CORTEZ THE INFAMOUS

None of the old explorers have

exactly had it easy oflate, but few have
suffered at the hands of our
self-apPointed guardians as much as
Hernando Cortez. The bare mention
of His name (it seems) requires a pejo-
rative adjective ("the ruthless Cortez").
To the Sensitive the world over, Cortez
has become the quintessential "ugly
European."
If you have been following these
articles, I hope you are beginning to
question the judgment of modem men
in general and historians in particular.
Whenever I run across a man that is
universally condemned by our con-
temporaries, I generally suspect I have
found a fliend. In regard to Cortez, my
suspicions were correct.
In the providence of God, Cortez
was a contemporary of another man
destined for renown, Martin Luther.
Both men would become mightily in-
fluential on the Church ofjesus Christ.
AsJohnEidsmoehasobselVed, "Cortez
led half the Western Hemisphere out
of paganism into the Roman Catholic
Church, while Luther led half of Eu-
rope out of Roman Catholicism into
the Protestant Reformation." (Colum-
bus and Cortez, Conquerors jor Chlist,
p. 148. Much of what is found in this
article is amplified in this fine volume
and I happilyreferyou to Dr. Eidsmoe's
world
Typical of the men of the Middle
Ages, Cortez was a devout Christian
who viewed the world as God's stage.
Though moderns scoff, the reality is
that Cortez viewed himself an ambas-
sador of Christ delivering the savages
of this "new world" from the clutches
of Satan into the anns of the heavenly
Father. His address to his men as they
embarked on their expedition (Febru-
ary 10, 1519), is indicative of his views:
"We are on a crusade. We are march-
ingas Christians into a land ofinfidels.
We seek not only to subdue boundless
tenitolY in the name of our Emperor
Don Carlos, but to win millions of
unsalvaged souls to the True Faith. By
the force and righteousness of our own
Faith, we shall gain crowns for our-
selves in the heaven to come." (Ibid.,
p. 166)
That these were not mere words
was demonstrated over and over. In
evelY city through which he passed,
"Cortes called the priests and 'caciques'
togetherand,afterJeronimo de Aguilar
had preached them a selmon in their
own tongue, he delivered a no-non-
sense, proconsular type of speech. In
the words of Diaz: 'He told them as
best he could, through our interpreter,
that if they wished to be our brothers
they must throw their idols out of this
temple, forthey were very evil and led
them astray. He said they were not
gods, but abominations which would
bring their souls to hell. '" (Jon M.
White, Cortez and the Downjall oj the
Aztec Empire, p. 163) The boldness
and zeal of these addresses are aston-
ishing. Their sincerity and compas-
sion are apparent for all to see.
Cortez's practice of proclaiming the
gospel was followed in the march
through Mexico. Jeronimo de Aguilar
(the Catholic priest who sewed as an
interpreter) records the essence of
Conez's address to the natives of the
town of Tabasco on the Yucatan Pen-
insula:
"Cortes told them of their blind-
ness and great vanity in worshipping
many gods and making sacrifices of
human blood to them, and in thinking
that those images, being mute and
soulless, made by the Indians with
their own hands, were capable of do-
ing either good or harm. He then told
them of a sing Ie God, Creator of Heaven
and eanh andmen, whom the Chris-
tians worshipped and served, and
whom all men should worship and
selve. In short, after he had explained
the Mysteries to them, and how the
Son of God had suffered on the Cross,
they accepted it and broke up their
idols. Thus it was that with great
reverence, before a large concourse of
Indians, and with many tears on the
part of the Spaniards, a Cross was
erected in the temple of Potonchan,
and our men first, kneeling, kissed
December, 1993 ;. THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon ;. 13
and worshipped it, and after them the
Indians." (And this was not the last
time tears of joy and compassion were
shed by these so-called "heartless"
Spaniards.)
Later, Montezuma sent official
messengers to speak with Cortez.
