"The religion of the Mexicans," writes Señor Carbajal Espinosa,[VI-18] plagiarizing as literally as possible from Clavigero, "was a tissue of errors and of cruel and superstitious rites. Similar infirmities of the human mind are inseparable from a religious system originating in caprice and fear, as we see even in the most cultured nations of antiquity. If the religion of the Mexicans be compared with that of the Greeks and Romans, it will be found that the latter is the more superstitious and ridiculous and the former the more barbarous and sanguinary. These celebrated nations of ancient Europe multiplied excessively their gods because of the mean idea that they had of their power; restricting their rule within narrow limits, attributing to them the most atrocious crimes, and solemnizing their worship with such execrable impurities as were so justly condemned by the fathers of Christianity. The gods of the Mexicans were less imperfect, and their worship although superstitious contained nothing repugnant to decency. They had some idea, although imperfect, of a Supreme Being, absolute, independent, believing that they owed him tribute, adoration, and fear. They had no figure whereby to represent him, believing him to be invisible, neither did they give him any other name, save the generic one, God, which is in the Mexican tongue teotl, resembling even more in sense than in pronunciation the theos of the Greeks; they used, however, epithets, in the highest degree expressive, to signify the grandeur and the power which they believed him endowed with, calling him Ipalnemoani, that is to say, He by whom we live, and Tloque-Nahuaque, which means, He that is all things in himself. But the knowledge and the worship of this Supreme Essence were obscured by the multitude of gods invented by superstition. The people believed furthermore in an evil spirit, inimical to mankind, calling him Tlacatecololotl, or Rational Owl, and saying that oftentimes he revealed himself to men, to hurt or to terrify them."
"The Mexicans and the Tezcucans," following Señor Pimentel, "recognized the existence of a Supreme Being, of a First Cause, and gave him that generic title Teotl, God, the analogy of which with the Theos of the Greeks, has been already noted by various authors. The idea of God is one of those that appear radical to our very existence.... With the Mexicans and Tezcucans this idea was darkened by the adoration of a thousand gods, invoked in all emergencies; of these gods there were thirteen principal, the most notable being the god of providence, that of war, and that of the wind and waters. The god of providence had his seat in the sky, and had in his care all human affairs. The god of the waters was considered as the fertilizer of earth, and his dwelling was in the highest of the mountains where he arranged the clouds. The god of war was the principal protector of the Mexicans, their guide in their wanderings from the mysterious country of Aztlan, the god to whose favor they owed those great victories that elevated them from the lowly estate of lake-fishermen up to the lordship of Anáhuac. The god of the wind had an aspect more benign.... The Mexicans also worshiped the sun and the moon, and even, it would appear, certain animals considered as sacred. There figured also in the Aztec mythology an evil genius called the Owl-man,[VI-19] since in some manner the good and the bad, mixed up here on earth, have to be explained. So the Persians had their Oromasdes and Arimanes, the first the genius of good, and the second of evil, and so, later, Manicheism presents us with analogous explanations."[VI-20]
THE NAMELESS GOD.
