the idea of an inner voice. An inner voice as a means of expressing a person’s uniqueness appears in several forms. Torquemada compares Martín de Valencia’s acts before his death to the last song of the swan: And like a perfect regal [soberano] swan whose spirit tells him that life has reached its end, he sang to God with a voice from the depth of his soul, more soft and tender than the song of David before.84 This passage is Torquemada’s addition to a story found in the original text by Jiménez.85 83 84 85 Saint Ignatius of Loyola, A Pilgrim’s Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola, translated and edited by Joseph N. Tylenda. Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1991, 78–9. Based on Luís Gonçalves da Câmara, Acta Patris Ignatii. Torquemada, 6:156. López, “Vida de Fray Martín de Valencia,” 64. The source of the Swan Song is the story of Cycnus who mourned the death of Pantheon with such grief that he became a swan; From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 61 The term used by Torquemada to describe a swan is used primarily to describe the supreme right of the king to make decisions, but also to describe perfection – the term connects perfection to domination. The story emphasizes the dimension of the spring or the inner source of the voice, but the inner source has an additional significance as well, emphasizing the connection between what cannot be understood and the uniqueness of the individual. This inner voice also resembles an inner language – a private language. Not only is the person the source and owner of his voice, he is also the only one who understands what is expressed aloud. In the next example, Torquemada tells of a private prayer by Martín de Valencia. I would like to show how he introduces new and contradictory emphases into the original description by Jiménez. At other times he used different kinds of exercise, such as singing a song of praise to the creator after the morning prayer, so soft and peaceful that whoever listened to him likened his voice to that of an angel, but only God knew what was said in the song because nobody could understand it.86 Torquemada differentiates between the tune and the contents. The tune sounds heavenly and angelic, but on the other hand, the content is not understandable. “There was no one who could understand it” is placed after “who heard it”; the reader understands that the content was not understandable – everybody heard but nobody understood. Torquemada’s quotation tells that the prayer was understood only by God. The plausible explanation is that it 86 see Pierre Grimal, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Oxford; New York: Blackwell, 1985, 119–120. The mention of the mythological story of the last Swan Song is not new in Spanish literature; however, the emphasis on dominant spontaneity and personal voice is not a part of the original story. For instance, at the end of the sixteenth century, the poet Fernando of Herrera compares between himself and the swan: “Like the swan that died with a sweet song, so do I die with a sigh” (“y como el cisne muere en dulce canto \ así acabo la vida en el suspiro”). See Fernando de Herrera, “Sonetos,” edited by Ramón García González. Alicante: Biblioteca Virtual .Miguel de Cervantes, 2005, LXXXIX. The swan’s song in Herrera is an expression of beauty and is not necessarily linked to the domination or a unique voice. “En otros tiempos usaba otras maneras de ejercicios, que era cantar después de maitines un cántico de divinas alabanzas, tan suave y apacible, que parecía cantarse con voz de ángel, a quien lo oía; mas lo que en aquel cántico decía, solo Dios lo sabe, [x: el y dios], porque no había quien lo pudiese entender”; see deTorquemada, 6:147. For the original text of Jiménez, see López, “Vida de Fray Martín de Valencia,” 63. 62 chapter 1 was based on an inner language that no one could understand. A look at the original text reveals a completely different story: After the morning prayer, he sang a song so soft in a voice resembling the voice of an angel and as he told me it brought consolation to his soul. What was said in the song only God and he knew, since nobody else could understand it. As he remained in the house of the choir after prayer and after the signal calling everyone to retire, when he felt that the friars had dispersed (to sleep in their rooms), he began to sing.87 The passage by Jiménez explains the fact that the song is not understandable quite simply. Nobody had heard the song, and therefore nobody could understand it. Jiménez’s story is another story about the extreme humility of Martín de Valencia. As in the story of the death on the earth, Torquemada turns the story of humility into a story about personal uniqueness, whose manifestation is an inner language. The story of the hidden voice is a story of a new kind of isolation and differentiation. The private language in Wittgenstein’s writings in the beginning of the twentieth century was transformed into one of the central foundations of the structure of the discussion about the way of understanding the inner world. It is interesting to see how this concept appears together with other concepts concerning the soul at the beginning of the seventeenth century.88 1.4.1.4 Free Will: Two Conceptions of Freedom In many of the examples that I have cited, Torquemada’s engagement with the issue of free will is predominant, as in the story of the journey before the death of Martín de Valencia, the story of the child-martyrs and the issue of their mature will, the story of the Indian’s remorse, etc. The debate concerning freedom of the will is one of the most important issues in Catholic theology at the end of the sixteenth century, in the center of which is the debate between the Jesuits on the one hand and on the other, the Dominicans and the Congregatid 87 88 “Después de maytines cantaua un canto muy suave que parecia voz de angel; y según una vez me dijo, muy consolatorio a su espíritu. Lo qu en aquel canto dezia, él y dios lo sabían que no había quien lo pudiese entender. Quedándose en el choro despues de la oracion, y tañido a dormir, cuando sentía que yaayles estarían rrecogidos, començaua a cantar. Platicando comigo algunas cossas espirituales dixo: quando canto en la oración, dios sabe lo que mi anima siente. Dando a entender el ecesiuo gozo y jubilio que entonces tenía.”; Ibid., 63. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1953/2001, §244–§271. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 63 de Auxiliis convened by Pope Clement VIII for the purpose of resolving the issue. I am more interested in the conceptual models than in the theological decisions; the interesting question for me is the way in which they spoke about free will.89 In order to expand the discussion of the issue, I will present one of the important divisions concerning the concept of freedom. Isaiah Berlin presents two conceptions of freedom:90 the one negative, defining freedom as no disturbance, according to which a man is free as long as no one disturbs him, for instance, when he is not imprisoned. This definition is identical to that of Thomas Hobbes: Liberty, or FREEDOME, signifieth (properly) the absence of Opposition.91 Another approach defines freedom in positive terms, to be one’s own master. To be a tool for one’s self. To be somebody, not nobody.92 Spontaneous freedom is the freedom to do what we choose to do. The paradigmatic example of freedom of this kind is the positive example of choice and decision. If we look for a contrast to this kind of freedom, we can present all the usual activities that do not require any decision of this kind, activities that shape most of our lives. Freedom not to be forced to do this or that is freedom whose paradigmatic example is negative. The concept emphasizes our awareness that the situation could have been different. In the heart of the concept of indifference is the negation of external motives or impediments. The most conspicuous examples of a negative paradigm describing a state in which things cannot be different is a description of an external inhibition or of a state leading to a different situation by means of mechanical compulsion, mechanical inhibitions, or mechanical coercion. The division into positive spontaneous freedom as opposed to a lack of coercion, negatively defined, is also a division between a view emphasizing the 89 90 91 92 In her 1988 study, Patricia Seed shows how the Mexican church beginning at the end of the sixteenth century helped couples to materialize their love in marriage, even if it required standing up to their parents’ objection. Seed links this phenomenon with the great emphasis put in the Spanish world on free choice and the ecclesiastic support of it; Patricia Seed, To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico. Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty. London; New York: Oxford University Press, 1969, 118–172. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan: Or, the Matter, Forme & Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civill, edited by Alfred Waller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1904, 147. “coming into possession of our ‘power of acting’.” This is an approach defining freedom in positive terms and links it to action in a way reminiscent of Torquemada’s phrasings; see Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza, Practical Philosophy. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1988, 70–71. 64 chapter 1 world and that emphasizing the person. Lack of coercion is defined in relation to restrictions presented by the world. Spontaneity is defined in relation to the acting person. These conceptual tools can help us in comparing the different ways in which Motolinía and Torquemada relate to the same stories. The stories of Torquemada about maturing clearly express the new emphasis on the concept of spontaneity. In the two stories of maturing Torquemada attributes the inner motive of deciding to the stable personality. On the other hand, stories like Martín’s story of awakening and other sixteenth-century stories, like that of Ignazius Loyola or the maturing of Lazarillo, are close to the idea of non-compulsion. A person awakens by chance in the middle of a path that was actually intended to lead him to another place, following a chance meeting or some mischievous act that was not required by the situation, and the freedom which he enjoyed as a result is defined as liberation – liberation from the chains of the devil. The following story describes the motive for the arrival of the Franciscans in the new world. The changes effected by Torquemada illustrate the change in the sensitivity to ideas such as freedom and will. Motolinía describes the attitude of the first missionaries to the mission: “These twelve sons of the true son of Israel, St. Francis, came to this country like to a second Egypt, not hungry for bread but hungry for souls.”93 Hunger is described by Motolinía as an uncontrollable desire. In our terms, an act resulting from hunger can hardly be considered “an ethical act” on the part of its perpetrators. The missing element in the movement motivated by hunger is self-control and awareness. My argument is that this is just what disturbed Torquemada in the metaphor, and he rewrites it as follows: Even the falcon does not chase the egret on its flight swiftly and free from the hunter’s trap like the brother Martín and his venerated friends, after they had received the general order to go on the journey, because a heart wounded by resolute will (especially that of the missionary Martín) knows no rest unless sent on its way to achieve its goal.94 93 94 “Aquestos doce hijos del verdadero israelita San Francisco vinieron a esta tierra como a otro Egipto no con hambre de pan, sino de ánimas”; Motolinía, Memoriales: O Libro de las Cosas de la Nueva España y de los Naturales de ella, 20. “No sale el halcón tan ligero tras la garza, cuando se ve remontada, ya libre de las piguelas del cazador, cuanto los fueron los venerables fray padres Martín y sus compañeros, luego que les dio la obediencia el general para hacer su jornada; porque un corazon herido de un ahincoso deseo (y más como lo estaba el del apostolico varón fray martín) no descansa si no es puesto en camino para conseguir sus fines”; Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5:38. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 65 The removal of the obstacle reminds one of the concept of negative freedom, freedom as liberation from an impediment. But the problem that Torquemada tackles by means of the metaphor of the release of the falcon is the problem of positive freedom, of free will. Two contradicting orientations stand in the way of the free will that supposedly guides the heroes of Torquemada: blind obedience to external commands, on the one hand, and mechanical response to uncontrollable impulses on the other. Torquemada’s story of the falcon is intended to show us how true free will succeeds in manipulating between these two poles. The command (general order) becomes liberation from an obstacle and therefore cannot be regarded as the efficient cause for missionary activity. Responding to an inner impulse is softened in comparison to its description as hunger by Motolinía, by means of self-control expressed by the movement (flight) of the falcon. Free will is a mixture of an inner mechanism and consideration. An inner mechanism devoid of consideration turns the decision into a mechanical one, whereas consideration not connected to an inner impulse turns the decision into something impersonal, and in this sense, not free, but actually dictated by the rules from which it derives. The use of the metaphor of the bird illustrates the connection between the new concept of freedom and that of control. Birds are a metaphor of the relation between beauty, life, autonomy, and freedom. In the study, I have presented several stories in which various birds play a major part. Motolinía’s description of the awakening of Martín de Valencia ends with the friar marveling at the beauty of creation. The ultimate representation of this beauty is the birds singing on the trees. A similar story is the story of the tree and the birds that Martín de Valencia watched. Against these stories Torquemada likens Martín de Valencia to a falcon embarking on the mission of a missionary and to a dying swan. Autonomy and free will move from the world to man. 1.5 Sight, Touch, and Free Will – A Summary I would like to connect the historical discussion to a contemporary philosophical discussion in which the concept of sight appears frequently. Iris Murdoch uses sight as a model for ethics. Her sight is opposed to several things.95 95 My interpretation is based considerably on the writings of Cora Diamond on Murdoch; see Cora Diamond, “‘We Are Perpetually Moralists”: Iris Murdoch, Fact, and Value,” In Iris Murdoch and the Search for Human Goodness, edited by Maria Antonaccio, and William Schweiker, 79–110. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996; Cora Diamond, “Having a 66 chapter 1 First, sight is opposed to acting; ethics emphasizing sight do not attach importance to acts involving decisions. Second, sight places the emphasis on the world and not on the acting person, who looks outwards and not inwards and sees the world and does not see himself. Naturally, these matters are connected – the act places a person’s decisions in the center and these derive from his inner world, which is opposed to the visible public world. So far, the division apparently corresponds to my analysis, in which I have contrasted the view of the world found in the sixteenth-century stories and the decisions characterizing the protagonist of the story according to Torquemada and his inner world. The major difference between Murdoch’s concept of sight and the one presented by me is that Murdoch’s concept contains an active dimension. Murdoch’s model of sight is not the sight of objects pointed out from afar, such as the large crosses that heal the people observing them. Her model of sight is an act fully guided by the world. This is the sight required of all those who attempt to find a meaning in the labyrinth surrounding them, sight combined with attention. When Murdoch and Diamond talk about ethics in which the ethical act does not occupy a central position, they do not mean ethics in which the ethical act does not play any role at all; in a certain sense, they take the opposite direction. Their main argument is that the role of ethics in man’s life is not limited to making discrete decisions. Diamond argues that our whole life is saturated by an ethical dimension and the very process of understanding the world is a process in the center of which there is an active and continuous ethical dimension. This is not the kind of sight that aims to draw an abstract conclusion from a concrete picture, as we are used to do in a geometric proof, similar to what happens to the people watching the crosses. This is sight that cannot be distinguished from the description of the events the way that crosses can be distinguished from the landscape. The name given to this philosophical orientation is moral particularism.96 This leads us to the conclusion that the concept of sight of the particularists not only differs from that of the first Franciscans but is actually opposed to it. The concept of sight that I have emphasized in the story of the cult of the crosses and also in that of the death in the field or in the story of the awakening 96 Rough Story about What Moral Philosophy Is,” In The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind, edited by Cora Diamond, 367–383. Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1995. Jonathan Dancy, “Moral Particularism,” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Fall 2013 ed., http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/ moral-particularism. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 67 is not focused on the details, but distances itself from them. The kind of sight expressed in observing the large crosses, the astronomic bodies, is the sight centered on the opposition to concern with details. Watching the cross is like an abstraction that heals the blindness involved in the proximity to details, the same kind of blindness that stems from proximity to the world and the concrete – the concrete that was identified in the sixteenth century with the pagan view of the world, and as such seen as the major enemy of the early Franciscans. Despite the discrepancy between the concept of sight in the sixteenthcentury ethical stories and the concept of sight in contemporary ethical discussion, I also developed a connection in which the two attitudes constitute an alternative to the main ethical model presented above, in which the ethical act is a central principle. The discussion presented by Murdoch, Diamond, Nussbaum, and others, has a reactionary character. The main motivation for reaction is the feeling of these thinkers that ethics limited to decisions does not incorporate the entire world of ethics. For a world of ethics centered on decisions, it is difficult to include stories and descriptions about states that we would have liked to include in the ethical setting. The examples given by Nussbaum and Diamond are examples of literary expression that contain observation rather than decisions and actions. The religious stories of the sixteenth century are another example. Whoever regards the ethical actor and the ethical decision as the center of the world of ethics will find it difficult to categorize these stories as ethical stories. The observation that heals, the awakening to a new world resulting from a remark about a lean shape, or even the hunger for souls as a motive for the transformation of the ethical world, are far removed from the paradigm for ethical acts resulting from decisions. My argument is that Torquemada experienced these difficulties in accepting ethical stories centering on the seeing protagonist or the visual space as well. His Martín de Valencia resembles the ethical activist much more than the passive personage presented by Motolinía. The follow up of the changes introduced by Torquemada into the text of Motolinía testifies to his need to add an active dimension to the protagonist. The story of Martín’s last journey contains many verbs and adverbs stressing his active, physical dimensions. Hard physical labor, drive and energy and other verbs such as “did,” “gained,” “to give,” “turned into a new person,” “trained in acts,” and “showed.” Free will and purpose that occupy a central position in most modern theories of ethics lead us to regard the changes introduced by Torquemada as a sign of progress. However, the emphasis on will is only one aspect of the story that I presented; the other deals with matter, things and bodies. The contact with 68 chapter 1 matter as a model of ethics and the ethical status of the bodies offends our ethical ear. The human body in itself is not a product of free will and as such, we can hardly regard it as possessing ethical value; we are accustomed to value the creations of the human spirit. Table 2 summarizes the relations described between sight, will, and the concrete as these are expressed in every one of the approaches reviewed: The same thought process, decision oriented, has led modern scholars to make a distinction between the individualism characterizing the beginning of the seventeenth century, that appears as a kind of progress towards the modern world, and the cult of body and matter that appears as a regression towards medieval beliefs.97 These modern scholars also associate progress with the tendency of sixteenth-century writers to prefer abstractions and distance themselves from the concrete and the body. My main argument is that the distinction between the two central trends presented in the course of this chapter: the orientation toward the material and the concrete, on the one hand, and the orientation toward the individual and the subjective, on the other, is an artificial distinction. The two orientations are as a matter of fact closely linked. Table 2 A comparison between sixteenth-century and seventeenth-century approaches to sight, will, and the concrete Sight Will Concrete Sixteenth century Observing from far Distancing Seventeenth century Contact rather than sight Observing from near Does not occupy a central position Occupies a central position Does not occupy a central position Particularism 97 Coming close Coming close Weckmann, The Medieval Heritage of Mexico, 251–259. The cult of sacred corpses and objects constitutes an important foundation of Weckmann for the proof of the argument about the medieval character of society and church in Mexico in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Weckmann singles out as unexpected the fact that no others than the Jesuits, the advocates of catholic reformation, were the ones that revived the cult of relics in the most emphatic manner. From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 69 The central concept in the Franciscan ethics is humility, understood as the denial of uniqueness. Refraining from amassing property and ownership serves the wish not to attract attention. The first change that we notice in Torquemada’s writings is the weakening of the emphasis on humility in favor of individualism. The central concept for the understanding of Torquemada’s individualism is the concept of belonging or ownership. The concrete things that belong to a concrete person and not to another are the most important. Basically, the concept of ownership is expressed in various models, among them proximity, contact, and the distinction between the private room and the world. What I touch is what is closest to me and closeness is also a condition of ownership. Proximity is related to control because the model of control is the control over our private belongings. I will try to describe the relation between the concrete world and individualism and the will by means of one of the stories presented above – Torquemada’s story of the friar who took part of the Bishop’s body. The story begins with the description of the intimacy between the friar and the Bishop. Intimacy is represented by familiarity with the inside of the Bishop’s room. The Bishop is described as a unique personality with many qualities, expressed in his body. This relation between the personality and the body is symbolic. However, I consider the way in which concrete matter serves as a model of individualism centered on the inner world to be of greater interest than the symbolic relation between the uniqueness of the body and the unique qualities of the saint. My argument is that the private sphere, touch, and concrete matter are preconditions to a discussion of the inner world, individualism and the power of the will. In the course of the story, the strong will of the friar leads him to take a part of the Bishop’s body. This wish is realized by the ownership of property. To the same extent, Martín’s great desire in the story of his last journey is manifested in gains and property. Taking part of the body contradicts the argument in the beginning of the story, according to which the friar’s wish was to see the Bishop’s body. The story as mentioned ends in taking a relic; the concept of will is connected to the physical asset in that the full satisfaction of the wish lies in the asset, the model for which is something a person can keep and store in his room. But the concept of will is connected to touch in other ways as well. On the one hand, it has to be connected to the man whose will it is, and on the other, to deeds deriving from him. The model of these two connections is the model of touch involving an effort. Torquemada dwells on the connection between decisions and deeds, the connection between a person’s center of will and the act. His model for such a connection is proximity and touch. In order to change things, one must touch them, move them, and invest an effort. In his description of the act of the friar who takes a part of the 70 Figure 5 chapter 1 Mechanistic perceptions of the human body. An artificial hand. From Ambroise Paré, Dix livres de la chirurgie, p. 121. (Paris, 1564) Courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine From Sight To Touch In The Ethical Narrative 71 Bishop’s body, he explains that “in this case he saw it intimately connected with his will” – la vido muy ajustada a su deseo.98 In the story of the last journey of Martín de Valencia, a great physical effort is the expression of the power of the will. Torquemada searches for a significant causal relation between the will and the act. My argument is that the central model for such a connection is the mechanistic model in which movement passes from one gear to another by means of physical contact. The problem with this model is that it lacks intention and purpose; a push by chance cannot be a model for a deliberate act. The mechanistic model lacks control. The model of control, lacking in the physical causal model, lies in the concepts of belonging and ownership. Control is represented by the relation to the things belonging to me. I will not enter into a full conceptual analysis of the relations between will, control, and ownership, but I claim that wherever we find Torquemada dealing with individualism and will, we shall discover touch, objects, ownership, and property. The first argument of Murdoch was that an ethic connected to the world and the concrete is an ethic in which the concept of the self becomes less important. In the first historical examples presented by me, we found an ethic connected more to the concrete but, in contrast to Murdoch’s argument, it does not require the dissolution of the person, on the contrary. The distinction between what can be held and owned and what belongs to all is the basis for the construction of the inner world. In the next chapter, I will try to show how much my concept of touch is close to Murdoch’s concept of sight, and in this way her distinctions, according to my interpretation, actually mark the crucial difference between her approach and my own (see Figure 5 for a mechanistic perceptions of the body). 98 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6:224. chapter 2 Two Ethical Systems Example and Mystery In the previous chapter, we dealt with values and changes of values, with new values of sites and objects, and with free choice and activity. In this chapter, we will deal with some aspects that may appear external to the world of ethics, with the ethical story itself, the story that tells us what is right and what is wrong. We will also show how the profound changes of values are accompanied by a change, not less comprehensive, in the status of ethics in life, a change manifested in the way of judging the world, in learning and teaching ethics, and what to do with ethical stories. 2.1 The Beautiful and the True The more truth there is in history, the more it causes the writer to use simple words stripped of any human curiosity, such as the prince of the Church, St. Peter, on referring to the mystery of the transfiguration of our Lord Jesus, said in the following words: without imitating the smooth style of the learned proverbs, we will show the virtues of our Lord Jesus, as one would say: I will not preach or tell this absolute truth in the style of a persuasive legend, picking flowers of rhetoric and tying them together in a bunch of elegant court language, weaving a hundred thousand lies together with a few truths, but tell them and preach them I will in simple language, denied of all human creation and clothed in God himself, the ultimate truth. It is as if the missionary had said: nobody will think that what I am saying is a legend or a legendary doctrine the fruit of my imagination, like that of the ancient peoples, poets and philosophers who used to tell many lies around a single truth.1 The modern reader cannot help being impressed by the gap between the content that advocates simplicity and the form that is not simple at all.2 One is 1 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6: 135. 2 Torquemada’s preface is integrated within the discussion regarding preaching and rhetoric that took place in Spain in the beginning of the seventeenth century. The debate on the decline in the status of the preachers was a popular subject. Modern historians included the phenomenon in the theory of the decline. Miguel Herrero García, La Vida Española Del Siglo xvii. Madrid: Gráfica Universal, 1933; Otis H. Green, Spain and the Western Tradition: The Castilian Mind in Literature from El Cid to Calderón. Madison, wi: University of Wisconsin © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004284555_004 Two Ethical Systems 73 tempted to regard Torquemada’s preface as a mixture of clichés together with a total lack of insight. I will try to offer another coherent explanation of his style. Such an explanation is particularly required because Miguel de Cervantes presents a similar preface to the book of Don Quixote. One just cannot simply blame Cervantes for a lack of insight. This is how he describes his book in the preface dedicated to the Duke of Bejar: completely lacking in the kind of precious decorations that decorate the works written in the homes of those in the know.3 In contrast to these decorations, Cervantes presents the good arts, chiefly those that by their nobleness do not submit to the service and bribery of the vulgar. Our difficulty lies in distinguishing between the superfluous decorations and the above-mentioned good arts. What is it that turns the prefaces of Torquemada and Cervantes into texts untouched by decorations? Two examples from Torquemada will help us focus on the distinction and better understand what it is that he opposes. Sometimes precise and careful copying, like Torquemada’s, emphasizes the deviations, changes, and omissions from the original. In a long passage that Torquemada copies from Sahagún, almost word for word, he omits the following sentence: You spoke to us in words that you took out of the treasure preserved in your hearts, words as beautiful as gold and precious stones and beautiful feathers.4 The other example is found in Torquemada’s explanation for his preference of Spanish to Latin. Although this is neither the language of Parnassus and Halikon, nor that of the people who create a lot of noise and confusion in the ears of those interested only in a language that will serve them as a sack to fill with hay, Press, 1963; Pedro Urbano González de la Calle, “Los Documentos inéditos acerca ,del uso de la lengua vulgar en libros espirituales.” Boletín de la Real Academia Española XII (1925): 258–273, 470–497, 652–673. Hilary Dansey Smith explains this phenomenon by a stylistic change. Hilary Dansey Smith, Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age: A Study of Some Preachers of the Reign of Philip III. