The Clampdown on Nahuatl and Spanish Bibles in Sixteenth-Century Mexico

In 1577, the Mexican Inquisition called in the foremost Nahuatl language experts, including Bernardo de Sahagún, to debate whether or not exceptions to the ban on vernacular translations of Scripture should be allowed, following the Spanish Inquisition’s ban of a Nahuatl translation of Ecclesiastes.  This exchange took place within a much broader debate about Scripture and its proper role in education, catechism, and everyday spirituality.

This paper offers a global view of this debate.  It considers major arguments about Bible vernacularization, the diffusion of vernacular Scripture and missals in Mexico, and the conundrum of Franciscan catechetical projects, which championed inner spirituality while distrusting direct study of the Bible.  It begins by examining the case of Alfonso de Castro, a Salamanca Franciscan known for his treatises on inquisitional law and a staunch critic of vernacular Bibles, which he saw as a cause, in Luther’s case, of heresies.  Castro, however, was an admirer of Erasmus and an implacable defender of the idea of training an indigenous Nahua clergy in Latin-based Biblical exegesis.  The presentation then examines the Ecclesiastes case in light of an internal Franciscan debate: the split between Erasmian humanists and conservatives, as reflected in the 1573 and 1578 trials against Alonso Cabello, a Franciscan Erasmian.  All of this took place in the context of the formal organization of the Mexican Inquisition and a book purge in Mexico City by its Dominican censor, which turned up dozens of Spanish and Nahuatl Bibles, as well as a clandestine network that preserved condemned works by Erasmus in Franciscan friaries.  Hence, this paper revisits the complex debates about Spanish and Nahuatl versions of Scripture and the inner ideological battles in the Franciscan order concerning the proper use of language—Latin, Spanish or Nahuatl—and Scripture.