Solis, writing of Mexico and the Mexicans says: "There was hardly a street without its tutelary god; neither was there any calamity of nature without its altar, to which they had recourse for remedy. They imagined and made their gods out of their own fear; not understanding that they lessened the power of some by what they attributed to others.... But for all so many as were their gods, and so complete as was the blindness of their idolatry, they were not without the knowledge of a Superior Deity, to whom they attributed the creation of the heavens and the earth. This original of things was, among the Mexicans, a god without name; they had no word in their language with which to express him, only they gave it to be understood that they knew him, pointing reverently towards heaven, and giving to him after their fashion the attribute of ineffable, with that sort of religious uncertainty with which the Athenians venerated the Unknown God."[VI-21]
The interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis calls the Supreme God of the Mexicans by the name Tonacateotle.[VI-22] The interpreter says: "God, Lord, Creator, Governor of all, Tloque, Nauaq, Tlalticpaque, Teotlalale-Matlava-Tepeva—all these epithets they bestowed on their god Tonacateotle, who, they said, was the god that created the world; and him alone they painted with a crown as lord of all. They never offered sacrifices to this god for they said he cared not for such things. All the others to whom they sacrificed were men once on a time, or demons."[VI-23]
We have already seen from Herrera that "the Mexicans confessed to a Supreme God, Lord, and maker of all things, and the said God was the principal that they venerated, looking towards heaven, and calling him Creator of heaven and earth."[VI-24] In contradistinction to this it may be well to consider the following extract from the same author: "Such was the blindness of the Mexicans, even to the natural light, that they did not think like men of good judgment that all created things were the work and effect of some immense and infinite cause, the which only the First Cause and true God is.... And in Mexico alone (according to the common opinion) they had and adored two thousand gods, of whom the principal were Vizilipuztli and Tezcatlipucatl, who as supreme were set up in the height of the great temple, over two altars.... Tezcatlipucatl was the god of providence, and Vizilipuztli the god of war."[VI-25]
Speaking of Mexican temples[VI-26] and gods, Oviedo says: "But Montezuma had the chief [temple], together with three other prayer-houses, in which he sacrificed in honor of four gods, or idols, that he had; of these they had one for god of war, as the Gentiles had Mars; to another they gave honor and sacrifice as god of the waters, even as the ancients gave to Neptune; another they adored for god of the wind, as the lost heathen adored Æolus; and another still they revered as their sovereign god, and this was the sun.... They had further other gods; making one of them god of the maize-fields, attributing to him the power of guarding and multiplying the same, as the fable-writing poets and ancients of antiquity did to Ceres. They had gods for everything, giving attributes to each according to their surmises, investing them with that godhead which they had not, and with which it was not right to invest any save only the true God."[VI-27]
Speaking in general terms of probably a large part of New Spain, Torquemada, says: "These idolaters did not deny that they had a god called Ypalnemoaloni, that is to say, Lord by whom we live, and his nature is that his existence is in himself:[VI-28] the which is most proper to God, who is in his essence life. But that in which these people erred was in distributing this divinity and attributing it to many gods; yet, in reality, and verily, they recognized a Supreme God, to whom all the others were inferior. But for the greatness of their sins, they lacked faith and ran into this error like the other nations that have done so."
ACOSTA AND TEOTL.
Acosta, as has been already noticed by Professor J. G. Müller, either never heard of or disbelieved in the existence of the name Teotl and of the ideas connected therewith by so many historians.[VI-29] The said Acosta says: "If wee shall seeke into the Indian tongue for a word to answer to this name of God, as in Latin, Deus; in Greeke, Theos; in Hebrew, El; in Arabike, Alla; but wee shall not finde any in the Cuscan or Mexicaine tongues. So as such as preach, or write to the Indians, vse our Spanish name Dios, fitting it to the accent or pronounciation of the Indian tongues; the which differ much, whereby appeares the small knowledge they had of God, seeing they cannot so much as name him, if it be not by our very name: yet in trueth they had some little knowledge.... The Mexicaines almost in the same manner [as the Peruvians] after the supreame God, worshiped the Sunne: And therefore they called Hernando Cortez, Sonne of the Sunne, for his care and courage to compasse the earth. But they made their greatest adoration to an Idol called Vitzilipuztli, the which in all this region they called the most puissant and Lord of all things: for this cause the Mexicaines built him a Temple, the greatest, the fairest, the highest, and the most sumptuous of all others.... But heere the Mexicaines Idolatrie hath bin more pernicious and hurtfull than that of the Inguas, as wee shall see plainer heereafter, for that the greatest part of their adoration and idolatrie, was employed to Idols, and not to naturall things, although they did attribute naturall effects to these Idolls, as raine, multiplication of cattell, warre, and generation, even as the Greekes and Latins have forged Idolls of Phœbus, Mercurie, Jupiter, Minerva, and of Mars. To conclude, who so shall neerely looke into it, shall finde this manner which the Divell hath vsed to deceive the Indians, to be the same wherewith hee hath deceived the Greekes and Romans, and other ancient Gentiles, giving them to vnderstand that these notable creatures, the Sunne, Moone, Starres, and Elements, had power and authoritie to doe good or harme to men."[VI-30]