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, 7. I relate the stylistic change to a wider and deeper ethical change. 3 Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, abridged edition. United Holdings Group, 1994, 39. 4 de Sahagún, Historia General De Las Cosas De Nueva España, 339; Torquemada, 4: 384. 74 chapter 2 they will excuse me if I say that I have no other language, and although I know Latin, its words do not satisfy me.5 Torquemada’s opposition is focused on two areas: beauty and words that say nothing. The combination of beauty and words as it appears in the writings of Sahagún is, of course, the most fatal. Thus, we can understand what Cervantes meant when he opposed the beautiful but not the elevated arts. Torquemada and Cervantes do not regard devious formulations, a multitude of adjectives, and metaphors as beautiful or decorative. They are the signs of the unique. The common element of the beautiful words of Sahagún and a language that is nothing but a sack full of hay is a kind of non-realism. The beautiful words and the hay are a kind of gear not connected to the machine of reality. Torquemada demands realism, and the meaning of truth and realism, according to his wording, is flesh and deeds, deeds that require an effort. The missionaries of the sixteenth century also emphasized a demand for realism, but their realism was of a totally different kind. The lie, from which the sixteenth century missionaries must liberate themselves, is that of the concrete, since the truth lies in the abstract and the eternal. The change in Torquemada’s concept of realism is noticeable especially in the sources to which, in his opinion, we must return. The first is the life story of Martín de Valencia, written by Francisco Jiménez; the second is an example by St. Peter on how to tell a miraculous story.6 The problem raised by Jiménez in the preface to the description of the life of Martín de Valencia is the problem of doubt, the difficulty of distinguishing between the certain and the doubtful. One of the religious formulations of that doubt is the difficulty of distinguishing between the truly sacred and its external behavioral attributes. Jiménez’s distinction between the true and the false corresponds to the distinction between the official sources and the internal sources of knowledge: You should know the decision of the Holy See that sentences all those predicting the revelations as true and certain, or speaking about prophesies not approved by the church, to be excommunicated by the church.7 Jiménez’s solution is a skeptical solution, one that avoids commitment, only describing what he saw and heard, and letting the readers examine the issues and determine their own truth. 5 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5: 15. 6 Francisco Jiménez, one of the first twelve Franciscans who arrived at Mexico, wrote in 1537 the first treatise on the life of Martín de Valencia: Atanasio López, “Vida De Fray Martín De Valencia, Escrita Por Su Compañero Fr. Francisco Jiménez,” Archivo Ibero Americano 26 (1926): 48. 7 Ibid., 51. Two Ethical Systems 75 The door should be left open for those who know more about his life and words, his childhood, and his conversion, because I, unless I heard about them, cannot confirm them or prove them.8 Jiménez’s interest in the concept of truth is founded on the contradiction between what is certain and what is ‘doubtful’ or ‘not proved’. In our story, Torquemada is interested in a different contradiction, the contradiction between truth and beautiful words. Another source that served as a model for Torquemada, as he claims, is a quotation from St. Peter, which supposedly supports the argument against rhetoric adornment. According to Torquemada, St. Peter maintains that in the description of the miracle of the transfiguration, he, St. Peter, does not rely on the smooth language of the legends. However, the examination of the original text by St. Peter reveals a different picture. St. Peter does not mention the smooth language of the legends, neither in the Vulgata, nor in the Spanish translations. The contradiction exposed by St. Peter is not between smooth and simple language, but between the sophisticated legends and what is seen by the eye and heard by the ear: “were eyewitnesses of his majesty. And this voice which came from heaven we heard” (Peter 2, 1, 16). Torquemada himself did not see or hear the things that he describes, a fact that explains the change he makes in the words of St. Peter. Actually Torquemada does not address the issue of proof, since the manner of verifying the story is not the focus of his discussion of truth. Although he speaks of invented stories, he connects invention with certain topics, such as decorations and flowers. My argument is that Torquemada connects truth with certain materials. Eyesight does not satisfy him; he aspires to a connection closer to touch. Torquemada’s truth refers to the world, to events – to history. Truth, as opposed to the description of historical events, on various levels, can lie in events or in objects, with God at the end of the hierarchy of truth. The events which Torquemada is about to discuss, namely, the lives of the missionaries, are real indeed. Beauty and adornment are not part of reality. “The truth of the one [of the true story] compensates for the lack of adornment of the other.”9 “Because the truth of the one compensates for the lack of truth of the other” – For Torquemada, an adorned story is less true. Jiménez, unlike him, was not content with the ‘truth’ that lacked adornment. For Jiménez, there are no false objects; there is only true or false information. The truth of a story is connected to the techniques of verification and not to the internal qualities of the story or of the events described. A description is not true if it was not confirmed by the 8 Ibid., 52. 9 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6: 135. 76 chapter 2 Church or contradicted by a person who was close to it. This attitude that associates truth with objects and deeds and not solely with descriptions is not unknown to us. We, too, speak of real life and real people. The concept of authenticity is connected to this subject. We still have to explain the connection that Torquemada created between the beautiful and the false/unreal. Apparently, criticism of the beautiful is a step in a different direction from that with which I want to deal, namely the connection between Torquemada’s writings and subjective emphases. We are accustomed to separate between objective/public science, on the one hand, and subjective art and beauty, on the other. But we are familiar with another approach as well. The Pitagoreans embrace beauty because of its objective qualities. Apparently, Torquemada opposes beauty for similar reasons to the ones that led the Pitagoreans to embrace it.10 In order to understand the contradiction between truth and beauty, one must understand how these two concepts are connected with closeness and distance. In the previous chapter, I claimed that the model of touch replaced the model of sight. A person has to feel the things and hold them. Beauty is first and foremost a visual ideal that demonstrates distancing in many aspects. There is a close connection between what I call distance and objectivity. The element that connects beauty to the objective ethical ideal is its relation to concepts such as eternity, timelessness, and non-materialism. The beautiful is distant and unchangeable, just as mathematical arguments are unchangeable and cannot be eroded and are, therefore, distant, untouched by the world and by life. The beauty that is seen, but cannot be attained, is an ideal for Motolinía; it derives its supreme/elevated value from the fact that it cannot be attained by anybody. Conversely, for Torquemada, the effect of art on man is inappropriate because of the distance between beauty and the real (concrete) world. Appropriate effect must be connected to a kind of closeness and effort that emphasizes touch and the body. 2.1.1 The Writer of the True Story Torquemada’s truth “arouses the writer to use simple words, words free of all human curiosity”; Cervantes speaks of the elevated arts that “being noble, do not surrender to the desires of the masses and their benefits.” Something happens to the dialogue between the writer of the story and his audience. In the seventeenth century, both of them are given roles that they did not have 10 A discussion on the history of the subjectivity and the objectivity of beauty is found in Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz, “Objectivity and Subjectivity in the History of Aesthetics,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 24 (1963). Two Ethical Systems 77 previously. These roles are connected with the novel aspiration to achieve a new truth. The distinction between the beautiful and the true is also the distinction between the poet and the historian. The sages (as Horace said) are not looking for elegant style in the Latin books, but rather for the truth and faith that they contain. I present these with great accuracy because I studied the subject with the rigor of the historian and did not approach it solely with the obligation of the poet [emphasis is mine].11 Torquemada uses the words accuracy puntualidad and rigor to describe the role of the historian; a detailed description requires an effort of a kind not required of descriptions of adornment. The activity formerly required of the ethic hero, is now required of the creator of the ethical story. The activity of the accurate and rigorous writer of the story is the other side of the idea that I raised in the previous chapter concerning the rise in the importance of the private sphere. I emphasized that in contrast to the ideal of self-negation emerging from the writings of the sixteenth century, Torquemada is not deterred by the private and the unique. What makes the individual unique are unique attributes, which require a more detailed description than is required of a description of theoretical models. I am interested in connecting the accuracy and rigor of Torquemada the writer with the detailed description intended to describe the individual. Torquemada presents the contrast between the description of the beautiful that I associate with the abstract, the general and the removed from life, and the detailed description of the private. The similarity between the author and the ethic hero is enhanced when Torquemada describes his desire to leave a trace of himself in the world as one of his motivations for writing. Since heaven does not allow us to live until eternity, we had better leave something behind that will carry our name for centuries. This has encouraged many to write, and I too was encouraged to do so.12 This sentence is opposed to Motolinía’s explicit request at the beginning of his book (dedicated to Don Antonio Pimentel count of Benavente) “that the name of the author would be a brother in the Order of the ‘Little Brothers’ and no other name.”13 If Motolinía feared the sin of pride, the cure for which is 11 12 13 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5: 15. Ibid., 5: 14. Motolinía, Memoriales, 14. 78 chapter 2 assimilation of the self to the point of self-negation, Torquemada’s great desire is to leave his mark.14 Torquemada’s formulation is reminiscent of Isaiah Berlin’s connection between one’s “wish to be somebody, not nobody” and the active, positive concept of liberty. For Berlin, it means the desire to be the instigator of processes, not the one driven and activated.15 Other contemporaries of Torquemada share his desire to leave a mark in the world. Two of them wrote in 1580, the first being Bernal Díaz del Castillo, and the second, Montaigne. Both of these authors wished to leave something behind in the world. In the preface to his book, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, Bernal Díaz del Castillo attacks rhetoric in a manner that reminds one very much of Torquemada’s attack: I noticed the way that the famous chroniclers, before beginning to write their histories, write a prologue and a preamble containing arguments and high rhetoric designed to shed light on them and validate them, and to enable the curious readers to enjoy their taste and melody. I, who do not know Latin, do not dare to write a preamble or a prologue, because praising our heroic deeds in the conquest of New Spain… and describing them in the sublime manner that they deserve, require an eloquent rhetoric greater than mine. However, I will describe what I saw and how I fought like a good witness, with the help of God, simply and without distorting one or another detail, and because I am an old man, more than eighty-four years of age, who cannot see or hear, and unfortunately I have no other riches to bequeath to my sons and offspring, except for this true and valuable narration [relación], as they will [certainly] discover in due course.16 In the same year, Montaigne writes the following in the preface to the reader: 14 15 16 An example of a story that praises the assimilation of the monks in the simplicity of the natives: Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 167. Isaiah Berlin, Henry Hardy, and Ian Harris, Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, 178. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Historia Verdadera de La Conquista de La Nueva España, edited by Joaquín Ramírez Cabañas. México City: Porrúa, 1960, xxxv; Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, 128, 148–150. Stephen Greenblatt deals with Bernal Díaz’s preface and emphasizes the contrast between rhetoric and eye witnessing. In a complicated procedure, Greenblatt demonstrates how in Montaigne, the nakedness of the Indians replaces high rhetoric. Two Ethical Systems 79 Had my intention been to seek the world’s favour, I should surely have adorned myself with borrowed beauties: I desire therein to be viewed as I appear in mine own genuine, simple, and ordinary manner, without study and artifice: for it is myself I paint.17 For Montaigne, avoiding rhetoric does not provide a clearer description of the world, but presents the author as substance, the substance out of which the book is made. The wish to leave a mark in Torquemada’s writings appears in Montaigne’s work in direct relation to avoiding adornment. Bernal Díaz is also interested in leaving something behind in the world, but he makes the connection between the description and the assets. The description is his only asset. The contrast presented by the last two authors is between adornment, on the one hand, and the body and assets, on the other. The body and assets are substitutes for the lack of truth of the beautiful words. The verbal failure becomes more obvious when we proceed to examine one of the sources mentioned by Torquemada as his inspiration for the description of the lives of the saints: a letter by Jerome to St. Eustochium Julia, daughter of Paula, meant to console her on the death of her mother.18 In the letter, St, Jerome states that he underrates the value of the saint in order to avoid being criticized for adorning her with feathers that do not belong to her, like the crow from Aesop’s Proverbs.19 The fact that St. Jerome opens his letter with the following sentence is of interest: If all the members of my body were to be converted into tongues and if each of my limbs were to be gifted with a human voice, I could still not do justice to the virtues of the holy and venerable Paula.20 St. Jerome presents the concrete body vis-à-vis the abstract word and emphasizes the dimensions of the body in contrast to the failure of the word; in order to complete the description, he would have to use his entire body and would fail nevertheless. The failure, according to St. Jerome’s description, would be twofold: on the one hand it is difficult to describe the virtues of the saint because she was so special, and on the other, because it is impossible to replace the describing witness, in this case, St. Jerome himself. All this is connected to 17 18 19 20 Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays of Michel de Montaigne. Digireads.com, 2004, 9. St. Jerome, “Letter CVIII to Eustochium.” In The Principal Works of St. Jerome, edited by Philip Schaff, and Henry Wace. New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892, 195. Ibid., 202. Ibid., 195. 80 chapter 2 the fact that words cannot restore life. The experience that certain things cannot be conveyed is deeply linked with the fact that life itself cannot be transferred. What began as resistance to the beautiful and to empty words ends with the physical presence of the author. However, the story of St. Jerome suggests that the issue could be looked at in other directions. The unique quality of the object of the ethical story is the main factor in the new status of the person telling the story. This unique quality is one of the changes in value and content that we find in Torquemada’s texts. Other changes are evident in the replacement of the humble protagonist by the individualistic one, along with the rise in the status of the concrete and the assets. My argument is that the changes in content and value are integrated in changes in the ethical framework itself, and in the change in relations between the teller of the ethical story and the story itself. The significance of the teller’s presence in the ethical story exceeds the aesthetic aspects by far and affects whatever can and cannot be done with ethical stories. The new and interesting connection that we have discovered in the work of St. Jerome, between the uniqueness of the ethical protagonist and the way that life stories are told and regarded as ethical examples, are in the center of the following chapter. 2.2 From Example to Mystery (‘ejemplo’ ‘misterio’) – To Learn from a Human Story 2.2.1 Two Kinds of Demonstrations The short description of the upheaval experienced by Martín de Valencia before his death, in Torquemada’s version, ends with the words “and so he showed it in an exemplary life and in more complete and profound humility.”21 The issue that I intend to address is related to the concept of an exemplary life. If we accept the argument that we have found a new subjective emphasis in Torquemada’s chronicle that includes concepts such as loyalty to the inner voice, this will have far-reaching ramifications on the way of relating to life stories as ethical examples. The concept of example contradicts the subjective character of the inner voice: what kind of moral can we learn from a life story in which the decisions rely on inner logic and an inner voice? The personal example is a central concept in the mission. The Franciscan project of conversion in America began with Cortes’ demand to send people to 21 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6: 165. Two Ethical Systems 81 the missionary project in the New World, who would also serve as an example in their deeds, as well as in their learning in religious theory.22 The behavior of the missionaries enjoyed the status of a live example from which a lesson can be learned. A similar status was granted to stories describing the life of the missionaries after their death, which continued the tradition of the stories of the saints. The main issue that I will deal with is what lesson can be learned from the deeds of a person or from his life story. The concept of personal moral perfection influences our attitude to ethical stories in three aspects: the aspect of the subject of the story (the person whose life sets an example), that of the reader of the story who is supposed to learn from the example and become perfect, and that of the writer of the ethical story. When we examine the story from the point of view of the person who exemplifies a life of moral perfection – the hero of the ethical story – we discover a difference between demonstrating the external rules observed by the person, and demonstrating loyalty to ‘internal rules’. Exhibiting, for instance, rules of a game or practical observance functions in a very different way from showing loyalty to an inner truth by singing a song that the person used to sing from the bottom of his heart. Loyalty to the inner voice is a behavior characterized by autonomy, by the fact that it is not dictated by external rules. One of the more conspicuous differences between the two kinds of demonstration is that a verbal description of simple deeds is appropriate for the appropriation of external rules, while the description of the internal rules is much more complex. Here, we approach the subject hinted at before, the new status of the writer of the story. According to the nature of the demonstrated action, differences can be found between the demands addressed to the reader expected to learn from the example and become whole. The demands from a person learning a collection of rules differ from the demands from a person learning to be loyal to his inner voice. I would like to show that loyalty to the inner voice, on the one hand, or to objective rules, on the other, are qualities expressed in the way that people learn life stories and ethical examples. Table 3 describes the different kinds of relations that I have shown: 2.2.2 Motolinía’s Ethical Lesson In the first chapter, we dealt extensively with the concept of humility that occupied a central position in the ethics of the early Franciscans. Now, we will examine it from another perspective. 22 Hernan Cortés Cartas de Relación de La Conquistade México, edited by Mario Hernándes Sánchez-Barba, 346. Madrid: editorial Dastin, 2000. 82 chapter 2 Table 3 Two types of ethical stories Demonstration of a rule Demonstration of a quality showing personal uniqueness The protagonist of a story Observes a rule, a public act The reader of an example Looks at a demonstration, abstracts an example The teller of a story The teller is humble and self-negating, the description is simple and distant Sings from the depth of his heart Approaches a hero and regards him as unique The teller is conspicuously present, the description is complex and close Motolinía very often repeats the argument that the personal dimension is of no importance in the historical stories that he tells. The central concept that he employs showing his attitude to these stories is ‘ejemplo’. Sometimes he uses this concept in order to demonstrate or dramatize a certain behavior that teaches us nothing about the person who does the teaching. Many times, when he wanted to call the brothers to the Capitolum to listen to the confessions of guilt from the others, he would blame himself in front of everybody, not so much because of what he did, but rather in order to exemplify [dar ejemplo] humility.23 In this case, it is clear that the example given by Martín de Valencia was not an expression of his personality, but rather an exemplification of behavior. The fact that this was an exemplification of humility is essential, because the main element in humility is the diminishing of the personal aspect. Martín de Valencia exemplified appropriate religious behavior, but only few people witnesses to this exemplification. The story of the exemplification fulfills a similar role to that of the life of the hero that served as an exemplification. Its importance lies in the example. ‘Ejemplo’ can be a positive model for imitation or a negative model, from which one must learn to distance oneself. 23 Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 155; Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6: 149; Atanasio López, “Vida De Fray Martín De Valencia, Escrita Por Su Compañero Fr. Francisco Jiménez,” Archivo Ibero Americano 26 (1926): 59. The same words are also found in Jiménez and are copied by Torquemada. Two Ethical Systems 83 Following a story of a Spanish brother who was rejected by the Indians, Motolinía writes: Although the ejemplo is a particular case, I am telling it in general terms with regard to all the brothers from all orders who have passed here, and I say: from all those who are here and do not do their work faithfully, and those returning to Castille, that God will demand a strict report of the way they fulfilled the duty assigned to them, how they used the talents bestowed on them. And what should I say of the secular Spaniards who behave in a cruel and tyrannical way toward them [the Indians], seeing nothing but their selfish interests and the greed that blinds them [emphasis mine].24 Here are two ethical arguments, and perhaps it is worthwhile to look for the connection between them. One concerns the attitude towards the story, and the other concerns the lives of the people in the center of the story. The first is that the lesson learned from the story is more important than the knowledge of the facts, than the concrete story (see Figures 6 and 7). The other is that personal interest and greed are the root of all evil. The combination of the two arguments is repeated in a positive context as well: And this is my intention, not to praise any live object in particular, but to elevate the good life and the ejemplo shown by the little brothers in this country, who, obeying God, left their land, abandoned their relatives and fathers, their houses, and the monasteries in which they lived, and are isolated in their villages, and many of them live in the mountains.25 The exemplification in this case, like that of Martín de Valencia shown above, refers to humility. And again, the lesson from this story is more important than getting to know the people themselves, just as the people became good because they did not think about themselves. Motolinía favors observing the concept of the good life and prefers it to observing the brothers as people of flesh and blood. We should remember that the book is addressed to the Spaniards and not to the Indians, so that in this case, the fight against concreteness is not an educational tool, caused by the fear of idolatry, i.e., by the fear that the Indians might attribute super-natural powers to people. 24 25 Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 161; Motolinía, Memoriales, 128. Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 162. 84 Figure 6 chapter 2 Teaching the catechism. From Diego Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana (Perugia, 1579) Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University Two Ethical Systems Figure 7 85 Teaching the Ten Commandments with two left hands. From Juan de la Cruz, Doctrina christiana en la lengua guasteca co[n] la lengua castellana (Mexico, 1571) Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University Motolinía believes in similarity between the point of view required for making an ethical judgment and a state of moral perfection. The desired point of view of such judgment, according to Motolinía, is one that distances itself from personal relations. Correspondingly, psychological perfection means distancing oneself from personal interests and contacts. Thus, his requirement of the reader, namely, to distance himself from the object of the story, plays a double role: in ethical evaluation and in ethical perfection. On the one hand, the reader remains with the pure lesson, devoid of unnecessary details, and on the other hand, the reader is freed from burdensome personal contacts. The reader is not personally attached to the objects of the story, because they, themselves, are not unique. Two arguments, not to be taken for granted, emerge from Motolinía’s text. The first is that the preferable attitude for judgment is neutrality, and the other – that one should see the position of judging as a state of wholeness. The whole person is also the perfect judge: distanced, lacking uniqueness and objective. 86 2.2.3 chapter 2 Torquemada’s Judicial Activism If there is something that a person does care about, then it follows that it is important to him. This is not because caring somehow involves an infallible judgment concerning the importance of its object. Rather, it is because caring about something makes that thing important to the person who cares about it.26 In the opening of the story about the deeds of the first missionaries, Mendieta describes how they avoided writing about their “notable and marvelous” experiences. Torquemada adds that if these life histories were written, we would be astonished by their uniqueness/rareness “admirara su rareza.”27 By uniqueness, Torquemada means the uniqueness of the deeds, but he also refers to the uniqueness of the people. In order to understand the meaning of this uniqueness/rareness, we should examine additional cases described by Torquemada as rare, for instance, the description of the following Indian ceremony copied from Las Casas. For that purpose, they kept a captive who was a master or an important person, whose skin was suitable to the noble blood of the king who wore it and danced his royal movements in the service of his God; they say that the entire population came from the various districts to the spectacle, to see something rare (like all the king’s deeds).28 The text that I presented contains many changes made by Torquemada in the original text of Las Casas. Firstly, he describes the fit between the king and the victim as one of blood, not mentioned in the original text. Secondly, he adds the description “unique and rare (like all the king’s deeds).” The uniqueness or rareness, ‘rareza’, is the same rareness attributed to the deeds of the missionaries, and like them, it contains a religious message. The abstract ‘ejemplo’ of the sixteenth century is replaced by the rare object signaled by the blood, and the abstraction – the role of the onlooker or the ethical student – is replaced by astonishment. Torquemada’s demand to look at the personal aspect is supported by criticism against ignoring the individual. In the previous chapter, 26 27 28 Harry G. Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge, uk; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988, 92. Mendieta, Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, XVI, L 3 Chap. XLVI; Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5: 267. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6: 179; las Casas, Apologética Historia Sumaria, 1, no. 3, 188. Two Ethical Systems 87 I brought a quotation in which Torquemada complains about the generalizing attitude toward the friars. I used the quotation in order to emphasize the new importance attached to human variability and the ideal of uniqueness. Torquemada’s utterances against the offensive tendency to generalize are found under the heading on the need to learn from the ‘ejemplos’. Let us again examine the quotation: On account of one or two, all the holders of the role or office should not be blamed so harshly. What a pity that this rule is not applied to the brothers, since whenever one of them acts foolishly or falls unintentionally or because of his weakness, the brothers are considered evil people who do such things, as if all of them had done them, just like mice; whenever one of them nibbles at a piece of cheese, people say that the “mice have eaten the cheese.”29 While Motolinía is afraid of the concrete, Torquemada is afraid of the abstract. The impersonal attitude towards the teller of the tale, a condition for regarding the story as an example from which to learn a lesson, is a problem for Torquemada, who raises some new kinds of questions as a result of treating true stories as a source of ethical lessons. Collective blame is the first problem that he raises – concern lest the story be regarded as characterizing a group. Whoever does not notice the details may err in generalizations, but Torquemada criticizes generalizations, not only because they cast blame on innocents, but also as the ‘mouse story’ reveals, they threaten personal identity. Motolinía’s ideal is Torquemada’s concern. Motolinía’s humble ethical hero, who served as a model for deeds, processes, and abstract principles, is replaced by Torquemada’s individual, and any abstractions or general moral lessons that might be learned from his deeds are cancelled immediately. We encountered difficulties inherent in the description of the hero’s uniqueness when I presented the text by St. Jerome that explained that only the body of the teller can convey the unique quality of holiness. However, the uniqueness of the ethical hero is not the kind of fact compelling the teller to treat it as he would treat a rare natural phenomenon, but rather a requirement from both the teller and the reader. In his explanation of the detailed description of the voyage of the twelve Franciscan missionaries from Spain to the New World, Torquemada writes: 29 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5: 405. 