While they were in the campo f the
Spaniards, the time came for the Ave
Maria. When Canez and his men
knelt before the cross to say their
prayers, Montezuma's am -
Finally, Cortez stood in the pres-
ence of Montezuma himself to bare
witness to Christ. Again we quote
Diaz:
". . . we told them we were Chris-
tians and worshipped one true and
only God, named Jesus Christ, who
suffered death and passion to save us,
and we told them that a cross was a
sign of the other Cross on which our
Lord God was crucified for our salva-
Canez would later describe his
preaching before Montezuma and his
officers in these words, "I made them
understand by the interpreters how
deceived they were in putting theirhope
in idols made of unclean things by
their own hands. I told them that they
should know there was but one God,
the Universal Lord of all, Who had
created the heavens and earth and all
things, and them and us, Who was
without beginning and
bassadors asked the mean-
ingfortheceremony. Diaz
nOtes:
"As Cortez heard this
remark he said to the Pa-
dre de la Merced who was .
present: 'It is a good op-
portunity, father, as we
have good material at
hand, to explain through
our interpreters matters
touching our holy faith.'
And then he delivered a
discourse to the Caciques
so fitting to the occasiOn
that no good theologian
could have bettered it.
"It is more than a little high-
minded for modern evangelicals
to denounce the theological
errors of a man who had none of
the advantages we enjoy 450
years after the Reformation.
immortal; that they
should adore Him and
believe in Him and not in
any creature or thing."
Qon M. White, op. cit., p.
214)
None of this is to say
that Conez was without
fault or at all times con-
sistent with his profession
or utterly pure in his mo-
tives.Ofcoursehewasn't.
N or did he ever try to
defend himself in such
terms. He was a sinner
and never professed to
Viewed in the context of the
theological 'darkness' of his day,
Cortez's faith is remarkable."
After telling them that we were Chris-
tians and relating all matters pertain-
ing to our holy religion, he told them
that their idols were not good but evil
things which would take flight at the
presence of the sign of the cross, for on
a similar cross the Lord of Heaven and
earth and all created things suffered
passion and de;l.th; that is it He whom
we adore and in whom we believe, our
true God,Jesus Christ, who had been
willing to suffer and die in order to
save the whole human race; that the
third day He rose again and is now in
heaven; and that by Him we shall all be
judged. . Cones also told them that one
of the objects for which our great Em-
peror had sem us to their country was to
abolish human sacrifices, and the other
evil rites which they practiced and to
see that they did not rob one another,
or worship those cursed images."
tion; and that the death and passion
which He suffered was for the salva-
tion of the whole human race, which
was lost, and that this our God rose on
the third day and is now in heaven,
and it is He who made the heavens and
the earth, the sea and the sands, and
created all the things there are in the
world, and He sends the rain and the
dew, and nothing happens in the world
without His holy will. That we believe
in Him and worship Him, but that
those whom they look upon as gods
are not so, but are devils, which are
evil things and if their looks are bad
their deeds are worse, and they could
see that they were evil and of little
worth, forwherewe had set up crosses
such as those his ambassadors had
seen, they dared not appear before
them, through fear of them and that as
time went on they would notice this."
14 THE COUNSEL ofChalcedon 'r- December, 1993
be Otherwise. Nor is it to
say that his faith was without errors.
To those of us who rejoice in the
Reformation, his preaching has, at nu-
merous points, painful deficiencies.
He was a man of his day. He was
trained under a defective theology and
consequently, imbibed many of the
errors of the Roman Church (as did
many sincere believers in the loth
century prior to the blossoming of the
Reformation). Conez was devoted to
the faith as it had been presented to
him. It is more than a little
high-minded for modern evangelicals
to denounce the theological errors ofa
man who had none of the advantages
we enjoy 450 years after the Reforma-
tion. Viewed in the context of the
theolOgical "darkness" of his day,
canez's faith is remarkable. Frankly,
it is far more easy to tolerate Cortez's
theological errors than it is to stomach
the many comparable errors of
evangelicals who refuse to study or
even seriously consider the discern-
ing, Reformed scholarship available
today.
But all this notwithstanding, it
ought to be plain that to portray COltez
as a mindless, greedy, clUel, tyrannical
demagogue is more than a little amiss.
