This week, many Christian denominations remember Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566), who served as a missionary in the Indies. For example, here’s what the Evangelical Lutheran Church remembrance says about Bartolomé:
A native of Spain, Las Casas first came to the Western hemisphere while serving in the military. Upon arriving in the West, Las Casas was granted a large estate with Indigenous enslaved people whom he freed after he was ordained a priest. He worked in the Caribbean and Central America to improve the lives of the native peoples..
Sundays and Seasons
You might be wondering why Bartolomé is important to a philosopher like me. You’re in luck: In this installment of A Philosopher Loose In Church, I will explain.
Bartolomé was an important intellectual figure in the Renaissance, and he became known as a historian and social reformer. But that’s not how he started: He was one of the first Spanish settlers in the Americas, and at first, he was enmeshed in the economic system that exploited and enslaved indigenous people. Seeing the suffering of these people, he gave up his holdings and social position, sought ordination, became a Dominican friar, and served as a missionary. In this role, he became an advocate for reforms, and he even represented the Mesoamerican peoples at the Council of Valladolid (1550-51), which King Charles V called to address the exploitation and forced conversion of Mesoamerican people. The Council of Valladolid was the first debate in European history concerning the status and exploitation of native Americans. Bartolomé’s position was controversial, as he argued that Mesoamerican civilizations met Aristotle’s criteria for a “civilized nation.” Bartolomé took the side of the indigenous peoples, and he was opposed by humanist scholar Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1490-1573), who argued that native Americans were little more than animals, and as such, they needed to be suppressed and converted, by force, if necessary.
Partly because of Bartolomé’s involvement in these controversies, he wrote extensively about Mesoamerican civilizations and societies. His most famous works are probably A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies and Historia de Las Indias, but many of his works give us contemporary accounts (from a European perspective) of the civilizations, languages, and intellectual achievements of Mesoamerican peoples. Let me illustrate by telling you about a research project I undertook about 25 years ago.
On one of my many travels to Mexico, I realized that the poetry of the ancient Aztecs explored philosophical and theological issues in much the same way as — wait for it — the poetry at the beginning of the Greek philosophical tradition, which we consider the “birth of philosophy.” I set about learning a little classical Nahuatl (the language in which these poems were written) so I could compare the poetry of these great intellectuals to the poetry of Presocratic writers like Hesiod and Parmenides. Bartolomé played a key role in preserving these great works — which has allowed philosophers like me to explore the philosophical and theological ideas of the ancient Aztecs.
Here’s a striking example. The Aztec religion of that time is basically polytheistic, but these great poets began to explore the idea of divinity that lies behind the various manifestations of the divine nature. One of the most insightful concepts of the divine in Nahuatl poetry is the phrase, in tloque, in nahuaque. This phrase appears in various hymns, poems, and philosophical treatises, some of which were preserved in works like the “Florentine Codex” of Bernardino de Sahagún (1499 – 1590).
It’s not easy to translate this phrase. Nahuatl poets tended to use metaphors consisting of pairs of contrasting images to convey their ideas, a technique known as difrasismo (“two phrases”). This particular difrasismo means something like “(the one who owns) the center and the circumference.” This image conveys the idea that, no matter where you look, the divine nature is both close (the center), and encompassing (the circumference). In tloque, in nahuaque has also been translated “the lord of the Near and the Far,” and “he one who is Here and Everywhere.” (Like most people who translate, I like my own translation 😉 )
At any rate, this concept of the nature of the divine is an amazingly profound insight for people considered to be little more than animals! We owe much to Bartolomé’s empathy for and interest in Mesoamerican peoples. Without authors like him, we might not have this amazing body of poetry and other writings, and we would lack an appreciation of these poets’ intellectual achievements.