88 chapter 2 In addition, I was encouraged to describe the voyage in such great detail by the example of the famous St. Jerome, who, on writing about the life of this noble lady, St. Paula, did not hesitate to describe the steps of the holy woman on the earth of Palestine with great curiosity – her visits to the holy places, the places where she stayed and the words she uttered, because when speaking of the saints and the servants of God, their deeds must be made into mystery.30 The word ‘mystery’ expresses the uniqueness that we described above and the opposite of the general example. The interesting element in Torquemada’s phrase “to make into mystery [hay que hacer misterio]” is that he does not attribute it to the case described, but presents it as a requirement to the ethical reader and/or author. The expression “to make into mystery” is rare and strange. Usually, the task of the interpreter in relation to the text is to make the mystery understandable. The expression “to make into mystery” or “to turn into mystery” is connected to other demands from the reader and/or the ethical teller. Torquemada calls St. Jerome’s approach to the story of Paula’s life curiosity – ‘curiosidad’. The ‘curiosidad’ that Torquemada requires is a mixture of interest, care, and curiosity. St. Jerome’s letter to Julia Estochum is intended to console her on the death of her mother Paula, and the first context of St. Jerome’s detailed description is to try to bring the memory of the mother to life by means of the details. Hence a connection is made between the concepts of closeness, uniqueness, and life. There is an important difference between Torquemada’s demand for mystery and St. Jerome’s detailed description. St. Jerome attempts to see how a life emerges out of the ordinary details, whereas Torquemada is unable to accept the ordinary as miraculous and strives to make the ordinary, rare.31 The correct attitude towards life stories, characterized by curiosity and mystery, is situated between two negative poles. On the one pole, we find interest 30 31 Ibid., 5: 41; St. Jerome, The Principal Works of St. Jerome, 132; The expression ‘to make into mystery’ is usually used in a negative context, to turn something into being mysterious, although it is not like that. Diamond deals with the experience in which reality seems to us to be unconceivable. The events which she discusses are events in which the unconceivable are not dramatic but rather rooted in everyday experience, such as the relation to a childhood picture of a combat casualty, incomprehensible beauty, etc., while by Torquemada, the unconceivable must be bizarre; also when we deal with everyday matters, we are required to turn them into being bizarre. Cora Diamond, “The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy: Partial Answers,” Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 1, no. 2 (2003): 1. Two Ethical Systems 89 motivated by the need to arrive at general conclusions – the attitude that I attributed to Motolinía – and on the other, gossip interested in details but in an inappropriate manner. The objection to idle gossip is a favorite subject for the preachers of the early seventeenth century. The main reason for condemning gossip is the damage done to a person’s good name. Gil González de Ávila (1570–1658) compares gossip to murder, because whoever gossips takes the life out of his brother’s good name (Leviticus 19, 16).32 Gossip and generalizations are two instances of the lack of proper respect to private persons and to the details of the story. The emphasis on the status of the beholder, the one expected to create mystery, brings us back to the option presented by the concept of sight, as in the cases of seeing the crosses, awakening to the world, etc. These cases apparently show how looking creates a change of consciousness when the person sees, understands, and changes. There is a significant difference, however, between the change that happens to the person who sees the ethical play or the ethical exemplification and the change that happens to the person who shows curiosity and “makes mystery.” In the stories centered around sight, the possibility of seeing things in a different light is connected to the possibility of distancing oneself from the world – from the concrete. The disengagement that enables a change in the point of view is a new and better understanding of the world. In the mystery stories, the emphasis is on the autonomy of the personalities connected to their authenticity. The person attempting to understand the saints uses his autonomy and encounters the uniqueness of the holy personae, which is a manifestation of their autonomy. In this case, the model is not one of a new look at the things, but rather a model of coming closer to them. The sense of touch replaces the sense of sight. The ethical activism that I tried, in this chapter, to attribute both to the author of the ethical story and to its reader lends new significance to the concept of the ethical deed. In the previous chapter, I maintained that Torquemada replaces observing the world by the ethical deed, the conscious and purposeful deed of the hero. The problem is that the emphasis on the uniqueness of the hero, of which his conscious decisions are a part, erodes the possibility of learning a moral lesson from an ethical deed, a lesson associated with the capacity for abstraction that contradicts the idea of uniqueness. Now, I would like to argue that parallel to the activism of the ethical hero, the ethical reader also obtains an active role. The reader must adhere to the small details that are contradictory to the 32 The Spanish Jesuit González Gil writes in the beginning of the seventeenth century a whole chapter against gossip: Gil González Dávila, Pláticas sobre las Reglas de la Compañía de Jesús. Barcelona: Juan Flors, 1964, Platica 49. 90 chapter 2 general lines of the plot. When Torquemada asks the reader to pay greater attention to the everyday acts of the saints, the request contradicts the ethics that emphasize decisions and deeds transcending the boundaries of everyday life. I am not saying that Torquemada sanctifies everyday events, far from that, but the uniqueness that he wishes to see in things is a uniqueness that requires focusing on details and recognizing the value of the particular thing. Let us return to Iris Murdoch’s metaphor of sight as explained by Cora Diamond, which is shown in contrast to the one-time decision characterizing the ethical act. Cora Diamond chooses to emphasize that the ethical sight, according to Murdoch, distinguishes between the local and temporary nature of the ethical act and the ubiquitous nature of the ethical sight. This approach gives priority to the ethical process over the ethical goal. Torquemada’s request “to make mystery” is a request not to take anything for granted and to regard the process before the goal. This is the kind of voyage that is guided by touch.33 Whoever that is guided by the sense of touch is guided by the things close to him devoid of any super-picture. The revolution described can be likened to the change that occurred in the world of gardening. M.O. Boyle argues that after 1520, gardens became a series of isolated spaces, one after the other, and in order to get to know them, a person had to wander slowly and observe them closely. Boyle’s conclusion was that in the Renaissance, the garden turned into a narrative of a kind, with the emphasis on the time dimension and on the kind of observation and attention necessary for learning.34 Torquemada’s request for observation and mystery emphasizes the time dimension that does not exist in the stories of the ‘ejemplo’. My argument is that the ejemplo stories function on a visual level. A large part of Motolinía’s stories are stories about a lesson from a play. These stories remind one of a geometrical proof demonstration – the person sees what is happening and understands the lesson. Demonstration in a generalized form can be transferred anywhere. It is interesting to note that the Spanish word ‘demonstrar’ means visual public proof. By contrast, time is an important part in Torquemada’s model. The process of coming close is important in itself; it is not enough that things are close. The process cannot be replaced by a picture. 33 34 Cora Diamond “We Are Perpetually Moralists: Iris Murdoch, Fact, and Value,” in Iris Murdoch and the Search for Human Goodness, edited by Maria Antonaccio and William Schweiker, 108. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle, Loyola’s Acts: The Rhetoric of the Self. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, 152. Two Ethical Systems 2.3 91 Self-identity and Historical Memory – Homeland, Family and History Stories about historical events are another example of the new relationship between concrete events and abstract lessons. 2.3.1 Motolinía and the Historical Lesson In the previous chapter, we saw how the earth and the concrete location obtain religious significance in the early seventeenth century. Now, I will proceed to examine the meanings of this process for the ethical story. Motolinía begins his book with a comparison between the plagues of Egypt and the afflictions that descended on the land of the Indians after the advent of the Spaniards. The modern reader might regard the comparison as somewhat strange because most of the afflictions that he describes are hardships and wrongs done to the Indians by the Spaniards. The ninth affliction that Motolinía describes is the slavery of the Indians in the mines.35 Motolinía was familiar with the story of the Exodus from Egypt, and the confusing comparison was not the result of a mistake or lack of attention, but of a special relationship to the biblical stories and other stories serving an ethical purpose. Motolinía’s story removes the original biblical story from its historical context. This, in itself, does not present a problem, since every historical example is supposed to be removed from its context and its conclusions used in another context. The problem, however, is that the original story of the Exodus from Egypt is a story of different kinds of identity and commitment based on the memory of a historical event. Historical memory is a central element in the story of the Exodus from Egypt. The story of the special relationship between the Jewish people and God is evidently a founding status for the Jewish people. Memory, in contrast to a moral lesson, lends importance to the personal identity of the heroes. However, the only thing that Motolinía extracts from the story is an abstract lesson about sin and punishment that repeats itself throughout history. In a case of historical memory that establishes a human community, the connection between the historical heroes and the listener or to the person expected to make use of the story, should be defined in egocentric, usually genetic terms. The historian Serge Gruzinski connects the descriptions of the chaos at the beginning of the Spanish occupation, described by Motolinía as the ten afflictions, to the association between destruction and salvation at the end of the 35 Motolinía, Memoriales, 21; Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 15. 92 chapter 2 15th century.36 An interesting comment by Gruzinski connects Motolinía’s effort to distance himself from the division between the good and the bad to the attempt to come close to reality without ideological mediation. Gruzinski sees modern attributes in Motolinía’s stance, showing the complexity of reality. Gruzinski’s argument connects the understanding of complexity to impartiality, and regards it as related to the approach required of the modern historian. His comment is connected to the discussion of Motolinía’s ethical stance. The stance of detached judgment, that attempts to arrive at conclusions not connected to the concrete heroes or to the teller of the story, is assimilated in modern ethics. Usually there is a tendency to regard these attributes as part of the Protestant ethic. Diamond and Murdoch maintain that judgmental detachment originates in the Protestant ideal focused on personal choice in the moral world. This ideal requires separation between the moral world and the real world.37 Motolinía continues the argument that I described in the previous chapter, i.e., he distances himself from the concrete in order to give the entire stage to the abstract. The fact that the world is made up of individuals suffering or treating others cruelly, and not of members of nations or groups, does not help us to come close to the individuals. On the contrary, the description of individual tragedies without a direct culprit makes us think of something transcending the life of those people, and this is Motolinía’s goal. Suffering without reason and chaos does not encourage us to come close or become attached to people or events. Motolinía attempts to scare us rather than make us understand the suffering of the other. There is a great difference between the way that we treat historical events that emphasize historical memory, and historical events that emphasize the inherent significance that can be gained from them. This is the difference I found between the emphasis on the general lesson learned from a life story and the attempt to come close to a person’s life. All those who expected that the victory of Christianity over idolatry would become a founding event of community identity of sorts, will certainly be disappointed by Motolinía’s 36 37 Serge Gruzinski, The Mestizo Mind: Pre-Hispanic America and European Globalization. New York: Routledge, 2002, 35. Phelen dedicates his book to the aspects that link the Franciscan missionaries to theories of the millennial salvation: John Leddy Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970. Diamond and Murdoch claim that the distance ensues from a Protestant ideal in whose center is a personal choice in the moral world: Diamond, We Are Perpetually Moralists; Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. New York: Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 1993, 145. Two Ethical Systems 93 descriptions. In the same way, whoever expected to discover in the descriptions of the suffering of the Indians or the Spaniards any human attempt to understand the pain and remember it will be disappointed as well. Here is another comparison by Motolinía between the New World and the land of Kena’an: The brothers obeyed the Lord’s command, left their land and their parents and relatives, left the houses and convents in which they lived. He brought them to this land of Kena’an to build Him a new altar among these people.38 As Motolinía, in the story of the ten plagues, did not attach importance to the identity of the sufferers and the relation between God and a certain people, here too, he has no intention of attaching special religious significance to the land of the New World. Martín de Valencia even tells of his wish to continue to new locations, particularly to China.39 What Motolinía takes from the Biblical story is the description of giving up connections and ties to the location and to the family. Kena’an does not fulfill the role of the Holy Land in the description. Our sensitivity is strange to him. In the two examples that I presented – the comparison to the plagues of Egypt and to the land of Kena’an – Motolinía takes stories establishing the connection of the Jewish people, once to their God and once to the land of Kena’an, and empties them of the concrete historical context that creates national identity. Motolinía’s treatment of historical stories, and as I have shown above, of other stories with an ethical function as well, is not conducive to building a relationship that creates ties based on a historical memory. Motolinía’s stories expand the concepts of a homeland and the history of a people to embrace all humanity and lose their distinctive dimension. This is not a history of a people as in the case of the Jews. For Motolinía, every location is Kena’an, and the plagues that descended on the Egyptians are not connected to God’s preference of a certain people. Motolinía regards them as stories with a moral value and not as part of a historical heritage or a national identity. History for Motolinía is an instrument to show us the cosmic justice, contrary to the concept of history as part of our heritage. 2.3.2 Torquemada and the Historical Dimension Torquemada returns to Motolinía’s comparison between the twelve Franciscan missionaries and Abraham who left his country. When we compare Motolinía’s 38 39 Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 163. Ibid., 169. 94 chapter 2 version to that of Torquemada, we discover two slight differences. Torquemada adds the word “Patria” to the list of things which the friars must leave behind and removes the word Kena’an from the description of the New World. The connection between the changes is clear. Motolinía did not attach any importance to the significance of Kena’an as a land to which one has a meaningful connection, such as ‘Patria’. Torquemada, who makes use of the concept ‘Patria’ and sees nothing wrong in the tie between the people and the land, could not but see the absurdity of using the term Kena’an with respect to the New World.40 Motolinía in “Historia” uses the word ‘Patria’ twice, and in both cases, the word can probably be exchanged for ‘land’. Torquemada, who distinguishes between ‘Tierra’ and ‘Patria’, adds ‘Patria’ to the list of things which the friar is obliged to leave.41 For him ‘Patria’ is an emotionally loaded concept, to which his commitment is like a person’s commitment to his loved ones. He speaks of jealousy and love of ‘Patria’ as a motivating force.42 Torquemada replaces objective concepts by subjective ties, and historical memory plays a part in the creation of such ties. The change that Torquemada introduced into the story of the Franciscan missionaries reflects a widespread Spanish tendency. A search in the collection of Spanish libraries for books published in the sixteenth century, up to 1595, does not reveal any one in the name of which the word ‘Patria’ appears. A similar search for the first half of the seventeenth century produces dozens of such books.43 ‘Patria’ is a concept taken from the family context. In 1616, one year after the publication of a book by Torquemada, a book by the Spanish Franciscan chronicler, Diego Murillo, appears with a quotation from Hercules saying that Patria is God and the first and foremost parent.44 In parallel to what happens to the relationship between man and earth, a change occurs in the relationship between man and his family. By these words, Motolinía opens the story of Martín de Valencia’s life: 40 41 42 43 44 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6: 129; Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 163. Mendieta is the one that introduces the concept: Mendieta, Historia eclesiástica indiana, lib 3, Ch. 11. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5: 406. According to Google’s Books Ngram Viewer, the frequency of the term ‘Patria’ in Spanish books increased by hundreds of percent from 1500 to 1650: Google Ngram Viewer, http:// goo.gl/wURgJY. Quoted by D.A. Brading, Mexican Phoenix: Our Lady of Guadalupe : Image and Tradition across Five Centuries. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001, 37; Diego Murillo and Sebastián Matevad, Fundación milagrosa de la Capilla Angelica y Apostolica de la madre de Dios del Pilar y excellencias de la imperial ciudad de Çaragoça: diuidese en dos tratados (In Barcelona: for Sebastian Mateuad, 1616). Two Ethical Systems 95 This good man was a native of the village of Valencia, called Don Juan, between the town of León and the village Benavente on the bank of the river Esla, under the Bishop of Oviedo. There is no registered material about him here, in the New Spain.45 Francisco Jiménez, the author of Martín’s first biography, does not provide details about Martín de Valencia’s childhood and youth. Martín’s humility explains the lack of detail concerning the saint’s childhood and family. He did not see any need to share his private life with the other friars. It is possible that he was really an introvert who did not speak of his childhood, but we can safely assume that if his childhood and parents were of special interest, we would have been able to research them from other sources than Martín himself.46 His story is not unusual for his times. In the sixteenth century, details from the biography of Loyola, beginning in his 26th year, have also been omitted. “Up to the age of 26, he was a man immersed in worldly pastimes, and he especially enjoyed using weapons and had a great desire to attain honor.”47 In the second half of the sixteenth century, the tendency undergoes a change. Luis of Granada issued explicit orders to the authors of the biographies of the saints. As a rule, those who write about the lives of the saints should first describe their origins, namely, their homeland, their parents, their lineage, and their state [estado y condición].48 Teresa of Avila, the daughter of a convert to Christianity, mentions two central concepts in her identity. 45 46 47 48 Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 148. In 1565, about 30 years after Motolinía writes the history, Teresa of Ávila writes the story of her life and dedicates a vast chapter to her childhood. It is possible that this is a new tendency related to this period; however, it is also possible that here, there is a difference between male biographies and female biographies: Teresa of Ávila, Libro de la Vida. Madrid: Catédra, 1979. Luís Gonçalves da Câmara, Acta Patris Ignatii, Autobiografía De San Ignacio De Loyola Ignatius, 1491–1556; Ignatius, Personal Writings: Reminiscences, Spiritual Diary, Select Letters Including the Text of the Spiritual Exercises, edited by Philip Endean. London; New York: Penguin Books, 1996, 1.1. Luis de Granada, Historia de sor María de la Visitación y Sermón de las caídas públicas: prólogo de John Emmanuel Schuyler; edited by de Bernardo Velado Graña. Barcelona: Juan Flors, 1962. 96 chapter 2 Would it not be a sign of great ignorance, my daughters, if a person were asked who he was, and could not say, and had no idea who his father or his mother was, or from what country he came?49 This utterance looks strange in retrospect, Teresa probably knows her origins but her readers do not know of her Jewish roots. She presents the knowledge of the family and the place as a model for self-knowledge, which she will discuss in her book. The saints in the writings of Motolinía and Jiménez do not have families. Obviously, Torquemada does not feel comfortable with the missing parts of Martín de Valencia’s biography, that tells nothing of his childhood, and even worse, does not describe his family origins. He cannot leave Martín de Valencia without parents and immediately breaks his commitment to follow Jiménez’s version for the purpose of clarifying the issue of Martín’s origins. The son of honorable parents and probably good Christians, one of the qualities that must blossom among noble people who raised their son to be like them, from an early age, with the fear of God in his mother’s milk, with noble and admirable qualities, because as written, the good tree usually produces good fruit (Mathew 7), and in another place it is said: the good son founds his principles [his doctrine] on his father’s (Proverbs 23), from here, Plato probably borrowed his statement that the impression made by the children betrays the regime in their father’s house.50 The family emphasis in the last phrases transcends the statement concerning education. Torquemada’s interest in the family of Martín de Valencia is probably connected to the emphasis on heritage and pure Christian identity. In order to learn from Martín, we must become acquainted with his family. However, the description of Martín’s childhood gives us a new point of view to relate to the concept of ethical education. Torquemada attributes this point of view to Plato. In the opinion of the wise philosopher, the good or bad habits of the parents are easily learned by their sons who grow up in their home. One seldom sees a son of evil parents with noble habits, because he will be like a rose among thorns. We say this because a bad example of the parents spoils the young child, and the continuous stream of evil to which the youth is exposed makes him accustomed to it, and he later 49 50 St. Teresa of Ávila, Interior Castle, trans. Allison Peers. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1990, 28. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6: 136. Two Ethical Systems 97 imitates it as if it were a natural thing, because of the bad habits he has acquired.51 Learning by lessons is replaced by learning by imitation. The effect of the example is not merely specific, i.e., teaching how to behave in similar situations, but rather a general influence on the person as a holistic entity, as someone who has a nature (a new concept of ‘nature’). Torquemada’s book deals with history, and as such, it differs from Motolinía’s book, many parts of which deal with the present, a story of his life in the tradition of’relacion’. In the conference of the Franciscans in the year 1579 in Paris, it was suggested to write a general history of the Franciscans. It was decided that every province should prepare its own history. The first among the provincial chronicles of the Franciscans was the memorial of the brother Juan Bautista Moles. The chronicle was completed in 1583 and published in 1592. In 1609, Torquemada was appointed as chronicler of the Franciscan order in New Spain. This development indicates a new kind of historical consciousness, quite different from that found in the ‘relacion’ stories of the early sixteenth century.52 The developing consciousness connects identity to historical heritage. In contrast to Motolinía’s Christian ethic, where the deed and lesson learned, are the important elements; here the important element is the memory of the acting personages. The process revealed is a process of connection to the concrete dimension of the national and personal history, the land, and the family. This corresponds to the change in the relation to holy persons, described in the previous chapter. The renewed cult of the bodies is evidence of the new way to create connections between the believer and the community and heritage. A clear connection exists between Torquemada’s attitude to the memory of the deceased and the attempt to bring his life closer to the reader. Avishai Margalit dwells on the connection between intimacy and the duty to remember. Intimacy turns memory not only into a psychological need, but also into a moral duty.53 When Motolinía mentions the duty to remember Martín de Valencia, he apparently does so within the framework of the duty to learn the lesson, without referring to any moral obligation toward the deceased. The only manifestation of memory is the writing of the story.54 My argument is that these processes are 51 52 53 54 Ibid. Juan Bautista Moles, Memorial de la Provincia de San Gabriel, edited by Hermenegildo Zamora Jambrina. Madrid: Editorial Cisneros, 1954, ixii. Avishai Margalit, The Ethics of Memory. Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2002. Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 142. 98 chapter 2 connected to the transition of describing personal perfection in subjective terms. On the one hand, the subjective attitude creates connections to the country, the history and the family, and on the other hand, these connections establish personal identity. People’s memory reinforces existence in two ways. As Teresa of Ávila claims, the persons remembered gain a second life, and the people who remember their relatives and their history establish their personal identity through them. The analysis that I have presented is connected to the rise of nationalism, but this is not a central element in my argument. I am interested in showing different manifestations of the attitude toward the concrete. This analysis can contribute to the discussion on the rise of nationalism by finding new connections to religious processes. Brading, for instance, explains the cult of the virgin of Guadalupe that emerged in the seventeenth century, as a cult combining three different trends: new national sentiments that developed in the seventeenth century, a political state of tension between the New World and Spain, and the cult of pictures originating in the Middle Ages.55 I wish to show that patriotism and the cult of pictures are both new religious developments made possible following a change in the concept of religious perfection. The cult of Guadalupe, that receives religious support in the seventeenth century, shows a new relationship to heritage and the land, as compared to that of the sixteenth century. The pictures, like the cult of bodies, are cults dating from the Middle Ages that have expired in the sixteenth century only to come to life again in the seventeenth century. The model that I present, that connects between the rise of individualism and the retreat from universal concepts in favor of relative concepts and ties to limited groups such as the family and the nation, contradicts one of the most famous and influential studies to this very day, in the history of cultures in general and the concept of the individual in particular. Burckhardt connects what he regards as the discovery of the subject, the transition toward objective standards and the decline of the influence of the family and other reference groups. Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation – only through some general category. In Italy, this veil first melted into air; an objective treatment and consideration of the State and of all the things of this world became possible. The subjective side at the same time asserted itself with corresponding emphasis; man became a spiritual individual, recognized himself as such.56 55 56 Brading, Mexican Phoenix, 41. Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, 98. Two Ethical Systems 99 The examples that I show concerning the rise of individualistic concepts and those expressing a person’s inner world are connected historically and conceptually to the reinforcement of the distinction between the public dimension and that of the family and nation. 