ABSTRACT
After the conquest of the Mexica empire came the friars, armed not only with catechisms, but also with theological and humanistic works for the Nahua. The Franciscans were behind these evangelization and religious education projects: Bishop Zumárraga, an avowed Erasmist, brought his personal library, while his brethren established the Colegio de Santa Cruz, a training ground for indigenous intellectuals. While the influence of humanistic education and classical texts on works written by Nahua writers is relatively well known, this chapter moves in a new direction through a survey of theological and humanistic works adapted into Nahuatl in an attempt to refashion an indigenous humanist self. The analysis focuses on a Nahuatl-language adaptation of a political treatise by the influential theologian Denys the Carthusian. Other works in the corpus include Nahuatl versions of the Proverbs of Solomon, banned by the Mexican Inquisition in 1577, and of Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ. By the late sixteenth century, some ecclesiastic and civil authorities began to conceive of these projects as a dangerous strand of humanistic thought that defied Counter-Reformation policies.