It is well-nigh impossible for us as
20th centUlY Americans to understand
the Medieval mind. Sunounded as we
are with neo-naturalists and their
"half-world" view, we cannot imagine
a culture filled with men who saw
God's hand in everything and viewed
His purpose as the great end of all
things. Cortez and his men were part
of a different world. Their faith in God
and His Word was whole-hearted,
sincere, and guileless. Their belief in
the reality of the devil was straightfor-
ward and unquestioning. They longed
for heaven and were terrified of hell.
They were devoted to the tlUth and
honified by heresy.
They were men who, for all their
faults and shortcomings, had grown
up in a dominantly Christian culture
and to whom the paganism of the
natives of Mexico was a loathsome
astonishment. They saw in the de-
pravity of the Aztecs (the human sac-
lifice, cannibalism, immorality, per-
versity, pornography, homosexnality,
etc., etc.) the very society of Satan.
Their faith made their duty plain.
French historian Jean Descola states,
"In the depths of the Indian sanctuaJ:-
ies they could see the Prince of Dark-
ness standing in all his macabre splen-
dor. Looking heavenward, they could
MERICA
he First 350 Years
distinguish the silvery figure of Saint
James galloping across the clouds. The
conllict between the tlUe and the false,
between good and evil, was manifest
in this double apparition. The prob-
lem was simple and their duty was
clear,"
When one considers what these
men saw and expelienced and when
one remembers that they witnessed
their own companions as well as the
natives undergoing unspeakable tor-
tures, one is amazed there was not
more blUtality than that which did
occur. Their clities notwithstanding,
the response of the conquistadores
was often amazingly restrained and
their compassion for their enemies
quite amazing. (The condescending
denunciations from modem profes-
sors who have never been face to face
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December, 1993 l' THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon * 15
with "paganism in the raw" are the
cheapest of cheap shots. But then
again, unfounded prtggishness has al-
ways been at a discount behind the
tenured walls of our honored "institu-
tions of higher learning.")
Their violent acts must be seen in
the light of the realities they faced. It
was literally a life and death situation
(for them as well as for the benighted
people of Mexico). Ifthey failed, not
only would they die, but (and what
was just as important to these men) the
people who had been deceived by "the
old Dragon" would pertsh. Descola
remarks, "the violent acts of the Con-
quistadors. . . . though sometimes
performed 'in the name of' religion,
were never 'under the pretence of
religion." (Eidsmoe, op. cit., p. 162)
That is to say, though they might, at
times, have gone too far, the conquis-
tadors were never insincere. They had
legal warrant (from the Pope) and they
were on a crusade, not to defeat the
Mohamedans but to convert the hea-
then. Their religion was "not a pretext
but a banner." (Ibid., p. 163)
To the hypocrttes of our age who
know nothing but pretense, this seems
impossible. And the fact that most
scoff at this view of the conquistadores
says far more about the bankruptcy of
our times than it does about the sins of
those in the past. (I
CRAMP1ON, CaNT. FROM PAGE 12
accomplishment. Thus, the gifts and
graces are to be used for His glory.
2) Because it is the Spirtt who
empowers every believer in Chrtstian
life and service, personal inadequacies
should not deter or discourage us.
3) Since the gifts are sovereignly
dispensed by the Spirtt to the church,
possession or lack of a particular gift
should be no cause for prtde or regret.
4) The fact that no one person has
all of the gifts of the Spirtt reveals to us
the need for the unity of the church,
the fellowship of the body, etc., forthe
full spiritual development of the
individual and the corporate
cOIJlmunity.
5) The fact that we can come to the
Spirtt in prayer encourages us to pray
for His sanctifying work in us, both
individually and corporately. Prayer
for guidance, a greater understanding
of His inspired Word, the advancement
of His Kingdom, etc., should be a part
of our daily walk with God.
"Come gracious Spirit, heavenly dove,
With light and comfort from above;
Be Thou our guardian, Thou our guide;
O'er every thought and step preside.
The light of truth to us display,
And make us know and choose Thy way;
Plant holy fear in every heart,
That we from God may ne'er depart.
Lead us to holiness, the road
Which we must take to dwell with God;
Lead us to Christ, the living way,
Nor let us from His presence stray."
(Simon Browne) n
16 THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon December, 1993