2.4 Moral Particularism and the Ethical Dispute To sum up, let us return to the present philosophical discussion concerning the importance of ethical rules as opposed to dealing directly with the concrete ethical case. Our intention is to follow the conceptual connections that will enable us to shed light on the ethical problems that we are dealing with and approach the problems presented by the historical heroes. The discrepancy between the two attitudes that I have presented as representing two periods is a live discrepancy for us – we are engaged in questions of judgment from near versus judgment from afar, and certainty emanating from inner persuasion versus certainty emanating from evidence in the world, and sometimes we discuss them as philosophical issues. Joseph Raz analyzes the particularistic position as one that denies the importance or centrality of ethical rules. He mentions two kinds of particularistic opposition to rules: the first particularistic argument, according to him, is that ethical situations are unique and therefore cannot obey rules that require abstraction.57 The other argument, according to Raz, is that the person supposed to pass ethical judgment is unique and therefore every person judges the world from his unique personal point of view, and these points of view are incommensurable. Rules require comparable systems, and people making ethical decisions in their life are not comparable. Raz rejects the first argument as wrong and accepts the second as right, in cases where we have to choose between equal options from an ethical point of view. Raz presents the two particularistic arguments as independent of each other. The trends that I identified in this chapter, which enabled me to analyze the change between the periods, pass through the two axes defined by Raz: the rise of the subjective and the rise of the concrete. However, he regards them as abstract philosophical arguments while I present them as ethical arguments. My aim is to show the ethical forces driving us to focus on unique details. At the same time, I attempt to show the other ethical forces distancing us from such specific details. I have demonstrated how a concept like humility pulls us 57 Joseph Raz, “The Truth in Particularism,” in Moral Particularism, edited by Brad Hooker and Margaret Olivia Little. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, 48–78. 100 chapter 2 in one direction and the concept of assets to another, and how these two concepts are involved in two complete ethical systems. Martín de Valencia sits in his closed room when obliged to decide on the issue of sending two children to die as martyrs, because nobody can replace him in this decision. The fact that he cannot be replaced in the process of deciding is not a philosophical issue but almost a demand, and the concept of personal responsibility is central to the understanding of the demand. We discovered that it is difficult to know and to judge the protagonists in the center of the ethical stories because they are unique in all their attributes: their body is unique, their land is unique, and all these make the ethical case unique and does not enable us to judge it according to rules. But again, the uniqueness of the ethical case was not presented as an argument but rather as a worldview and sometimes even as a demand from the reader: “the entire population came from the various districts to the spectacle to see something rare (like all the king’s deeds).”58 The people did not come to learn the historical lesson but to wonder at it. The question is whether the distinction between a philosophical question and an ethical question is always so clear cut. Let us first examine one kind of difficulty arising from the writings of Torquemada, who tells of strange things such as the deeds of the Indian kings or unique people like the first missionaries. One of the expressions of this uniqueness is a kind of difficulty in confronting reality. The most precise expression of this difficulty can be found in the text of St. Jerome, to which Torquemada refers, when the former speaks of the inadequacy of words and of the body to represent reality. My argument is that there is a direct passage from the difficulty presented by Jerome to the difficulty inherent in a philosophical problem. When Suarez says that the “person does not exist in reality more than he exists in Pedro, Paulo etc.…and that the uniqueness of every one of them belongs to the uniqueness of humanity,”59 he attempts to give a philosophical wording to the individualism presented by Torquemada. However, Suarez’s philosophical wording represents a difficulty in itself: one that says that we will never be able to touch what is human or to express it by means of general concepts.60 58 59 60 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 188. “misma conceptualmente, lo cual no es en la realidad otra cosa que tenerla semejante.” Francisco Suárez, “Disputacion V: Sobre La Unidad Individual Y Su Principio,” in Los Filósofos Escolásticos De Los Siglos XVI y XVII, edited by Clemente Fernández. Madrid: La Editorial Católica, 1986, 511–512. The famous Christian development of the individuation problem belongs to John Duns Scotus who coined the term “haecceitas” in order to describe a concept related to matter Two Ethical Systems 101 Cora Diamond refers to a certain kind of philosophical problem as a response to, or an expression of, reality. The expression pertains to a phenomenon of reality that resists the attempt to conceptualize it.61 The most natural way of treating reality in these unique cases is in terms of a philosophical problem. Diamond defines the phenomenon as “the experience of the mind’s not being able to encompass something which it encounters.”62 Suarez’s argument is that the most important things in humanity cannot be conceptualized because they are essentially personal rather than general. St. Jerome’s wording concerning the impossibility of describing holiness and through the inability of the body to speak is even closer to Diamond’s argument, according to which describing difficulty as a physical difficulty is part of the phenomenon. Diamond’s example for the phenomenon is a song by Ted Hughes describing a person looking at a picture showing six smiling young men, when he knows that six months after it was taken, they were all dead. The contradiction that cannot be encompassed is: “the impossibility of anyone being more alive than these smiling men, nothing more dead.” There are two descriptions of the picture: the contradictory description, and the simple description – six smiling young men photographed before their death. The contradiction, in case it is being presented by a child who is learning the concept of death, will be considered a misunderstanding: “why are they smiling like that if they are dead?” The child in this case expresses a more basic language game; the contradiction cannot exist except in relation to this language game. The point that I wish to stress is the dependence of the complex conceptualization on the simple one. You cannot learn the contradictory language game without learning the simple one first. In our case the contradictory language game is represented by Torquemada, whereas the non-contradictory language game is manifested in the writings of the sixteenth century. The philosophical dispute, even if undeclared, is there, in the relation between these two worldviews or language games. What is suggested in the previous discussion is that sometimes what appears like a philosophical issue that the particularists employ against the ethical descriptions based on rules is nothing more than an ethical attitude towards 61 62 and singularity at the base of reality in contrast to common nature (‘natura communis’): atura communise term “haecceitas pars 1. qq. 1–6 Opera Omnia (“The Vatican edition”) Civitas Vaticana: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950, so far including Books 1 and 2 of the Ordinatio (vols. I–VII) and Books 1 and 2 of the Lectura (vols. XVI–XIX). Cora Diamond, “The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy: Partial Answers.” Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 1, no. 2 (2003): 1–26. Ibid., 2. 102 chapter 2 reality. In the following section I attempt to formulate ethical criticisms that the parties could have raised against each other. In order to present the dispute, I will define the relationship between realism and the two above mentioned worldviews and how each of them regards the other as guilty of a lack of ethical realism. I claim that although we are accustomed to connecting realism with epistemology, realism is a central concept in ethics too. At the beginning of the chapter, I argued that according to Torquemada, truth and realism are connected to the material, touch and effort. The individual makes an effort and activates processes causing change, which leaves a personal imprint on the world. The ‘enemies’ of this kind of realism are abstraction and generalization, causing the individual to disappear. The lack of realism lies in the fact that the individual dissolves. Whoever does not leave a personal imprint does not exist. The sixteenth century chroniclers express another concern about the lack of realism. The unrealistic person is a person who loses touch with reality. Touch with reality means first of all a realistic conception of the world and its significance. This is, of course, a conceptual emphasis versus what can be described as an ontological emphasis to be found in Torquemada’s writings – sight as a conception versus touch as existence. The main cause for losing touch with reality is an extreme form of self-centeredness. Two conspicuous forms of this phenomenon are the story of the Tower of Babylon on the one hand, in which pride causes those involved to lose touch with reality, and on the other hand, the self-starvation of Martín de Valencia. In the dispute between the adherents of rules and the particularists, each party blames the other for lack of realism. Martha Nussbaum claims that lack of touch with reality that caused people to act illogically was one of the common accusations against literature, an accusation that declined with the years after literature was relegated to a marginal corner and played a hedonistic role.63 Nussbaum regards literature as a means of developing observation and judgment not directed by rules.64 It is interesting to mention that the most well-known accusation against the madness of those who read too many novels is the one found in Don Quixote, a book written in the age of Torquemada. Obviously, Cervantes presents it in a critical vein, just like Nussbaum. Cora 63 64 Helen Small, “The Literary Example in Moral Philosophy Today.” Boundary 2 40, no. 2 (June 20, 2013), 41–51. Martha Craven Nussbaum, Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life. Boston, ma: Beacon Press, 2007. Two Ethical Systems 103 Diamond, in her article “Realism and the Realistic Spirit,”65 describes the mistaken fear of a lack of realism as one that diverted the course of modern ethics. She claims that the concern about non-utilitarian ethics is motivated by the fear that such ethics might introduce unrealistic elements into the discussion. These are the main accusations against the particularistic lack of realism coming from the adherents of rules. However, the particularists, on their part, blame modern ethics for its lack of realism. Murdoch blames it for the loss of realism of the concept of goodness.66 The lack of realism according to Murdoch is related to the nature of judgment, ethical research and interpretation distanced from the world. The distanced and uninvolved judge, the person untouched by reality, is described by Murdoch as an anti-realistic ideal. Realism here is defined in the sense that touch is more realistic than thought.67 Let us sum up the kinds of un-realism that we identified: in the historical case, we identified the fear of inadequate understanding of the world, associated with the writers of the sixteenth century, on the one hand, and on the other – the fear of the vanishing individual, associated with the writings of Torquemada in the seventeenth century. In the modern dispute, we identified the accusation of lack of realism originating in the reading of books on the one hand, and the lack of realism resulting from the adoption of general rules that conceal reality, on the other. The two losses of realism presented here are not of the same kind. On the one hand, I have discovered in Torquemada’s writings ethical concerns about the loss of realism as the loss of personal identity, and the lack of realism that Murdoch associates with modern detached ethics. On the other hand, I have shown the intellectual concern about a mistaken understanding of reality found in the blindness of Martín de Valencia, in the madness of the builders of the Tower of Babylon and in people who confuse fiction with reality. Let us now present the concern previously regarded as intellectual – the particularists concern that ethics requires approaching the concrete case – as a concern based on ethical criticism. At the same time I will try to show the ethical basis behind the accusations of irrationality directed towards readers of novels and the builders of the Tower of Babylon. The story of the Tower of 65 66 67 Cora Diamond, “Realism and the Realistic Spirit” In The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind, edited by Cora Diamond, Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1995, 39– 73. Murdoch criticizes the absence of the concept of truth in ethics in Iris Murdoch, “Metaphysics and Ethics,” in Iris Murdoch and the Search for Human Goodness, edited by Maria Antonaccio and William Schweiker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996, 250. Ibid., 252. 104 chapter 2 Babylon is centered round an ethical sin, pride – the greatest sin among the missionaries of the sixteenth century. The question we will try to answer is whether we can regard pride itself as a sin associated with lack of realism. Usually we encounter the accusation that detached and objective judgment is arrogant – ‘the arrogant distancing from details’. Diamond mentions selfrighteousness and a judgmental attitude as dangers threatening those who consider the objective judgments as an area to which all other areas of life are subjected.68 My question is whether we should also ascribe arrogance and self-righteousness to a judgment that tries to get to know the uniqueness of the individual and come closer to the details. The answer depends on the understanding of the mechanisms by which we can approach the details and enliven them – such mechanisms require coming close emotionally to the ethical situation discussed and making an effort to imagine oneself in the place of another. Nussbaum mentions an argument often raised against literary imagination, according to which it undermines the impartiality and the universality of justice. The accusation of lack of impartiality is ethical in nature and associated with the kind of bias inherent in our coming close to the concrete. One of the ethical interpretations of such criticism is that such judgment is irresponsible towards the (emotionally and/or spatially) distant sufferers who fail to arouse emotions in our minds in spite of their suffering.69 According to this accusation, the moral law alone requires a moral attitude toward the “the poor, the wretched, the deprived and dispossessed.”70 Moral particularism is exposed here as an escape from reality, which ignores the cruel reality of everything that does not touch us. Diamond calls the lack of impartiality in ethics “a denial of the reality of morality” and connects the resistance to it to the resistance of temptation and of an aestheticized conception of life and morality. In the opening of the chapter, I claimed that Torquemada regards beauty as an enemy. This beauty is not connected to the kind of aestheticism that Diamond is talking about. I argued that Torquemada’s resistance to beauty is connected to the abstract elements involved in it, but in the story of the Tower of Babylon, we discover Torquemada’s wonder at human achievement, including its aesthetical values, as against Motolinía’s complete negation of this achievement. Hence there is an analogy between the accusation of 68 69 70 Cora Diamond, “Henry James, Moral Philosophers, Moralism,” The Henry James Review 18, no. 3 (1997): 243–257. Diamond, “Henry James,” 73–77. Dorothea Krook, Three Traditions of Moral Thought. Cambridge: University Press, 1959, 73–7. Two Ethical Systems 105 aestheticism against those refusing to accept the ultimate authority of general laws, and the accusation of pride by Motolinía and his colleagues against the builders of the Tower of Babylon. The two types of realism – realism of touch versus realism of sight – lead us towards two kinds of ethical blame – the blame of lack of realism from two different aspects. chapter 3 Cruelty Indeed, how is it that in general human sacrifice is so deep and sinister? For is it only the suffering of the victim that makes this impression on us? There are illnesses of all kinds which are connected with just as much suffering; nevertheless they do not call forth this impression. No, the deep and the sinister do not become apparent merely by our coming to know the history of the external action; rather it is we who ascribe them from an inner experience [italics in the original].1 The most salient representation of the Indian religious world in sixteenth century chronicles is the description of public cruelty and horror. The apex of cruelty is described in accounts of the indigenous population’s human sacrifices.2 The cruelty discussed in the current chapter is physical cruelty – mortal harm inflicted on another human. Descriptions of cruelty sharing similar characteristics are mentioned in a number of different contexts, the chief of which is ritual cruelty – reaching its undeniable climax in the offering of human sacrifices, which was practiced on the American continent. However, similar descriptions are found in association with the tyrannical leader, and they are likewise attributed to the Spanish conqueror. The first premise underlying this chapter’s discussion is that the cruel reality of the early sixteenth century in Mexico, both that of the Indian ceremonies that centered on human sacrifice and those that were ushered in by the Spanish conqueror, as described in the writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas from 1552 (“Brevísima relación de la destruyción de las Indias”), does not provide a sufficient explanation for the representations of horror by Spanish authors. To the modern reader, it appears that the salience accorded to the discussion of cruelty is not merely a product of the objective state of affairs. None of the sixteenth century missionaries had personally witnessed a ceremony of human sacrifice – the stories about the cruel Indian kings describe events that 1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough,” In Philosophical Occasions, 1912– 1951, edited by James Carl Klagge and Alfred Nordmann. Vol. 147.Indianapolis, in: Hackett, 1993. 2 Las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destruyción de las Indias. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004284555_005 Cruelty 107 had occurred generations before the arrival of the Spaniards, and it seems that even the descriptions of cruelty on the part of the Spanish conquistadors are hyperbolic.3 The 20th and 21st centuries are apparently no less cruel than was the sixteenth century; however, in the contemporary context, a discussion of physical cruelty is positioned differently. In the confrontation between the West and Islamic fundamentalism, Islam is characterized by the West through the use that it makes of horrors, which can hardly even be represented in a Western documentary film, as Paul Eedle has claimed in his film “Jihad tv.”4 The restriction against viewing violence on film, together with the restrictions on viewing sexual scenes, is one of the markers of the way in which the concept of cruelty has been delimited. An attitude of censorship can also be seen in Torquemada’s treatment of sixteenth century chronicles, where he describes Indian ceremonies that included aspects of cruelty and sexual acts: “Such indecent ceremonies were performed with the girls, that they should not be discussed in the present context.” Mendieta, who described these ceremonies in detail, at the end of the sixteenth century, obviously thought otherwise.5 In modern discussions, physical cruelty is perceived as less profound than emotional cruelty, but when physical cruelty is discussed, the emphasis is on its emotional outcomes, and less on the physical suffering and pain it produces. Prof. Avishai Margalit characterizes the status of cruelty in modern ethics by stating that although physical cruelty is the model of evil, the emotional humiliation of another person is the extreme evil that must be uprooted, because it is unique to humans.6 Films that focus on physical cruelty are usually ascribed to lowbrow culture.7 Artistic masterpieces dealing with cruelty 3 The negative picture of the cruelty of the Spanish conquerors was depicted for the first time in the books of the Spanish Dominican Bartolomé de las Casas. Later on, this depiction was criticized as being exaggerated; The phrase “the black legend,” referring to the depiction of the Spanish cruelty as a legend, was coined in 1914 by Julián Juderías, La leyenda negra. 4 Paul Eedle, “Jihad tv.” uk: Channel 4 News, 2006. 5 De Mendieta, Historia eclesiástica indiana, xvi, L 2 C19; Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 3: 129. 6 Avishai Margalit, The Decent Society. Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1996, 85–89. 7 “A History of Violence” is an example of a film that dealt with violence and received good reviews, thanks to its aspects that link violence with a mental structure: “A History of Violence,” directed by David Cronenberg. usa, 2005; “A Clockwork Orange” is an even better known example of the discourse linking sadistic cruelty with handling of the human soul in conjunction with dealing with issues of morality and free will: A Clockwork Orange, directed by Stanley Kubrick. Warner Bros., 1971. 108 chapter 3 usually treat also its underlying psychological elements. Cruel persons are often regarded as pathological cases, which do not merit discussion in the domain of moral discourse, but rather within the domains of medical or psychiatric discourse or as a manifestation of primitive behavior. The inverted association between cruelty and psychological depth raises the question whether there is a connection between the transformations in the concept of cruelty and the transformations taking place in the early seventeenth century in respect to interiority. What then is the conceptual gap between us and the sixteenth century chroniclers in relation to cruelty – the gap that challenges our understanding of the emphasis of those writers on descriptions of cruelty? Several famous studies address the transformation that took place between the sixteenth and seventeenth century in respect to sexuality – among them are Michel Foucault’s investigations and Philippe Ariès’ study of the concept of childhood, which touches upon transformations in respect to the sexuality of children.8 The change in the conception of childhood, as described by Ariès, is also reflected in the texts from Mexico, where with the advent of the seventeenth century, children are removed from sexual descriptions and are described as asexual.9 A no less significant change occurred during that period in respect to cruelty. However, this change has not attracted as much scholarly attention as the changes in the conception of sexuality and of childhood.10 The fact that sex and cruelty are still considered to occupy the same category of prohibition, as well as the negative association of both concepts with the concept of childhood, suggests a possible connection between the transformations that these three concepts underwent. 8 9 10 Foucault dates the change in relation to sexuality at the beginning of the seventeenth century and links it to the new discourse regarding confession: Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978; Ariès date the change with respect to girls and the sexuality of children at the beginning of the seventeenth century: Philippe Ariès. Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. New York: Vintage Books, 1965. “y si tu cuerpo cobraré brío o soberbia, castígale y humíllale. Mira que no te acuerdes de cosa carnal. ¡Oh, desventurado de ti, si por ventura admitieres dentro de ti algunos pensamientos malos o suzios! Perderás tus merecimientos y las mercedes que dios te hiziera, si admitieras tales pensamientos”; de Sahagún, Historia General De Las Cosas De Nueva España, 541. Daniel Baraz identifies a dramatic change in the sixteenth century in dealing with cruelty in relation to the Middle Ages; this distinction supports the findings from my sources: Daniel Baraz, Medieval Cruelty: Changing Perceptions, Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period. Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press, 2003, 143–177. Cruelty 3.1 109 Cruelty in the Sixteenth Century – the Object of Cruelty They hanged two Indian women, one of them a virgin, and the other but recently married, for no other crime than that they were very beautiful. And they feared that the camp of the Spanish soldiers would be disturbed on account of these [women], and it was in order that the Indians should think that the Spaniards were not interested in their women. And the remembrance of the two women is very strong among the Indians on account of their great beauty and of the cruelty with which they were killed.11 The outstanding feature of sixteenth century depictions of cruelty is that they center on the presentation of the object of cruelty – a person being killed after being physically brutalized in a highly visible location both in the narrative and in actual space. The characters perpetrating cruel acts do not occupy the center; nor do, certainly, the interior lives of the cruel – cruelty is practically a noun. This is the first dimension of cruelty that we shall examine: the publicness of cruelty – the fact that in the sixteenth century, some instances of cruelty are staged in a highly visible place, in the town square or some other elevated location.12 The visual salience of cruelty is compounded by its salience in auditory space – shouts and cries that fill the public arena. The cries are those of both the slaughterers and the slaughtered. Las Casas describes how the screaming of a number of men that were burned by the Spaniards disturbed the Captain’s sleep, and therefore, he asked that they be drowned.13 In chronicles by Catholic missionaries, a great deal of resemblance can be found between the descriptions of cruelty of the tyrannical Indian ruler and those attributed to the Spanish conquerors. The most famous depictions of cruelty – of deeds perpetrated by the Spanish – are those written by Las Casas; however, we find similar descriptions of cruelty even among Franciscan chroniclers such as Diego de Landa or Motolinía. An interesting point that illuminates the complexity of dealing with cruelty is the fact that Diego de Landa himself – the Bishop of Yucatán – whose writings are the source of the 11 12 13 Diego de Landa, Landa’s Relación de Las Cosas de Yucatan, a Translation, Harvard University. Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology. Paper vol. 18. Cambridge, ma: The Museum, 1941, 60. Foucault laid a conceptual infrastructure for many of the subjects with which I am dealing. Nevertheless, on the historical plane, Foucault’s argument deals with the processes taking place in the eighteenth century – while I am dealing with processes taking place in the sixteenth century: Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon Books, 1977. las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destruyción de las Indias, 38. 110 chapter 3 descriptions of the hanging women, was accused of cruelly brutalizing the Mayans. During his office as Bishop, he employed the local inquisition to torture Indians whom he had accused of idolatry, and some of them died while being tortured. For this, he was tried and dismissed from his Episcopal post, although his actions were later forgiven, and in 1571, he returned to take over the seat of Bishop of Yucatán.14 As noted earlier, at the center of the sixteenth century descriptions of cruelty, there is a corpse. In Torquemada’s seventeenth century narrative, there is also a corpse – the holy corpse, parts of which were stolen and thereafter became holy relics. What is the difference between these two corpses? I find a clue to the difference between sixteenth and seventeenth century corpses in the association that de Landa created between cruelty – the hanging corpse – and beauty, the beauty of the hanging women. Beauty and cruelty are connected by de Landa through the effect that they both have on the spectators. The conspicuousness of beauty, like that of cruelty, is translated into power in the social dimension. Cruelty is described as a psychological control mechanism – a person manages his life in relation to the conspicuousness of horrific scenes that are meant to have a restraining effect.15 Studies inspired by terror management theory (tmt) associate the salience of death with broad social phenomena that lie far beyond the visible contexts. These studies conclude that there is a correlation between the salience of death and conformity to personal and social standards. Such a correlation reinforces the distinction that I wish to emphasize: between a society in which cruelty enjoys a high degree of salience to one that does not accord high value to individualism.16 14 15 16 Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517–1570. Cambridge, uk; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987; Landa, Landa’s Relación de Las Cosas de Yucatan, 76–80. Inga Clendinnen analyzes the role of fear in the war between the Spanish and the Indians. Her analysis refers to the rational explanation behind the use of fear; the source of this explanation is found in the writings of sixteenth century chroniclers. The discussion in this book will refer to the conceptual aspects associated with fear: Inga Clendinnen. “‘Fierce and Unnatural Cruelty’: Cortés and the Conquest of Mexico,” In New World Encounters, edited by Stephen Greenblatt. Vol. 12–47. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, and Sheldon Solomon, “The Causes and Consequences of the Need for Self-Esteem: A Terror Management Theory,” In Public Self and Private Self, edited by Roy F. Baumeister, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1986; Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski, “Terror Management Theory of Self-Esteem and Cultural Worldviews: Empirical Assessments and Conceptual Refinements,” In Advances in Cruelty 111 The social perspective is radically different from the perspective through which the corpses in the seventeenth century stories were presented. The central characteristic of the corpses in the martyrology of the seventeenth century is belonging and ownership. The corpses belong to the person who inhabited them while alive, and they pass into the ownership of another person. These are concepts that are not relevant to the corpses in the horrific descriptions of the sixteenth century. A case in point is the description in the Merchant of Venice, which was written at the end of the sixteenth century, between 1594 and 1597, the same time period in which Torquemada wrote, and in which there is a pointed discussion of the comparison between money and flesh as two types of property – at the core of a debate about ownership and possession.17 The concreteness of the body in the seventeenth century is related to what is neither public nor visible – the material of the cross as opposed to its appearance, the very opposition that we examined in our discussion of the difference between the visual and the material. The concreteness of the sixteenth century cruelty descriptions is the concreteness of that which is public, comprehensible, and clear, as opposed to material concreteness. The central difference between the corpses of the seventeenth century martyrs and those of the victims in the sixteenth century boils down to what is done with the corpses. The sixteenth century corpses are gazed at for the sake of an object lesson; the seventeenth century corpses are taken home and kept, precisely because they have no visual or verbal substitute. This brings us back to the distinction between sight and touch. 