Sabine MacCormack

Gods, Demons, and Idols in the Andes

During the era in which the Spanish first encountered public religious practices that they perceived to be idolatrous in the Americas, the study of Hermetic and Platonic texts in Europe was reactivating interest in the power of images and idols, and in the agency of demons. In the Americas, Spanish newcomers encountered idolatry, the cult of deities present to their worshippers in material objects of various kinds, as part of daily religious practice. The resulting battle over idols and the beliefs surrounding them is in one sense only an outcrop of debates over idols and demons in the ancient Mediterranean and in medieval and Renaissance Europe. Yet while ancient beliefs about idols were reiterated in Peru, arguments shifted in this new context. At question is whether these arguments achieved anything beyond imposing European ideas and cognitive models on the Andean world?

Demons, Imagination, and the Incas

These verses were recited in Carmelite communities every Christmas by way of calling the monks and nuns to celebrate the festival as a present reality. Indeed, sometimes the Virgin was actually visible. Between 1505 and 1513, a shepherd from Le6n, one Alvar Simon, had seen an apparition of the Virgen del Camino, the Virgin of the Road, for whom therefore, a few years later, a shrine was built on that road where she had been seen.2 Stories abounded in late medieval and Renaissance Spain of such occurrences, impingements by supernatural beings into the doings of everyday. The Virgin and the saints were represented as permanently present in earthly life through their statues, but at times they were perceived to be concretely and truly present in their own persons (fig. 1). In a different sense, Christ was present in the consecrated eucharistic host. This sacramental presence was made concrete in both sacred legend and daily experience. Legend had it that when speaking the words of consecration, Pope Gregory had seen Christ the man of sorrows standing on the altar (fig. 2).3 In the more tangible reality of ordinary life, the popes vision was shared by many medieval and Renaissance Christians who sought to experience the saviors human nature in terms of a personal and tender intimacy.4 At the same time, such visions raised a set of thorny cognitive problems that Thomas Aquinas and other theologians reflected on repeatedly. What exactly did the visionary see when instead of or with the host there seemed to be on the altar the figure of Christ? Aquinas addressed this question by differentiating the substance of an object, what it actually was, from that objects accidents, its external appearance. The substance of the consecrated host, he explained, remained unchanged, for Christ could not be more truly present in a vision than he already was in the eucharistic bread and wine. Instead, the

The fall of the Incas: A historiographical dilemma

In 1556, Hieronymus Cock published a series of twelve engravings, based on drawings by Maerten van Heemskerk. which illustrate the victories of Charles V. The engravings are a telling illustration of concepts of imperial glory then current in Europe. The emperor is shown triumphing over the King of France, the Pope and the Sultan; Tunis is invaded and the protestants in Germany are held at bay. Number six in the series refers to the New World. In the foreground a cannibalistic feast such as Teodor de Bry was later to make notorious is taking place, while in the distance are to be seen Spanish soldiers and ships. A Latin motto. with Spanish and French translations, makes the message clear:

Roma, Constantinopolis, the Emperor, and his Genius

The purpose of the present paper is to examine one way in which divine being or divine existence was expressed in the Ancient World, and to see how in late antiquity the expression of some aspects of divine existence was abandoned, while others survived. The inquiry therefore seeks to contribute to the discussion on change and continuity, and, more specifically, to the problem of what may be understood by conversion from paganism to Christianity in late antiquity.

Ancient Authorities Intertwined

The article surveys and interprets the works produced by Jose de Acosta during his years in the New World and his revisions of, and additions to, those works after his return to Europe. Elucidating Acosta’s engagements with both Scripture and classical literature, the essay urges respect for the various religious, intellectual, and metaphysical commitments that structured Acosta’s arguments. Particular attention is given to Acosta’s wrestling with the limits of ancient geographic knowledge, on the one hand, and to his efforts to understand religion in the New World in light of ancient evidence of knowledge of God before Christianity and patristic essays on the conversion of the ancient Mediterranean.

The virtue of work: an Augustinian transformation

En etablissant qu’aucun metier n’est en lui-meme condamnable et en deplacant la faute de la profession vers l’individu, Augustin opere une “democratisation” des representations sociales et des valeurs liees au monde du travail. Il rompt avec la division entre quaestus liberales et quaestus sordidi, dont Ciceron avait donne la codification classique, et remet en cause l’ideal de l’otium. La rigueur logique d’Augustin et sa participation a la vie des fideles le conduisent, en ce domaine, a une revision plus radicale que celle de ses predecesseurs. Ainsi reformule-t-il le role du travail manuel : non plus simplement en termes d’utilite, mais comme fondement du lien social, y compris dans le cas des moines, qui devraient travailler selon leurs moyens et recevoir selon leurs besoins. Reprenant le concept ciceronien de justice distributive, il en elargit le champ de pertinence de l’elite sociopolitique a l’ensemble de la collectivite humaine. Le travail manuel cesse d’etre antithetique de l’elevation spirituell...

Myth, history and language in the Andes

The Language of the Inka since the European Invasion. By BRUCE MANNHEIM. Foreword by Paul Friedrich. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991. Pp. xvii, 326. El retorno de las huacas. Estudios y documentos sobre el Taki Onqoy. Siglo XVI. Edited by LUIS MILLONES. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos and Sociedad Peruana de Psicoanalisis, 1990. Pp. 450. The Huarochiri Manuscript: A Testament of Ancient and Colonial Andean Religion. Translation from the Quechua by FRANK SALOMON and GEORGE L. URIOSTE. Annotations and introductory essay by FRANK SALOMON. Transcription by GEORGE L. URIOSTE. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991. Pp. ix, 273. 500 anos de mestizaje en los Andes (Senri Ethnological Studies no. 33). Edited by HIROYASO TOMOEDA and LUIS MILLONES. Osaka: Museo Nacional de Etnologia, 1992. Pp. 189. The History of a Myth: Pacaritambo and the Origins of the Inkas. By GARY URTON. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990. Pp. x, 172.