3.2 Cruelty in the Seventeenth Century – Torquemada and the Cruelty of Sacrifice – The Story of the Goddess Toci The ultimate example of cruelty in the sixteenth century chronicles is that of the Indian rites of human sacrifice. When Motolinía and later Zurita wish to 17 Experimental Social Psychology, edited by Mark P. Zanna, San Diego, ca: Academic Press, 1997. The description in which the link between cruelty and the objective dimension of the human body is the most prominent is the description of human sacrifices. The descriptions of sacrifices in the sixteenth century are linked to daily realistic facts. The fatigue of the sacrificers, the mode of preparing the knives, and ultimately, accurate descriptions of the character of the sacrifice. Motolinía, “Historia De Los Indios De La Nueva España,” 40. Durán calls the ceremonial preciseness ‘this terrible preciseness’ that leaves no room for exceptions. The sixteenth century descriptions attempt to reconstruct this preciseness in a description that leaves nothing out: Diego Durán, Ritos y fiestas de los antiguos mexicanos. México City: Innovación, 1980, C 3. 112 chapter 3 exemplify the evil of this cult form and of the Indian world, they tell the story of a sacrifice in which the victim is subject to various forms of torture and abuse, including being barraged by arrows, dropped from a high place, and later having his heart ripped out.18 This is the most horrific description that a sixteenth century missionary might have imagined. And of course, it is a realization of the diabolical plan for the worst possible world – a copy of hell – as Motolinía calls it.19 Cruelty takes on a new visage in the seventeenth century. Physical abuse of innocents and dismembered bodies in the town square lose their prime of place in the ethical picture of the world. In the seventeenth century, Torquemada will speak of cruelty in a different language. The difference is one of language and of content. Even if the devil has chosen to realize a model of evil in the pagan world, the figure of evil in the world will be exemplified by different stories. The first difference one encounters in comparing the original sixteenth century chronicles to Torquemada’s rewritings is the significant dilution of the horrific descriptions.20 Unlike his predecessors, Torquemada devotes little space to the human victims of Indian sacrifice. Only the seventh, the shortest book, of the twenty-one books of the Indian monarchy is devoted to the Indian sacrificial rites. Torquemada here follows Las Casas and associates sacrifice with elemental worship and the natural attitude to God. Part of the central project that engages Torquemada is to prove the natural foundation of religion, by identifying religious phenomena in the New World and in human history. In a certain sense, Torquemada’s goals are the obverse of those of Las Casas. While Las Casas attempts to conceptually justify the Indians’ humanity based on the similarities between Indian and Christian worship/rites, for Torquemada, the humanity of the Indians is the point of departure. From this point of departure, he attempts to demonstrate empirically that humans are naturally prone to religious belief. According to Torquemada, the fact that both the Indians and the Jews sought God is a proof of this natural human tendency. In order to delve more deeply into the difference between the sixteenth century accounts of horror and those of Torquemada, I shall present a story through which Torquemada chooses to illustrate the evil associated with Indian worship. The cult of the goddess of Toci is the basis of this story, and the following is a condensation, as recounted by Torquemada 18 19 20 Alonso de Zurita, Historia de la Nueva España. Madrid: Librería general de V. Suárez, 1909, 147; Motolinía, Historia de Los Indios de La Nueva España, 65. Ibid., 63. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 1: 174. Cruelty 113 The origin of this sacrifice was when the Mexicans, in the name of their god Huizilopchtli, requested the hand of the daughter of the master of Culhuacan, so that she could become a queen and a grandmother to their god, whose history is recounted in the book of the Gods, in which the story of the goddess Toci is told. She was brought in, with all due propriety and dignity, to the satisfaction of her father. The next night, the pagan god summoned his ministers and told them that he had chosen that young woman as the goddess of strife between the Mexican and the Culhuac, and that he wished that she be put to death, after which he would count her as his mother, and that the path to her sacralization and apotheosis would be by killing her, and that after her death, her skin would be flayed and would be worn by one of the bravest Mexican youth, and he would also be clothed with the garments of the deceased, and the youth would be placed next to her figure and image, and that they would summon the father of the girl and the Culhuacan to worship her. The Mexicans fulfilled all that was ordained, for they were men who obeyed him in everything. Standing there was the youth who had represented the girl, with her skin and her clothes, next to the figure and idol, and her father was summoned to come and bow before his daughter, while he yet believed her to be alive and chosen as the queen of the Mexican nations. And when the father entered the room (which was dark), he took some incense and began to burn it, and when it ignited and the flames grew higher, the king beheld the trickery and conniving, and he exited the room awash with terror, calling out to his men at the top of his lungs, and asking for a weapon against the traitor (as recounted in detail in the appropriate place), and went home exceedingly pained, while his unfortunate daughter remained dead and flayed and sacralized as a goddess and sister to Huizilopchtli, even though in fact she had gone to suffer with him eternal pain and torture. Torquemada ends the story with a note about the constitutive significance of the event in Mexican history, as the basis for all sacrificial rites in which victims had their skin flayed. Campbell describes the rise of the Shakespearean tragedy as a direct continuation of the ejemplo stories about people who fell from great heights because of having sinned.21 I wish to argue that there, a true reversal occurs from the ejemplo stories about cruel punishments that sinners receive at the 21 Lily Bess Campbell, Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes: Slaves of Passion. Cambridge, uk: The University Press, 1930, 15. 114 chapter 3 hands of God, such as can be found in the sixteenth century chronicles, to the tragedy that Torquemada sets before us. The difference between physical torture and psychological suffering is only the entry point into an utterly different, and in many ways obverse, ethical world. The difference, in comparison with the ejemplo stories, is not only a matter of content. As we saw in the previous chapter, ethical contents cannot be separated from an ethical framework. The way in which a lesson is to be learned from Torquemada’s story is utterly different from the way in which a lesson is learned from the blows that God deals to the Indians as a punishment for idolatry, or from the corpses of criminals murdered in the town square. The role of the reader and the relationship between the reader and the story are transformed. If the story can be seen as an example or ejemplo, this is only so in a radically altered sense. Torquemada’s story represents an opposite perspective to that which we found in the sixteenth century chronicles in respect to evil, pain, and justice, and their place in human life. The most conspicuous difference is the centrality of psychological suffering. The horrific plastic image remains, but its role, as I shall argue, changes. At the center of the story is the human character – the father – whose suffering is not physical but rather emotional. An interesting point is Torquemada’s elision of the word ‘cruelty’ from the description of the sacrifice in the early version of Acosta. Another conspicuous difference is the shift from cruelty to treachery. Only by looking closely at the way in which Torquemada revises the original texts at specific points, can we highlight what he counts as the story’s center of gravity. Torquemada adds the chilling sentence: “[Her father] brought her with all due dignity, and she was very happy with her father,” thus emphasizing and enhancing the experience of being betrayed which is central to the narrative. This act of treachery begins with the betrayal by those who appear to have the king’s best interest at heart and continues with the father’s betrayal of his daughter. The ultimate betrayal, that which according to Shklar is the basis and model for any act of betrayal and the realization of the worst of childhood anxieties, is the experience of abandonment. The abandonment in this story is utter and complete, and it creates a world in which it is impossible to tell the difference between a relative and a stranger.22 Torquemada’s emphasis on the family unit, as the framework against which acts of cruelty are measured, is especially notable when his approach is compared to that suggested by the martyrologies of the sixteenth century. In these 22 Judith N. Shklar, Ordinary Vices. Cambridge, ma: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1984, 140. The Goddess Toci: Torquemada, 1:174–183; Acosta, L2, C 7. Cruelty 115 stories, converted Indian children sacrifice their lives in a struggle against their idolatrous families. The perspective that confronts the familial with the religious, which is the framework through which the stories of martyrdom are told, presents Torquemada with an exegetical challenge: how to explain the sixteenth century stories that center on the tension between belief and family, and their central argument that true heroism involves detaching oneself from familial ties for the sake of religion? The tension between conversion and religion and the family framework is not unique to the Franciscans in Mexico. In the sixteenth century, at the very time when the Franciscans were engaged in the conversion of the New World, the Reformation was taking root in France, driven on the same model which posits the dismantling of family as the basis of conversion. Donald Kelley describes conversion to Protestantism as a conversion of the father’s will into the divine father’s will. This development is understood by Kelley as a sociological crisis, which well suited Protestant ideology that preferred the metahistorical to the historical.23 The stories from Mexico demonstrate that the meta-historical approach was not an exclusive characteristic of Protestantism at that time. An example of such a story is that of the converted Indian child Cristobal, who was murdered by his father after his son shattered the father’s idols. Seventeenth-century writings no longer reflect this tension between the familial and the religious, but a different tension appears in them – between the world of the family and the new world of free will. This tension is manifested when a young man’s will collides with that of his parents in respect to love and marriage. Patricia Seed has researched these cases and has shown how the church took an unequivocal stand in favor of youths who wished to marry against their parents’ will.24 23 24 Donald R. Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology: Consciousness and Society in the French Reformation. Cambridge, uk; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981, 77–78; Debora K. Shuger, The Renaissance Bible Scholarship, Sacrifice, and Subjectivity. Waco, tx: Baylor University Press, 2010, 153. Patricia Seed, To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico Conflicts over Marriage Choice, 1574–1821. Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 1988, 8. The research of María Beatriz Nizza da Silva on on marriage and divorce in colonial Brazil also stress the tension between the reinforcement of the family ties and the new emphasis on free will and autonomy. She found that wives increasingly deny the right of their husbands to mistreat them. María Beatriz Nizza da Silva, “Divorce in Colonial Brazil: The Case of Sao Paulo,” in Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989, 336. 116 chapter 3 One of the interesting topics that will concern us in this connection is the question of ownership of assets – a question that stood at the center of parent–child relationships, as Seed’s research has demonstrated. This connection between free will and property will re-emerge in seventeenth century stories and will demand our attention. One of the most noticeable changes in the transition from stories of beastly cruelty to stories of betrayal is the shift from open and direct actions to a subterfuge plot. The stepmother who entreats the father to murder his son so that her son inherits the father is an innovation that Torquemada introduces to the story of the martyred son Cristóbal.25 The story of preferring God to family turns into a story in which the betrayers are in fact the parents. The stepmother presents a new type of evil, in comparison with the cruel descriptions of the Indians and Spanish conquerors presented by Las Casas and Diego de Landa. Motolinía’s story presents a simple and clear description of evil: Cristóbal’s father, the Indian idolater, is described as one who was “naturally very cruel.”26 Motolinía continues this statement about the father’s cruel nature with the father’s decision: “He who was naturally very cruel decided to kill his son.” The cruel nature is adduced by the fact that the father had no qualms, doubts, or other thoughts before perpetrating the murder. Torquemada converts the story into a story of subversiveness, betrayal, and concealment. The intent behind feminine evil is related, of course, to the centrality accorded to the notion of volitional motive – evil that is neither self-aware nor volitional is not true evil for Torquemada. Motolinía and Torquemada differ over the question of the naturalness of cruelty. The interesting question, to my mind, is not the anthropological question concerning human nature, but the conceptual question regarding the relationship between evil and nature. Animality is associated with direct and public infliction of harm. Nature, for Motolinía, is out in the open, and he does not conceal his intentions; for Torquemada, nature is hidden. It is interesting to notice the association that Torquemada makes between hidden nature and questions of ownership. The story of the stepmother, which deals with the connection between women and hidden desire for ownership, receives additional support from Torquemada in another misogynous story about female betrayal.27 25 26 27 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5: 135. Motolinía, Historia de Los Indios de La Nueva España, 218. Female evilness and plotting are certainly not new and their epitome is the story of Adam and Eve. However, when Motolinía describes a performance of the story of Adam and Eve presented by the Indians, the woman is not singled out as a schemer of a satanic scheme. Cruelty 117 Like women who, when deciding to realize their evil designs, do not spare any means on behalf of their evil aims; as we saw when Salome, who, in order to protect the title of Queen and her relations with King Herod, did not let up until she saw the head of St. John on a platter.28 The purpose of this subversiveness is ownership and possession of property. My argument is that the sixteenth century conception of nature, which centers on what is visible and clear, is replaced by one that centers on the notion of ownership. What is natural is to possess that which belongs to you. To conclude, let us return to the story of Toci, which reflects a transition from public social space to familial space. Torquemada substitutes stories about the brutal killing of children with stories of parents who sent their children to their deaths. The transition to social space is accompanied by a shift in visual space, from the town square to a closed room. Sacrificial rites were public ceremonies that took place in front of the entire community. The story of sacrifice that Torquemada tells us takes place in a sheltered place, where the only eye-witnesses are the king and the Mexican boy wearing his daughter’s skin. The story also ends in a room – an additional change introduced by Torquemada to the story that originally came to an end in a battlefield. The entire plot comes to an end that is innovative in itself: the conception of justice as leading to resolution and equilibrium is replaced by a world in which there is no resolution but only inconceivable and irresolvable pain, and not everything is comprehensible. As I shall argue, the shift from physical to emotional suffering is not merely an addendum to this complete set of shifts, but is rather indicative of a new conceptual world, of which all the other shifts are manifestations. Each of these aspects can be inserted into the scheme that distinguishes vision from touch and intimacy (see Table 4). I have here discussed the details of the framing narrative of the Toci cult, but have not addressed the central element of the story – the ritual wearing of skin. The question remains open – why did Torquemada choose this particular rite specifically as the focal rite? I wish to propose a solution that links the central topic of the Toci cult to the scheme distinguishing vision from touch. The skin-wearing rite includes a horrific dimension that does not exist in other types of rites: this horrific aspect is related to the gap between the visible world and reality, between the visible figure of the young woman, which continues to exist, and the actual young woman, the daughter who was killed and 28 Adam and Eve are accused of exactly the same sin – that of which they ate from the forbidden fruit. Ibid., 87. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5: 136. 118 chapter 3 Two types of moral stories of cruelty Table 4 Sixteenth Century Chronicles Seventeenth Century Torquemada Suffering Crime Sociological location Completion Physical suffering Cruelty Community Balance, resolution, clarity Location Open space Emotional suffering Betrayal Family Unresolved, incomprehensible A closed room had her skin stripped away. The focus of the horror in Torquemada’s story is not the spectacle of horror, the visual horror, but the invisible reality behind it. If in the sixteenth century stories, any person could have observed the spectacle and extracted the true lesson, in Torquemada’s story, the model of the ‘real thing’ is the body under the skin, the body for which vision is incommensurate, just as it is not possible to see the pain of the secluded father. 3.3 Cruelty, Dominion/Rule, and Justice The Spanish chronicles of the sixteenth century are not unique in their focus on cruelty. Two of the sixteenth century’s most important philosophers devoted thought to the topic of cruelty. Machiavelli and Montaigne refer to the conceptual world of the sixteenth century in order to critique and attack it from several angles. Both critique the connection between cruelty, justice, and rule. Machiavelli ponders the connection between justice and rule and arrives at conclusions that are critical of the Christian concept of justice. A worthy regime cannot be founded on Christian values: the latter will not only render it ineffective; they will also render it unworthy. Montaigne is aware of the dangers that Machiavelli presents to those who would challenge/undermine the religious sources of justice.29 Montaigne’s conclusion is the opposite of Machiavelli’s. According to Montaigne, the Christian concept of justice was of no avail against cruelty, and too often, as the Spanish case proves, served it. Montaigne rephrases Machiavelli’s question “Is cruelty good for the ruler?” as 29 Shklar, Ordinary Vices, 11. Cruelty 119 “Is the ruled better off asking for mercy or resisting cruelty?” For the purpose of the current discussion, what is important are not the various critiques of the triad of justice, rule, and cruelty, but rather the description of this system as characteristic of the sixteenth century. Landa’s descriptions of cruelty are reminiscent of those of Machiavelli, who tells the story of Duke Borgia and describes him as ruling the country cruelly. Borgia appointed Ramiro de Lorca to be governor of Romania: And because he knew that the past severity had caused some hatred against himself, so to clear himself in the minds of the people and to gain them entirely to himself, he desired to show that if any cruelty had been practised, it had not originated with him, but in the natural sternness of the minister. Under this pretence, he took Ramiro, and one morning caused him to be executed and left on the piazza at Cesena with the block and a bloody knife at his side. The barbarity of this spectacle caused the people to be at once satisfied and dismayed.30 Machiavelli speaks of the impact of the spectacle itself – the sight of the beheaded body. La ferocità del quale spettaculo fece quelli populi in uno tempo rimanere satisfatti e stupidi.31 This is an earlier testimony to the very same theory of control that emerges from Landa’s writing, which speaks of the tremendous impact of spectacles of horror. Machiavelli’s description speaks of the dismembered body in terms of purity – “purging” (purgare). Purgare is a term that has medical connotations, suggesting a link between the medical model and the ethical one of recompense: the dismembered body has a purifying effect, because it was a fitting punishment for the representative. The mutilated body is a solution. It is clear, then, that the way Machiavelli presents matters undermines those very terms. The solution is not a real one, and there is certainly no purging here; rather, there is an exploitation of the illusion of a solution. 3.3.1 Cruel Justice in the Sixteenth Century “Raising and Educating the Princes and the Rulers’ Progeny in the Chief Kingdoms of the New Spain” – this is the title that Las Casas chose for the chapter whose goal is to present “an argument that will clarify what is the 30 31 Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince (ebook #1232, 2006, updated 2012): http://www.gutenberg .org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm#link2HCH0007. Nicolò Machiavelli, Il principe, e discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio. Florence: Felice le Monnier, 1857, 22–23. 120 chapter 3 ruler’s worthy judgment and the worthy order or rule, and of these nations’ use of reason…. and the example for all these is the education of the children.”32 In this context, Las Casas tells the story of Nezahualpilli, who drowns his beloved daughter after she is observed speaking with a young man who entered the palace grounds. Las Casas explains that “these severe punishments, and similar ones, were recounted, viewed, and engraved in the memories of the young women who were gathered together by the elderly women, so as to keep themselves from committing the same sins and crimes and to learn a lesson from others.”33 The educational process described in the last sentence is reminiscent of the model in the story of the hanging of the women recounted by Diego de Landa, as well as of Machiavelli’s story, where murder, spectacle, and memory are also linked. The difference is that our story is not about cruelty but about justice. Las Casas concludes the story by reinforcing Motolinía’s argument that the Spaniards should take an example from the Indians’ instructional methods in educating their daughters about sexual modesty.34 The cruelty involved in a relationship in which a father drowns his daughter for a trifling matter is not even mentioned by Las Casas. Cruel punishment, like any punishment, has two poles: on the one hand, deterrence and education, related to the notion of ejemplo, as discussed in previous chapters, and on the other hand, retribution. Usually there is a correlation between the degree of instruction and deterrence required to the severity of the punishable deed, and therefore also to the nature of the retribution. In stories of cruel retribution from the sixteenth century, a profound understanding of the concept of justice is meant to reveal that the point of view from which cruel justice is perceived as a problem is an erroneous one. The cruel death of the sinners is a solution that purifies. The central principle upon which cruel retribution rests is ‘an eye for an eye’. James Conant has coined the concept of ‘the commensurability of goods’, to refer to the realistic position according to which there are no true tragic conflicts in the world. 32 33 34 las Casas, Apologética Historia Sumaria, 1, 417. Ibid., 1: 420. In the meanwhile, between Motolinía and Las Casas, there is a conflict over religious matters that degenerates into personal blaming. Motolinía sends to King Carlos V a letter containing harsh words against Las Casas: Toribio Motolinía, “Carta De Fray Toribio De Motolinía Al Emperador Carlos V,” In Colección De Documentos Para La Historia De México, edited by Joaquín García Icazbalceta and José Fernando Ramírez. México City: J.M. Andrade, 1858. Cruelty 121 Conant’s interest lies in the philosophical meanings of this position. A philosopher who takes this position, according to Conant, will regard it as his role to elucidate imaginary conflicts and construct an ethical system that would not allow the creation of mistakes disguised as tragic conflicts. The world that emerges from the writings of sixteenth century missionaries is one in which tragic conflict does not even appear as an illusion or an error. The modern reader who encounters a quote from Las Casas will attempt to resolve the ethical conflict by arguing that a profound understanding of the significance of violation of sexual purity will elucidate the commensurability of sin to punishment.35 The publicness of punishment and the object lesson learned from it, as described by Las Casas, are linked to the deterrent-instructional aspect of the punishment. However, the visibility of justice also links it to the dimension of retribution. Justice exists in the world, and it is visible for all eyes to behold; thus, also the fittingness of crime to punishment is there to behold. The following, from the prologue to his dictionary, encapsulates Olmos’ idea of the commensurateness of punishment. According to the proper rulings of justice, the punishment must match the guilt; in the case of a grave crime, such as that of arrogance, the punishment must also be according grave and weighty.36 Olmos links the principle of retribution to pride, a connection that we encountered in the story of the Tower of Babel, with which this book begins. The punishment for the sin of pride is a stone shaped like a toad – the symbol of pride – which falls from the heavens and destroys the tower.37 There is an essential link between the centrality of the sin of pride in the ethics of the sixteenth century Franciscans and their concepts of justice and retribution. The Franciscan concept of justice rests on the central notion of an external objective point of view: only from such a point of view, can the commensurability of 35 36 37 James Conant, “Freedom, Cruelty, and Truth: Rorty versus Orwell,” In Rorty and His Critics, edited by Robert Brandom. Vol. 273. Malden, ma: Blackwell, 2000. Andrés de Olmos, Arte de la lengua mexicana. Madrid: Ediciones de Cultura Hispánica, Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana, 1993, 9. Another example is the story of Motolinía, according to which God inflicts on the new world ten brutal blows accompanied by physical torture, of which significance is the collapse of the organized society into a chaos; this is the appropriate punishment for sins that were committed in the same place: Toribio Motolinía, Memoriales. México City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1971, 21; Ibid., 15. 122 chapter 3 crime and punishment be seen. God occupies the position of this point of view, and its chief antagonist is the personal. Anything related to the personal prevents us from judging things as they are, and therein lies the danger of pride, which places the personal at the center. The concept of the visibility of justice reflects the position that anyone can see and judge, anyone can take up the position of judgment from which ‘justice can be seen’, and no one has a judicial advantage in respect to the moral issue or the comprehension of the ethical event. Such ‘sight’ is nearly abstract, but it is not metaphorical sight (in the same way that seeing in a geometrical proof is not a metaphor). This very same point of view, which allows a general lesson to be learned from a concrete case, also allows one to see the identity of sin and punishment. The principle of ‘an eye for an eye’ is described as one that was also realized in the Indian’s moral/instructional systems: There are some things in which the Christians take an ejemplo from those infidels, for example, the masters raised their sons and daughters with proper discipline, honesty, and through the administration of punishment. Regard the daughters of those peoples who were educated for virtue and seclusion [recogimiento], and decency, like the nuns. … They punished and admonished [amonestaban] their children greatly, so that they would speak the truth, and if they were inveterate liars, the punishment was to slightly cut and wound the lip, and for this reason, they were very accustomed to telling the truth [emphasis is mine].38 In the above example, too, the connection between modes of judging and the value-contents of judgment is apparent. This example deals with truth and sexual modesty; it is not the truth whose extreme realization is material – the flesh from Torquemada’s introduction – but the public truth that is related to speech. Like the sin of pride, propositional truth is also part of the same system based on the principle of retribution. In the sixteenth century, the most salient crimes were those related to sexual immodesty and untruthful speech. The 38 Motolinía, Memoriales, 312. The Roman Law connects between torture and truth (Domitius Ulpiānus) and defines torture as physical suffering whose purpose is to reach the truth: Edward Peters, Torture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996, 1. Nancy Van Deusen claims that true to 1530, the term ‘recogimiento’ signifies female qualities, since as of the beginning the sixteenth century, there began a use of the term noting spiritualism that in its center is the separation from the senses and from the world: Nancy E. Van Deusen, Between the Sacred and the Worldly: The Institutional and Cultural Practice of Recogimiento in Colonial Lima. Stanford University Press, 2001, 20. Cruelty 123 concepts of heroism and honor during that period, reflected in the heroic tales of literary figures, such as Amadis De Gaula, are related to the defense of these two values: keeping one’s word – keeping an oath, and the protection of a woman’s sexual honor.39 These values are the foundations of society; the collapse of Indian society is also the collapse of the system of justice and punishment, according to Motolinía: And the Indians further say that because the arrival of the Spaniards and the wars shook the entire country, in many domains both justice and punishment were lost – the order and conventions they formerly had – and that they no longer have the authority nor the liberty they used to have to target the criminals and punish them, and that they no longer mete out punishment among themselves for lies and false oaths, nor for acts of adultery, and that the women dare more to act more evilly than before, and in addition, they learned some of these bad habits from the Spaniards.40 Lies and sexual immodesty are not presented as a violation of the trust of the deceived person, but as a violation of general rules of conduct, the likes of which characterize proper society, in relation to which the concept of justice is defined. 3.3.2 The Seventeenth Century – Justice and Ethical Conflict Piercing of the tongue as punishment for improper speech – legislated by civil law in Mexico in the sixteenth century – underscores another feature of the principle of retribution: the fact that sin can be isolated from its environment.41 Returning conditions to equilibrium is related to counterbalancing sin with an appropriate or fitting punishment. The model for this kind of fit is the 39 40 41 Amadis de Gaula is the most famous novel of sixteenth century chivalry in Spain. The book was first printed in 1508 in Saragosa and was subsequently translated into additional European languages as well as into Hebrew: Amadís de Gaula. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1991. Also in the seventeenth century, novels and plays were written focusing on the sexual honor of the woman; one of the best known is the play of Pedro Calderón de la Barca: El médico de su honra. London: Grant & Cutler, 2003. In the play, a man reinstates his honor by murdering his wife who was suspected of infidelity. However, the values in the center of the book are ‘fidelity’ versus ‘betrayal’ and relations of ownership. As I will show subsequently, these are the relations that replace the public ethics of the sixteenth century. Motolinía, Memoriales, 312. Richard E. Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisition of the Sixteenth Century. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1969, 12. 124 chapter 3 fit between objects, such as the fitting of a key to a lock. This relationship between justice and society and crime and punishment was poised to change in the seventeenth century. Earlier, we examined the comparison that Torquemada makes between the Indian’s skin color and the humiliating sambenito that was placed on sinners by the inquisition. The sambenito represents another type of punishment – punishment by stigma and disgracing. Martha Nussbaum criticizes humiliation as punishment, arguing that this type of punishment is not directed at the crime but at the entire person.42 This distinction conforms well to the scheme that distinguishes between cruel punishment that presumes the isolated nature of the sin and punishment that is placed on a whole person, possessed of a unified center of will. If we return to the character of Shylock, the merchant of Venice, we will find in Shylock’s attempt to receive a literal pound of flesh a critique of the concept of retribution. This is an example of a new approach to the relationship between punishment and retribution in the seventeenth century. The isolated element upon which the principle of ‘an eye for an eye’ is based contradicts the holism that characterizes seventeenth century man, he who is possessed of an intentional volitional center that is continuous from childhood through adulthood. Torquemada’s flesh and humanity are in essence one-of-a kind, unique, and irreplaceable. Abstraction and an external point of view permitted the fit between sins and punishments and between the private and the collective to be seen. In Torquemada’s new system in which visuality and abstraction lose their place – that is where the tragic conflict is born. Ethical conflicts are characterized by how difficult it is to resolve them, the inability to explain them, and other negations. But ethical conflict also has a positive character and positive characteristics, as well as a concrete expression. In seventeenth century stories, the ethical conflict is related to the hidden, the ineffable, which has an unmistakable material manifestation – the material from which corpses are made. Las Casas claims that the education of children is the example for “the ruler’s worthy judgment and the worthy order or rule, and these nations’ use of reason.” The story about the king executing his daughter is an example of the education of children. Torquemada cannot accept the concatenation of examples and the system of abstraction that leads from the relationship between the king and his children to the state’s laws. Relations within the family are not an example of a governmental system, nor is the king a representative person. 42 Martha Craven Nussbaum, Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 2004, 217–221. Cruelty 125 For Torquemada, the king is not a model; on the contrary, Torquemada claims that all of the king’s actions are bizarre; however, it is precisely this bizarreness and singularity, according to Torquemada, that provides a good reason to watch the horrible spectacle: For that purpose they kept a captive who was a master or an important person, whose skin color – was suitable to the noble blood of the king who wore it and danced his royal movements in the service of his God, in it; [al cual espectaculo], which show they say that the entire population came from the various districts to the ceremony, to see something unique particular and rare (like all the king’s deeds).43 The initial expression of the king’s singularity is the blood – the material that is beyond the visible space. The conflict between the singularity of matter, as manifested in blood, and the skin of the displayed victim is what troubles Torquemada, and this is directly related to the ethical conflict. Torquemada engages the ethical conflict directly in the story that centers on the separation between public and interior space. The story recounted by Torquemada is very similar to the one told by Las Casas about the king who executes his daughter. Torquemada’s story is also about King Nezahualpilli, and it can be surmised that both stories have a common source. The main alteration in the plot is that the protagonist of Torquemada’s story is a son rather than the daughter described by Las Casas. Despite the similarity of the plot, Torquemada’s treatment of the story is utterly different from that of Las Casas. Torquemada uses the story to underscore the gap between justice and a solution – a gap between justice and nature, and a gap between visible things that are subordinate to the abstract, general law, and those that are concealed from it. Torquemada’s story begins with the story of King Nezahualpilli’s love for his son. One day the son met one of the king’s concubines and spoke “light words” with her (rather than proper words, as would be expected). This transaction occurs in public, and the incident reaches the ears of King Nezahualpilli. The king heard of this and ordered that he be held under guard, and on that very day he declared his death sentence. When this became known to the palace dignitaries they went to him and with copious tears and entreaties asked that he not perform the deed, for it was his son in 43 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6179. 126 chapter 3 question, and the violation was very slight; however, he did not make use of this opportunity. And the more he was entreated, the more determined he became to carry out the sentence, justifying himself in light of the law prohibiting any such impertinences in the palace, a law observed without fail by all royal persons, and so how could he placate the republic, which his son had violated and whose laws he had trespassed with impunity? And so that it would be known that there would be no clemency for anyone, he would have him punished, otherwise, they would be in the right for claiming that he was legislating laws for others and not for his own family. With these words he took leave of them and forbade them to speak of it further. Later, the queen also pleads to save the life of her son: Although the king was angry, he did not answer her angrily, but rather with a stern countenance asked that she leave, for there was no resolution for the matter. The same father, after finalizing his decision to command his son’s execution, and knowing that he had already been put to death, secluded himself in a room where he remained for forty days without seeing a single soul, weeping and grieving for his son, whom he had loved more than his own self, and whom he had killed only because he had transgressed the law that the palace and house itself has legislated. He later commanded that the doors to the son’s room be sealed off, and, deeply pained, decided never to pass through them, so that when they fell into ruin, the recollection of his pain would disappear. This case was often cited, and although it suggests tyranny against natural love, it is ultimately a case of rigid justice allowing no place for favoritism toward relatives [epiqueya]. Nor was this an incidental occurrence, because in other cases, it appeared to the king that the same should be done. Who would set an example for those in service of the palace and in the administration of the kingdom? For if the green tree sustains such damage, what would become of the dry tree? At the very least, it should be the same [punishment] if not a more severe one; for one who does not forgive his own son for violating or transgressing the law will be all the less forgiving toward a servant who violates or transgresses it. And when such a case occurs in our own time, we know that people are extremely cautious and careful about their own conduct; and because of such and like cases, such a king or another has been called “the prudent” [el prudente], but there are few who are capable of it, and therefore Cruelty 127 the few that were are intensely admired and their memory will last forever.44 On the face of it, this story reinforces the concept of objective justice and the universal justifiability of events. Torquemada praises the king for requiring an identical sentence for relatives and non-relatives. However, in fact, what Torquemada demonstrates is that the good world and the just world are not identical. Although justice was attained in the story, it is clear that the story does not have a happy end. Torquemada does not detach justice from the moral world or justify it as having a governmental function, as Machiavelli does. Justice preserves its autonomous status, but the way in which it collides with other values – such as the preference of one’s own blood-relations, which the law contradicts because of its essential impartial nature – is brought to light. Torquemada’s story deliberately sheds a bizarre light on the argument that the retribution determined by the law offers a kind of solution. When the queen entreats the king, asking for his pity, he himself presents the situation as one that has no resolution. And that which renders it unresolvable is the very realization of justice, the same justice that is supposed to be a solution. Torquemada’s story appears as a moral test of the medically-inspired concept purgare, which Machiavelli uses when he speaks of the proper punishment for a representative. As described earlier, in that particular case, the dismemberment of the representative led to the purification of the spirit of the peoples of the land.45 The king’s seclusion in his room is reminiscent of Huizilopchtli’s inward retreat after witnessing the sacrifice of his daughter. There too, self-seclusion is meant to describe a type of situation that has no resolution – the tragic state of fathers witnessing the death of their child. A plausible solution in the case of King Huizilopchtli could have been to take revenge against the murderers of his daughter. The current example, although it appears to adopt the idea of exhausting the principle of justice, also shows that this can provide no solution. In both cases, justice cannot solve the problem, although the latter case is 44 45 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 1: 162; This appears in: Fernando de Alva Ixtlixóchitl, Obras historicas: incluyen el texto completo de las llamadas relaciones e historia de la nación chichimeca en una nueva versión establecida con el cotejo de los manuscritos más antiguos que se conocen, edited by Edmundo O’Gorman. Vol. 12. Mexico City: Universidad nacional autónoma de México, 1985: ixvii. Here, Torquemada is alluding to Felipe II, who was called el prudente. Machiavelli, The Prince, 22–23. 128 chapter 3 more extreme, because it emphasizes the way in which justice itself leads to an unresolvable situation. The concept that Torquemada employs as the opposite of rigid law is ‘epiqueya’. The Aristotelian source of this concept – ‘epieikeia’ – distinguished between written law and natural justice or law. The use of the concept in the late Middle Ages emphasized ‘epiqueya’ as a kind of social attribute that enables one to identify the just in the world. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, in Suárez’s writing, the opposition becomes one between the general law and personal commitment; the identification of natural justice is replaced by a commitment situated in man. At the same time, the concept is employed to point out cases of judiciary discrimination on behalf of relatives/ associates.46 Torquemada explains the forfeiture of compassion in the governmental requirement for clear laws; however, this explanation does not deny the fact that the contradiction between the general law and the particular case is both deep and substantive. For Torquemada, the collision between the objective vantage point of the law and the subjective point of view is a real problem, not an illusionary one rooted in the misunderstanding of the essence of justice. Justice can be cruel, and Torquemada does not balk at showing us this type of existential contradiction. The law continues to be upheld in the visible, public space, but the important space is the secluded space of the son’s room and the room in which the father shuts himself. As opposed to the punishment of execution, whose entire meaning resides in its being a spectacle that is engraved in the memory, we have ‘the memory of pain’, which can only exist in a closed space – the space of the sealed room of the deceased son. This last point bears immediate significance for the concept of retribution in the sixteenth century. The objective point of judgment, which undergirds the use of general laws, is based on the possibility of comparing different cases, including different sins. According to this position, and despite the differing contexts, different cases can be considered identical. The argument that it is difficult to compare cases in which different individuals are involved has no standing in this scheme. Cruelty, that which in Las Casas’ story is part of the way to rebalance the world, delivers neither a solution nor equilibrium in Torquemada’s world, but leaves behind an unresolvable state, one that cannot be looked at and turned into an object lesson. In James Conant’s terms, this is 46 Aristotle, On Rhetoric, translated by George A. Kennedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, I. 13, 1374a; Francisco Suárez, Tractatus de legibus ac deo legislatore. Neapoly: ex typis Fibrenianis, 1872, 2: 165–174. Cruelty 129 an approach in which tragic conflict has real substance and a central place – tragic conflict is indeed the most realistic thing. 3.3.3 Religious, Public, and Familial In his own words, the aim of Las Casas’ story was to present “an argument that will clarify the ruler’s worthy judgment and the worthy order or rule, these nations’ use of reason.” The example was taken from the familial sphere. Torquemada separates the sphere of the public from the sphere of the family. Examples can be found in Torquemada’s revisions to the martyrologies, where also, as in the story of the execution of Nezahualpilli’s daughter, he attempted to deal with the sixteenth century stories that demonstrated the subordination of the family realm to the public realm, and in the case of martyrdom, the public-universal space was a religious space. Las Casas emphasizes the public space as the dwelling place of justice. The analysis proposed here moves therefore between these three spaces: the religious, the political, and the familial. While the sixteenth century stories aim to demonstrate the subordination of all three spaces to the same objective system of law, this division changes in Torquemada’s writings. Chapter 22 in book 1 of Torquemada is copied almost verbatim from Las Casas, dealing with proofs for the fact that even the most civilized people once lived under barbaric conditions. The meticulous copying from Las Casas includes two interesting elisions. Following Cicero, Las Casas claims: When people are persuaded to live in a community it is not difficult to bring them to the recognition of God, and to conduct themselves in accordance with religion, and to live under laws and observe justice and obedience.47 Torquemada elides the section that links society to belief in God, and concludes: it is not difficult to bring men to live in society and to conform to what is ordained and instructed by reason.48 A few pages later, Torquemada recounts that during the time Janus ruled Italy, the Italians “loved and admired him, because of his age, and somehow saw him as the father of all.” Torquemada’s story highlights Janus’ rule as a regime modeled on paternal loves, in contrast to true government that is based on laws. Las Casas tells a similar story, but when he describes the Italians’ attitude toward Janus, they claim that they regarded him as the father and master of 47 48 las Casas, Apologética Historia Sumaria, 1: III 249; Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 1: 169. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 1: 170. 130 chapter 3 everyone.49 The distinction between father and master, which lies at the heart of Torquemada’s argument, does not exist in Las Casas’ original story. Returning to the story, discussed in the previous chapters, of Friar Pedro de Nava, who kept a part of the corpse of Bishop Juan de Zumárraga, we recall that it begins with the statement that Pedro “saw him more as a father than as an owner or master.”50 What begins here as a filial relationship can only be represented by a body part, which the Friar keeps in his home. The point that is clarified by the last example is as follows: Torquemada sharpens the distinction between the familial world and the public world and places the family model at the root of any reference to the religious dimension. What we find at the basis of familial relationships are relations of ownership, intimacy, and material objects, which take place in a room that is secluded from the world. In this framework, there is also a place for the cruel aspect of the world, which remains closed off from the public world and the objective rules of justice. Cruelty remains closed off behind the walls of the room and in the subcutaneous flesh. 3.3.4 Justice and Property It was an extraordinary thing that my, your, and others’ expressions, which exude the scent of private property and dominion, have never been heard in these islands, and were not even known. And this permits us to understand the admired, peace-loving rule of the governing masters, because there was no matter that stood in their way, and because the interest in possessiveness and dominion is the most common and prevalent factor leading to conflicts and riots in republics and in monarchies.51 The above passage is Torquemada’s expansion on Las Casas’ note, and it fits in with a larger conversation linking the concern with property and ownership to the “state of nature.” Torquemada’s contemporary, Thomas Hobbes, also makes the connection between lack of property and the state of nature, and sees in Indian history a model of this state: For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have 49 50 51 las Casas, Apologética Historia Sumaria, 1: III 253. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 6: 224. Ibid., 4: 45. Cruelty 131 no government at all, [...] and live at this day in that brutish manner, as I said before ... It is consequent also to the same condition that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thine distinct; but only that to be every man’s that he can get, and for so long as he can keep it.52 It is well known that Hobbes’ conclusions regarding the state of nature are opposite to those arrived at by Torquemada and Las Casas, for whom this state was conceived of a model of a Golden Era. However, the very association between property and the state of nature is instructive in regard to the model of the concept of property in the seventeenth century. Stephen Greenblatt deals with the concept of property in the context of the Spanish conquest, in analyzing the writings of Christopher Columbus. One of his conclusions is that the Spanish concept of property at the end of the sixteenth century was tied to symbolic acts, such as naming. In this way, it differed from the English concept of property during the same period. Queen Elizabeth’s argument was that the Spaniards were by no means the owners of the property: “prescription without possession is worth little.”53 Torquemada’s writings are indicative of a shift into an utterly different concept of property, in which small private possessions, such as one keeps inside a home, are the model of ownership. The rituals, symbolic acts, and naming that we encounter in the sixteenth century are appropriate to a model of vision for which action at a distance is an important element. Now let us return to the stories of cruelty and justice and see how they can be understood in light of these emphases on concepts of property and ownership. There are a few cases in which ownership forms the central motive of a 52 53 In his book Leviathan, Chapter 13, Thomas Hobbes refers to the natural condition that Las Casas and Torquemada described. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan: Or, the Matter, Forme & Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civill, edited by Alfred Rayney Waller. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1904, 85. see Pat Moloney, “Hobbes, savagery, and international anarchy.” American Political Science Review 105:01 (2011): 189–204. See also Walker, David, and Stuart Sim, The discourses of sovereignty, Hobbes to Fielding: the state of nature and the nature of the state. Burlington: Ashgate, 2003. On the American Indian and the origins of Comparative Ethnology see: Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, 167. Donald Gilbert-Santamaria, Writers on the Market: Consuming Literature in Early Seventeenth-century Spain. Lewisburg, pa: Bucknell University Press, 2005. 132 chapter 3 story of cruelty: such is the story of the son martyred by his father, where Torquemada adds the figure of the step-mother who induces the father to murder his son so that her own son will inherit the father.54 The following case is one in which ownership is posited as a motive for another type of cruelty: The (possessor of a) bad conscience is characterized (especially if he is found guilty and has been required to compensate and return property belonging to another) by a lack of self-assuredness. On the contrary, all that he is offered, however much it may be guaranteed, arouses suspicion. This is not because of the inherent doubtfulness of the matter, but because of his fear of acknowledging that what he holds in his possession is not in fact his…. For this reason, Maxtla, although he regarded himself as the king and Caesar of almost all the peoples of the New Spain, because he had achieved dominion due to his father Tezozomctli’s tyranny, who violently and tyrannically brought about the death of the natural and lawful leader, and thus, he was unsure of himself.55 Torquemada leads us into an understanding of the cruel character of the tyrannical leader. This is an interesting encounter, with a psychological explanation of cruelty: no mere explanation, but a complex psychological one: “This [the insecurity] is not a result of the inherent doubtfulness of the matter, but because of his fear of acknowledging that what he holds in his possession is not in fact his.” This is a psychological explanation of the second order – the king’s fear of physical foes is engendered by fear whose object is a psychological state – the king is afraid “to acknowledge that what he holds in his possession is not his.” The basis of everything is proper ownership of property: the knowledge that what belongs to the king belongs to him fully, legitimately and indisputably. Such is economic justice – justice based on an economic model – including the knowledge that the king governs that which belongs to him. There is no criticism here of the very desire for ownership, as one encounters in the writing of the Franciscan chroniclers of the sixteenth century. On the contrary, ownership is a central and worthy topic: the issue of concern is a person’s rights to his property. A person ought to have right to his property. Improper ownership leads to a mental state of self-deception that leads, consequently, to a lack of trust in the world. The king who is not sure of his right to his property turns cruel. 54 55 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 5: 135. Ibid., 1: 181. Cruelty 133 The most outstanding example of an explanation tying property to cruelty is the lust for gold of the Spanish conquerors. Las Casas is the most conspicuous sixteenth century representative of this approach, and therefore, we must revisit his words: The only reason and aim for which the Christian killed and destroyed an infinite number of souls was to seize the gold and become rich within a few days, and to rise to high ranks incommensurately with their personalities. It ought to be noted that it was all because of this impossible craving for the wealth that those people had, which was so great that it was greater than what the world could contain.56 The topic of improper ownership was scarcely mentioned by Las Casas, who does not talk about the fact that the gold belonged to someone else. The root of the problem, rather, was the enormous desire and drive – the drive to advance in social rank. The gold of the Spanish conquerors, in the case of Las Casas, is a reincarnation of the Holy Grail, a quest that affords an opportunity to escape the circle of work and the normal social order easily, swiftly, and at no cost. In utter opposition to this, for Torquemada, the desire and drive will become a central pillar of personal completeness leading to salvation.57 In comparing Torquemada’s writing to those of his sixteenth century sources, we are witness to a significant shift in the genre of psychological discussion. The sixteenth century stories do not provide an attempt to explain the protagonist’s psychological state or to describe it in terms that go beyond the kind of behavior typical for the situation at hand.58 One can say that the descriptions in the sixteenth century chronicles lack a psychological model. The devil causes people to see trees as demons and the world as a dark and oppressive place, etc. However, it is not at all clear whether a description of a mental space exists in distinction from a description of a distorted reality, or 56 57 58 las Casas, Brevísima Relación de La Destrucción de Las Indias, 36. Marc Shell discusses the conceptual and historical links of the holy grail in reference to the world of property: Marc Shell, Money, Language, and Thought: Literary and Philosophical Economies from the Medieval to the Modern Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 24–27. The chronicles of the sixteenth century connect between psychology and perception of reality. They explain the cruelty of the Spanish as blindness towards the condition of the other, arising in their opinion, in many cases, from feelings of pride, greed, and a desire for control. My argument is that the connection does not propose an internal psychological model. 134 chapter 3 whether there is even a mechanism behind a mental description. By the same token, there is no psychological explanation for the “impossible craving for wealth” of the Spanish conquistadors. In the conversion stories of the sixteenth century, the converted person understands things differently, but the internal change that takes place within him is explained entirely in terms of the new world. There is no explanation for: “his soul remained calm and bright,” but rather a description: “he gazed with enjoyment at the wild field, and at the trees that he had previously disdained, with the birds singing on them – they appeared to him like heaven” – as Motolinía writes.59 The latter is perhaps a more detailed description, but it is not a psychological explanation. With Torquemada, we do find a psychological theory. A mental state has a full internal description, which is utterly separate from any perception of reality. The perception of reality is a product of that interior world – resulting from a causal relationship – and not part of its characterization. The interior world is populated with objects with which a person has a relationship. The relationship is the same familiar relationship of possession and dominion. 3.3.4.1 Tyrannical Rule and Ownership The central connection that I wish to point out is the way in which the world of ownership produces the separation between private and public space, and the way in which this separation becomes central for understanding the stories of cruelty. The sixteenth century stories of cruelty deal with the violation of the law, while the seventeenth century stories deal with violating that which belongs to humans – the model of belonging is that which is found in private space. It was an entourage of so many important lords from among Moctezuma’s people, who obeyed him more out of fear than out of the love that is due to a natural monarch, because each of them wanted to be a lord unto himself in his own corner and abode.60 In Chapter 1, we looked at how the transition from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century presents us with a new concept of freedom, which centers on the concept of control – a free person is one who has control of his life. The discussion of cruel tyrannical rulers reconnects us to the concept of freedom through a consideration of its negation. One of the new characteristics of 59 60 Motolinía, Historia de Los Indios de La Nueva España, 149–150. Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 1: 316. Cruelty 135 governmental cruelty, as described by Torquemada, is the denial of freedom. What interests Torquemada is a person’s control of his property. The concept of privacy is central to his discussion, as the concept of privacy is founded on the space that is in the exclusive control of man. Torquemada speaks about the corner which each person seeks for himself. Dominion and ownership are keys to the comprehension of an entire complex of phenomena. The tyrannical ruler’s dominion was not natural, and therefore he needed violence: the meaning of that violence is the denial of his subjects’ freedom. The freedom denied those subjects is the freedom to control the corner that is properly theirs. This discussion touches upon the most limited space over which a person has control and where no one else can gain entry, and that is his free will: Since although he knew that he was the lord over the bodies of his subjects, he also knew that he was not lord over their soul and will (for he who rules through physical power subjects the body but does not subject the free potential of the soul).61 Freedom passes from public and objective space into the interior space. A person is free when he is in control of his own – of his private space. 3.3.4.2 Ius dominium The story recounted so far, about new fears and a new type of person, resonates certainly with the stormy theological and philosophical debates of that era. I have mentioned Thomas Hobbes, Machiavelli, and Montaigne, and will later return to Descartes – all thinkers whose influence on modern philosophy is clear and well known. I shall now address the debate that was taking place at the time between philosophers normally associated with the theological world of that period. The relationship between Torquemada’s stories and the world of theological debate is certainly not a unilateral one. The interesting direction, in my opinion, is that in which the philosophical world reflects changes in the attitude to the world. In the theological thinking of the seventeenth century, one can see a turn from a concept of justice as loyalty to an objective law or of justice as equality to a concept of justice that is related to ownership. The relationship between right and property and their connection to ownership were a matter of concern to the seventeenth century Spanish thinkers. The Latin concept of ius can 61 Ibid., 5: 181. 136 chapter 3 help illustrate some of these conceptual changes. Ius is a concept that vacillates between the two poles of lex (law) and dominium (ownership).62 The pole associating ius with possessions, property, or ownership, is the same pole from which the modern concept of right has sprung: it emphasizes the violation of the possessor of a right as opposed to the violation of the law. The link between right and property relates to a violation of property as a paradigmatic violation of a right belonging to persons. One of the criteria that distinguishes between law and right is the question of authority to forfeit a right. The owner of property may transfer it to another as he wishes. But when a violation is described as a violation of the law, no person may ‘forfeit’ either the law or the punishment. Even when it appears that the purpose of the law is to defend the private person, this private person may not forfeit the protection of the law – the violation is described as a violation of the law itself, and not of the individual. In 1592, the Portuguese Jesuit Luis De Molina argued that the right to freedom is a kind of property that is in the possession of persons, and it is his right to commerce in it as he wishes.63 A person is the owner [dominus] not only of his external goods, but also of his honor and reputation; he is also the owner [dominus] of his freedom, and in the context of natural law, he may expropriate it from himself and enslave himself.64 During this time period, Portugal was one of the hubs of the slave trade, and the legitimization of slavery served the interests of the Portuguese. However, Molina’s argument fits in with a comprehensive reorientation, of which we can learn from the writings of Torquemada, a Franciscan in the New World. The pragmatic explanation tying Molina’s description to Portugal’s anticipated windfall from the slave trade is inconsistent with the fact that at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Dominican Francisco de Vitoria – the most influential theologian and jurist in Spain at that time – argues that there can be no justification for trading in freedom, even for all the gold in the world.65 62 63 64 65 Richard Tuck, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development. Cambridge, uk; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979, 56. Ibid., 45–57. “Ponedumque in primis est, homineum, sicut non solum externorum suorum bonorum, sed atiam proptii honoris et famaeest dominus…sic etiam dominium [sic] esse suae libertatis, atque adeo stando in solo iure naturali, posee eam alienare, seque in servitutem redigere”; Luis de Molina, De Iustitia et Iure I (Mainz, 1614): I cols 162–163. Beltrán de Heredia, “Colección de Dictámenes Inéditos del Maestro Fray Francisco de Vitoria.” Ciencia Tomista 43 (1931): 173–175; Quoted by Tuck, Natural Rights Theories, 49. Cruelty 137 Vitoria stresses the objective, external status of the concept of ius. He advances this argument at precisely the time when the slavery of blacks and Indians in the new world is at issue. Vitoria’s approach can more easily be converted into the language of prohibition, than can the language of right. The person who will continue Molina’s line of thought in seventeenth century Spain is the Jesuit Francisco Suárez, whose positions we encountered in the context of the rise of individualism. Suárez writes: It is customary to call ius property a certain moral faculty that anyone has either regarding his own thing or something due to him; and so owner of a thing is said to have a right in the thing [ius in re] and a workmen is said to have a right to his wage [ius ad rem].66 Suárez clearly distinguishes right from law: the relationship Suárez describes as pertaining between a person and his right is a relationship of ownership. The person owns the right. The relationship between lex and ius are a concern for all medieval thinkers from the time of Isidore of Seville. However, the strong association between right and ownership becomes salient only in the seventeenth century. Hugo Grotius, a contemporary of Torquemada, like him, displays an interest in a number of anthropological phenomena and types of primitive religion. However, Grotius is a protestant theologian, and what I wish to demonstrate here is a deviation from the protestant thought of his time, bringing him closer to the approach presented by Torquemada: For what is that well known concept ‘natural liberty’ other than the power of the individual to act in accordance with his own will? And liberty in regard to actions is equivalent to dominium in material things.67 Grotius clearly formulates the connection between justice and possessions, which I have attempted to construct in the last chapter. We can now return to the descriptions of governmental cruelty and tie up the loose ends, by showing how they fit in with the new scheme centering on the concept of ownership. There is a great difference between government /dominion whose model is the governance of a just society, as we find in the sixteenth century writing, 66 67 Suárez, Tractatus de Legibus, 1, 2,5, 24; Quoted by Brian Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law, and Church Law, 1150–1625. Atlanta, ga: Scholars Press, 1997, 303. Hugo Grotius, De iure praedae commentarius. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950, 18; Quoted by Tuck, Natural Rights Theories, 60. 138 chapter 3 and dominion modeled on ownership. In the dominion model, governmental cruelty is perceived as an attempt to deny a person’s control of what belongs to him by right.68 The question of dominion itself becomes a psychological question for Torquemada – a question pertaining to the private and interior space of the ruler, at the heart of which is the connection between the ruler’s behavior and the type of ownership he exercises over his property. The place of cruelty in both models is different: in the first case, cruelty is an instrument for creating order, and in this case cruelty is regarded as an object in space. An example of this is the women hanging from the trees in Landa’s description. In the second case, in Torquemada’s seventeenth century descriptions, the location of cruelty is always in interior space, in the disquieted heart of the ruler or in the sealed room of the sinning son who was hanged. The concept of ownership stands at the center of this private world. 68 Suarez argues that the political authority meets the needs of human nature. In case of a breaking of the social framework, the needy have a right to the property of others. In cases of tyranny, the contract, on the merit of which the rulership is transferred to the ruler, is null and the rulership returns to the people: Knud Haakonssen, Natural Law and Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 18. Conclusion The phrase ‘spiritual conquest’ embodies one of the most basic models of religious-cultural expansion: religion as dominion, conversion as accepting the authority of new ruler, and a war against the former ruler-gods. This formidable image lies in the background of all deliberate cultural expansion, but sometime the uniform image of conquest effaces our awareness of the deep nature of conversion, of the profound human transformation and the internalization of a world of values of various types and forms. Much historiographic attention has been paid to the relationship between cultural expansion and the contents of local religions. In this book I have attempted to underscore the relationship between the contents that are to be transmitted and the nature of transmission. The relationship between the object of transmission and its nature is a logical relation, which I have aimed to establish in this book. The book deals with the transformation occurring at the heart of the Catholic world, the world intended to be transmitted and reflected in the writings of its emissaries to the New World. This transformation touches upon three central questions that are at the heart of any deliberate cultural expansion: 1. What is to be transmitted? 2. How should this world of value be transmitted (in this context, What is the status and role of the transmitter/instructor?)? 3. Who is the enemy – the ethical enemy from which those instructed must be released? The previous chapter ended with Torquemada’s descriptions of tyranny. Torquemada describes tyranny, the Indian form of rule, in terms of treachery and greed, whose outcomes are injustice in the realm of property rights, and deprivation of the subjects’ freedom. This chapter in local history was ended by the Spanish conquest. Using this description as a foil, Torquemada will point out the values to be established by the spiritual conquest. The spiritual conquest, in this context, is founded on a historical narrative of emancipation from a tyranny whose essence is the deprivation of property and personal freedom. This narrative is not unfamiliar: some 400 years after Torquemada, George W. Bush, leader of the free world, would use similar terms in his inauguration speech, invoking “the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”1 Bush’s narrative and resonates more deeply with Torquemada’s narrative when we take into account that George W. Bush was also the leader of the nation most identified with capitalism, an ideology that links property rights to freedom. The fact that capitalist ideology is usually associated with the 1 G.W. Bush, Inauguration Speech Transcript: ‘No Justice without Freedom’, Washington, 20 January 2005. Available at: http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/bush.transcript/. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004284555_006 140 Conclusion Protestant ethic while Torquemada was a Catholic missionary points toward connections demonstrated in the book between trends found in Torquemada’s writing and trends regarded as part of the Protestant ideology. Freedom, man’s central expression according to Torquemada’s writings, becomes in the process of cultural expansion – ‘the spiritual conquest’ of the modern democracies – a goal unto itself, which seemingly contains no positive content other than “emancipation from…” For Bush, cultural expansion is equated with “expansion of freedom”: “the best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”2 This narrative, in which cultural expansion is supposed to liberate from tyranny and end the suppression of freedom, is not the only narrative that associates tyranny with cultural expansion: in the beginning of the sixteenth century Motolinía presents another narrative that associates tyranny with the transmission of Christianity: The second reason for idolatry was the tyranny of some of the kings and masters who wished to be honored not only in their presence but also in their absence, and for this reason they had sculptures and drawings made in their image and taken to distant places so that they would be honored and adored through them.3 Motolinía associates tyranny with the narrative of ‘spiritual conquest’ as a war between Christian monotheism and idolatry, a war between the real god and false gods. However, the banishment of idolatry described by Motolinía is not depicted as a struggle between real and false supernatural forces, because the idols do not possess supernatural powers. In the preceding paragraph, Motolinía explains that the chief source of idolatry are sculptures and drawings of dead relatives and loved ones, and their main function is to provide comfort and remembrance. The idolatry depicted by Motolinía is a sort of diversion of the gaze from the world toward unreal things – unreal in the same sense that imagination and dreams are unreal because they sustain a world that is not public. The war against idolatry is a war against un-reality, the seeing of unreal things. We have already encountered a story by Torquemada about the remembrances of relatives, involving neither drawings nor sculptures, but rather a father who keeps alive the memory of his son by preserving his room. 2 Ibid. 3 Motolinía, Memoriales, 238–239. Conclusion 141 He later commanded that the doors to the son’s room be sealed off, and, deeply pained, decided never to pass through them, so that when they fell into ruin, the recollection of his pain would disappear.4 While Motolinía’s spiritual conquest is supposed to change the face of the earth – the visible environment – and to banish from it the unreal and public cruelty, Torquemada’s spiritual conquest is intended to transform relationships of liberty, property, private space, and free will. The drawings and sculptures with which the tyrannical ruler fills the land will be replaced by the transmitters of Christianity with large crosses; in the seventeenth century the crosses, like the pictures that carry memory, will be replaced with relics and holy places. It is possible to think of the visual model of conversion that I am attributing to missionaries of the sixteenth century as an allegory of ethical transformation. In this book I have attempted to show that the status of vision in the worldview of sixteenth century missionaries, and the way in which that worldview was transmitted, is not that of an illustration to a real explanation. Vision plays a central part in an entire ethical worldview, truth is visible in the world, and through vision one can explain/show a new ethical world and in a certain sense prove it. The awakened see a new world, and an incorrect vision is a path to the devil’s world. In the book Rhetorica Christiana, Diego de Valadés describes a conversion technique resting on visual exemplification.5 In the vision model, there is an ethical teacher, a missionary, whose role it is to show, and in so doing, to prove and instruct. This role, in essence, necessitates a lack of involvement in the world itself – lack of involvement in the scientific sense in which the position of the person demonstrating the proof and his mode of action have no effect on the proof itself. In the course of the book, I have attempted to show the conceptual links between such non-involvement and humility and self-dissolution. This picture of viewing a new and different world, the true world, is replaced in Torquemada’s writing by an image of a new man. The converted man is a man of new property and new relations with the world which are built through ties to a religious teacher; the new relations with the world are modeled on a physical relationship, and sometimes require actual physical contact. Within this worldview, the place of the evil that must be routed – like the place of the converters/missionaries – is very different from its place in the former world. The false, terrible, and cruel sights are replaced by an unseen betrayal and 4 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 1: 162. 5 Diego Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana (Perugia, 1579). 142 Conclusion violation of liberty. In this world there is a place for the virgin of Guadalupe, who is formed out of local soil, and for holy relics that arrive from Spain and are tied to history. By way of contrast, abstract crosses and modesty lose their exclusive position. The main argument of this book stands on two pillars: a historical pillar and a conceptual pillar. The historical pillar is a review of the transformations in the New World. The conceptual pillar focuses on the characterization of two ethical models, whose meanings transcend the historical context from which they arise. These models can therefore be brought into affinity with our world and perhaps even illuminate contemporary ethical issues. In the next section, I wish to demonstrate the connection between ethics, history, and philosophy from a new perspective, with the assistance of the ideas of Cavell and Descartes, and place the individualistic trends found in the conversion stories in a broader historical and philosophical perspective. So I will pick up the twist in the story of the discovery of the individual where Descartes placed it in his Meditations – before, so to speak, either individual or institutional differences come to play. This twist is Descartes’s discovery that my existence requires, hence permits, proof (you might say authentication) – more particularly, requires that if I am to exist I must name my existence, acknowledge it.6 Cavell’s story is a twist in its own right – a genuine twist in the story of modern philosophy. When Cavell says “my existence requires hence permits proof (you might say authentication),” he is not referring to an abstract philosophical need that is divorced from life, of the kind we usually call a philosophical problem, but rather to a human existential need. The relationship between existential angst and philosophy is not incidental – as I have already mentioned, Cora Diamond suggests that existential problems tend to appear as philosophical problems. These are genuine human difficulties whose natural manifestation is as a semantic failure. When this perspective is adopted as a methodological tool, when the philosophical problem is used as a lens to see the conceptual world from within which such an existential need becomes alive and meaningful, one gains a new way for bringing philosophical discussion into historical space. 6 Stanley Cavell, “Being Odd, Getting Even: Threats to Individuality.” In Reconstructing Individualism: Autonomy, Individuality, and the Self in Western Thought, edited by Thomas C. Heller and Christine Brooke-Rose. Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 1986, 278. Conclusion 143 Cavell’s twist brings Descartes’ story back into the human, ethical, and historical dimension. This entails going back to the very things in Descartes’ story that make it a meaningful human one, the very things that we have become accustomed to seeing as mere scaffolding that should be discarded once the philosophical problem has been constructed. This is where we find Descartes’ room and his body, but prior to these we find his personal expression. I am, I exist, is necessarily true every time that I pronounce it or conceive it in my mind.7 Cavell turns the trivial first person declaration “I am” into a kind of action that provides the necessary support required to render the world a certainty.8 The world depends on a declaration: the declaration “I.” Following Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” Cavell continues to describe two additional postures of certainty: standing and sitting. The idea behind both modes is that of finding and taking and staying in a place. What is good in these postures is whatever makes them necessary to the acknowledgment, or the assumption, of individual existence, to the capacity to say “I.” That this takes daring is what standing (up) pictures; that it takes claiming what belongs to you and disclaiming what does not belong to you is what sitting pictures. Sitting is thus the posture of being at home in the world (not peeping, stealing, skulking, or, as he also says, leaning), of owning or taking possession.9 With these two postures, I’d like to return to the historical narrative. Descartes lived, worked, wrote, and studied in the Catholic world of the CatholicReformation, more or less at the same time that Torquemada was writing. Two modes in “self-reliance” are connected to the states of uncertainty we have encountered in Torquemada. Torquemada added a dimension of judgment and action to many of the stories: the decision was accompanied by two modes: 7 René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 16. 8 Jaakko Hintikka, “Cogito, Ergo Sum: Inference or Performance?” Philosophical Review 71, no. 1 (1962): 3–32. 9 Cavell, “Being Odd, Getting Even: Threats to Individuality.” In Reconstructing Individualism: Autonomy, Individuality, and the Self in Western Thought, 286; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York: Signet Classics, 2011. 144 Conclusion withdrawal, which guarantees that the judgment is interior, and the activeness of the action, the result of the decision. Cavell adds to this the connection between the two postures and the fear of the dissolution of the “I” – the fear of being incapable of saying “I.” In Torquemada too, we encountered a great fear of the individual’s dissolution. Torquemada does not believe that the danger of the self being forgotten, dissolved or nullified requires a philosophical resolution in the form of a proof. Such a resolution is undoubtedly Descartes’ innovation, but it is perhaps precisely this innovation which opened a gateway into a new philosophical world, that conceals the human psychological root of these fears. Torquemada expresses fears of two kinds. The first is a fear of the dissolution, or more precisely, forgetting of the self caused by the passage of time. Another kind of dissolution is the result of regarding someone not as an individual but as part of a group. The second fear, which I shall address presently, is the fear of losing one’s freedom, a freedom that is realized by means of control. The problem of control is related to the problem of nullification, because one of the ways of resisting the nullification of the self is by setting into motion processes which allows one to leave a personal mark in the world. To conclude, I wish to compare Torquemada’s fear of losing control to the fear expressed by Descartes in relation to existence: the fear that perhaps I do not exist. Descartes charts a path beginning with those things that can be doubted, and ending with what is the most certain – a path from the external world to the inner world. This path passes through one’s room and arrives at the body: I am here, seated by the fire, wearing a winter dressing gown, holding this paper in my hands, and other things of this nature. And how can I deny that these hands and this body are mine?10 Torquemada describes a similar journey, but his polar extremes do not extend from doubt to certainty, but from lack of control to control. Torquemada’s question is not about the foundation of certainty, but about the basis of control. The fear of losing the ability to control oneself is the fear embodied in a personified enemy: this is not Descartes’ evil demon, but the tyrannical ruler: It was an entourage of so many important lords from among Moctezuma’s people, who obeyed him more out of fear than out of the love that is due 10 Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, 13. Conclusion 145 to a natural monarch, because each of them wanted to be a lord unto himself in his own corner and abode.11 The tyrannical ruler limits another human being’s domain of control, first to the confines of his room, but, as in Descartes’ story, these confines do not provide a sufficient foundation for security and control. The boundaries of control are reduced to the body, and then to their final core: Since although he knew that he was the lord over the bodies of his subjects, he also knew that he was not lord over their soul and will (for he who rules through physical power subjects the body but does not subject the free potential of the soul).12 Torquemada’s sequence ends with the most fundamental form of control – that of the mind and the will. But he does not take the additional philosophical step that Descartes takes: he does not attempt to refine his ideas in abstraction. And yet, I would claim that his writings disclose the same grounds of wonder or fear shared by Descartes. In this I wish to point out that the original and groundbreaking thought experiment that Descartes performed was born from, or perhaps expresses, certain ethical forces that were its precursors, and these are to be found in the Catholic culture in which he was educated. These forces might appear as natural or universal, but the comparison of 16th century texts with those of Torquemada reveals that both these fears and these desires are entirely new. In 16th century missionary writings, we encounter a religious desire for selfnullification. Humans do not draw certainty and security from their selves but rather from the world, and such certainty is not based on understanding causes or grounds, but rather on clarity. The threat endangering all these is that of submerging oneself in the personal and private and withdrawing from the world: he who looks outward to the world is healed. “Since this land is covered with high mountains, they built large and tall crosses and worshiped them, and on looking at them, those still engrossed in idolatry were cured.”13 The world of the 16th century missionaries, like that of Torquemada, is an ethical world in which human aspiration can be defined as the aspiration for realism. In the previous world realism belongs to lasting truths, to justice, and to universal values. In such a world: a person gazes at crosses or at corpses in 11 12 13 Torquemada, Monarquía Indiana, 1: 316–317. Ibid., 5: 181. Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España, 25. 146 Conclusion the town square and achieves understanding. What does he understand? He comprehends truth or justice, concluding that there is order in the world. In the later world, realism belongs to matter, to the concrete and to the body – whatever is unique to the personal. Humans seek to leave a trace, to touch something concrete. The great enemy of the first missionaries was the blinding pride that conceals the world. The world is alive, full of birds, surprising. The believing person must live in it lightly, effortless, with a sense of security in the world. A chance encounter on the main road may be a life changing experience. This is not a mechanistic world in which process is the most important thing. In this ethical world, things have an order and a purpose, but in order to comprehend them, a mechanistic system of causality is of no use – understanding here is much more akin to geometrical understanding. The balancing effect of justice has a central standing in such a world, because injustice is perceived primarily as the unsettling of the balance between good and evil. This world is replaced by a world in which the person derives a sense of security primarily from himself – in a room with the objects contained in it, which is closed off from the world. A secure thing is that which can be touched, moved, and controlled: the body thus becomes the thing with the most certainty. A person who controls first himself and next his possessions is a person who can leave a mark in the world, a mark of his own uniqueness. This world clearly separates that which is visible from that which is true, which can be touched. That which is true is the personal and the unique: blood and the body. Belonging and ownership are the most important relationships in such a world. Ties based on relatedness, and especially ties between family members are of the most importance. The gravest injury in this world is treason, because treason harms important things, which are not visible. Treason leaves the visible world as it is, but under the visible skin there lives a different body. Bibliography Primary Sources Acosta, José de, “Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias.” In Obras del P. José de Acosta, edited by Francisco Mareos, 2–247. Madrid: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 1999. Alanus, The Art of Preaching. Kalamazoo, mi: Cistercian Publications, 1981. Amadís de Gaula, edited by Juan Avalle-Arce and Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. 2 vols. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1991. Aristotle, The Poetics of Aristotle, translated by Samuel Henry Butcher, 1999. http:// www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1974. Avila, Teresa de, Teresa, 1515–1582 las Moradas. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1985. Bacon, Francis, Advancement of Learning. Whitefish, mt: Kessinger Publishing, 1994. Bustamente, Francisco de, “Información por el Sermón de 1556.” In Testimonios Históricos Guadalupanos, edited by Ernesto de la Torre Villar and Ramiro Navarro de Anda. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1982. Câmara, Luís Gonçalves da, Acta Patris Ignatii, edited by Fernandez Zapico and Candido de Dalmases. Rome: Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, 1943. Cortés, Hernán, “Cuarta Carta.” In Cartas de Relación, edited by Mario Hernándes Sánchez-Barba. Madrid: Dastin, 2000. Cossio, Francisco González de, Relación Breve de la Venida de los de la Compañía de Jesús a La Nueva España Año de 1602: Manuscrito Anónimo del Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Hacienda. Mexico City: Imprenta Universitaria, 1945. De Mendieta, Gerónimo, Vidas franciscanas. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma, 1945. ——, Historia Eclesiástica Indiana, edited by Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1971. De Torquemada, Juan, Monarquía Indiana. 7 vols. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1975. Descartes, René, Meditations on First Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Díaz del Castillo, Bernal, Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España. Madrid: Empr. del Reyno, 1632. ——, Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España: Manuscrito “Guatemala.” Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2005. Durán, Diego, Ritos Y Fiestas de los Antiguos Mexicanos. Mexico City: Editorial Cosmos, 1980. Francisco de Florencia, Zodiaco Mariano, edited by P. Juan Antonio de Oviedo. Mexico City: Colegio de San Ildefonso, 1755. 148 Bibliography Grotius, Hugo, De Iure Praedae Commentarius, translated by Gwladys L. Williams and Walter H. Zeydel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950. Heredia, Beltrán de, “Colección de Dictámenes Inéditos del Maestro Fray Francisco de Vitoria.” Ciencia Tomista 43 (1931): 27–50; 169–180. Herrera, Fernando de, “Sonetos.” In edited by Ramón García González. Alicante: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2005. Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan: Or, the Matter, Forme & Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civill, edited by Alfred Rayney Waller. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1904. Hume, David, Treatise of Human Nature. Buffalo, ny: Prometheus, 1992. Ignatius of Loyola, Personal Writings: Reminiscences, Spiritual Diary, Select Letters Including the Text of the Spiritual Exercises, translated by Joseph A. Munitiz, and Philip Endean. London: Penguin Books, 1996. Iriarte, Lázaro, “Leyenda de los Tres Compañeros.” In Escritos, Biografías, Documentos de la Época, edited by José Antonio Guerra. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1998. Ixtlixóchitl, Fernando de Alva, Obras Históricas, edited by Edmundo O’Gorman. Mexico City: unam, 1985. Jerome, St., “Letter CVIII. To Eustochium.” In The Principal Works of St. Jerome, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, 195–212. Grand Rapids, mi: WM.B. Eerdmans, 1892a. ——, “Letter LXI. To Vigilantius.” In The Principal Works of St. Jerome, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, 131–133. Grand Rapids, mi: WM.B. Eerdmans, 1892b. “La Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, y de Sus Fortunas y Adversidades.” In La Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, y de Sus Fortunas y Adversidades ,edited by Aldo Ruffinatto, Madrid: Castalia, 2001. Landa, Diego de, Landa’s Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán, a Translation. Cambridge, ma: The Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, 1941. ——, Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán, edited by Miguel Rivera Dorado. Madrid: Historia, 1985. Las Casas, Bartolomé de, Apologética Historia Sumaria, edited by Edmundo O’Gorman. 2 vols. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1967. ——, In Defense of the Indians: The Defense of the Most Reverend Lord, Don Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, of the Order of Preachers, Late Bishop of Chiapa, against the Persecutors and Slanderers of the Peoples of the New World discovered across the Seas. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1974. ——, Brevísima relación de la destruyción de las Indias. Buenos Aires: Stockcero, 2006. Laso de la Vega, Luis, The Story of Guadalupe: Luis Laso de la Vega’s Huel Tlamahuiçoltica of 1649, translated and edited by Lisa Sousa, Stafford Poole, and James Lockhart. Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 1998. Bibliography 149 León, Luis de, Obras Completas Castellanas de Fray Luis de León, edited by Félix García. Madrid: Editorial Católica, 1951. López, Atanasio, “Vida de Fray Martín de Valencia, Escrita por su Compañero Fr. Francisco Jiménez.” Archivo Ibero Americano 26 (1926): 48–84. López de Gómara, Francisco, La Conquista de México, edited by José Luis de Rojas. Madrid: Dastin, 2000. Machiavelli, Niccolò, Il Principe; E Discorsi Sopra la Prima Deca di Tito Livio. Florence: Felice le Monnier, 1857. Mitudela, Benjamin, son of Jonas, The Travels of Rabbi Benjamin. Brisgoya [Freiburg]: Hazifroni, 1582 (in Hebrew). Moles, Juan Bautista, Memorial de la Provincia de San Gabriel, edited by Hermenegildo Zamora Jambrina. Madrid: Editorial Cisneros, 1954. Molina, Luis de, De iustitia et iure. Moguntiae: Excudebat Nicolaus Heyll, sumptibus haeredum Joannis Godofredi Schönwetter, 1659. Montaigne, Michel de, “Of Vanity.” In Complete Essays, Vol. 3, 721–766. Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 1958. Motolinía, Toribio, “Historia de Los Indios de la Nueva España.” In Colección de Documetos para la Historia de México, edited by Joaquín García Icazbalceta. 2 vols. Mexico City: J.M. Andrade, 1858. ——, Memoriales: O Libro de las Cosas de la Nueva España y de los naturales de ella, edited by Edmundo O’Gorman. 2nd ed. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1971. Murillo, Diego, Fundación milagrosa de la Capilla Angelica y Apostolica de la madre de Dios del Pilar y excellencias de la imperial ciudad de Çaragoça: diuidese en dos tratados. En Barcelona: por Sebastian Mateuad, 1616. Narciso, Camós, Iardin de Maria Plantado en el Principiado de Cataluña. Barcelona: Orbis, 1949. Obregón, Luis González, Época Colonial. México Viejo, Noticias Históricas, Tradiciones, Leyendas y Costumbres. Mexico City: Editorial Patria, 1945. Olmos, Andrés de, Arte de la Lengua Mexicana, edited by Ascensión Hernandez and Miguel León Portilla. Madrid: Ediciones de Cultura Hispánica, 1993. Ramírez, José Fernando, “Noticias de la Vida y Escritos de Fray Toribio de Benavente, O Motolinía.” In Colección de Documentos para la Historia de México, edited by Joaquín García Icazbalceta. 2 vols. Mexico City: J.M. Andrade, 1858. Resines, Luis, Catecismos Pictográficos de Pedro de Gante, Incompleto y Mucagua. Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española, 2007. Sahagún, Bernardino de, Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España. 2 vols. Crónicas de América, edited by Juan Carlos Temprano. Madrid: Dastin, 2001. Scotus, John Duns, “Ordinatio.” In Opera Omnia, edited by C. Balic. Vatican City: Civitas Vaticana: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1950. 150 Bibliography Shakespeare, William, The Merchant of Venice. Boston: Ginn, 1945. Suárez, Francisco, Suarez Tractatus de Legibus, Ac Deo Legislatore, translated by Gwladys L. Williams. Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon, 1944. ——, De Legibus, edited by Edición crítica bilingüe. 8 vols. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Francisco de Vitoria, 1971. ——, “Disputacion V: Sobre la Unidad Individual y su Principio.” In Los Filósofos Escolásticos de los Siglos XVI y XVII, edited by Clemente Fernández. Madrid: La Editorial Católica, 1986. ——, Suárez on Individuation: Metaphysical Disputation V, Individual Unity and Its Principle, translated by Jorge J.E. Gracia. Milwaukee, wi: Marquette University Press, 1982. Teresa de, Jesús, Libro de la Vida, edited by Dámaso Chicharro. Madrid: Cátedra, 1987. The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes: A Critical Edition, Including the Original Spanish Text, translated and edited by Alfonso J. García Osuna. Jefferson, nc: McFarland & Co., 2005. Villar, Ernesto de la Torre, and Ramiro Navarro de Anda, “Información por el Sermón de 1556.” In Testimonios Históricos Guadalupanos. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1982. Vitoria, Francisco de, “De Aquello a Que Esta Obligado el Hombre Cuando Llega al uso de Razón (1535).” In Relecciones Teológicas. Tomo III, edited by Teófilo Urdanoz. Madrid: Editorial Católica, 1960. Zurita, Alonso de, Historia de la Nueva España. Madrid: Libreria General de V. Suarez, 1909. Zwingli, Ulrich, De Vera et falsa Religione (microform). Zürich: Froschauer, Christoph, 1525. Secondary Sources Aers, David, “Figuring Forth the Body of Christ: Devotion and Politics.” Essays, Medieval Studies 2 (1995): 1–14. Alva, José Jorge Klor de, “Telling Lives: Confessional Autobiography and the Reconstruction of the Nahua Self.” In Spiritual Encounters: Interactions between Christianity and Native Religions in Colonial America, edited by Nicholas Griffiths and Fernando Cervantes, 136–163. Birmingham, uk: The University of Birmingham Press, 1999. Alva, José Jorge Klor de, et al., The Work of Bernardino de Sahagun: Pioneer Ethnographer of Sixteenth-Century Aztec Mexico. Albany: State University of New York, 1988. Ariès, Philippe, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. New York: Vintage Books, 1965. Bibliography 151 Baraz, Daniel, Medieval Cruelty: Changing Perceptions, Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003. Beckwith, Sarah, Christ’s Body: Identity, Culture and Society in Late Medieval Writings. London: Routledge, 1993. Berlin, Isaiah, Four Essays on Liberty. London; New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. Beverley, John R., “On the Concept of the Spanish Literary Baroque.” In Culture and Control in Counter-Reformation Spain, edited by Anne J. Cruz and Mary Elizabeth Perry. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992. Blackwell, Richard, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible. Notre Dame, in: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991. Boyle, Marjorie O’Rourke, Loyola’s Acts: The Rhetoric of the Self. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Brading, D.A., Mexican Phoenix: Our Lady of Guadalupe: Image and Tradition across Five Centuries. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Brender, Natalie, Larry Krasnoff, and J.B. Schneewind, New Essays on the History of Autonomy: A Collection Honoring J.B. Schneewind. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Burckhardt, Jacob, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, translated by S.G. Middlemore. London; New York: Penguin Books, 1990. Burkhart, Louise M., The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogue in SixteenthCentury Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989. Bynum, Carolyn Walker, Holy Feast and Holy Fast. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. ——, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. New York: Zone Books, 1991. Campbell, Lily Bess, Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes: Slaves of Passion. Cambridge, uk: The University Press, 1930. Carrera, Magali Marie, Imagining Identity in New Spain: Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Paintings. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003. Cavell, Stanley, The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality and Tragedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. ——, “Being Odd, Getting Even: Threats to Individuality.” In Reconstructing Individualism: Autonomy, Individuality, and the Self in Western Thought, edited by Thomas C. Heller and Christine Brooke-Rose, 278–312. Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 1986. Cervantes, Fernando, The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1994. Chesterton, Gilbert K., Orthodoxy. New York: Doubleday, 2001. Christian, William A., Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1981a. 152 Bibliography ——, Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1981b. Clendinnen, Inga, “Disciplining the Indians: Franciscan Ideology and Missionary Violence in Sixteenth-Century Yucatán.” Past and Present 94 (1982): 27–48. ——, Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517–1570. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ——, “‘Fierce and Unnatural Cruelty’: Cortés and the Conquest of Mexico.” Representations 33 (1991): 65–100. Cline, Howard F., “A Note on Torquemada’s Native Sources and Historiographical Method.” The Americas 25, no. 4 (1969): 372–386. Conant, James, “Freedom, Cruelty and Truth: Rorty versus Orwell.” In Rorty and His Critics, edited by Robert Brandom, 268–342. Malden, ma: Blackwell, 2000. Dancy, Jonathan, “Moral Particularism.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Fall 2013, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/ entries/moral-particularism. Deleuze, Gilles, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1988. Delumeau, Jean, Catholicism between Luther and Voltaire: A New View of the CounterReformation. London: Burns & Oates, 1977. Deusen, Nancy van, Between the Sacred and the Worldly: The Institutional and Cultural Practice of Recogimiento in Colonial Lima. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. Di Bella, Stefano, The Science of the Individual: Leibniz’s Ontology of Individual Substance. Dordrecht; New York: Springer, 2005. Diamond, Cora, “Having a Rough Story about What Moral Philosophy Is.” In The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind, edited by Cora Diamond, 367–383. Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1995a. ——, “Missing the Adventure: Reply to Martha Nussbaum.” In The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind, edited by Cora Diamond, 309–319. Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1995b. ——, “Realism and the Realistic Spirit.” In The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind, edited by Cora Diamond, 39–73. Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1995c. ——, The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind. Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1995d. ——, “We Are Perpetually Moralists: Iris Murdoch, Fact, and Value.” In Iris Murdoch and the Search for Human Goodness, edited by Maria Antonaccio and William Schweiker, 79–110. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. ——, “Henry James, Moral Philosophers, Moralism.” The Henry James Review 18, no. 3 (1997): 243–57. ——, “What If X Isn’t the Number of Sheep? Wittgenstein and Thought – Experiments in Ethics.” Philosophical Papers 31, no. 3 (2002): 227–250. Bibliography 153 ——, “The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy.” Partial Answers 1, no. 2 (2003): 1–26. Eire, Carlos M.N., From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of Dying in SixteenthCentury Spain. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “Self-reliance.” In Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by William H. Gilman, 266–293. New York: Signet Classic, 2003. Feldhay, Rivka, “Recent Narratives on Galileo and the Church: Or the Three Dogmas of the Counter-Reformation.” Science in Context 14 (2001): 219–237. Foster, George M., Culture and Conquest: America’s Spanish Heritage. New York: Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, 1960. Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon Books, 1977. ——, The History of Sexuality. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Frankfurt, Harry G., The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Gibson, Charles, “Writings on Colonial Mexico.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 55, no. 2 (1975): 287–323. Gilbert-Santamaria, Donald, Writers on the Market: Consuming Literature in Early Seventeenth-Century Spain. Lewisburg, pa: Bucknell University Press, 2005. González Obregón, Luis, Época Colonial. México Viejo, Noticias Históricas, Tradiciones, Leyendas y Costumbres. Mexico City: Editorial Patria, 1945. Green, Otis H., Spain and the Western Tradition; The Castilian Mind in Literature from el Cid to Calderón. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963. Greenberg, Jeff, Tom Pyszczynski, and Sheldon Solomon, “The Causes and Consequences of the Need for Self-esteem: A Terror Management Theory.” In Public Self and Private Self, edited by Roy F. Baumeister, 189–212. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1986. Greenberg, Jeff, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski, “Terror Management Theory of Self-esteem and Cultural Worldviews: Empirical Assessments and Conceptual Refinements.” In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, edited by Mark P. Zanna, 61–139. San Diego, ca: Academic Press, 1997. Greenblatt, Stephen, Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Greenleaf, Richard E., Zumárraga and the Mexican Inquisition, 1536–1543. Berkeley, ca: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1961. ——, “The Inquisition and the Indians of New Spain: A Study in Jurisdictional Confusion.” The Americas 22, no. 2 (1965): 138–166. ——, The Mexican Inquisition of the Sixteenth Century. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1969. Grimal, Pierre, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Oxford: Blackwell, 1985. 154 Bibliography Gruzinski, Serge, The Mestizo Mind: Pre-hispanic America and European Globalization. New York: Routledge, 2002. Haakonssen, Knud, Natural Law and Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Halbertal, Moshe, and Avishai Margalit, Idolatry. Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1992. Hanke, Lewis, All Mankind Is One: A Study of the Disputation between Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda in 1550 on the Intellectual and Religious Capacity of the American Indians. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1974. Hanks, William F., Converting Words: Maya in the Age of the Cross. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. Herrero García, Miguel, La Vida Española Del Siglo XVII. Madrid: Gráfica Universal, 1933. Hintikka, Jaakko, “Cogito, Ergo Sum: Inference or Performance?” Descartes: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Willis Doney, 108–140. Garden City, ny: Anchor Books, 1967. Hoare, Frederick Russell, The Western Fathers: Being the Lives of ss. Martin of Tours, Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo, Honoratus of Arles, and Germanus of Auxerre. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1954. Jedin, Hubert, “Catholic Reformation or Counter-Reformation.” In The CounterReformation: The Essential Readings, translated and edited by David Martin Luebke, 21–46. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. Johnson, Edgar Nathaniel, and Orville J. Zabel, An Introduction to the History of Western Tradition. Boston: Ginn, 1959. Juderías, Julián, La Leyenda Negra: Estudios Acerca del Concepto de España en el Extranjer. 5th ed. Barcelona: Editorial Araluce, 1917. Kelley, Donald R., The Beginning of Ideology: Consciousness and Society in the French Reformation. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Koselleck, Reinhart, and Todd Samuel Presner, The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts (Cultural Memory in the Present). Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 2002. Krook-Gilead, Dorothea, Three Traditions of Moral Thought. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1959. Lambert, Malcolm, Franciscan Poverty: The Doctrine of the Absolute Poverty of Christ and the Apostles in the Franciscan Order 1210–1323. London: spck for the Church Historical Society, 1961. León-Portilla, Miguel, “Biografía de Torquemada.” In Monarquía Indiana: De los Veinte y Un Libros Rituales y Monarquía Indiana, 7, 13–56. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1975a. Bibliography 155 ——, “Tablas de Análisis de la Fuentes de Todos los Capítulos de los Veintiún Libros.” In Monarquía Indiana: De los Veinte y Un Libros Rituales y Monarquía Indiana, 7, 129–267. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1975b. Lockhart, James, and Stuart B. Schwartz, Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Luebke, David Martin, “Editor’s Introduction.” In The Counter-Reformation: The Essential Readings, edited by David Martin Luebke, 21–46. Malden, ma: Blackwell, 1999. MacCormack, Sabine, Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1991. Malinowski, Bronislaw, “Practical Anthropology.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 2, no. 1 (January 1929): 22–38. Maravall, Jose Antonio, Culture of the Baroque: Analysis of a Historical Structure. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. Margalit, Avishai, The Decent Society. Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1996. ——, The Ethics of Memory. Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2002. Martin, John, “Inventing Sincerity, Refashioning Prudence: The Discovery of the Individual in Renaissance Europe.” The American Historical Review (1997): 1309–1342. Murdoch, Iris, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. New York: Penguin Press, 1993. ——, “Metaphysics and Ethics.” In Iris Murdoch and the Search for Human Goodness, edited by Maria Antonaccio and William Schweiker, 236–252. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Nussbaum, Martha, “Why Practice Needs Ethical Theory: Particularism, Principle and Bad Behaviour.” In Moral Particularism, edited by Brad Hooker and Margaret Olivia Little, 227–256. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. ——, Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 2004. O’Gorman, Edmundo, “Noticias Biográficas Sobre Motolinía.” In Memoriales: O Libro de las Cosas de la Nueva España y de los Naturales de ella, edited by Edmundo O’Gorman, xxiii–xl. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1971. Pagden, Anthony, The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Peirce, Charles S., Nathan Houser, and Christian J.W. Kloesel, The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings. 2 vols. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. Pels, Peter, “The Anthropology of Colonialism: Culture, History, and the Emergence of Western Governmentality.” Annual Review of Anthropology 26, no. 1 (1997): 163–183. Pérez, Antolín Abad, and Cayetano Sánchez, “La Descalcez Franciscana en España, Hispanoamérica y Extremo Orienta.” Archivo Ibero American 59 (1999): 459–481. Peters, Edward, Torture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. 156 Bibliography Phelan, John Leddy, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World: A Study of the Writings of Gerónimo de Mendieta (1525–1604). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970. Polska, Allison, “Elusive Virtue.” Journal of Early Modern History 8, no. 1 (2004): 135–47. Popkin, Richard H, “Savonarola and Cardinal Ximines: Millenarian Thinkers and Actors at the Eve of the Reformation.” In Catholic Millenarianism: From Savonarola to the Abbé Grégoire, edited by Karl A. Kottman, II, 15–27. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer, 2001. Raz, Joseph, “The Truth in Particularism.” In Moral Particularism, edited by Brad Hooker and Margaret Olivia Little, 48–78. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Reff, Daniel T., Plagues, Priests, and Demons: Sacred Narratives and the Rise of Christianity in the Old World and the New. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Ricard, Robert, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico: An Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain, 1523–1572, translated by Lesley Byrd Simpson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. Schneewind, J.B., The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Schumpeter, Joseph Alois, History of Economic Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1954. Seed, Patricia, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492– 1640. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1995. ——, To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts over Marriage Choice, 1574– 1821. Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 1988. Shell, Marc, Money, Language, and Thought: Literary and Philosophical Economies from the Medieval to the Modern Era. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Shklar, Judith N., Ordinary Vices. Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1984. Shuger, Debora K., The Renaissance Bible: Scholarship, Sacrifice and Subjectivity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Smith, Hilary Dansey, Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age: A Study of Some Preachers of the Reign of Philip III. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Tatarkiewicz, Wladyslaw, “Objectivity and Subjectivity in the History of Aesthetics.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 24 (1963): 157–173. Tavarez, David, The Invisible War: Indigenous Devotions, Discipline, and Dissent in Colonial Mexico. Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 2011. Tierney, Brian, The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law and Church Law 1150–1625. Atlanta, ga: Scholars Press, 1997. Tuck, Richard, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Wardropper, Bruce W., “Poetry and Drama in Calderon’s El Medico de su Honra.” Romanic Review 49 (1958): 3–11. Bibliography 157 Waterworth, James, Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and Ecumenical Council of Trent, translated by James Waterworth. Whitefish, mt: Kessinger Publishing, 2003. Watt, Ian P., Myths of Modern Individualism: Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Robinson Crusoe. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Weckmann, Luis, The Medieval Heritage of Mexico. New York: Fordham University Press, 1992. Williams, Bernard, “The Certainty of the Cogito.” In Descartes: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Willis Doney, 88–107. Garden City, ny: Anchor Books, 1967. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1953/2001. ——, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, edited by G.H. von Wright, Rush Rhees, and G.E.M. Anscombe. Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1983. ——, “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough.” In Philosophical Occasions, 1912–1951, edited by James Carl Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, 115–56. Indianapolis, in: Hackett, 1993. Wolf, Eric R., Europe and the People without History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Index Acosta, José de 25, 114 activism 67, 89 admiration 86, 96, 126, 129–130 adultery 123 adulthood 56, 58, 124. See also childhood aestheticism 80, 104 Alanus 24 Alva, José Jorge Klor 45 anthropology 116, 137 Ariès, Philippe 108 art 73–74, 76 asceticism 43–44, 46–47, 52 aspiration 54, 76, 145 authentication 142 authenticity 75, 89 author 37, 77, 79–80, 88–89, 95 authority 36, 38, 104, 123, 136, 139 autonomy 65, 81, 89, 127 Avila, Teresa de 89, 95 awakening 29, 46, 48, 51–52, 55–56, 58–60, 64–67, 89, 141 Babel, Tower of 23–24, 27, 33, 102–104, 121 beautiful 42, 50, 61, 65, 73–77, 79–80, 88, 104, 109–110 Berlin, Isaiah 63, 78 betrayal 96, 114, 116, 123, 141 bird 47, 50, 65, 134, 146 falcon 64–65 The Black Legend 107 blindness 47, 55–57, 65, 67, 83, 103, 133, 146 body 25–27, 29, 31–38, 40, 41–43, 53, 55, 68–71, 76, 79, 87, 100–101, 111–112, 118–119, 130, 135, 143–146 Brading, David 29, 94, 98 Burckhardt, Jacob 9–11, 98 burial 36, 40 Bustamente, Francisco de 28 Bynum, Carolyn Walker 29 Câmara, Luís Gonçalves da Camos, Narciso 27 campo 32 capitalism 139 las Casas, Bartolomé de 54–55, 86, 100, 106–107, 109, 112, 116, 119–121, 124–125, 128–131, 133 causality 27, 47, 71, 102, 134, 146. See also mechanistic model Cavell, Stanley 142–144 ceremony 35, 86, 106–107, 111, 117, 125 Cervantes, Fernando 6, 14, 45 Cervantes, Miguel de 25, 61, 73–74, 76, 102 child 38–41, 52, 56–58, 96, 99, 101, 108, 115, 117, 120, 122, 124, 127 childhood 38, 55, 75, 88, 95–96, 108, 114, 124. See also adulthood Christian, William 27, 35 Christopher Columbus 26, 131 chronicle 80, 97, 106–107, 109, 111–113, 118, 133 chronicler 32, 41, 43, 78, 94, 97, 102, 108–110, 132 Cicero 129 Clendinnen, Inga 4, 110 clothes 39, 41, 43–45, 48, 51–52, 55, 72, 113 Conant, James 120–121, 128 confession 45–46, 82, 108 conqueror 48, 106–107, 109, 116, 133 conquest 38, 78, 131, 139–141 conquistador 106, 134 convent 93 conversion 1, 3–4, 34, 36, 38–41, 52, 58, 75, 80, 114–116, 134, 137, 139, 141–142 corpse 36, 110, 130 Cortés, Hernán 110 crime 109, 120–122, 124 criminal 34, 114, 123 cross 23–27, 30, 35, 66, 89, 111, 141–142, 145 crucified 31 cruelty 83, 92, 104, 106–120, 124, 128, 130, 131–134, 137–138, 141 cult 66, 68, 97–98, 112, 117 cure 25, 77 curiosity 72, 76, 78, 88–89 95 Dancy, Jonathan 66 daughter 79, 95–96, 113–114, 117, 120, 122, 124–125, 127, 129 159 Index death 24, 29, 32–33, 36–37, 48, 50–52, 60, 62, 66, 79–81, 88, 101, 110, 113, 117, 120, 125–127, 132 debate 62, 72, 111, 135 deception 123 decision 55, 58–59, 61–63, 65–69, 74, 80, 89–90, 99–100, 116, 126, 143 decorative 73–75 demonstrate 24, 76, 78, 81–82, 90, 99, 112, 115–116, 127, 129, 137, 139, 141–142 Descartes, René 135, 142–145 desire 29, 37, 46, 48, 53, 57–58, 64, 69, 76–79, 85, 95, 116, 119, 132–133, 145 destruction 23, 25, 91, 106, 109 devil 23, 38–39, 41, 45–47, 49, 56, 64, 112, 133, 141 diabolical 112 Diamond, Cora 65–67, 88, 90, 92, 101–104, 142 Díaz del Castillo, Bernal 78 discipline 122 diversity 54, 140 domination 61 dominion 130–132, 134–137, 139 dream 32, 52 dressing 144 dressed 39, 41, 48 Durán, Diego 111 eagle 57, 60 earth 28–29, 32–33, 35, 52, 57–58, 62, 88, 91, 94, 141 economic 51, 132 education 83, 96, 120, 122, 124, 145 Eire, Carlos M. N. 35 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 143 encounter 87, 89, 101, 104, 112, 121, 131–132, 137, 140, 143–146 epiqueya 126, 128 ermitaño 48 espectaculo 125 ethics 46, 65–67, 69, 72, 81, 89, 92, 102–104, 107, 121, 123, 142 evil 39, 44, 53, 83, 87, 96, 107, 111–112, 114, 116–117, 141, 144, 146 example 1–2 , 12 , 33–34, 73–74, 80–82, 87–88, 91, 93, 96–98, 101, 107, 114–115, 120–122, 124, 126–127, 129 ejemplo 2, 12 ,80 , 82–83, 86, 90, 113, 120, 122 exemplar 80 exemplification 82–83, 89, 141 exercise 61, 138 expansion 4–6, 16, 130, 139–140 Extremadura 28 eyewitness 75 family 32, 37–38, 93–99, 114–116, 124, 126, 129–130, 146 father 34, 36–37, 44, 58, 96, 113–116, 118, 120, 126, 128–130, 132, 140 feeling 24, 33, 46–48, 51–52, 58, 67, 133 fetus 27 fiction 103 field 29, 32–33, 66, 134. See also campo flower 28, 53, 72, 75 Foucault, Michel 108–109 freedom 44–45, 51, 53, 58, 62–65, 72, 76, 134–136, 139–141, 144–145 friend 32, 34 gardening 90 garment 44, 113 Gaula, Amadís de 123 geometrical 66, 90, 122, 146 Gilbert-Santamaria, Donald 131 goddess 112–113 gossip 89 government 124, 129–131, 134, 137 Granada 95 Greenblatt, Stephen 78, 110, 131 Greenleaf, Richard E 123 Grotius, Hugo 137 Gruzinski, Serge 91–92 Guadalupe 28–29, 94, 98, 142 guilt 41, 82, 102, 121, 132 habito 45, 48 hanging 109–110, 120, 138 hardness 32 heal 66 heaven 50, 75, 77, 121, 134 heroism 65, 78, 91–92, 99, 115, 121–123 historian 29, 72, 77, 91 historiographic 139 Hobbes, Thomas 63, 130–131, 135 160 horror 106–107, 112, 117, 119 house 32, 36, 62, 83, 93, 96, 126 Huizilopchtli 113, 127 humanity 29, 40, 54, 93, 100–101, 112, 124 humble 44, 80, 82, 87 humiliation 34, 43, 107, 124 idolatry 23–25, 36, 38, 83, 92, 110, 114–116, 140 illnesses 106 illusion 119, 121, 128 image 28, 40, 113–114, 139–141 imagination 27, 72, 104, 140 impossibility 59, 101 individualism 44, 59, 68–69, 71, 80, 98–100, 110, 137, 142 individuation 54, 100 infidels 122 inhuman 40 injustice 139, 146 innocent 54, 87, 112 inquisition 110, 124 inspiration 57, 79 instrument 93, 138 intentional 124 interior 109, 125, 134–135, 138, 143 interiority 108 internal 25, 33, 57–58, 74–75, 81, 133–134 intimacy 36–37, 69, 97, 117, 130 intimate 33, 37–38 inward 66, 127 irrationality 103 ius 135, 137 Ixtlixóchitl, Fernando de Alva 127 Janus 129 Juderías, Julián 107 judgment 59, 85, 86, 92, 99–100, 102–104, 119, 122, 124, 128–129, 143 justice 24–25, 39, 53, 64, 73, 76, 79, 93, 104, 106, 114, 117–118, 120–123, 125–132, 135, 137, 139, 145–146 justification 40, 112, 125, 127, 136 Kelley, Donald R. 115 king 45, 61, 86, 100, 113–114, 117, 124–127, 132 kingdom 126 index labyrinth 66 Landa, Diego de 109–110, 116, 118–120, 138 Laso de la Vega, Luis 26, 28 Lazarillo de Tormes 55–56, 59, 64 Legend 28, 48, 72, 107 León, Luis de 95 liberal 45 liberation 28, 64–65 liberty 78, 123, 137, 141 Lockhart, James 28 López, Atanasio 34, 74, 82 love 37, 46–48, 63, 94, 115, 125–126, 134, 144 loyalty 80–81, 135 Loyola, Ignacio de 59, 64, 90, 95 Machiavelli, Niccolò 118–120, 127, 135 machine 74 madness 23, 102–103 Manresa 59 Margalit , Avishai 97, 107 marriage 63, 109, 115 Martin Luther 44–45 martyrdom 36, 58, 100, 111, 114–116, 129, 131 marvelous 24, 50–51, 57, 65, 86 mechanistic model 63, 65, 71, 110, 133, 146 medical 108, 119 medieval 68, 137 memorial 97 memory 38, 88, 91–94, 97, 120, 127–128, 140–141 Mendieta, Gerónimo de 26, 44–47, 50–51, 86, 94, 107 metaphor 28, 44–45, 48, 57–58, 60, 64–65, 74, 90, 122 mice 53–54, 87 miracle 26, 28, 36–38, 50, 75 miraculous 28, 74, 88 Moctezuma 134, 144 modesty 120, 122, 142 Moles, Juan Bautista 97 Montaigne, Michel de 78–79, 118, 135 morality 35, 40–41, 45, 51, 66, 80–81, 85, 87, 89, 91–93, 97, 104, 107–108, 118, 122, 127, 137 Motolinía 23–25, 27, 32–33, 35–36, 38–41, 43–48, 50–54, 56, 58, 60, 64–65, 67, 76–78, 81–83, 85, 87–88, 90–97, 104, 109, 111–112, 116, 120–121, 123, 134, 140–141, 145 161 Index mountain 23, 25–26, 35, 83 murder 36, 39–41, 89, 114–116, 120, 127, 132 Murdoch, Iris 65–67, 71, 90, 92, 103 mystery 72, 80, 88–90 naked 32, 34, 45 nationalism 29, 93, 97–98 natural 34, 96, 112, 117, 119, 126, 128, 130, 132, 134–137, 142, 144–145 natural law 136 naturalistic 33 naturalness 116 nature 50–51, 54, 59–60, 81, 90, 97, 101, 103–104, 116–117, 120, 124–125, 127, 130–131, 139, 144 Nezahualpilli 120, 125, 129 nullification 144 Nussbaum, Martha Craven 67, 102, 104, 124 oath 24, 123 obedience 65, 83, 99, 129 Olmos, Andrés de 121 Omechotli 39 ordinary life 79, 88 Oviedo,Gonzalo Fernández de 29, 95 paganism 25–26 particularism 66, 99, 101–104 personality 64, 69, 82, 89, 133 Phelan, John Leddy 92 Philip II 73, 79, 95 Plato 96 poet 61, 72, 77 poverty 41, 43–44, 46, 51 pray 24, 46–47, 50, 56, 61–62 preach 72 preacher 72, 89 pregnant 27 pride 24–25, 33–34, 47, 77, 102–103, 105, 121–122, 133, 146 protestant 137 psychological 85, 97, 107–108, 110, 114, 132–134, 138, 144 public 25, 27, 32, 41, 54, 66, 76, 82, 90, 99, 106, 109, 111, 116–117, 121–123, 125, 128–130, 134–135, 140–141 punish 24, 120, 122–123, 126 punishment 24, 91, 113, 119–124, 126–128, 136 purgare 119, 127 purification 46, 119–120, 127 purity 119, 121 Don Quixote 73, 102 race 98 rareness 86–88, 100, 125 Raz, Joseph 99 realism 51, 54, 56, 74–75, 88, 92, 100–106, 111, 117, 120, 128, 133–134, 145 recogimiento 122 relic 26–27, 35–37, 68–69, 110, 141–142 rhetoric 72, 75, 78–79 rigor 37, 77 rite 111–113, 117 river 33, 43–44, 59, 95 ruin 23, 27, 126, 141 sacrificial 24, 106, 111–115, 117, 127 Sahagún, Bernardino de 28, 73–74, 108 sambenito 41, 124 savage 130 Scotus, John Duns 43, 54, 100 Seed, Patricia 63, 115–116 sexuality 107–108, 120–123 Shakespeare William 113 shame 41 Shell, Marc 51, 133 Shklar, Judith 114, 118 Shylock 124 Sinister 106 slave 34, 91, 136 sociological 115 song 60–62, 81, 101 soul 35, 47, 60, 62, 64, 67, 107, 126, 133–135, 145 spectacle 86, 100, 110, 118–120, 124, 128 spontaneity 61, 63–64 starvation 47 strangeness 88, 91, 93, 96, 100 Suárez, Francisco 54, 100, 112, 137 162 index teaching 47, 51, 72, 82, 97 teacher 141 temple 23–25, 28 temptation 46, 56, 72, 104 terror 59, 110, 113 Tezozomctli 132 theology 51, 62 Tlalmanalco 32 toad 23–24 Toci 111–113, 117 torture 110, 112–114, 121–122 touching 33, 60 trade 136 tragedy 92, 113 transfiguration 72, 75 translation 36, 40, 75 treachery 114, 139 trust 123, 132 tyranny 83, 106, 109, 126, 132, 134–135, 139–141, 144–145 unhuman universe unrealistic 40 25–26, 33, 38 102–103 verification 75 victim 86, 106, 111–113, 125 violence 23, 107, 132, 135 virgin 27, 98, 109, 142 vision 25, 52, 60, 117–118, 131, 141 visual 27, 33, 38, 52, 67, 76, 90, 109, 111, 117–118, 124, 141 Vitoria, Francisco de 56–57, 128, 136 voluntary 44 wear 41, 51, 117, 144 witness 27, 36, 51, 78–79, 82, 106, 127, 133 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 62, 66, 103, 106 woman 27, 46, 57, 60, 88, 109–110, 113, 116–117, 120, 123, 138 wonder 24, 37, 57, 59–60, 100, 104, 145 worldview 100–101, 141 youth Yucatán 37, 57–59, 95–96, 113, 115 109 Zumárraga, Juan de 37–38, 130 Zurita, Alonso 111–112